‘Pizza Movie’ serves up an overstuffed slice of chaos and comedy

“Pizza Movie” is an amalgamation of comedy, a bit of body horror and the craziest drug trip ever taken. Leaving anyone brave enough to click play, asking the question: “Am I…the one on drugs?”

Directed and written by Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney, “Pizza Movie” features a psychedelic trip unlike any we’ve seen before. The film follows the funny, mind-altering quest for a savory antidote as roommates Montgomery (Sean Giambrone) and Jack (Gaten Matarazzo) go on a wild journey after consuming a mystery drug found in their ceiling.  

The film was shot just outside of Syracuse, with scenes shot at Le Moyne College and Onondaga Community College. Le Moyne served as the exterior for the movie’s fictional college, while Onondaga Community College – the pinnacle dorm lobby — and American High HQ served as the faux-institute’s interior.  

“Pizza Movie” opens up with the fateful pair having an awful day. Jack, after accidentally getting the campus football team registered on a list, becomes the most hated man on campus. Montgomery awkwardly fails at his own attempted “meet-cute” with long-time crush, Ashley (Peyton Elizabeth Lee). After some jocks smash the duo’s bottle of whiskey, Montgomery and Jack try to make the day better by taking a dose of M.I.N.T.S (mind-igniting neural tuning stimulants) made by the dorm’s former occupant, Frankie (Sarah Sherman). 

Photo by Ella Chan

The film was shot just outside of Syracuse, with many scenes being filmed at American High.

In a video the roommates watch after consuming the drugs, Frankie warns that if taken without food, the drug has six distinct phases with periods of lucidity in between. The phases include: “Make the Baby Like It,” “No Bad Words,” “Flashbacks,” “The Ol’ Switcheroo,” “Nothing But The Truth” and “We Are All One.” With a final terrifying phase of “your worst nightmare coming true and shoving a chainsaw up your a*s.” To combat this, the two need to eat a combination of nightshades, dairy and wheat — ingredients commonly found in pizza. The adventure begins when Montgomery, Jack and their ex-friend, who accidentally took a dose, Lizzy (Lulu Wilson) set off to meet a delivery robot to get the trip-ending pizza. 

The magic of the film lies within its dialogue and its numerous insane yet hilarious one-liners. These include “I hook him up to this machine that simulates the pains of childbirth, and then I create harmonies from his extracted screams,” and “We can say c*nt but we can’t say cremble sauce?” 

The dynamic chemistry between Matarazzo and Giambrone is also what truly makes “Pizza Movie” an event to watch. The film locks audiences into the same hazy trance, akin to one dose of M.I.N.T.S. Audiences just can’t look away until they see every phase that Montgomery and Jack go through. 

Each scene is absurd to say the least. Including sequences portraying murderous RAs, Montgomery switching souls with his pet butterfly (Daniel Radcliffe) and many more mind-boggling moments — all of which blur the thin line between fantasy and reality.

“Pizza Movie” is not a film that takes itself seriously, and that is precisely what makes it so entertaining. The film tests how absurd one movie can get, teasing itself in a scene where Blake (Jack Martin) is forcibly fed all the M.I.N.T.S and transported into one of the funniest scenes in the film. The scene itself is a discussion over the storyboard, featuring the main writers of the film. It ends with Blake exclaiming: “We’re in a movie, we’re in a low-budget movie?”

Don’t come into the “Pizza Movie” thinking that it is a film that needs to make sense. At its heart, there’s a silly film that thrives on bouts of absurdity while poking fun at current pop culture. From the star-studded cameos, including Sarah Shipman and Caleb Heron, to the action-packed scenes of singing hands, talking butterflies and a man dressed as the Grinch wearing a diaper, “Pizza Movie” dishes up a slice meant to be savored and not dissected.