One of the joys of attending several film festivals every year is finding and celebrating the wildest and most unique genre movies from around the world. This year, the crown for wildest discovery goes to Butt Boy, a film that has been making the festival rounds, but one that should be seen by everyone.

Meet Chip Gutchell (writer/director Tyler Cornack) a man who is miserable with his life. He has a soulless job he hates, a loveless marriage he is tired of, and even though he’s a new father, he feels unfulfilled in every way. Then he gets an appointment for his first prostate exam.

The prospect of a stranger’s cold, clinical finger up one’s bum can be a source of anxiety for many. But what if it could stir up some strange ideas like, say, realizing you not only like the feeling of having foreign objects in your butt, but desperately crave it? In just 13 minutes, Cornack introduces one of the most bizarre, grotesque and hilarious one-joke debut feature films in recent memory, one that proves how special movies can be.

At first, Chip tries to get his wife in on his new fetish, but after she turns him down, he moves to everyday household objects. The craving quickly grows into a soul-devouring addiction, as Chip doesn’t find board game-pieces and even the TV remote to be enough. So he finds bigger and better things…until one day he goes too far.

Enter Russel Fox (Tyler Rice). He is a police detective that looks like every police detective in every movie you’ve seen, with the slicked back hair, a long trench coat and a drinking problem. Fox is so stereotypical that other characters even acknowledge this. Rice even takes advantage of this, doing a bit of a cross between a young Michael Madsen with a bit of Robert De Niro. Fox meets Gutchell at an AA meeting where they become sponsor-sponsoree. Fox quickly gets convinced Chip is involved with a missing child case he’s been working on. And then he finally crafts a theory that puts together the only way the child could have gone missing. It is so gross and out there that it couldn’t possibly be true – or could it? So begins the most bizarre cat and mouse game in years.

What makes Butt Boy a fascinating watch is how seriously Tyler Cornack and co-writer Ryan Koch approaches the concept. This is still a hilarious and disturbing film, but instead of a straight comedy, Cornack treats the story with the seriousness of Michael Mann or David Fincher – a crime thriller about a hardened detective on the hunt for a demented serial killer. Sure, there are comedic moments that will have you laughing out loud, but it keeps a serious tone that sells the gravity of the story despite its subject matter.

Of course, the concept works because the acting is completely believable. Rice infuses Fox with such gusto and seriousness it grounds the performance so that you’re as horrified as him when he describes what he thinks happened to the missing kid. Meanwhile, Cornack treats Chip’s condition/superpower as a truly disturbing and painful addiction. It’s a very unusual addiction, but he sells it as something that’s eating away his soul, looking somber and disturbed at what he’s doing even if he can’t stop.

Without saying much – because you should really be able to see this movie without knowing much about where it goes – Butt Boy uses defies its limited budget and presents some truly disturbing yet impressive visuals. But before it goes there, Cornack’s debut feature uses a slow pace to distract the audience and give them no indication of how wild and far they’ll take the concept. When the film reaches its “holy shit” third act, I spat out my drink, but I was so engrossed and invested in the story that I completely believed everything that was happening belonged with the rest of the movie.

Butt Boy is an exceptionally entertaining and weird film that defies every expectation. Everyone should see this tragic and thrilling story of a man who becomes addicted to shoving things up his butt.

/Film rating: 8.5 out of 10

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