A welcome return to 42nd Street-style exploitation territory for director Frank Henenlotter, who hasn’t made a movie since the disappointingly humdrum BASKET CASE 3 back in 1992. This Herschell Gordon Lewis-inspired filmmaker has always relished warped sexual behavior in his movies : witness the rubbery freak shag in BASKET CASE 2, the blow-job in BRAIN DAMAGE and the crack-induced exploding hookers in FRANKENHOOKER. With BAD BIOLOGY, Henenlotter – for the first time focusing on a strong female lead – gets to make an entire movie about sexual “freaks”, with a prominent dose of early John Waters in its determinedly un-PC mission to be vulgar and offensive.
The new film, shot in 35mm, is probably Henenlotter’s slickest to date, with the director having lots of fun with stylistic quirks that include p.o.v. shots from inside a mutant vagina and moments from the perspective of a 24 inch mutant monster cock. Characters talk straight to the camera, the production values are above average and, while Henenlotter uses CGI for the first time ever in his career, there’s an engagingly lo-fi, old-school feel about much of the film that extends to some endearing stop-motion FX by the director’s old BASKET CASE FX collaborator Gabe Bartalos. Adding to the retro feel are cameos from past Henenlotter collaborators, namely Beverly Bonner and James Glickenhaus.
The movie, which throws in some blasphemy for good measure, is willfully perverse yet oddly likeable. It also has two very game and enjoyable performances by a pair of lead actors taking perhaps the wildest roles in any film this year. Charlee Danielson, who’s uber-sexy and appealing as the dysfunctional heroine, spends a large portion of the film either naked or enjoying elaborate, rapturous orgasms…or both.
She portrays a young woman whose seven (count ‘em!) clitorises give her rampant sexual desires and monumental orgasms…and also the ability to give birth to (mutant) babies a mere two hours after intercourse. Her uncontrollable needs result in a string of victims and an endless search for an appropriate mate, which she finds in the equally bizarre form of handsome Anthony Sneed, a young man who solved a lifetime of trauma at not being able to get hard by injecting steroids straight into his dick, thus turning it into an over-sized penis monster with a life of its own.
Henenlotter winningly revives the much-missed anything-goes spirit of 70’s midnight movies with this freewheeling, deliciously tasteless flick, which, for those that care, even has a prominent feminist subtext that could keep certain theorists amused for days. Loaded with nudity, beaver shots, surrealistic crudity (love the vaginal face masks!) and peculiar detours (notably a bunch of foul mouthed teenagers discussing John Holmes’ famed 14 inch cock), it bows out with a predictable but terrific penis-baby punch line that’s worth waiting for.
The movie’s appeal is typified by a riotous central montage of Sneed’s detached, out of control monster cock bursting through walls and floorboards to molest and rape a seemingly endless succession of hot naked women. If this section – which has echoes of PERVERT!, another film indebted to Waters and Lewis – doesn’t amuse you, it’s fair to say the rest will leave you cold too. Check for your own pulse.
-Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015