Society

Society (1989) is a movie that I recently watched on Shudder. The storyline follows a young man who notices his family and siblings are odd, more odd than usual. He also feels his girlfriend is acting peculiar and is obsessed with attending a socially elite party. As events of the upcoming weekend unfold the young man investigates the party where he finds his parents, his girlfriend and so many others he grew up with have a strange secret that may mean the end of his existence.

This movie is directed by Brian Yuzna (Beyond Reanimator) and stars Billy Warlock (Halloween II), Evan Richards (Twilight Zone: The Movie), Patrice Jennings (Growing Pains), Brian Bremer (Pumpkinhead) and Heidi Kozak Haddad (Slumber Party Massacre).

There's a lot to like about this movie...and most of it is at the very end. The apple opening was a bit gross. The acting and writing is average to above average until the final sequence. Then the special effects, concept and circumstances come full circle and it's a mix of shocking, tremendous gore and unreal circumstances you could never imagine. There's some classic 80s nudity and the "There's no business like show business" line always cracks me up. I may have said this already...but the ending is a lot. 😂

Overall, this is an underrated classic within the horror genre that is an absolutely must see. I would score this an 8.5-9/10 and strongly recommend it.

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.

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.

I know that sounds weird to say when you're writing a review. But just trust me the less you know about what happens in this movie the better.

So go watch it. And Good luck and godspeed.

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.