Butt Boy

Butt Boy is a very strange film and the title pretty much gives away what a lot of it is concerned about with the usual yuk factor taken for granted.

Chip (Tylar Cornack, who is also writer and director) is a team member in a Florida business which practices the cliched team building repartee employee of the month, day, hour etc. He’s married and has a young son. But it’s quite clear that he’s bored with his lot.

His epiphany is a rectal examination! This changes his life and he takes to shoving the most unlikely things up his backside – not that there are that many likely things. These include in no particular order tv remote, soap, dogs and much worse without any noticeable change to Chip’s health or body. However mentally it is having an effect as Chip attempts suicide.

Moving forward nine years and Chip is still married but attending AA meetings where he is buddied with Detective Russell Fox (Tyler Rice) and encouraged to socialise. During a meal to break the ice they find out a little about each other, its tentative but warm enough. Unfortunately Chip starts to get his old yearnings back and things start to go missing, very weird things and escalate to an extent that Fox is called into a missing person case at Chip’s office.

This is opportune as Chip has been missing their buddy meetings. A difficult conversation ensues which leaves Fox very suspicious and he starts to find and pick up some unpleasant clues that lead him to make some deductions that get him drummed out of the police, though he continues the investigation which takes on a surreal and very unpleasant turn in the final act.

The main problem with Butt Boy is tone and context. It has the tropes of a comedy but it’s not very funny. While the premise may be absurd, it’s not necessarily a cue for comedy or comic situations. Then is there a deeper element with social comment or satire here? Chip’s disintegration into booze and bums could be seen as the acts of a depressive sliding into addiction brought on by a boring job and unsatisfactory home life but that’s giving it a thin lifeline.

The latter part of the film has some interesting plot revelations but ultimately it will be remembered for its grossness and for me one particular stomach-churning scene. The fact that is not badly made and has a good pace is neither here nor there as the lasting feeling is that it is a very weird, indulgent film.

Butt Boy was presented at Glasgow FrightFest on 7 March 2020 and will be released digitally on 4 May in the UK..