PLOT: A mild-mannered accountant (Ken Marino) is horrified to discover that he has a murderous monster living in his anus. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. Ouch.
REVIEW: And here I thought I had seen it all. I have to hand it to director Jacob Vaughn. I’ve seen monster movies where the monster comes out of a womb, a dog, a cow, and heck, even one where it grows out of a woman’s neck (THE MANITOU). But I’ve never seen one where the monster comes out of a guy’s anus.
Given the premise, I don’t think I’m surprising anyone here when I reveal that BAD MILO is not really a horror movie, but rather a horror-comedy with a strong emphasis on the comedy. If you’re aware of leading man Ken Marino‘s credentials (he worked on THE STATE, and has been in loads of great stuff like PARTY DOWN and WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER), you’ll get the kind of comedy BAD MILO goes for. It feels like a bit of a spoof of Troma-style horror movies (which are pretty much spoofs in their own right), mixed in with a little of Larry Cohen‘s IT’S ALIVE, all done in a deliberately cheesy way.
The monster, Milo- which I believe was achieved by old-school puppetry- is great. He’s a cute little bugger, despite having crawled out of Ken Marino‘s ass, and being constantly covered in shit. Eventually, our everyman hero is convinced by his new-agey therapist (a hilarious Peter Stormare) to try and bond with the critter rather than fear it. The sight of Ken Marino cuddling with this bum monster, and gently coaxing and easing it back in to his anus (with Stormare looks on with tears in his eyes) damn near had me rolling in the aisles, although I imagine this won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Not by a long shot.
Truth be told, BAD MILO takes a little too long to really get going, and the stuff with Marino being hassled at his workplace by his loutish boss (Patrick Warburton) felt a little familiar. Workplace comedy-boo. Anal demons- yay!!! The horror only really comes into play towards the end, when little Milo starts to feel threatened by Marino’s relationship with his gorgeous, and patient wife (COMMUNITY’s Gillian Jacobs– who I’ve always thought has real star quality), but even then, other than one really gruesome kill by Milo, it’s pretty tame stuff. It’s fairly gory, but it’s “funny gore”, and not too upsetting. Heck, if it weren’t for the fact that Milo crawls out of people’s asses, I would have said this is perfect for kids.
Of course, BAD MILO is tremendously silly, but it’s the kind of thing you either go with, or you don’t. It’s not perfect, but I had a pleasant time with it, and Marino, Stormare, and Jacobs are always worth watching. It’s the rare “cute” horror-comedy, and definitely much better than the relatively similar (but infinitely worse) HELL BABY. As far as killer ass-demon movies go, this is pretty good.