From Friday 7th May, people across the globe with Shudder subscriptions will be able to watch the brilliantly bonkers Fried Barry. The film spent the bulk of last year touring the festival circuit and was easily one of our favourites of Fantasia. Set in Cape Town, the story joins heroin addict, bad dad, husband, and all round bad guy, Barry (Gary Green), as he walks out on his family. That night after getting high, he is abducted by aliens. Not content to merely probe him, the extraterrestrials literally invade him and take his body on a joy-ride through the seedy streets of Cape Town. Along the way, Alien Barry encounters all manner of experiences as it explores the human world for the first time.
Fried Barry is certainly not a film for the faint of heart, and is most certainly aimed squarely at those whose cinematic tastes have an open mind, and thirst for the cult midnight movie. It’s an experimental, almost cartoonish, drug-charged bender put onto screen and is such pure insanity that you may find yourself convinced that you’ve experienced a contact high just by watching. Hidden within the madness though is an emotional and heartfelt story, one that may very well have you reaching for the tissues. It’s a lot of film to take in, and it all stems from the singular mind of writer and director Ryan Kruger.
Kruger has a history within acting, most recently appearing in television series Warrior, and a passion for filmmaking. For the last few years he has been getting work as a music video director whilst at the same time working on a series of short experimental films. One such film was Fried Barry. This early version was a svelte three minutes and took the festival circuit by storm, and by doing so led Kruger to expand it out to become his first feature. The result has been an unparalleled success with genre fans across the world who all fall in love with the strange alien being of Barry. It is now set for global domination thanks to Shudder and so we caught up with Ryan to get a little more history and context about the film’s journey from short to screen.
Fried Barry arrives on Shudder from Friday 7th May 2021.
