Thursday, March 16, 2017

THE BELKO EXPERIMENT (NO SPOILER REVIEW)

     When I first saw the trailer for The Belko Experiment, complete with the tag line "Battle Royal [meets] Office Space", they had my twelve dollars... SOLD.  This is a movie with a strong concept, it reminds you of a real life representation of that question they asked you in ethics class, you know, about the sinking ship and who would you save because you can only save a few. 

In case you have not seen the teaser trailer, here it is:




     That being said, I am a fan of both Battle Royal and Office Space and after seeing this movie, that comparison is a stretch.  If you expect the level of observational humor found in Office Space, The Belko Experiment will disappoint you.  It did not disappoint me however, I feel The Belko Experiment is a bold, well crafted Horror film with moments of dark comedy.  Some reviewers have said that the movie was not funny at all, I feel they missed some things, or just do not enjoy dark humor. For a non-spoiler example, the ironic upbeat music choices throughout the movie, such as the Spanish language version of the song “I will Survive” at the opening of the movie.  There are other subtle bits of comedy involving the water supply or visuals that are funny given they are juxtaposed with this dire situation.  What may also be giving people false expectations is that the script was written by James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, Super and Tromeo and Juliet.)  This is a departure from James Gunn's earlier work and isn't that allowed?  The way Kevin Smith did with Red State, or Richard Linklater did with Before Sunrise and its two sequels.  If I had to pick a movie to compare this one to... (Gun to my head).... Severance (2006) feels like a good fit.

     If you are looking for a gritty, strange movie that realistically portrays how different walks of life would behave when pushed to their limit, look no further.  The writing is solid, things are set up that are later payed off in ways you probably will not expect.  The logistics of the movie hold up, these people are trapped in a building in the middle of nowhere in the capitol city of Columbia.  What is truly frightening is knowing that these overseas companies that work with the United States Government pay people so much money Americans do put themselves in very vulnerable positions and agree to do things they normally would not.  The behavior of these characters are consistent with who they are and their actions are not always cut and dry.  You can tell the characters in The Belko Experiment are grappling with the ethics and hard choices that are forced upon them.

     John C. McGinley (SCRUBS) delivers in his role, a kind of hopeless romantic-sociopath.  It could be said that a bit more time could have been devoted to character development, that way we could know what these people are made of and care about them before all the bloodshed.  There was definitely some character work in the beginning and given the attention span these days it may have been enough.  It is worth noting that there was room to add more character bits because the movie had a total run time of 88 minutes, which is short for a studio feature.  When all the smoke clears, I can say I enjoyed The Belko Experiment and recommend it for Horror fans or people that find the concept of the film intriguing because it without a doubt, delivers on the premise.

     For all you independent screenwriters and filmmakers out there, take a close look at contained movies like The Belko Experiment, because that gives you a marketable film on a lower budget.  There are many low budget, independent movies that have a similar kill or be killed story, Circle (2015), The KillingRoom (2009) and Breathing Room (2008), to name a few.  At the risk of enraging the rest of the office, I would go as far to say The Belko Experiment is Lord of the Flies for the Twitter generation.


This review was written by Curt Wiser, Writer-Director of the movie Cam-Girl now available on DVD and Amazon Video.



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