Society (1989)

Weird. No, let's make that weird as in WEIRD. Now, when it comes to odd films, I've seen all sorts of weird shit in my day. No, let's make that A LOT OF WEIRD SHIT in my day. And, in all honesty, I am going to rank Brian Yuzna's Society in possibly my top five of all time weird ass films. It's the kind of weird that if someone came in on you as the movie was playing, the feeling would be slightly akin to being caught with your pants down while whacking off to porn on the computer. It's almost like you have to apologize/be embarrassed for watching it, or at least explain as best you can as to why you actually are.

Society starts off fairly normal. A young Beverly Hills teenager named Bill is having feelings of alienation from his rich ass family. Mom and dad give all their praise to his sister, and care about nothing except their fellow rich friends in Beverly Hills "society". Bill begins having thoughts that maybe he was adopted, and various paranoid ideas are entering his head, like, well, his suspicions that Mom, Dad, and little sis are all hopping in the sack together. Hmmm. Eventually Bill starts having weird ass hallucinations, some people die around him, and by films end, he comes to the realization that yes indeed, he's definitely different from those in "society". Most definitely.

If one wanted to get all analytical here, you could say that director Yuzna was commenting on late 1980's overindulgence and the need for people to "belong" to society or a group as a whole. And I would agree. I also think he just wanted to make a movie where he could showcase some of the most fucked up scenes of special effects to ever hit the screen. And no, not in the typical sense. Anyone who has seen Yuzna's Re-Animator or From Beyond knows that he throws in some super psycho-sexual elements, and with this one everything is times ten. Everything. You see, Bill was correct. He isn't like his parents, his sister, or their friends. He wasn't "born" into society, as his parents said. What these rich folk really consist of is a group of super slimy, kinky, aliens of sort who engage in humongous orgies that involve, well, every perverted thing you could think of. The special effects by Screaming Mad George are just amazing to see, and the images here are just truly fucked up. Mad George truly outdid himself here. Just picture lots of slime, body parts going where no body parts should ever go, and some of the most bizarre shape shifting ever seen on screen. I'll give you one example. Ever see a head pop out of an asshole and make farting noises.....no? You have now friends, you have now.

As a whole, Society is a fairly decent flick that's best known, and rightfully so, for the infamous final twenty minutes of pure insanity on the screen. Other than that, it's a decently acted film that will keep you interested throughout, just to find out what the fuck is going on here. It does lag during certain times, but for fans of the just plain weird, I would say it's a must see, if only for the film's final sequence. WEIRD.

Oh, and on a final note, I am willing to bet that the orgy sequence at the end of the film is what The Rockefeller's, Rothchild's, and other sorted Illuminati "Society" do on their Friday nights. Seriously.