Pizza Movie

• Written and Directed by Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher
• March 13, 2026 (SXSW) / April 3, 2026 (US)

Two college roommates take a drug and must eat pizza to survive the high.

The stoner genre is a comedy type that has long faded in prominence. Then again, the comedy movie itself really isn’t that strong anymore. With Pizza Movie, based on the trailer and what I read, gave me some hope for a brief reprise.

I cannot say the movie delivered. It lacked a consistent logic. It looks like the drug called M.I.N.T.S. (Mind Igniting Neural Tuning Stimulants) has the ability to affect reality. Or does it? On the one hand they seem to be really experiencing what happens. On the other it appears that it is some type of group hallucination. At least down the road. And it appears to have an impact on space and time. Or it doesn’t.

There are moments when they’re experiencing the hallucination then we get shots of an outside perspective which shows them just acting silly and nothing actually happening. So which is it? This doesn’t have to be reality based, but there needs to be a consistent bit of logic. It brings into question so much else in the story. If it toyed with reality, it makes the uniformity of the experience plausible while allowing for comedy.

In a certain stage they have flashbacks. In one flashback a character changes events thus changing the present. In a movie where all the characters learn a lesson it sounds like an opportune moment to fix a mistake and learn something. I expected it to begin the basis for a lesson which even Stevie Wonder would see this movie going for but nope.

Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher aim for some weird cross between John Hughes and Cheech and Chong with a smattering of 80s raunch. If everything that was happening was happening within the hallucination or due to the hallucination this might’ve worked better but with an inability to decide how the hallucination worked it makes for an uneven movie.

Gaten Matarazzo of Stanger Things fame who here plays Jack is probably the most famous member of the cast. Certainly was pushed not only in the general marketing and the trailer. Sean The Goldbergs Giambrone as Montgomery and Lulu Becky series Wilson as Lizzy get a lot more on-screen time and character development.

Jack is a jerk focused largely on himself to the point he gets the football team of the college on a sex offender list-a problem that could have been fixed with a time travelling drug but was not. A broken nose was though. Montgomery has a long-term crush on Ashley (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) who is into whatever weird sounding string of words that McElhaney and Kocher can come up with. Lizzy is a desperate-for-kool-kid-acceptance girl who we eventually learn was friends with Jack and Montgomery until the cool kids that bully Jack for the football team issue learned of her credit card. So why do they take her back at the end? Jack and Montgomery know she abandoned them for shallow reasons and did not return until the bullies overplayed their hand.

Lizzy doesn’t necessarily learn how to achieve internal validation but rather learns that her supposed friends only used her for her credit card while her true friends just wanted to play games and embrace the nerd she is. Jack and Montgomery learn to be backup friends by taking her back. Or something.

Gaten Matarazzo does a fine job. I think he should have given him a little more. Montgomery, to use modern language, is ‘gay coded.’ I had a hard time believing that guy had a crush on a cute girl. Or ended up with Lizzy.

There’s no joke that is sidesplitting, really funny, or even generates a chuckle. Some might make you smile because it is cute. The best joke comes when they overdose the RA named Blake (Jack Martin), who is their hindrance to getting pizza as he enacts a plan to send troublemakers to the infamous Gralk Hall, on a drug they know very little about. An OD of M.I.N.T.S.makes one see the true horrible nature of reality which in this case is that it is all just a movie. Witty with Martin delivering a great meta response to it. Probably the best thing they do in this whole movie. But were they trying to kill Blake? What exactly did they think an overdose would do beyond that?

Pizza Movie tries so very hard. We’ve got a weird robot pizza delivery service and an RA that’s way too old to be in college with a weird fetish of dressing up like the Grinch while wearing a diaper and holding balloons. Montgomery owns a pet butterfly, and Jack gets farts in the face. It is so random like a grab-bag of ideas with no theme.

I thought the hallucinations were well done. Mixing technology and practical FX together created something truly strange. The editing used to accomplish them definitely served to accentuate the aesthetic. Yet for me viewing felt like a slog. Never did it feel really entertaining or really funny. I just didn’t find the villains enjoyable or a threat and I could not really care about the main characters.

Pizza Movie just was not good. Fine to look at but not to watch.