They simply don’t make them like this anymore and horror films today on the whole really lack any creative spark being all too reliant on others ideas. That’s why we are inundated with remakes and re-imaginings with it being rare that anyone brings anything new to the genre. This makes companies such as Arrow, Shameless and 88 Films all the more essential for us in this day and age, releasing films for a new generation who missed them before or for those of us who grew up around them and are looking at getting to relive them in the best quality available with new insight and in depth commentary and features about them. To be fair, for every film like Society made in 1989 there were countless other films littering the video shelves that were pretty much rubbish and even then you had to go through countless nights of watching hired out crap at around £1.50 a pop before uncovering a real gem. Naturally there was no internet around to do your research on and everything relied on magazines, fanzines and word of mouth.
I think it was probably courtesy of a double bill at the Scala that I first caught Society and then later on tape and even at a time when I was used to seeing all sorts of bizarre and fantastic films and images this one kind of took things to another level. Following on a year after Frank Henenlotter unleashed Belial in Basket Case a film that could be looked on as containing some parallels in the FX department, Philippine born Brian Yuzna directed his first feature having cut his teeth producing some other classics for Stewart Gordon such as Re-Animator, From Beyond and Dolls. Society took everything to new extremes and is partly such a success due to the fantastic special effects by Japanese maniac Screaming Mad George, a scientist of latex who really lived up to his name.
The action takes place in Beverly Hills but at 66666 rather than 90210. The director describes it as about fear and paranoia in the rich enclave and that is certainly what university student Bill Whitney (Billy Warlock) is suffering from. To say his family are a little weird would be an understatement. His mum, dad and sister all seem perfect on the outside but are all a little too close to comfort beneath the veneer of perfect respectability. Sister Jenny (Patrice Jennings) is about to come out (in the party sense) and her ex suitor is not helping matters hanging around and making covert cassette recordings suggesting something horrid and sexual is about to take place. This completely adds to Billy’s paranoia especially after a horrifying tape recording that he has heard, is transformed into something much more innocent once in the hands of his shrink. Then when Billy tries to get a copy of the original recording his friend is instantly turned into pulp in a road accident.
You do need a certain understanding of what it is like being a rich kid in Beverly Hills, the traditions of coming out parties, university life and how they strive to fit in with Society to appreciate exactly where this is all coming from. It’s totally easy to hate everyone in this but feel slightly sorry as Billy is led up the garden path (and they have damn big garden paths around here) and feel that he is part of some massive conspiracy. Despite being a jock and standing for university president he really is manipulated and is not quite the coolest kid around. In fact the geek he is running for presidency against seems to fit in more than Billy does and he begins to realise that Society is not at all what it seems and neither is his sister after thinking he sees her through the shower door looking a bit back to front for want of a better description. His girlfriend is no help and is just a vacuous party girl which leads Billy into the arms of the rather strange and sexually alluring Clarissa (Devin DeVasquez more than living up to her Playboy playmate of the month sexpot image). As for her mum well she is one of the strangest and most Divine characters of the whole damn ensemble.
As things draw to a head (in fact many heads in all the wrong places) and Billy gets shunted into a horrible nightmarish understanding of what exactly is going on we can only marvel as Screaming Mad George truly unleashes his monstrous creations in a hallucinatory finale that defies description and giving one would result in far too many spoilers to anyone who has not seen this before. Society can be looked on as a good old fashioned monster movie or as a more insightful polemic attacking society itself and all its traditions. Either way you look at it, it’s great fun and one that will leave you nervously laughing and revelling in the sheer audacity of it all.
Naturally Arrow have gone all out with the director approved 2K digital transfer and the Blu-Ray looks and sounds fantastic. You can certainly launch your old Tartan DVD of this towards the bin or charity shop of your choice. I only have a screener disc but am definitely going to be compelled to buy this one as the art department have excelled themselves on the limited digipack, shots of which look fantastic.
Again it is not all about the film itself and being a fan of it for over 25 years (yes it really is that long) I was keen to get more insight into things with the extras, wondering in particular about how they achieved the effects, what had happened to many of the cast and why the film took so long to get a Stateside release? One would have thought it would have thrived there rather in Europe where it did very well but perhaps it just struck a nerve and was considered too contentious? Another thing I was wanting to know about was the somewhat ambiguous ending and what happened to the proposed sequel Society 2 Body Modification.
First Yuzna is on hand as the Governor of Society to talk us through what got him into directing in the first place and from discovering the script of the film written by Rick Fry and Woody Keith to its eventual development. It’s interesting to listen to him talk about the rise of the rubber horror film and the black clad young men who had the choice to either be a heavy metal musician or a special effects artist in the late 70’s when films like this and Nightmare On Elm Street were taking off. Well everyone’s got to fit in somewhere! Yuzna’s love of surrealism was partly what led to the madcap design of Society; however he doesn’t illuminate us on whether he ever experimented with LSD. Luckily he is not an advocate of not including things in his films if they didn’t make sense. Society probably wouldn’t have existed if he was. Interviews follow with some of the actors ‘Masters Of The Hunt’. It’s interesting to see how they have all aged and prospered in life and coped with acting in a film that was certainly at odds with other more commercial things in their careers such as Happy Days, Baywatch, and General Hospital and other mainstream soaps in the case of Billy Warlock and Tim Bartell. Devin DeVasquez still looks great in her early 50’s and everyone has some good anecdotes of the time that they were all pretty much starting out in their career and luckily not totally freaked out by the script allowing them to get involved in the film. Apparently scenes towards the end of the film were not fun for those involved despite lots of “greased up women” running around. I bet none of them ever acted in quite such demanding parts as these in anything else in their careers.
Just how screaming mad is George is the next topic of conversation as we meet the Japanese surrealist who took inspiration from artists such as Dali and films like American Werewolf In London and Altered States. Apart from the fact he appears to have a penchant for guyliner he seems to be pretty well considered and rational about his art and influences. A couple of other people involved in the SFX are also on hand to talk about the processes involved in the film too and the ‘mad scientist’ in charge of things and the feature is as in depth as it needs to be without going overboard and going through each and every effect. Q&A Sessions can be pretty hit and miss affairs and there’s always the problem that they are simply going to cover ground that has already been mentioned in other interviews which this one with Yuzna filmed at Celluloid Screams Festival 2014 does to a certain extent. His political motivations and ideas behind Society are explained and the fact that he says it isn’t even really a horror film is one interpretation that is worth considering. Most amusing is the way he says it should have been marketed as a true story in America and perhaps it would have done a bit better over there. One point that has come up a few times is just how relevant the film is in today’s climate. It really is when you consider the 99%’ers and us and them situation and massive divides between rich and poor and that is why this is now such a timely release. The fact that it has aged really gracefully does not hurt at all either. Mentioning Society alongside Heathers and Parents puts it in context perfectly and I had been thinking of the latter and it may well have been the film that I originally saw this with at The Scala. We also get answers here about the sequel, so pretty much all my original questions are addressed in the extras. There’s also a much more youthful Yuzna in a couple of minute interview segment at the premiere of Society at none other than the old Scala. Finally there is a Screaming Mad George music video; think Bosch meets Bauhaus!
So in closing, Society a really classy film that you’d be a complete butthead to miss.
(Pete Woods)
08/06/2015 at 12:28 pm
Another classic release from Arrow; haven’t seen this since I rented the VHS back in, well, let’s just say a while.