For all its promise to be a wry commentary on the savagery of office politics, "The Belko Experiment" is more like an experiment in how many cracked-open skulls can be crammed into one movie.
Unfortunately, as the film becomes bloodier and bloodier, it also becomes more and more deadening, with each subsequent death a little less shocking and impactful.
A one-note scenario that never ups the ante on itself, and never even bothers to use its extreme situation to send up office politics or corporate policies.
It is directed by Greg McLean and has an energetic performance by John Gallagher Jr as the unsplattable hero, but we've seen this Battle Royale or Hunger Games scenario too many times.
Survival is human nature. But what happens after that? Belko leaves that up to its audience, but with little evidence to try and make a decent argument.
By the end of the film, you're left with the unshakable feeling that everyone involved, from actors to filmmakers to the audience, is, and should have been, better than material like this.
This is little more than a sadistic exercise in violence and death, more along the lines of the Saw series. And if it didn't have such a terrific cast, it would be unwatchable.
The Belko Experiment offers an intensified allegory of today's world of work - as well as the thrill of the hunt - all in an amusingly banalised milieu of lobbies, lifts and cubicles.
