An Office Building Turns Into a Kill Zone in ‘The Belko Experiment’ Red-Band Trailer

Joining The Hunger Games and Battle Royale in the grand tradition of movies about people forced to kill each other in a deranged competition is The Belko Experiment, the new trailer for which surfaced earlier today. Last seen playing to rabid midnight crowds at the Toronto International Film Festival, the brutal horror film will go into public release on March 17 of next year, by which point everyday life in America will vaguely resemble the events depicted in the trailer above.

The various employees of the Belko Corporation — a company vaguely described in the clip as “a nonprofit organization that facilitates American companies in South America,” whatever that might mean — file into their high-rise office building for another day at the ol’ grind. It’s the usual nine-to-five, until a voice over the intercom begins issuing strange and frightening commands. The employees may not leave the building under penalty of instant death, and their prospects indoors aren’t much better. They’ll have to kill one another if they want to survive, and while much of the trailer centers on their efforts to wriggle out of participation in this depraved game, some desk jockeys figure they’re better off getting a head start on the slaughter. “I’ve heard corporate culture could be cutthroat, but this is crazy!” says no one, mercifully.

Greg McLean, director of this summer’s forgettable The Darkness, will get behind the camera on The Belko Experiment, but the most exciting name belongs to Guardians of the Galaxy writer/director James Gunn. He produced and drew up the script for The Belko Experiment, and sharp-eyed viewers will spot Gunn’s Guardians collaborator Michael Rooker (formerly the blue-faced thief Yondu) as the head of maintenance in the Belko building. Gunn’s involvement promises an agreeable combination of black humor and sprightly violence, something more in line with his 2010 film Super. With any luck, 2017 already has its Green Room set and waiting.