From American High, Pizza Movie released on Apr. 3rd, streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
Written and directed by Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher (known as comedy duo BriTANicK). The movie stars Gaten Matarazzo, Sean Giambrone, Lulu Wilson, Jack Martin, Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Marcus Scribner, Caleb Hearon, Justin Cooley, and Sarah Sherman.
Produced by Jeremy Garelick and Will Phelps of American High and Billy Rosenberg of All Things Comedy. Additionally, Jason Zaro, Molle DeBartolo, and Max Butler produced the movie, with Matarazzo also serving as an executive producer.
Pizza Movie is a stoner comedy centered on two best friends, college roommates, and outcasts, Jack (Matarazzo) and Montgomery (Giambrone), who on a fateful Friday night accidentally take a strange dose of a mind-bending experimental drug and must go on a grueling quest to retrieve a pizza by going down two flights of stairs, all while experiencing absurd encounters and wild hallucinations that unveil unexpected revelations that could change their lives forever.
This movie was a breath of fresh air and a hilarious return to form for stoner comedies, showcasing two young actors who are typically shown in nostalgic fare, taking on a raunchy and R-rated theme in the modern day. The movie pulls no punches to your gut as it makes you bust out laughing with words, gags, and physical comedy. It is very vivid and surreal as it is elevated scene by scene by the drugs that the characters take. You truly feel like you are on the trip with them. I felt that this movie was inspired by stoner comedies of the past, such as Pineapple Express and Gregg Araki’s Smiley Face, while also having hints of more bombastic and unfiltered absurdist fare, such as Bottoms.
Sean Giambrone, Lulu Wilson, and Gaten Matarazzo in PIZZA MOVIE. Photo courtesy of Hulu.
Matarazzo is the wild party animal, with Giambrone being a shy, straight-edge nerd, with their friendship being the beating heart of the movie, as both actors complement each other perfectly, radiating the much-needed chaotic energy for the movie. The movie takes these actors and has them play parts that show their versatility, hilarity, and puts them in the most insane circumstances that only BriTANicK can think of. Wilson delivers a saucy performance as Lizzy, holding her own with the two leads as she goes down the same rabbit hole they are. The movie took me by surprise with the way each scene elevated the absurdity and put me on the edge of my seat. You will want to root for the trio as they contend with cliques, trips, and Tarantino-esque RAs who are relentless in their pursuit of order.
Martin played his role to terrifying perfection as the chilling and ruthless head RA, Blake, who heightened the tension each time he was on screen. Hearon plays one of his minions, Sidney, who is way out of his depth as he desperately seeks companionship. He brings lots of laughter and a perfect amount of cringe to the movie. Finally, Lee plays her role as a classmate who, underneath her cutesy demeanor, is as chaotic as the rest. Sherman plays a short yet pivotal and memorable role as Frankie, the inventor behind the featured drug of choice called M.I.N.T.S., whose delightfully wacky presence possesses a flair akin to a mad scientist.
The Knockturnal talked to the cast and writer-directors of the movie days after its world premiere at SXSW Film & TV Festival in Austin, TX about how they cooked this movie.
Matarazzo, Wilson, and Giambrone discussed what drew this zany script to each one of them. Matarazzo and Giambrone are no strangers to comedy, while this was a welcome change for Wilson, who has a significant amount of credits in horror.
“Honestly, for me it was instant. I am a huge fan of comedy, and I’ve done mostly horror. So, just like the idea of the opportunity to do something like this was insane for me. I was just so excited… I mean, the script is so good, like the script was amazing. So it wasn’t just like another, like copy and paste comedy that wasn’t really that funny. It was something that I read on the page, and it made me laugh,” Wilson said.
Matarazzo gravitated to the script that stood out to him from the beginning.
“It’s a script that just pops, and it like really just stands out and is easy to fall in love with. Especially if you grew up loving this style of comedy the same way that I think all three of us had,” said Matarazzo.
He shared that he followed the advice he heard before on how to determine whether a project is worth pursuing or not, if it has a script that seems outside of the ordinary, and if not, then finding peace in passing on it, as other similar opportunities might arise. Pizza Movie was one of those scripts that he absolutely could not pass on by the time he finished reading it.
Matarazzo added, “There’s just no way I’d be able to pass up an opportunity like this, so jumping in and working as hard as I could for them to hopefully like me enough to put me in the movie. Which is like thankfully all three of us were in that boat of being like ‘yay, we did it,’ the movie’s really special.”
Giambrone said he kept ‘peeling back’ further on why he would want to do the movie. He thought the script was ‘fun’ and ‘amazing’ as it kept him ‘cracking up.’ He looked into McElhaney and Kocher’s work as BriTANick and loved their sketches. Also, he was drawn to the idea of working with Matarazzo and was thrilled with how the movie developed.
“Then once I got a part of the project, I started hearing the rest of the cast, and it was like ‘oh man, I love all these people, but haven’t had the chance to work with them.’ And it just kept going on and on, so just like a lot of great elements work. So I just was super excited to be a part of it, and I just really was proud of what it turned into.”
McElhaney and Kocher spoke on what pushed this script they wrote to be the one that finally places them in the director’s chair this time.
“Well, we’ve been looking for something to do ever since we started performing sketch comedy together in 2008, really, is when our career began. We’ve always wanted to become filmmakers and take our comedy to this bigger level than just sketches… It takes a lot of work and time and trust to have anyone give you the money to make a movie,” said McElhaney.
He explained that the duo always intended to write and direct their own features. McElhaney added, “And, you know, after almost two decades of it, this idea that we’ve sat on since college, you know, Hulu came to us, we pitched them the idea. The time felt right. And then this turned out to be the first one that we actually, you know, were able to manifest into something real.”
Kocher credits Billy Rosenberg for helping the movie come into fruition, as Rosberg watched their live show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022 and asked if they had an idea for a high school or college movie they could pitch to him.
“And we remembered this idea that we had. And then it was American High, you know, giving us the green light to make it. And they’re this amazing studio that gives first-time directors their chance to make like movies with a decent budget. And like, it’s such a great little, I don’t know what you would call it. Like insane asylum that they’re running there. But like, it was incredible. We got to make this movie the way we wanted to make it.”
For fans of BriTANick, this movie surely elevates their style of comedy. As the characters take a fictional experimental drug and have outlandish experiences, because it is fictional, Kocher expressed that this gave him the freedom to make up the rules as the story progressed.
“We weren’t bound by the limits of reality. And we could, it was a great vessel to just dump all of the weirdest, wildest ideas that we had into a movie,” Kocher said.
McElhaney explained, “I think another way it elevates our comedy is we’ve only done sketches really. And sketch comedy is big, loud, bold, absurdist, but a movie has to have heart to it, and it has to move in a more paced, and we had to slow down a bit. So I think we had to kind of like grow up a little bit to make a feature with our sense of humor.”
He added, “We could have injections of the mania that we normally do, but we had to like find ways to also like put in heart and tell a story and imbue it with the sense of rich and deep character, hopefully, and not just be balls to the wall, crazy comedy the whole time.”
As Dante underwent the nine circles of Hell, Matarazzo and Giambrone excel in stretching the limits of their physical comedy as they brave through the craziest trip ever featured in cinema. The movie oozes creativity with its many usages of animation, sound, effects, and many varied elements that put this movie in a class of its own. Its college setting was refreshing as it speaks to a period seldom seen on screen. The movie was hilarious, in-your-face, and at times heartwarming. The movie knows what it is and wears it proudly on its sleeve as it understands the insanity of its premise.
4/5 Pepperoni Slices, watch with food, you may get hungry.
Pizza Movie is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+. Check out our entire interview above.
Pizza Movie is rated TV-MA and is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+. Watch our entire interview above and watch the trailer below.
