{"id":11972,"date":"2015-08-09T17:03:35","date_gmt":"2015-08-09T21:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11972"},"modified":"2015-08-09T17:03:35","modified_gmt":"2015-08-09T21:03:35","slug":"br-society-1989","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11972","title":{"rendered":"BR: Society (1989)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Society_Arrow_LE\"<\/a>Film<\/strong>: Very Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Excellent<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>:\u00a0Excellent<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong> Arrow Video \/ MVD Visual<\/a><\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a0A, B, C<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 May 25, 2015<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Horror<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0Initially suspecting he’s an adopted child, Billy soon discovers his family are part of an elite Beverly Hills society with somewhat carnivorous ceremonial habits.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 2015 Audio commentary with director Brian Yuzna \/ 4 Interview featurettes: “Governor of Society” with Brian Yuzna” (17 mins.) + “Masters of the Hunt” \u00a0with cast (23 mins.) + “Champion of the Shunt”with effects whiz Screaming Mad George (21 mins.) + 1989 Brian Yuzna interview at Society’s U.K. Premiere (2 mins.) \/ 2014 Audience Q&A with Brian Yuzna at the Celluloid Screams Festival screening (39 mins.) \/ Screaming Mad George Music Video (7 mins.) \/ 22 page colour booklet with liner notes by Alan Jones \/ Comic book sequel “Society: Party Animal” \/ Custom gatefold packaging \/ Mini-poster insert card \/ Theatrical Trailer \/\u00a0Limited to 3000 copies.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

After serving as producer on Stuart Gordon\u2019s Re-Animator<\/strong><\/a> (1985), Brian Yuzna\u2019s directorial debut is a critique on elitism in Beverly Hills, where privileged Bill Whitney (Bill Warlock, fresh off a long stint on Days of Our Lives<\/strong>) feeling out of place in his upscale family, seeks support from a strict psychiatrist but ultimately discovers an elite stratum of society that devours sacrificial lower caste members to keep their own gene pool clean, if not for their own egotistical and sexual glee<\/p>\n

Ignored by American critics and disappearing from view after its theatrical run, Society<\/strong> soon grew into a cult movie after cable TV airings and home video releases exposed horror connoisseurs to a film pretty much everyone involved with still describes as \u201cweird\u201d – although surreal is more apt, largely because director Brian Yuzna chose to build the film from imaginative sequences rather than a firm script.<\/p>\n

That approach appealed to effects whiz Screaming Mad George, a surrealist artist recommended to Yuzna by the film\u2019s mostly Japanese investors, and the two clearly found a shared interest in extreme visuals that extended into several collaborations over a nearly 20 year period.<\/p>\n

Yuzna\u2019s films often fixate on body transformations and trauma, while George\u2019s work reflects his hunger to create living, breathing versions of surrealist paintings and sculptures, and it\u2019s the weird results that stand out in Society<\/strong>, if not an overwhelming tone of paranoia which stems from the script by Rick Fry and Woody Keith that originally dealt with teens and a blood cult in Beverly Hills.<\/p>\n

The hunger for blood was scrapped in favour of an establishment that feeds off people with conventional DNA by literally absorbing them in a grotesque ceremony called shunting: everyone gets naked, bends and blends into a criss-crossing mass of skin and pliable bone matter, and then sucks the life from victims while ripping them apart.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that finale which has enabled the film to survive so long as a cult favourite, and with 80s horror feted as the latest benchmark in quality \u00a0cult by genre connoisseurs, it made sense for Arrow Video to produce a definitive special edition. Society<\/strong> was previously released on DVD in 2002 by Anchor Bay, then churning out their own distinctive special editions that often sported director audio commentaries and some production ephemera.<\/p>\n

Anchor Bay\u2019s single layer DVD transfer looked pretty good, sourced from a clean print, but Arrow\u2019s 2K transfer has Yuzna\u2019s film looking really beautiful, and it\u2019s to Arrow\u2019s credit that instead of creating a faux 5.1 audio mix that may have toned down the original audio mix, they\u2019ve stuck with the film\u2019s 2.0 Ultra Stereo mix (which always sounded fine, but is now much cleaner in uncompressed DTS).<\/p>\n

Pretty much every cast member interviewed by Arrow admits to not quite \u2018getting the film\u2019 and Yuzna confesses it\u2019s the imagery that\u2019s the main attraction. Fry and Keith\u2019s script features adequate dialogue, but there\u2019s a sense \u2013 echoed somewhat by Warlock \u2013 that directing was a necessary evil for Yuzna. The effects, the look and locations are fine from a production stance, but scenes flow and collide into each other in sometimes spastic leaps, as though bridge material or longer moments were never shot or whittled away to keep the film under 100 mins.<\/p>\n

Some scenes \u2013 Bill Whitney\u2019s sudden waking up in hospital, clamoring out of bed and driving home in a kind of drunken, self-destructive giddiness \u2013 don\u2019t really make sense and feel like plot points never fully rationalized during the writing phase, while other bits of oddness \u2013 the gardener\u2019s slugs, Clarissa\u2019s hair-eating mom \u2013 exist purely for weirdness sake.<\/p>\n

Smaller characters like Bill Whitney\u2019s girlfriend also seem to have been reduced, making certain appearances in later scenes rather clumsy, but within the script there is a natural convergence towards the concluding shunt that gives the film a memorable payoff of slime, fleshy transmutations, and a nasty inside-out gag.<\/p>\n

For all its flaws, there\u2019s still something hypnotic about the core story in which a depraved class of overlords raise sacrificial lambs like Billy for no other reason than to glorify their egos and sense of privilege. Society<\/strong>\u2019s cast features a capable mix of lesser-known actors, but it\u2019s Warlock who keeps the film grounded because he\u2019s the decent, average kid being toyed with by family and so-called friends and girlfriends; struggling with cliques and bullies; and finding himself caught in a world where pretty much everyone is apathetic to his personal troubles. It\u2019s like a teen version of Invasion of the Body Snatcher<\/strong>\u2019s Dr. Miles Bennell, discovering his world is filled with sexually starved pod people.<\/p>\n

Arrow\u2019s extras include a new commentary track with Yuzna, a brief archival interview from the film\u2019s 1989 British premiere with Yuzna discussing\u00a0quite defensively the validity of horror, and multiple interview featurettes analyzing the film\u2019s genesis, brilliantly bizarre Screaming Mad George (+ a very lengthy music video featuring the artist \/ singer and assorted effects and props), and most of the cast who recall working on what remains ‘a really weird film\u2019 in their C.V.’s.<\/p>\n

Also archived is Yuzna\u2019s audience Q&A at a 2014 Celluloid Screams Festival screening, and a two-part comic book \u2013 “Society: Party Animal” \u2013 that picks up 10 years after Billy, Milo, and Clarissa flee from the Whitney household.<\/p>\n

Yuzna\u2019s new commentary has most of the info within the Anchor Bay track \u2013 I\u2019m sure it was referenced to ensure all the key anecdotes were covered \u2013 and it\u2019s much more consistent, free from the chunky gaps of silence that become more pronounced towards the end of the track.<\/p>\n

There is some recapped information in the Celluloid Screams audience Q&A, but Yuzna also talks about a storyline for a possible sequel that differs from the comic book, but one suspects it would culminate with one giant shunting extravaganza. Note: collectors should check out the pages near the end of the novel, as there may be a publishing boo-boo in which 6 pages are repeated near the end, just prior to the epic shunt.<\/p>\n

Arrow’s specially packaged set + comic is limited to 3000, but the discs and their inherent goodies will return in a standard-packaged case in early September, 2015.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Postscript<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yuzna continued his long association with Stuart Gordon and Screaming Mad George on films like Bride of Re-Animator<\/strong> (1989), Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation<\/strong> (1990), Space Truckers<\/strong> (1996), The Dentist 2<\/strong> (1998), and Faust: Love of the Damned<\/strong> (2000).<\/p>\n

Star Warlock found greater fame back in episodic TV and daytime soaps, appearing in Baywatch<\/strong> (1989-1992) and General<\/strong> Hospital<\/strong> (1997-2003). Charles Lucia, who played Billy\u2019s father, also appeared in General Hospital<\/strong> but is perhaps best-known for the odd sci-fi thriller Syngenor<\/strong> (1990).<\/p>\n

Actress Devin DeVasquez (Clarissa) had previously appeared in House II: The Second Story <\/strong>(1987) and Can\u2019t Buy Me Love<\/strong> (1987) and later went back to her pinup model roots and directed the documentary Beyond the Centerfold<\/strong> (2015).<\/p>\n

Screaming Mad Gorge worked on a slew of horror movies, including Alex Winters\u2019 deliciously bonkers Freaked<\/strong> (1993).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2015 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After serving as producer on Stuart Gordon\u2019s Re-Animator (1985), Brian Yuzna\u2019s directorial debut is a critique on elitism in Beverly Hills, where privileged Bill Whitney (Bill Warlock, fresh off a long stint on Days of Our Lives) feeling out of place in his upscale family, seeks support from a strict psychiatrist but ultimately discovers an elite strata of society that devours…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[3855,3853,3856,3854,3852],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-376","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11972"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11972"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11987,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11972\/revisions\/11987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}