Review of The Belko Experiment (2017) by Matthew D — 20 Oct 2017

"The Belko Experiment is an artistically, bloody experiment that goes nowhere".

DVD Movie Review: The Belko Experiment.

Date Viewed: July 4 2017.

Directed By Greg McLean (Wolf Creek and The Darkness).

Written By James Gunn.

Starring: John Gallagher Jr., Tony Goldwyn, Adria Arjona, John C. McGinley, Josh Brener, Melonie Diaz, David Del Rio, Stephen Blackehart, Rusty Schwimmer, Sean Gunn, Owain Yeoman, Abraham Benrubi, David Dastmalchian, James Earl and Michael Rooker.

"The Belko Experiment" is an artistically, bloody experiment that goes nowhere. The premise is intriguing but the movie wears out our welcome real fast with it's bland and over-the-top caricatures and repetitious gore. In these disturbing times right now, it's refreshing to see a horror movie about corporate downsizing with a really high and grisly body count but "The Belko Experiment" was just to hard to stomach for me.

Set in Bogotá, Colombia, the film centers around a high-rise office building known as Belko Industries where 80 working people are present. Every employee in the building has a tracking device implanted in the base of their head because in case if they get kidnapped or something, the company will easily find them. Does anybody in the building find this a little suspicious? Our main characters are American employees Mike Milch (John Gallagher Jr. from "10 Cloverfield Lane"), his girlfriend, Leandra (Adria Arjona), Belko COO Barry Norris (Tony Goldwyn), a newly hired Latina named Dany Wilkins (Melonie Diaz), a socially awkward executive, Wendell Dukes (John C. McGinley) who develops a perverted attraction to Leandra and a maintenance worker, Bud Melks (Michael Rooker).

Suddenly, hard steel shutters seal off all the windows and doors of the building and a mysterious voice (Gregg Henry) coming from the building's intercom system instructs the 80 employees to participate in a deadly game. Most of the employees think that it's a joke but all hell breaks loose real fast when four people get their heads blown up thanks to the tracking device attached to their heads. The employees can't cut off the tracking devices based in their heads because if they do everybody dies. If somebody tries to sent a signal for help on the roof of the building, the Belko security guards will shoot them dead.

Completely locked in with no way out, the mysterious voice tells the remaining 76 employees that unless 30 people are dead within 2 hours, 60 people will get the axe. Frightened and afraid, the employees split into two factions, the evil side is led by Barry and Wendell because Tony Goldwyn always plays a bad guy in his movies and John C. McGinley is all of the above, sleazebag, A-hole, bastard, jerk-off, murderer, he has a whole list. Meanwhile, the good side led by Milch and Leandra does everything they can to stay calm and find another way out of this but it all becomes clear to them that they have to dive deep into their worst instincts and kill, kill, kill, kill, KILL! their way out of this horrific game if they want to see the light of day again.

Directed by Greg McLean (Wolf Creek and The Darkness) and written by James Gunn (Slither, Super, Guardians of the Galaxy and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2) , "The Belko Experiment" is indeed a bloody movie but it also could've been a really nasty satire about office politics and dark corporate order. Instead "The Belko Experiment" settles as a routine horror flick with a lot of bleakness and relentless gore. The characters are not well-written and the movie fails to bring out an edgy bite.

"The Belko Experiment" needed more than just a body count, it needed to have a subtext or at least a solidly better script.