Fried Barry (Fantasia Fest)
I don’t know quite how to explain “Fried Barry.” I’m sure writer-director Ryan Kruger is perfectly fine with that. His 98-minute bonanza of weird horror and sci-fi ideas that’s both funny and maybe a bit too weird is an expansion from a short film he did a few years ago. That probably explains why the film’s second half kind of falters a bit compared to everything before and after. By the time it gets to that ending shot right before the credits, we’re back with the movie, and it’s wicked fun to watch.
So, the Barry of the title is kind of a mess. He’s a junkie, and he looks like he is homeless, which makes it all the more surprising when we see him to into an apartment with his wife making breakfast and their son. She reads him the riot act and says he’s not a real father, and he storms out. He goes to get a drink at a local bar, and finds himself roaming the streets when a red light comes overhead, and takes him up. He’s being abducted, and when his body comes back to Earth, it’s not quite him driving it, and what follows is a day of craziness the likes of which I don’t think even Barry could see coming.
Let me start by saying that Gary Green, who plays Barry, delivers a fantastic physical performance. Even before an alien takes over Barry, the character is a man of few words, and his physique, beyond his frazzled hair and eyes, communicate more than words ever could. When it’s clear he’s being inhabited by something else, it’s almost like he’s in a state of paralysis, afraid to make any movement that might tip anyone off to him being…different. That leads to crazy interactions with people wanting to give him drugs, people looking to get in a scrape, and people with more carnal thoughts on their minds. When one of those situations leads to an unexpected second chance for Barry, it leads to one of the most surreal subplots, and character “awakenings,” in recent movie history. We go with it, though, because Green’s performance makes us actually believe it.
There’s a part of me that would really like to talk about some of the crazier, more entertaining moments in “Fried Barry,” such as when alien Barry enters a bar, and there are things that play to a pulpy, exploitation edge that Kruger creates so effectively in this film. Or when this 98-minute movie has an intermission about 50-minutes in. The film has a great sense of style, courtesy its cinematography by Gareth Place and music by Haezer, that keeps us immersed in the film’s wild world even when the second act of the film crawls to a bit of a halt. Even then, it’s loopy enough, and darkly entertaining enough, to be a memorable experience.
