Teenage Caveman

'Teenage Caveman' is Larry Clark letting his hair down and having a ball making a wonderfully silly exploitation movie. Clark's controversial 'Kids' and 'Bully' mixed their often prurient look at teenage sex and substance abuse with some serious social comment. This time around it's all deliberate provocation and the "message" while still there buried beneath the sleaze and general wackiness is not to be taken all that seriously. This is not a serious movie folks! It is a rollicking good time that is designed to appeal to your libido and sense of humour not your intellect. After all, the source material is a legendary Roger Corman sci fi cheapie which was probably made for the equivalent of the catering budget here, and it wasn't exactly Dostoevsky in the first place, know what I'm saying? Clark and script writer Christos N. Gage only really take the title and initial premise from the original movie, and after the first twenty minutes or so they take things in a completely different and more outrageous direction. The young cast are mostly vaguely recognizable from bad teen movies and cheesy TV shows and are adequate at best. Apart from a memorable bit by Abel Ferrara regular Paul Hipp as Andrew Keegan's sleazy shaman Dad in the opening cave sequences of the movie, the only performer here with any real charisma or future potential is the sexy and seductive bombshell Tiffany Limos. She is really hot and should continue in the exploitation genre. Everyone else here is pretty forgettable. Now there's no way I'm going to argue that this is a good movie (unlike 'Bully' which really is something special), but it is a fun one, though probably not the kinda thing that most of its intended audience will "get". I enjoyed it for what it was - silly, sexy, sci fi stupidity.

Where to begin? This headliner at the Fecal Film Festival is without a doubt the worst thing I have ever seen. Entirely without any redeeming value whatsoever, not even camp value mind you... this film lacks any substantive plot or story line that is discernable, nor comprehendable dialogue, nor even interest as a soft core porno.

Larry Clark's disturbing debut 'Kids' was controversial for it's depiction of homeless children doing drugs and having sex on the streets of New York. Well, after seeing Teenage Caveman you begin to realize that that subject matter is a favorite of Clark's and he is less gritty filmmaker than closet pedophile.

The film even looks bad... not even visually interesting, this film was an hour and a half of my life STOLEN from me. I don't know what the budget of this cinematic excrement was, but if it was more than $500, the production designer should be arrested for theft. The film appears to be shot entirely inside a closet, with the exception of two or three minutes of exteriors with the appearance that they were filmed in vacant lots and the homeless people who live there were displaced until filming was complete.

I LIKE BAD MOVIES... Ed Wood films are very entertaining to me, because I can take enjoyment in what was going on behind the scenes and the real "camp" laughs. This film can't even boast that. It is BORING. Entirely forgettable... I had to write this review quickly before this 'piece de merde' slipped from my mind.

I think Clark was trying to make some kind of statement about the nature of organized religion, maybe about drug use, something about sexual discovery... but if anyone can figure out what the hell the message was... post it because it was way too subtle for me to pick up on.

About the sex... like everything in else in this Ishtar-wanna-be, it was bad. Clark picked "actors" who were not only unable to deliver any dialogue, but who were just plain unattractive. People who I can't imagine anyone wanting to see naked, even after twenty beers. Particularly of note as being an exceptionally bad actress is the Asian girl who set new records for a lack of screen presence. Even the sexually explicit dialogue she delivers is done so poorly that it would make the most sexually repressed pre-teenage boy yawn. (The only dialogue that I can remember now involves a young boy learning to read from Penthouse forum, and stumbling over "reaming out my wife's bunghole.") I hope whoever wrote the script is proud. I'm embarrassed for repeating it.

In fact... everyone involved with this drek should be ashamed. A film school excercise should be to take the footage from this steaming peanut loaf and put together anything that makes sense. Anyone who succeeds should get a masters.

Perhaps the sci-fi geeks who "must" see anything with a special effect in it may want to sit through this Clockwork-Orange-torture-film, but even the effects are bad. If viewed for it's technical merits, the Computer Generated effects appear to have been done on someone's laptop while riding aboard a shaky bus. The makeup on the bad-guy creature is laughably bad, but not enough so to be entertaining.

Take my advice and steer clear of 'Teenage Caveman.' As a parent, I would rather have my son or daughter watch a snuff film... at least they might learn something from it. THIS IS THE FIRST FILM I HAVE EVER SEEN TO HAVE NO REDEEMING VALUE WHATSOEVER.

Teenage Caveman (2001) Andrew Keegan, Tara Subkoff, Tiffany Limos, Stephen Jasso, Crystal Grant, Shan Elliot, Hayley Keenan, D: Larry Clark.

Post-apocalyptic tribe leaves their cave village only to unexpectedly find their way to a city, where it first feels at home for the teens, with two young immortals showing them the ropes to fornicating and drugs. But their new friends are actually the result of genetic experimentation gone wrong.

Remake of the 1958 schlock movie by the same name; weird and trashy. `Like a bad B-movie', which is quoted by a character, can't describe this film more accurately.

Running Time: 90 minutes and rated R for strong sexuality, substance abuse, language, violence – all involving teens.

RATING: * (out of ****)

Don't listen to the individual who was upset by the profanity and sacrilege in this movie. If those bother you you may also not like the many drunken teenage orgy scenes, the graphic decapitation, the naked chick who explodes, etc.

But I mean, how many people are there out there who don't enjoy that type of picture? Not many, obviously. Let's be real here. So anyway. What makes this picture special is that it's from the sleazy arthouse director Larry Clark (KIDS, ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE, BULLY) and contains all the usual subject matter and style of his pictures, ye with a postapocalyptic warrior tribe, and Stan Winston effects where after the orgy they turn into lumpy monsters and fight each other.

This is a stupid movie with some really bad acting by the villain and the usual corny dialogue but if you enjoy Larry Clark pictures, as all of us do, obviously, then you will get a kick out of it. It's such an unnatural combination of style and subject matter that it is what you might call "a hoot." Unless you don't like to have a good time, you will probaly like this picture.

So I was flipping channels one night before bedtime and happened into the middle of some crazy party scene with half-naked girls. Good enough for me. I set the VCR and went to bed, but I was back in front of the TV 10 minutes later. There was just something about this movie that was oddly appealing. And not just Tiffany Limos. Or Andrew Keegan's samurai hair and drag queen outfit with big shoulder pads and peekaboo belly button. Despite the low production values, lack of plot and gaping holes of logic, little gems of brilliance were scattered here and there. Too bad they were too few and too far between.

Having done some reading about "Teenage Caveman" and its director, Larry Clark, I'm reminded of something Ben Stein wrote in his series of articles, "The Diary of a Mad Screenwriter," about a producer friend whose every project could be summed up as: "Teenage girls discovering their bodies as they come of age..." Maybe he was writing about Clark. I certainly can't fault the guy for, as another reviewer suggested, using movies as an excuse to see naked young girls. My only gripe is the buzzkill: When the exotically delicious Tiffany Limos gets naked and then the other half-naked girl EXPLODES...well, that's not the sort of climax I was hoping for. Kind of like in the worthless-except-for-topless-Jeannie- Millar "Starquest II," where instead of getting some more nakedness, we're treated to a rubber head getting a rubber monster finger through its rubber eye. Yeesh. And speaking of that flick, who doesn't notice the amazing similarities between the two movies?

Kudos to Richard Hillman, who was a heck of a lot of fun to watch, even with the sound off. Although not in the same way that Limos was, of course. Please note that I never said that "Teenage Caveman" is actually good. But it was intriguing enough to make me write a review, which says something. There's definitely a rental in my near future. Heck, I might even add this one to my DVD collection. Thanks, Larry!

(I actually did purchase this. Then I traded it away. No regrets.)