Let’s be clear, I just watched ET’s demon baby-brother crawl out of Professor Wilder from ‘DAWSON’S CREEK’’s ass and chew off a publically masturbating doctor’s penis. I’m not entirely sure what my reviewing job is here. That alone will stand whether you – the audience- will want to watch this movie or not. But, alas- here’s my two cents on BAD MILO!
I give you E.T. That is, E.T. The EXCREMENT TERRESTRIAL.
The premise is as follows, meet Ken (Ken Marino), a plain Jane 30 something dude with a lame accounting job, relationship pressure from his girlfriend (the lovely Gillian Jacobs), stressful parents, and some severe bowel problems. But after Ken’s acquaintances start dropping dead faster than the crew of THE OMEN, It doesn’t take too long for him to realise said bowel problems are actually something a little more carnivorous than post-Saturday-night Jaeger shits; something that turns out to be… a butt demon. Yep, a butt demon.
And, no, that’s not a metaphor: Ken has a demon, which he nicknames Milo, who adorably looks not unlike ET’s foetal sibling living, in his asshole. Milo, helpful little poop demon that he is, wants nothing more than to reduce Ken’s stress levels and so goes about dispatching Ken’s sources of stress in the most toothy way possible. Stress management has never looked so shitty.
Now, you can look allegorically at the film as a piece of Freudian Id study, a Kafkaesque physical agglomerate of one’s inner demons, a social simile on Zimbardo’s Lucifer Effect; but I’m fairly sure the movie itself states its intentions when our protagonist screams “I HAVE MONSTER UP MY ASS, THIS IS THE FURTHEST THING FROM A METAPHOR”.
Yet for as off the deep end berserk as that sounds, BAD MILO remains a remarkably restrained & understated comedic piece. I mean sure there are gags such as where Milo does his version of a dog coming in from the rain & shaking itself off, except in this scenario, it’s brown rain Milo is shaking off, but for just how batshit zonkers it *could* have gone, the film retains a tight grip on its sensible reigns. While for some this more retained approach will be its downfall, what it succeeds in doing is imbue BAD MILO! with an actual sense of purpose. For every grandiose poop-gag set-piece they don’t feature, Ken’s domestic drama remains all the more in perspective and important to the film’s storeline; in effect rendering the ridiculous relatable. It’s surprisingly clever restraint for what is essentially a midnight movie.
With that being said, some good gags aside- in particular a Mayan carving showing “the ancient myth surrounding the anus- and a rollicking STAR WARS-esque showdown finale between Milo and his nemesis, one can’t help but wish they’d pushed it a little bit further. Director Jacob Vaughn wears his inspirations on his sleeve, BAD MILO! is clearly the product of a childhood spent watching BASKET CASE & GHOULIES rented late night from a video store, and yet it never quite reaches the campy midnight-movie peaks that those inspirations manage. It almost feels as if thinks it’s more of a future cult movie than it actually is.
Future camp classic (clampsic?) it may not be, but enough with what it isn’t. What BAD MILO! is, is 85 minutes of damn good fun; and if that is all you want from film, you can do a lot worse that this one. The jokes tickle just enough, the actors do ample to hit all they can with the material, and towering above them all, the character of Milo- so fantastically designed & puppeteered -is cutesy and creepy enough that, the rest of the film aside, he may become a clampsic.
7 tiny vaginas / 10 rogue raccoon attacks
And that’s my two cents.
MyTwoCentsFilm 