The Belko Experiment: A Bloody Return to the Darker Side of James Gunn
The darkly comedic thriller might be the Guardians of the Galaxy writer/director’s most twisted work yet
Speaking purely statistically, there’s a good chance most of you know James Gunn as the writer and director of Disney/Marvel’s hugely successful Guardians of the Galaxy, aka the best film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Aside from the fact that Guardians of the Galaxy’s worldwide box office gross of $773 million is larger than the gross of every other film Gunn has worked on combined, he’s also risen to prominence from the hype for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and from being one of the most active filmmakers on social media, hosting regular live chats that are inundated with questions about the upcoming Marvel sequel.
I’m sure there’s some of you out there, however, who know James Gunn from his work before Guardians of the Galaxy. Apart from writing Scooby Doo and its sequel, Gunn’s career was decidedly less family-friendly before Disney/Marvel gave him a shot at adapting one of Marvel’s strangest teams of heroes. In fact, before the widespread appeal of Star-Lord and company, Gunn had carved out a reputation for himself as one of the strangest, most twisted writers and directors in current cult cinema. And his latest effort, as writer and producer of upcoming thriller The Belko Experiment, shows he most definitely has not lost his shock value during his time in the Disney machine.
Gunn’s roots are in B-movies, a trait that continues to shine bright in all his works. The first feature he wrote, Tromeo and Juliet (1996), is a transgressive, B-movie themed take on Romeo and Juliet. In the spirit of the B-movie genre, it uses over-the-top sequences of gore and perversion, all in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, to shock and either delight or disgust the audience, depending on the viewer’s tastes.
Establishing himself as a cult figure with Tromeo and Juliet, Gunn won over horror audiences with his script for the well-received 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. (Remember the release of Dawn of the Dead? Back when Zack Snyder was so full of promise? Feels like a lifetime ago…) Then, two years later, Gunn took the director’s chair and secured his spot as a B-movie legend with his grotesque horror comedy Slither.
A decidedly tongue-in-cheek homage to the creature feature horror genre, Slither pulls out all the stops as Michael Rooker’s Grant infects an entire town with slug-like aliens, transforming them all into grotesque monsters. The movie is a fun romp for fans of the genre, always striking a perfect balance between body-horror and comedy, but it can easily offend anyone who doesn’t have the stomach for its slimy visuals.
In 2010, Gunn brought his twisted style to the superhero genre, which was just rising in prominence, with his dark comedy Super. The film stars Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page as two seriously disturbed individuals who create superhero alter egos for themselves to try to take down a local drug dealer (Kevin Bacon) with very bloody real-world results. Another divisive film of Gunn’s, many critics found the dark humor and graphic violence of the film to be just too much.
That’s the thing about Gunn though: he puts humor to a different use than most horror films. Humor isn’t rare in the genre; it’s usually used to ease back the audience after a particularly distressing sequence. The movie takes the audience right to the edge, then throws in a joke to give everyone a break. Gunn, however, walks the audience right to the edge, right to the point of “Ok, that’s too much,” and then uses a joke to push them even a step further.
Nowhere has this been clearer than in Gunn’s newest project, The Belko Experiment. Gunn penned the script several years ago after the story came to him in a dream. It was shopped around for a few years, with many studios scared to follow through with it. Finally, after rising to Marvel level prominence, Gunn was given the chance to have it made, and chose to produce it as Wolf Creek director and horror alum Greg McLean took the directing position.
The film centers around a small American company based in Colombia and the large group of employees who work there. It opens as a workplace comedy, establishing a quirky but relatable cast of coworkers. Soon, however, their normal day takes a chaotic turn as a disturbingly calm voice announces over the loudspeaker that they must kill two of their coworkers, or else six of them will be killed. Soon, the building becomes a savage hunting ground, the white cubicles painted red with blood as the anonymous voice demands more and more murders.
The excellent cast here make the film a thoroughly entertaining watch. Melanie Diaz (Fruitvale Station) provides the voice of innocence as a young woman just starting her first day at the office. John Gallagher Jr. continues an excellent small film run (Short Term 12, 10 Cloverfield Lane) as Mike Milch, a middle manager who refuses to give into the sick game. Tony Goldwyn (Scandal) is powerful as Barry Norris, the COO who insists on weighing all the options, and Adria Arjona (True Detective, Emerald City) is thoroughly compelling as Leandra Flores, a manager and Mike’s girlfriend who will do anything to keep the two of them alive.
The supporting cast provide much of Gunn’s dark humor. John C. McGinley (Scrubs) is a twisted coworker who jumps at the opportunity to let off steam. Josh Brener (Silicon Valley) is the mild office geek who wants everyone to get along. Regular Gunn collaborator Michael Rooker plays against type as a friendly janitor, and Gunn’s brother Sean is hilarious as a stoner cafeteria worker who’s convinced the whole ordeal is in his head.
The tagline for the film bills it as “Office Space meets Battle Royale,” an excellent comparison as the film heightens corporate greed and office politics to a primal and brutally violent level. In pure Gunn fashion, the scenes of violence tend to take even the most seasoned horror viewer up to a point that’s almost too far, only to have an even gorier joke push the whole thing a step further.
While this might not be Gunn’s strangest film (we’ll give that to Tromeo and Juliet) or his most disgusting (definitely Slither), it is without a doubt his darkest. There are several scenes which border on downright disturbing and feel in need of his trademark twisted humor, but it doesn’t always show up to the rescue. Perhaps it’s because Gunn wasn’t in the director’s chair here, and McLean’s direction, while excellent for the horror aspects of the film, doesn’t always bring out Gunn’s tongue-in-cheek quality. It would be interesting to see if Gunn’s directorial touch could bring out a little more of the humor from his script.
Regardless, what has been crafted here is a brutal, fun, disturbing, thrilling, twisted little horror film. This is most definitely not a film for everyone; I heard several groans and witnessed a few people leave the theater during the screening. This is not one of those films that will win over people who normally hate horror films; leave that to Get Out. This is a film in the same vein of Gunn’s previous work: a loving tribute to the horror genre in all its unabashed violence and gore. While we all ride the hype train until the Guardians of the Galaxy 2 release and fawn over gifs of Baby Groot, rest assured that James Gunn has most definitely not lost his edge.
