Bad

"Andy Warhol's Bad" is probably one of my top ten favorite comedies. Imagine a John Waters movie and make it ten times more offensive! Great stuff! This is quite a turn from director Paul Morrissey's underground improvisation opuses, but isn't a bad change.

Carroll Baker is great as Hazel Aiken, a lady who runs an electrolysis clinic in her home and a murder-for-hire business on the side, utilizing only female killers (save for new employee Perry King). Baker is fabulous and reminded me of Kathleen Turner in "Serial Mom", just without the constant happiness. Susan Tyrell is great as Hazel's daughter-in-law Mary, who spends her life residing in Hazel's house caring for her baby. Always looking frumpy and whiny, Tyrell is hilarious! I see now why John Waters seeked her out for a part in "Cry-Baby"! Perry King is a painfully obvious Joe Dallesandro replacement. Reportedly Dallesandro turned down the part for work in Europe, which unfortunately didn't lead to anything that helped his career. He would have been perfect here and would have acted with/had another sex scene with one-time girlfriend Stefania Casini (they had worked together in "Blood for Dracula"). Casini's Italian accent is thankfully left intact and is very sexy as a redheaded assassin. Also making an appearance is early Warhol regular Brigid Polk as Estelle, a bitchy fat lady who wants cop Lawrence Tierney's dog killed for something he said about her weight! Jane Forth is almost unrecognizable as a screaming passerby who is splattered with blood when a woman throws her baby out the window! As you can tell from these examples, "Andy Warhol's Bad" is not for everyone. For those with a very broad taste in humor and those not easily offended.

I've only watched a few of Warhol's films but BAD now joins FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN (1973) and BLOOD FOR Dracula (1974) in being the most interesting examples of his work (so far, anyway), if still not exactly good cinema!

Tacky in presentation and patchy in effect, the film is tasteless enough to keep one watching - sometimes incredulously - till the very end; Mike Bloomfield's pounding score helps, too. Carroll Baker seems comfortable enough with her unusual (to say the least!) role - though she had cut her teeth in Italian cult films during the previous decade. The rest of the cast is eclectic, if not especially rewarding: Perry King, Susan Tyrrell (playing a simple-minded ugly duckling who's been left stranded with a child suffering with Down's Syndrome!), Stefania Casini and Lawrence Tierney. The first three appear as temporary residents in Baker's house - a hair-removing business indulging in criminal activities on the side! - while Tierney is one of their victims (or, rather, its master as the target was actually his dog!). Baker utilizes several colorful killers for her alternately anarchic and murderous jobs: King is a wastrel, while Casini (who comes off best, despite struggling with the English dialogue) is a tough foreign broad, for instance; among others, there is also a memorable sister act - one of whom is a pyromaniac.

Among the film's most hilarious - or, should I say, horrifying - sequences: a young one-armed man reacting passively to Casini's killing of the mechanic responsible for his disability; a journalist reporting a fire in a cinema, which left 14 people killed, saying that one should thank God that the film being shown was a Hispanic release with limited appeal - as, otherwise, the number of victims would have been far greater!; and, particularly, three scenes involving violence perpetrated on children: a jaw-dropping yet hysterical one where a distraught mother callously throws her crying toddler out the window of a tall building, splashing bystanders with its blood (the baby itself is then voyeuristically shown splattered on the pavement)!!; another in which King punches a retarded boy several times - and even throws him across the room - in order to make sure of his condition, but still can't bring himself to 'execute' him; and the end sequence when Baker's body is discovered by Tyrell who, in her amazement, lets go of the baby (which comes tumbling down to the floor).

One last thing; "Leonard Maltin's Film Guide" erroneously lists this as having been made in 1971 - but that's quite impossible since, at one point, Tyrrell's character is asked what was the last film she watched and the reply comes that it was "that Watergate thing" (alluding obviously to ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN [1976])!

"Bad" was one of the most offensive, hilarious and brilliantly written films I saw in the 70's. Carroll Baker puts forth an incredibly bland, sarcastic performance as a housewife with a clan of hit women on the side (hey, a woman's gotta pay the bills). My only misgiving about the film was Perry King never made a very good Joe Dallesandro, and I got the feeling while I was watching it Warhol and Johnson were doing everything they could to replicate him. The saddest thing about this film is that after waiting for years for it to show up on DVD, it's finally been presented in such poor, dismal quality that it's almost not worth watching. Why would a company called CheezyFlicks release this, and release it in such poor shape? This needs a better release, as well as a remaster, so it can really be appreciated. What they've done to this classic film is a real shame.

It's fair to say that "Bad", the final film produced by Andy Warhol's studio, is not for everyone.

Hazel Aiken (Carrol Baker) is a New York housewife who runs an electrolysis clinic from her home, as well as running an all-female "murder for hire" business. Her life is complicated by the arrival of boarder LT (Perry King), who is waiting for the call for his first contract killing.

The film is loaded with offensive scenes, including a mother throwing her unwanted baby out of the window of a skyscraper. However there is a strange morality to the film, which explores a world completely without morality, where life is completely meaningless. The film is full of deeply dark humour. This was the most expensive of Warhol's films, and may be his most accessible. If you're a fan of cult film-maker John Waters, you'll probably love this. In fact, this is one of the great cult movies. Recommended to people with strong nerves and stomachs.

"Andy Warhol's Bad" concerns a rapacious middle-age housewife in NYC who runs an electrolysis business and a murder-for-hire (with only female employees) business out of her home. There are various subplots, involving her hired assassins, their clients, and her mentally dull daughter-in-law who lives with her (and whom she cruelly exploits). Although often considered "camp", a la the films of John Waters, "Bad" is in reality more of a satire in the vein of "Gulliver's Travels". The critique is presents of contemporary, capitalist values in American society is right on target, so that the thoroughly unrealistic plot seems all too real. Even more, this film has perhaps the funniest, most original dialogue of any film ever made - you'll never forget the dangerously paranoid Brigid Polk (a.k.a., Brigid Berlin) and the two amoral sisters she hires to kill a dog. The acting, by both pros and Warhol superstars, is excellent. It even manages to successfully pull off the few moments of poignancy that are allowed in the bleak world it depicts (the assault on the dog and his owner, the final epiphany of L.T. when his empathy prevents him from killing an autistic child and his subsequent confrontation with Hazel). This is not a film for most people - it is far too pessimistic, brutal and graphic - but if you can stomach that, it is more than worth your while to see.