Fried Barry

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Man oh man, this was a weird one. I'm a little bit stuck on it, because it lies somewhere between material that isn't for me at all, but being able to admire various aspects about it. This is one of those movies one might very well want to shower after watching, due to how dirty it is. It goes to various extremes with bodily fluids and other gross out horror, which I tend to find as a pretty cheap way to gauge the audience, and I've never really been a fan of. However, strangely enough, this one has a very very strange charm to it in its very simple plot.

We are introduced to Barry (Gary Green); a junkie who's going through all the negativity that comes with the territory, including being distant with his family and friends who have a strong belief that drugs are the answer to all of life's problems. One night, while on a heroin binge, Barry is abducted by aliens, experimented on in all sorts of delightful ways (including things going inside of things). 'Fire in the Sky' was scarier, but still, it wasn't a fun section of the movie at all. Not horrific, just really cringe-worthy. Anyway, everything ends with an alien taking over Barry's body, and exploring all of the pleasures of Cape Town, South Africa.

Such pleasures, of course, include exploring things like sex and drugs. These moments result in total awkwardness as something about it will make you laugh, but things are still dark and/or gross enough to reveal the horror side of the film. Gary Green's performance here is actually pretty damn good. We can fully believe there is an alien hidden behind the flesh of this man. And honestly, I kind of enjoy this alien character in a really weird way. Things start off with him being pretty gnarly, and you get to thinking that things are just going to be over the top. However, this alien dude ends up learning a thing or two about the softer side of humanity as well.

I'm so incredibly torn about my opinion on it. On one hand, I liked it, but on the other, I have to admit that there was a lot of stuff I found to be unnecessarily thrown in. At the same time, this is a work of the truly bizarre. You will end this movie wondering what in the hell it was you just watched. It's full of awkward moments, but there's some creativity going on here, the acting is surprisingly good (namely from Green), and somehow this otherwise gross and juvenile film manages to find a heart somewhere behind all of that.... rotten meat. So needless to say, it's definitely NOT for everyone. The truth of the matter is that I feel like this will get something of a cult following if anything. It's bound to interest certain people, but it's not up my alley as much as it could be.
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It's interesting that here we have a film that takes all of the horror of alien abduction and manages to combine it with the curiosity of something like 'ET'. The only difference is, this is ET exploring the red light district of town and getting into all sorts of trouble (actually, I would totally watch that). On the whole, this is a pretty creepy watch, and you do have to dig a little bit to find the good stuff among a pile of wiggling worms, so it all depends on personal taste. It's one of those movies that doesn't feel like it knows who its for, and you have to get far into the movie to gain any real interest. I suppose it's passable for what it is, but I'm not going to feel like checking it out again anytime soon. It's a once-over thinker, and then you're over it. A 2, but a high 2.

2/5

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