Home + The Id

HOME
(Unrated, Inception Media Group, 87 mins., DVD release date: Mar. 1, 2016)

THE ID
(Unrated, Hutson Ranch Media, 87 mins., DVD release date: October 25, 2016)

It has been a brutal series of months since my last review, so it's only fitting that I return to the fray with yet another two-in-one, thematically-paired, no-holds-barred SHOWDOWN! 

Previously, I decided to evaluate the early '90s transitions of two B-actors into more hands-on filmmaking: Keith Gordon, who played the misfit in Dressed to Kill, Christine and Back to School; and Steven Antin, who played the meathead in The Last American Virgin, The Goonies and The Accused. The winner of that bout turned out to be Mr. Gordon with his wintery-wartime adaptation of William Wharton's A Midnight Clear.

Gordon directed a promising ensemble (Ethan Hawke, Gary Sinise, Kevin Dillon, Peter Berg, etc.) to their best abilities, displayed a breathtaking visual style and showed admirable humanism towards both sides of the armed conflict. As hindsight beckons, I find A Midnight Clear to be one of my favorite movies of 1992, and an underrated gem I wholeheartedly recommend. On the opposite end was Antin's maiden voyage into screenwriting with Inside Monkey Zetterland, a headache-inducing vanity project directed clumsily by Jefery S.F.W. Levy and showing no empathy towards Antin's proxy's struggles with work and family, as well as boasting unfocused, improv-heavy exaggerations from an overqualified cast (Martha Plimpton, Rupert Everett, Sandra Bernhard, Katherine Helmond, etc.).

The irony is that Sofia Coppola, back when she was still being raked over the coals for The Godfather Part III, would go on from her minor role in Monkey to make this kind of movie with elegance and insight as both Lost in Translation and Somewhere. And funnier, too.

So with the Revenge of the Nerd having come to pass, now we flip the gender and confine the action to one universally-beloved genre touchstone. Thus, I welcome you to MISS ELM STREET 2016!

Wes Craven passed on in August of 2015 of brain cancer and the sting of his death still lingers. I had nothing but the utmost respect and adulation for the man, who remained a vital force in horror for three decades on the strength of the controversial Last House on the Left, the commercial Scream series and the slasher-defining surrealism that is 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street. 2016 was a pivotal year for me, since I got to meet Robert Englund, Ronee Blakley and Amanda Wyss at Texas Frightmare Weekend (as well as Mitch Pileggi, Matthew Lillard and David Arquette). My only gripes were that I missed Lance Henriksen's table and wasn't able to reacquaint myself with the fourth major figure of this micro-Nightmare reunion, Heather Langenkamp, whose I Am Nancy screened at the Phoenix Film Festival in 2011.

Freddy's first victim and Freddy's first victor are the subjects of this dual-review, which flashes forward 32 years in time from Craven's masterpiece of fantasy terror.

Langenkamp began her screen career with walk-on gigs for Francis Coppola's two S.E. Hinton-based youth pictures, The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, but those were sadly excised. Then she made her starring debut in Nickel Mountain, a love story involving diner owner Michael Cole and pregnant teenager Langenkamp. Alas, it was Langenkamp in the buff that was the only thing which was memorable about that one, and another instance where, like Diane Franklin's back-to-back exploitation movie roles of 1982, a budding talent was being trivially misused. Luckily, the comely Tulsa native won the coveted role of lieutenant's daughter Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the rest is history.

Well, chances are you may not recall that Langenkamp was the endangered princess in ZZ Top's video for their 1985 hit "Sleeping Bag." If you aren't familiar with 1980s sitcoms, maybe you forgot that she was once Marie Lubbock in the Growing Pains spin-off Just the Ten of Us which once aired on ABC-TGIF (around this time, sadly, Langenkamp was attracting overzealous fan mail). And in her spotty career, mostly for the small screen, she played a different Nancy in a teleplay based on the Tonya Harding controversy and was cast against her wholesome, chipper type in an after-school special ("Can a Guy Say No?") where she played temptress to...Steve Antin, in another rare moment when he didn't play a macho creep. And his dad was Beau Bridges, go figure.

Langenkamp settled down and started a family with Oscar-winning effects artist David Anderson and has herself done cosmetic work for some prestige pics (Cinderella Man, Star Trek into Darkness) in between sporadic returns to independent film acting. Amanda Wyss, meanwhile, has popped up on my site a couple of times in Better Off Dead and Shakma, which ought to give you a clue as to how this blonde bombshell of the 1980s kept on in the wake of Tina Grey's ill-fated, post-coital beauty sleep. Yes, she was in Fast Times at Ridgemont High a couple years earlier, stating rare autonomy in a sideline girlfriend role: "I don't want to have to use sex as a tool, Brad." But she also closed the decade out by giving in to erotic impulses in To Die For, a yuppie Luca Westerna who emasculated her beau by hissing "You fuck like you have your nose in a book."

Where do you go from there?

Wyss persisted in the 1990s with guest roles on TV and bit parts in action schlock, her claim to fame at this point being Randi MacFarlane in the Adrian Paul era of Highlander. In the previous decade, though, Wyss threatened to break out of cult stardom with appearances in the likes of Silverado and Powwow Highway, where her pluck and beauty were undeniable. She had the charisma and tenacity to become a great journeywoman among her 80s starlet peers. And yet, to this day, she remains just another best kept secret. Wha?!

Now we come to 2016, in the wake of Heather Langenkamp further questioning/solidifying her place in pop culture history with I Am Nancy, an assemblage of candid interviews, convention footage and comedic clips (including well-edited Paul F. Tompkins stand-up), and Amanda Wyss finally getting some overdue leading roles now that she's in her mid-fifties. And their roles are juicier than ever in the cases of HOME and THE ID. UCLA grad Frank Lin [giggle], who previously directed Fabio(!) in an ethnically-diverse rom-com called American Fusion, helmed the former; Thommy Hutson, who looks eerily like Ira "Will, the Wizard Master" Heiden, makes his debut with the latter following extensive production/writing work on such franchise retrospectives as Crystal Lake Memories, More Brains and Never Sleep Again (he also wrote the book of that same name focusing exclusively on the making of Nightmare 1).

Langenkamp previously played a distressed mom in Jonathan Zarantonello's The Butterfly Room opposite Barbara Steele's wicked witch-next-door. In Home, she's the mater of an interracial lesbian nuclear family. Didn't see that coming! The shock of Miss Wyss as Meredith Lane in The Id comes purely from the psychological toll exacted on her by her invalid dad, who makes Burt Young's serially abusive, gun-polishing mook from Amityville II: The Possession look like Ward Cleaver. Whereas Home is a spookshow about an overnight caregiver in the recent tradition of The House of the Devil and Babysitter Wanted, The Id is an eerie chamber drama in which the aging caretaker ferociously claims a life of her own, even if it means murder.


Like in Babysitter Wanted, the central character of Home is a young woman of strict Christian breeding who clings to her scripture in the face of unnerving terror. With her missionary father away in India, Carrie (Kerry Knuppe) arrives at the recently-purchased house of her mother Heather and her lover Samantha. Since a Kerry plays a Carrie and Samantha is played by Samantha Mumba, aka Irish Rihanna, you can deduce who plays Heather. Hint: her last name's not Locklear. There's even a Lew (Temple) and an Aaron (Hill), in case you doubt this movie's attempts at naturalism.

Lin treats Carrie's fundamentalism as a form of teenage rebellion (abstain from fleshy lusts, she certainly doesn't) and Heather becomes an apologist to atheist Samantha for such defiant acts as dressing formally for Sunday dinner and saying grace, not to mention Carrie's irresponsibility in looking after Samantha's moppet daughter Tia (Alessandra Shelby Farmer, who screeches more in repose than in jeopardy). Eventually, once Samantha and Heather leave for a business trip, Carrie and boyfriend Aaron become internet-trained exorcists as random phenomena suggests the previous homeowner, an occultist/ventriloquist, still holds a grudge. 

Home spices up its gumbo of funhouse clichés (spooky dolls, spooky paintings, spooky upstairs noises, spooky children, and so on) with welcome quirks and attempts at intimate domestic drama which sadly don't go all the way in alleviating the solemn familiarity of it all. Once again, like with Monkey Zetterland, the decision to encourage ad-libbing doesn't graft structure or depth upon the strained relationships of Heather/Samantha, Heather/Carrie, Samantha/Tia, and Carrie/Tia, despite mostly solid performances from the cast. Heather Langenkamp, in particular, has matured with greater warmth than ever and Kerry Knuppe shows the same potential Langenkamp did back when she was a dream warrior.

The improvisation backfires completely in the case of Lew Temple, who plays an elementary school guidance counselor who awkwardly introduces himself to the gay couple and whose earnestness carries a lecherous subtext. This character may have been intended as comic relief, but the humor falls flat.

Frank Lin pulls a fast one on viewers by treating Old Man Roberts as a red herring of a poltergeist, with a big reveal that is truly shocking if as anemically handled as the character dynamics. But there isn't any freshness to the atmospheric slow-burn style which makes up the majority of the film, which was definitely not the case with either House of the Devil or Babysitter Wanted. Lin just goes through the motions, as TV sets power on of their own accord and glass shatters from on high. This isn't as oppressively mundane as any of the Paranormal Activity movies, but it's no more novel. 

Home is more commendable for its tokens of acceptance rather than its fright potential, whereas The Id gets much nastier in the battle of wills between sheltered, doting Meredith Lane and her sarcastic, belittling Father (Patrick Peduto). Lin shuttles Langenkamp out of the ensuing panic, but Thommy Hutson refuses to shy away from Amanda Wyss' deteriorating faculties. The moments of respite wherein Meredith numbs the pain with television and erotic fantasies in the bathtub are capsized by the karmic wave of Father's cruelty. Even his incontinence becomes a snickering form of one-upmanship.

Meredith refuses to be patronized by well-meaning social worker Tricia (Jamye Grant), who stops by every morning to drop off food, but she's nostalgic to the point of desperation and pitifully unable to follow up on any stand she takes against her dad. Not just any desire to leave the house, but even the act of wearing lipstick stirs him into a mocking fit. In Better Off Dead, Lane Meyer's shrine to Wyss' Beth was an caricature of romantic idealism; Meredith Lane's room of high school memories is decidedly more tragic in its codependence, especially after her senior year sweetheart Ted Harborough (Malcolm Matthews) calls her up one afternoon.

For all the dementia and hostility Father shows daughter, Meredith is about to pay it back in the name of stunted independence.

Clearly having studied his De Palma as well as his Craven, Hutson plants his tropes on firm psychological topsoil and splits his screens for symbolic clues and stark contrasts. He strips his leading lady of all glamour and focuses the camera harshly upon her; even when she's dressed up in her old prom night gown, the bags under Meredith's eyes leap out just as much as the red of her fabric. The unreliability of Meredith and the irascibility of Father creates a mysteriously hostile bond, though Father does quote fanatically from the Book of Revelations and uses almost every vulgar word for "loose woman" he can think of. Father is right to assume that Meredith is still "daddy's little girl," meek as she is given that she's been withdrawn so long. Meredith is right to presume sexual jealousy in her father's acidic outbursts, because if his current state is any indication, no woman on earth could stand being married to Mr. Lane.

Patrick Peduto is also rendered compellingly unphotogenic as the Father, but unlike Wyss, he has no grace notes in Sean H. Stewart's screenplay to seize. He simply slanders the women in his life and flaunts his superiority over Meredith with all the subtlety of Montgomery Burns.

The movie follows a trajectory worthy of Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, as Meredith sinks further into madness even after she's cut the umbilical cord. How one will react to the latter half of the film, which uses phantasmagorical "Boo!" moments and sepulchral voices liberally, depends on the identification one feels towards Meredith. The movie pushes her into areas of outright nastiness which threaten to undo all the goodwill Wyss builds up, including some obscene yearbook annotations which renders Meredith irredeemably perverted in her longing for aged Ted, who is now a doofy, bald-headed husband. On the way to its fateful conclusion, the movie demonstrates the same kind of nihilism cloaked in morality as Father, which is all too easy and way too much. 

The Id works best as a belated showcase role for Amanda Wyss, and it's clear she and Thommy Hutson have thought about the character very deeply. She plays Meredith so close to the bone, it's the celluloid equivalent of osteoporosis.

So who makes the best impression after 32 years of "One, two, Freddy's coming for you" chant-alongs? This isn't as cut-and-dry as when I championed A Midnight Clear over Inside Monkey Zetterland. Heather Langenkamp's innate maternal instincts and time away from the spotlight makes you treasure her all the more, whereas Amanda Wyss' hard work and perseverance has rewarded her the role of a Lifetime. The films themselves have to be taken into consideration, too. Home is hardly as ambitious as The Id, even though I appreciate its minor idiosyncrasies in the wake of Hutson's caged cauldron of resentment. But all the depth I craved in Lin's film is more ample in Hutson's movie, and Wyss deserves to be in the same Fangoria Chainsaw Hall of Fame as Nancy on the strength of Meredith Lane.

I'm tempted to call it a draw, though I really should settle for Amanda Wyss. Nancy was a symbol for homely young girls across the world to act on their survivalist impulses, and Langenkamp will go down in history for it. Wyss deserves better than being that one chick who dumped both Judge Reinhold and John Cusack, as well as finding a new life away from Tina. The Id, whatever its flaws, has opened doors for her to do so, and it's about time.

So congratulations to Amanda Wyss, Miss Elm Street 2016. No longer the girl in the rubber bag, now she's proudly wearing the tassel.

Shakma

SHAKMA
(R, Quest Entertainment, 100 mins., release date: October 5, 1990)

This is an Orlando-shot killer monkey film with the name Shakma.

Shakma!

Shakma!!

Watch the monkey get hur...

No, I promised myself I wouldn't reference a certain Peter Gabriel song which was previously the opening credits music for another film about scared simians. There's more that needs to be said about this film than just a mere slam-dunk, MST3k-style allusion. God help me to hold out long enough to find the right words to discuss Shakma, of all things.

Well, first off, the film's alternate, international title is Panic in the Tower, whose cover art superimposes a shrieky monkey over what appears to be the Nakatomi Plaza. That gives the impression that the movie makes cunning use of its particular architectural coup, which is something that does not happen at all throughout the 100 minutes of this lame attempt at a Showtime original movie. At no point does the mad mandrill chase its victims through ventilation ducts or up to some cryptic, undiscovered floor of the building. The monkey doesn't corner anyone on the roof, which seems wrong considering it's a vital cliché for a movie of such stunning originality as Shakma.

It's just a group of people forever stuck on the fourth floor, no climbing or swinging required. You could almost call it existential given how restless the movie makes you feel.

Secondly, the filmmakers went to the trouble of casting a credited animal performer named Typhoon the Baboon. Sadly, he never would act again before or after this, but he fares better than his slumming homosapien co-stars, among them Ape-man Roddy McDowall and Blue Lagoon maroon Christopher Atkins, going from Beaks to Cheeks. The method acting going in Typhoon's primitive brain whenever he hurls himself against a door, which comprises much of his role, is a wonderful thing. Compare him to Roddy McDowall, who appears to have been in the early stages of Alzheimer's throughout. At least he's not living the self-fulfilling prophecy of standing idly by as a demented madman in a ski mask runs around, hacking up young virgins.

There's also Amanda Wyss and Ari Meyers as the dueling eye candy, Wyss being Atkins' primary love interest and Meyers the infatuated younger girl, respectively. Amanda Wyss has the edge because she was involved in three seminal 1980s films: Fast Times at Ridgemont High, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Better Off Dead... The former Kate & Allie teen starlet, meanwhile, went from playing Al Pacino's fictional daughter in the overlooked Author! Author! to starring alongside The Barbarian Brothers and a chicken bone. And I also kept confusing her with Lori Loughlin.

Shakma begins with some tender scenes of graphic brain surgery, no doubt intended to shock you to life (sorry), but also to introduce us to Roddy McDowall as Dr. Sorenson, chief of staff for the medical school situated in this ten-story office building meant to be a tower. Sorenson and his charges also apparently have a proud weekend tradition involving a Dungeons & Dragons-style LARP game called "Nemesis," where they adopt secret identities and wander aimlessly throughout the rooms collecting clues to help rescue the princess situated on the fifth floor, like they're Gleep Glop and the Floopty-Doos.

Enter the monkey in the wrench, Shakma, the titular baboon who reacts harshly to having his naked brain injected with corticotropin. He attacks the students, drawing blood from one of them, and is sedated by his trainer Sam (Atkins) before Sorenson arrives in a fit of exasperation and demands Shakma be put to sleep. Sam realizes he made a mistake by injecting the wrong substance into his prized pet, but shrugs it off and decides to let the resident lackey Richard (Greg Flowers) dispose of the damned, dirty ape.

Vague statements of scientific purpose aside, the game remains on, with Richard's sister Kimberly (Meyers) playing the fair maiden and Sorenson as the Game Master, tracking their progress through homing devices and walkie-talkie updates. The players in this case are Sam, his feisty girlfriend Tracy (Wyss), token black Gary (Robb Morris), and noxious nerd Bradley (Tre Laughlin), who sounds like the Comic Book Guy doing a John Malkovich impression.

But Shakma is far from dead, which Bradley learns the hard way when he goes into the specimen room to find Shakma having killed and/or eaten nearly all the caged critters before experiencing a fatal monkey pile. Sorenson sends Richard to investigate, and he too gets assaulted by Shakma despite arming himself with a glass of hydrochloric acid. Sorenson leaves his post to discover Richard's melted corpse, but cannot hitch an elevator ride to safety in time before he gets his own demise. This leaves Sam and Tracy to ponder all manner of failed distractions and escape plans, with Shakma poised to attack around virtually every corner.

Did I mention that this simian slasher film takes up 100 minutes of film? That's nearly two hours of screen time, all in the service of a thinly-plotted excuse for bloodletting which is as mediocre in its supposed scares as it is presenting the contrived scenario which isolates the various characters. It runs about as long as either King Kong Lives or Link, only without the bracingly apeshit inanity of either film. Shakma just dawdles along in its dumbness, especially in the overlong attempts of its erstwhile heroes to take charge of a situation that should not be so difficult to control.

The situation is that Sorenson has locked up the entire building, including every office where a phone may be conveniently accessed, and apparently even the windows prove inconvenient for any rescue. All this for a silly LARP more than any sense of security. Whenever Sam suggests escaping from the ground floor or Tracy produces a strobe light, the results fizzle out ridiculously. A tremendous deal of the chasing involves the duo holding the stairwell door closed as Shakma bounces repeatedly off it before scampering away. The only real moment of tension is when Tracy hides herself in a wooden bureau, Shakma clawing away murderously, but even this is defused by Sam's utter impotence as a hero, something which the finale tries to subvert by activating his own primal instincts, but instead provokes half-hearted chuckles much like the rest of the endeavor.

You'd think there would be some kind of novelty to a baboon as bogeyman, but directors Hugh Parks (another cautionary tale in exploitation history) and Tom Logan fail to capitalize. With the exception of the acid-burned Richard, Shakma's pouncing upon the human cast is dull and reliant on big reveals rather than bloody wrestling (the scenes of which you do get are reliably laughable). Furthermore, given how many times it tries to break through the stairwell door, you wonder how come Shakma's doesn't lose an arm in the struggle, or at least experience some minor injury when confronted with acid. Even the allegedly trained monkey doesn't appear to be directed properly, which further discredits the supposed bond between Sam and Shakma.

Poor Christopher Atkins, a frequent Razzie regular (A Night in Heaven, Listen to Me) who was even up for the "Worst New Star of the Decade" prize the year Shakma was released, makes for a bland male lead, routinely overshadowed by Typhoon as well as the likes of the charming Amanda Wyss (who gets away with the movie's crowning achievement in dopey dialogue with the line "You are sooo male!") and the coasting Roddy McDowall. The rest of the cast is wholly negligible given how keen the movie is to have them bumped off, which could constitute a series of mercy killings given how much color they add to the proceedings, if only the film weren't so boring.

The trailer for Shakma, however, is truly legendary. Not only does it compact the essence of the main characters in a tighter way than the movie proper, but the Percy Rodrigues stand-in doing the narration really goes bananas by the end. I mean, seriously..."Christopher Atkins, two-time winner of the National Association of Theatre Owners' 'Star of the Year' award, first for Blue Lagoon, now for Shakma." You don't even have to watch this amateurishly-edited preview to ask yourself, "What theaters did this ever play in?" But I recommend you do...

Enchantéd, Part VI: Better Off Dead...

Enchantéd: A Retrospective Tribute to Diane Franklin

VI. Better Off Dead... (1985)

(PG, Warner Bros. Pictures)

Now, here's an 1980s nostalgia trip worth the ringing of the tubular bells...

The CBS daytime game show Press Your Luck is one of those rare entities (see also: any iteration of Double Dare) where I actively rooted for the contestants to lose, simply because of the Whammies. The more prizes you amassed in the course of your spins, the more painful it was to hit a Whammy and watch them all get taken away. But to add insult to injury, an animated vignette would pop up in which a Whammy would experience some form of violent humiliation straight out of a "Looney Tunes" short or taunt you under the guise of a famous caricature. Paul Revere, The Beatles and Boy George ("Who would ever hurt a Whammy?") were among the many personalities satirized in the name of sadism.

One of the key animators of the Whammies would go on to have a fruitful career in children's television, but in between that he was a burgeoning filmmaker in the post-John Hughes era of teen-friendly capers. That man is Savage Steve Holland, a young California college student who had a bit of a death wish despite his WWF opponent nickname. When his high school sweetheart dumped him as a means of advancing her status, Holland was so defeated that he tried to hang himself, fashioning a noose from an extension cord tied around a water pipe. Having second thoughts didn't help as he fell through the garbage can he was standing on, causing a flood which nearly drowned him.

Holland made this the crux of a short film which aimed for sympathy but was greeted as a comedy. And thus, the impetus for one of the most feverishly-adored cult comedies of the 1980s, Better Off Dead...

Fresh off his starring debut in Rob Reiner's The Sure Thing, it allowed John Cusack another opportunity to carry a film with his droll, sharp presence. Better Off Dead... also scored a coup in casting Curtis Armstrong, previously seen in colorful supporting roles in both Risky Business and Revenge of the Nerds, to continue his offbeat path towards cult stardom. It had a score composed by English musician Rupert Hine, whose production work on albums by The Fixx and Howard Jones were successful enough that both artists loomed over the oh-so-Eighties soundtrack (listen during the climactic duel for a piece of music which closely resembles a reggae remix of Animotion). There were enough beloved gags and one-liners which fans have quoted to the point of delirium, none more so than the dreaded cry "I want my two dollars!"

But the biggest takeaway I got from Better Off Dead... was this: I was in L-O-U-V-R-E with Diane Franklin, the single most stunning woman of any film I had watched in my vast teenage logbook of cinema. 

Don't get me wrong...I'm impartial enough to avoid the mere "fan boy" tag just by processing the films of hers which I've revisited, and admitting that quite a few are problematic. I couldn't take The Last American Virgin all that serious or diverting as a lot of people make it out to be. Perhaps it's because I've seen the first four Lemon Popsicle films, and Boaz Davidson's constant wringing of sour grapes and his thin, exploitative approach to writing/directing is proof enough that he was better suited to being the Israeli Roger Corman. Amityville II: The Possession gets points for Lalo Schifrin's creepy score, earnest performances and a willingness to be more gonzo than Stuart Rosenberg's original, but it's tasteless and derivative to a fault. The murder mystery Deadly Lessons is tame even by TV-movie standards. The clearest victor thus far in this retrospective is Summer Girl, which is a juicier melodrama than any of the ones I just mentioned and quite the model of economy, professionalism and guiltless entertainment.

I got more from the evenly lowbrow Second Time Lucky than The Last American Virgin in terms of why I not only find Diane a "babe," but just an undervalued actress, in general. Despite Franklin's emotional investment and sex appeal, Karen too easily blended into the movie's childishly sexist attitude, treated with no less scorn than Rose, or the three girls from the opening, or that hooker with VD. That movie had no innocence to lose, and I ended up despising all of the anemic, uniformly unlikable main characters way before the brutal climax, thus sending me into early detachment. It's not like Patricia Montelli or Cynthia Ricks or even Eve in Eden. In Second Time Lucky, once you get past any issues of objectification or backdated ideologies, you can actually marvel at Diane's range and bask in her commitment to the many incarnations of Eve, especially her perky, humorous Thelma Todd/Jean Harlow surrogate Evie Sands.

The Last American Virgin just feels so coldly cynical at heart, which is definitely not what I get from Better Off Dead... Savage Steve Holland has slapped together a movie from the same bleak aspects of teen life, particularly the sting of rejection at such a vulnerable age. The biggest difference is that here, you don't end up contracting any self-pitying disdain, but some better form of catharsis. Holland can laugh off the notion of snuffing himself, for God's sake, and he wants you to find the same self-deprecating, affirmative outlet in this pre-Heathers blast of suicidal farce.

And who better to make you feel so completely at ease than the most luminous transfer student in the history of cinema herself, Monique Junet?

Or, for that matter, Lane Meyer. Cusack's disavowal of this film is the stuff of legend, and in interviews, Holland openly admitted how badly it burnt him out. In a nutshell: Holland met Cusack by recommendation of Henry Winkler, one of the executive producers of The Sure Thing, and the attitude during filming was purely of good vibes and trust. Cusack got along well with the filmmaker and fellow actors, and by contractual obligation, was all set to play the lead in One Crazy Summer, which distributor Warner Bros. gave to Holland out of faith thanks to some well-received test screenings of his debut. Better Off Dead... screened again on the set of Summer for cast and crew, and that's when Cusack got mad. Leaving after twenty minutes, Cusack eventually told Holland that he felt tricked, and was no longer willing to trust him anymore. 

To this day, I'm not sure if Cusack has fully buried the hatchet, despite concessions to the surprising endurance of Better Off Dead... in Hot Tub Time Machine in the exhaust fume asphyxiation gag Rob Corddry engages in as well as a certain catch phrase involving not just a dime, but twenty of them.

Holland's faith was further shaken when Better Off Dead... actually began its theatrical run (wide release date: October 11, 1985), greeted with total indifference by filmgoers and outright contempt by critics. Holland made only one more feature with How I Got into College (1989) before carving out his niche as a regular writer and director for Disney and Nickelodeon programs. Better Off Dead... instead found a more sympathetic audience through VHS and cable, myself included.

Looking back at the day I first saw this in my elementary school prime, I was more than happy to see Cusack in another movie after having absorbed The Sure Thing through videotape. And he was like my matchmaker, seeing as how both Monique Junet and the lady who played her never escaped my heart, even in the wake of my own personal despondency.

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Cusack plays Lane Meyer, who is so totally enamored with six-month squeeze Beth (Amanda Wyss, fresh off A Nightmare on Elm Street) that he apparently raided her vast photo album library and adorned every square foot of his bedroom with his findings. Already, this is the second Cusack movie in a row that begins with reminders of Rod Stewart's video for "Infatuation." The obsessive joke goes even further when Lane's wardrobe closet is stuffed with hangers that bear his girlfriend's likeness! But since it's teenaged John Cusack, he's actually more well-adjusted than such psychotic devotion entails.

If anything, the rest of the Meyer household is the suburban equivalent of Danvers. Al Meyer (David Ogden Stiers, fantastically flabbergasted) is perpetually tormented by newspaper-tossing hellion Johnny Gasparini (Demian Slade), constantly having to replace his garage door windows to the point of irreversible insanity. Jenny (Kim Darby, in the flipside of her logical Summer Girl materfamilias) is what we like to call a "Greendale Wife," something even worse than Stepford, based on her questionable culinary choices, where every entrée comes out disgustingly turquoise, from the boiled bacon for breakfast to some form of raisin gruel at suppertime which scares Lane straight at one point by turning into The Blob. And his little brother Badger (Scooter Stevens)...well, let's say he's Al Goldstein trapped in the body of Alfred E. Neuman.

The only sane thing to do is get out of the house and onto the snowy mountains for a little skiing action, Lane's favorite past time. Alas, the new captain of the ski team is a bohunk by the name of Roy Stalin (Aaron Dozier), the only man who has lived to brag about conquering the dreaded K-12. Wager a guess as to how Beth feels about him compared to Lane? Yep, Beth flocks to Roy and sends Lane into a self-destructive depression, which would be enough except that Lane has other reasons to worry besides just being dumped.

For one, that Johnny kid has come to collect his $2 fee and won't take "no" for an answer, especially not from Lane Meyer. Two, a pair of Chinese brothers (one mute, the other speaking only in "Howard Cosell") keep popping up at the worst possible time to challenge Lane to drag races, with frequent disastrous results. And three, he's captured the fancy of the foxy French exchange student Monique Junet (Diane Franklin), and with her the insufferable presence of her hosts and next door neighbors the Smiths, the clinging Ricky (Dan Schneider), who fits that "fat kid with glasses who eats paste" type which the earlier Cusack wiseass Walter "Gib" Gibson predicted, and his nasally-voiced mother (Laura Waterbury).

Like the manifest destiny of Gib and Alison from The Sure Thing, it's inevitable that Lane wises up to his renewed purpose through his solidarity with fellow outsider Monique, who reveals both her fractured English and yearning to see Dodgers Stadium in a fit of Ricky-induced rage (in a word: testicles). If she can help fix his junky ‘67 Camaro to mint condition, she can certainly give Lane all the reason to get over Beth, or at least encourage him to make good on a race with Roy down the K-12. Like any predetermined path, the trick is how writer/director Holland (or is that Mr. Savage?) chooses to get there.

The solution: imagining a universe just a little north of Toontown. Holland pushes the scattered, situational plot into creative levels of live action caricature (the hand-drawn fairy tale prologue is a fitting harbinger of the man's style) and makes exaggerations of virtually every character and encounter. It's a funhouse mirror view of adolescent angst more perpetually Dada than the most incidental John Hughes aside, as the impromptu Frankenstein homage involving a claymation hamburger miming Van Halen's "Everybody Wants Some" shows. Lane's sullen perception of the world carrying on around him turns everyone around orbit into strangers, with the emphasis placed on "strange." From the overeager algebra students of one Mr. Kerber (Vincent Schiavelli) to the troglodyte basketball jocks he unwittingly enrages by hitting on their main squeeze Chris Cummins (Tina Littlewood) to his spazzy best friend Charles De Mar (Curtis Armstrong), Lane is stuck in a rut typical of the mixed-up, shook-up teenage boy, allowing Holland to keep the embellished schadenfreude running hot.

The supporting cast find their own kooky niches in the process. Dan Schneider as Ricky Smith makes his mama's boy nerd equal parts ogre and oddball, his wallflower presence at a Greendale High social showcasing the film's most inspired physical performance. The recently departed Laura Waterbury relishes in her Fran Drescher-style whine and intrusive congeniality, her uproariously embarrassing Christmas morning gesture to Monique another token of madcap treasure. Aaron Dozier is lovable to hate as the unctuous main bully, Roy Stalin, in that he plays the role to the absolute hilt, locating more vainglorious timing than your average blonde butthole from many a teen comedy. The reliably jovial Curtis Armstrong does Dudley Dawson 2.0 essentially, busted down from toking Wonder Joints to snorting snow and gelatin ("I can't even get real drugs here!"), but not to be overlooked are Fast Times at Ridgemont High alumni Amanda Wyss and Vincent Schiavelli making good in a more comical capacity.

Imagine the show tune-squawking car ride from The Sure Thing extended to 90 loopy minutes, which isn't all that dreadful since John Cusack navigates the madness with one-legged hangdog aplomb. The grounded, innate charisma of both him and Diane Franklin allow for some semblance of sanity and sweetness. Franklin remains a find, boundlessly wry and whimsical in a performance that should have brought on bigger and better things, but those international language lessons ("I think all you need is a small taste of success...") proved selective. That's a shame, because she's every bit as soulful and smart as Cusack, though the sole blockbuster in her resume, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, found her in a comparatively minor "love interest" role which was nowhere near close to the iconic, incandescent Monique Junet. And I will be lauding her comedic skills even more when I next delve into TerrorVision.

There was something in Monique Junet which enraptured me endlessly. Behind the over-sized coats and vests was a genuine spark which ignited serious wildfires in my romantic imagination. I fantasized about her cuddling next to me in the middle of Dodgers Stadium in my Dick Tracy sleeping bag when I was younger. I still manage to dream about her now!?! Monique Junet inspired me to feel something so raw and close to the bone, I feel it's a misnomer to call it merely a crush.

Apparently, multi-instrumental mogul and first-time composer Rupert Hine was also spellbound, as he wrote two dizzying, synth-oriented love themes around Monique Junet, the regularly-reprised "Arrested by You" (which was later covered by Dusty Springfield, to my eternal surprise) and "With One Look (The Wildest Dream)," the latter featuring guest turns from vocalist Cy Curnin and guitarist Jamie West-Oram, members of The Fixx. Even Howard Jones' "Like to Get to Know You Well," a mere bonus track on his Dream Into Action LP, is one poppy, sloppy French kiss by proxy. Having previously had a minor hit with "Misplaced Love" in 1981, which would've been at home on the soundtrack to The Last American Virgin, Hine's behind-the-boards prolificacy on the pop charts meant his fingerprints are all over the official soundtrack, even as a co-writer and producer on tracks from Berlin ("Dancing in Isolation"), Martin Ansell (the ski slope romance of "Shine") and Thinkman ("Come to Your Rescue"), the latter essentially Hine operating under a pseudonym. His only considerable absence is on the two tunes given to actress/singer E.G. Daily (Dottie from Pee Wee's Big Adventure, another inventive oddity from the same year), who is the featured entertainer at the new year's dance party.

Mr. Savage's aesthetic choices don't always match the density of his absurd imagination, and credit must go to editor Alan Balsam (Revenge of the Nerds) for allowing some form of disciplined, consummate structure. The recurring gags, chiefly Lane's tumbling down the K-12, come across as repetitive because the camera doesn't quite approach these with any fresh perspectives, a letdown considering Holland's background necessitates storyboarding. Moments tend to be overtly static when close-ups or P.O.V. angles would've added to the comedy. And the film doesn't have the distinct visual pop of an actual cartoon, even when the hamburgers start to rock out and the French fries do Busby Berkeley routines. To be fair, Holland manages a few impressive moments with Lane being hunted down by Johnny and his minions on the way home from the dance, as well as when Monique finally becomes the rightful coach Charles was too distracted to handle. Those scenes have real vigor on a technical level.

Better Off Dead... continues to endure as an anomaly in its genre, which means Holland deserves a great deal more credit than Cusack wasn't willing to offer. Had Airplane pilots Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker actually sent up the teen comedy at the height of its dominance, this is close to what you'd picture it being. Holland's total generosity towards his actors and easygoing silliness in the face of endless, demeaning odds is more commendable and refreshing than simply expecting you to have fun in the presence of venal, carefree idiots. It's free of pretension, animosity or even civilization, which is how Savage Steve lives up to his nickname. Now, if only he had been named Nick...

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Available on Blu-Ray through CBS Video/Paramount, Better Off Dead... is a budget release in the tightest sense. Despite an upconverted 5.1 DTS-HD MA audio mix for a film that screams dual-channel stereophonic, its 1080p 1.78:1 widescreen image is clipped from the original aspect ratio, and should've been given a judicious remastering. The real crime is that there are still no special features, although they did provide us a theatrical trailer complete with the old Warner Bros. logo. In lieu of a welcome making-of retrospective, let me direct you to a très bien Moviefone article which includes commentary from Savage Steve Holland, Diane Franklin, Curtis Armstrong, Aaron Dozier, and Amanda Wyss, who reveals a proposed alternate title which makes that Heathers comparison even clearer.