★★★
“It sucks you in, like a big absorbing butt.”
All great crime stories explore the classic cat and mouse relationship between a criminal and detective hot on their tale. With each encroaching pounce of the detective, the criminal continually succeeds in scuttling away and resisting capture. Stories like this leave the audience almost pulling their hair out as they watch a thrilling tussle of wits, until finally our characters face-off. It’s a favourite plot story focus for crime stories as the audience can indulge in intimate insight to both the life of the obsessive criminal and the equally obsessive detective. Butt Boy follows this classic crime story arc but with one small difference – the criminal abducts people by sucking them into his butt. Maybe I should have started with that part.
Chip (Tyler Cornack) is a bored office worker and dissatisfied husband. After experiencing his first prostate exam, he discovers he enjoys the sensation of things going up his butt. Later that night, while in bed with his wife, he tries to persuade her into some anal play but she’s uninterested. Chip decides to explore his new desire himself and starts to insert objects into his ass. It’s soon clear that this is no casual butt play kink and the objects Chip uses start to get more and more absurd. What started with a bar of soap soon progresses to a small dog and eventually a baby. Now having advanced to abduction, the police get involved in the case and that’s where Detective Russel Fox (Tyler Rice) comes in. When we meet Russel, already seven years into this case, he is a disillusioned, angry, bitter cop, haunted by his past failings in catching Chip. The two meet in an alcoholics anonymous meeting when they’re partnered up as each other’s sponsors. When Chip’s obsession for his crimes are triggered once again, his rampage begins and Russel is hot on his tail.
By the description alone, this film should be terrible but it’s not. It’s bizarre – completely and utterly bonkers at times – but boy does the film play it’s concept straight. If you switch out the main odd concept for a traditional one, the film plays like any other crime film and that makes the film oddly endearing and entertaining. It sucks you in, like a big absorbing butt.
Although Butt Boy doesn’t have as many laughs as you’d expect from that title, there are some standouts. Austin Lewis as the overly-motivational boss in a crappy office was perfect and would give anyone who’s worked in a similar office visceral flashbacks to the cringey inspirational meetings they had to endure. Plus, in a film revolving entirely round a butt there is, surprisingly, only one fart joke and it actually made me – a person who’s never found fart jokes funny – laugh.
Although the plot was a little constipated at times, with the first 15 minutes seeming more like a short film tacked on in front of a feature, this indie film was still relatively strong. The direction was interesting, the production value was higher than expected for this plot and the acting of every cast member was good. Butt Boy doesn’t fall into the “bizarre B-movie you watch drunk with friends” category because of its commitment to keeping an ironically serious tone, however it also doesn’t fall into the “darkly grave crime film you share with your parents” category. It’s a category of its own – not quite sure what that category is but there it is.
Should this plot have been reserved to a short film rather than a feature? Probably. Does that mean it was bad? Honestly, no. It was genuinely entertaining and for a film that was most likely thought up while high, it kind of worked. I don’t know where the funding for this film came from or why people thought it had to be made but those are not the important questions. The important question is: do straight guys really fear a cheeky finger up the bum this badly?
Writer: Tyler Cornack, Ryan Koch
Director: Tyler Cornack
Cast: Tyler Cornack, Tyler Rice
Production Company: Tiny Cinema
Flip Screen 
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