Bad Milo (2013): A Macabre Review.

Starring Ken Marino, Gillian Jacobs, Patrick Warburton

Directed by Jacob Vaughan

Back in August I posted the alternate trailer for Bad Milo that you see above this sentence.  Well, now I'm here to review Bad Milo and let you know if it's worth checking out when it's released in theaters and On Demand/iTunes on Friday, October 4th.

Bad Milo centers around Duncan, a hardworking, loving husband, who as of late has been having increasing abdominal pains that mostly tend to flare up during times of stress.  A visit to Duncan's doctor results in discovering an unusual lump in his intestinal tract, which the doctor believes is getting worse due to the amount of stress Duncan is dealing with.  So the doctor recommends seeing a therapist to help Duncan keep his stress levels down.

Duncan reluctantly does so, but the therapist turns out to be a little too weird for him.  After returning home Duncan gets a call from his co-worker Alastair who informs Duncan that he accidentally deleted a year's worth of work.  That combined with the rest of the stress buildup from work and his family was all he could stand, and later it culminated into the release of Duncan's "inner demon" so to speak.

It's the little things, like watching TV with your little ass demon, that makes it all worthwhile.

The demon, later named "Milo" by Duncan, loves his human father so much that to make him happy, the demon starts to kill those who are causing him the most stress.  Hilariously, the media reports  it as  a rash of raccoon related deaths.  Unfortunately, Milo's efforts to make Duncan happy are doing just the opposite.  Duncan tries to keep Milo under control, with little success.  Will Duncan succeed in keeping Milo in check before Milo decides to attack those closest to Duncan?

That was of course a bare bones description of the story.  I left out quite a lot of detail that I believe you need to see for yourselves and enjoy.  I had a lot of fun watching Bad Milo for a number of reasons.

First off, there is a great cast behind this movie.  Ken Marino held it down as the stress-filled Duncan, who did an excellent job demonstrating the agony felt when Milo made his, um, entrances and exits from the back door.  Gillian Jacobs was also great as Duncan's wife Sarah.  She was sweet and supportive of her husband, but unfortunately wasn't on-screen as much as I expected.  And Peter Stormare was brilliant as the oddball hypnotherapist Highsmith.  I was pretty amazed that he turned out to be of more help to Duncan than I thought possible.

"When I said I wanted to have a baby with you, this isn't what I had in mind!"

And the effects, ah the effects. Bad Milo was heavy on the practical effects, which is a definite plus for me.  It reminded me of the glory days of the 80s.  And as many of you know from my previous cursing of CGI overuse, movies make me a lot happier if they follow the 80s example like Bad Milo does.

This is of course not a straight horror movie.  There's a ton of humor involved throughout, with a little monster and some grisly murders thrown in.  You might wonder how Milo gets in and out of Duncan's ass without killing him.  Well, from what I can gather Milo is able to alter his body's shape somewhat, as at one point in the movie we see him going down the drain of a sink and popping out of another without difficulty.  And I don't want to know why the hypnotherapist just happens to have an old book that talks about ass demons.

You might find the movie isn't quite bloody enough or not enough people die for your liking.  But what is there should be more than enough for you to get your fill of entertainment.  I recommend you watch Bad Milo when it's released on Friday.  And if not Friday then as soon as possible afterwards.  Until next time, may you all rest in peace.

Macabre Rating: 4 out of 5 tombstones