Are erotic thrillers coming back in style? It’s a question I’ve asked myself a couple times over the last year, as we’ve seen various variations on the subgenre from creature feature (What Lies Below) to voyeuristic melodrama (The Voyeurs) to queer dark comedy (The Estate). Into this mix, indie darling Jim Cummings brings his unique perspective and brand of anxious comedy to tackle everything from Hollywood’s obsession with fame to the #MeToo revelations and Harvey Weinstein and more. And while The Beta Test is wildly uneven in its execution, Cummings’ dark comedy slightly erotic thriller manages to surprise.

It opens on a dark note, with a woman pre-calling the police to report a domestic disturbance before telling her husband of ten years that she wants a divorce. She received a purple letter promising no-strings-attached sex and it awakened something in her. Her husband holds her face and then gently sticks his steak knife into her throat before descending into a murderous rage that ends with her body being tossed over the balcony. It’s a surprising and violent start that’s never quite matched in the shock department but becomes a repeated refrain throughout.

The next letter finds itself in the mailbox of Jordan (Jim Cummings), a soon-to-be-married Hollywood agent who already seems on the verge of imploding before even opening the letter. His seemingly long-suffering fiance Caroline (Virginia Newcomb) alternates between being incredibly excited for their upcoming wedding and questioning her decision to marry him. She tries to get him involved with the planning, but Jordan doesn’t even seem interested in pretending to be too busy. He’s the kind of man who doesn’t even seem to have friends, even though Caroline suggests he talks to his coworker PJ (PJ McCabe), the only person who might count, about whatever’s bothering him.

What’s bothering him, though, is that the purple letter wants to set him up with a sexual encounter and even includes options, such as top/bottom, dom/sub, face-sitting (he makes sure to check mark that one a few times) and there’s a very large part of him that wants to do it. So he does. And he likes it. But it lingers in his mind, particularly when no follow-up letter is delivered. Who was the woman? Why was he asked to join? Soon, the thoughts start tearing apart his already fragile state and he descends into a paranoid state that threatens to destroy himself, his job and his bride-to-be.

The Beta Test makes the curious decision to do the opposite of what’s expected. In a typical paranoid thriller, the main character becomes convinced the world is the one going crazy while they’re the only sane person. Here, there’s no outward signs that the world is going crazy or that the rules have changed, even though the purple letter and resulting violence is heading out to multiple people. And in a darkly comedic take on this subgenre, I’d almost expect to see Jim Cummings play the “straight man” while the world descends into chaos. Instead, it’s the world around him that plays the comedic straight people while Jordan implodes.

The Beta Test pushes into the uncomfortableness by placing the increasingly unhinged-verging-on-camp performance in a world that seems somewhat normal. Granted, “normal” is subjective, as Jordan works at an agency whose agents speak in throwaway lines and bon mots that mean little to nothing. And certainly, The Beta Test skewers these people who believe they are the alpha males in a career field, the film suggests, is a dying breed. In a world where superstars grow their followings through Instagram and TikTok, why would someone need a weaselly agent?

I’ve always felt that Jim Cummings is a better director than he is an actor, turning in performances that feel removed from the rest of the cast. It sometimes feels as if he’s acting in a completely different movie from people who share the scene with him. It was one of my problems with The Wolf of Snow Hollow, a film I appreciated but was often pulled out of by Cummings’ shouting and manic, over-the-top antics. Here, though, it feels as if he’s created the perfect role to really sink his frighteningly sharp canines into as an actor. One where the character is out of step with the world that Cummings’ elastic face and sharp smile performance feels incredibly appropriate.

It’s not the world that’s gone insane, it’s this career field that’s trying desperately to hold onto whatever faded glory it once had. Cummings’ Jordan, meanwhile, looks like he belongs in a different era; he could slide in perfectly into the Mad Men ad agency with little trouble and it’s that suited and slick-backed performance that really drives home a connection between the two. He’s a relic grappling onto whatever shred of near-fame he can, racking up bills on his Tesla lease and buying expensive art to attract rich clients.

The Beta Test’s humor won’t be for everyone as the anxious energy Cummings imbues his character can be absolutely grating and cringe-inducing. But it works here. Jordan isn’t a character we’re supposed to like and his barely contained annoyance verges on the internalized rage that American Psycho explored at the turn of the century. He’s a Patrick Bateman for the #MeToo social media era, but instead of seeing his perfectly manicured existence crumble, we’re already at the third act point, waiting for Cummings to try to feed a cat to an ATM. As he yells at his assistant and tells her what he thinks of her by not telling her what he thinks, he’s already unhinged past the point of return. “Everyone still wants to be Harvey!” he screams at one point in a moment that is more telling about him than it is anyone else.

Virginia Newcomb turns out a fantastic and subtle performance that feels like a balm to Cummings’ manic, full-throttle performance. Unfortunately, the ending doesn’t feel completely justified, even though the climax holds as much tension as the woman involved, clutching a pair of scissors, wondering if she’s going to have to use them. The Beta Test left me exhausted by the end of its slim running time...but it also made me appreciate Jim Cummings in a way his previous two films didn’t.