Bad

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.

"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 beggars the imagination to see that so many contributors feel the need to cover plot points even though a high percentage of said commenters have already amply traveled that territory.

When I saw this in 1977 it was an exhilarating example of what freedom of expression was all about. Defying every convention of "normal" films it featured individuals who did not feel the need to follow the rules, the standard behaviors, of either society or film conventions.

Yep, sociopathy. OK so we outgrew that.

Its depiction of selfishness, depravity, and disregard for norms of social behavior hasn't aged well. Sort of curdled. But if you want to see what American culture in the 70s was boiling down to this is the movie for you. And it is hilarious if you can get into the dead pan delivery and the absurd behavior. You would need a 70s mindset to do that and I'm not sure there's much of that in supply anymore.

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" speaks to those of us who like to voyeuristically revel in wickedness for its own sake. This film is filled with abuse that good people everywhere proclaim they are incapable of fathoming. It is the realm of sick people with evil imaginations that prey on the weak, homely, helpless. However, because it is cinema, "Bad" should be viewed with a discerning mind. It is very funny at times to watch human folly in all its excesses. This film takes "bad" human behaviour to the extreme. It is camp that very much resonates in the same spirit as "Pink Flamingos" and "Meet the Feebles". This film will upset those who take themselves far too seriously. Without a sense of humour, the prospective viewer will be lost in a self-righteous fever.