★★★☆☆
18 December 2016
A movie review of THE BELKO EXPERIMENT. |
“Honey, normal people don’t work at Belko,” Roberto Jerez (David Del Rio)
From the writer of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and the director of WOLF CREEK, a corporation forces its employees to fight to the death. Fun, yes, but this movie is not hardcore enough. There is gore, and heads explode, but lacks invention for horror fans post-SAW. THE BELKO EXPERIMENT is no BATTLE ROYALE, but then what is? Even 16 years on, no film, from THE HUNGER GAMES to CUBE, can compete with the Japanese modern classic. Lamberto Bava’s DEMONS (1985), about the undead attacking patrons at a walled-in cinema, is probably the next benchmark. Don’t get one wrong, THE BELKO EXPERIMENT is well made, and therefore better than 95% of horror movies, but if you’re going to go nutty, go nutty.
From the writer of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and the director of WOLF CREEK, a corporation forces its employees to fight to the death. Fun, yes, but this movie is not hardcore enough. There is gore, and heads explode, but lacks invention for horror fans post-SAW. THE BELKO EXPERIMENT is no BATTLE ROYALE, but then what is? Even 16 years on, no film, from THE HUNGER GAMES to CUBE, can compete with the Japanese modern classic. Lamberto Bava’s DEMONS (1985), about the undead attacking patrons at a walled-in cinema, is probably the next benchmark. Don’t get one wrong, THE BELKO EXPERIMENT is well made, and therefore better than 95% of horror movies, but if you’re going to go nutty, go nutty.
Joining Weyland-Yutani (ALIEN) and Cyberdyne Systems (TERMINATOR 2), Belko Industries turns out to be an evil employer. It is ostensibly a non-profit facilitating U.S. companies in Latin America. Bogata, Columbia, is the continental headquarters. Local employees have been weirdly sent home. Just Americans left in the office block. Is this a commentary?
Dany Wilkins (Melanie Diaz) is beginning her induction - the typical way for an audience to get acquainted by following the newbie. Can filmmakers please think of a different method? When we meet actor Michael Rooker (as maintenance man Bud Melks), you know this is not going to be a happy film. At a lean 88 minutes, much mayhem is packed in.
There are tracers surgically inserted into the back of the head of all United States employees. Is this a near future where the economy is so in the toilet that people have no worker rights to prevent corporeal electronic tagging? The first demand arrives over the tannoy: Kill two co-workers in the next 30 minutes. The building, already appearing to be a fortress, has metal shutters come down locking staff in. Blowtorches have no effect. Their location is isolated, and the office is surrounded by patrolling machine-gun toting, mercenary-looking guys. Landlines are cut and mobile signals are blocked. An all-seeing CCTV eye watches. Disobedience/failure triggers the tracers, causing heads to explode. There is nowhere to hide. Factions emerge. We are in the realm of LORD OF THE FLIES.
When there are 76 people left in the building, those alive are ordered to kill 30 in two hours or 60 will be executed. As an examination of workplace politics, and individuals within business, it shines little insight. An opportunity is wasted to satirise, as well as to provide escapism to frustrated office drones around the world. There is some cursorily trite biz speak, “I’m going to circle back to you as soon as I can,” C.O.O. Barry Norris (Tony Goldwyn). No inter-departmental grievances, nor anger at jobsworths, or at pay inequality – all ripe for wry observations. Sean Gunn’s Marty Espenschied comments, “Some of these people are total d**ks.” – real world examples would have been welcome. More deaths should have been as creative as the one with the sellotape dispenser. THE BELKO EXPERIMENT is not THE MIST allegorical, nor THE CABIN IN THE WOODS meta.
There are no real stand out characters, bar John C McGinley’s Wendell Dukes, who plays a psychotic sex pest – an antagonist for the audience to gleefully wait for his comeuppance. THE BELKO EXPERIMENT does contain believable reactions, ranging from deer-in-the-headlights denial, to the unhinged, to vocalising strategic thought – elevating above the usual horror woodenness that plagues the genre. The ending does not surprise, and is a let-down.
As a thrill ride not dialled to the max, THE BELKO EXPERIMENT still comfortably passes the time, but pales compared to the director’s WOLF CREEK and WOLF CREEK 2. In the age of television show THE WALKING DEAD, humanity’s inhumanity is being brutally catalogued. Cinema is still lagging.
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