REVIEW: ‘Novocaine’ Is a Bloody Good Time

Novocaine (2025), the latest movie from Villains directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen and starring Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson, Jacob Batalon, Betty Gabriel, and Matt Walsh, feels a bit like Kick-Ass with its protagonist that has a reduced ability to feel pain. To further compare the two, however, would mean diminishing just how bonkers, bloody, ridiculous, and funny Novocaine is.

Berk and Olsen take their horror experience and put it to great use here, employing impeccable timing when it comes to the gore and the comedy, blending the two to make an action-comedy movie that is big on gnarly fights and laughs.

Jack Quaid may not look like your typical action movie star, but after Novocaine, you will believe he is capable of being a badass action hero. Quaid stars as Nathan Caine, a bank executive born with a rare disorder that makes him completely unable to feel pain. Unlike Kick-Ass, who immediately realizes the potential a condition like this has for a wannabe superhero with a death wish, Nathan has lived a very sheltered life. Just because he can’t feel pain doesn’t mean Nathan can’t get hurt — something Novocaine reminds the audience every possible minute.

Jack Quaid proves he can be an action-leading man in Novocaine (2025).

Nathan is the kind of guy who not only babyprooves his office but also refuses to eat any solids because he might bite off his tongue and has an alarm to remind himself to use the bathroom or his bladder will explode. He is essentially Bubble Boy, that is, until he meets Shari (Amber Midthunder), a co-worker at the bank. When Shari gets kidnapped during a bank robbery gone wrong, Nathan decides to rescue her no matter how much pain he is unable to feel in the process.

This may just be Jack Quaid’s best role yet, and definitely the most innocent and pure-hearted character he’s played. What makes Nathan compelling to watch is that he doesn’t act like an action hero out of ego, or skill, strength, or any sort of ability. The only thing Nathan has going for him is that he can take a punch better than anyone.

Novocaine makes it very clear that Nathan doesn’t have a superpower. The writers find the vulnerability of the character to make him likable and someone you can root for and feel sorry for, even if you know he can’t feel anything that happens to him. If The Boys’ Hughie is a guy disillusioned by the world who gets increasingly more cynical, Nathan is a guy who gets his eyes opened to the beauty of the world and decides to risk everything for the first person to make him happy in years.

It is adorable to see Quaid’s dynamic with Midthunder and the way Nathan opens up clearly for the first time. At the same time, Midthunder does a great job making Shari more than the love interest—a woman capable of saving herself and more.

As much as it is violent, Novocaine is also effortlessly funny. 

Just like Novocaine makes it clear Nathan’s condition is not a superpower, Berk and Olsen mine a lot of groans and laughter out of placing Nathan in increasingly more dangerous situations that show him get weaker and weaker due to blood loss and internal injuries.

Sure, he might not feel anything when he reaches down a frying pot to grab a gun in a moment of need, but it is hard not to recoil in pain at the sight of his gross, severely burnt hand. Quaid deserves huge credit for this, as he walks a fine line where he communicates no external pain, yet still visibly shows how much he is suffering. The result is both horrific and extremely funny.

Dan Berk and Robert Olsen bring their experience with horror movies to Novocaine, delivering tons of gore as well as exciting yet gnarly action set pieces that are well-staged and choreographed. Out of them, a kitchen fight relatively early in the film is a clear standout of their ability to craft effective action scenes that pack a punch, while a torture scene late in the film shows they know how to use violence and mayhem to deliver big laughs.

Novocaine (2025) is a high-concept action-comedy that doesn’t compromise on either genre, crafting thrilling action scenes but also making you laugh out of your chair at the sight of a guy just getting the everloving crap beat out of him. Novocaine turns Jack Quaid into an unlikely action star in a hilarious and hard-punching action-comedy about a guy that can feel no pain and gets the everloving crap beat out of him.

Novacaine (2025) releases nationwide March 14, 2025.