Teenage Caveman

a cast of b-grade, teen-flick actors have congregated to make a film filled with gratuitous sex and violence. if you want to watch the peripheral characters from mainstream teen flicks ('bring it on,' '10 things i hate about you') get naked with one another and die gruesome deaths, this movie is very satisfying. it combines the simultaneous lascivious and homicidal urges that arise from watching these actors in other films.

it is a stroke flick, definitely, with poor acting, bad script and mediocre direction. however, it offers good laughs in addition to amusing deaths and naked, hot bodies. i doubt it's easily found in a local blockbuster, but if you find this on hbo/showtime/cinemax at 3 a.m., you may wish to have another cocktail and observe.

In a post-apocalyptic world, the few survivors live in huddled tribes, barely surviving. In one tribe, the ruler refuses to let the people slip into the sin that brought the old world to an end – and sex is banned. He does, however, permit himself the pick of young girls for himself. When he selects his son's girlfriend, David is forced to kill him to protect her and is then left to die in the wilderness as punishment. His friends decide to rescue him and head off into the wilderness, where they find one of the fallen cities of the old world. Walking into it, they get caught in a storm and wake up in a modern (well, old-fashioned) apartment with beautiful young couple Neil and Judith. Quickly the group discover that the restrictions of the caves are gone and the old ways of sex, drink and drugs are the very things of daily life. However it also becomes quickly evident that things are not what they seem.

With all the negative reviews on this site I had to see it for myself because I found it hard to believe that the man that gave me Kids could fail to at least make an interesting film. Watching it, I can see plenty in the plot that could have been interesting, could have been insightful and could have made for a challenging piece of thought within a sci-fi frame; after all, it could have been a cautionary tale about sex, about a sexually transmitted virus that is part of the world ending, of teenagers self-harming with no consequences. The potential was there and I did think I was open to seeing these themes and I did put in work to try and go with it and let the subtexts come through. After the "infamous" twenty minute orgy of drugs and nudity I still had this approach although there was very little in it to encourage me to keep the faith.

First off, those tuning in for sexual titillation will be disappointed as the orgy is pretty cold and lacks anything in terms of excitement. It is a bit annoying because I couldn't shake the feeling that the camera was revelling in the naked teens, drug use and other excesses. With Kids there was enough substance to cover the accusations of exploitative material but here I just didn't think there was. With the focus on excesses, the narrative was not that well developed and the whole "virus" thing didn't engage me at all. The subtexts drift in and out but the writing is not intelligent enough to bring them out; such a shame because at times you could see the parallels between the plight of the characters and the struggles of real teens (specifically in the fear of sex in Sarah and the sexual aggression of Vincent). By the end of the film I was left with a gory, nonsensical film that doesn't do anything well at all.

Of course a cast of rather hapless teenagers and twenty-somethings doesn't help because they might not have been able to work with good plotting and dialogue if it had been given to them. Keegan is a bit of a clot; Hillman overacts like he is trying to save his life; Subkoff shows that she could have done more but her material is too weak to let her prove it. Jasso is obvious but has a nice natural swagger to him that may be useful in the future for small "teen criminal" roles in other things. Limos and Grant are both pretty good looking but they cannot deliver a convincing line or even a convincing slap for all the tea in China. Clark's direction is interesting at least; at points the cinematography is nicely washed out, blending colours into frames to depict changes in emotion and several other nice touches – if only he had been able to draw out value from the material – the odd nice visual touch is not enough.

Overall this is a poor film but I will not be adding my voice to those that simply dismiss it as rubbish with a lazy twenty word review. It had potential and it had subtexts that could have worked but it just does nothing with them. The plot makes little or no sense as the film ends up focusing on the excesses rather than the substance of the film; although I tried to work through it I have to admit defeat and the final 20 minutes was a noisy load of heartless gore that made no sense even within its own logic. Overall a pointless film that will have a cult following for the sex, gore and "different" plot; some will see it as a stupid load of missed opportunities but the vast majority will not care what it could have done and will just give up on the exploitative and nasty mess.

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 ****)

This movie was one of the worst B-movies I've ever seen, and that's saying something. The plot, when stuck to, wasn't THAT bad. It could have been made into something halfway decent and successful with the right writers, actors, and director. But as another person said, most of the film's content is some kind of prolonged orgy, drug & alcohol abuse, and mindless cursing. It has one actor you've heard of...barely. Otherwise, this film doesn't even deserve to be viewed, let alone rented or owned. There are pornos out there with better actors and writing!

Wait...this film might just be a porno...

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.)