Sociedad de mutantes

Parts Blue Velvet and Videodrome, parts Repo Man and Braindead, this thing rocks and is surely one of the cult classics from the decade that you just have to see (forget The Warriors).

The 80's had a strange resonance. It seemed as though nothing was happening, nothing beyond spending and watching TV. It was morning again in America, but a kind of peculiarly false morning as though someone had reached out with a brush and painted false skies. You couldn't even trust it was day, much less anything else. So, something had to be happening that wasn't so clear at first sight, had to. It had to be ugly, since everything looked idyllic. It couldn't be that Watergate had been exposed and that was that.

But it couldn't be a political cinema anymore either, not in a convincing manner, since the people seemed satisfied. So Taxi Driver transformed into Videodrome. Both films are about a helpless observer of a life awash with foulness, but in the second case, he's a corporate type, and he's watching a TV broadcast, a TV broadcast that reveals something malicious in the airwaves that transmit reality that is just gnarly and insane beyond belief. Both films perceptively suggest the damage is in the retina of the mind's eye, and that damage is not a simple madness: the images madden.

This is much less strategic, of course. It was made near the end of the decade, so with enough hindsight to pass around buckets of paranoid blame. The satire is screamingly obvious, because who'd believe something so simple anyway, a conspiracy so pervasive, so blatantly evil, which is the clever little device used here: the film delivers subversive blows in the same channel as the people consumed reality on TV, the channel that played soap opera and assured life was something like it.

Watching the rich and privileged for weeks on end engage with utmost seriousness in lachrimose trifles about sex and power, is rendered here as a kind of goofy, since it was a TV lifestyle, malevolent conspiracy for sex and power over the viewer.

This alone would make the film required 80's viewing. It's a lot of fun, sunny, increasingly unhinged. It's strongly anchored on this end by having a famous TV star of the time in the role of the (paranoid) observer.

The icing on the cake is the unforgettable finale that parodies its own soap-operatic parody: the sexual games mockingly turn into an actual orgy for power. You get to see an actual 'butthead', among other slimy things.

This is one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen, somewhat akin to watching a Lovecraft tale as told by John Waters. I think I liked it. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did...I guess.

Billy (Bill Warlock of soap opera fame) is nearly 18, and has spent his youth living a life of privilege with his wealthy family in Beverly Hills. However, he senses that something is wrong. He does not look like his mother, father or sister, and indeed, they treat him as though he were an outsider. Oh, they're always very pleasant and polite, but they're somewhat distant and rather cold, displaying no real emotions towards him or anyone else. Tragic news is met with blank expressions and vacant smiles. Billy's girlfriend is too busy obsessing about parties to care about Billy's mounting concerns, and his psychiatrist dismisses his worries with prescriptions. When Billy hears an audio tape recorded by his sisters' most recent dumpee, his worst fears are confirmed: something unnatural is happening, something incestuous and profane. But the dumpee disappears, the tape recording alters itself, and Billy finds himself being slowly and deliberately cornered by The Society.

For all that this film is a dark comment on the soullessness of the upper classes, it never really takes itself seriously. Indeed, if it had, this movie would have died a quick death and taken up residence in the discount PVT bin at Blockbuster Video, cursed as it is with all the hideousness of the 1980s, denim and synth music and helmets of bleached hair everywhere. But this movie is so odd and freaky with the most morbid sense of humor running all the way through it that it works, and works pretty good. The special effects look a bit dated, but they're so hilarious that you won't care. (insert "butthead" scene here.) The "shunting" scene is still difficult to watch for people like me who have a low tolerance for sadism and gore, but I've seen gorier and the concept was so innovative that I had to appreciate it.

If you ever wanted to see one of those sappy teen movies from the 80s, (preferably the ones that starred Michael J. Fox or Molly Ringwald) tortured, dismembered and publicly humiliated, then this might just be the film for you.

The best film directed by Brian Yuzna (producer of Re-Animator) is this strange horror/sci-fi satire on the yuppie way of life.

Beverly Hills teen begins to suspect that there's something very wrong with his snobbish family, is he imagining it or are they... inhuman?!

Society is one original and shocking black comedy. There's never a dull moment in the engulfing plot, which starts out as a paranoia mystery then only gets increasingly weird from there on out. It all builds to a warped finale that you won't forget! It's one of those surreal and gruesome terrors that makes you wonder if you should be laughing or screaming at what you're seeing. The makeup work of Screaming Mad George (great name) is very effectively disturbing. The direction of Yuzna is well-done and the addition of the Eton Boat Song as the films theme is a clever touch.

The cast is spot on in their performances, the best being young star Billy Warlock as our perplexed and horrified hero.

Society is one of those unique genre oddities that must be seen to be fully realized. It's one very wild trip that's well deserving of a cult status.

*** out of ****

Beverly Hills teen Bill Whitney (Baywatch's Billy Warlock) is good at sports and popular at his high school, but he feels alienated from his upper crust family. His parents are indifferent towards him while lavishing favor upon his sister. Sometimes he even feels like they're conspiring against him, but is he just paranoid?

This was Brian Yuzna's first film as director, and it's still his best. My love for this thing knows no boundaries. It's such a wonderfully unique mixture of social commentary, the 90210 lifestyle and incredibly warped horror. Oh, is the horror in Society ever warped! It's always fun showing this to first-timers and seeing their reactions to what unfolds on the screen. Horror aside, the film also works as both a joke on the rich and a scathing indictment regarding their tendency to leech off of the have-nots.

Even though it's pretty clear right from the start that things aren't what they seem, there's a great sense of paranoia present in Society. Is Bill's rich family plotting against him? Are they even human? You wouldn't expect a former Baywatch star to be an alienated sort, but in the context of the film, it works. The pitch black humor works too, though there are a few more juvenile attempts at comedy (the kids on the beach) that are admittedly lame. In a way, however, they do add to the film's bizarre tone. I used to see the weirdo mother character as another pointless attempt at low-brow humor, but the more I've thought about it, she's likely there to represent a mishap through the shunt. Former Playboy centerfold, Devin Devasquez, plays her quirky daughter, Clarissa Carlyn. She's very appealing in the role, and it's refreshing to see a rich beauty portrayed as something other than an evil vixen for a change.

The climactic scenes involving the big shunt are really something to behold. Words cannot do justice to the madness of this sequence. Spectacular, glorious madness! Nope, even those words don't do it justice. The very idea is quite perverse, and the special effects by Screaming Mad George are jaw-dropping. I'd be hard-pressed to come up with another horror film that comes close to rivaling Society's climax.

I also can't go without mentioning the sinister reworking of the "Eton Boating Song" which plays over the film's opening credits. It's pure gold, and since the Anchor Bay DVD's menu has it playing on a loop, I like to leave it on the menu for a bit after I've finished the film.

Society has a never-ending charm that's impossible for me to tire of. I'd probably rank it somewhere among my top ten personal favorite horror films if I were to make such a list. I remember trekking all over the metroplex just to find a copy back on the DVD's release date (the same day Near Dark hit DVD from what I remember). Good times!

Here's a reasonably funny slime-fest from producer/director Brian Yuzna of Re-Animator fame. It makes one nostalgic for the 80's thriller cinema, when a low-budget exploiter like this was commonplace, instead of the middle-brow crapola that passes for a fright flick these days. The latex-and-slime special effects are effectively old school and quite memorable. Enjoy.