Don’t blink, because 2017 has so far been an exceptional start for genre cinema. Horror films like Split and Get Out still rank among the year’s best reviewed films, with actioner John Wick: Chapter 2 being close by. This year has been a rare exception, bucking the trend of the start of the year being terrible for movies.
Looking to continue that trend is The Belko Experiment, which is the latest writing project from Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn. This high-concept film follows the Belko workplace, which suddenly becomes a danger zone when its 80 workers are all locked up. In order to survive, the employees are forced to kill their peers.
While it doesn’t have the smarts or substance of some of its peers, The Belko Experiment is a gleefully violent genre picture that packs enough entertainment value to get past its rough patches.
From the start, this is a film to be admired by just how dedicated it is to its premise. Director Greg McLean does not shy away from depicting the bloodshed on screen, with this honestly being one of the more violent mainstream releases in quite sometime. At the same time, this film works more as a satire of workplace life than a drama, with McLean’s sure-handed direction keeping the tone in check. McLean welcomes the bloodshed with a twisted glee, depicting the darkest places humanity can go in order to survive.
Adding to the satire is just how entertaining the violence can get here. The film’s openly nihilistic qualities will certainly turn a lot of people away, but as genre fare it works quite well. McLean excels at ramping up the tension throughout, as well as showing the brutal kills in a satisfyingly stylish manor.
Grounding Gunn’s script is a cast full of respected character actors. While there are no big names here, its a group of assured actors who know how to pull this material off. John Gallagher Jr., Tony Goldwyn, John C. McGinley, and Adria Arjona all do relatively solid work with the material they have to work with.
James Gunn is obviously a very talented writer and filmmaker, and certainly delivers here with a more ambitious script than one would expect from this film. The dialogue here creates a lot of laughs, adding some much-needed levity during the film’s more serious parts. Much of The Belko Experiment tackles humanity at its core, focusing on how the most dire of situations can ultimately divide us and drive people in an animalistic way.
Where the film suffers however is with its ambition, as it ultimately proves to falter in the end. Gunn’s script certainly takes some interesting chances, but the film’s overall message feels very heavy-handed. This is especially the case when it comes to the film’s ending, which feels the need to spell out what just happened and what it all means.
For a film that is only 82 minutes long, there are a surprising amount of dry spells here. Where the film somewhat drops the ball is its second act, which features a low body count compared to the rest of the film. I felt myself just waiting for the carnage to begin, which became a somewhat frustrating experience.
The Belko Experiment may not reach the cult status its ultimately aiming for, its still a fun piece of genre fare that delivers with style and buckets of gore.