This Underrated James Gunn Horror Movie Came To Him In A Dream

Here's the thing about James Gunn stories: even when they get dark, there's usually a warm, fuzzy center to them that offsets some of that darkness. However, that's very much not the case with the 2016 pitch-dark horror-comedy "The Belko Experiment," which was written by Gunn and directed by Greg McLean, who's best known for the brutal "Wolf Creek" films. While there are nasty moments in a lot of Gunn's movies and TV series, none of them are as quite as relentlessly bleak as "The Belko Experiment," which follows 80 American office workers trapped in their corporate office in Bogotá, Colombia as they're ordered to kill one another as a part of a disturbing social experiment. Fans looking for silly antics like those in "Guardians of the Galaxy" or even the splatter-horror-comedy hijinks of something like "Slither" were sorely disappointed by "The Belko Experiment," and critics weren't all too keen on it, either.

Despite being grim beyond words, there are some great aspects to "The Belko Experiment," including hints of Gunn's more typical sense of humor and some great performances beloved horror movie veterans and/or Gunn's regulars. In an interview with GQ, Gunn revealed the full inspiration behind "The Belko Experiment," and it's no wonder things get so rough. It turns out that the reason the film is so much nastier than Gunn's other work is because he wrote it based on a nightmare he had during a very tough time in his life, which is bound to lead to a pretty nihilistic little movie ... and it did.

Gunn explained the idea behind "The Belko Experiment" and where he was at in his life when he was supposed to direct it, leading him to handing it off to McLean, stating:

"'Belko Experiment' came to me as a dream. I dreamt the trailer for 'The Belko Experiment,' and it was basically the beginning of the movie where the guy comes on the overhead speakers and says 'In the next,' you know, whatever, '12 hours, you need to kill two people or else 30 of you are gonna die,' or whatever, and then the walls close up around the building. I just kind of had that premise to begin with, and I sat down and I wrote it pretty quickly for fun. And it was something I was actually going to direct way back in 2006, 2007. I was going through a divorce at that time, and I didn't really wanna be going and making this dark movie in another country, and be away from my friends at that time. So I went ahead and did another job instead."

Instead of directing "The Belko Experiment," Gunn worked on projects like "Sparky & Mikaela," the pilot for a TV series about a Wonder Woman-esque character and her talking raccoon, along with shorts like "Humanzee!" and the digital comedy short series "PG Porn." Indeed, those are all a lot more fun than "The Belko Experiment," though it is interesting to think about just how different the film might have been with Gunn at the helm, leaning into the humor and characters a bit more instead of going for broke on being unsettling. Maybe then it would have felt a little less like "Squid Game."

Even though "The Belko Experiment" is a certified Bad Time™ at the movies, there are plenty of great moments that make it worth watching. Not only do we get to see repeat Gunn collaborators David Dastmalchian and Michael Rooker as a pair of bizarre co-dependent janitors, but James Gunn's brother Sean Gunn (who both served as the on-set stand-in for Rocket Raccoon and played Kraglin in the "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies, in addition to portraying Maxwell Lord in "Superman") also pops up as a cafeteria worker who gets sucked into the mayhem. 

While it might not be as fun as other James Gunn creations, "The Belko Experiment" still contains quite a few of his trademark themes and types of jokes. And hey, at least he got that bad dream and those seriously dark ideas out of his system.