Pizza Movie
Stranger Things’ Gaten Matarazzo gets his own slice of American Pie.
Hero in a half-shell: Gaten Matarazzo
Photo by Brett Roedel, Courtesy of Disney.
by CHAD KENNERK
A stoner comedy lit for the Gen Z crowd, Pizza Movie is Dude, Where’s My Car? in a dorm, purposely juvenile and just as blunt as its title suggests. It benefits from an eager cast and the mad machinations of sketch comedy duo BriTANicK – Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher (aka Mr Karen Gillan), who write and direct. Taking a page from Revenge of the Nerds and other irreverent campus comedies, Pizza Movie unfolds at Cranford College, where bullied freshman Jack (Gaten Matarazzo) finds decade-old psychedelics dubbed M.I.N.T.S. (Mind Igniting Neural Tuning Stimulants) hiding in the ceiling of his dorm room and peer pressures straightlaced roomie Montgomery (Sean Giambrone) into taking them. As they plunge into a surreal, six-stage trip, their mundane goal of picking up a pizza from the dormitory lobby morphs into a quest of nightmarish proportions as they dodge tyrannical resident advisors and a football team with a grudge.
The bar for stoner comedies is a relatively low one, but Pizza Movie embraces that zonked lineage with an earnest, madcap spirit baked in. As with most stoner scenarios, it all hinges on a straightforward goal complicated by a series of increasingly ludicrous detours, where humour is extracted from quippy dialogue, quick cuts and gonzo scenarios. Where else will you hear Daniel Radcliffe as a scorned butterfly? Thanks to its limited budget, there’s a surprising degree of inventiveness at play and part of the charm rests in its handcrafted feel, from theatre of the absurd to a shadow puppet sequence from performance collective Manual Cinema (also seen in Nia DaCosta’s Candyman).
Comedies have struggled in the streaming age to recreate the kind of communal laughter that once propelled films like Superbad and Pineapple Express into box office hits. While there’s nothing more infectious than laughing along with friends and strangers, the pause button does allow us a look at Jack’s preferred poison (Dog Dick Whiskey), the local pizza parlour (Lord of the Pies), and The Toxic Avenger poster fixed to their dorm room wall. Keen viewers will also note BriTANicK’s own thesis film, Eagles Are Turning People Into Horses: The Movie, on Jack’s YouTube feed. While tailor-made for the college crowd, it's also worth noting that this is a movie written by millennials, hence the “This is Sparta!” nod. What Gen Z-er will glean that reference, unless it’s become historical nostalgia? The choice of a streaming release also seems a knowing nod to those slightly underage audiences that will sneak view the crude comedy while the rents are out. With ‘za in hand, no doubt.
Cast: Gaten Matarazzo, Sean Giambrone, Lulu Wilson, Jack Martin, Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Marcus Scribner, Caleb Hearon, Sarah Sherman, Justin Cooley, Daniel Radcliffe.
Dir Brian McElhaney, Nick Kocher, Pro Jeremy Garelick, Will Phelps, Billy Rosenberg, Jason Zaro, Molle DeBartolo, Max A. Butler, Matt Whelan, Screenplay Brian McElhaney, Nick Kocher, Ph Bella Gonzales, Ed Matt McBrayer, Music Leo Birenberg, Zach Robinson, Sound Mac Smith.
LD Entertainment/American High/All Things Comedy-Hulu.
97 mins. USA. 2025. US/UK Rel: 3 April 2026. Cert. TV-MA (US).
