The Beta Test – Film Review

A married Hollywood agent named Jordan Hines (Jim Cummings) receives a mysterious letter for an anonymous sexual encounter and becomes ensnared in a sinister world of lying, murder, and infidelity.

Ever since his directorial debut feature back in 2018 – Thunder Road – was released, filmmaker Jim Cummings has risen to quite immense popularity and acclaim within the industry and it’s for good reason. His films all feel like they were made with a sense of intimacy. They feel so personal, even his extremely violent and insane horror feature The Wolf of Snow Hollow from last year. Cummings certainly knows what he is doing behind the camera, and his newest film The Beta Test is great proof of that.

But at the same time, I do feel as though Cummings is actually a better actor than he is a creative force. In the role of Jordan Hines, he legitimately terrified me. Nothing about the character is technically scary. He is a highly successful and overwhelmingly busy Hollywood agent but the things that he does and the manic behavior he displays result in something truly terrifying.

Unnerving humans in film have always been ten times creepier to me than actual movie monsters such as Nosferatu and Frankenstein – and Jordan Hines is a great example of a terrifying human character. Cummings honestly delivers one of the best performances of the year, but because this is such an indie movie, you most definitely won’t be seeing his name anywhere this awards season and that’s a shame.

And as for the movie itself? It’s also a remarkably good time to watch unfold, mainly thanks to the dizzying and eerie story that Jim Cummings and PJ McCabe wrote. Despite the running time being only ninety-three minutes, Cummings and McCabe find a surprising amount of things to explore in this movie, and for the most part, they find great balances between focusing on characters and expanding the storyline.

The big mystery of the film is – who exactly send Jordan this mysterious invitation and what were their intentions? Because of how bizarre and intricate the mystery is, both Jordan and us, the viewer, spend the entire journey trying to piece together all the various puzzle pieces and the central story gets more and more blurry as time goes by – at least for a while.

As soon as you kind of a get a sense as to where the film is going, it just becomes even more enjoyable, and the characters involved with the story get more interesting as a result. Sadly, the final act can be enormously messy and it takes a disappointing turn toward campiness. It kind of reminded me of John Wick: Chapter 2 – a film that was a total blast until the final ten minutes or so happened and the film took an absurd turn toward the ridiculous to the point where I just couldn’t take it seriously anymore.

But The Beta Test is most definitely a win despite the underwhelming final act and it finds quite a lot to say about the toxicity inside of Hollywood and how corrupt some people can be within the industry. It’s mostly a smart movie that never lets up on its suspense, and further cements Jim Cummings as a hugely impressive talent on both sides of the camera.