REVIEW: “THE BELKO EXPERIMENT” (2017) DIRECTED BY GREG MCLEAN

This review originally appeared on CinemaRetro

BY MARK CERULLI

The trailer tells you everything you need to know about “The Belko Experiment”, writer James Gunn’s bloody trip to the dark side of the corporate workspace. You know there’s going to be a serious body count… you know there’s going to be some wicked humor… and you know that somewhere you’re going to see Michael Rooker. But HOW things unfold is what makes Belko such an entertaining ride. Think “Office Space” meets “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”…

Aptly directed by Greg McLean (“Wolf Creek”), “The Belko Experiment” chronicles a (final) day in the life of the staff of a rather bland American company set up on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia. It’s a typical workday until an anonymous intercom voice tells them they have two hours to kill thirty of their co-workers or sixty of them will be “sacrificed”. The execs laugh it off as a prank – until the back of a staffer’s head explodes, thanks to an “anti-kidnapping” locator they’ve all had implanted. Soon Belko descends into “Lord of the Flies”, for real. Factions form, alliances are made and friendships are erased by the basic urge to survive. The movie is helped along by a terrific cast which blends relative newcomers with seasoned pros: John Gallagher, Jr. plays a workplace everyman trying to stop the carnage and protect his colleague/girlfriend (lovely Adria Arjona). Tony Goldwyn is outstanding as Belko’s COO who morphs from cool boss to killing machine so he can make it home to his wife and kids. He doesn’t want to kill his direct reports… he just has to. John C. McGinly is deliciously evil as a leering workplace creep who methodically tries to raise his “body count” using a meat cleaver. And yes, Michael Rooker is short but sweet as Belko’s stoic maintenance man trying to find a way out of the hermetically sealed building.

It’s a testament to writer/producer James Gunn’s growing power in Hollywood that this film is getting a wide theatrical release in today’s megabuck franchise landscape. “The Belko Experiment “feels like a 1990s action/horror film, which is a good thing: in the 1980s and 90s, small, entertaining genre films routinely got theatrical releases – great movies like “Surviving The Game”, “Trespass” and “Southern Comfort” all delivered the thrills audiences wanted without costing tens of millions to produce. Most of them actually made a profit, unlike today when almost every big budget release is a huge gamble – James Bond, Star Wars and Guardians franchises excepted! Today those small 1980s/90s movies would be relegated to streaming or other platforms if they found a distributor at all.

After the special “Employee Appreciation Day” screening Cinema Retro attended in Santa Monica, key cast and crewmembers talked about making the film. Fanboy favorite James Gunn said he wrote the script in a “two week fugue state” of 18-hour days. John C. McGinley commented that what drew him to the script was the fact that “the choices each character made determined their survival.” He drew a parallel to 9-11 as his brother worked in the Twin Towers and when an anonymous PA voice told his floor to stay put after the first plane hit, he and other colleagues knew enough to immediately take the stairs to safety. On a lighter note, Tony Goldwyn admitted that, as an actor, he wanted in after reading a script that featured exploding heads!

In person, Gunn is amiable and funny and managed to carve out a little time for fans, many of who showed up with bits of “Guardians of the Galaxy” memorabilia to be signed. Other cast members posed with attendees and all the actors seemed genuinely happy to see each other for the first time since their Bogota shoot. It made for a surprisingly happy ending after 90 minutes of onscreen carnage.

The Belko Experiment opens nationwide on March 17th. Be prepared to never look at a tape dispenser the same way…