The Belko Experiment (2016)

 

**This post contains spoilers**

The Story- In Bogota, Colombia, the employees of Belko Industries normal work day is interrupted, when a mysterious voice over the intercom instructs them to play a game. The game? Two employees must be murdered within a strict time limit, or they will face severe consequences. 

Mike Milch (John Gallagher Jr.) immediately jumps to the worst possible conclusions, while the COO Barry Norris (Tony Goldwyn) dismisses the threat as a prank. But it’s quickly revealed the unknown voice was not joking around, when four employees are murdered.

Mike, his girlfriend, Leandra Florez (Adria Arjona), the Human Resources manager, Vince (Brent Sexton), the security guard, Evan (James Earl), and others join together to find a more peaceful resolution. But Barry, Wendell Dukes (John C. McGinley), Antonio ( Benjamin Byron Davis), and Terry Winters (Owian Yeoman) decide to take a more aggressive approach. 

My Thoughts- The Belko Experiment features a real solid cast from top to bottom. Gallagher Jr. does a terrific job of portraying the compassionate and levelheaded Mike Milch. Milch doesn’t even want to consider murder as an option, and he’s horrified at the thought of his fellow coworkers feeling the need to go down that road. Gallagher Jr. also shows believable emotion and panic, when Mike starts to realize the experiment won’t end with a peaceful resolution.

Tony Goldwyn absolutely nails Barry Norris. Norris is ruthless, when he decides there’s no choice to do what has to be done. Goldwyn is intense as Norris. The anger and frustration Goldwyn brings to Norris really ties everything together, and Norris becomes more serious and relentless as the game winds down.

John C. McGinley delivers a near show stealing performance as Wendell. Wendell Dukes is a violent lunatic, and he’s Barry’s trusted right hand man. But McGinley also brings an awkward goofiness to the character. Wendell’s whacky side is really not meant to bring out laughs. You’ll mostly see this side of Wendell in the scenes he has with Leandra, because Wendell is so delusional and aggressively creepy that he can’t comprehend the fact that Leandra has absolutely no interest in him for romantic reasons.

Sean Gunn and Abraham Benrubi provide a lot of the comic relief here. Gunn is this quirky stoner, with wild conspiracy theories, and Benrubi basically plays the part of his loyal sidekick. They’re a hilarious duo, and they both deliver some of the best comedic moments throughout the movie.

A lot of the kills and deaths in this one are brutal, but I honestly don’t think anything tops the explosives planted in the heads of all Belko employees. Early on in the movie, Belko employees are lead to believe the bombs in their skulls were tracers. A safety precaution for possible kidnappings, but they’re actually tiny bombs that explode with a simple flick of a switch from The Voice (Gregg Henry). The deaths from the explosives are instant. No time for goodbyes or any last words, just an abrupt and random ending with no chance to brace yourself. That is truly terrifying, when you stop and think about it.

Things get serious, when the Belko employees basically split into two groups. Barry leads Wendell and others, while Mike is still searching for a peaceful solution. The split raises a lot of thought provoking questions and issues. True, Barry, Wendell, and Antonio are ruthless with their methods. There’s the big execution scene in the lobby, where Barry has plans to kill thirty people to avoid The Voice killing sixty as a penalty. Also, Barry and Wendell were military guys. “Special forces trained to kill” to be exact, so that’s a big advantage over everyone else.

If you’re just focusing on Barry, you can see the conflict in him, while he’s carrying out the executions. Samantha (Luna Baxter) tells him he’s going to “rot in hell” for the killings, but is Barry really a bad person? He’s a man with a family, who’s stuck in an impossible situation, locked inside a building with no way out. Sure, he probably likes his employees, and he doesn’t want to murder anyone, but he’s also not willing to die or sacrifice himself for the people he works with. That is a reasonable mindset to have, and Goldwyn does a great job of showing Barry’s internal struggle, because you can clearly see it’s tearing him apart to do the killings in the execution scene.

Terry is another good example of seeing how the tough decision to kill his fellow coworkers affects the cast of characters. You get the feeling Terry reluctantly joined Barry’s group. He’s a jittery and blubbering mess, when things get serious, and he’s put into a position where he might have to kill Mike, who’s also his best friend. Still, similar to Barry, you can understand Terry’s need to do what needs to be done, because he simply doesn’t want to die and leave his family behind. 

Wendell and Antonio are really the only two characters who enjoy the large amounts of blood shed. Wendell is just completely nuts, and Antonio had a brig grin on his face, when Barry was handing out the guns from the armory.

On the other side, sure you can say Mike is being a naive fool about all this. Mike was literally willing to take a bullet to hang the SOS banners as a last resort to avoid killing. But Leandra makes a great point, when she sternly tells Mike people are out for themselves, especially when their lives are on the line. You can try and cling to morality and doing the right thing all you want, but when people are scared for their lives, their primal survival instincts will kick in. Just look at what happened with Vince. He really tried to stay on the peaceful side, but when Vince realized the situation was nearing the point of no return, he picked up a gun and was hurling Molotov cocktails, because his life depended on it. 

The gore and violence is something else here. The scene where Leandra hacks into Wendell’s face with an axe, and the close up shot of Barry examining the back of a Belko employee’s head that’s been blown wide open are just a few highlights. The gore ties in with the desperation of almost everyone at Belko being forced to do horrible things, so it really works. 

The final fight coming down to Barry and Mike wasn’t a huge surprise. You could tell the story was going in that direction, the big final showdown between the leader of peace vs the leader of violence. It took Barry killing Leandra to make Mike finally snap, gain the upper hand in the fight, and viciously beat Barry to death. Leandra bleeding out and telling Mike she loves him for her final words takes the top spot for emotional moments. It’s really the only scene here, where someone had the chance to say goodbye, and it’s easy to see why Mike lost it. 

There’s a surprise, when Mike finally meets The Voice at the end. Mike is the sole survivor and he’s declared the winner, but he delivers the final blow, when he secretly stashes a handful of bombs on The Voice and his armed henchmen. Mike detonates the explosives and kills The Voice and the rest of his research team.

There’s a lot of questions packed into the finale with an intriguing cliffhanger. It’s revealed that other Belko games are being played, and Mike is just one of many sole survivors. The Voice told Mike about his team and their research and why these kinds of experiments need to be conducted with no restrictions or outside interference. Was the local government actually involved? Is it possible The Voice played the same game in the past, and he made it out alive as the sole survivor? The Voice has some noticeable scarring on one side of his face, so it is a possibility to consider. 

Can we really believe The Voice legitimately selected random Belko employees to kill? If The Voice’s choices to set off the bombs were truly random, then why didn’t Mike, Leandra, Wendell, or Barry die early in the movie? I simply think about it this way, The Voice kind of looked at the things like a twisted reality show. He wanted to keep all the compelling characters and storylines alive for as long as possible, while eliminating the more ordinary or boring people.

With the cliffhanger, it’s announced stage two of the game is about to begin for all the survivors. For a long time I wanted a sequel to The Belko Experiment for more answers, and to see how this cliffhanger would play out. But now I go in the direction of just leaving things alone. I don’t think a sequel is necessary. The Belko Experiment’s many questions make you think, and that’s a good thing. Just enough was revealed here, this was a good film, and I do believe it’s better to protect that mystery behind Belko, and who’s behind the curtain and why. 

The Belko Experiment also features a few entertaining side storylines. The newbie Dany (Melonie Diaz) is resourceful and well, she has a lot of luck throughout the movie. She escapes one close call after another, and you start to think maybe there’s a chance she’ll escape as the winner or the final girl. But after taking so many careful precautions, she lets her guard down coming out of the elevator, giving Barry an easy chance to shoot and kill her.

You also have the story of the two maintenance guys. Bud (Michael Rooker) plays the role of a big brother for Lonny (David Dastamalchian), but things go south, when an already panicky and paranoid Lonny accidentally kills Bud. That visual of Bud’s head with a big indentation from the wrench sure is a nasty one.

The subject matter in The Belko Experiment is heavy, but the movie never takes itself too seriously. The chaos constantly escalates, but there’s a good balance of dark humor and brutal violence here. The execution scene in the lobby features a Spanish version of California Dreamin.’ It’s impossible not to see the irony of such a happy go lucky song being played, while innocent people are being murdered. 

There’s also a hilarious moment with Roberto’s (David Del Rio) reaction to finding out the sweet and likable Dany actually killed someone. And when Mike is bashing Barry’s head in with a tape dispenser, there’s an over the top and triumphant score playing in the background. The score sounds like something you’d hear in a comedy film, when one of the goofy main characters has a victorious moment, or it would fit with someone running a victory lap.

The Belko Experiment is truly an entertaining and energetic horror film, that makes you really think about the character’s thought processes and motivations. Director Greg McLean brings brutal violence and bloody gore to this one. The scene where Barry breaks Lorena’s (Cindy Better) neck is definitely capable of making you squirm. The pacing is good here, because The Belko Experiment never drags or feels dull. When The Voice makes his announcement and the carnage starts, it’s an unrelenting push to the big finish, and it’s one shocking moment after another to see how far the employees of Belko are willing to go to stay alive.

Rating- 8/10