I've never looked forward to the sweeps period in news. One thing I liked about Florida is they got the ratings every single day so February, May, July and November didn't have as much of a spotlight on them. However, the reason I'm looking forward to it this month is that for the most part, people don't get days off so I am more than likely going to be on my normal shift the entire month! This week has been rough, but thankfully we still have horror movies to talk about like...
The Belko Experiment (2016)
Before I get into this movie, I need to talk about the main character. It stars John Gallagher Jr., who played the executive producer from the show "The Newsroom." It didn't hit me at first that he was the baddie in Hush. Wow. While he was good in this, I was even more impressed by him when watching Hush. He was so against type and played such a creepy bad guy, I didn't think he had it in him, but my goodness he was good!
The movie starts with a bunch of people heading in to work at a very large office building in Columbia. We get to spend some time meeting some of the workers and you can immediately tell who matters and which characters will be the cannon fodder. The movie spends some time showing how they interact with one another around the office, showing how they're all friends. It seems like a normal day outside of a couple of things; they have new security guards and they're turning away the local Columbian staff. Only the main character, Mike, seems put off by it. Their boring day gets ripped from them when a voice from the intercom tells everyone that they have to kill two coworkers or there will be consequences. While trying to figure out if this is a prank, the building gets sealed, locking everyone inside. It's when the deadline passes and several people's heads explode, that they realize the danger they're in. The voice then tells them, to kill 30 people in two hours, or 60 will die.
Before I get into the movie itself the cast is great. They keep introducing new characters and I'm like, "Hey, it's that guy!" We had the dude from "The Newsroom," Dr Cox from "Scrubs," Big Head from "Silicon Valley," Jack from Late Night with the Devil as well as Sean Gunn mainstays; Payback from Payback (not a typo,) as well as Sean Gunn and Michael Rooker from Guardians of the Galaxy. It's fun seeing so many recognizable faces in a movie like this because there are so many people and a lot of these roles are small.
The movie has a lot to say about human nature with people breaking into two camps; one group is very much against the murdering, with Mike correctly pointing out that what happens after they kill 30 of their friends? Do they really think the murder ends there and they'll all be allowed to go home? The other group, the smaller but armed ones, will do anything to save their skin, even if they have to abandon their humanity to get it. I believe with my whole heart that humanity is fundamentally good with evil tendencies, but I can absolutely see this situation breaking down in a similar way in real life.
Outside of Dr. Cox, the second camp isn't just doing this for survival, they have kids and families and the killing takes a toll on them at first. It's a struggle for them before the voice over the intercom gives them one final deadline, and then they become animals only thinking about survival. Even the main antagonist, the boss and former special forces guy doesn't enjoy what he's doing. While trying to get to 30 deaths, he has everyone gather in the main lobby. He tries to pick his victims based on the effect their loss would have on others. He has everyone line up and tells those with kids younger than 18 to stand off to the side. Then he tells those 55 and older to go against the wall because they're the ones to die. But that's not nearly enough to fill the quota so he starts going through the crowd and picking people to die.
It's this part, the executions, that got me. After this scene, when all hell breaks loose and the extreme violence kicks in, it plays out like all over-the-top violence plays out, but this scene... it's so bleak and hopeless for these people. The boss is just going down the line executing people one by one while they cry and plead for their lives. It's even hard on the character who has made himself God by the simple fact that he and his handful of companions have guns. It's difficult to watch and I cringed after every headshot. It was just so uncomfortable watching him systematically murder people who, just three hours ago, he considered his friends.
It's a good movie but, like I mentioned, that scene is difficult to watch. It reminds me of Green Room where the carnage is shocking, not because of how violent it is, but how sudden it happens. A character could be standing there in the middle of a conversation and a second later their head would explode. A lot of the violent moments start completely out of the blue and they're so sudden. Most of the characters don't get the Hollywood death where they get a final message or a tearful goodbye, it's just they're there one second and the next they're not.
One final thing, people talk about tropes all the time, but one in particular doesn't get talked about as much. It's when a murder machine, is on top of someone and is strangling them and there happens to be a weapon JUST out of reach. Is every attacker so blinded by bloodlust that they don't notice the victim is only fighting back with one hand? I guess it doesn't get mentioned much because it's always an intense moment. People let it slide because it makes them feel some kind of way and there's a rush of adrenaline when the victim finally grabs hold and socks their attacker in the head with it. I never really noticed how often that gets used before I watched this movie.
It's entertaining but can be difficult to watch well before the insane violence breaks out. I liked the social experiment aspect of it and found it realistic; both how the subjects reacted and, when looking back at human history, that someone would think of and carry out this type of experiment. The ending is cool, both the lead-up and the big reveal. I like the final trick our survivor had up his sleeve to turn the tables on the baddies even if their efforts didn't have the effect they had hoped for.
As for the big reveal, I'm torn. It's kind of cool, but has that Escape Room-style ending with the all-powerful company. Normally I wouldn't mind that because Escape Room got a sequel but after eight years I don't see it happening for this one. It's a shame because there are several different places they can take a potential sequel and it could make for interesting stories. But James Gunn is now the point man for DC so I doubt we'll be seeing more from the employees at Belko Industries.
8 Dr. Chainsaws!
