Ok, so The Belko Experiment, wow, broad spectrum of films this weekend. You got Beauty and the Beast over here and then wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy over here, you got Belko. The movie was directed by Gregg McLean, who had a mild success with a horror flick called Wolf Creek before completely striking out last year with The Darkness. What really interested me here though was writer James Gunn, wrote Dawn of the Dead remake, horror resume outside Guardians. fucked up.

It’s all about 80 employees who work for an American company stationed in Columbia. On this particular day the national employees have been sent home, leaving one to wonder if what happens next is all about striking a blow at American imperialism. A voice comes over the loud speaker telling the employees that they have to start killing a certain number of employees every hour or a harsher penalty will greet them. It’s kinda like realizing your office job has been taken over by Jigsaw.

But of course there so much more this movie is taking from, from The Running Man, The Hunger Games, the biggest is Battle Royale. Unfortunately what it’s not taking from is Office Space, which the poster did tell us this movie was trying to do and that’s too bad because there is stuff here that would make excellent satire- sexual harassment at work, where does playing boss and playing God end. I would have loved to see a sharper wit, or Milton, enter here. Yeah, Milton would have been awesome.

And yes the movie doesn’t shy away from the blood and gore and there are a lot of blows to the head but this is another movie this year being called horror that probably fits more into the psychological thriller category. I can’t think of anyone in this movie that I ever really feared but I did like some of the questions being presented like will the voice let anyone live by the end of the game and just how Matrix-y is this experiment. The fact this is all to set up a sequel is a cop-out, but I don’t disgard the fact I really want to watch that sequel.

What helps is that the cast, while you can kinda tell who the lead hero is, they all work as an ensemble. There’s the guy who keeps doing dumb shit but for good reason, his girlfriend is feisty and cute, Tony Goldwyn playing the best villain he's played since Ghost, John C. McGinley is in this movie so you know that character is going to be a dick cause McGinley always plays a dick. There’s one character in this movie who I see a lot of people calling a waste of time for the movie to spend on but I actually liked her as a dark horse to win this whole thing.

There are some things about these characters that this movie just should’nt get away with not telling us though, like why none of them have any reservations about getting a tracker put in their brain or how their employment contract states the company can ask anything of them as employees. I mean I know jobs are hard but c’mon guys, “Red Flags" .

Overall I wish this movie had focused more on the satire and given us a bit more background but it works fine enough as a thriller and the cast fills out the shallow characters nicely.

I say 2.5 out of 4

I'm trying to go for an engaging, funny youtube channel so, if you have the time, hopefully you feel like leaving a like, suggestion for making it better, or maybe even a subscribe. Thanks so much guys. A review of the film here-https://youtu.be/mQUyECkvetM