You know what we don’t have near enough of nowadays? Movies that absolutely require you to examine the parameters of your comfort zone in a way that you’ve not been asked to before. The beautiful thing about Butt Boy is that you have to peel back the layers of it like it’s a damn onion. The fact that it’s an anally-focused movie makes me regret talking about onions, but I suppose someone can pick up the blurb “…Butt Boy is a piece of ass that brings tears to your eyes!”

Stay with me. We’ve got a ways to go here. Focus. Control the butt jokes.

I’ll try to lay this out for you: Chip Gutchell (writer/director Tyler Cornack; Tiny Cinema) hates his middle-aged existence. His wife, Anne (Shelby Dash; How’s Your Boyfriend?), is cold and distant, his job is terrible in that Office Space kind of way, and now he’s having his first prostate exam. A funny thing happens, though – he likes it. Chip begins to insert all manner of items into his butt – the remote, a plaque, the dog…you know, the standard stuff. The strangest part, however, is that none of it comes back out! As the mystery deepens (almost as much as his anal cavity does), Chip gets carried away and steals a baby from the park. You can guess where that goes. Unable to live with the grief, he unsuccessfully attempts suicide. Fast forward a few years, and life is about the same. Chip is in Alcoholics Anonymous (though I doubt it’s alcohol he needs help with) when he’s asked to sponsor a police detective named Russell Fox (Tyler Rice; Tiny Cinema). Russell is a tortured man, and his struggles reignite the unholy desires of Chip’s sphincter. Before you know it, Chip is up to his old tricks again, but this time he goes too far and attracts the suspicions of Detective Fox after a child goes missing at “Bring Your Kid to Work Day”. There’s more to this story than meets the brown-eye, though, and the layers of this onion only get darker as you peel. A battle is raging, and something’s got to give.

First and foremost, you’ve never seen anything like Butt Boy. It’s easily the most nauseatingly original thing I’ve ever seen. It gives new definition to body horror. I should publish the notes that I took while watching; they tell the story almost better than I could. I spent the first thirty minutes wondering why the hell I took this assignment. I spent the next twenty or so thinking that I was starting to see where they were going with it all. That took me to the second half of the 100-minute runtime, and from there I sat in wonder as my smile slowly got bigger and bigger.

Here’s the thing – Butt Boy is an extremely patient film. After the initial shock and awe, you’re allowed to settle into characters and even lose a little bit of faith as the pace slows just a tad too much. There are about ten minutes that could be trimmed. Still, the eggs that are planted in the early going start to hatch one by one and your appreciation grows.

So ludicrous is the premise, so ham-fisted is the delivery, that you start off thinking that the cast can’t act their way out of a wet paper bag until you realize that you were just so taken aback by all the insanity that you simply didn’t realize they’re all actually pretty good, especially Tyler Rice as Detective Russell Fox. The cleverness of the whole shebang hits you as the mental laxative kicks in at the close, and you realize that Butt Boy is actually a by-the-numbers Cop vs. Serial Killer drama with the world’s most outlandish circumstances and method of “disposal”. Sure, it’s weird as hell, but it feels almost normal because tried and true film formula is being followed.

Peppered in are a number of things that will have you laughing/cringing/gawking/unnecessarily wiping your ass: A boss to rival Bill Lumbergh in Austin Lewis’ Rick Sanders character; a corporate cheer that will make you want to crawl into a hole (trust me, I work for THEM); the revelation that the inside of an ass is pretty much The Upside Down; ingenious use of hot sauce; magical butt winds; anal orphans; “Days in the Hole”; and one of the most awkward sex scenes ever committed to film.

And the finish? I just can’t. I’m not even going to say anything else. Seriously.

I hate clichéd movie review catchphrases (i.e. thrill ride, tour de force, ferociously original), but I’ll be double-damned if that last doesn’t fit perfectly. Are plenty of people going to hate this movie? Yep. You bet. They’ll let you know it, too. The other half will see what I came around to seeing by the time it was all done: a film that inserts itself into your subconscious and then begs to be watched on the toilet…or not at all. Your choice.

What? You didn’t think I could resist one more joke, did you?