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.
