 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: Fried Barry • Year: 2020 • Country: South Africa • Director: Ryan Kruger • Main cast: Gary Green, Chanelle de Jager, Brett Williams • Runtime: 99 minutes • Production company: The Department of Special Projects, Enigma Ace Films • TRAILER
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Yes, indeed, Barry gets fried. The inhabitants of the night in the city of Cape Town are also very fried, with the excesses of drugs, crazy dance parties, and sex. Like in any other big city, in fact. But tonight nobody will get more fried than Barry. Well, perhaps Ryan Kruger, the writer, producer, and director of this little jewel of chaos, surrealism, and destruction.
The plot story of Fried Barry (2020) is already interesting enough. That Barry dude is a low-life, a junkie, and a drug dealer, who is in constant money problems as he miserably fails in his duties of being a good husband and father. Until, one day, he gets abducted by an alien who decides to possess his body. And, there you go, an innocent and curious being in the body of a piece of human trash left alone in the city of sin, like a little kid in the playground of hell. There, the new Barry will discover a world of narcotics, prostitution, and never-ending party, but also an even darker side full of crime, violence, poverty, and kidnapping.
It is curious how Barry manages to only step into the worst side of humans and never uses his undiscovered potential to start some profitable business. But I guess that would be too boring. And, yet, the visitor who chooses the worst possible host to spend some days on our planet will have a taste of love and goodness. I guess, after all, it was the perfect vacation for our little friend from outer space, right?
The creator of this nightmarish dream, Ryan Kruger, does a very good job imprinting madness along the whole running time of the movie. From the first minutes, you already know this is going to be an interesting visual and sonic trip, portraying the nasty nights with lots of neon lights and with a soundtrack where the noise never ceases and yet accompanies the story in a very fluid way. The kind of intense dirty low-budget new films we like so much, as Joe Begos did in Bliss (2019) and Panos Cosmatos in Mandy (2018).
And acting might be the weakest asset of Fried Barry (2020), but who cares about that? Who needs that in a rollercoaster like this? Gary Green could be an awful actor, but he performs as Barry as no one else could. His tattered physical presence is enough, and once the little alien is controlling the body he has carte blanche for excessive histrionics. And, as for the rest of the cast, most of them fall soon into oblivion because there are only two main points of focus in this movie: Barry and pure fucking madness.
Fried Barry (2020) is a movie that can’t work for everyone, but that always happens with extremity. It is the perfect title to see in a genre film festival, with a big audience eager for nasty stuff on the big screen, but it also can work like a shot of adrenaline when you are home alone in front of your TV screen. It is a very welcome addition to the Shudder catalog, although it can’t be compared with most of the horror dramas and comedies that populate the streaming service. For me, once Fried Barry (2020) exists, it is a mandatory one to watch. You’d like it more or less, but you must make the trip.
RATE: 6/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt9102084
