First published on Wed 5 May 2021 08.00 EDT
This gleefully lurid, picaresque journey through a few days in Cape Town for an alien inhabiting the body of a skeevy junkie named Barry (Gary Green) wonât be everyoneâs cup of tea. But scattered among the gross-out scenes â involving violence or bodily fluids or both, the bouts of softcore shagging, and innumerable garish âtrippyâ bits where the protagonist and his acquaintances do drugs â thereâs actually some reasonably sharply comic, surprisingly touching and straight-up well-acted moments.
Presumably, the key variables are the improvising performers that first-time director Ryan Kruger, fluffing up what was originally a short into feature length, collaborated with for each scene. Some, like Chanelle de Jager, who plays Barryâs longsuffering wife and is given to long profane rants in Afrikaans about Barryâs uselessness, have real acting chops and bring a palpable humanity to the absurdist s
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Fried Barry at times brought to mind the murky and bonkers adventures of Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) in After Hours who is plunged into a nightmare and surreal night on the streets of New York. Like Hackett, the Fried Barry of the title is punted from bizarre situation to bizarre situation though here he’s in Cape Town, South Africa and the circumstances are very different.
Barry (Gary Green) is a hopeless heroin addict living in a dirty world of needles and spoons. His homelife is a constant barrage from his wife Suz (Chanelle de Jager) and he has doubts about the parentage of his son. It his life however much others might consider it a disaster. On his way home one night a light from the sky fixes on Barry and he is lifted into the ship. Later deposited back in Cape Town it soon becomes obvious that Barry has been possessed by an alien who is using his body for research purposes both on him and the society that he lives in.
James Croot19:35, May 05 2021
Stuff
May s must see movies.
Normally the start of the blockbuster season, this May at least shows some signs of Hollywood finally cranking up after a 14-month hiatus. Kiwi cinemas have a high-profile origin story, a sequel and a reboot to look forward too, as well as a range of other eclectic titles. These include Japanese animated romance
Josee, the Tiger and the Fish, Ireland-set romantic drama
Finding You, football documentary
Cranston Academy, Alzheimer’s drama
The Artist’s Wife (both May 20) and modern Western
No Man’s Land (May 27). For at-home viewers, Netflix’s line-up includes the Laura Dern-starring
Bonkers Trailer For Fried Barry Is Here, Hitting Shudder Next Week
Bonkers Trailer For Fried Barry Is Here, Hitting Shudder Next Week
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Shudder continues to add interesting titles for us to view. On May 7th, we get to watch
Fried Barry, a bonkers-looking film out of South Africa that sees an alien take over the body of a drug-filled slacker man and discovers all of the ills the people of Earth inflict on themselves and each other. The film stars
Gary Green, Bianka Hartenstein, Sean Cameron Michael, Chanelle de Jager, Joey Cramer, and
Jonathan Pienaar, and is the directorial debut of