Writer(s): Rick Fry and Woody Keith
Starring: Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Evan Richards, and Ben Meyerson
Society had been on my to-watch list for about as long as I can remember Having enjoyed Return of the Living Dead 3, which he also helmed, as a teenager, I naturally traced his roots back to his one, his debut film. It's known for its ending, featuring a plethora of ooey-gooey special effects that wouldn't feel out of place in a Cronenberg feature, but then, like many other things it eventually just dropped off my radar. That is, until it made an appearance on a streaming service I use, at which point I rounded up my wife and we buckled ourselves in for a wild Friday night ride.
I always thought it was curious that any mention of Society would invariably wind up talking about the effects and not much else, but now I perfectly understand the reasons why: because the rest is just a typical '80s horror film. That probably strikes glee in the hearts of many, but I've personally always found it shortsighted to be loyal to films from a certain time period; I just don't understand the thought process behind it. I guess it's the cheese- and camp-factor that's present in a lot of them, and while that can make a film more enjoyable for obvious reasons, I'd much rather be enjoying a movie the way it was meant to be enjoyed, rather than adding the context of unintentional laughter.
My main qualm with Society is the ridiculousness of its singular, overblown premise, the gist of which can be summed up essentially in a single sentence: that the rich derive pleasures both from reveling in their own excesses, and for reveling in the things that “commoners” are without. And it goes through some rather painstaking lengths to make sure that there are no possible doubts that we, as viewers, could possibly misunderstand that. It's a heavy-handed approach that will probably alienate more viewers than it will inspire, and it certainly lost us.
Billy Warlock (who has since gone on to star in just about every soap opera ever produced for television) plays Bill Whitney, a man who lives in an upper-class home, with his rich upper-class parents, and rich upper-class sister. He feels the effects of his family's wealth in the world around him, like at his high school, where of course he runs around with the popular kids, and is a favorite for election as class president. It's almost as if his wealth has predetermined him to have an easy life, or something!
But Bill just doesn't feel like he belongs in that circle. He feels like he is an outsider, that his family isn't really his family, and that something isn't quite right with the other rich people that are constantly surrounding him. Unfortunately, he just can't quite seem to put his finger on it. Sessions with his therapist, Dr. Cleveland, don't seem to do much in the way of quelling his suspicions, and his paranoia and distrust of everyone around him is slowly magnified, until a family friend, and an ex-boyfriend of his sister, presents him with some clear-cut evidence.
His name is David, but he is known to friends as Blanchard. He functions as the typical “sidekick”, pudgy in appearance and with all the grace of a one-legged swan; since he is a “commoner”, he was forced to break off his relationship with Bill's sister, making him the frequent butt of jokes for the rich. He also felt that something wasn't right, so he set up a microphone to record his sister's “coming out party”, something I had never heard of, but that is apparently a real thing rich families do. He presents the recorded evidence to Bill, who of course is at first outraged that this low-class peasant would spy on his family, but all it takes is a brief listen before he realizes his worst fears have been realized: her “coming out party”, which sounds like something gay and lesbian couples will have in the future after announcing their sexual preference, quickly degrades into a disturbing psychosexual orgy.
Not long after this, and as horror fans are already expecting, poor whistle-blowing Blanchard winds up dead in a mysterious single-car accident. Those pesky rich folk using their considerable powers to make the innocent, and the middle- and lower-class, suffer! Where do they get such nerve? Oh yes, from a society that not only condones their behavior, but seems to actually encourage it. Of course!
Some other stuff happens: Bill has sex with Clarissa, a rich girl that he is starting to like; we meet Clarissa's mother, a large mute woman who has a strange obsession with hair; Bill accepts an invitation from his opponent for class president for a secret meeting, only to discover that he has been killed, too; and Bill spends some time in a mental hospital, which is an obligatory plot-stop in a film where a character is regarded as crazy, just so we understand how crazy everyone around him thinks he is.
And all this sets up the film's finale, in which Bill is held captive in his own home, and forced to watch as Blanchard (who did not die after all) is attacked by the rich, who literally feed off of him, their limbs entering his skin and their bodies intertwining with him in a special effects sequence (by Screaming Mad George) that is impressive both in its scope, and execution. Thankfully, Bill avoids this certain fate by fighting a rich boy, and then getting help from Clarissa, who overcomes her rich lifestyle to realize that she is also developing feelings for Bill. See, who says true love can't cross financial classes?
Society is a tired film, and I can't even recommend it for the effects work, as great as they are, because we had lost pretty much all interest in the film by that point. It's evident that it's striving to be a hallucinogenic, surrealistic nightmare, with dead characters that seem to magically “return to life”, but the atmosphere and images never quite match with its ideology. In the end, it just feels like your standard attack on elitist culture that doesn't bring anything unique or interesting into the fold. It bludgeons us with the same tired cliches of class warfare over and over again, hoping that it's enough to keep viewers entertained until it gives us its grand finale, but it is just a one-dimensional film that flatlines about an hour in, and is dead on arrival by the end.
Some other stuff happens: Bill has sex with Clarissa, a rich girl that he is starting to like; we meet Clarissa's mother, a large mute woman who has a strange obsession with hair; Bill accepts an invitation from his opponent for class president for a secret meeting, only to discover that he has been killed, too; and Bill spends some time in a mental hospital, which is an obligatory plot-stop in a film where a character is regarded as crazy, just so we understand how crazy everyone around him thinks he is.
And all this sets up the film's finale, in which Bill is held captive in his own home, and forced to watch as Blanchard (who did not die after all) is attacked by the rich, who literally feed off of him, their limbs entering his skin and their bodies intertwining with him in a special effects sequence (by Screaming Mad George) that is impressive both in its scope, and execution. Thankfully, Bill avoids this certain fate by fighting a rich boy, and then getting help from Clarissa, who overcomes her rich lifestyle to realize that she is also developing feelings for Bill. See, who says true love can't cross financial classes?
Society is a tired film, and I can't even recommend it for the effects work, as great as they are, because we had lost pretty much all interest in the film by that point. It's evident that it's striving to be a hallucinogenic, surrealistic nightmare, with dead characters that seem to magically “return to life”, but the atmosphere and images never quite match with its ideology. In the end, it just feels like your standard attack on elitist culture that doesn't bring anything unique or interesting into the fold. It bludgeons us with the same tired cliches of class warfare over and over again, hoping that it's enough to keep viewers entertained until it gives us its grand finale, but it is just a one-dimensional film that flatlines about an hour in, and is dead on arrival by the end.
RATING: 4/10
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