Fried Barry

Honestly, the synopsis sounded great. An addict and ne'er do well is abducted and his body is injected with an alien, who discovers life as a human and the experiences that involves. It sounded like either a stoner laff riot or a warm hearted fish out of water story. It was neither, and that disappointed me.

Gary Green plays Barry, who is introduced as a real bastard-drunk, abusive, bully, bad father and husband. This is expressed in about the first five minutes. Not wasting time, the filmmakers have him being lifted up into a spaceship faster than you can say PROBE, and after a rather strange but uninteresting and low budget transmutation, Barry is redeposited back, now quiet and wide eyed. He experiences lots of stuff and meets weird people and it goes from mildly amusing to serious to dark to crazy to huh?

I just really had trouble getting into it. The film felt much longer than it's runtime and I was really bored by the third act and started reading the reviews of the previous movie I'd just partially watched which I hated so much I gave up halfway through. It was one of those art house "horror" films that a lot of people thought was brilliant but it bored me to tears. What did they see that I didn't? Same thing here. I read the other reviews and there weren't a lot, but overall were much more impressed than I. What did they see that I didn't?

Well, in addition to hoping it would be the funny stoner laff riot option and being disappointed it wasn't, I really had a problem with the main protagonist. I think that first off, the introduction to him was so brief that the change from him to the alien just didn't seem all that stark. Then there's Green's performance. He's on screen the entire film so he has to carry it, and the majority of the time he has no lines. And since the alien shows almost no emotion, that's a heck of a challenge for an actor. Green's face kind of resembles a Halloween mask (sorry, mate), so even the rare change of eye reaction still looks about the same. I pictured a really good actor in the role. What would Daniel Day-Lewis do? Well, probably not this movie.

Truth be told, I really wanted to like this film. It sounded weird and different and I'm all for that. But I just came away with a feeling of, "So what?" I think the acting had a lot to do with it, although I liked the purple haired hooker. But the multiple plot holes (like, did NO ONE in the city see that giant spaceship??), the questionable actions of pretty much everyone and what the heck was the deal with those grocery store employees? It just didn't do it for me, and I grudgingly give it a 5.

I am not even comparing this to the Greasy Strangler as a movie, just referring to the title ... if anything they are both quite trashy as some would say, but in a different sense. This is quite episodic and I reckon some people who did do drugs, may feel some connection to some of the things happening here. Still it has to be noted, you should not try this at home. And even someone like me, who didn't do drugs (alcohol aside if you think it counts per definition), I could relate ... well understand may be the better word, what the main character goes through, to a degree.

Very well played by our lead and far out as some might say. But also completely odd and tough to follow. Also no story - just a few things to be aware of. This isn't anywhere near a "normal" film ... but if you let yourself into the world and the madness this depicts ... you can have some fun, with all the depravities you get to see. Or be entertained by them I should say ... fun isn't really ... well I guess you can laugh a lot, especially if you can distinguish and not compare this to your real life (hopefully) ... no pun intended

I was hoping for something a little more intense. The set-up was there for something truly anarchic but it just didn't quite pull it off. It wasn't too bad though, it just seemed to run out of steam very quickly.

Gary Green, the guy who plays Barry, could easily play an alien without needing any makeup. His face is fascinating and his expressions are endlessly entertaining. I could see him as a successful character actor.

Waking one morning after a bender, a man comes to find he had been abducted by aliens during the night and implanted with a being to experience human life, but the more he tries to keep it a secret the more he wants to utilize his strange powers to help mankind inadvertently risking exposing himself and his mission.

This was a rather enjoyable if somewhat problematic effort. Among its more engaging aspects is the highly enjoyable and evocative manner of bringing about the abduction and his overall change. The psychedelic imagery present in the sequence, featuring all the flashing lights and impressive imagery to denote the machines surrounding and impaling objects into his body from just about every orifice imaginable is quite enjoyable, making for a much grander and overt arthouse influence to the sequence than just a typical abduction and probing. This arthouse style of deep, probing lighting and ethereal sounds indicating the sights and sounds around him continued throughout here quite frequently and adds another dimension to the film. Alongside the constant notion of his initial unfamiliarity with the new world being played off for shyness and an introverted attitude which means no one knows who or what he really is until it's too late, there's a lot to like here both technically and storyline wise. As well, the film scores quite nicely with the fish-out-of-water concept of how he's going through the community and what happens to him. From being a hit at the club because he can absorb dozens of party pills without effect that turns him into a dance machine that's a hit with the ladies, a sexual deviant who's able to endlessly pleasure anyone he comes across from prostitutes to his own wife to get her to stop nagging him and then freeing a group of kids from the hands of a child kidnapper, that he can use his extra abilities for a greater purpose is quite fun and commendable. Graced with a bizarre energy and a likable enough grindhouse aesthetic on top of the arthouse feel, there's a lot to like with this one. There are a few issues to be had here. One of it's biggest issues is the somewhat unappealing second half that takes a lot of the elements that made the first part really enjoyable and completely drops everything for a random series of events that aren't that interesting. Hopping around from just random plot-points about coming across random street thugs to what his wife believes is a strange illness that's never followed up or resolved to randomly meeting a child kidnapper and freeing a group of kids from his grasp, this just seems random and sloppy without any kind of structure to it. This all feels completely tacked on and away from what the original story no doubt was like. More to the point, these are quite boring and just not fun at all in the slightest to watch play out, dropping the intensity of the first part into a dull and uninteresting whimper to the finishing point.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Nudity, a sex scene and drug use.

I wouldn't call this a good movie, the story isn't very good, but it's still an interesting watch and has some cool visuals. I definitely wouldn't recommend it as a buy but if you can stream it free, it's not bad if you want to watch something weird.