‘Bad Milo’ Review
Stars: Ken Marino, Gillian Jacobs, Patrick Warburton, Mary Kay Place, Claudia Choi, Toby Huss, Peter Stormare, Kumail Nanjiani, Steve Zissis | Written by Jacob Vaughan, Benjamin Hayes | Directed by Jacob Vaughan
This bizarre little creature feature was released in 2013 in the States and was directed by Jacob Vaughan (The Cassidy Kids). I was drawn to Bad Milo in the manner that I imagine many people were, the weird and corny synopsis and the silly poster artwork; and I watched this film without any level of expectation, the only way in my view to go into films like this one. The story is a strange one, and a daft one too for that matter…
The main character, Duncan (Ken Marino) is a regular office worker who begins to get pain and discomfort in his guts each time he becomes anxious or stressed out. His job, relationship and family cause his stress to increase and we see things get worse and worse for Duncan, hey, we even get some loud and splattery bathroom scenes to show just how bad it’s become for poor old Dunc. Eventually, after trying to repress his anger and stress, it all comes to a head, literally, and out of his arse pops a creature that he proceeds to name “Milo”. Milo then takes it upon himself to target the people who are causing Duncan such stress and tear them to little bitty pieces. Yeah, you read that correctly, an arse-monster named Milo is killing people that are stressing out an office worker named Duncan. It’s silly, but has its moments of being laugh-out-loud funny and a little bit gross too. The scenes in which Milo climbs back into Duncan’s poop-shoot are especially bizarre.
Bad Milo reminded me of 80’s B-movies like Ghoulies and the lesser-known Munchies, and it belongs with them on a list of watchable, ridiculous and insane little cult films that are best watched late-night after a couple of brown ales.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this to anyone, but I wouldn’t tell people to avoid it either. It’s just one of those films that is simply not for everyone, but it will appeal to some people and those people will have a good time. The performances are fine, and the gore and action is entertaining, but for such a short film I felt like it would have been better suited to a short anthology film rather than a full feature.
Bad Milo is on Netflix, and available on DVD, so if bum-goblins are your bag, then give it a whirl.
