In the Company of Men (1997)

Director: Neil LaBute
Writer(s): LaBute, based on his own play.
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Matt Malloy, and Stacy Edwards

There are very few films as endlessly bleak and mean-spirited as Neil Labute’s In the Company of Men, and that is probably a good thing. It takes a simple idea, and turns it into a mechanism for horror; underneath its façade as a black comedy (and I must confess, it is frequently very funny), it almost plays out like a psychological thriller. By the end, there is nary a life that isn’t ruined; of course the only one virtually unscathed is the one that deserves it the most. It is human nature at its most primitive, and although it’s not a film that anyone short of a sociopath can truly “enjoy”, it still makes for riveting, original cinema.

Aaron Eckhart plays Chad, a business executive who is recently going through the breakup of a long-term girlfriend. So too is Howard (Matt Malloy), his friend since college, and current colleague. Chad is clearly a misogynist; the type of person that gives all business executives a bad name. He’s cocky, arrogant, rude, and vicious, and those are some of his better traits. Howard is about the only person who seems to be free from being the target of his attacks.

The two of them are taking a six-week business trip to a different office, when Chad suddenly concocts a terrible idea: to make themselves feel better, why don’t they find the most innocent woman that they can, preferably one who has no self-esteem, spend the next six weeks buttering her up, and then both just dump her out of the blue. Howard is hesitant to agree, but at the insistence of Chad, he finally relents. After all, you never want to be on the bad side of a guy like Chad, and sometimes that means going along with him when everything within you is telling you not to. Now all they need is a victim.

The first day at their new office, Chad requests the help of a woman in a cubicle who is wearing headphones, and refuses to acknowledge his presence. He thinks this is rather rude, but upon discussing it with another worker, discovers that her disrespect was involuntary: she is completely deaf. The moment he hears this, he knows what we already did—that they have found just the kind of person they were looking for.

And so, over the course of the next six weeks, Chad and Howard take turns dating Christine. She, of course, does not know that the two of them even know each other, much less that they are in cahoots with one another to destroy her life. Chad, being the arrogant SOB that he is, is naturally smoother with the ladies, and so he is the one that Christine is the most smitten with. Yet it’s Howard—poor, bumbling, rambling, awkward idiot Howard—that begins to have feelings for Christine, which clearly aren’t reciprocated. That’s when the whole situation becomes a powder keg threatening to explode at any moment, where even the slightest action can set off a chain reaction of events that could ruin all of their lives.

In the Company of Men appears to be very straightforward at first, but the story weaves along, throwing in a surprising number of subtle twists and turns. It’s always refreshing to see a movie that I can’t completely figure out within the first few minutes, and this was one of them—I had no idea how it would end, until it ended. I won’t reveal specifics, but let’s just say for anyone that was hoping the film would, against the odds, present us with some sort of happy ending, will be ever so sorely disappointed. But as bleak and as depressing as the ending is, the most disturbing truth is that it’s also the most in step with human nature.

The acting is uniformly superb across the boards: to simply pay attention to Aaron Eckhart’s excellent performance, while casting off the rest, is to undermine equally effective roles by Stacy Martin (as Christine, the deaf victim), and Matt Malloy. It’s true that Malloy’s character is probably the most straightforward—he spends a large portion of the movie simply taking orders from Chad and looking hesitant and sad—but he has moments of sudden anger that hint there may be a sociopath lurking just under the surface, and the effect is chilling.

In the Company of Men is an outstanding debut film from Neil LaBute, who would go on to helm some Hollywood fare, as well as plays, over the next few years. Many have come to blast his misanthropic view of the world, which was only heightened over his later works, with critic David Kimmel citing: “Neil LaBute is a misanthrope who assumes that only callous and evil people who use and abuse others can survive in this world.” Unfortunately, all it takes is a quick glance of the real-life world around us to see that he is right.

RECAP: Endlessly bleak and depressing, In the Company of Men, which was adapted into a movie from Neil LaBute’s own play, is nevertheless an audacious, one-of-a-kind work that still somehow manages to elicit occasional laughs. It’s the exact opposite of a feel-good movie, but for those that might be sick of “happy endings” (in a cinematic sense) or manufactured Hollywood works that pander to their audiences, this thought-provoking work might be just the ticket.

RATING: 8/10

TRAILER

Cube (1997)

Director: Vincenzo Natali
Writer(s): Natali, André Bijelic, and Graeme Manson
Starring: Nicole de Boer, David Hewlett, Maurice Dean Wint, and Nicky Guadagni

I saw my first trailer for Cube preceding another movie I was watching way back in the days of VHS. It always looked interesting to me, but became one of those movies that I kept putting off for some reason or another, until I just kind of forgot all about it. Upon re-stumbling on it just the other day, I made sure that wouldn't happen again, and made immediate plans to sit down and watch it.

I don't know how this possibly happened, considering I physically watched the trailer numerous times, but I was always under the impression that this was a foreign film. There's just something about its minimalistic plot that suggests something more subtle than the general in-your-face attitude of most Hollywood features, with the entirety of its story taking place within the confines of several shifting rooms, each one 14' x 14'. Visual effects are kept to a minimum (a good thing, considering they have the appearance of old computer game cutscenes), the violence is restrained, and it places its focus on the characters themselves, rather than the situation they find themselves in—in other words, it's the antithesis of the American film (I guess technically it is a “foreign” film, having been shot in Canada; it played theatrically at just 16 screens nationwide).

Bizarre setting aside, the skeleton of Cube's story is pretty familiar stuff: Five complete strangers awaken to find themselves trapped inside the mysterious box, with no memories of who abducted them, or how they got there. As an interesting aside, all of the characters are named after prisons: There's Quentin, the rough-and-tumble “leader” who is a cop; Leaven, a young nerdy college girl; Holloway, a middle-aged female doctor; Rennes, an arrogant escape artist that has broken out of several prisons; and Worth, a suicidal man with no immediately-obvious talents.

Eventually, they deduce that they are trapped in one large cube, that is 26 rooms across, and a whopping 17,576 rooms total. So getting out is just a matter of finding the proper route through a maze, right? Well, of course it wouldn't be that easy: some of the rooms are booby-trapped in various ways that mean instant death for those that blindly wander in, such as motion sensors that activate metal grids capable of slicing through bone, or electrochemical sensors that can detect body heat—that second type they find out the hard way, when Rennes jumps into a room and is sprayed in the face with acid. That's not a good look.

Gradually, it becomes apparent that each of them are there to serve a specific purpose. Quentin, being the authority figure, is a natural born leader capable of keeping his cool under pressure; Leaven is a mathematical wizard, who discovers the secret to the numerical “codes” that label each room; Worth is an architect who was commissioned to build the cube's outer shell, unaware of the horrors they planned to fill it with; and Holloway...well she's best suited to take care of a surprise sixth visitor: mentally-handicapped Kazan, whom most of the others see as little more than a hassle.

As the story gradually starts to reveal itself in layers, it also reveals just how unimaginative it really is. All of them think the others are against them, and are certain that one of them knows more than they are letting on. Paranoia is a natural thought process that everyone goes through at one point or another, and it would certainly manifest itself in a room full of complete strangers stuck in a foreign...cube. But the acting does nothing to further the illusion of realism; nor does the writing, which sticks to pretty standard formulas, refusing to dig any deeper into the individual plights of each character. One character does turn out to be a bad guy, but his true nature is revealed early on with an evil look that comes out of nowhere, along with ominous musical accompaniment that nudges us to acknowledge it...in other words, there are no unforeseen twists, and once the coolness of the idea wears off, so does its grip.

That being said, I have a soft spot for low budget films, where filmmakers often have to find creative solutions, and Cube is almost a masterpiece in budget-cutting simplicity. The entire film was shot in the same 14' x 14' space, with only the backgrounds changing: different colored wall panels give the illusion of shooting in several different individual cubes. A separate half-set was also designed for scenes that take place in the short “hallways” between rooms. The door latches that open each cube was also made out of materials found in any hardware store. That none of these things are noticeable is a pretty impressive technical achievement in and of itself, and while the digital effects are pretty dated, their infrequent use doesn't do much damage.

Despite its growing appeal, Cube is a surprisingly formulaic mess that is helped along by some inventive visual tricks and clear talent from director and co-writer Vincenzo Natali (who sounds like he should be running an Italian eatery instead). But it slowly becomes apparent that the cube is the only interesting idea in the entire film, and once the intrigue of that wears off—and it will wear off—it's nothing more than a straightforward character study about characters that just aren't interesting enough to study in the first place.

RATING: 4.5/10

TRAILER

Series Outro: Perversions of Science

Well, it was every bit as bad as I remember it being, and probably then some, as the effects that were bad in the late '90s are even worse nowadays. It's a rather mind-boggling proposition figuring out just how the main production team of “Tales from the Crypt” bombed so terribly translating their stories from horror to sci-fi, but lo and behold, they did it. Also curious is how toned down the show is: Whereas “Tales from the Crypt” wasn't afraid to let the blood flow, “Perversions” seems too cowardly a show to want to push the envelope in any direction. And that, more than anything else, is probably what led to its early demise.

Granted, it would make sense if the creators wanted to get away from the “Tales from the Crypt” formula, and that's why they let up on the violence. But the problem is that no time seems to have been put into any of the episodes on either side of the camera: the production values are nonexistent, featuring obviously-cheap sets and terrible computer effects; the writing feels very forced and rushed, with plotlines that are never given any time to develop; and even the network didn't seem to know what to do with it, barely spending a penny on promotion or awareness. Take any one of those things and you've got a problem; add together all three and it's pretty much guaranteed that your show is going to fail.

The only legitimate area where “Perversions of Science” is consistently excellent is in the casting department, and that acclaim should fall right on the hands of Lisa Beach, who served as casting director for all ten episodes (and who would go on to do her thing in some big name Hollywood productions, including Wedding Crashers, Horrible Bosses, The Wolverine, and the forthcoming Bad Santa 2). Just like “Tales from the Crypt” (which she surprisingly was not a part of), many of the installments feature a mix of established talent and up-and-comers, and just about all of them give solid performances. Or maybe they give average performances that just seem way better than they should be given the underwhelming nature of everything else...either way, I liked the acting.

The opening episode, “Dream of Doom”, tricks you into thinking that you might be watching a legitimately-good show. And as I stated in earlier reviews, it's no coincidence that it's the most effective of the entire series: it has a simple idea that can be easily executed within a 20-25 minute time frame, has no elaborate special effect requirements, and features the standard good performances (in this one the lead is the always reliable Keith Carradine). Why couldn't grown men, all of whom are experienced giants within the industry, realize this was the winning formula, and stick to it?

They do again a few episodes later with “Snap Ending”, and again create a good episode with practical effects and a simple story that doesn't require a whole lot of time to unfold. It also has quite an intense (for this show) intro that really sucks you in from the get-go, another solid plus that is missing from most of the installments. As mentioned in that review, it does lose its grip slightly with one final effects shot that is clearly computer-generated, but you know what? They waited until the end, and it's a rather brief shot, so I'll give them a pass on that one.

But the rest have the feeling of amateurs trying to make often bad ideas work. Even when they stumble on a good idea, such as in “Planely Possible”, the series' sixth episode, it's completely ruined by shoddy effects work, and a story that seems so hellbent on throwing us something we're not expecting, that it does so—at the expense of giving us something that is impossible to take seriously. Which is the other problem I've cited more than once in individual reviews: there is no “off switch.”

Everything has to be as in-your-face as possible, but that's to the show's detriment. With a little bit of subtlety, some of these episodes could have been stronger. But instead, there's always a build-up to something completely ridiculous, so as to ruin the entire build-up. In some cases, there wasn't much to ruin, but others, like “Panic”, are done in by stupid endings that immediately released the grip they had on me. And this series is sadly rife with such over-the-top examples...there's virtually one in every single one.

If you're a fan of “Tales from the Crypt”, I'd love to be able to recommend this to you, but I honestly can't do that. In fact, I'm hesitant to recommend it to anyone. Even sci-fi buffs will probably be turned off by the hackneyed premises and low production values—the show just never gives you a valid reason to really focus your attention on it, and rarely rewards you even if you do. In this day and age, it's kind of a curiosity that HBO refuses to release this to DVD, or at least a digital format, which wouldn't require much of an investment on their part. But that's also quite telling, as it tells us that not only does no one seem to care about it, but the cable giant seems to be flat-out embarrassed by it.

And they should be.

SERIES RATING: 5/10

Perversions of Science, S1, E10: People's Choice

Starring:

Patrick Cassidy as Todd Sorenson

Maxine Bahns as Betty Sorenson

Barry Williams as Neighbor

Richard Riehle as Gorn

Debbie Lee Carrington as Alien #1
Gary Friedkin as Alien #2
Katherine Gaskin as Glenda 6
Olivia Hack as Jenna Sorenson
Roger W. Morrissey as Liberty 1
Betty Murphy as Nana

Maureen Teefy as Chrome

Written by: Scott Nimerfro, based on the "Weird Science" comic books, by William M. Gaines

Directed by: Russell Mulcahy

Well here it is at last: the final episode of “Perversions of Science”, and the most surprising thing about it is, even in the face of a surefire cancellation, just how much of a whimper it goes out with. I have mentioned before how it never really pushed any boundaries, despite being on a channel known for doing it; when I mentioned it the first time, it was more of a stray observation. Suddenly, it has become a point of contempt: this was a chance for the show to pull out all the stops and deliver one final “fuck you” to its audience, and instead it delivers us its typical droll, restrained sci-fi “goods”. This is a textbook example of how to go out with your tail between your legs.

Not surprisingly, it is the future in “The People's Choice”, and this vision is made up of long-haired women robots, called “domestics”, that perform chores for well-off families in suburbia. Todd Sorenson is the “leader” of one such family, the ultimate douchebag who respects no one and, in return, is respected by no one. In the beginning of the episode, he is verbally harassing “Nana”, the family's long-serving domestic, exploding on her for having “medical” issues that are costing him a lot of money. But his wife and child seem to love “Nana” more than they love him, and as much as he apparently dislikes the robot, he's such a penny-pinching miser that he refuses to upgrade to another model.

The deep depths he will go to keep his family “intact” are made obvious when “Nana” sneaks out of the house one night, and by morning ends up swimming in oil after an unspecified accident amputates her arm. Rather than pony up the cash to buy a new one, he has the local robot sales/repairman Gorn (Richard Riehle, who is probably the king of “I know I've seen that guy somewhere before!”) fix her up to be as good as new. Wondering what lead Nana to receive such a horrible injury, he feigns sleep the following evening, catching her slipping outside in the middle of the night, where all the robots gather in the middle of the street to fight to the death. (No one else has ever noticed this before?) This means Nana is going up against much more current models, which explains why she is always in failing health. Facing a “Glenda 6”, one of the top consumer-grade robots available, she is about to be dealt a death blow when Todd comes to her rescue, allowing her to turn the tables and “win”.

All it does it postpone the inevitable: the very next day, a group of robots come by and attack her, cutting her into unrepairable pieces. Todd demands answers from Gorn, who reveals that the fighting is all a tactic from manufacturer Ultrabot to eventually force people to upgrade their domestics to a more current model. The stress of losing “Nana”, along with a rivalry with his neighbor, leads him to purchase the “Liberty 1”, a new patriotic model that everyone has to have. But in typical “Perversions” overkill, it turns out each robot in the “Liberty” line is controlled by a miniature alien, and all of them are combining to take over the world! And that's not only the end of the episode, but the entire series. Ho-hum.

The acting is pretty good, but it's clear that everyone was told to “ham it up” in this one; it seems to be striving for more of a lighthearted approach than some earlier eps, and also frequently aims for comedy (often failing miserably). The special effects are mainly kept “physical”, but the final shot is yet another example of piss-poor '90s CGI, the type of which this show has sadly excelled at. I hope I haven't made this sound like a horrible episode, because parts of it were enjoyable, but given this was its last chance to make an impression on its dwindling viewer base, it's sad to see “Perversions” stick to its code of restraint all the way through to the bitter end; a code that is what helped to send it to an early grave in the first place.

EPISODE RATING: 5/10

FULL EPISODE

Perversions of Science, S1 E9: Ultimate Weapon

Starring:

Heather Lagenkamp as Lou Ann Solomon

Mitchell Whitfield as Matt Solomon

Paolo Seganti as Mike Calderone

Kim Myers as Selena

Jennifer Darling as Lou's Mother
Maria Cina as Tess
Steve Kahan as Lou's Father

Maureen Teefy as Chrome

Written by: Gilbert Adler and Jeannette Lewis, based on the "Weird Science" comic books, by William M. Gaines

Directed by: Dean Lopata

Well after one of the best episodes of the series, it seems we're back to the muddled, uneven mess of a show that has plagued a majority of the episodes up through this point. But, at the very least, “Ultimate Weapon” is an entertaining, sometimes-clever failure, so much so that not even a cringe-inducing finale can cancel out all of what it has to offer.

Lou Ann Solomon believes she is under attack by aliens. Apparently, this is nothing new; after having an episode in the middle of the night, her husband claims he's had enough of her nonsense, wishes they had never married, and leaves the house. Apparently, still during the same night (I think?), she goes out with friends at a local bar. Why does it seem like every television show lead has two friends, of the same sex, who are willing to drop whatever it is they're doing to hang out with their best friend at any given time? And why is it that all “girl's nights” have to end up with the women all getting drunk and gossiping about hot guys? It's one thing if we're talking about singles, but here we have a married gal, whose friends are ready to hook her up with someone for the night, simply because she and her husband got into a little fight. Okay...

Well now two powder-white aliens show up to the bar, with specific instructions to basically knock her up in order to create a combined species. Now, there's no way the ugly, sexless creatures are going to get laid like this, so of course they have the ability to morph into anyone within a moment's notice. This causes some potential marital problems for Lou Ann, when her and her friends wish her old flame Mike Calderone was there...and lo and behold, there “he” is. Only, it's not him...it's the alien that morphed into him. Then, the real Lou Ann invites the alien Mike Calderone home, while the second alien mimics Lou Ann, waiting for her friends to return from the bar with a drink. Alien Lou Ann ends up getting so hammered, her friends have no other choice but to cut her off and take her home. Am I making any sense whatsoever so far? Bare with me, because this does get a little tricky...

Once home, real Lou Ann tries resisting the robotic urges of Mike Calderone (she can't hear his neck creak like metal everytime he turns his head?), who we learn she broke up with after hearing rumors of his homosexuality, and then walking in on him in a dorm room hugging another man. Alien Mike swears that he is straight, and the two are about to embark on a passionate journey of love and sexuality...until Lou Ann's parents decide to make an unannounced visit.

Why is it that parents in television shows always think it's okay to just enter a house without knocking? No one ever acts this way in real life, yet it's a staple of every sitcom ever made. And of course, the two of them are bringing luggage...they're going to be spending the night for an unspecified reason. Panicking, Lou Ann begs Mike to hide, but alien Mike just turns into alien Matt (her husband), confusing her and her parents. Meanwhile, Lou Ann's friends bring alien Lou Ann home, and when they see her parents are over, decide to sneak her upstairs because she is so drunk. They do this by making her parent's car alarm go off, using the ensuing confusion to get her up into her own bed.

From here we can kind of gather what's going on, at least in its most basic form: Real Matt will come home with alien Matt, and Lou Ann will have to figure out which one is which. But there is one awkward, unbelievable twist that I'm going to have to reveal, so if you don't want the episode ruined, then please stop reading right here: The two aliens have sex with each other. That's right, alien Matt ends up going upstairs to find drunk and sleeping alien Lou Ann, at which point they proceed to have loud, frivolous sex that alerts everyone in the house to their location—and eventually, their real identities. Come on now...shouldn't two aliens with an ability to morph into anything somehow be able to differentiate their alien bodies with that of those they are impersonating? Maybe we can give a pass to alien Lou Ann because she was technically drunk (we'll assume that alcohol has the same effect on aliens as it does on us), but alien Matt should have certainly been able to tell.  Still, it's at least slightly humorous if not entirely believable, even within the confines of this particular episode.

For the final “twist”, the one alien ends up impregnating the other one, and the episode ends with the two of them getting married on their own planet. What a crock of shit.

But like I said, despite its common setup and terrible ending, this one at least had some imagination behind it. Yes, the parents and friends showing up is textbook plot device, but by adding in clones of a couple of characters, it gives it an added layer of complexity—and occasional humor—to the proceedings (i.e. having a character walk right behind the person they are cloning, with neither of them noticing). It all adds up to one of the more straight-up entertaining episodes of the entire series, despite a significant number of flaws. Like the way characters clearly start coming and going simply to further the plot, with no logic behind their actions. For example, Lou Ann's parents say they're spending the night initially right when they show up unannounced, then claim they're “leaving for a show” not five minutes later, then come back because they've forgotten something just in time to catch real Matt in a lewd, and misconstrued, situation. In another bit, one of Lou Ann's friends demands Lou Ann give her a ride home out of nowhere, not at all caught off guard by the fact they drove (alien) Lou Ann home themselves because she was so plastered. I get there's some creative licensing involved with just about all science fiction stories, but within the confines of a twenty-minute show, you would think it could have been a little tighter.

Any way you add it up, though, this is an above-average episode, at least as far as this series is concerned. It has a couple moments that made me chuckle, and manages to keep viewer's on their toes by tossing a constant barrage of increasingly unbelievable moments at them with rapid-fire imprecision. And what is a television show if it's not entertaining?

EPISODE RATING: 5.5/10

FULL EPISODE

Perversions of Science, S1, E8: Snap Ending

Starring:

Jennifer Hetrick as The Captain

Kathleen Wilhoite as Paula

Sean Astin as Taylor

Wil Wheaton as Bryan

Deborah Carlisle as The Computer (voice)

Maureen Teefy as Chrome

Written by: Kevin Rock, based on the "Weird Science" comic books, by William M. Gaines

Directed by: Sean Astin

It has been roughly three months since I last viewed an episode of “Perversions of Science”, and much like the series I reviewed before this one (“Cop Rock”) part of the delay is simply because it's a terrible show. With “Perversions”, I at least knew that beforehand, having watched a few episodes when I was a youngster, but I didn't remember just how bad it was...the writing lacks subtlety, while each episode's budget appears to be the same price it'll cost you to get a candy bar out of a shopping mall vending machine. These are the main reasons it was a deserving failure back in its day; today it's probably gotten even worse.

“Snap Ending”, however, bucks that trend. This is completely unexpected, considering it is also the shortest episode yet (subtracting the long credits sequence, and “Chrome” introduction and wrap-ups, it clocks in around a mere twenty minutes), giving it even less time for plot and character development. But it makes wise use of that time by thrusting us into a situation where such things aren't necessary—an emergency situation aboard a spaceship.

Taylor (Sean Astin, who also directed the episode) is an astronaut stuck, quite literally, in a malfunctioning airlock door; it's opening and shutting on his “umbilical cord”, the long cable that delivers his oxygen to him. Each time the heavy, metallic door shuts, it shreds the cord even more, meaning it's only a matter of time until it is destroyed, and he will not be able to breathe. To make matters worse, the arm of his spacesuit is also caught on a random hook inside the ship—if that gets ripped, he also faces a sure death.

The other crew respond to the emergency: They consist of a woman known only as The Captain (Jennifer Hetrick), Paula (Kathleen Wilhoite; the second time I've seen her in something in just as many days (she was also in "Cop Rock")), and Bryan (Wil Wheaton). After a bit of panic, Bryan makes the rash decision to try to override the airlock chamber with oxygen, which would give Taylor a way to breathe. But time is limited, and when the override system fails, that spells the end for poor Taylor, whose head explodes inside his mask (always a favorite way for filmmakers to kill off astronauts).

After a bit of bickering (Paula wants to know why Bryan was unable to override the system, while Bryan sees this as an accusation), the trio faces an even more alarming problem: the ship's warning system kicks in, informing them there is a virus on board. If the virus is not contained within twenty minutes, the spaceship will self-destruct. The Captain tries putting the whole ship on lockdown, which would essentially quarantine the remaining crew in the flight deck until the ship can land, but that request is overridden by the on-board software...which means the threat is right in there with them.

More accusations spread. Didn't Taylor have a virus, and wasn't Paula sleeping with him? Paula insists all he had was the flu, but no medical report was filled out for it. Bryan has a gun, ready to deal with any situation so that he can get out alive. Paula does that stupid thing people do only in movies, and tells him he doesn't have the guts to kill her. From there, tension spreads until he has killed both of his fellow crewmembers, sending their bodies out of the airlock, which now seems to work all of a sudden. But when that fails to fix the problem, he's faced with the idea that he's the one containing the virus...

As with all the episodes in this series, there is a final “twist” to the ending, something that we've pretty much come to expect, but it's one of the better ones in the series, and fairly believable within the context of the story. After the big reveal, there are a couple of terrible computer-generated space effects at the end, but not even they are bad enough to dismantle what the rest of the show is able to accomplish. The introduction is legitimately intense, with the crewmembers racing against time to save a nervous Taylor, while the effects (until the end, anyway) are better than usual, and wisely kept to a bare minimum. This is exactly what the show needed more of to succeed: a solid story that could be told quickly and as cheaply as possible.

Unfortunately, that was a concept lost on everyone at the time.

EPISODE RATING: 7/10

FULL EPISODE

Perversions of Science, S1, E7: Panic

Starring:

Jason Lee as Spaceman Bob

Jamie Kennedy as Spaceman John

Laraine Newman as Becky

Edie McClurg as The Farmer's Wife

Harvey Korman as The Farmer

Chris Sarandon as Carson Walls

Bryce Ingman as Bed Sheet Ghost
Tracy Middendorf as Cheerleader
Steve Monroe as Gorilla
Kira Reed Lorsch as Vampiress
Maureen Teefy as Chrome

Written by: Andrew Kevin Walker, based on the "Weird Science" comic books, by William M. Gaines

Directed by: Tobe Hooper

“Panic”, directed by Tobe Hooper, starts off as one of the better episodes in the series: for the first few minutes, I was completely enthralled. It even had me thinking, at least for a little while, that this one would be restrained enough to actually deliver on all that it had promised. But I forgot that it wouldn’t be an episode of “Perversions of Science” if we weren’t constantly blasted in the head with an ever-increasing barrage of ridiculous ideas. It has the feeling of writers who were planning on an hour-long show, then learned they had to truncate their idea down to just thirty minutes at the last minute; no twist has time to settle before we’re hit with another one, until what was actually a very solid idea ends up essentially committing suicide.

Carson Walls (a rather lame take-off on Orson Welles) is a radio broadcaster who is furiously working on his new dramatic masterpiece. Entitled “Invasion of the Martians”, he is certain that this radio play is really going to resonate with listeners, and history tells us that he is right. This, of course, is a take-off on Welles’ own real-life adaptation of “War of the Worlds”, which was based off of the 1898 novel by H.G. Wells. Reports of the time have mentioned that the radio broadcast, which was mostly made up of a series of simulated news bulletins, caused real-life panic the day it aired; since then, this notion has been largely refuted, simply because the show had such a small listenership.

We are now introduced to John (Jamie Kennedy…yes, THAT Jamie Kennedy), and Bob (Jason Lee…yes, THAT Jason Lee), two roommates who are throwing a Halloween party later that night. Bob is excited because he found the perfect costume for the both of them: they will be going as aliens. I’ll admit, I thought at this point that I had everything figured out: the newscast would convince everyone, including their fellow partygoers, that aliens were among them, and they’d freak out on John and Bob, thinking they were actually aliens. But you can put that idea to rest, because it's not even close to how it pans out.

Soon it’s nighttime, and all of the partiers have arrived; there are around ten of them total. As expected, the radio broadcast kicks in, and specifically mentions that a bizarre spacecraft has crash-landed in a field in Newark, New Jersey, which of course happens to be just a few short miles from John and Bob’s house. A few more interruptions take place, and the college kids get more and more frightened. These scenes were actually very well done, and while it’s almost impossible to imagine any form of media having the same effect on people today, it shows just how truly believable it could have been back then.

But then at the height of the tension, John disappears into the kitchen, and when he returns….the entire episode starts a baffling, quick descent downhill. Even if I told you what happened next, that John and Bob were actually aliens, and they off everyone at their own party, believing that their own race had landed on Earth and started their takeover, I wouldn’t even be revealing anything about the ending. I’ll admit, as dumb as this idea was to me at first, it slowly started to make sense to me, and I kind of grew to like it: we know what kind of effect this radio drama had on real-life people, so I figured this was just a twist, showing us how real aliens might have reacted to the same radio play.

Then we get yet another twist. This one I will not reveal, but it just once again proves why “Perversions of Science” was such a bad, undercooked show, and it‘s a reason I mentioned earlier: it never believed in words like “subtle”, or “restraint”. Many of the episodes were born of interesting ideas, and thus, actually had solid foundations on which to build fascinating, effective shows. But they seemed to be more interested in blowing an effects budget that wasn’t even there, instead of developing their ideas into something more practical and interesting. This is exactly the case here: it blows two legitimately fresh, solid ideas in favor of an in-your-face finish that insists on being as pointless and “out there” as possible. Trust me, I typically enjoy things that are way outside of the norm, but not when it feels so forced or contrived; here, like with a lot of previous episodes, it just feels like an aimless shitshow.

Another big problem I’m starting to have is that, although it seems like this series wants to push the envelope, every episode is almost unbearably tame. For example, there is a body count of somewhere around ten in this episode, which is by far the highest of any episode to date, yet none of the deaths are even remotely graphic; the only blood that I recall is mouth-blood from a corpse. Even the sex that has appeared in previous episodes is bland; aside from some rather strong language, there’s not much that would have prevented these from airing on network television, even back in 1997. That’s probably another big reason that this show failed to connect with audiences, who were paying a premium to see it.

Ultimately, this was one of the more promising installments of this series, but it’s almost completely squandered by a needlessly over-the-top finale that wallows in stupidity--I went from being completely enthralled to disengaged and depressed over the span of a mere ten minutes. It just feels like it’s trying to bite off way more than it can chew, and that is no doubt a big reason as to why it was canceled in such a short amount of time. That, and Chrome’s double-entendres get really old after a short amount of time to anyone that’s not twelve or sexually-repressed; in other words, she’s no Cryptkeeper, and this is coming from someone who hasn’t really seen any episodes of “Tales from the Crypt”.

EPISODE RATING: 4.5/10

FULL EPISODE

Perversions of Science S1, E5: Given the Heir

Starring:
Yancy Butler as Lisa Gerou
William McNamara as Nick Boyer
David Leisure as William Tilbrook
Paul Williams as Dr. Mueller
Joey Buttafuoco as Frankie Carelli (yes, THAT Joey Buttafuoco)
Mark Folger as Scientist #2
Doug Llewelyn as Calvin Patterson
Dennison Samaroo as Scientist #1
Marc Segal as Bank Guard
Maureen Teefy as Chrome

Written by: Mark Verheiden, based on the "Weird Science" comic books, by William M. Gaines

Directed by: Ramon Menendez

Well, I praised the show’s first episode, “Dream of Doom”, for managing to be effective despite the show’s obviously low budget. I have also berated a couple additional episodes for trying to be too ambitious--the effects work in this entire show is shoddy, at best, and there are very few things that can ruin anything quite like bad special effects. Especially given the fact this show takes place in the future, at a time when technology runs rampant and has progressed beyond our wildest dreams. I thought the episodes that focused more on story and writing would be the better ones.

“Given the Heir” has ruined that idea for me. Here we have an episode that, aside from a couple of quick time travel sequences, have very little in the way of special effects; and yet, it’s an absolutely terrible, interminable bore. I kept sitting back, waiting for some kind of twist ending, only to be left hanging--this just may be the worst episode yet.

Yancy Butler plays Lisa Gerou, a woman who has a thing for a man named Nick Boyer (William McNamara). It is unspecified exactly what Boyer does, but judging from the women that are constantly vying for his attention, he must be famous for something. In order to appease him, she researches his likes and interests, then uses technology to mold herself into the perfect being for him. There’s just one little problem: All this is happening in 2006...as we learn, Nick died ten years ago, way back in 1996. So how can she meet up with him after he’s been dead for so long? Easy: Time travel. It’s still not common technology at this point, but after exchanging some sexual favors with a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, he agrees to build a time machine for her. I guess even distinguished prize winning men are as shallow as the rest of us!

We think there might be some sort of attachment that the two shared at some point, but unless I’m missing something, Lisa is actually just an obsessed fan from the future. In fact, Lisa Gerou isn’t even her real name: she got it from blending his mother’s first name, with his favorite “French-Canadian Scotch Whiskey”. Well that’s kind of creepy. But her attention-to-detail does pay off--armed with her future knowledge, she is able to withdraw $50,000 from his secretive second account, even going so far as to have her fingerprint altered to perfectly match the one that he used to safeguard that bank account.

Needless to say, everything goes terribly wrong for her. Her schemes to get his attention--taking a large sum of money out of someone’s account will do that--work fine for a short while, but after finding her to be inadequate in the sack, he quickly grows tired of her. He thinks she’s scheming with the account manager at his bank, so he has his bodyguard kidnap him. The bank manager, Mr. Tillgood, swears up and down that he had nothing to do with it, but poor Nick doesn’t believe him. So Tillgood steals the bodyguard’s gun and shoots him, the bullet going through the bodyguard and hitting Nick in the neck. Bingo, just like in “real life“, Nick ends up dying in 1996, and not even Lisa’s time travel can stop that. The end.

Based on a little research, the episode of “Weird Comics” that this was based off of had the same title, but focused on a man who had to put off marrying his wife because he’s so poor. After meeting a time traveling relative, he’s convinced that he can come into wealth by having her kill an ancestor, thus passing the money onto him. Even that idea is stupid, so I’m not surprised that, even with the major alterations to the story, this one falls quite flat, as well. There’s nothing really exciting that happens, nor any twist at the end that brings everything around full circle, so “Given the Heir” ends up being irreversibly dull.

EPISODE RATING: 3/10

FULL EPISODE

Perversions of Science S1, E4: The Exile

Starring:
Jeffrey Combs as 50557
Ron Perlman as 40132
Christopher John Fields as Adolph Hitler
Brian Brophy as Investigator
Jeff Corey as The Judge
David Warner as Dr. Nordhoff
Oscar Dillon as Jailer
Craig Olsen as Lupita
Jae Woo Lee as Coopersmith
Maureen Teefy as Chrome

Written by: David J. Schow, based on the "Weird Science" comic books, by William M. Gaines

Directed by: William Malone

Before I dig in to the specifics of this episode, I must once again express shock at the level of talent that “Perversions of Science” was able to garner, despite being--without question, really--a terribly subpar television series. For example, in “The Exile”, we are treated to Jeffrey Combs, Ron Perlman, and David Warner (you might not recognize the last name, but you will recognize the face the instant you see it--that dude’s been in everything) in the main roles. Granted, Combs is kind of a B-rate actor, known mainly for his work in the Re-Animator series, with a couple of other horror films to his credit, but still, even for a show like this, that’s a pretty solid grab. And Ron Perlman might not have been the mainstream hotshot that he would eventually become (especially after Hellboy), but this show nabbed him during his strong rise--so while the rest of the show was pretty lackluster, credit must be given to casting, who, at least up until now, has been pretty on point.

Anyway, “The Exile” tries to cram a lot of ideas into not a lot of time. It all begins with Jeffrey Combs’ character, who we believe to be a doctor, trying to convince a woman that he has found a way to remove people of their inconsistencies--she’s unfortunately being told this as she’s tied up under one of his heavy machines. Essentially, he “burns away” their physical problems. Well, judging from the police raid that interrupts the discussion he’s having with his poor, defenseless subject, this whole thing isn’t entirely legal. And judging from further discussions that take place later in the episode, he doesn’t actually “cure” his subjects of anything: he merely kills them.

Following the police raid, he is captured and placed into prison, where he is given the prisoner code 50557. That’s where he meets Dr. Nordhoff (Warner), a scientist who seems to be obsessed with “rehabilitating” him, which as we can assume, means “curing” him enough to return to society. You see, murder in the future is a very rare offense, with many of those responsible for carrying out the crimes able to be “treated” and placed back into the normal world. But should rehabilitation fail, the subject is forced to be “exiled”, a punishment that is frequently mentioned, but kept a secret until the end.

As it turns out, 50557 is that rare killer, one that is proud of his accomplishments, and refuses to be “fixed”. Dr. Nordhoff tries electro-shock therapy, but that doesn’t work, and with his hearing with a judge just two days away, he is desperate to find something that works, lest he be “exiled”. Well, of course nothing works, and he is sent before the judge. And as can be expected, his laundry list of prior felonies and crimes, not the least of which is the murder of 41 people, can only be punishable by “exile”.

I won’t reveal what “exile” is, because that’s the whole point of the episode. But needless to say the finish isn’t anywhere near as revelatory as it thinks it is, or tries to be. Along the way, 50557 is coached by prisoner # 40132 (Perlman), a successfully rehabilitated murderer himself, who is waiting to be placed back into a society he is now ready for.

As with many of the episodes, the strengths here lie mainly in its acting: Combs seems only capable of overacting--I mean, he‘s pretty much built his entire career around it--but given this relatively low-grade material, his performance works. Meanwhile, Warner and Perlman are just reliably good. They don’t really go above and beyond in any way, but again, given the fairly-lame premise and writing, and sometimes painfully low budget, it’s better than what the material deserves.

After getting off to a strong start with “Dream of Doom”, it’s quickly becoming apparent why this show failed so quickly: the plots are very straightforward, and none of them really push the envelope the way HBO audiences of the late ‘90s were expecting them to. In other words, there’s very little sex or violence in any of these, with language being the only reason most of these even reached a TV-MA rating. “The Exile” is the perfect example of this, with some foul language, and some random (non-sexual) boobies at the beginning, all captured in an idea that’s only minorly fascinating.

A stray observation: At this point, I’m also starting to think just how stupid the “Chrome” intros are, with her constant barrage of double entendres and clearly-sexual movements. For an episode like “Boxed In”, it makes sense to have her introduce the segment, because that episode itself had a lot to do with sex. In episodes like this, however, she just seems tacked on in a desperate attempt to appeal to the late-night crowds that were watching HBO at the time--which, namely, were pretty much younger guys and creepy old men (and babysitting teenagers like me) who were just looking for something to appeal to their libidos. I get it--that was probably the point--but judging from this show’s mere 10-episode run, it didn’t work. And while it’s far from the only thing wrong with the show--it probably wouldn’t have lasted no matter what--it’s curious to me that they didn’t at least try to get rid of those random intros, or substitute them for something else. I guess they were trying to mold Chrome into the next Cryptkeeper, only to no avail.

EPISODE RATING: 3.5/10

FULL EPISODE

Perversions of Science S1, E3: Boxed In

Starring:
Heather Elizabeth Parkhurst as Emmy
Kevin Pollak as Pilot
Melanie Shatner as Dulcine
William Shatner as Admiral Kornfeld
Brian Phelps as Soldier
Mark Thompson as Soldier
Maureen Teefy as Chrome

Written by: Chris Miller & Kevin Rock, based on the "Weird Science" comic books, by William M. Gaines

Directed by: William Shatner


The first two episodes of “Perversions of Science” have really run the gamut in terms of quality. The first episode played to the show’s miniscule budget, and turned out to be a fantastic episode, while the second one was done in by a finale of bad special effects, and a rather sloppy excuse for a story. So, then, I suppose it’s pretty fitting that we would follow those up with an episode that varies wildly in quality just within its own 25-minute existence.

This was the only episode that I remembered bits of from my initial viewing, as a horny teenager in the late '90s babysitting some kids (yes, the children were long in bed by the time this came on). It's not that it's an overly memorable episode on its own, but I always liked it for its sheer stupidity; the way it blended late-night cable sexuality, with a completely over-the-top plotline (and some pretty awful effects) is what made it appeal to me back then.  Watching it now wasn't quite the fun experience it was the first time, but it's still an entertaining episode.

“Boxed In” starts off in space in what I would assume to be the faraway future, where Kevin Pollack is piloting a rickety spaceship in a war that he has been fighting for over two years. Traveling alone in the outer reaches of the galaxy with no one to talk to would be enough to drive any man insane, but thankfully Kevin (who has no name in the show, and is referred to only as “pilot” by his superior, and “dunglelips” by his girlfriend) has a helper: “Emmy”, an advanced sex-bot that he won in a card game. Conveniently, she’s also handy with tools (see the world they create, in which everything can be turned into a double-entendre?) and spends most of her time repairing the many things that Mr. Pollack is unable to.

She may only be a robot, but apparently even robots have needs; Emmy spends most of her time trying to seduce the pilot. But he’s an honest man of good integrity: he has a girlfriend back home who goes by the name Dulcine (a perfectly annoying Melanie Shatner), and he swore to her father (William Shatner, reprising his real-life role), who also happens to be his superior, that he would remain faithful (I guess even sleeping with robots counts as infidelity in the future). After two years of no booty, you can imagine how tough things get, but just when it seems like Emmy might finally break him, he receives word from the admiral that the war is over, and he can return home.

Home, in this case, is a bland futuristic set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. All he can think about is consummating his relationship with Dulcine, but after the admiral drops her off, Pilot Pollack learns that she has been fitted with an electronic chastity belt that sends an electronic shock to any unauthorized personnel that happens to touch it--and the pilot learns the hard way that, until they get married, he’s one of the unauthorized ones. Frustrated with the situation herself, Dulcine leaves--and the pilot decides that it’s time to put together a little friend that he happened to bring home with him…

That's right, it's Emmy, and she has not lost her hots for the pilot!  A few minutes into their passionate lovemaking, he receives a video call (remember, it’s the future!) from a horny Dulcine, who successfully found a way to remove the belt without killing herself; she announces that she will be returning to his house in ten minutes for some intimate time. The abrupt stop angers Emmy, who shuts herself down--conveniently fastening herself to him and refusing to get off. Will he manage to free himself from the rejected sexbot, or will he be discovered by the love of his life?

What works in this episode is that the show never takes itself too seriously--it knows this idea is fully ridiculous, but commits to it, giving it an overall lighthearted feel with some genuine chuckles thrown in for good measure. It doesn’t work all the time, but this is “Perversions of Science” at its most playful, proving that it can still be entertaining even when its frustratingly non-existent budget rears its ugly head--the scenes of the pilot desperately struggling with a robot torso attached to his crotch manages to be humorous, even though the robot is obviously a dummy. Much like the last one we saw, though, and like many others that await us, it all builds up to a terrible conclusion that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and feels tacked-on.

The area that “Perversions” hasn’t quite let me down in are the performances, and this one continues that streak. Kevin Pollack is just fine as the pilot, while Melanie Shatner plays the idiotic Dulcine with a level of ease that seems a little alarming. William Shatner is good as the admiral, but it’s because he’s in on the joke, the kind of role that he tends to excel in. Unfortunately, the production, with its pretty bland and unconvincing sets, as well as the finale, mar what still manages to be an above-average episode that blends laughs with sex the way late cable TV shows were always attempting to do, to appeal to teenagers always trying to sneak viewings of late night cable TV shows, as I was always attempting to do.

EPISODE RATING: 5.5/10

FULL EPISODE

Perversions of Science S1, E2: Anatomy Lesson

Starring:
Jeremy London as Billy Rabe
Jeff Fahey as Bearded Man
Joanna Gleason as Mrs. Rabe
Jim Metzler as Stan Rabe
Devon Odessa as Linda
Justin Chapman as Little Billy Rabe
Gary Grossman as Sheriff
Ace Mask as Science Teacher
Maureen Teefy as Chrome

Written by: Kevin Rock, based on the "Weird Science" comic books, by William M. Gaines

Directed by: Gilbert Adler

Whereas the first episode, “Dream of Doom”, played to the strengths of its low budget, it is episodes like “Anatomy Lesson” that helped to kill this series before it ever had a chance to shine. The focus on special effects, which somehow manage to be every bit as terrible now as they were back when they first aired, takes the viewer right out of the story, while the twisty finale twisted itself right out of my interest level, lingering on an implausible finish that makes very little sense. Part of its failure stems from its short run-time: this feels like a 50- or 60-minute episode cut in half, which doesn’t allow much time to build up the required amount of character development to make any of this work.

“Anatomy Lesson” focuses on little Billy Rabe. He’s the son of the town’s coroner, and looks forward to sneaking into the basement while his father performs autopsies. He seems to be getting to do that more and more frequently lately, because there’s a serial killer loose in the town, dispatching child molesters and other unwanted scourges of society. (Maybe an inspiration for "Dexter"? Haha, just kidding...that would have required author Jeff Lindsay to watch a series that no one even knows ever existed.) But there’s something much more sinister within Billy than just morbid curiosity--he frequently gets the urge to kill. Our first clue to this behavior is after his father (Jim Metzler, in a great performance) catches Billy snooping in the basement; he is banished to his room, where we discover he stole one of his dad’s scalpels. Then, a nearby cat “meows”. A grinning Billy closes in, scalpel extended and ready to cut. He comes down on the window sill--only to have the cat jump into the arms of a bearded man, who tells him to go to bed. Terrified, Billy obliges.

Flash-forward to the present. Little Billy Rabe is growing up so fast--he’s a teenager already, and is now played by Jeremy London. But his urges haven’t subsided…in fact, if anything they seem to have gotten stronger. So when a hot, stereotypical high school slut named Linda (Devon Odessa) comes on to him, his first thoughts aren’t of making out with her, or taking things even further--no, he just wants to kill her.

That night, as things are getting hot and heavy in her car, he pulls her hair back. She thinks he’s just getting into it, so she leans her head back, going along with his aggression.  But Billy grabs a knife instead, and goes to plunge it into her unprotected neck--but a hand gets in the way, absorbing the weapon. That hand belongs to the same bearded man that appeared to him when he was a younger child! Linda is terrified, unaware of just how close to death she was; Billy is only angry that he didn’t get to finish the job. He tosses the keys to Linda, and tells her to leave, while he exits the car to track down the bearded man (Jeff Fahey), who ran away after saving her life.

After catching up to him, the bearded man informs him that he’s intervened because a killer needs a good reason to kill, like offing sex offenders and other murderers. Billy, in the heat of the moment, goes to kill the bearded man…only to discover that he’s not all that he appears to be. Then a bunch of even more stupid shit happens, and what starts off as a fascinating episode goes from 60 to zero in record time.

I don’t want to reveal the ending, but that is where all the cheesy effects come in, and they range from just plain bad, to astonishingly embarrassing. I will say that the acting is pretty solid here--I can’t remember if that’s the case with all of them, but they seem to get some pretty talented people for such a low budget. I guess that’s probably the main plus to having a production crew consisting of Robert Zemeckis and Walter Hill and Joel Silver (to name just three of many), which probably helped with landing them some solid B-list stars.

In the end, there’s just very little here to recommend. The buildup is rather intriguing, and it’s pretty neat to see some small shards of “Dexter” in here, what with the serial killer offing murderers and other lowlifes and all (though such plot points have probably been around for years, so I’m in no way insinuating this was an influence). But for an installment that relies pretty heavily on its ending, to have such a terrible finish pretty much blows any air out of the momentum balloon, making it all come crashing down.

EPISODE RATING: 4/10

FULL EPISODE

Perversions of Science S1, E1: Dream of Doom

Starring:
Keith Carradine as Arthur Bristol
Lolita Davidovich as Doctor/Arthur's Wife/Arthur's Daughter/Hooker
Gretchen Palmer as Receptionist/Arthur's Wife/Student/Stripper
Adam Arkin as Paul Danko
Peter Jason as Priest
Lin Shaye as Nurse
Maureen Teefy as Chrome

Written by: David S. Goyer, based on the comic book "Weird Science" by William M. Gaines

Directed by: Walter Hill

Keith Carradine plays Arthur Bristol, a man who has quite the problem: he cannot wake up from his dreams. Any time he “wakes up”, he is caught inside another one, and so on and so forth, indefinitely. We are immediately thrust in to his situation, as he sits in a doctor’s waiting room, desperate to get help. A little while later, a black woman enters, and informs him that the doctor is ready to see him. He goes into the doctor’s office, and is met by a red-haired doctor (Lolita Davidovich), who runs through his life’s milestones before asking him what is wrong. He is a 40 year old professor, married with no children, and once divorced.

He tells her his problem, only to “awaken” again, inside the same waiting room. The same black woman notifies him that the doctor is ready to see him. He enters into the doctor’s office again, and this time goes into a little more detail: he entered a government-funded sleep study out of pure boredom. The government was attempting to create a drug that could put its subjects into an immediate state of lucid dreaming. The doctor informs Arthur that studies have proven long-term states of dreaming can induce psychosis, and then proceeds to stand up, and put a gun to her head, squeezing the trigger.

Arthur wakes up again, this time next to his wife, who is also played by Lolita Davidovich. He informs her that he had a bad dream, and she tries to soothe him, falling asleep in the process. Arthur goes to check the time, only to discover his clock is running backwards, one of the traits of a dream his doctor described to him. When he “wakes” up again, he comes home to his wife in the shower. But now, his wife isn‘t Lolita Davidovich, but the same black woman (Gretchen Palmer) from his doctor‘s office! And so the story goes on, with the same characters cutting in and out of his dreams, playing different parts.

Somewhere in all of this, Arthur has a heart attack. Could this have something to do with his constant state of dreaming…perhaps he is in a coma, and all of his dreams are merely his brain fighting to stay alive? Interestingly, none of this is explored; everything is kept as mysterious and as ambiguous as possible, until a final reveal that simultaneously sent chills down my spine, while ultimately revealing nothing.

This is actually the perfect start to the series, one that avoids all the pitfalls that later episodes would fall into; namely that this series has literally zero budget, and many future episodes seemed to rely on ideas and effects that the budget simply couldn’t match. “Dream of Doom” features no outlandish special effects, yet makes up for it with a very simple, yet intriguing, premise. Keith Carradine, as Arthur, is solid in the role, as a man who’s legitimately confused about his situation, and desperately trying to come to grips with it, before it's too late.  The "what's-real-what's-not?" atmosphere makes for an engrossing experience that sucks you in, while also providing a real dose of legitimate unpredictability.

“Perversions of Science” was always wildly uneven, but the most frustrating thing about all of it was that it occasionally (read: very rarely) showed flashes of brilliance. This episode is one of them, and, in a bit of unfortunate foreshadowing, the closest example of near-perfection it was ever able to obtain.

EPISODE RATING: 8/10.

FULL EPISODE

TV Tuesdays: Perversions of Science (1997)

In our sporadic feature, known as TV Tuesdays, we take a long look at short-lived television shows. Some may have been forgotten for good reason, while others just might have been prematurely killed by impatient networks. Every week, we will review an episode of said show, in chronological order, from beginning to end.  At the end of the series, we'll summarize our thoughts on the show as a whole, giving it a final score.  Without further adieu, let's get started with the intro for our next televised failure.

I stumbled across “Perversions of Science” as a horny, teenaged boy way back when the series first aired. As a kid, I never had access to cable at home, because my mom never wanted to pay for it (looking back, she probably couldn't afford to).  But then I got a babysitting job watching two neighbors down the street, who happened to have HBO. Thankfully, by the time these episodes aired, in the wee hours of the morning, the kids would always be asleep--unfortunately, in most cases, so would I. Nevertheless, I always tried to stay up to watch it every night that I knew it was on.

To put it bluntly, “Perversions of Science” was a pretty bad show, at least, from what I remember. Even my fifteen-year-old self remembers the general cheesiness of the costumes and prosthetic effects, not to mention the ‘90s era CGI which looks awful when compared to the computer effects of today (which still look completely unconvincing, though in a much different way). I almost always ended up disappointed at the utter lack of violence and/or nudity across most episodes, which always struck me as kind of odd; it's a show, made for a network known for pushing the boundaries, that absolutely refused to push any of its own. I wasn't shocked when it came to an end after only one ten-episode season, and, like most everyone else who had seen it (a number that could probably fit into one city bus), had blocked out its very existence from my mind by the time I hit my twenties.

Despite my personal, teenaged memories that I have of the show, I must confess that I'm still rather shocked that this series has never had an official DVD release. In the age of the Internet, where everything is available at the push of a button, I'm also kind of surprised that “Perversions of Science” has still been relegated to cable television obscurity. Could a show that was produced by the likes of Walter Hill, Robert Zemeckis, Joel Silver, and Richard Donner really be all that bad? Tobe Hooper and Walter Hill even direct episodes, for goodness sakes!  What about a show with the acting talents of Ron Perlman, Jeffrey Combs, Keith Carradine, and Jason Lee? (Seriously, this show will probably set a record for the number of times you'll exclaim, “Where have I seen that guy/girl before?”)  I would think HBO could make some money selling units (and rentals) just by putting all the famous people involved with it on the front cover; it really reads as a who's-who of horror and cult films.

I guess I'm about to find out the answers to all of these questions, and more.  I must admit that this little journey will be my second attempt: I burnt them to a few DVDs a while back after downloading them online (remember, this has still never been officially released to DVD), and after watching two of the episodes, I was disinterested and my wife was bored out of her mind, so we just kind of let them fall by the wayside. This time, I've learned my lesson and am going through the entire series by myself, to prevent problems like that from cropping up again.

Almost twenty years after it originally aired, is the world finally ready for “Perversions of Science”? Or is the series' lack of an official release merely HBO's attempt at covering up a catastrophic failure? Let's dive in and see for ourselves...

Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997)

Director: Michael Cohn
Writer(s): Tom Szollosi and Deborah Serra, from a story by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Sam Neill, Monica Keena, and Gil Bellows

I had wanted to see Snow White: A Tale of Terror for a long time.  It first caught my eye when I was a teenager, but for whatever reason, I would always pass it up at the video store, probably in favor of more violent fare.  Then the older I got, the less and less it appealed to me, and I completely forgot about it.

That is, until I stumbled on it on an online streaming service.  My wife also really wanted to see it, to bring back memories of her own; she had watched a scary Snow White movie several times with her sister and mother when she was very young (ironic, considering her parents forbid movies like this from being anywhere near the house) and wanted to relive it again as an adult.  Eager for two different reasons, we settled in.

Honestly, my biggest fear going in was that I would be bored out of my mind.  While my wife is a huge fan of fairy tales in general (like a lot of women), I tend to avoid them like the plague (like most men).  Obviously, I knew this was geared more toward adults, but seeing as how it had two big-name stars (in Sigourney Weaver and Sam Neill), I just expected it to be a watered-down horror film with a lot of talking and very little imagination.  Boy was I wrong.

The coolest aspect is that it is more or less a fairy tale in name only.  Sure, it borrows events and basic ideas from Snow White, but, for example, there is no one ever called “Snow White” in it.  Just as none of the seven dwarves, who in this movie are seven miners (and only one of whom is actually short), are ever referred to by name. 

As the film opens, Frederick Hoffman (pronounced “Free-der-ick”; played by Sam Neill) and his wife Lilliana are taking a carriage ride through the woods, on their way back home.  Lilliana is several months pregnant and appears as if she could burst open at any time.  Then tragedy strikes:  The carriage hits a fallen tree trunk, causing a wheel to fall off, and causing the carriage—and the accompanying horse—to slide down an embankment.  Lilliana is injured, and will not survive; her dying wish is for Frederick to cut open her stomach and deliver the child.

That child is Lilli, the “Snow White” of the title.  After a few years of raising Lilli on his own, he is finally arranged to marry a noblewoman known as Lady Claudia (Sigourney Weaver).  Jealous at the idea that Claudia will take time away from her and her father, Lilli hates her right off the bat—by the time the story progresses to her teenage years, the hatred has grown mutual.

One night, during an event in their large castle, Lilli defies her stepmother’s orders by wearing an old gown that used to belong to her biological mother.  At first, her father is shocked, but then grows to love the idea and the two of them spend the night dancing together.  Infuriated by this, Claudia retreats to her room, where she is taken under the spell of an evil mirror, and vows to kill her stepdaughter by any means necessary, which then becomes the film’s entire focus.

Snow White: A Tale of Terror is a dark film to be sure, and I don’t mean it’s not well-lit; it deals with some themes that truly shocked me, and also features a small helping of some rather brutal (though simulated) animal cruelty that will no doubt be hard for some to stomach.  But what really elevates this beyond typical genre fare is the area I feared it would falter: its imagination.  For example, while under the spell of the mirror, everything that Claudia does in the mansion, is reciprocated wherever Lilli is.  So, for example, when Claudia goes on a rampage down a mansion hallway, spinning and tipping over large decorum, her spinning causes a tornado in the woods where Lilli is staying, and the tipped-over statues become falling trees that spell danger for her and the dwarves. 

These little nuances, of which there are many, really help to maintain the fairy tale atmosphere, while still imbuing it with its own brand of unique creativity.  It’s a fine-line to toe, but director Michael Cohn is up to the task.  He’s also game to coax an excellent performance out of the entire cast, but Sigourney Weaver steals the show as Claudia, whose gradual descent into madness and pure evil feels eerily authentic.  Rather than overplaying her role, which seems to be the preferred tactic of many actors playing a villain role, she keeps her performance grounded, and the effect is far more chilling--not to mention eerily human--than if she would have gone overboard.

Monica Keena is also good as “Snow White”, but the approach the writers took to her character is rather weird:  She is technically the aggressor in her relationship with Claudia, absolutely refusing to have anything to do with her, while Claudia at least tries to tolerate her.  I’ve actually read many people say that they preferred Claudia’s character, simply because Lilli is so callous and cold toward her new stepmother that they found her hard to root for.  The writers also stumble a bit with the “dwarves”, as they don’t really seem to know what to do with them.  Several of them appear in just a couple scenes, and only one interacts with her at length—in other words, most of them are just throwaways, included only to create more similarities between this and the source material.

Despite these flaws, Snow White: A Tale of Terror manages to be surprisingly good.  Director Cohn’s success here is rather unexpected, given that his entire filmography up to this point consisted of just two films: A below-average sci-fi movie (Interceptor), and a mild thriller starring Ally Walker and Martin Sheen (When the Bough Breaks).  Startlingly, you would think a movie like this would have jumpstarted his career, but he did not make another movie until 2014, with Sacrifice, a little-seen (it’s only been reviewed by 14 people on the IMDb) and boringly-titled thriller that sounds like millions of other thrillers (though it did get a slightly above-average review from Variety).  It’s kind of a shame that he wasn’t given more opportunities, because this showed exactly what he was capable of.

RECAP: Snow White: A Tale of Terror is a surprisingly imaginative film, featuring an amazing central performance from Sigourney Weaver as the evil witch.  But make no mistake:  This is a dark, dark film that tackles some disturbing issues head-on, so keep the little ones away.  The special effects (especially the makeup) are really well done.  The biggest complaint is the writing, which doesn’t do much with the “dwarf” characters, and oddly makes Lilli the initial aggressor in her relationship with Claudia (rather than eliciting sympathy by making her a victim).  Flaws aside, though, it’s a fascinating film, and one that has enough tricks up its sleeve to hold the viewer’s attention from the beginning, to the end.

RATING: 7/10

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