Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Incoming’ on Netflix, a Throwback(ish) Teen Comedy Guaranteed to Gross You Out

Teen raunchfest Incoming (now on Netflix) is sorta notable for a couple reasons: It’s written and directed by siblings Dave and John Chernin, creators of sitcom The Mick and longtime writers on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It also stars up-and-comer Mason Thames of The Black Phone fame, who seems ripe for bigger things. The question here is whether this creative conglomeration can supersede the Superbad comparisons this high school comedy seems to be begging for. (Review spoiler alert: It doesn’t!)

INCOMING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We meet Benj (Thames) as he practices kissing by smooshing lip on his mirror – and then his older sister Alyssa (Ali Gallo) barges in, forcing him to cover up his, y’know, protrusion. Embarrassment – and it’s only just beginning, of course. Quite the auspicious morning for Benj’s first day of high school, and he brings a bunch of baggage with him: He’s mortified by his reputation of being an angel-voiced theater kid. He nurses a hot-coal of a crush on Alyssa’s bestie, Bailey (Isabella Ferreira). And he belongs to a dweeby social circle filled out by the following: Eddie (Ramon Reed), a highly risk-averse dude mortified by the fact that his mom is dating a real sleazebaggano, Dennis (Scott MacArthur). Connor (Raphael Alejandro), who looks so prepubescent he could pass for a grade-schooler, and therefore gets nicknamed Fetus five minutes into freshman year. And Danah, aka Koosh (Bardia Seiri), a rich kid who studies rom-coms and – go figure – raunchy teen comedies for meet-cute templates that, he hopes, will help him get laid.

Inevitably, there’s a first-week-of-school celebratory party, and the only reason our core foursome are invited is, it’s thrown by Koosh’s violent sociopath of an upper-classman brother, Kayvon (Kayvan Shai). Benj sees it as his big opportunity to charm Bailey. Connor and Dennis, what with one thing and another, end up taking care of popular half-a-million-Insta-followers girl Katrina (Loren Gray) after she gets blackout blotto, eats too much Taco Bell and blasts the interior of Dennis’ Tesla with a fountain of diarrhea. Danah schemes a girl into his basement spa. You know how this shit goes.

The party chews up about two-thirds of the movie.  It’s a real rager at their mansion: Swimming, streaking, kegs, ketamine, bongs, brawls, fires, urine, peer pressure, schtupping. Even desperate schmo of an F-bomb-dropping chem teacher Mr. Studebaker (Bobby Cannavale) turns up and becomes the life of the bash. We might be rewarded with a sweet moment here or there – Benj really is a good kid – and we deserve it after the relentless stomach-churning grossness of the diarrhea bit. But is it enough? No. It’s not even a tough call.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Superbad was 17 years ago – and American Pie was 25 years ago and Revenge of the Nerds was 40 years ago and Porky’s was 43 years ago, and and and and. And it feels like we’ve worked through a bit of a PC backlash and sort of back to the blecch-iscs of grossout comedies.

Performance Worth Watching: Thames and Ferreira strike me as Real Actors who will go on to do better things than dodge projectile vomiting. 

Memorable Dialogue: Danah scores a laugh with a little self-referential comedy: “Guys are always scheming to get girls in movies. They spy on them or dress up like chicks to steal their secrets. I watched six different movies where a guy convinces a girl with amnesia that she’s his wife!”

Sex and Skin: Brief boobs and wang; an oops I walked in on some intercourse! shot.

Our Take: I have yet to mention Kaitlin Olson’s role as Benj’s mother; the veteran funnylady scores the biggest laugh here with a single line during an outraged-parent bit. It’s so inspired, you’ll be sad Olson isn’t prominently featured here (she has two, maybe three scenes?). Too bad you have to gut out the endless hellish torment of the diarrhea subplot in order to get to it – something that might inspire you to lunge at the power button on your remote like Ali to Frazier. 

Such a plentiful display of poo is more than enough to derail a recommendation. But I’ll pile on some more: Thin-stereotype characters, cringe comedy, the usual cool kids/dweebs dynamic (slightly updated for the 2020s, I guess), the big climactic scene in which the protag gives a speech in front of the whole school, etc. Like American Pie, Incoming is heavily populated with horny horny horny toads. Unlike Superbad, it doesn’t reach a level of earnest emotion that inspires us to give a damn about the characters, although hey, at least they tried? Almost? Sort of? There are a few instances of viable comedy – a clever line here, a passing bit there – but ultimately, the laugh-to-nausea ratio is way out of whack.

Our Call: Incoming? More like The Outgoing Contents of Your Stomach. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.