Entertainment
Raunchy, Insane, Unrated Comedy Is An Unthinkably Crazy Mystery
By Robert Scucci
| Published
Metaphors come in myriad shapes and sizes, and sometimes go full ridiculous to get their point across. 2019’s Butt Boy, written and directed by Tyler Cornack, is a metaphor for addiction and compulsive behavior that smells a bit like methane gas thanks to its absurd setup and delivery. I can’t in good conscience say that movies like Butt Boy are for everybody, but I feel a compulsion of my own to spell out why such an insanely stupid movie actually works better than you would ever expect.
A mystery about foreign objects and people disappearing up a man’s posterior end that drives a detective to the brink of insanity, Butt Boy plays it straight like a neo noir crime thriller, but does so in the most out of pocket way you could imagine. For its ambition alone, it’s worth a watch, but be warned that some sequences are too much to stomach.
A Hard Boiled Methane Mystery
Butt Boy centers on two primary characters, Chip Gutchell (Tyler Cornack) and Russel Fox (Ryler Rice). Chip is an IT specialist working an unfulfilling job, and Russel is an alcoholic detective always one setback away from a relapse. After receiving his first prostate exam, Chip becomes fixated on inserting objects into his rear end, which raises suspicion among his family, friends, and coworkers. His addiction starts small, involving TV remotes and bars of soap, but escalates quickly when household pets and other, far less subtle artifacts begin to vanish.
Chip meets Detective Russel Fox for the first time at an AA meeting and becomes his sponsor. In Chip’s mind, as long as he’s getting and giving some kind of addiction counseling, it doesn’t matter where it comes from. Still unaware of the true depth of Chip’s behavior, Russel is pulled into an investigation after a bring your kids to work day incident leads to the disappearance of Chip’s boss’s son. Suspecting that Chip is doing the unthinkable and using his butt as a means to absorb those around him, Russel is laughed out of the precinct and spirals into a relapse.
A Poignant And Pungent Take On Addictive Behaviors
I’ll be the first to admit that films like Butt Boy cater to a very specific audience and won’t win over every viewer. It’s a completely absurd story made even more ridiculous by everybody’s willingness to play it completely straight. The police procedural bits may as well be pulled from a David Fincher film, as incriminating floppy disks, plaques, children, and animals disappear up Chip’s butt while his AA sponsee, who just so happens to be a supremely talented detective, has to piece the mystery together.
Ridiculousness aside, Butt Boy offers a surprisingly direct take on addiction and how compulsive behaviors can take over if left unchecked or without a proper support network. Both Chip and Russel are flawed individuals wrestling with issues they can’t overcome on their own, and their stories converge in a relentless game of cat and mouse.
Russel, relying on good old-fashioned police intuition, struggles to stay sober as he chases down what he believes to be a notorious butt bandit. Chip, at the height of his addiction, is blinded to how his actions affect not only his own well-being but the well-being of those closest to him.
Worth A Watch, But Err With Caution
Beneath its dark humor and deadpan delivery, Butt Boy uses its exaggerated premise to show two forms of addiction constantly at odds. Russel’s struggles are universal and easy to overlook because we all know somebody who drinks a little too much and claims they can stop but never quite do.
By channeling that same addictive energy into something as insane as shoving objects up your butt, the compulsion suddenly feels more serious because the physical commitment alone is impossible to ignore. Both men are at the mercy of their impulses and powerless to help themselves through conventional means. As they go deeper and deeper down this Chip hole, the fiction establishes that they’re forced to learn hard lessons in ways that aren’t pleasing to any of the senses.
Butt Boy is streaming for free on Tubi.
