SPOILER: This column contains potential spoilers for “Pizza Movie.”
Hulu and Disney+ just released their newest stoner comedy “Pizza Movie” on April 3. The movie centers around a group of college outcasts discovering a tin of drugs in their dorm’s ceiling. Playful chaos ensues as they take the drug and go through a trip’s ridiculously specific stages. They attempt to get pizza to save themselves from the final, horrible stage of the high where their worst fears come to attack them.
This movie is reminiscent of early 2000s comedy movies, such as “White Chicks,” which initially stemmed my interest in the absurdist comedy genre. “Pizza Movie” draws from this film’s stereotypical representations of rich people and explores racial stereotypes. It channels these earlier films and incorporates various college stereotypes, adding satirical humor to the overall plot.
The movie follows Jack (Gaten Matarazzo) and Montgomery (Sean Giambrone), the school’s most hated nerds. After the duo get pinned to the floor and farted on by jock Logan (Marcus Scribner), they discover a box of mints full of unknown pills. After Jack and Montgomery take a pill, they experience an initial high full of complete, wacky chaos.
What I enjoyed most about “Pizza Movie” was its completely unserious nature. This movie offers little to no social commentary in a way that distracts me from life’s complexities. Even the torture the characters attempted to save themselves from was humorous and entertaining, such as having their worst fears attack them with a chainsaw. Montgomery’s worst fear, for example, is absurdly a mouse dressed as a nutcracker.
I also really enjoyed Sarah Sherman’s cameo as Frankie, the original creator of the drug. In an eccentric video that Jack and Montgomery find, Frankie describes all the specific stages the drug’s users will go through if they don’t eventually eat pizza. The video’s wacky and psychedelic aesthetics perfectly represent Sherman’s surrealist vibes she implements into her comedy.
My favorite character in this film was the new RA in training, Sidney (Caleb Hearon), who was extremely confused by the other RA’s plan to send “problem students” to Gralk Hall, an infamous dorm four hours away from campus, which causes him to be shunned. Introducing himself as a “31-years-young” RA made him extremely out of place within a college setting but added to the movie’s level of randomness.
In addition, Hearon’s ability to further satirize the movie became a high point of his performance. I preferred his naivety as an RA much more than the personalities of the other characters, which often relied too heavily on stereotypical depictions.
However, I still very much enjoyed the movie’s use of stereotypes. Without recurring character stereotypes, such as the bullied nerd or the popular jock, the movie likely would have fallen shy of my expectations for a charmingly stupid movie.
Another thing I found interesting about “Pizza Movie” was that it breaks the fourth wall, establishing the malicious leader of the RA Blake (Jack Martin), for what he truly is: a poorly written character in a confusing film. After being forced to take too many pills, he is teleported to the writers’ room where the directors question the movies’ logistics, addressing Blake as another actor.
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Having played the character Dustin in “Stranger Things,” I felt that Matarazzo became a more grown-up, crass version of this initial role, even having an aspiration for board games across these roles. Giambrone also brought out a performance similar to his role as Adam Goldberg in “The Goldbergs,” where he played an imaginative, film-obsessed nerd.
Matarazzo’s versatility shown within the juxtaposition from “Pizza Movie” and his more serious work, displays his flexibility as an actor. Both actors excel in the comedy genre, and I think acting in more comedy movies would allow them to continue to hone into these talents.
“Pizza Movie” is charmingly odd, offering a unique take on the stoner comedy genre by portraying the various stages of the duo’s trip. The inclusion of comedians like Sherman and Hearon only helped further develop the movie’s sketch-comedy vibes. I am sure that fellow fans of the absurdist comedy genre will be entertained by this films’ unserious chaos.