Packed with lavender clouds, nightmare chainsaws, and exploding heads, Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney’s feature directorial debut, “Pizza Movie,” is anything but half-baked.
A Hulu original, “Pizza Movie” follows two college students, Jack (Gaten Matarazzo) and Montgomery (Sean Giambrone), on a mission to retrieve their pizza delivery down two flights of stairs. The only problem is: they’re high on an experimental drug called M.I.N.T.S. and must get past their tyrannical residential advisors.
Considering its relatively straightforward title, the film is quite creative in how it delivers exposition. The flashback phase of Jack and Montgomery’s surreal hallucinations, for example, not only explains why the roommates have been respectively outcast by their peers, but also throws their ex-friend Lizzy (Lulu Wilson) into the psychedelic mix—an old friendship that’s hinted at early on in the film, by a phone lockscreen featuring the three of them altogether.
The heart of any buddy film lies in the chemistry between its two main characters. Fortunately for “Pizza Movie,” Matarazzo and Giambrone deliver. Jack’s recklessness serves as a nice foil for Montgomery’s caution throughout their shared psychedelic experience, with the contrasting characters nailing the setup for each other’s punchlines. Also bolstering the film are some familiar faces in comedy, including SNL’s Sarah Sherman, the creator of the “random ceiling drugs,” and comedian Caleb Hearon, the newbie RA who is “31 years young.”
Although some of its college settings resemble high school hallways lined with blue lockers, the film still captures other aspects of college life, such as the presence of food delivery robots. Snackatron 3000, to be exact, is the autonomous vehicle tasked with delivering Jack and Montgomery’s antidotal pizza, which increasingly becomes hard not to root for in its determination to ensure Montgomery is satisfied with his order.
It’s clear the writer-director creative duo had fun making this film, going so far as to make cameo appearances as themselves in a scene where a character takes one too many doses of the drug and discovers the reality that they’re in a “low-budget indie film.” Overall, for a film that has so many moving parts—including but not limited to RA’s crackdown on paraphernalia, the popular kids’ insistence on securing Lizzy’s credit card for a party bus, and Montgomery’s heroic butterly, Lysander (voiced by Daniel Radcliffe)—it feels self-contained and makes for a fun watch from start to finish.
Undoubtedly, “Pizza Movie” is a solid addition to the stoner comedy genre.
Featured Photo: Gaten Matarazzo & Sean Giambrone in ‘Pizza Movie’ | Hulu/Disney+
Taylor Graham is a student at Columbia University, majoring in Film and Media Studies with a minor in Political Science. She has reported for numerous publications, including the Valencia Voice, Glitter Magazine, and Heritage Radio Network, and is currently the 150th Arts and Culture Editor for the Columbia Daily Spectator, one of the oldest college newspapers in the nation. With a passion for storytelling in the digital age, Taylor covers all things entertainment, from film and television to media and pop culture, interviewing professional actors, musicians, and content creators alike. When she’s not writing her next film review or feature story on an emerging artist, Taylor can be found playing tennis, reading literary fiction, or thrift shopping in NYC.