Jack Quaid’s action-comedy “ Novocaine ” topped a painfully slow weekend at the box office with $8.7 million. For theater owners, however, there’s not too much to celebrate: It’s one of the worst debuts to still capture the No. 1 spot (at least since the pandemic ground moviegoing to a halt).

In the gleefully grisly action movie Novocaine, Jack Quaid plays a sweet, nerdy guy who does not experience physical pain. He falls for a woman (Amber Midthunder) who's determined to get him to leave his safe,

Quaid's leading role in Novocaine feels like a natural continuation of these genre-bent everymen. He plays Nathan Caine, a mild-mannered assistant bank manager who has congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA), a genetic disorder that impacts his nervous system to the point that he can't feel pain or temperature.