the belko experiment plot

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

The Belko Experiment

In a twisted social experiment, eighty Americans are locked in their high-rise corporate office in Bogotá, Colombia, and ordered by an unknown voice coming from the company's intercom system... Read all In a twisted social experiment, eighty Americans are locked in their high-rise corporate office in Bogotá, Colombia, and ordered by an unknown voice coming from the company's intercom system to participate in a deadly game of kill or be killed. In a twisted social experiment, eighty Americans are locked in their high-rise corporate office in Bogotá, Colombia, and ordered by an unknown voice coming from the company's intercom system to participate in a deadly game of kill or be killed.

• Greg McLean
• John Gallagher Jr.
• Tony Goldwyn
• Adria Arjona
• 286 User reviews
• 209 Critic reviews
• 44 Metascore

Top cast 65

• Barry Norris

• Leandra Florez

• Wendell Dukes

• Dany Wilkins

• Terry Winter

• Marty Espenscheid

• Vince Agostino

• Keith Mclure

• Lonny Crane

• Roberto Jerez

• Peggy Displasia

• Leota Hynek

• Chet Valincourt
• Ross Reynolds
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Blumhouse Horror Films, Ranked by IMDb Rating

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia John Gallagher, Jr. auditioned for a role in a previous film directed by James Gunn , but wasn't right for the part. However, Gunn thought he was the best actor he'd seen in an audition, and vowed to work with Gallagher again.
• Goofs The building supposedly became a giant defacto Faraday cage, but they are able to pick up a local radio station from inside the building. But nothing supports that the metal around the building is also acting as a Faraday cage. In many outside shots the of building you can see a tower on the roof with 3 Sector antennas positioned around it, this is likely a cell tower and due to the remote location likely the only one providing service to the area. With the level of expertise shown by the perpetrators it would be simple to disable this tower during the lockdown. It is also easily more probable a cell jammer or jammers could have been activated in or near the building.

The Voice : In two hours we want thirty of you dead. If thirty of you are not dead, we will end sixty of your lives ourselves. Five, four, three, two, one. Begin.

• Connections Featured in FoundFlix: The Belko Experiment (2017) Ending Explained (2017)
• Soundtracks Yo Vivire (I Will Survive) Written by Dino Fekaris & Freddie Perren (as Frederick Perren) Translation by Oscar Gomez Performed by Jose Prieto

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed.

Screen Rant

The belko experiment's ending explained.

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

“Do Your Job!”: Denzel Washington Calls Out The Oscars Over Winless Ridley Scott As Gladiator 2 Buzz Builds

Five years after rise of skywalker, i've just realized this one moment made even less sense than i thought, tom hardy goes full action hero in havoc first image, the raid director’s new movie confirmed for 2025.

Warning: Spoilers for The Belko Experiment  ahead

If you could kill your co-workers, would you? That’s the basic premise working at the heart of The Belko Experiment . Greg McLean’s latest psychological thriller pits the employees of the mysterious Belko Industries (an impressive cast that belies the film’s low budget) against each other, with an unseen voice daring them to murder their colleagues before their new overlords kill double. The film mines this concept for all its worth, showing the gradual breakdown of the distressed workforce into fractured parties fighting to stay alive in their own unique ways.

Of course, this isn’t as simple as just being a gore-fest; there’s some sly social commentary at play and, to enable the story, writer James Gunn (who found time to script the film while directing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ) has constructed a massive conspiracy behind the titular corporation.

Related:  The Belko Experiment 2: Is It Happening or Not?

As a quick recap, at the end of the film, John Gallagher Jr.’s Mike Milch emerges as the lone survivor of the three phases of the experiment (to kill two people, to kill thirty people and to have made the most kills respectively). He’s taken by armed guards to meet "The Voice" a scarred suit played by Gregg Henry, who swiftly explains the whole thing as some form of social experiment before Mike manages to kill him and the guard. The final shot then reveals that he’s not alone in his experience, and is still being monitored as "Stage 2" begins. Needless to say, there's a lot going on, so let's take a deep dive into what happened and what it actually means.

What is Belko Industries?

Outwardly, Belko is a non-profit organization that helps South American companies hire US-national workers. The office seen in the film is based in rural Colombia and operated by a mixture of native workers and American immigrants. Through the eyes of new employee Dany we get a taste of their hiring procedure; after signing a contract that gives full power over to the corporation, each of the expats is fitted with a tracker that allows the company to find them should anything go wrong in the dangerous country (crucially, locals don’t have such precautions installed).

This extreme hiring and Day One process definitely limits the sort of people who work for the company. In the words of Roberto, no normal people work at Belko. Indeed, at least a handful of the standard employees are ex-special forces, and the implication is that relocation comes with a major cash payout. What sort of work the employees do beyond basic recruitment work isn’t divulged by the film, giving the job a generic feel, which also ties into how Belko Industries isn’t what it seems.

It’s only ever suggested in the movie by the employees, but it seems fair to assume that the company is a complete front with no actual business purpose. Their building is a government construction plated completely with thick, impervious metal – on the face of it to keep any dangerous parties out, but in intention and practice to keep people in – situated in a highly remote location. It is, in reality, all setup for the "experiment".

What Is The Experiment?

As becomes quickly apparent in the movie, Belko’s true purpose is to serve as the setting for an incredibly deadly sociological experiment. This is instigated by the arrival of mysterious armed security, a block of all forms of communication, a complete lockdown of the building itself and an announcement commanding the employees to kill each other. The unwilling subjects are forced to participate in the game by the trackers – they have an auxiliary (although it’s really their primary) purpose as bombs, able to explode at the flick of a button. With wall-to-wall monitoring, these are used as both a threat against any breaking of the “game’s” rules (dismantling cameras or trying to signal for help) and a punishment if the tasks of killing coworkers aren’t completed.

At the film’s climax, we finally get some semblance of an explanation - albeit a brief one. The Voice reveals he is part of an international organization made up of the greatest thinkers and social scientists in the world, who have used money and influence to create elaborate labs where they can perform complex experiments free from standard moral and societal confines.

This case appears to be, as Sean Gunn’s Marty posits, to examine how different people react under pressure - just a bit more extreme than he first theorized. Belko’s hiring practices mean they have plentiful information on each of the 80 participants’ backgrounds, and they’re able to manipulate the test base to fit their needs. The cast of the film spans all ages and seems to have a range of backgrounds, which in-universe is done to obtain a wide set of data. What data exactly is left unexplained, but we can assume is that it's rooted in a desire to analyze US citizens - the Colombian employees of Belko are sent home at the gates on the day of the experiment - and, from the final twist, weed out the most capable candidates.

What is Stage 2?

That’s still not quite the full picture, though, as the final shot reveals. After Mike has killed his captors, he stumbles outside and the angle shifts to a CCTV camera, revealing that he is actually still being watched. And he’s not the only one; the camera zooms out further to show collection of screens monitoring various lone survivors from similar experiences at other Belko locations around the world – at least 30 – when an eerie, new voice announces it’s time for “Stage 2”.

This reframes the previous explanation of what’s going on. While it’s definitely likely that The Voice was fully informed when he divulged the vague details of the organization and the experiment, his messing with a single office building was just a very small part of a much bigger plot. In fact, it seems that his death was somewhat predicted, or at the very least desired; Mike’s true success in the eyes of his new observers is that he was able to keep “playing” even after his announced victory in the office. Presumably if he hadn't killed The Voice and the soldiers, he would have been eliminated.

Instead, he lives to be part of Stage 2, which essentially means that what we’ve watched is just the start, with the real test still to come on a larger scale - the whole movie was basically a selection process to find who to put in the next game. We’ve already had hints at a grand conspiracy or government coalition through the building’s design and international corporation at the film’s core, but this suggests that the group of demented, self-proclaimed geniuses are working on a New World Order level and  really messing with people.

This is a pretty satisfying end point, fitting of the film’s constant wrong-footing of the characters, but can also serve as setup for a sequel should the movie prove a big enough success; we could have the various survivors brought together into a more extreme, battle-hardened showdown. Think Catching Fire to the first’s Battle Royale . It’s definitely possible; The Belko Experiment  cost only $5 million to make, so it doesn’t need to be a mega-hit to still make a tidy profit, and turning successes into franchise is pretty much prouducer Blumhouse's business model. While at the moment Stage 2 is a fun coda, it may become more important as time goes on.

Work Politics And American Globalization

The Belko Experiment uses its blood-soaked narrative to explore several interesting themes relating to modern life. It doesn’t do it quite as incisively as it perhaps thinks it is – you can only imagine how much darker a Black Mirror version of this story would go – but James Gunn certainly takes some deep dives.

The core exploration is the in-universe purpose of the experiment, seeing how various people deal with extremely high-pressured situations. We see the full range of reactions from the Belko employees to their commands, with John C. McGinley's Wendell Dukes wanting to immediately give in to the violence, Mike trying to explicitly escape, Sean Gunn’s Marty going full paranoid theorist and most others slotting somewhere in the triangle they form. The weight of whether you actually can take another person's life - regardless of if you think you can - looms over the characters until human survival instincts kick-in; eventually, even pacifists are forced down the dark path, with Mike letting his anger burst through when he repeatedly pummels COO Barry's face in with a tape dispenser.

Through the framing of the violence, the film not only poses a classic question, but gives a commentary on how big business operates. Even Barry finds himself powerless in the face of the change instigated by higher ups, unable to command his workforce in the panic and struggling to step up the bat when it comes to enacting his heartless plans. The whole Belko front can even be read as a sadistic take on how faceless corporations can fundamentally mess with their employees lives, pushing them further and further thanks to the emotional distance a tiered management structure enables.

Alongside that there’s also an exploration of globalization. This is evident from the very start following the employees driving to work in their high-end cars through the poor town of Bogotá, Colombia and hammered home by their job; they’re relocated Americans working to relocate more for ostensibly financial purposes. At first it seems like the film is attempting to simply redress the balance by showing the inherent barbarism underlying western civilization, but the final reveal that the whole thing is being orchestrated by an international organization twists things to highlight how unavoidable and deep-set multi-national conglomarates are. The suggestion seems to be that, in the high annals of business, that borders and nationalities cease to be a barrier, and moral decency doesn't even exist.

Next:  The Belko Experiment Review

Key release dates.

• The Belko Experiment
• SR Originals

The Belko Experiment

The Belko Experiment  is a 2016 American action horror-thriller film directed by Greg McLean and written by James Gunn. The film stars John Gallagher Jr., Tony Goldwyn, Adria Arjona, John C. McGinley and Melonie Diaz. Filming began on June 1, 2015, in Bogotá, Colombia. The film premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2016 and was released in the United States on March 17, 2017, by Blumhouse Tilt and Orion Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics and had a box office of $11.1 million worldwide & had a $5 million budget.

• 4 Behind the Scenes

Synopsis [ ]

Mike Milch is arriving at work several employees are sent home by new guards leaving 80 people including Mike, Barry Norris , Mike's girlfriend Leandra Florez , and new recruit Danielle Wilkins . A voice comes over the intercom and instructs the employees to kill 2 people. However nobody believes it, Marty Espenscheid thinks it's a psychological test and Barry thinks it's a prank until one of Marty's friends head explodes followed by 3 other people .

The voice comes back instructing them they have 2 hours to kill 30 people or 60 of them will die. Mike, Leandra and Keith try to flag the guards but the guards fire at them with assault rifles. Bud Melks and Lonny Crane try to break the metal on the doors and windows but fail so they go into the basement with Dany. Lonny attacks them with a wrench, he kills Bud but Dany kicks him into a pipe which results in him getting impaled. Barry, Wendell , Antonio , Terry , and Bradley attempt to open the weapon safe. Mike Leandra and Evan try to stop them but Wendell stabs Evan and steals the keys, Mike is knocked out as well. Barry and his crew begin their killing spree. Jonathan & 1 0 o t h e r s are executed . Mike is about to be executed however Dany turns off the lights of the facility, which results in all of the surviving employees excluding Barry and his group, fleeing. Now desperate to get a total of 30 kills, Barry and his group open fire on the fleeing employees. Soon afterwards, Barry’s group attempts to chase down the other employees which results in them splitting up. Antonio chases Peggy into a stairwell in order to kill her. However just as he was to kill her, Mike jumps on him distracting him long enough for Peggy to take Antonio‘s knife and kill Antonio. Bradley tries to restore the power to the facility but Vince tackles him to ground, he and several other employees, murder Bradley. At that point, 29 employees are killed in phase 2. The Voice contacts again to explain they only have 2 minutes to kill one more person or 31 additional employees will die. As Barry, Wendell and Terry are searching for more employees to kill, Leandra surprises Terry with a paper trimmer attempting to kill him but she hesitates to do so. The Voice then contacts the remaining employees & explains that the 2 minutes is up and 31 employees will be killed. Terry, Keith, Peggy and several others employees are then killed which leaves only 16 employees left in the building.

The Voice comes over the intercom & says it time for "Phase 3", Whoever kills the most people in one hour will be allowed to leave alive. Barry then tries to kill Roberto who is on top of a now moving elevator, when he tries to jump off he gets crushed against the elevator, roof, and wall as Dany has to watch. Meanwhile Barry gets trapped in the elevator in the process. Wendell then finds and kills 2 employees in the bathroom. Leandra then finds Chet and Marty & they proceed to collect the bombs of the dead employees. Leandra, Chet and Marty then meet up with Mike. They stumble across Wendell pulling Tyson out of a freezer and dismembering him up. Leandra then shoots Wendell but not killing him, She then hides with Chet and Marty behind a table. Wendell then shoots and kills Chet & Marty but is killed by Leandra. Vince finally accepts that he has to kill, so he grabs Bradley’s pistol and kills Raziya and another man who witnessed the murder trying to run away . Mike and Liezle find Leandra but are attacked by Vince who kills Lezlie. As Vince is hunting Mike and Leandra, he gets killed by Barry. As Mike and Leandra are running away from Barry, Leandra gets shot & begins to bleed out. Barry then shoots Vince straight in the heart and Vince dies and then finds and kills Dany who was in another elevator. Leandra soon dies from blood loss. Mike angrily kills Barry with a tape dispenser which makes Mike is the last survivor and is eventually carried away by two "security" guards, carefully attaching the bombs gathered earlier to the guards in the process. He is taken outside & brought into a nearby hangar.

Inside the hangar, The Voice has been watching, communicating & operating the experiment within. As the Voice is attempting to question Mike, Mike notices a switchboard with every employees name on it that allowed detonation of the the bombs that were implanted. Mike suddenly runs to the switchboard & flips every switch except the switch with his name on it. All of the bombs explode, killing the security guards & wounding the Voice in the process. Mike then picks up one of the guard‘s assault rifles and kills the two other employees working with the Voice. As the Voice pleads, Mike shoots the Voice. Mike then exits the hangar. The camera panes out revealing Mike to be one of many sole survivors of other Belko experiments across South America. Another voice is heard saying commence stage 2.

• John Gallagher Jr. as Mike Milch , a Mid-level officer worker employee at Belko Industries
• Gregg Henry as The Voice , The leader and director of the experiment
• Tony Goldwyn as Barry Norris , the Chief Operating Officer of Belko and an ex-Special Forces soldier
• Adria Arjona as Leandra Florez , Norris' Foul-mouthed assistant and Mike's love interest
• Melonie Diaz as Dany Wilkins , New kid on the block hired at Belko. First day on the job.
• Brent Sexton as Vince Agostino , Belko's head of human resources
• Alietta Montero as Liezle Freemont , an elderly cafeteria worker.
• John C. McGinley as Wendell Dukes , a socially awkward High-level top executive; deemed a "pervert".
• Sean Gunn as Marty Espenscheid , A cafeteria worker, hippie, and stoner.
• Abraham Benrubi as Chet Valincourt , Marty Espenscheid's best friend.
• Joe Fria as Tyson Moon , Wendell's friend.
• David Del Rio as Roberto Jerez , a Latino office worker who befriends Dany and Leota.
• Maruia Shelton as Agnes Meraz , a co-worker of Luigi.
• Cindy Better as Lorena Checo , a worker who pretends to be friendly to Norris.
• Mikaela Hoover as Raziya Memarian , Agostino's assistant who greets Dany on her first day.
• Juan Ortega as Luigi Moretti , a co-worker of Agnes.
• Josh Brener as Keith Mclure , a nerdy tech worker
• Rusty Schwimmer as Peggy Displasia , Mike Milch's administrative assistant secretary.
• Gail Bean as Leota Hynek , a Friendly office worker who befriends Dany and Roberto.
• David Cantor as Griffin Myers , a cafeteria worker.
• Charles Daze as Tim Gallaher , a worker.
• Ximena Rodriguez as A. Huberman , a pretty cafeteria worker.
• Maia Landaburu as Louisa "Raven" Luna , Head of the cleaning crew and other custodians.
• Guillermo Galindo as Carlos Yanez , an elderly worker.
• Owain Yeoman as Terry Winters , Mike's English Fop co-worker and friend and pushover when it comes to Norris.
• Andres Suárez as Bradley Lang , Dany's co-worker whom secretly has a crush on Dany
• Benjamin Byron Davis as Antonio Fowler , a Large office worker loyal to Norris.
• Stephen Blackehart as Robert Hickland , a hotheaded, short-tempered interpreter
• Valentine Miele as Ross Reynolds , a sleazy sales representative for Belko
• Kristina Lilley as Sarah Mariana , a worker and is the last person to arrive before the experiment begins.
• Lorena Tobar as J. Ferguson , an elderly cafeteria worker.
• Silvia de Dios as Helena Barton , the supervisor of Roberto, Leota, Bradley and Dany
• Santiago Bejarano as Luis Costa , an friendly elderly worker.
• Luna Baxter as Samantha Arcos , a co-worker of Mike with a hatred for Norris.
• Silvia Varón as Frances Anne , the only wheelchair-using employee of Belko.
• Álvaro García as Jonathan Schwartz , an elderly worker.
• James Earl as Evan Smith , Belko's only official security guard at the Front desk
• David Dastmalchian as Lonny Crane , a maintenance worker under Melks who loses his nerve.
• Michael Rooker as Bud Melks , Belko's head of the Maintenance department
• Yeison Alvarez as Lawrence Fitzgibbon , Evan's best friend.
• Maria Juliana Caicedo as Lucy Martinez , a friend of Chet and Marty
• Manuel Torres as Christopher Francis , a quiet office worker
• Juan Manuel Lenis as Sebastian Bruno , an office worker
• Juan Carlos Villegas as a subtle interpreter.
• Monica Giraldo as Victoria Baro , a worker.
• Alfonso Olave as a young executive.
• Javier Riveros as a middle-aged executive.
• Melissa Bermúdez as a young executive.
• Andrés Felipe Rojas as a young office worker.
• Federico Nieto-El' Gazi as an office worker.
• Gamal Dillard as a bald executive
• Fran Fiol as another office worker.
• Diana Wiswell as a cafeteria worker.
• Camilo Zuleta as a middle aged executive.
• Julio Nava as one of the guards .
• Ricardo Hoyos as another one of the guards .
• Mark Behar as the only surviving guard .
• Anton Tarazov as a questinaire .
• Isnardo Saenz as a camera man .
• Ben Boodman as a survivor of another experiment.
• Ryan Kirtack as another survivor of another experiment.
• Cody Mobley as another survivor of another experiment.
• Carlos Enrique Gómez as toothless merchant .
• Orion Pictures is a subsidiary of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Formerly an independent entity, it was Revived as a film production studio in 2013
• James Gunn conceived the plot of this film from a dream he had.
• Production on The Belko Experiment began on July 12th, 2015. Exterior shots of the movie were filmed on-location in Bogotá, Colombia
• Although the man behind "The Voice" is finally revealed at the end of the film, it is made clear that he is but a minor cog in the machine. As the architects and builders behind this and all of the other experiments all remain unknown
• This is John Gallagher Jr. 's second thriller film released in 2016. The other one being 10 Cloverfield Lane .
• Actor John C. McGinley also played in Office Space . Which coincidentally movies both take place in a office and have a 89 minute run time
• Actor James Earl meets again with John C. McGinely as they were both cast members on Ground Floor
• James Gunn has a great affection for actor Michael Rooker . Known for playing Yondu Udonta in Gunn's superhero movies Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 [1]

Behind the Scenes [ ]

• James Gunn announced the film on his Facebook page on March 31, 2015. He began posting cast announcements daily on May 18, 2015.
• Filming began in early June, 2015 in Bogota, Colombia.
• 1 Liezle Freemont
• 2 Marty Espenscheid
• 3 L. Torino