Barry does not care about his put-upon wife or his little boy. His only interest is his next fix. Years of self-neglect have taken an obvious toll, but for some reason, an alien explorer chooses to abduct and posses his body. An hour later, the alien-controlled Barry has sexual encounters with a prostitute and a clubbing woman, who shouldn’t have wanted to touch him with a twenty-foot pole. He seems to have alien magnetism. He also has healing powers. However, communication remains a challenge for him, which leads to all kinds of misunderstandings with Capetown’s seedier denizens.
Kruger’s aesthetic makes Joe Begos’s Bliss look like a Merchant-Ivory production. It gets exhausting to watch him pile on the body horror and nearly Troma-level of gore. Yet, despite its one-trick nature, it is easy to see why Shudder acquired the film. You really have to be impressed by Kruger’s willingness to wade (and revel) in the muck. Likewise, Gary Green is rather remarkable playing the guileless new Barry, in varying degrees of stoned and battered. It really is a performance that compares to Jeff Bridges in Star Man.
Fried Barry is a go-for-broke film, but it is also episodic and repetitive. After half an hour, you should get everything to be got. Still, the film’s eagerness to keep going there is something of a feat unto itself. Recommended for hardcore cult movie fans, Fried Barry starts streaming tomorrow (5/7) on Shudder.
