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Wendell Dukes

Wendell Dukes is the secondary antagonist of the 2016 film The Belko Experiment . He is one of the employees the company and one of the 80 people trapped in the building. Unlike everyone else in the film, Wendell is the most psychotic and bloodthirsty and is the right hand man of Barry Norris .

He is portrayed by John C. McGinley

• 1.1 Phase 1
• 1.2 Phase 2
• 1.3 Phase 3
• 2 Personality

Biography [ ]

Phase 1 [ ].

Wendell is first seen staring at Leandra creepily. When she asks him to stop he laughs and continues doing his work. The Voice comes on the intercom and states that they must kill 2 people, Wendell takes it as a joke like the others, however when the doors start shutting close, he gets more worried as he cam be seen kicking the door to no avail. He can also be seen getting water for the employees along with Vincent and is show creepily giving Leandra a water bottle as a flirting tactic. When the first set of bombs go off he hides in a closet with some others.

Phase 2 [ ]

After Michael tries to cut his bomb out of his head, Wendell starts to flirt with Leandra again to which she tells him to "f*ck off". When the voice comes back on again and tells them they need to kill 30 people or else 60 will die. Wendell immediately arms himself with a knife and cleaver and gets into a fight with another employee. After discussing their options Wendell, Barry, and Terry decide to head to the armory and get the weapons out the locker. When Michael, Leandra, and Evan stop them, Wendell goes to attack Evan until he pulls a gun on them. Mike difuses the situation and shoots the blowtorch to stop them. The trio later recruit Antonio and Bradley to alliance and ambush Michael's group and knock him out. Wendell then demands the keys for the armory from Evan and when he throws them down, Wendell stabs him in the gut with a knife. When Leandra calls him a pervert he attacks her and swings at her until Barry calls him off. Wendell, Barry, Terry, Bradley and Antonio round up all the employees (save for Dany) to the lobby and start choosing the ones to be executed. When Jonathan starts making a fuss and fights back, Wendell executes him on the spot. He is seen counting as Barry executes the employees and shooting after the rest start to flee. The men manage to kill 29 employees, one short of their orders, and an additional 30 employees have their explosives detonated. Wendell is among the 16 surviving employees.

Phase 3 [ ]

After the 30 people are executed, the voice issues Phase 3, where the person with the most kills before 1 hour is up will be allowed to live. Barry is stated to be in the lead with 11 and Wendell has the 2nd highest kill count with 7. He then decides to up his numbers by hacking Mark and Agnes to death. Wendell continues his hunt for more employees and kills his former friend Tyson, who was hiding in a freezer. When Leandra, Marty, and Chet catch him hacking up Tyson, Wendell tries to justify himself and offers an alliance against Barry. Leandra shoots him in the shoulder and Wendell shoots back at her. As Leandra pushes up to him with a table, he shoots Chet in the head and Marty in the throat. Leandra pins him down with the table as he pleads for mercy, she takes Marty's axe and smashes his face in with it, finally ending him.

Personality [ ]

Wendell is mainly defined by his perversion. He spends most of the movie flirting with and harassing Leandra despite her rejecting his advances numerous times. He also has a short temper and allot of bloodlust as he kills Evan out of anger, attacking Leandra after she calls him a pervert, and brutally hacking at Agnes and Tyson's body well after killing him. All of these things made him a socially awkward person who caught the iron of most people in the company.

• He is the only one of Barry's group who didn't mention having any family or loved one's when discussing their options. This showed that unlike the rest, Wendell is the few people participating out of self-preservation and sadism.
• 1 The Boiled One
• 2 Bill Cipher

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

The Belko Experiment

In a twisted social experiment, eighty Americans are locked in their high-rise corporate office in Bogotá, Colombia, and ordered by an unknown voice coming from the company's intercom system... Read all In a twisted social experiment, eighty Americans are locked in their high-rise corporate office in Bogotá, Colombia, and ordered by an unknown voice coming from the company's intercom system to participate in a deadly game of kill or be killed. In a twisted social experiment, eighty Americans are locked in their high-rise corporate office in Bogotá, Colombia, and ordered by an unknown voice coming from the company's intercom system to participate in a deadly game of kill or be killed.

• Greg McLean
• John Gallagher Jr.
• Tony Goldwyn
• Adria Arjona
• 280 User reviews
• 208 Critic reviews
• 44 Metascore

Top cast 64

• Barry Norris

• Leandra Florez

• Wendell Dukes

• Dany Wilkins

• Terry Winter

• Marty Espenscheid

• Vince Agostino

• Keith Mclure

• Lonny Crane

• Roberto Jerez

• Peggy Displasia

• Leota Hynek

• Chet Valincourt
• Ross Reynolds
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia John Gallagher, Jr. auditioned for a role in a previous film directed by James Gunn , but wasn't right for the part. However, Gunn thought he was the best actor he'd seen in an audition, and vowed to work with Gallagher again.
• Goofs The building supposedly became a giant defacto Faraday cage, but they are able to pick up a local radio station from inside the building. But nothing supports that the metal around the building is also acting as a Faraday cage. In many outside shots the of building you can see a tower on the roof with 3 Sector antennas positioned around it, this is likely a cell tower and due to the remote location likely the only one providing service to the area. With the level of expertise shown by the perpetrators it would be simple to disable this tower during the lockdown. It is also easily more probable a cell jammer or jammers could have been activated in or near the building.

The Voice : In two hours we want thirty of you dead. If thirty of you are not dead, we will end sixty of your lives ourselves. Five, four, three, two, one. Begin.

• Connections Featured in FoundFlix: The Belko Experiment (2017) Ending Explained (2017)
• Soundtracks Yo Vivire (I Will Survive) Written by Dino Fekaris & Freddie Perren (as Frederick Perren) Translation by Oscar Gomez Performed by Jose Prieto

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 29 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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The Voice (The Belko Experiment)

The evil "Voice"

"The Voice" (Gregg Henry) is a villain from the 2016 film The Belko Experiment . He was a scientist who was in charge of the titular experiment being held at the Colombian office of the Belko corporation.

As the employees filed into work, the unnamed man announced over the intercom that the experiment was now in effect: the building was sealed now off from the outside world, armed guards patrolled the perimeter, and bombs had been outfitted within the skulls of the employees. The Voice went on to explain that the employees would have to murder each other, lest the bombs in their heads be detonated.

Following several hours, main protagonist Michael "Mike" Milch was the only survivor of the eighty employees. Two of the armed guards arrived in the building and escorted Mike to a hangar next to the building. There, he met with The Voice, who was revealed to be a scarred elderly man. The Voice revealed that the experiment was part of a study into human behaviour and marvelled over it's results, showing a callous disregard for the many lives lost. As The Voice began attempting to conduct an interview with Mike to monitor his emotional state after the incident. At that moment, Mike went on the offensive, killing the Voice's guards and assistants, and leaving the evil scientist wounded on the ground. Although The Voice attempted to convince Mike to spare him, he was swiftly shot to death with a rifle.

• 1 Lucas (Dead in the Water)
• 2 Tasuku (Kotaro Lives Alone)
• 3 Brian Hoffner (Fatal Fiancé)

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Who Got Murdered the Worst in ‘The Belko Experiment’?

Apparently there are 1,001 ways to die in an office building

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Share All sharing options for: Who Got Murdered the Worst in ‘The Belko Experiment’?

By Andrew Gruttadaro and Claire McNear

This is a post about death scenes in the film The Belko Experiment , and therefore is riddled with spoilers.

In The Belko Experiment , 99 percent of the characters die. It begins when an unknown voice tells the employees of Belko Industries, an American company based in Bogotá, Colombia, that if they don’t kill three of their coworkers, six people will die. But that’s only the beginning. The voice’s demands get larger, and as John Gallagher Jr.’s character notes — while all the other characters tell him to cool down even though a guy’s head just exploded — no one in the building is going to be allowed to live. The bodies start dropping in quick succession after that, partly because coworkers start murdering each other in extremely gross, inventive ways and partly because the voice keeps making people’s heads explode.

The Belko Experiment (which was penned by Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn) positions itself as a horror movie that philosophizes on human nature, but really it’s just a movie that takes twisted enjoyment in cubicle-based murder. While things do get a little too grim at times — the slow-motion scene in which photos of a man’s children splay out of his wallet is wildly unnecessary — it’s clear that there’s no point in clutching your pearls with this one. Gunn and director Greg McLean didn’t take things seriously, so why should we? To that end, two Ringer staffers put together a ranking of which characters got murdered the worst in The Belko Experiment .

Honorable Mention: Dany Wilkins (Melonie Diaz)

Claire McNear : Real talk: There are two obvious strategies for survival here. The first — landed on by poor Melonie Diaz, who arrives at Belko for her first day of a new job just in time for the murder plot to be explained over the loudspeakers — is to hide. It’s a big building! Find a nice place to sit in the bowels of the basement and chill, as Diaz does for much of the movie. But then she makes the Certified Dipshit Move™ of leaving the basement, trading it for the elevator shaft — which seems like a second great call until, well, it isn’t.

So Diaz decides to get in the goddamn elevator and go to another floor. The doors open, and bam: The COO, Tony Goldwyn, shoots her in the forehead. She could have been saved if she had gone with the other obvious survival strategy, which no one, not one single Belko soul, attempted, because they are dumb: Play dead. Seriously, rub some blood on yourself and settle in for a nice nap while your psychotic coworkers Battle Royale each other. This is not exactly a time for checking pulses, and the building’s many cameras wouldn’t know the difference. I am available to help write any sequels; you can call my agent, who is a cat.

10. All the People Whose Heads Exploded

McNear: About halfway through the movie, there’s somewhere in the neighborhood of three uninterrupted minutes of people’s heads exploding. Heads pop off of nearly all the remaining non-principals, plus a fair share of people you’ve developed some attachment to. It’s capped by Josh Brener, of Silicon Valley and The Big Bang Theory fame, sitting up and delightedly asking if it’s over, at which point his skull explodes. It was at this moment that a couple in the theater where I watched the movie got up and walked out.

9. Wendell Dukes (John C. McGinley)

Andrew Gruttadaro : You know how I know Wendell, the guy former Scrubs star John C. McGinley plays in The Belko Experiment , is a pervert? Well, first, because his name is Wendell. But more importantly, because at one point Adria Arjona’s character Leandra calls him a pervert and he snaps, “DON’T EVER CALL ME A PERVERT!” Uh, methinks the pervert doth protest too much. As a clear villain in the movie, Wendell was destined to die horribly, and he does. First, Leandra puts a bullet in his leg — very painful, I bet — then slams a cafeteria table onto that same leg. Then, while he’s like, “Oh, I can’t really move this table off of me because I was just recently shot,” Leandra picks up an ax and drives it right through the center of his face. McLean is kind enough to give the audience a quick glance of the ax connecting with Wendell’s dome, and you know what? I now taking sleeping pills because of the image of John C. McGinley’s face concaving while blood geysers from a newly created crevasse.

8. Evan (James Earl)

Gruttadaro: Evan, the security guard, is the greatest character in The Belko Experiment . He isn’t blindly moral like Gallagher, but he also isn’t way too ready to start sacrificing coworkers like McGinley or Goldwyn. He’s just a measured dude understandably sad that all of his work friends no longer have heads. So the most tragic part of the movie is when Evan takes a kitchen knife to the gut and bleeds out in a stairwell. It’s definitely not the worst way anyone dies in this movie — though that knife does go to hilt, and I’m sure it severed a couple of major organs — but Evan was a real lovable guy. I felt like that knife was being driven into my stomach.

7. Lonny (David Dastmalchian)

Gruttadaro: When the experiment begins at Belko, Lonny, one of two maintenance workers in the building, smartly notes, “They’re trying to make us kill each other! They’re trying to make us go crazy!” So it’s pretty shitty that he’s the first one to lose his mind and kill someone. After braining a man with a wrench (my fellow Belko analyst, Claire, will cover this death further down the list), Lonny stumbles upon the new girl, Dany, and since he just killed a man and has very much lost his mind, they begin to tussle. It ends when Dany pushes Lonny against a wall … that is inexplicably adorned by three extremely sharp rods. The middle one goes into the back of his neck (ugh, don’t you hate when that happens!?); blood fills his mouth. It’s super gross.

6. Angry Man (Joe Fria)

Gruttadaro: Angry Man doesn’t have a real name or lines, but he is shown multiple times, invariably being angry that he’s going to die at work. His seemingly last appearance comes about two-thirds of the way through the movie, when we see him take shelter in the cafeteria freezer. Smart move by Angry Man. HOWEVER, we see Angry Man one more time: being dragged out of said freezer while being repeatedly chopped at with a cleaver. Think about how terrible that is! This guy, who, it should be said, is Angry, like, all the time, was freezing his ass off in the name of survival and he died anyway. By being chopped up. With a cleaver. I’d be Angry too.

5. Bud (Michael Rooker)

McNear: During the first 10 minutes or so of The Belko Experiment , you know the fight to the death is coming. Given that there are 80 people in the building — a fact you will be reminded of repeatedly — the filmmakers use that time to try to (a) introduce you to as many people as possible before the fighting begins, and (b) give as many of those people a Defining Characteristic. There’s the Too-Nice Middle-Aged Woman, the Australian Dude, the Sleazy Weirdo, the Large German Lady, the Stoner, etc. As things begin to go south, you start contemplating who’s going first. The odds of survival look pretty good for Michael Rooker, who plays the building’s head of maintenance: He knows his way around the building, has access to tools (a.k.a. MURDER WEAPONS), is pals with the main character (Gallagher), has the sort of voice that suggests that he will engineer some elaborate murders later on, and, of course, is one of the bigger names in the movie. But NOT SO. Our man is the very casualty of employee-on-employee violence, falling victim to a wrench to the head just as soon as the characters realize it’s a free-for-all. It leaves a wrench-shaped dent in his forehead, a sign that the movie will be as much about murder weapons as the murders themselves.

4. Sexy Assistant (Cindy Better)

Gruttadaro: So yeah, in case Angry Man wasn’t enough of an indication that Belko wasn’t too interested in coloring in its secondary characters: Sexy Assistant was an assistant who was … sexy. That was her one trait — at the beginning of the movie, everyone she walks by puts their fist in their mouth like they’re Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street . This whole thing gets even more problematic midway through the movie, when Sexy Assistant comes toe-to-toe with Goldwyn’s COO, who has taken it upon himself to murder a lot of people. Sexy Assistant, because of course, begins unbuttoning her blouse, offering sex to the COO in exchange for her life. It’s pretty dark. The two embrace; the COO places his hand on Sexy Assistant’s face — AND THEN HE SNAPS HER NECK! LIKE, ALL THE WAY AROUND! THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DEGREES! LIKE THE EXORCIST ! You may be asking yourself how a corporate exec would know how to accomplish such a brutally gruesome feat, but if you saw the movie twice like I did (because clearly I hate myself), you would have heard the HR guy very quickly and very quietly note that the COO was former Special Forces. OK then!

3. COO Barry Norris (Tony Goldwyn)

Gruttadaro: For all of his crimes, and because he’s the final boss of The Belko Experiment , the president from Scandal had to die a terrible death. Barry is bested in a scrum with Gallagher, mostly because the latter is able to get his hands on a tape dispenser. I never really considered how heavy those things are — like, why would I care to think about how a tape dispenser also functions as a paperweight? — but the thought definitely occurred to me when one of them was being repeatedly driven into Barry’s face. Those things could definitely fracture a skull! I said to myself as Gallagher rained tape down on Barry over and over again. And because the COO was the main bad guy, Belko reveled in his death, showing his caved-in face several times, letting the audience hear the squish of his brains more than any other character’s. Victory, I guess?

2. Elderly Custodian (Alietta Montero)

McNear: If you’re going to die in a movie like this — and let’s be real, you’re going to die — you probably have some requests. Like: “Can I be a main character?” No, sorry, not gonna work out. “OK: Then can I put up a good fight before I go down?” Nope, not going to happen. “Fine, then at least give me a punchy line in there somewhere — maybe not in the moments before my demise, but … sometime, so that I can bring my family to see the thing and point to some small bit of pre-offing character development.” Nope. The custodian got none of these things. In a film that is basically just two hours of finding ways to kill people with office supplies, the powers that be occasionally throw in something a little more outside the box. In this case, that something is … a Molotov cocktail that engulfs the maid in fire. RIP, maid whose name I think was Liesl, but to be quite honest I have no idea. May you dance on the grave of the Bechdel test in the afterlife.

1. Roberto (David Del Rio)

McNear: The Sixth Rule of Cinematic Battles to the Death in Office Buildings is that deaths induced by elevators are the best (read: also worst) deaths. How many specific deaths do you remember from 2002’s Resident Evil ? The laser scene , sure. (Sadly, no lasers here.) For me, no. 2 on that list is the woman who has her head removed by a homicidal elevator as she tries to climb out of it . Belko ’s elevator death is a little less inventive but certainly dramatic: Del Rio hangs out on top of an elevator car and listens to the distant sound of his coworkers’ braincases opening. A terrific plan — up until Belko’s maniacal COO gets into the elevator and decides to head to his office, which is, of course, on the top floor. So Roberto goes up, and up, and becomes aware of what is happening, and keeps going up, and up, and up, and then is be-ceiling’d. You can hear his bones, all of them, break. Roberto was the one who joked at the beginning of the movie that everyone was going to die — a funny joke because it was obviously true. Now if you’ll excuse us, Andrew and I are going to go cry in a dark room. One with multiple exits.

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• Blumhouse Productions

The Belko Experiment

The Belko Experiment is a 2016 American horror film directed by Greg McLean and written by James Gunn, who also produced the film with Peter Safran. It stars John Gallagher Jr., Tony Goldwyn , Adria Arjona, John C. McGinley, Melonie Diaz, Josh Brener, and Michael Rooker . The film follows eighty Americans working abroad for a company named Belko Industries in Bogotá, Colombia. One day after they arrive at work, they are locked inside the building, and a mysterious voice announces that they have to start killing each other or else.

Mike Milch, an employee of Belko Industries, while driving to work is stopped by street vendors selling "lucky" handmade dolls. Barry Norris, also of Belko Industries, arrives at the office building in Bogotá, Colombia, to find unfamiliar security guards turning away the local Colombian staff at the gate. New employee Dany Wilkins reports for her first day on the job and is told that a tracking device is implanted in the base of every Belko employee's skull in case something happens to them.

Evan Smith, Belko's head security guard, does not know who the new security guards are. Once all the employees show up, a voice on the intercom instructs them to kill two of their co-workers, or else there will be consequences. Several staff attempt to flee the building, but steel shutters seal off the walls and doors, locking them all in. They ignore the announcement at first, believing it to be a sick prank, but after the set time ends and the two have not been killed, four employees die when explosives hidden in their trackers detonate and blow their heads apart. Mike attempts to remove his tracker with a box cutter, but gives up when the voice threatens to detonate his tracker explosive unless he stops.

The group is told that unless thirty of them are dead within two hours, sixty will be killed. They split into two factions, one led by Mike, who believes that there should be no killing, and one led by Barry, who intends to follow the directions in order to save himself. Barry and his group, consisting of executive Wendell, as well as employees Terry, Antonio, and Bradley attempt to burn off the lock of the armory in order to gain access to its weapons. Mike and his group, including his girlfriend, Leandra Florez, Evan and employees Keith, Leota, Peggy, Vince and Roberto, try to hang banners from the roof as a call for help, but soldiers outside shoot at them. Barry, Wendell, and Terry ambush the group in the stairway, kill Evan and take his keys to the armory.

With his group now armed, Barry and Wendell select thirty people, including Mike and Peggy, forcing them to kneel in a line. Barry begins executing them with a gunshot to the back of the head. Dany, who has been hiding in the basement, sees what is happening and shuts off the building's lights before Mike and several others can be killed. The employees immediately run for cover as Barry and his group start firing, killing several more people. However, Bradley and Antonio are ganged upon and killed by the employees. During this, Dany goes into the elevator shaft with Roberto.

Barry and Wendell hunt down the fleeing employees as the voice informs them that only twenty-nine have been killed. Then the two-hour time limit runs out. The voice states that 31 more people will die, including Terry, Leota, Peggy, and Keith, leaving only 16 survivors. They are then informed by the voice that, as a final task, the employee who has killed the most people within an hour will be spared. Barry finds Dany and Roberto in the elevator shaft. Dany escapes while Roberto is crushed and killed in the elevator shaft. Leandra finds two employees, Marty and Chet, collecting the un-exploded trackers from the heads of people who have died by other methods. They tell her that they are planning to use them to blow up the wall. However, they are killed by Wendell. Leandra kills Wendell, leaving the final six survivors: Vince, Mike, Barry, Dany, Leandra, and cafeteria lady Liezle, who is killed shortly afterward. Barry shoots Vince and Dany, killing them, and also shoots Leandra. With her dying breath, she proclaims her love to Mike.

In a rage, Mike has a brutal fight with Barry, in which Barry gets the better of him at first, however, Mike fends Barry off using a tape dispenser, which ends in Mike bludgeoning Barry to death. The building is then unsealed, as he is the last survivor, and the soldiers escort him to the hangar next door. There, he meets the owner of the Voice, who says that they're part of an international organization studying human behavior. As he and his colleagues begin to question Mike about his emotional and mental state, Mike notices a panel of switches that correspond to the eighty employees. Having planted the trackers that Marty collected on the soldiers and the Voice, he flips every remaining active switch except his own. The trackers explode, killing the soldiers and wounding the Voice, before Mike grabs a gun and kills the remaining scientists. The Voice attempts to reason with Mike and appeal to his moral beliefs, but Mike kills him. He then leaves the warehouse in a state of shock.

It becomes apparent that Mike is one of many sole survivors from similar experiments, being watched by another group through security cameras. A new voice states, "End stage one, commence stage two."

• John Gallagher Jr. as Mike Milch, an employee at Belko Industries
• Tony Goldwyn as Barry Norris, the COO of Belko and an ex-special forces soldier
• Adria Arjona as Leandra Florez, Norris' assistant and Mike's love interest
• John C. McGinley as Wendell Dukes, a socially awkward top executive
• Melonie Diaz as Dany Wilkins, a new hire at Belko
• Owain Yeoman as Terry Winters, Mike's co-worker and friend.
• Sean Gunn as Marty Espenscheid, a cafeteria worker
• Brent Sexton as Vince Agostino, Belko's head of human resources
• Josh Brener as Keith McLure, a tech worker
• David Dastmalchian as Alonso "Lonny" Crane, a maintenance worker under Melks
• David Del Rio as Roberto Jerez, a worker who befriends Dany.
• Gregg Henry as The Voice
• Michael Rooker as Bud Melks, Belko's head of Maintenance
• Rusty Schwimmer as Peggy Displasia, Milch's secretary
• Gail Bean as Leota Hynek, a worker who befriends Wilkins
• James Earl as Evan Smith, Belko's only security guard
• Abraham Benrubi as Chet Valincourt, Espencheid's best friend
• Valentine Miele as Ross Reynolds, a sales representative for Belko
• Stephen Blackehart as Robert Hickland, an interpreter
• Benjamin Byron Davis as Antonio Fowler, a worker.
• Silvia de Dios as Helena Barton, the supervisor of Roberto, Leota, Bradley and Dany
• Cindy Better as Lorena Checo, a worker who pretends to be friendly to Norris.
• Andres Suarez as Bradley Lang, Dany's co-worker
• Alietta Montero as Liezle Freemont, a cafeteria worker.
• Joe Fria as Tyson Moon, Wendell's friend.
• Mikaela Hoover as Raziya Memarian, Agostino's assistant
• Maia Landaburu as Louisa "Raven" Luna, a worker.
• Santiago Bejarano as Luis Costa, an elderly worker.
• Maruia Shelton as Agnes Meraz, a co-worker of Luigi.
• Luna Baxter as Samantha Arcos, a co-worker of Mike.
• Maria Juliana Caicedo as Lucy Martinez, a friend of Chet and Marty.
• Kristina Lilley as Sarah Mariana, a worker. She is the last person to arrive before the experiment begins.
• Juan Ortega as Luigi Moretti, a co-worker of Agnes.
• Yeison Alvarez as Lawrence Fitzgibbon, Evan's best friend.
• Silvia Varón as Frances Anne, the only wheelchair-using employee of Belko.
• Lorena Tobar as J. Ferguson, an elderly cafeteria worker.
• Ximena Rodriguez as A. Huberman, a cafeteria worker.
• Álvaro García as Jonathan Schwartz, an elderly worker.
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The Belko Experiment

"All employees, no matter what you're doing, please stop and lend me your full attention."

The Belko Experiment is a 2016 horror thriller film directed by Greg McLean ( Wolf Creek ) and written and produced by James Gunn . Its premise has been summarized as " Office Space meets Battle Royale ".

The film revolves around Belko Industries, a non-profit organization that facilitates American companies in South America. 80 Americans work abroad for the company at a building in Bogotá, Colombia, doing what seems on the surface to be a normal corporate job.

One day, after all the employees arrive to work, a voice on the intercom gives a simple order: two employees must be killed in the next half-hour, or there will be "repercussions". The employees' shock and disbelief at the request turn to horror when the extents of the repercussions are made clear, after which everyone is then locked in the building and forced to participate in a deadly game of kill-or-be-killed.

Gunn was inspired to write the film's screenplay in 2007, with the main premise coming to him in a dream . Although the film was greenlit with Gunn attached to also direct, he ultimately turned down the opportunity and moved onto other projects. In 2014, a producer from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer called Gunn expressing interest in making the film; while he was too busy working on Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) to direct it, he agreed to produce it while being given full creative control.

The Belko Experiment contain examples of:

• Actual Pacifist : Raziya, the Muslim woman, witnesses a bunch of Belko employees (including Vince) stomp one of Barry's gunmen to death (in self-defense, no less) and can only scream for them to stop.
• All for Nothing : Lampshaded by Mike. He's the only character who points out that if this is real, there's no way they will ever let anyone live to tell about it.
• All There in the Script : The names for the majority of the characters.
• Anyone Can Die : Of the 80 employees, only Mike survives.
• Apologetic Attacker : A completely heartbreaking one from Vince to Raziya right before he shoots her.
• Ax-Crazy : Subverted. Nobody is killing out of sadistic pleasure, just self-preservation.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work : The only way to survive is to kill others. Everyone admits it is evil and wrong, but some care more about survival.
• Big Bad : Barry is the one who decides to start hunting people and only grows more unstable as the movie progresses.
• Big Brother Is Watching You : The entire building is under total observation, so anyone attempting escape or trying to remove the bombs in their heads will not get past them.
• Blasphemous Boast : Barry refers to the Voice as "our new god".
• Closed Circle : The building is sealed, and any attempt to escape is met by armed guards.
• Cluster F-Bomb : Several characters drop a few here and there, but Marty takes the cake. Every other sentence out of his mouth contains the F-word even before things get real.
• Characters Dropping Like Flies : There are 80 characters, and 79 need to die within 88 minutes of movie — deaths are very common.
• A woman scared by Raven picks up a fork to protect herself and goes into a fighting stance. Barry calmly walks over to her and gives her much needed hug while gently taking the fork from her hand.
• Cool Old Guy : Bud.
• Cruel and Unusual Death : Lots. Heads exploding by implanted bombs, face smashed with an axe, hacked to death with cleavers, crushed by an elevator...
• The Cynic : Leandra, which ironically puts her worldview more in common to her boss Barry's realism than her friend Mike's idealism.
• Deadly Game : The Belko workers are ordered to kill their co-workers, and threatened with death should they refuse. The announcer outright refers to it as a "game".
• Decoy Protagonist : More like "Decoy Final Girl". Dany Wilkins was genre savvy enough to survive the majority of the game by hiding and avoiding Barry and his crew. The movie builds it up that she might survive the game but made the mistake of getting on an elevator, which led to her getting shot by Barry.
• Dead Star Walking : Michael Rooker doesn't even last a half hour, in addition to being the first employee killed by another employee.
• Defrosting Ice Queen : Dany's supervisor, an older blond lady, all-business demeanor comes across a tad harsh. Later on, that same woman is seen helping an injured young Keith walk down a flight of stairs.
• Downer Ending : Mike survives, but many of his friends and co-workers, including his girlfriend, are dead, and the experiment isn't over as he and many others who survived are once again forced to compete in another round.
• The Dragon : Wendell is by far the most Ax-Crazy of Barry's group. He kills Evan simply for throwing keys to the ground and shows absolutely no emotion or remorse with killing after that.
• Elevator Failure : Barry gets trapped in an elevator when Roberto is crushed by it , getting it stuck in place.
• Elder Abuse : The very first group Barry chooses to execute is anyone over the age of 60.
• Entitled Bastard : The Voice and his cronies have Mike brought before them after he "wins" and arrogantly expect his cooperation when they start grilling him about the psychological effect of what he just experienced. He refuses to play along and kills them all.
• Even Evil Has Standards : Nobody approved of Wendell stabbing Evan for the cardinal sin of throwing the armory keys down the stairs. Terry is downright horrified and even Barry is shown to be visibly annoyed.
• For Science! : The ending explains that it's all just a sick sociology experiment.
• Face Death with Dignity : During the execution line up in the lobby, while others are screaming, crying, begging and damning Barry and friends to hell, one woman just simply takes a deep breath and closes her eyes before she's shot.
• Face–Heel Turn : Several characters undergo one either due to panic, desperation, or just raw pragmatism — some quicker than others.
• Foreshadowing : During Mike's fight with Barry, they knock over an introductory voiceover PowerPoint of Belko Industries, which mentions that the company has forty offices. When Mike ends up becoming the final survivor of the film, the ending reveals that each Belko office had a survivor of its own.
• Gaining the Will to Kill : As the time limit gets closer, some characters begin to realize killing the others is their best chance to live.
• Gentle Giant : Vince Agostino is friendly guy and accommodating boss who takes time to teach new hire Dany the ropes. On more than one occasion used his great strength to move someone to safety; like a wheelchair bound lady. Unfortunately, by the final stage he completely flips his gourd.
• Gorn : Plenty. There are multiple gruesome deaths with gory bodies on full display.
• Hero of Another Story : The ending shows 39 other people that won their own "game."
• Hidden in Plain Sight : All of the monitoring equipment and scientists are hidden in a huge, dilapidated aircraft hangar that is on Belko property for some reason that apparently nobody has ever bothered to look in.
• I Have a Family : Invoked multiple times by multiple people. Even the most murderous of the group call out and set aside those with children under 18 and spare them from execution. Until game 3, anyway.
• Improvised Weapon : Lots. A wrench, a hammer, a tape dispenser, a rolling pin, a fork, a podium, the blade of a paper cutter, molotovs, kitchen knives, cleavers...
• Instant Death Bullet : Multiple scenes with a handgun being fired into a crowd and people just fall over instantly dead.
• Laser-Guided Karma : Lonny accidentally kills Bud in a fit of panic when he just trying get Lonny to calm down. Then Lonny gets accidentally killed by Dany when he desperately tries to force her to keep quiet about whole mess.
• Lottery of Doom : Multiple people consider this the morally correct way to let it play out. Don't kill anyone and just wait to see who dies.
• Made of Indestructium : The shields that seal the doors and windows don't even heat up , let alone melt, after prolonged use of an acetylene torch.
• MegaCorp : Belko Industries, a non-profit company. With body armored security guards and a fully stocked armory. Oh, and the mandatory murder. It's indicated the entire company and its many offices are just a front for the titular experiment.
• Mr. Fixit : Bud. When the AC is disabled, he is absolutely confident he can fix it no matter what "they" did to it.
• The Needs of the Many : Characters make this argument several times. Assuming the rules are followed, killing 30 means 50 survive. Otherwise only 20 survive. Mike counters that, even setting aside the morality of complying with this mandate, there's no way in hell that killing 30 people will actually save anyone, because there's no way anyone pulling this kind of "social experiment" would let anyone live to tell of it. He's right.
• No Name Given : A huge majority of the employees are never named and simply serve as fodder.
• No Social Skills : Subverted for Wendell. His creepiness toward Leandra not withstanding, Wendell is shown to get along rather well with the rest of his coworkers at the beginning of the film.
• Older Sidekick : Chet to Marty. He seems to just go along with whatever crazy nonsense Marty comes up with.
• Ominous Multiple Screens : The final shot of the film is a camera zooming out on a panel of dozens of screens, showing other "winners".
• Only Sane Man : Out of all the Belko employees, Mike is the most rational. When the "experiment" is first announced, Mike immediately attempts get everyone to calmly evacuate. The majority thinks it's just some kind of prank, to which Mike admits that it is likely but still insists on leaving just to be on the safe side.
• Pull the Thread : Lampshaded. Multiple characters notice and mention that the security guards were replaced with armed soldiers, but nobody actually seems to care.
• Read the Fine Print : Marty makes a comment about Belko being able to do anything they want because of the absurd contracts they were required to sign to begin working there, and asks if anyone else actually read it before signing. Nobody did.
• Retired Badass : Barry and Wendell. When discussing whether or not they should start killing people, someone makes mention that "some of us aren't trained Special Forces killers" and gestures at them both.
• The Reveal : Mike is the sole survivor of the film...but the screen at the end shows that 40 other people survived the experiment, a majority of them covered in blood and holding weapons, and a voice announces the commencement of "stage 2" .
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge : After becoming the last man standing, Mike manages to kill all the guards and scientists running the experiment as revenge for what they did.
• The Belko employees are given one already-insane choice at first: kill two fellow employees in a half-hour's time, or "face repercussions" (which are revealed to be double that amount of employees being killed ).
• This is then one-upped by the next choice the employees get: kill thirty coworkers in two hours' time, or Belko will kill sixty .
• Sanity Slippage : Barry, who goes from the most collective to flat-out doing an execution in the lobby and then just going on a killing spree when Belko states that the person with the highest kill count will survive .
• Sealed Room in the Middle of Nowhere : The Belko building is in an extremely rural part of Colombia, and all exits are sealed off.
• Sequel Hook : The film ends with the reveal that Belko is a huge corporation with many, many locations... all of which were performing the same experiment. A disembodied voice states that "stage two" has commenced, implying that all of the survivors are going to be placed in another experiment, not let free as promised.
• Shoot Everything That Moves : Employees with guns employ this method when they lose control.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog : Dany, the new hire on her first day, is built up throughout the film as a possible Final Girl , as she survives various situations and has several scenes devoted to her sub-arc. She gets killed nonchalantly by Barry towards the end.
• Sinister Surveillance : Someone is watching what's going on in Belko...
• Spotting the Thread : The first indication that something is off is the security has been replaced by heavily armed guards and all of the Colombian employees are being sent home for the day.
• Spy Cam : Used liberally. Multiple are hidden in every room of the Belko building.
• The Stoner : Marty. Heck, his first scene is of him smoking a joint in the bathroom. Once the situation takes turn for the worse, however, he exhibits behavior akin to getting high with mushrooms instead of marijuana.
• Stupid Evil : Exhibited in the ending. Mike is the sole survivor, and is brought before the Entitled Bastards responsible for the murders of his coworkers to... do a questionnaire on the experience . It doesn't end well for them, as Mike easily disarms and dispatches them . Even though they're just the decoys for the real masterminds, they're still exceptionally stupid.
• Took a Level in Badass : Mike goes the pacifist route initially, but at the end systematically kills those running the titular experiment.
• Tap on the Head : Subverted. Lonny taps Bud with a wrench to get him away. It caves in his skull and kills him.
• There Can Be Only One : "Game" three is that only the one employee with the most kills gets to leave.
• These Hands Have Killed : Patty when she stabs Antonio to save Mike. A deleted scene expands upon it further.
• Villains Want Mercy : The Voice has the nerve to beg for undeserved mercy when Mike holds him at gunpoint. Mike gives him what he deserves.
• Violence is the Only Option : Characters attempt to dig the explosives out of their heads, make phone calls, blowtorch their way out, and hang banners asking for help. Eventually the only option is to kill each other.
• Water Source Tampering : Marty, unable to comprehend that the game is actually happening , begins trying to spread a theory that they are all hallucinating due to "something" in the water.
• Wham Line : The final line of the film. "End stage one. Commence stage two. "
• One could argue this is the whole point of the experiment.
• Leandra was among the most cynical of the group, yet when she had a pleading Terry (whom earlier came within a hairbreadth of shooting Mike AND her) on the ground and every right to split his head open, Leandra shows Terry mercy.
• Workplace Horror : A thriller where only one employee is allowed to live at the end of the workday.
• Would Hit a Girl : Women are attacked and killed just as indiscriminately and brutally as the men.
• Your Head A-Splode : All Belko employees had a tracking chip implanted in the back of their necks, ostensibly to prevent kidnapping. They also explode when conditions aren't met.
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You don't need to squint very hard to see the satirical elements that might have elevated blood-soaked horror flick "The Belko Experiment" to greatness. The premise—a group of employees are forced to kill each other at the whims of an anonymous employer—is promising. But the script, penned by James Gunn (" Guardians of the Galaxy ," "Slither"), is undercooked, its violence foregrounded to the point of distraction. Many people will either love or hate this film based on how gory and aggressively cynical it is. But realistically, Gunn's biggest conceptual failure is that his scenario is thoughtlessly cruel. The characters could have embodied traits of typical office drones and managers, turning the film into a savage black comedy. But those elements aren't developed beyond a point, making the movie's only selling point its excessive gore and violence.

You'll notice, from the start, how easy it is to either identify with or dismiss characters in "The Belko Experiment" based on how they respond to the stress of being told to kill their fellow employees. Never mind that stress makes people do crazy things: we're supposed to sympathize with by-the-book employee Mike (John Gallagher Jr.) because he's a moderate voice of reason compared to self-appointed megalomaniac Barry ( Tony Goldwyn ). Mike is the kind of guy who encourages his fellow employees to take the stairs, not the elevators while Barry is the kind of guy who says that the group should "consider our options" and think about cooperating with the mysterious uber-boss who's compelling them to kill each other. Both characters clash sooner rather than later because each employee has a GPS micro-chip implanted in their heads—they are working in Bogota, where kidnappings are supposedly not uncommon—which is ultimately used as an explosive to pick off disobedient employees. 

Secondary characters either voice their disapproval or support of Barry and Mike's respective positions: Mike insists that nobody has "the right to choose who lives and who dies" while Barry suggests that they have no choice. You may, at some point, wonder if Barry has a point. But that moment will pass when you see the other guys he's allied himself with, people like jittery, trigger-happy Lonny ( David Dastmalchian ) and sexual-harassment-happy Wendell ( John C. McGinley ). There's no way to take the utilitarian position in this film because these guys are defined exclusively by personality-revealing bad behavior. 

Conversely, there's no way to relate to Mike because he's such a generic goody-goody. What kind of guy warns people to take the stairs and not the elevators during such an emergency? That's a half-serious question: I do not know anything about Mike beyond the fact that he handles stress well, talks other employees down from stress, and is a rational thinker given how much of the film's early expository speculation comes from him (he's a bit chatty at the start, but necessarily so since he's essentially the lone voice of reason). There's no way to tell what he was like before the Belko bosses starting killing their employees off, nor any way to know why we should sympathize with the character beyond the fact that he's part of the solution and not the problem.

Then again, the lack of motivation could have also been a source of great comedy. Belko could be an office like any other: a place where bosses and fellow employees act kind and genial one minute but have the potential to transform into domineering thugs as soon as they fear they're going to be thrown under the bus. That's who Lonny, the most sympathetic of Gunn's baddies, seems to be. But he's annoyingly knock-kneed, and ineffectual, making him instantly unlikable. McGinley's character is defined by his insincere toothy grin, and proud tendency of showing off his muscles, making his narcissism all too apparent. And Barry just wants to stay in control, as he shows when he undermines nice guy security guard Evan ( James Earl ) by breaking into the company's weapons cache(!).

This makes a bloody, unpleasant series of murders the only reason to see "The Belko Experiment." Director Greg McLean (" Wolf Creek ," "Rogue") fails to distinguish himself during medium close-up shots of heads exploding and torsos flailing. But McLean's contributions to "The Belko Experiment" aren't what makes the film so disappointing. Gunn's unimaginative conception of a "Battle Royale" meets " Office Space " style horror film—I just bet that that was the elevator pitch—holds a decent cast back from dying meaningful deaths. Even the most diehard gorehounds and Gunn supporters should give this stinker a pass. 

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in  The New York Times ,  Vanity Fair ,  The Village Voice,  and elsewhere.

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Film credits.

The Belko Experiment (2017)

Rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, language including sexual references, and some drug use.

John Gallagher Jr. as Mike Milch

Tony Goldwyn as Barry Norris

Adria Arjona as Leandra Flores

John C. McGinley as Wendell Dukes

Melonie Diaz as Dany Wilkins

Josh Brener as Keith McLure

Michael Rooker as Bud Melks

Sean Gunn as Marty Espenscheid

Mikaela Hoover as Raziya Memarian

David Del Rio as Roberto Jerez

David Dastmalchian as Alonso 'Lonny' Crane

• Greg Mclean

Cinematographer

• Luis David Sansans
• Tyler Bates

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• What Is Cinema?

The Belko Experiment Is Horrifying for All the Wrong Reasons

Roughly 65 minutes into a press screening of the 88-minute film The Belko Experiment , a voice cried out in the darkness: “For God’s sake, enough already!”

The voice, much to my surprise, was my own—and, after asking a colleague to contact me later to “let me know how this garbage ends,” I raced out into the New York streets with a pounding in my chest and the onset of a rage-induced headache.

I am well aware that writing about movies is quite the cushy gig. I’ve had outdoor jobs in inclement weather; I’ve worked in sales ; I even had a boss who made me go out and buy his pornography. Still, there’s one thing those of you working in the real world can do that I can not: you can change the channel. You can leave the theater. Most of the time, I can’t. But Greg McLean’s hyper-violent gross-out pushed me past the point of professional courtesy. I offer no apologies.

The Belko Experiment may be steeped in over-the-top bloodshed and hampered by an asinine story, but that’s nothing we haven’t seen before. What pushes this movie past “dumb” into “reprehensible” is its glib attitude regarding the consequences of its own images. It is the filmmaking equivalent of an egg avatar on Twitter saying anything — anything —to get a rise out of people for the lulz. Worst of all, it’s got a handful of boilerplate excuses for those who dare call its bluff: “It’s satire!” Or maybe “It’s allegorical!” Or, if all else fails, “Hey, man, don’t censor my art!”

I’d sooner eat glass than advocate censorship, but I do pray for a world where every pip-squeak bro with a camera isn’t given license to whizz in our faces the way The Belko Experiment does.

O.K., so the movie. It’s basically Battle Royale with American office workers instead of Japanese schoolgirls. As with Battle Royale (which I’ve never been overly impressed with, quite frankly, but it has the crutch of its coming-of-age parable to make it more interesting) a swath of normal people suddenly find themselves in a kill-or-be-killed situation. As expats working for a vague corporation in Colombia, our crew are in an easily bunker-ized facility and, stay with me now, they have all had protective chips put in their heads.

This, ostensibly, is for their own protection; tracking in case they are ever kidnapped. But once the “experiment” begins, the real purpose of the chips is revealed. They’re there so an unseen force can push a button and have anyone’s skull explode all over the open floor plan.

Once the “experimenter” proves he means business via a few early deaths, and the 80 remaining workers realize they are completely isolated from civilization, they get the news: if 30 people aren’t killed, 60 people will be killed at random.

It’s completely ludicrous, but these tortuous scenarios do have their roots in actual ethical crises. (“Do we leave Johnson behind to die?” “No, everyone in this platoon is a brother!” etc.) The movie treats it very, very seriously, and what follows is harrowing. At first.

Alliances are formed and, naturally, we side with the “good guys” who scramble to somehow contact the outside world. (They are led by John Gallagher Jr. , who is fine. All the performers are fine. This abhorrent mess isn’t their fault.) Meanwhile, the dickish boss ( Tony Goldwyn ) and other aggros ( John C. McGinley , especially) face the “hard truths” of Darwinism and decide that it’s time to do some killing.

There is a gut-wrenching sequence reminiscent of the selection process used at Auschwitz. Anyone with children under the age of 18 over there. Anyone over 60 over there. It’s brutal and vicious. Grown men and women are sobbing, begging, puking from fear. People kneel down, guns are put to the backs of their heads, and the brains start splattering.

But I left out one thing: the wacky, ironic music. This sequence is cut to a groovy Latin cover of a 60s tune by the Mamas and the Papas for Maximum Edge. Filmmakers with few ideas are still aping the Stuck in the Middle with You bit from Reservoir Dogs —which, by the way, never showed the guy getting his ear cut off.

Director Greg McLean and screenwriter James Gunn have no such tact. A power outage makes everything look cool and neon, like a Michael Mann film; once the killing begins, the movie devolves into a cavalcade of gruesome squibs, exit wounds, and creative kills amid the cries and pleas for mercy.

Blood flies everywhere. Bones are crunched, skulls caved in. A premature ejaculation arrives when the baddies make good on their threat and, as terrified faces of all age and stripe meet their gooey end, the soundtrack switches to Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. (If you aren’t sure if you know this one, trust me, you do .) The barbarism ballet is horrifically nihilistic and bratty—but what really stinks is that the movie is designed to make those who say it’s gone too far sound like schoolmarms. Yes, yes, Internet commenters: I am a beta-male cuck, and I’ve been triggered.

Even more annoyingly, just a few years ago, the entertaining film Kingsman: The Secret Service did this very same bit! They had a radio-controlled thingamabob explode a bunch of heads, all set to classical music . That film’s tone was completely different, of course, and the violence was a lot more cartoonish. Belko , however, wants to have its scrambled cerebellum and eat it, too.

One could, I suppose, argue that my revulsion to this onslaught of gun violence is an example of “very effective filmmaking.” But even that would be a lie. The one other time I quit a screening before its completion, The Raid 2 at Sundance, it was because the gruesome violence (mixed with Park City, Utah’s high altitude) had me close to projectile vomiting all over the innocent fest-attendee seated a row ahead of me. Still, in my review , I gave a sheepish salute to the choreographers and athletes involved in the making of that film.

Not this time. The mindset behind The Belko Experiment is no different than that of a cruel 12-year-old who burns ants with a magnifying glass. The mayhem may elicit a few “whoaaaas” from drunk boys at a midnight screening, but the same could be said for watching Laser Floyd at the planetarium. And one need not totally abandon one’s morality during a sweet guitar solo. When this movie finds its fans, it will be among the instigators and Internet bullies: the type of people who know very well why there isn't a “White History Month,” but like to ask that question anyway—while safely situated behind a keyboard. For what it's worth, yes, I do know how this movie ends and who “wins”—but the film’s odiousness goes beyond its storytelling. It has a "nothing can affect me" attitude that is also quick to say, “The world is going to hell anyway—so who cares?” Unfortunately, most of us are trying to live in the great chasm between these two nihilistic beliefs.

That The Belko Experiment comes from the mind of James Gunn, whose Guardians of the Galaxy I quite enjoyed, makes me wonder if the oft-ridiculed creative committee behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe deserves more credit for making that space adventure such an agreeable romp. It’s quite something that between the comic-book adaptation and this, it’s the R-rated exposé of human cruelty that comes off as juvenile.

Highbrow Horror

Jordan Hoffman

Contributing editor.

• Entertainment /

The Belko Experiment review: it’s almost horror-satire, but it settles for splatter

The film is battle royale in a corporate setting, with the slightest taste of modern relevance underlying the gore.

By Tasha Robinson

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A recent Hollywood Reporter interview about the cheapie horror movie The Belko Experiment reveals two nuggets of information that seem pretty relevant to how the film came out: reportedly, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn got the plot hook from a dream, then banged out the script in a week. That explains a lot about how The Belko Experiment plays out, as a nightmarish but half-assed scenario where the emotions and the gore have impact, but the larger story behind them doesn’t. It could have used a few more weeks on the drafting table, to sharpen its ideas and give it priorities other than gore. There’s a freshly relevant, Get Out -level social satire lurking somewhere in the movie’s core conceits, but what actually made it to the screen feels much cheaper and easier.

Director Greg McLean ( Wolf Creek ) goes lean and low-budget with this bloody thriller, which manages to turn an immense office building into a suspiciously samey claustrophobic space. Belko Industries is a staffing corporation that helps international companies place American workers. Its Bogotá, Colombia office, located in an out-of-the-way rural area, operates under high security to guard against its employees being kidnapped. The generous benefits packaging includes a company apartment and a company car, but also a company tracking chip, surgically installed in employees’ heads so they can be found if they’re taken hostage. Then one day, new security guards show up and turn all the local staffers away. Shortly thereafter, thick metal shutters drop over the windows, and a voice informs the remaining 80 Belko employees on site that they can either start killing each other, or be remotely executed via the chips in their heads. Naturally, they resist at first, hoping it’s all a prank. The first few head-explosions prove it isn’t, order breaks down, and the bloody mayhem starts.

It takes a fair bit of time for The Belko Experiment to find its feet, because the cast is so large and the setup so rushed in order to get to the blood. Eventually, some key characters emerge out of the chaos. Tiresome romantic-lead exec Leandra (Adria Arjona) verbally pushes for an amoral everyone-for-themselves attitude, but spends most of the film urging others on instead of taking action herself. Her Everyman boyfriend Mike ( The Newsroom ’s John Gallagher Jr.) is more of a hero, personally standing up for decency and morality, and occasionally getting other people killed as a result. Their buddy Terry (Owain Yeoman) is terrified and willing to do anything to survive; their boss Barry (Tony Goldwyn), a former special-forces commando, is determined to take charge of the murder party and make it as clean and efficient as possible. And then there are other factors, like frightened but decent front-desk security guard Evan (James Earl); tight-lipped Dany (Melonie Diaz), who’s just started her first day on the job; dismissive stoner Marty (James Gunn’s brother Sean), who blames hallucinogens in the water coolers for the whole mess; and grinning sociopath Wendall Dukes (John C. McGinley), who seems to have waited his whole life for a catastrophe to let him off the chain.

all the emergent villains are white men

Viewers attuned to the social messages subtly or overtly woven into so many modern horror movies will certainly notice that even though Belko Industries is a relatively diverse and gender-balanced company, all the emergent villains are white men. And those men justify their descent into murderous mania in a variety of telling ways, masking it behind responsibility, or openly parading it as survival-of-the-fittest entitlement. McLean and Gunn also use the office setting to poke a little stiff fun at corporate culture, especially with a wry gag involving a chipper company-boosting presentation activated at an inopportune moment. There’s certainly endless grim comedy to be mined from comparing standard business practices to a bloodthirsty kill-spree motivated by unseen forces, and enacted by people who tell themselves they’re just doing what’s necessary to get ahead. In particular, Barry treating a company kill-offs as if it was a round of lay-offs — regrettable, but necessary for the bottom line — suggests some thoughts about how institutions consider their people disposable, and how that attitude comes less from necessity than from self-absorbed, empathy-free leadership.

But the film’s efforts at metaphor or relevance only amount to a few vague shrugs. Mostly, the filmmakers are invested in the shock value of an axe descending repeatedly into a face, or the splatter patterns of exploding heads and terrified, puking victims. The gore never reaches unprecedented levels — it’s startling, but in no way groundbreaking — but it’s still graphic and aggressive enough to make an impact even on jaded horror-hounds.

But with such a large cast, and so many characters who never develop personalities, that violence often feels abstract and impersonal. It doesn’t help that the directives to kill come from an unseen, anonymous source, and that there’s no way for the protagonists to meaningfully fight back against it. Their helplessness and confusion makes Belko Experiment feel like Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods , but with less humor, and without the peeks behind the antagonists’ screen to shape and humanize the story. (The presence of a smartass pothead named Marty in both films feel like a particularly revealing touch.) And for those who’ve seen this kind of scenario play out a lot — not just to perfection in Cabin , but in mean, weird, fun little indies like Exam and The Human Race , or bigger blockbusters like Battle Royale or The Hunger Games —  Belko Experiment ’s biggest problem is that it doesn’t find any ways to distinguish itself. It’s neither stylish enough or ambitious enough. Its characters, its bland office setting, and its hand-wavey “corporate life is hell” messages are all equally generic.  

Which is why it’s so surprising that the film has come on the tail of such an aggressively strange marketing campaign, with a Lego trailer , a series of grotesque and silly Claymation teasers, and social media marketing that cavalierly sets up the characters in a sports-style survival bracket attempting to capitalize on the NCAA’s March Madness tournament. All the little stabs at creating a viral experience and building word-of-mouth are funny, but they also put all the emphasis on blood and guts, and virtually none on the story that gets those things onscreen. When the movie itself plays out with the same disappointing priorities, it feels like truth in advertising, but also like an empty experience in ghoulish nihilism. The Belko Experiment ends on a shot that openly evokes Cabin in the Woods , and also unfortunately recalls the recent post-credit scene of the recent Kong: Skull Island . The implication is that there’s a lot more to come, a potential franchise waiting in the wings. The Belko Experiment doesn’t make anything about that prospect sound interesting. There isn’t enough here for one movie, let alone an entire series. 

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The Belko Experiment is an empty, nasty, weirdly out-of-date office satire

The movie mashes up The Office and Hunger Games to little effect.

by Emily St. James

The Belko Experiment often feels like it began life as a really strange piece of Office fan fiction.

The new indie action-horror-comedy mash-up that posits a Hunger Games –style battle to the death in an office building centers on characters who might as well be labeled “the Jim,” “the Michael,” “the Stanley,” etc.

A part of me spent the entire screening of the film wishing director Greg McLean (of famed Australian horror movie/endurance test Wolf Creek ) had somehow managed to convince the entire cast of The Office to star in the movie.

But it’s not just The Office and The Hunger Games (or, probably more accurately, The Hunger Games ’ much more violent Japanese forebear, Battle Royale ). There’s also a healthy dose of The Cabin in the Woods in The Belko Experiment , as well as a dash of real-life events like the Stanford Prison Experiment.

That sounds like it should be a fun cocktail of craziness, right? Unfortunately, Belko feels like it’s really laying it to an America that barely exists any more. It’s yesterday’s satire, updated for today, and only interested in its brutality for brutality’s sake. It’s slick, empty, and uninterested in anything but its own viciousness.

Everything about The Belko Experiment feels like it was written in 2005

There’s a distinct whiff of “real estate boom” to The Belko Experiment , in a way that suggests neither McLean nor screenwriter James Gunn have set foot in an office environment since the early 2000s.

Our definition of what it means to be a “working stiff” has changed so much in such a short time that The Belko Experiment ends up seeming like a period piece. Many of the characters have private offices (even if they’re relatively low on the corporate ladder), their jobs seem designed to pursue completely imaginary goals, and the whole film has a “forced corporate fun” vibe that feels like it lags behind our “open office full of overworked, underpaid millennials” era.

The characters who work for the Belko corporation — which, you might have gathered, is subjected to an experiment — all exist within a company that’s meant to facilitate the process of helping American workers move overseas. (The film is set and was shot in Colombia.) This kind of empty, corporate job, designed mostly to move money around various ledger sheets, still exists in 2017, but Belko doesn’t really have anything to say about the work itself, or global capitalism, or even office politics beyond, “Boy, sometimes, working in an office environment can be dehumanizing!”

Indeed, maybe the lack of specificity around the Belko corporation is the point. The movie immediately pivots to the characters all attempting to kill each other at the behest of a mysterious voice, and the weird universality of this particular office environment is likely meant to suggest what would happen if any one of the millions of offices around the world erupted into bloodshed.

But even that excuse pales when you realize how stiff and lazy Belko is in its conception of a “typical” corporate environment. There are occasional stabs at exploring workplace harassment, or considering the ultimate hollowness of most workplace friendships. But none of these ideas are explored any better thanks to the horror movie context, or any more so than they already have been in dozens of other workplace comedies and satires.

This means The Belko Experiment exists mainly to dispatch of its surprisingly stacked cast (which includes everybody from rising leading man John Gallagher Jr. to Tony Goldwyn to John C. McGinley — to name three familiar faces at random). McLean, a gorehound to the end, indulges in shots of bodies being cut, splattered, and popped like ticks. Heads explode, axes enter chest cavities, and Molotov cocktails rain down.

McLean knows how to be nasty and gory. Wolf Creek toed the line but generally stayed on the right side of exploitative. But Belko , obviously shot on a shoestring budget, gets caught in a feedback loop between its larger ideals of workplace satire and its evidently cheap look.

Good exploitation movies have a certain verve to them. Every time Belko gets into a groove, with some fun plot twists or inventively gory moments, it pauses to make some point or another about the modern workplace that feels at least a decade out of date.

There’s a good — maybe even a great — action-horror-satire to be made about how in the post-Great Recession world, plenty of Americans in white-collar jobs feel increasingly held captive by the need to keep their heads above water, even as they realize the darkness at the heart of the companies they work for.

The Belko Experiment occasionally gets close to realizing that idea, but most of the time, it feels like it was unearthed during an archaeological dig exploring the long-ago world of 2005.

The Belko Experiment is playing in select theaters.

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This office horror movie from 8 years ago is perfect to watch while waiting for severance season 2.

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Ben Stiller's Severance Season 2 Update Makes Me Worried About The Show's Return

Compelling severance season 2 theory claims lumon’s elevator is more important than you think, the 1 severance scene that no theory can explain still bothers me 2 years later:.

• Delve into the unique premise of Severance, where a man is split between his real self and work self, unveiling nefarious company secrets.
• Enjoy the haunting and tense yet humorous atmosphere of Severance, exploring the dynamics of split selves within an eerie office setting.
• Compare The Belko Experiment to Severance for its similar themes of office horror and powerlessness against secret agendas in both workplaces.

Although the wait for Severance season 2 has been a long and difficult one, luckily there is a movie with strangely similar themes that is a perfect watch until Severance's premiere. Severance is a thriller television series that streamed its first season on Apple TV+ in 2022. The show, starring Adam Scott, follows a man who works for a company in which he is split between his real self and his work self. In this way, he cannot remember what happens at work, and his work self never leaves. In season 1, the employees discover the company's nefarious secrets.

What makes Severance such an outstanding show, and what makes the wait for Severance season 2 so terrible , is the unique premise of the show. While the concept of splitting a person into two versions of themselves, isn't necessarily new, the execution of Severance is what sets it over the edge . The series is haunting and tense yet also hilarious. Severance's ensemble cast provides several unique experiences to watch from. And above all, t he aesthetic is so desolate as to affect the watcher every single episode. But, luckily, Severance is not the only show to explore these deeply interesting ideas.

Severance director Ben Stiller has recently passed comment on where Severance season 2 is up to, and it raises some pretty concerning issues.

2016's The Belko Experiment Is Very Similar To Severance

The belko experiment sees workers used as test subjects.

Although nothing can truly capture the unique ambiance that Severance offered in season 1, there is another movie that feels quite similar , and therefore, could be a good watch while waiting for Severance season 2 . The 2016 movie is called The Belko Experiment. In the film, eighty American people are in Colombia working for a company called Belko Industries. However, one day, the workers are all locked into the building and told that they must start killing each other . Though a much more blatantly violent premise than Severance, The Belko Experiment has office horror and incredible tension.

The Belko Experiment is most like Severance because of its cast dynamics and its sense of helplessness. The characters within The Belko Experiment are given a set amount of time in which thirty employees must be dead. The company splits into factions, and each group has a different idea about what to do in this scenario . In many ways, this is like a bigger scale Severance. Furthermore, the characters in Belko are completely powerless to their company .

Once again, this offers the same feelings of surveillance and dread that Severance invokes.

Employees In Severance & The Belko Experiment Are Fodder For Secret Agendas

Severance and the belko experiment antagonize offices.

Above all, the main similarity between Severance and The Belko Experiment, and what makes both so unique, is that the characters are fighting against the people who they work for . Whereas most horror movies use a supernatural being as their villain, both The Belko Experiment and Severance antagonize offices, which appear as normal as can be in the beginning. This trend of turning regular offices into villains is a really interesting concept . It makes reality feel a bit scarier, while also raising questions about capitalism and business. Overall, Severance fans should give The Belko Experiment a try.

Severance season 2 has no confirmed release date as of now.

Antonio Fowler

• Edit source

Antonio Fowler is the minor antagonist in The Belko Experiment . He was portrayed by Benjamin Byron Davis .

Antonio was killed by Peggy Displasia when she stabbed him in the gut with his own butcher knife.

• Antonio was the 31st employee to be killed.
• According to Antonio's staff ID card, he was born on 21 May 1972.

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Belko Experiment is the one movie I don't understand how it didn't become a huge hit. The amazing premise, amazing characters, great performances, etc.

I think this script from James Gunn is so good. It's funny, zany, heartbreaking, etc. The one thing with handling a large number of characters is trying to get people to care about them and there are about 5 or 6 deaths in this movie that I legit was bummed out by and then when the villains die I was so overjoyed. The deaths are outstanding and the twist ending I thought was very well done. I do think the direction lagged a bit. Some of the shootouts and overall action could've been choreographed a tad bit better and I think if Gunn directed it the movie would've been much tighter, but overall one of the more enjoyable films I've seen lately.

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