Described by writer, director, and star Jim Cummings as “a Michael Douglas erotic thriller from the ’90s that we’re doing the MacGruber thing for”, The Beta Test tells the story of a ruthless, manipulative, and soon-to-be-married Hollywood agent who receives a mysterious letter inviting him to an anonymous sexual encounter. After some uncertainty, he accepts, but euphoria soon turns to paranoia as he becomes ensnared in a world of lies, infidelity, and murder.
In line with the film’s release on Blu-Ray from Arrow Video, STARBURST spoke with the Thunder Road and The Wolf of Snow Hollow filmmaker, alongside his co-director, co-writer, and co-star PJ McCabe, about this scathing satire of toxic masculinity and the hollowness of Hollywood.
What inspired The Beta Test’s premise?
Jim Cummings: I used to say that we had the idea because PJ and I were talking about a letter service that would use an algorithm or an AI to connect people for anonymous rendezvous. And I was like, what would you do if you got a letter like that? And he was like, I wouldn’t go because first off, my wife would kill me. And then I was like, I don’t think I would, either. But what if you were somebody that would go? That was the origin of that but really, for the four years before we had that idea, we were already making fun of people lying and cheating in Hollywood and making fun of talent agents – so this was us feeling like we had to get this fuller conversation out of us. This film was just the perfect lens through which to do that.
PJ McCabe: To be totally honest, when we first sat down to start writing this, we were trying to write a contained, easy-to-shoot horror movie.
Jim Cummings: [Laughs] It spiralled into throwing everything we wanted to talk about into one story. We were able to weave a bunch of different narratives into one and it just worked out into the big, crazy, final piece that is The Beta Test.
What is it about talent agents that riles you up?
Jim Cummings: Oh man… this is only a 20-minute call! [Laughs] I guess when you see something like Entourage, it has this glorifying effect on the position, but it’s just very petty, very sad people. I was interested in it because it affected us – it was a non-overlapping industry that a lot of people who are younger in the space feel like they need to appease in order to get any work. And I never really believed that; I was demystified by that very quickly, but I find it to be so interesting!
PJ and I talk about that all the time, about how with growing technologies and social networks, we don’t really need these antiquated agent positions. And even the famous people that we talk to all say that the work they get is always through someone having seen one of their movies and reaching out directly. It has very little to do with having good representation.
We also just hate the industry. Like an overall hatred for the industry, because they don’t make movies. They tell their parents that they make movies and try to seem as cool as possible but never lift a finger, and I hope they choke to fucking death.
PJ McCabe: Talent agents just represent a lot of what’s problematic with the industry and all the walls we’ve run into to make stuff. We just don’t want to deal with that anymore because it doesn’t get us anywhere and we don’t make anything trying to play by their rules.
Jim Cummings: It’s politics. I didn’t get into doing this stuff for politics. I’m a nice person, I’m a diplomat, I always listen, I take notes and shake hands and kiss babies. But if something is actively harming what is possible to be made in an art form, or the support of an entire generation of young people who need help, then fuck ‘em. Is that any different in the British film industry?
I’d say the independent moviemaking industry seems a little more accessible, but the overall entertainment sphere still skews toward the Hollywood way of things.
Jim Cummings: Yeah, that’s the thing that we noticed in going to London and talking to film students: everybody is applying for grants. In America, there aren’t really any grants at all, so filmmakers are forced to do the Duplass brothers’ thing of picking up a camera and running a Kickstarter campaign. They’re far more industrious because they have to be, because America doesn’t really care about the arts. But in the UK and Ireland, I’ve seen that independent filmmakers become a bit lethargic and they’re just waiting, sometimes for a year, to find out whether or not they’ve won the lottery. That’s just not something that I see in American films – people are getting their friends together on a weekend and running crowdfunding campaigns to make stuff. I really want to see more of that in the UK. I think the people that we’ve brought out to our lab in Malibu who are English or Irish go back very industrious and end up making a name for themselves. But I think like, the technology is there now that you can do it and not have to rely on any antiquated systems.
PJ McCabe: I feel like 80 per cent of making a movie is figuring out how to make the movie. I mean, just getting a crew together and whatever small budget you can and problem-solving to get it made. It has gotten easier with technology, but it still forces you to solve a lot of problems and figure things out for yourself, which I think lends itself to better filmmaking in the long run.
Jim Cummings: I like the idea that in England, it’s all these very calm, quiet, Ken Loach-type filmmakers and then in America, it’s more like Uncut Gems – it’s just a fucking nightmare and everybody’s stressed out.
As champions of independent moviemaking, what do you see the future of the industry look like? Do you think that big studios will eventually collapse on themselves, or will indie cinema always be the underdog of the entertainment industry?
Jim Cummings: Putting on my Adam Curtis brain, I think really what’s happening is there’s this exponential, insane growth in technology that is happening. It’s incredibly exciting for giant tech companies, as well as smaller independent artists, who can make stuff that competes at the level of Marvel, visually or auditorily. And that is incredibly exciting for us as well.
But audiences haven’t really changed – they want to see the big new thing. And sometimes that big new thing is something that’s made by four people on a VFX team that then goes on to win Best Picture, like Everything Everywhere All at Once. So I think that is what I anticipate for film over the next few decades: young, independent filmmakers, probably American, who are able to compete at the level of craft that Marvel and Disney and A24 are producing, and for them to deliver a further unsanitised, rock and roll product to an audience of perverts that are desperate for good stuff that isn’t watered down by development executives, and has all of the funny jokes taken out.
I think the technological increase is going to deliver a better product across the board, and then I think audiences are going to become further dissatisfied with no sex, no violence, and no cursing in movies. They’re becoming adults, and they want to watch adult films. I think that will drive what is cool, and people always go to what is cool.
PJ McCabe: I mean, I love that the studios are just pumping out and churning out the same stuff over and over again. That gives us a chance to carve our own part of the sandbox and make unique stuff. There’s a huge hunger for that, and the technology is just making it easier for us to do big-budget-looking stuff out of Jim’s garage. I think this is good for us.
In your opinion, what makes satire such an appealing way of addressing the very toxic, very anger-inducing topics that The Beta Test broaches?
Jim Cummings: There’s a good quote from one of the Greeks, that laughter is the mind sneezing. And it’s so true. If you can get somebody to laugh, it’s involuntary. And so, if you can make something that is funny, you can win the audience and get them to take their medicine. But broadly, satire is something that makes fun of the powerful, which gets general audiences to feel – for one brief moment of laughter – that they are more powerful than the people who hold them down every day. And I think satire is incredibly powerful because a lot of the systems that we have in place make people feel like they don’t have the ammunition to render the powerful, powerless. And it’s a great tool to give people. When we introduced the film at Beyond Fest, we told the audience, “Every time you laugh at this film, an agent dies.” And it feels like that! If an audience is laughing, they feel like the power is returning to them, and that’s a great feeling to give to people.
PJ McCabe: I also think it helps you talk about issues that are usually uncomfortable to talk about. And if you can laugh about serious things, it means you don’t feel so queasy or uneasy, and you’re not being beaten over the head with how awful everything is. It’s about finding a more clever, nuanced way to connect with audiences and have a conversation about it.
And finally, what projects do you both have coming up?
Jim Cummings: We’ve written a really great Victorian horror film, that PJ and I really want to make. I think it’s our masterpiece. I think it’s fucking incredible, and I would love to do it. Before I die, that’s the thing that we’re going to do together. And then we’re working on an exorcist film right now that we’re hoping to shoot in October, and that neither of us is acting in. It’ll be very good – knock on every piece of wood!
PJ McCabe: That’s another one that will have lots of genre-blending and layers. I think if we can stick the landing, it’s going to be pretty special.
It’s funny, because horror really has so much in common with satire.
Jim Cummings: Yeah! It’s no wonder that something like Get Out is made by a sketch comedian. It’s all punch lines: just set-ups and pay-offs. Horror, when done well, is comedy.
The Beta Test is out now on digital and home entertainment via Arrow Video.
By Laura Potier
