I love me a good horror comedy. Shaun of the Dead, Cabin in the Woods, Evil Dead 2, and my personal favorite, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil are all examples of films that deliver fun, splatterific gore with butt loads of humor intertwined throughout the feature. Knowing this, you could imagine my level of excitement when I heard about Bad Milo, a horror comedy from director Jacob Vaughan about a guy named Duncan who has a demon living in his ass. The demon comes out when Duncan is feeling angry or stressed at someone and proceeds to kill that person on his behalf. Right? Awesome concept. The question then becomes, did the film deliver more than just the concept? Find out below.
In Bad Milo, Ken Marino plays Duncan, a very stressed out guy who is given the task of firing people after his office was relocated to a bathroom thanks to his sketchy boss. On top of that, he has a pain in the ass of a mother with a young boyfriend who likes to discuss their sex life, a new-age father who abandoned him and a wife (Gillian Jacobs) who, while sweet, is very pressuring. All of this stress begins to cause painful gastrointestinal reactions and soon Duncan resorts to seeing a hypnotherapist (Peter Stormare) to try and calm him down. Together they discover that Duncan has a demon living inside him and pushes his way out of his butthole to kill those who have angered him. Since the demon is essentially part of Duncan, he must figure out how to control Milo so that he doesn’t go after any of his loved ones that piss him off and that’s where he names the demon Milo and their weird father/son relationship is born.
Though it seems like a solid story, Bad Milo is one of those films that has a terrific concept but isn’t fully realized, where the potential isn’t maximized. I went in expecting the type of hilarity that I found in Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, since Magnolia released that as well, but instead I got a mediocre movie that could have been explored further to create some monumentally funny scenes throughout the film instead of scattered chuckles.
The movie thrives when Milo is out running about and causing trouble, whether it be trying to find food to eat, looking like a cute demon baby or out and about with razor sharp teeth ready to stab someone in the heart. It’s his uncontrollable and unpredictable actions that make Milo the star of the film, especially when he is ripping people to shreds; Vaughan does a great job with his use of gore. Personally, I loved the sound effects, the look, the feel and action of Milo and thank Jacob for using a puppet and not a CG character.
When Milo first attacks, and then continues to attack, people think there is a killer raccoon on the lose and that alone I naturally found that to be ridiculous, preposterous but ultimately very funny. Seeing blood eve
rywhere and people’s first thoughts being a raccoon just makes me love director Vaughan’s view of American ideology and how we have to rationalize things.
Outside of Milo, the best part of the film is listening to Peter Stormare talk and act like a hypnotherapist. It’s such a random role that it works well for him, delivering simply stupid but very funny dialogue, unlike some of the over the top, but occasionally still funny, dialogue that comes from Duncan’s mother and boyfriend. Gillian Jacobs on the other hand just seems to try too hard with the sweet yet pressuring wife combo, or maybe it’s her face, I don’t know, there was something with her that didn’t sit well with me and therefore she gets the criticism.
Overall, Bad Milo was an entertaining romp but one that didn’t come close to realizing its full potential. There was a lot of room to grow and explore Milo’s character and the relationship he has/could have had with Duncan that could have garnered a lot of laughs but the surface was merely scratched. Jacob Vaughan shows some promise in the genre, especially the horror elements, and if he can learn from these few miscues, mostly in the form of writing and a little in the form of pulling humor from his actors, I think he’ll have a bright future ahead of him.
Rating: A fun film that has a fantastic and hilarious concept but doesn’t manage to realize its full comedic potential (6/10)
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