Film Review: Novocaine

No spoilers!

Love is pain, they say, and for Nathan “Novocaine” Caine, who can’t feel pain, there’s much to be gained when love is on the line and pain doesn’t reach the brain. Okay, I’ll stop. The 2025 film, Novocaine, is one that doesn’t take itself too seriously, clearly, and for that, it’s a blast of a good time at the movie theater. Films are fun when they start with a unique, if outrageous, premise, and just lean into the absurdity with reckless abandon. What more can you ask for?!

The film is directed by the duo of Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, whose prior films I haven’t yet seen, but this film is a departure from the prior horror-based ones. There is certainly an icky gore factor reminiscent of horror to Novocaine owing to the main character, played by Jack Quaid, not feeling pain, but it’s more on the action-comedy side of things. Lars Jacobson is on the script, and it’s only his second feature film (first original). As I said, I think Berk, Olsen, and Jacobson know what they’ve made here and they lean into the quirkiness and even some of the earnestness to deliver on the premise of a man who can’t feel pain turning into a quasi-superhero.

I was surprised by Novocaine, though. Watching the trailer, I figured the arc was fairly obvious: Nathan and his budding girlfriend (he notes they haven’t put a label on it yet!), Sherry (played by Amber Midthunder) work at a bank. When the bank is robbed by three gunmen dressed as Santa Clauses and Sherry’s taken hostage, Nathan leans into his … Novacineness … to rescue her. But the trailer didn’t give everything away, as I had figured! Even the big action set pieces the show don’t divulge the whole set-up nor even some of the more gruesome, icky scenes. I was grateful for the pleasant surprises from the story beats and action.

Quaid is someone who has leaned into a few notable villain roles, including Ghostface in 2022’s Scream and another 2025 film, Companion. So, it was neat to see him “put on the cape,” as it were as the good guy in Novocaine. Midthunder, for her part, came across entirely authentic as the girl with a troubled upbringing who coaxes Nathan out of his shell and into love. In other words, she pulled off being someone worth risking arrest and violence for; after all, even though Novocaine can’t feel pain, he was still going to pay for the damage done to his body in the end.

I’m also surprised Novocaine isn’t doing better at the box office. While it led on its opening weekend, it was a tepid $8 million domestic, below expectations and below its modest $18 million budget. This was an original concept, albeit one you can only stretch so far, but for some reason, it didn’t grab the audiences. Nonetheless, I could see this one becoming one of those cult classics a few years down the line as people discover it and lean into the zaniness of it all.