Depending on where and when you’re reading this, it’s Friday, and many people will no doubt be wrapping up work in anticipation of the weekend. But spare a thought for the white-collar employees of South America’s Belko Company, who unknowingly find themselves smack bang in the middle of a life-or-death situation in Greg McLean’s The Belko Experiment.
Featuring a script penned by James Gunn – he of Guardians of the Galaxy fame – The Belko Experiment is, in essence, a bat-shit insane social test that forces employees to kill one another or face instant death. And so begins a desperate, primitive battle to survive, with the film’s third and final trailer teasing the psychological horror that awaits. Hailing from Gunn’s lively Facebook feed, the snippet in question has “a bit more of Marty Espenscheid AKA Kraglin from Guardians AKA Kirk from Gilmore Girls AKA my idiot brother Sean.”
Also starring Tony Goldyn, John C. McGinley, David Dastmalchian and Gregg Henry, The Belko Experiment isn’t for the faint of heart, and it’ll be fascinating to see how McLean and Gunn’s cocktail of violence fares at the box office in two months’ time. Will audiences lap up the over-the-top anarchy? Time will tell.
It’s Office Space meets Battle Royale according to WGTC’s own Matt Donato (see the poster below), and The Belko Experiment will officially unleash nine kinds of crazy upon US theaters on March 17th.
It at first seems to be an ordinary morning on the job for a group of Americans working for a not-for-profit in a modern office building in Colombia. After noticing that their Colombian colleagues have not arrived for work, office worker Mike (John Gallagher, Jr.) spots some unfamiliar security guards entering a large hangar nearby. Moments later, an icy voice comes over the building’s PA system and calmly explains that the employees must kill a certain number of their co-workers — if not, they will be killed themselves. While the boss (Tony Goldwyn) tries to calm the troops, Mike belatedly realizes that something truly sinister is going on — and when metal doors come sliding down on all the building’s exits and windows, it becomes clear that friends and colleagues are now suddenly enemies in a bloody and brutal battle to the death.