The Belko Experiment: 10 Things You Never Noticed In The Thriller Movie

What is better than action with horror, blood, and guts thrown into the mix to get your adrenaline pumping? We don’t know what is, but we just love the gore of these kinds of films. The Belko Experiment, a 2016 action-thriller, brought all the graphic killing scenes and psychological madness that we want in our movies. It’s super unpleasant but we just can’t look away. The premise of the film is a macabre social experiment that results in the characters trapped in their office building in Colombia when a strange voice appears over the intercom and throws everyone into confusion and terror.

10 The Number Of Staff

At the beginning of the movie, we’re introduced to Belko Industries and the staff. The main players are brought to the forefront as everyone files into work at the start of the day. We meet Mike Milch, played by John Gallagher, Jr; Barry Noris, played by Tony Goldwyn; Leandra Florez, played by Adria Arjona; and Dany Wilkins, who is starting her first day at Belko Industries, played by Melonie Diaz, just to name a few. Aside from the main characters, the total number of staff present in the building at the time of all the mayhem is 80. That makes for a lot of blood spills.

9 The Plot Has Been Done

As mentioned, the focus of the film revolves around a group of co-workers trapped in their place of employment who are forced to kill each other. You may or may not have noticed, the similarity of this movie’s plot to those of Battle Royale, a 2000 sci-fi/thriller. In Battle Royale, a group of teens is carted off to an island with food, weapons, maps and explosive collars that blow up if they break the rules. The ultimate goal is survival – kill everyone else and if you’re the last one standing, you get to leave the island. The Belko Experiment follows the same plot with the major difference being the playing field.

8 The Director

Not everybody pays keen attention to the credits. The focus is usually on the picture itself and the cast of characters. You may have seen The Belko Experiment and not know the names of most of the main actors, but unless you paid attention to the credits or you consulted trusty Google, you might not know right off the bat who sat in the director’s chair and orchestrated the bloody beauty of it all. It was Greg McLean, the man who also directed Jungle, Wolf Creek and Wolf Creek 2.

7 The Genius Behind The Madness

When experiencing certain movies, no matter what genre, sometimes we wonder what goes on in the minds of the writers. That was the case with The Belko Experiment. There’s so much violence and bloodshed, it’s hard not to give the creator a little bit of side-eye because who dreams up something like that? This film sprung from the mind of James Gunn who also brought us greats like Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and a related horror, Slither. Thank you, James Gunn, for this mind-blowing work of terror.

6 The Story Behind The Creation

Now that you know who wrote the screenplay, let’s dive into a few interesting facts on how it transitioned over to the big screen. James Gunn reported that he dreamt of the idea (or the trailer rather) for the film. It sounds less like a dream and more like a ghastly nightmare. He wanted to make the film in 2007 when he wrote the screenplay but put it on pause because he was dealing with other matters. That’s just fine because we still got the gory gift of The Belko Experiment, even if it was years later.

5 Repeat Co-Workers

With all the intense killing displayed on the screen, you may not have noticed that there are familiar faces in this film you might have seen in other works from Gunn.  Michael Rooker, who played Bud Melks in the film, worked on other James Gunn projects. He acted in Guardians of the Galaxy as Yondu, as Abe in Super, and as Grant in Slither. The Belko Experiment is Rooker’s fifth time acting in a James Gunn film. It’s safe to say they get along very well then.

4 No Sibling Rivalry

Michael Rooker isn’t the only one that Gunn enjoys filming with. His younger brother Sean was a part of The Belko Experiment. How many of you caught that? The writer reportedly allowed his brother to choose the role he wanted to play and the younger Gunn selected the role of Marty. This isn’t the first project of his older brother’s that Sean has worked on either. He plays Kraglin in both Guardians of the Galaxy films to date. There’s no sibling rivalry here. Nothing but love and support for each others’ careers.

3 Unique Death Scene

There are plenty of gruesome deaths in The Belko Experiment, but which one stands out the most? There was a lot of shooting and heads literally exploding, but those were swift (and probably merciful compared to other ways some characters met their end). The top had to be Bud Melks, who was gruesomely bludgeoned with a wrench… ouch. Rooker, having worked with James Gunn before, was able to work with him to tailor his death scene to make it more unique and memorable. He worked with the CGI team to ensure the creation of unique injuries. The death scene was memorable.

2 Hidden Message

This little detail is very easy to miss, even if you’ve watched the movie multiple times. It’s such a minor detail that probably only the extremely observant would notice. When the Belko Industries logo is shown, if you look close enough, you’ll notice the shape of an eye on its side. This is symbolic of one of the overarching themes of the film, which is that everyone is being watched. This surveillance of the employees was further depicted when we discovered that they all had trackers implanted in the base of their skulls (which really turned out to be bombs).

1 The Bottom Line Of The Experiment

It’s easy to get confused and lost in all of the action, even more so when it’s a psychological thriller like The Belko Experiment. With bodies dropping left, right and center, it’s dazzling to the eyes and the brain. If some of the dialogue was lost on you, it’s okay, perhaps the blood and gore were just too much. We discover in the end that the purpose of the entire gruesome game is a sick social experiment to basically monitor how different people act when under duress. Their methods were mighty extreme, wouldn’t you say?

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