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The Belko Experiment: Review
Everyday, we go to our jobs. Do our work. Have lunch with those people we work with. Some friends. Some acquaintances. Some, just people we wouldn’t go near with a ten foot pole were it not for sharing the same employment. But then we carry on our day until we thankfully can punch out and return home. But say one day, you’re told to murder your co-workers in cold blood. This is the experiment that 80 American workers at a Belko Industries building in Bogotá, Colombia find themselves forced into. Locked inside and told by a mysterious voice to murder certain numbers of the corporate population or else they will all be killed through explosives implanted inside each employee. From the maintenance workers, to the techies, and to the executives, white collars are going to be dyed red with blood!
The Belko Experiment comes from Blumhouse Tilt and Orion Pictures, written by Slither and Super scribe James Gunn and directed by Wolf Creek director Greg McLean. With a pedigree like that, you know things are gonna get good and brutal sooner or later. It starts as a tightly wound thriller that escalates into an office party of blood.
Working with 80 ‘subjects’ in this experiment, the film does a decent job in giving focus to a wide, but select core group of people fighting for their survival. There’s Mike Melch, played by John Gallagher Jr. who acts as the everyman office worker and attempts to act as a voice of moral order during the chaos. The assistant Leandra Jerez played by Adria Arjona. The COO of the Belko branch, Barry Norris played by Tony Goldwyn. Wendell Dukes, a crass executive with eyes on Leandra played by John C. McGinley. Among a few highlighted charcters, and a wide variety of characters in all departments of the gladiatorial office building. Being written by James Gunn, each has a unique voice and sense of humor that makes every one of them stand-out. Even those that commit mass murder.
While ‘battles to the death’ and ‘hunting the most dangerous game’ movies have been used for stories as old as the actual “Most Dangerous Game” story and beyond, Belko manages to create its own footing for a few reasons. Main of which being its social commentary on corporate/government culture. Each of the players has a tiny bomb in the base of their skull. Why? Because they let the company do it. Under contract. So they could get that sweet job and sweet pay. And in breakneck corporate culture, you sometimes have to do things you never thought you’d have to do to get ahead. And in this case, if you want to live, you may have to kill.
The only real gripe to be had was some of the pacing building up to the big bloodshed felt a little off. As well, while we get to observe the players brace themselves for it, it’s still mainly through the lens of the core group that’s followed throughout the movie. That aside, once the experiment breaks out in full, it does not stop. While not necessarily groundbreaking, if you’re looking for a fun and thrilling survival horror movie or just need something to blow off the steam at work in a safe and sensible way, take part in The Belko Experiment!
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Movies
‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments
It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.
We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.
“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”
That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”
Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:
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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening
Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.
Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.
Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.
Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.
Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.
The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.
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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date
Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.
Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.
These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:
According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”
Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.
Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.
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