"Society" (1989)

• Directed by: Brian Yuzna
• Written by: Woody Keith & Rick Fry
• Starring: Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Evan Richards

(Note: This review contains spoilers. I don't usually like putting spoilers in my reviews, but in this case, I need to in order to properly articulate my thoughts on the film. If you're not interested in having this movie spoiled, stay away.)     

     Criticizing films can be an arduous process. If a film has beautiful visuals but an incompetent story, does that make it bad? If a film has an amazing plot but looks like it was filmed in someone's backyard, does that make it good? Similarly, should a film be judged by the strength of its individual scenes or by the sum of its parts? "Good" and "bad" are very rarely clear cut, and making a decision to recommend something can be hard to do. It's with this thought in mind that I recommend Brian Yuzna's 1989 horror effort, "Society," but with some very important caveats.

     Bill Whitney (Billy Warlock) is an outcast. He lives with affluent family up in Beverly Hills, and he is all set to become the next student body president, yet he feels as if he doesn't belong. His family and friends are distant, he's filled with paranoia for something that he can't explain, and he is constantly plagued by nightmares. One day, his sister's ex-boyfriend, Blanchard (Tim Bartell), shows him a tape that he recorded of his family participating in what appears to be a strange, incestuous orgy. With the help of his friend Milo (Evan Richards) and a weird girl named Clarissa (Devin DeVasquez), Bill decides to investigate, and discovers that his "family" are actually strange creatures that literally feed off of the poor for energy.

     Objectively, "Society" is not a great movie. Brian Yuzna's direction is without much style or suspense, the score is full of cheesy, buzzing synths, the characters are cardboard cutouts, and it's all wrapped up in a ham-fisted metaphor about high society. What is possibly the worst aspect of the film, however, is the plot. It's riddled with holes. Why would Bill's sister leave her (bugged) earrings on during an orgy? Why was Bill taken into this society and groomed for 18 years just to be fed upon? Why does Clarissa's mother seem brain damaged, and why is she obsessed with eating hair? If this incredibly suspicious society of ancient creatures live in public, how have they not been caught? Were Milo and Blanchard meant to be groomed as well?

     The film doesn't answer any of these questions, and offers absolutely no explanation or reasoning behind the film's events or the character's actions. I suspect that the filmmakers thought they would be vague and leave the audience to decide for themselves, which is fine, but not when the mystery doesn't make any logical sense.

     With all that said, why in the hell am I recommending this film? Let me set the scene for you: We've spent almost the entirety of the movie being built up to what this society might be, only glimpsing strange behavior and hearing some whispered notion about "society". Finally, Billy bursts into his house, where his family reveals their dark secret, and in order to demonstrate what they are they bring in Blanchard, who was previously thought to be dead. What follows is one of the most shocking and imaginatively disgusting scenes I've ever seen in a film, in which all of the members of this twisted society participate in a sickening orgy of flesh.

     Every single person is formed together in an orgiastic, slimy ball of squirming meat, sucking the life out of Blanchard's body. Hands erupt from mouths and latch onto eye sockets. Limbs bend and contort around each other. A man's head transforms into a gigantic, grasping hand. It all culminates in a scene where Billy witnesses his own family formed together into one hellish being. Arms are where legs should be, his sister's head hangs from his mother's groin, and his father's face emerges from his mother's detached anus. It's horrid, sickening, and utterly unlike anything I've seen in a horror film.

     Screaming Mad George is the special effects artist who's demented imagination supplied the concept for the scene, as well as the effects for the film. His work is the real star of the movie, and this scene is the reason that I recommend "Society". It's an incredible finale, but the problem with it is that it's buried underneath 70 minutes of a mystery that's badly written and uninteresting. But, if you're a horror or special effects fan that's willing to put up with that, I doubt that you'll be disappointed.

"Nightbreed" (1990)

• Written & Directed by: Clive Barker
• Starring: Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby, David Cronenberg

     A common stereotype in Hollywood is that the higher-ups working in the Land of Dreams frequently miss the big picture. The idea is that an executive's brain has been so completely fried from years of looking at box-office receipts that the only thing they understand is money. Unfortunately, there's been little to disprove that stereotype, and no where is that more apparent than in the handling of Clive Barker's underrated horror opus, "Nightbreed".
     "Nightbreed" tells the story of a tortured young man named Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer) who constantly dreams of a mystical city called Midian, which is populated solely by monsters. He is convinced that this dream city is real, while his cold, calculating psychiatrist, Philip Decker (David Cronenberg), believes that it is merely a fiction developed by his "sick" mind. Little does Boone know that Decker is also a murderous madman, hellbent on cleansing the world of "filth," who subsequently frames Boone for murders that he himself committed.
     Delirious with guilt, Boone ventures to a graveyard on the outskirts of town, where he discovers that Midian is indeed real, but the creatures who live there, convinced that Boone is an "innocent," do not want him. But, after Decker tricks the local police force into killing him, he is resurrected by the monsters of Midian and transformed into one of them, a Nightbreed. Meanwhile, his faithful girlfriend Lori (Anne Bobby), convinced that he is not really dead, sets out to Midian to find him. Unfortunately, Decker is close behind, and what ensues will decide the fate of Midian itself.
     "Nightbreed" is one of those rare films that gradually grew much better the more that I watched it. The first time I saw it, I dismissed it as a film full of wasted potential, with visuals that didn't live up to Barker's previous directorial effort, "Hellraiser". Nothing could be further from the truth. "Nightbreed" is a unique, gory, and utterly imaginative fantasy film that was unfairly maligned by its studio and snobby film geeks like me.
     Unfortunately, Barker's vision of "Nightbreed" far surpassed what anyone at its studio, Morgan Creek, wanted. The original cut of the film was over 2 and a half hours long, with plans for a trilogy of films. The studio made Barker cut over an hour of footage, spent little money on marketing, released soporific trailers that didn't properly represent it, refused to hold screenings for critics, and completely misunderstood what the picture was about. Consequently, "Nightbreed" made very little money at the box office and all but destroyed Clive Barker's film career.
     This unfortunate meddling is what leads to most of "Nightbreed's" flaws. With more than an hour missing from a 160 minute film, events shoot by at a lightning pace, giving the film absolutely no time to set up its world or characters properly. People are killed just as quickly as they show up, seemingly important plot points have almost no screen time while other, seemingly unimportant plot points spring out of nowhere, and nearly everybody is reduced to paper-thin characterizations.
     Yet, despite all this, the picture still rises above its shortcomings, and while "Nightbreed" is not a great film, it is a good one. One of the reasons for that is the incredible concept. By casting the monsters as the good guys and the humans as the villains who destroy what they don't understand, the film weaves a gripping story that will speak to anyone who has felt like an outcast or a loner. I think that, perhaps, as a gay man, Barker felt very close to this story, and his love for it shows through every frame. After all, who among us wouldn't wish to be a powerful creature of the night?
     The film also represents tremendous growth for Barker as a director. In "Nightbreed," his budget has graduated from a meager 1 million dollars (on "Hellraiser") to a substantially more workable 11 million, and he's eager to prove himself. Make no mistake, if you love monsters, if you love special effects, you will love this picture. Barker pulls out all the stops, and in Midian he conjures up a dark, majestic city, packed with strange creatures of all shapes and sizes. Within lives a man with purple skin, head tentacles, and fangs. A strange, birdlike woman who shoots quills out of her back. A dark-skinned, curly-horned devil. Oh, and the Berserkers. Just wait until you see them.
     It's spurred along by a fantastic Danny Elfman score, and the cast is uniformly solid, David Cronenberg being the biggest surprise. While he's known more for his fantastic films, he turns in the movie's strongest performance as the detached and icy Decker. While there are a few things about the movie that don't gel (monsters cursing, weird comedic moments), and its final cut is a complete mess, Barker's visual richness and abundance of ideas work together to pull it out of the mud, and what emerges is a deeply flawed, but wholly fascinating love letter to monsters. If you love monsters, you owe it to yourself to see this underrated gem.