Before He Took Over the DCU, James Gunn Delivered a Twisted Workplace Horror Thriller (& It’s Free to Stream This Month)
When people think of James Gunn, they think of superheroes. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies are frequently cited as some of his best work and more recently, it’s DC that is getting the attention with Gunn as the co-head of DC Studios as well as the writer and director of Superman and the upcoming Man of Tomorrow. But horror is a major part of Gunn’s creative history. Tucked between Guardians of the Galaxy and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and years before he’d make his mark on DC, Gunn wrote a divisive and disturbing workplace horror thriller — and this month, it’s streaming for free.
Available on Pluto TV during the month of October, The Belko Experiment was released on March 17, 2017, just shy of three years after Guardians of the Galaxy. The film, which was directed by Greg McLean, centered around a group of 80 mostly American employees working for Belko Industries in Bogota, Colombia. However, one ordinary day at work takes a dark turn when they’re locked inside and ordered by a mysterious voice to start killing one another and, if they refuse there will be fatal consequences. It was billed as Office Space meets Battle Royale, but it was met with mixed reviews and remains divisive to this day.
The Belko Experiment Is Twisted and Bloody (But Surprisingly Enjoyable)
The billing of “Office Space meets Battle Royale” is, to an extent true. You have a group of people in their workplace dealing with the horror of it all (though, in this case, the horror is actually, you know, horror and not just bad bosses and monotonous work). You have the bloody chaos of a forced fight to the death that was highly popularized by Battle Royale and when you put the two general concepts together, you get The Belko Experiment. But The Belko Experiment does lack some of the actual satire that you would expect from something likened to Office Space and didn’t quite have the psychological aspects of Battle Royale. For some audiences and critics, those absent elements diminished the film, but what the movie lacks in terms of invitation for serious intellectual thought, it more than makes up for in terms of pure B-movie reminiscent gore.
The Belko Experiment is bloody and twisted and it is unrelenting in that fact. Once things kick into gear, the death and horror just doesn’t stop and there is something about that that is fascinating in its own right. You get some pretty clear and obvious divisions among the employees that anyone who has ever worked in office will recognize immediately. Some of the kills are darkly hilarious — there is an incident with a tape dispenser that is particularly wild. In many respects, you can just sit down, turn the movie on, and enjoy a full-on blood bath without having to deal too much with jump scares ore existential questions. It’s just horror fun with the added twist of a bit of catharsis if you don’t expect too much from it. It makes for a nice midnight movie and that is made even better with the film being available to stream for free on Pluto TV this month.
Will you be checking out The Belko Experiment this month on Pluto TV? Is there another horror movie we should stream for free? Let us know in the comments.
