Post by No Personality on Mar 15, 2010 14:20:11 GMT -5
Of the huge boom of human-mutation films and very bizarre creature feature sci-fi horror hybrids to come in the 1980's- this is by far the strangest (and yes, I'm including 1986's Street Trash in a list of films less strange than this one). The directorial debut of Re-Animator producer, Brian Yuzna, this low-budget teen / high school flick has grand ambitions to be both a scary satire of the lifestyle of California's rich suburban Americans and an interesting sci-fi film dealing with an alternate species of people which are half-human and half-slug. Therefore, they can transform into any sort of shape they want to. I'm not sure slugs ever had that much freedom on their own, but here- you have to run with it. Because you have no other choice.
There are, however, a few genuinely interesting things about this movie. None of which being that it sees itself as an 80's teen version of Rosemary's Baby. "Is it all in his head or is it really happening?" This is the 1980's and following 1988's Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master - "Screaming Mad" George's name is listed in the opening credits. You know it's really happening. And you know you're going to see even more than you want to. You know you're going to get goop and lots of it. But before the nearly 40-minute finale, the movie has several scenes that seem to take place in another world. Another world, that is, away from the one the film starts out in.
Akin, perhaps, to a pornographic film's feeling of any-place, any-time- our uptight main character Billy meets girl of his dreams Clarissa. She takes him to her house, where he gets even more paranoid- sort of suggesting that something other than sex will happen. Something does, but it happens late and it's not what you'd expect. In the meantime- things get very Frank Henenlotter-esque, they get naked and have sex. Only for it to end somewhat prematurely because it turns out that she's even stranger than she looks. You might still be holding onto the belief that I'm a prude based on my Spotlight of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. But this scene is one of my favorites in the movie. Devin DeVasquez, with the film's freaking awesome music score backlighting her the whole way, has an incredible magnetism.
Later in the film, in another scene, she wants to take him back to her home and he assumes she means for sex. He doesn't go with her in that scene, but later on he goes to her house uninvited and, with the dialogue still suggesting something bad or creepy will happen at her house- nothing does. Misdirection. I like it. All the time, if you're paying attention (and you may need to rewatch it for this to work), you'll notice that her house represents safety. Clarissa is part of the bizarre in-crowd that he doesn't exactly fit-in with, the people who all throughout the movie are staring at him strangely whenever they find themselves in public at the same time. Yet, not only is she much more wise and friendly to him than her clique but, none of them are ever seen over at her house.
Society most likely sees itself an adult-oriented teen fantasy film, light on the dramatics, than a sci-fi film with a notion to goofily grin to children like the And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird school of silly-fiction flicks. It's told entirely through Billy's point of view, except for maybe 2 short sequences here and there- to suggest there's actually a conspiracy against him. His life is sort of controlled, unbeknownst to him, by a psychiatrist his parents have selected for him to see. Then he gets to know Clarissa and she gives him an outlet by which to completely escape the things about his life he doesn't feel comfortable about. To ignore the psychiatrist (who we know he shouldn't trust), as well as his parents and his sister. Unfortunately, the movie makes it just too obvious that we can trust her. And we do.
What the film mainly is is incredibly tacky. Marred by the same flaws as many low budget 80's horror films- robotic, impusively strained young actors. Cheesy special effects. And a tendancy to feel the necessity to include childish humor and a load of one-liners into every other scene. This is of course what made me and many other people consider 1987's Hellraiser (a low budget horror film that basically predicted what the Hollywood action and thriller genre output was going to look like for almost a decade) a refreshing turn from the norm. Not because it was anti-color, anti-teen, anti-pretty people. But because it wasn't so silly, at least not intentionally so. This film tries to be more serious than, for example, Night of the Creeps. But though the concept held a lot of promise, the ending is about as low-grade camp as you can get.
Even more tacky than what the young people are doing and wearing, are their parents. They have cheap malevolent intentions beaming from their eyes, which they try to balance with their stuffy mannerisms. Thinking that that's how the director wants to comment on the upper class of Beverly Hills. I'll leave it up to anyone reading this who's ever been to Beverly Hills how much this looks like it was filmed there. Billy's home is gaudy, but not exactly what I would assume is the ultra-fancy Joan Crawford type stately-home from Mommie Dearest that comes to mind when I think of social satire aimed at the attitudes of the rich. Another film of the late 80's that found a fairly cheap-looking fancy rich home was Troma's Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator. That place reminded me more of what I imagine would be called a summer cottage.
The way Brian Yuzna talks about the movie makes it sound much more interesting than it is. Taken at face value, it feels like a cheesy thriller which uses the over-the-top special effects to get gross out reactions, only adding a touch of horror every now and then. As though Yuzna's favorite of his collaborations with Stuart Gordon was 1986's far superior goo-fest & creature-show From Beyond. A film on which I don't believe "Screaming Mad" George was one of the people who worked on the special effects. The film's attempt to make all the houses and rooms of the rich people in this story look fancy must have eaten up most of the budget. Because at times, the mutation effects we see look like they very well could have been done for Nickelodeon television shows (sans- any parts from the lower half of the body).
When I watch this movie now, I don't even watch the ending. A natural luxury of DVD. Which is what's allowed me to see so many little things which a better film might have made bigger things. I'm not sure this movie expected it would even be shown in theaters. Other than the overall remarkably good-looking cast, the pretty hard to fathom left-field stuff borders on X-rated. What at the time would have been X-rated. Even among the mutant orgy of slime and transformations during the finale, there is a nonchalantness about what this movie calls "shunting." Or, sort of redefines. From a switch of some kind (which is the basic definition) to an extraction of the human insides through the anus. A live embalming, if you will. Which this "society" of characters do...just for a thrill.
Now, that's pretty grotesque. Pretty nasty, as in- deeply disturbing. But you'll hardly think so when you see (if you see; I say- skip it) the movie. Because the shocks are so padded by goofy music (the score loses its' earlier ambiance and starts to edge toward being a carnival freakshow) and just the overall ugliness of a group of deranged people nearly naked in a giant flesh pie. And in case that actually sounds interesting to you, let me spoil it. You'll see each and every single of the makeup under hot skin-pink lighting. Not exactly shocking after scenes like Ferguson's pool party and Clarissa's almost dread-inducing "don't go home, Billy!" suggest you'll be treated to something a great deal more creepy.
One of this movie's few charms is that in the meantime, while you're waiting to see the ending everyone on the jaw-dropping comments section of IMDb is talking about come up, the aristocratic nature of the in-crowd of teenage characters dictates that they seem very sexually predatory over non-in-crowd members who are popular in the school and have influence over majority opinion. So the fact that Billy is very well-liked and comes from a rich family makes him a target of very unusual advances by anyone in the story who seems to have a secret. This has a upside and a downside to it. The downside is that it's obvious there would be incestuous connotations eventually. The upside is that what initially feel like threats passed along from man-to-man also have a very sly sexual overtone to them. Sexuality for this group of people isn't set in stone.
This may be accidental, but when you think about it- it adds a new dimension to what the film could have been. A character later says, "the rich have always sucked off low-class shit like you." Though the notion you know Yuzna wanted you to get is not so much that this society of people are a different species, but rather they're just human cannibals with absolutely no respect for human life. Like Max Von Sydow's devil in Needful Things, only they in fact are a different species. It could have been like an attitude that infected people like the spread of materialism. Or like those Children of the Corn sequels. Like a bodily / soul possession / deterioration. Or, like a romantic comedy like Can't Buy Me Love where the character gets so wrapped up in trying to be like the in-crowd that they forget themselves.
With a finale as disgusting and long as this one, it's tempting to write the movie off completely. Think that it was only ever interested in grossing the viewer out rather than appeal to their intellect. Or to enrich the horror film with appropriate darkness and to keep the adult themes adult rather than spew them with all over with goop and glop. However, this could have been a lot better. And, I rarely say this with any movie, a remake could really do something amazing with this story. Better yet, this is exactly the kind of movie that should be tagged for the remake treatment rather than classic creature features like the underrated The Crazies or genre milestones like Dawn of the Dead. This film is too unfocused and sloppy. And that isn't just a pan of the special effects.
