SOCIETY
US, 1989, 99 minutes, Colour.
Billy Warlock, Conchita D'Agnese, Ben Slack Evan Richards, Patrice Jennings, Charles Lucia.
Directed by Brian Yuzna.
A body-horror film long before the term was regularly used. Seen in the retrospect of the 2020s with such films as Substitute, Shell… It is still quite surprising in its visual impact and its allegorical theme.
The clue is given during the opening credits, bodies melting into each other – and these visuals taken up in the finale of the film with extraordinary grotesque vividness.
The focus is on a young man, son of the wealthy family, living in Beverly Hills, high society, style and rather care-free attitudes. But, he is not welcomed at home, difficulties with his parents and his sister as well as the young locals. And, it will appear, that he is adopted.
He is played by Billy Warlock who spent most of his career on the small screen in episodes of the very well known daytime soap opera series, Days of Our Lives,
He also becomes the target of a range of practical hoaxes and deceptions, some of his friends dying, visiting the mortuary, suspicious embalmment, and then the friends later turning up. And, he is continually mocked. There are all kinds of socials, dances, discussions about partners and invitations…
While the film establishes the superficiality and glamour of this kind of society and raising suspicions about its callous attitudes, the film then focuses on the torment of the young man, his being persecuted, chased, hazardous situations, mocked…
Ultimately, he is seen as an intended victim of this strange community, the doctor, the political leaders, this society emerging as aliens in human form, needing to feed on humans for their own satisfaction and morbid pleasure. Hence the scene of the bodies melting into one another, grotesque extensions, twists and turns – and, the hero emerging, unexpectedly, with the help of a rebel girl, and the destruction of this kind of imperious and self-indulgent society.
Horror fans, body horror – but ordinary audiences will find it difficult to sit through the climax sequence.