The Belko Experiment (2016)

2016 American horror directed by writer director Greg McLean who gave us Wolf Creek, and produced by Guardians of the Galaxy’s own James Gunn. Advertised as ‘Office Space meets Battle Royale’, which is right. If you’ve never seen Battle Royale (2000), you’re doing yourself a disservice, but it’s about a group of people given a time limit and a dangerous ultimatum that puts everyone’s lives at risk. The Belko Experiment is set in an remote office building in Columbia with 80 employees who have been told they have 30 minutes to kill 2 people or 10 people will be killed at random. This sets everyone into a frenzy of murder and survival.

I’m all aboard with all the murder pretence, especially working in an office. I wasn’t expecting an incredible story or spectacular acting but I enjoy not know an exact ending. It was good not great, I like it but didn’t love it, would definitely watch it again. But it also definitely made me want to watch Battle Royale again. Now there’s a lot of people involved, though we one clear protagonist, it is very much an ensemble piece. John Gallagher Jr is our main man Mike Milch, he’s our straight and narrow no to murder guy. When the idea is even lightly suggested that the office sacrifice a few people in order to save a higher number he refuses. He consistently rebuffs the idea, butts heads with others that disagree and tries to think of other solutions, all with their own risks. Opposite him sits Tony Goldwyn playing the COO of Belko, Barry Norris, powerful guy used to being in charge and getting his way. He sits on the complete other side of the spectrum and is the first to be open to killing others to save himself. These two characters have conflicting behaviour, the first time we hear the voice over proposing the murderous deal Mike gets anxious and starts to try and think of a solution whereas Norris calms people and doesn’t believe the situation anywhere near as quickly. Between them we have a range of characters for and against killing and surviving. This is great to watch as you start to side with different aspects of people and struggle to make up your own solution.

It’s a big moral thing isn’t it, many works have discussed this and it’s always fun to think about how people would behave as you just don’t know. People aren’t put in this situation, people aren’t pushed and people don’t have the capacity to deal with this type of power over life and death like this. We find that when all Belko employees started work they were fitted with a tracker in the back of their head with GPS in case they get kidnapped. Turns out they are also fitted with a bomb which can be detonated at any time. So everyone is powerless. One of my favourite scenes is with Norris and his creepy lackey Wendell Dukes, who is wonderfully played by John C McGinley, as they decided to start killing people. We find that they have a history of special ops and are well trained and can separate feelings from logic easier than everyone else. So when the office is told that if 30 people aren’t murdered 60 people will die, Norris and a few others that were convinced by him, round everybody up and make the decision on who that should be. He categorises people, decides what value each person’s life is put them on one side of the room.

It’s a arguably one of the more difficult scenes to watch, not for violence but because you find yourself holding your breath hoping the next person doesn’t get picked, hoping that you would have worked out to be on the surviving side. As he starts to execute people it’s no longer a horror it’s a tragedy, it’s sad, it’s unfair and there’s no hope. And it’s great to watch. Goldwyn does well to stay calculated but show humanity, that he’s not a robot he’s just a selfish man at the end of his tether, he has a family and he’s putting them and himself first. He asks for music to be played as he kills people, not for fun but to drown out the sobbing and pleading. This get towards the peak of the killing in the film.

Now I mentioned the music in the execution scene briefly but I gotta stop on this. The music was great the sound was great. Tyler Bates who did sound, has got a lot of horrors as well as actions under his belt, most recent would be both instalments of Guardians of the Galaxy, both John Wick movies and upcoming Atomic Blonde. I always make a note of how realistic the sound is when it comes to violence, the dull thuds and the cracking breaks, but do I even know what that sounds like? I just believe whatever I’m given because I don’t have a frame of reference for what a wrench meeting a skull actually sounds like. Same really with punching, but they all have a good weight to them, and nothing sounds nice, nothing hangs in the air, everything lands. The soundtrack is also decent, takes from the Columbia location so has Latin American influences including a Spanish cover of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’.

I’ve always enjoyed art mixed with violence. In cinema that is. Gorgeous locations or cinematography that holds the violence or wonderfully created music over the ugly visuals. There is a scene in which we watch with one of the characters as bloody bodies are dragged from the centre of the reception and as we watch we hear opera. We hear beautiful music in addition to death and I think there’s something captivating about the contrast. Granted on occasion this can appear comical, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I enjoyed this technique in The Belko Experiment. Cinematography was nothing special, nothing overly noteworthy, classic dull office colours splatted with red blood. Very uniform and fitting, could tell the giant building they were in was CGI from the outside but that took nothing away from the story. Few choice close ups of faces were great, showed desperation well as well as a small amount of claustrophobia.

But let’s talk violence in a bit more detail. This is an 18, to give you a reference Deadpool (2016) was a 15. There is frequent violence. As mentioned the tracker explodes heads, so yeah, exploded heads are in there, not just flashes that we see in some of the other attacks but clear close ups of the damage. We view it alongside the other workers as they look in horror and try to understand the situation. There is a security vault which has guns and some ammo, so the easily viewed gunshots happen. Body shots as well as stab wounds. Though this film does have a heavy focus on face and head shots. That’s what I think raised the rating. The prolonged view of a knife handle sticking out of a clothed belly is not the same as an axe sat in the centre of someone’s face. Which yes, we do see. And this was great it was realistic, it was bloody, it rarely shied away from things which is shocking. Though in some cases is more powerful keeping it hidden and letting the spectator imagine the horror themselves. Swearing yes, and if you look into the rating system the BBFC have to also mention that a few characters smoke weed. Which is a comedic moment but hardly the forefront of adult themes in this film.

Overall the pacing was odd, seemed almost slow to begin with but seamlessly moved into the action. Though once it got going it ended quite quickly, with a 89 minute run time the end seemed quite abrupt and to be honest less than satisfying. Gave an interesting final image though and a small amount of food for thought but again I wasn’t really expecting much more than an hour and a half of fun.

Had some moments of somehow relatable horror sprinkled with some humour. 6/10 worth seeing, won’t leave much of a lasting impression but worth a watch.

CINEMATES - A