8 Heads in a Duffel Bag Film Review

Joe Pesci stars in this brilliant 90's dark comedy about a mob hitman and courier whose most important possession gets switched at the airport: the 8 heads of his latest hits! Tommy has been sent to take the heads to his boss. What are the chances that he'll get his duffel bag mixed at the airport, right?

Welp, that's exactly what happens. And poor Charlie, a college student who's almost done with his thesis, freaks out when he sees his duffel's contents. (Completely understandable.)

Charlie, played by Andy Comeau, is headed to Mexico with his girlfriend Laurie (Kristy Swanson) and her parents. Charlie hopes for a bonding Spring Break where he gets to know everyone better and becomes even closer to his girlfriend of a couple years.

Laurie Bennett, however, had been trying to give Charlie the boot when she called him up to tell him she and her family were going on a vacation. Because Charlie misunderstood who was included in Laurie's "we," he is now along for the trip, and Laurie couldn't be more peeved!

Add her wishing-she-could-make-him-an-ex boyfriend acting strangely when usually he's way too normal for her liking, she tries her best to just stay away (despite Charlie's efforts to constantly be by her side.)

It's obvious right away that Laurie is hoping Charlie will just go away, but Laurie's alcoholic mother and her attraction to Charlie is center stage. Poor Charlie makes an excuse to leave as soon as he's said hi. After having arrived at their hotel, Annette (Dyan Cannon) sneaks into Charlie's room to leave him a present--and finds 8 of her own!

Or so she thinks.

Annette hadn't been expecting bagged heads to be stuffed into her daughter's boyfriend's duffel bag! She also freaks out, but she drinks all of the alcohol available in Charlie's room before tearing back into the hotel's dining hall to confront him. The family is hard pressed to calm her down enough to take away the sharp eating utensils.

And then they completely disregard her! The woman is usually so high-strung on meds and alcohol that this is apparently normal behavior. Only Charlie is the nervous one (and with good reason!), but that is also charmingly disregarded, as shown in the constant dark humor of the film.

Charlie soon finds the problem in his hotel room when he excuses himself to go change. With no clothes to wear and 8 heads to hide, Charlie is frantic when a maid knocks on his door! He shoves the duffel bag into the clothes hamper and shoos the maid away, but not before a funny scene of back and forth scrambling and gasp-inducing anticipation on whether the maid will see.

Tommy the hitman tracks Charlie to Maryland. Instead, he finds Charlie's roommates and best friends Ernie (David Spade) and Steve (Todd Louiso). With torture and dark taunting thrown in, Tommy learns where Charlie is at and heads out after him--with Charlie's friends coming along to do the dirty work! Can't let them live and tell the tail, right?

As you can probably guess, the laundry is accidentally taken down to the laundry room, the friends and Tommy show up, and one hilarious incident happens after another as Tommy searches for his hit proof and Charlie tries to get out of the hole he's found himself in.

I laughed endlessly while watching this movie, and I know you will too. The best part? It's never explained why none of the 8 heads aren't losing their contents out of the necks! But don't worry about that, the dark humor is everywhere.

Don't have the time to watch it just now? Below is one of my favorite scenes from the movie. In which the 8 replacement heads SING (not even lying). Watch it an enjoy!