The disappointment of The Belko Experiment, then, is that it shifts so abruptly into horror-film terrain that it fails to examine the way this office has brainwashed these characters.

Going about its grisly business with undisguised relish, the film comes closer to the chilly spirit of science fiction writer J.G. Ballard than director Ben Wheatley did in his recent, overwrought adaptation of Ballard's novel High-Rise.

The Belko Experiment isn't much more than a good time at the theater, but it isn't really trying to be and doesn't really have to be.

Somewhere between Office Space and Battle Royale, the scenario of The Belko Experiment turns a corporate setting into a gladiatorial bloodbath.