By: Henry J. Fromage (Three Beers) –
Butt Boy (2020) Drinking Game
Take a Drink: for every thing that Butt Boy *ahem* consumes
Take a Drink: for every trip to work
Take a Drink: for every mighty wind
Do a Shot: when things start exiting
Movie Review
I’m going to keep this simple and start with the trailer for this film. After watching this, or reading the below description, you’ll know whether you’re in or out.
Butt Boy follows Chip Gutchell, mild-mannered husband and IT guy by day, voracious anal devourer of objects large and small by night. He tries to control his strange urges by going to AA, but they intensify just as burnt out Detective Russel Fox joins his group- and starts to get a bit suspicious when local kids start going missing.
A Toast
Butt Boy, director/writer, star (villain?) Tyler Cornack and the rest of the cast truly commit to their film’s bizarre premise. The principal strength of this film is how straight-faced it plays its core bizarrity. It’s like a Tim & Eric joint that’s trying for pitch-black, perverse drama instead of pitch-black, perverse comedy (although never far, there’s plenty of that to go around…)
Cornack (and DP William Morean) also makes the most of his resources as a director, deploying neon wherever possible and coming up with a few cool tracking shots and camera POVs to infuse this spectacular monstrosity with as much style as he can.
He also finds a few clever entry points to this man’s issue, which at its core is an issue of dopamine button pushing out of control- AA feels like exactly where somebody like him would end up trying to fight his demons.
Beer Two
The story is pretty linear when it gets down to the meat of things, and reliant on cop, AA, and serial killer cliches except for the several, spectacular deviations the plot calls for.
Beer Three
It’s clear Cornack’s not working with the highest budget in the world, which makes the “action climax” in a place I won’t describe for fear of spoilers a bit more neon-lit washed out than I was hoping for. It could have been something truly Lynchian.
Instead of more Upside Down-y.
Verdict
Butt Boy is dark, bizarre, uncharacterizable mix of crime thriller and butt stuff. Don’t ask questions, just go along for the ride.
