Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Bad Milo! Blu-ray Movie Review

Irritable Demon Syndrome

Reviewed by Michael Reuben January 19, 2014

Co-writer and first time feature director Jacob Vaughan loves the "venereal horror" films of David Cronenberg, especially The Brood, in which a woman's negative emotions manifest themselves as demonic, homicidal offspring. Why not make something similar? Cursed with a sensitive stomach, Vaughan suggested to his writing partner, Benjamin Hayes, a horror film about a creature that emerges from a man's digestive track by a route certain to strike terror, or at least disgust, in the minds of an audience. Thus was born Milo, the polyp from hell.

From a capsule description alone, a creature feature about a monster that lives in a man's bowels and emerges from his rear end sounds like an excuse for an endless string of poop jokes, something that might have been (and, after a fashion, was) one of the short films in the anthology of bad taste, Chillerama. But while Vaughan's directorial debut has its share of gross-out moments in the bathroom, he and Hayes followed Cronenberg's example by going a step further and imagining the forces that might create such a demon. Gastric distress is typically caused, or at least amplified, by stress; so Bad Milo! features a protagonist who is besieged on all sides by people to whom, for one reason or another, he can't express how he really feels. When it gets to be too much, Milo emerges like some colo-rectal Dr. Hyde and seeks vengeance on the poor schlub's tormentors. As in The Brood, there's a doctor who seems to understand it all, but he's even crazier than his patients.

The best thing about Bad Milo! is its talented cast. As the Blu-ray's extras reveal, much of their dialogue was improvised, and the performances are perched on the edge between storytelling and sketch comedy. At the center of it all is Duncan Hayslip (Ken Marino), a harried accountant at a financial services firm where nothing is kosher and clients' funds randomly disappear. Duncan's boss, Phil (the inimitable Patrick Warburton), saddles him with the task of firing people at the same time he is being moved to a smaller office, which he has to share with an annoying partner named Allistair (Community's Erik Charles Nielsen). Duncan hates confrontation; handing people their severance package ramps up his stress to unbearable levels.

Then there's Duncan's dysfunctional family. He suffers from abandonment issues, because he's a child of divorced parents (Mary Kay Place and Stephen Root, who, despite his prolific résumé, will always be best known as the red stapler guy in Office Space). To make matters worse, Duncan's mother has remarried Bobbi (Kumail Nanjiani), who is younger than Duncan and talks incessantly about the couple's sex life. Invited to Mom's for dinner, Duncan and his wife, Sarah (Gillian Jacobs, also from Community), are ambushed with a mystery guest, a fertility doctor named Yip (Steve Zissis), because Mom is impatient for grandchildren. As Dr. Yip sits at the table questioning Duncan's virility, the gnawing in his gut grow stronger by the minute.

Duncan already knows he has a polyp, because he's seen his own specialist, Dr. Yeager (Toby Huss, King of the Hill), one of those cheerfully indifferent physicians who does not feel your pain. No worries, says Yeager, we'll remove that sucker in no time. Meanwhile, though, he sends Duncan to a therapist named Highsmith (Peter Stormare), who has a mad glint in his eye, talks to his parakeet (who talks back) and has an office littered with strange objects and ancient tomes of spiritual wisdom.

It is Dr. Highsmith who correctly identifies the real cause when Duncan's enemies start appearing on the news as the clawed and bloody remains of what are initially believed to be attacks by a rabid racoon. And it is Dr. Highsmith who explains to Duncan that the monster who emerges so painfully from his anus that Duncan initially typically passes out from the experience is an expression of Duncan's own negative emotions . The only way to tame it is to "bond" with it. Start by giving it a name, advises Highsmith. Hence "Milo".

From the beginning, director Vaughan envisioned Milo as a puppet rather than a CG creation. The only use of digital technology is to erase the puppeteers and to add realistic blinking to Milo's eyes. While the figure is obviously a puppet, it has weight and presence, and it interacts with the human actors in realistic manner familiar from films like Gremlins, Critters or Ghoulies, all of which Vaughan and his star Marino cite as influences. Milo isn't exactly scary, but since you're always aware of where he comes from (and where he returns after feeding on a victim or two), he is pretty damn disgusting.

It turns out that Duncan cannot destroy Milo, because Milo is part of him. He has to journey back into his past, and look forward into his future, to tame the part of him that Milo represents. If you can stand the scenes of Milo's entrances and exits (not to mention the often yucky aftermath), it's an amusing trip.

Bad Milo! Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bad Milo! was shot on the Red Epic by James Laxton (For a Good Time, Call...). Magnolia Home Video's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, which was presumably sourced from digital files, provides a clean, sharp and detailed image with a color palette that is slightly oversaturated, especially in Duncan Hayslip's private life, to suggest the non-stop intensity of the emotional world in which he lives. Milo himself is a dull, dirty brown (a cross, as Marino describes him, between E.T. and a pile of . . . you know). Some of the best shadow detail can be observed in Dr. Highsmith's office, which is dim but crowded with bric-a-brac. Blacks are solid, and scenes with high white levels (e.g., in Dr. Yip's consulting rooms) have appropriate levels of contrast.

Departing from its usual practice, Magnolia has placed Bad Milo! on a BD-25, but the film is only 85 minutes long, and Red footage compresses well. The average bitrate of 19.50 Mbps is unusually low for a Magnolia title, but no compression errors were observed in the main feature.

Bad Milo! Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is lively and involving, although specific surround effects are limited. In keeping with the film's "old school" style, Milo's rampages tend to be shown by their aftereffects, rather than while they're in progress. Aside from his sharp teeth and blinking eyes, Milo's most distinctive quality is his voice, supplied by actor Steve Zissis, who also plays Dr. Yip, the fertility specialist. Everyone else's dialogue is clear; Milo's isn't supposed to be.

An opening teaser involving an attack by Milo, which is then picked up near the end of the film, supplies a number of memorable sound effects that can't be described without spoilers. The Blu-ray has both the dynamic range and the subtlety to convey them forcefully. The film is greatly helped by a lively comedy/horror score from Ted Masur (Cop Dog), whose work here recalls that of Danny Elfman for Men in Black.

Bad Milo! Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Actors Ken Marino and Gillian Jacobs, Director and Co-Writer Jacob Vaughan and Co-Writer Benjamin Hayes: Vaughan and Marino do most of the talking, with Jacobs contributing jokes and laughter and Hayes very little. They talk about the origin of the project, working with the puppet and, in particular, the contributions of the various actors in supporting parts and their distinctive methods of working.



• Extended Outtakes (1080p; 1.78:1; 7:40): A longer version of the outtakes that play during the credits.



• Extended Dinner Scene (1080p; 1.78:1; 7:01): The longer version of the dinner scene with Duncan's mother helps explain why he accidentally checks the box on Dr. Highsmith's patient form indicating that he's lactose intolerant.



• Deleted Scene: Veterinarian (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:20): A visit by Duncan to Sarah at her place of work.



• Behind Milo: The Puppeteers! (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:33): A scene from the film with the black-clad puppeteers left visible.



• Behind Milo: Raw Take (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:04): Several takes of the same shot, from two different angles, illustrating the painstaking process by which Milo was brought to life.



• Interview with Ken Marino (1080i; 1.78:1; 9:49): Marino provides an overview of the film and its place in genre cinema. He also describes the experience of making the film and working with "Milo".



• AXS TV: A Look at Bad Milo! (1080i; 1.78:1; 3:03): A typical AXS TV promo using excerpts from both the film and the Marino interview listed above.



• Trailer (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:10): If anyone complains that the monster appears in the accompanying screenshots, please note that he is prominently featured in the trailer. His appearance is not a spoiler.



• Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment: The disc includes trailers for The Last Days on Mars, How I Live Now, Mr. Nobody and Best Man Down, as well as a promo for AXS TV. These also play at startup, where they can be skipped with the chapter forward button.



• BD-Live: As of this writing, the BD-Live feature provided access to trailers for additional Magnolia films.

Bad Milo! Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In his interview included in the extras, Ken Marino says that he expects Bad Milo! to find success, if at all, as a cult film. The very nature of the monster makes that a given. Tell most viewers that a film is about a monster who comes out of a guy's ass, and some will be curious, but most will just shake their heads and move on. As it happens, Bad Milo! is a pretty funny satire about the stresses that can double over even the best-intentioned of modern men and make them wish for a little guy of Milo's strength and disposition. It's a well-crafted disc with good extras, but if you're unsure, at least give it a rental.