Society 1989

When a movie is completed in 1989 but not released until 1992 it makes me wonder just what is wrong with it.  This is what happened with Society a horror comedy directed by Brian Yuzna (producer of Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Re-Animator, From Beyond) who has appeared a few times in the Halloween Blog-A-Thon.  This was his first time in the directors chair.  The film was written by Rick Fry and Woody Keith who also co-wrote Bride of Re-Animator and Dementia together.  The film stars Billy Warlock (Baywatch, Days of Our Lives, General Hospital) as a spoiled rich kid who just doesn't seem to fit in with his family of with high society.  Heidi Kozak plays his annoying valley girl girlfriend Shauna and Devin DeVasquez plays Clarissa the sexy stranger who seduced him into cheating on his girlfriend.  Connie Danese, Charles Lucia, and Patricia Jennings plays his mother, father, and sister Jenny, the rest of this dysfunctional family.

Where do I begin with this one?  For about an hour I was trying to figure out when the comedy and the horror parts would begin as all I saw was a really annoying character study of rich kids in Beverly Hills.  The only bright spots being Warlocks's family who were oddly creepy.  I mean "feel dirty after watching scenes with all of them in it" creepy.  Do I really care about this rich kid who is running for class president and feels the need to see a therapist because he just doesn't fit in with high society?  We begin to notice that more and more people around Billy are in some sort of secret society that he just will never fit in with.  That's where the story makes a statement about people not fitting in and understanding rich people.  GAG!  One of them even comments something about the rich eating the poor.

Something happens around the one hour mark in this film.  Someone flips a switch and all of a sudden this film gets disturbingly gross.  It turns into a sweaty, bloody mess and the entire special effects budget is used in about thirty minutes of film.  Does it save the movie?  Not completely but it did make me look at Denise and ask her "What the hell just happened?".  It seemed like they suddenly remembered this was a horror comedy so they figured they better put something funny and disgusting in it.  Which they do.  It saves the movie from being a complete failure but not by much, I still can only give it 2 and a half Jeep Wranglers out of 5.  The Horror Honey was slightly more generous and gave it a full 3.