By Keri O’Shea
Modern life can be hard, can’t it? Oh, I’m not knocking the unprecedented lifespans, the technological marvels or the tremendous ease and comfort we enjoy generally these days, but everything comes with a price, and it seems the price we pay is being mercilessly fucking hounded into the ground by a never-ending list of petty obligations. We’ve all got shit to do, people: shit to do for our bosses, shit to sort out at work, shit to arrange at home. It gets tedious and relentless, and when your life is being micro-managed by a host of people and forces beyond your control that intrude into your life on every level – pinging you as you (try to) sleep, even – then this can take a toll on your well-being. When you’re staring at your phone at 5am on an almost daily basis, or staring with incredulity at someone at your place of work who earns a clear £20,000 a year more than you seemingly simply for failing upwards in a suit, then, well – isn’t life a pain in the ass?
Bad Milo takes this ‘pain in the ass’ expression and allows it to blossom into its most illogical conclusion (I was going to say ‘and runs with it’ – which won’t be the first time I’ll be stopping myself from using too many puns in this review). This film is after all essentially the apotheosis of the fart joke, a way of making us laugh whilst also, somehow, putting across something recognisable and modern. For who, without that whole colon goblin thing, doesn’t feel at least some sympathy for poor old Duncan and his woes?
Yes. There is a colon goblin. Or demon, if you prefer. Milo defies much description.
Duncan (Ken Marino) has issues, see; he has a slimy, incompetent boss who continually obstructs him from just getting on with his day; he has an intrusive mother who in turn has an over-sharing toyboy; he has a wife who wants a baby, regardless of all the above. Not surprisingly, Duncan suffers from Poor Stress Management. This charming modern plague can do a lot to you (and let me sing you the song of my people) – pummel your solar plexus, make you sweat, hyperventilate, repetitively list problems, fail to sleep normally…or, best of all, fuck with your digestive system. Duncan has this. His doctor suspects that he has polyps, but also recommends that he sort out the root cause of all of this by seeing a therapist.
Duncan protests, ineffectually of course, and ends up going to see someone (played with relish by The Big Lebowski’s Peter Stormare) who recommends a short course of hypnotherapy. Duncan goes with it – a colleague has just been offed by a ‘rabid raccoon’, so he has much on his mind – but the thing is, the session brings out something more than just some common-or-garden abandonment issues…
‘Milo’ is a small, mysterious demonic critter who lives in Duncan’s bottom – emerging only to dispatch all of the people who are giving him such grief (hence the dispatch of the co-worker, which had nothing to do with raccoons). Now, finding that he can’t get rid of Milo, Duncan must learn to live with him – and curb his worst behaviour, or else it might wind up with just the two of them.
In many ways I’m struggling with this review as, having said as much as I’ve said above, I feel like I’ve said most of the things I need. Still, I could add that Bad Milo is at the very least, an original piece of work, even while it might not change your life or teaching you something profound about the human condition (though that’s not to say it is without heart). Saying that, it does manage a lot of laughs, mainly via how it builds up the series of ludicrous situations in which Duncan finds himself; I have to say I laughed more at much of the set-up than the ‘big reveal’, as a lot of the early characterisation of Duncan is such a fun blend of preposterous and possible – with actor Ken Marino looking suitably perplexed and hacked off throughout, as you would do. This was a film which played at a few festivals last year – including Abertoir 2013 (where it was reviewed by Tristan) and it’s definitely easy to see how it would have gone down a storm with festival crowds. It has the cartoonish tone, quick pace and jovial music which wouldn’t demand too much from an audience who were very likely hungover and/or sleep-deprived by the time they saw it.
Milo himself is an appealing-looking example of creature FX, which clearly has lots in common with the 80s heyday of ‘mean little critter’ movies. He’s like a perfect blend of Gizmo and Gremlin in a lot of ways, all babyish lingo and doe eyes, when not tearing into people with a row of razor-sharp teeth, that is. There’s also a clear nod to Ghoulies in at least one toilet-related scene. You probably know the scene I mean. Still, where Bad Milo strikes out in its own – apart from Milo’s des res – is how it tries, it its own crazy way, to personify modern stress. You can’t do other than empathise with Duncan in many situations he finds himself in, and whilst the end of the film was at first starting to grind my gears with a bit too too much sentimentality creeping in, it evened out in the end (albeit by providing a rather ambiguous ending, considering what we know by the end of this story. Can we really say it was a happy one?)
Still, minor gripe notwithstanding, I liked Bad Milo a lot. It has charm and originality, being a zany creature feature which merges its comedy with something more telling, never just abandoning one approach to opt for the other.
Bad Milo will be released by Sony Pictures on 20th October 2014.