Beautiful Creatures: Bad Milo

When Duncan’s (Ken Marino) doctor tells him that he needs to reduce stress in order to save himself from a distressing polyp forming inside his colon, he has no idea exactly how bad things are about to get. A stressful job working for his sleazy boss Phil (Patrick Warburton) alongside an incompetent coworker coupled with an overbearing mother and a wife who continues to pressure him to have a child, relaxation is nowhere in the cards. When the company transfers him from accounting to human resources, making him the scapegoat for a massive series of layoffs, it’s the final straw that turns an abnormal polyp into a walking, talking, anal dwelling murder troll. Yeah, you read that right.

Anal. Dwelling. Murder. Troll.

It was such a ridiculous premise that I had absolutely no choice but to watch it. So, back to our synopsis, Duncan first meets his special little friend during a hypnotism session where dredging up the underlying source of his stress and turmoil forces the creature out of his ass and into the spotlight. The therapist begins a strange couples counseling process between Duncan and the anal dwelling misfit named Milo.

Starting with an obnoxious coworker and an overbearing fertility doctor sicked on Duncan by his mother, Milo begins a killing spree that his host(?) is desperate to stop. Continuing the therapy sessions as his world otherwise falls apart -first at work, when the FBI raids the company because of Phil’s embezzlement, then at home when his wife surprises him with news of her pregnancy- Duncan feels as if he has no choice but to move out into a low-rent motel outside of town. A brief montage ensues as Milo and Duncan further their relationship, a sort of pseudo father-son bonding that ends with Duncan reaching out to his long-estranged father played by Stephen Root.

Joining one another in counseling, it quickly descends into the sort of no holds barred family showdown that most family counseling sessions end up with, right up to the clash of the ass goblins as his father’s own withered and wary Ralph goes head-to-head with Milo.

Yeah.

That’s right. Just when you think this movie can’t get any stranger, daddy’s butt dwelling emotionally tormented inner child comes out to play.

Boys and girls, all I’ll tell you is that it has a happy ending, perhaps even the strangest ending I’ve ever seen in a movie. On a scale of one to ten on the Weird-Shit-O-Meter, this is definitely an eleven.

The acting is solid with excellent performances especially by Patrick Warburton and Stephen Root but the award for best performance in the most absurd, unusual, downright gross creature feature ever is definitely Ken Marino. I mean, interacting with an animatronic creature is difficult in itself but interacting with it as if it were genuinely a part of himself is talent. Milo (and Ralph) is a fantastic blend of traditional cinematic puppetry and CGI wrapped up in a murderous, adorable little creature. I’ve said it before and I’ll likely say it several more times before the folks here at PDI get sick of me but there is no substitute for practical effects.

When an actor is staring at a tennis ball with the word “monster” sharpied on it, there is a distinct difference in body language and overall performance as opposed to someone wearing an appliance or a muppet of some kind being controlled just under the camera’s line of sight. With Bad Milo, I had no trouble feeling the creature’s presence, seeing it as a living, breathing creature as much as the actors interacting with it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very clearly a KY Jelly coated puppet but you can imagine so much easier the reality it was intended to create.

Believe me, I was skeptical about watching a movie where the title character is literally living in a grown man’s anus, but if you’re in the mood for a little light-hearted strange and have an hour and half to spare, give it a watch. It’s still available on Netflix, Amazon, Google, and I’m certain whatever other streaming service you prefer.