Films in confined spaces can go south quickly. They require a high concept, an intriguing set, a story that keeps the pacing afloat, and a mystery or a conflict that audiences can latch onto and that can sustain the tension throughout the runtime. But they also require actors that can rise to the challenge and keep us interested in their plight. Somehow, Glorious manages to hit all of those marks to create something Lovecraftian and eldritch, but also quite humorous and surprising.

Wes (Ryan Kwanten) has fled his relationship. His car is packed to the brim and he looks disheveled, and his button-up shirt suggests he left in a hurry. Another failed relationship with a ticking clock that he had to flee at a moment’s notice, maybe. But the teddy bear haphazardly perched on his dashboard brings a smile to his face before it coos, “I love you beary much” and sends him on a pain and rage spiral. The camera appropriately zooms up into space to give his pain an appropriate amount of gravitas, before he tells himself to stop it. It’s done and dust. He’s made his decision. He’s parked outside of a rest stop, where he misses the sight of a purple flower dripping slime. He’s too focused on his dying phone, which he throws–anger issues, much?–before drowning his sorrow in a bottle of bourbon.

Drunk Wes gets the idea of burning things packed inside a red box, so he starts up one of the grills outside the rest stop, begins burning polaroids and mementos and eventually passes out. When he awakens, he’s burned his pants to the point they’re shredded around him. And his stomach is revolting, sending him careening into the rest stop bathroom to vomit into one of the toilets. There’s only two stalls sitting next to each other in the small bathroom and connecting the two is a glory hole, where someone has drawn a tentacled mouth spiraling out from the hole.

When J.K. Simmons’ glorious voice floats through the glory hole, asking Wes, “Everything alright over there, my friend?”, I knew I was in for a good time.

Initially, Wes is annoyed by his friendly stall buddy. But the stall where the voice floats from is dark and Wes can’t actually see anyone under the stall. Additionally, this voice knows things, offering to discuss the fecal matter, 127 strains of bacteria and combination of semen and urine that Wes probably got on him. And when Wes asks him what his name is, the voice gives him a name that is impossible to pronounce in the human tongue, but requires someone to hold their tongue and say “Gotanotherone” or something adjacent to it in order to even come close. Ghat, for short.

Then Wes discovers he’s locked in the room. And this voice needs something from him…

Written by Joshua Hull, David Ian McKendry and Todd Rigney and directed by Rebekah McKendry, Glorious knows what it wants to accomplish and uses the small setting and mainly two characters perfectly to establish a funny, dark and, yes, sometimes gory pacing. Cinematographer David Matthews manages to keep the small location intriguing and the script gives Wes some agency as he tries to find a way out of the restroom. The place bends as he tries to find an exit, and the outside world grows purple, sometimes showing cosmic realms to suggest he’s really in the shit, right now.

The script understands the power of cosmic horror that stems from a person witnessing the impossible, an event that would drive anyone mad. It also surrounds Wes in isolation, with the dulcet tones of J.K. Simmons informing him, “No one’s coming to help you, friend. You’re all alone.” That sense of crippling isolation fuels the story, as Wes attempts to flee into his memories of the woman he left behind while Ghat attempts to keep him grounded in the moment, feeding him a mythos while demanding Wes submits to his will. Once in awhile, McKendry and Matthews allow us to peak under the stall and the glimpses of what is inside there are appropriately gross and horrifying, a pulsating sack of terrors.

But beyond the gross out moments and the cosmic horror, Glorious is also deeply hilarious, usually because of the dialogue mixed with visual gags. The glory hole gets a number of jokes, yes, but what surprised me the most was Ryan Kwanten’s comedic chops. He’s always been a charismatic actor whose charm commands the screen, even when maybe his acting hasn’t always been up to snuff. Considering the movie lives and dies with him, I went into the film a little trepidatious, but he turned out a fantastic performance that made me realize why I enjoyed seeing him in True Blood.

It all culminates in a fantastic finale that mixes humor and gore as well as a message when the film embraces its cosmic horror lunacy. This one is an absolute hit.