Pizza Movie
by George Wolf
First off, pineapple is the all-time greatest pizza topping. And I am not on drugs.
I can’t say the same for Monte and Jack. They are most definitely on drugs, and a pizza is all that might save them from their worst nightmare coming to shove a chainsaw where it most definitely does not belong.
That’s just a tiny sample of the batshit craziness delivered by Hulu’s Pizza Movie, an outrageously R-rated gross out and stoned out comedy that rises above some dry stretches to land several set-pieces of outright hilarity.
Jack (Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things) and Monte (The Goldbergs‘ Sean Giambrone) are college nerds. Jack’s unfortunate mishap as the football team mascot made both of them targets of constant bullying, even from Lizzy (Becky‘s Lulu Wilson), an old friend who’s now trying to run with the cool kids.
After one of their regular dorm room beatdowns jars a tin of ten-year-old drugs loose from the ceiling, the boys partake. And the ride begins.
A YouTube video from the drug’s inventor (Sarah Sherman) tells the guys they’ve got several stages of trippiness coming, including Nothing but the Truth, Bad Words, The Old Switcheroo and more. And if they don’t want to experience that last stage with the chainshaw enema, they better wolf down some ‘za in a hurry.
Oh, and Lizzy thought the drugs were mints and took some, too.
Writers/directors Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney (from the SNL writers room) craft their feature debut as if Edgar Wright took Scott Pilgrim and the Superbad guys to college for a drug-fueled class on practical blood splatter effects.
Leaning on a winning ensemble that perfectly sells the vibe, Kocher and McElhaney move through the six stages of balls tripping like levels in a video game, keeping the intensity up with a succession of quick cuts, camera swipes and rapid fire gags. From psychotic R.A.s out to banish all partiers to the wasteland of Gralk Hall, to tenacious Snackatron food drones to a college band performing only “clown-core vomit opera,” the barriers between Monte, Jack, and their Lord of the Pies delivery two floors down keep piling up.
And I haven’t even mentioned the “Makin’ It” dance sequence and the butterfly named Lysander Featherhemp that’s voiced by Daniel Radcliffe!
Yes, it’s nuts, and sometimes in a can’t-catch-your-breath funny kind of way. Not everything lands, of course, but Pizza Movie doesn’t slow down long enough for any cold spots to linger. Just let them pass, another piping hot slice of WTF will be in your face any second.
