The Hunt and the Shunt: Brian Yuzna’s Society (1989)

 

Although Brian Yuzna’s directorial debut was well-received in Britain, its brief North American release and negative reviews from the trades pretty much ensured a fast path to home video and cable TV, where after it evolved into a cult film, mostly because of its steady tone of paranoia, and a finale involving something called shunting.

I remember a friend describing the orgiastic sequence as ‘something else’ – which it is – but over 25 years later Screaming Mad George’s practical effects are still shocking and amazing. It’s kind of dismissive to brand it as ‘old school’ effects because there’s much vividness in the full-scale monstrosities that were realized with makeup, prosthetics, slime, and the actors reacting not to green screen nothingness but colleagues in character slurping, tearing, and yanking victims into elastic human matter.

Society (1989) is supposedly about a teen discovering the suspicions of his lineage may well be false, and that something’s very, very wrong with both his family and friends in an elite Beverly Hills zip code. The script feels undercooked, but that vagueness sometimes works in the film’s favour, keeping the paranoia and the source of young Billy’s fears murky yet persistent, and Yuzna  certainly sets the tone with a great Main Title sequence set to a variant of the classic Eton ode with new lyrics sung quite eerily by a soprano.

Arrow Video’s first Blu-ray release is a limited edition, sporting gatefold design and a comic book, and hopefully this is the first of several Yuzna special editions, showcasing the genius collaborations between the director and effects whiz Screaming Mad George.

Coming next: soundtrack reviews.

Right below: the many faces of Society:

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Tags: Brian Yuzna, featured, full-image, Screaming Mad George, Society (1989)

Category: EDITOR'S BLOG