Butt Boy

Compulsions are a weird thing. Food. Shopping. Sex. Gambling. Excessive behaviour you know will damage you but you do it anyway. Why? Because you can't stop. Chip (Tyler Cornack) can't stop putting things inside himself. Nope, not his mouth. Remote controls. Pets. Entire persons. He hates himself for it and one night he ends up in his garage with a rope around his neck but his attempt to finish everything fails. 9 years later he runs into a cop, Russell (Tyler Rice), in his AA meeting and becomes his sponsor. Days later, a fateful decision made in the confines of his office puts Chip on a collision course with Russell that can only end messily.

It sounds like a particularly homophobic Farrelly brothers film doesn't it. The title and the concept would both set off alarm bells but to it's credit Butt Boy is played out totally seriously with not a bigoted joke in sight and without resorting to (too many) gross out moments. It's the kind of film you'll start off watching from behind your hands but then, at around the 30 minute mark you'll realise "wait a minute....this is oddly good" and by the gory, dripping finale you'll switch off, happy and satisfied with the films outcome and pleased with the knowledge that you've sat through something that you may never see again onscreen. Spoiler. A film where the finale plays out inside someone's rectum.

Yup. No, no, no, come back. There's something in here for everyone. Honestly. Psychological thriller. Family drama. Cops doing their thing. There's even a couple of action beats. Take out Chip's modus operandi from the film and you'd have a regular, straightforward story about a cop investigating his nemesis. But who wants to see that again? Nah, it's 2020, we want weird, we want surreal, we want a film that starts relatively normal before spinning off its axis into a world where the laws of physics don't apply. Butt Boy delivers this in spades. The last 30 minutes.....well you just got to see it to believe it. It's a priceless satirisation of a genre that climbed up it's own arse years ago. Ba dum TISH!

It works because of Tyler Cornack. Not only did he write and direct it but he's also playing the part of Chip and he's absolutely believable in the part. From his moment of realisation in his doctor's office to his moment of quiet acceptance at the end he commits fully and does things onscreen that would mortify a bigger name. There's even a couple of scenes where you'll actually feel sorry for him and considering a couple of his crimes that's no small deal. Tyler Rice as Russell doesn't do as well. His cop schtick feels cliched the second he appears but it fits in (De Niro impersonations and all) with the satirical feel onscreen. He's estranged from his wife and he has a drink problem. Bingo! When the two are together though it really works. A 'Heat' like chat in a coffee shop sets up the enmity, an office encounter builds the tension leading to a false finale shootout, once again, mano y mano like 'Heat', before things go crazy altogether.

Give it a go. It mightn't (it probably won't) be to your taste but it's like nothing you've seen before. Available to stream on google play and itunes now.