Society was originally conceived as a more conventional slasher film by screenwriters Woody Keith and Ricky Fry, featuring a cult of social elitists who engage in conventional human sacrifice. The screenplay was reshaped by Yuzna, who introduced body horror elements in which the cult, in fact an alternate species, physically feed on the lower classes through a unique method of "shunting", a concept Yuzna based on nightmares he had experienced. Principal photography of Society took place in California in 1988, with Screaming Mad George serving as the film's special effects designer.
The film screened at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival but went unreleased in the United States until 1992. It failed to garner commercial success, though it received critical acclaim from international audiences.[5] In the years since its release, the film has garnered a cult following and is regarded as an influential entry in the body horror film genre.[4][6]
Plot
Bill Whitney lives with his parents and sister in a mansion in Beverly Hills, California. Bill tells his therapist Dr. Cleveland that he does not trust his rich family. When his sister's ex-boyfriend David Blanchard gives him a surreptitiously recorded audio tape of what sounds like his family engaged in a murderous orgy, Bill begins to suspect that his feelings are justified. Bill gives the tape to Dr. Cleveland, but when he later plays it back, the audio has changed to his sister's debutante party. When Bill attempts to meet Blanchard to obtain another copy, he finds an ambulance and police officers gathered around Blanchard's crashed van. A body is placed into the back of the ambulance, but Bill is prevented from seeing its face.
Bill attends a party hosted by his rich classmate Ted Ferguson, who confirms the first tape was real. Angry and confused, Bill leaves the party with Clarissa, a beautiful girl he had been admiring. The next day, Bill confronts his parents and sister. At Blanchard's funeral, Bill and his friend Milo discover Blanchard's corpse may be fake. Bill is contacted by Martin Petrie, his rival for the high school presidency. At their arranged meeting, Bill discovers Petrie with his throat cut. When he returns with the police, the body is gone. The next day at school, Petrie shows up, alive and well. When Bill arrives at home, he confronts his family again, but with Dr. Cleveland's help, Bill is drugged. As Milo trails him, Bill is taken to a hospital, where he awakens thinking he hears Blanchard crying out, but discovers nothing is there. Milo and Clarissa try to warn him, but he drives back to his house.
At home, Bill finds a large, formal party occurring. Dr. Cleveland reveals that Bill's family and their friends, all members of the social elite, are actually an entirely different species from Bill, who was adopted and therefore not part of their bloodline. To demonstrate, they bring in a still-living Blanchard as a human sacrifice. The wealthy party guests strip to their underwear and begin "shunting", physically deforming their bodies and melding with each other into a near-amorphous mass of flesh. As the orgiastic shunt continues, the party feasts on the nutrients from Blanchard's body, eventually gruesomely absorbing and killing him. Their intention is to do the same to Bill, but he escapes and runs around the house, finding his parents and sister engaged in similarly bizarre and grotesque activities.
Preparing Bill for the shunt, the cult engage him in a fight with Ferguson, who pummels Bill repeatedly despite Clarissa's cries for him to stop. With Bill incapacitated, Ferguson prepares to feast on him, but Bill manages to kill him by reaching inside his body mid-shunt and pulling his body inside-out. Bill escapes with the help of Milo and Clarissa, who is also of the alternate species, but has fallen in love with Bill. The three flee the house as the cult continue their party.
Author Jon Towlson identifies political themes imported from paranoid science fiction thrillers, such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Invaders from Mars.[7] Yuzna later cited the film's mix of paranoia, black humor, satire, and gore as alienating mainstream audiences.[8]
Production
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Development
After having several of his productions fail for lack of finding a director, Brian Yuzna decided to move into directing. As producer of Re-Animator, he held the rights to a sequel and knew he could find financing. He used this as leverage for a two-picture deal, the first of which became Society.[9] Yuzna said that he wanted the safety of having two pictures to establish himself as a successful director. Society's script appealed to Yuzna partly because it was thematically similar to a failed project he had begun with Dan O'Bannon.[8]
The original screenplay for the film by Woody Keith and Rick Fry resembled a more traditional slasher film that culminated in a climax involving a straightforward religious cult of the elite who sacrifice those from lower social classes.[8][10] Yuzna chose to alter Keith and Fry's script, instead reshaping the cult into an alternate species of humans who literally feed on the lower classes.[8]
Special effects
The production company introduced him to Screaming Mad George, who they knew to also be interested in surreal gore.[9] For the film's most surreal and gory sequence, the "shunting," Yuzna based it on his nightmares.[8] The sequence was further inspired by The Great Masturbator, a Salvador Dalí painting.[11]
Release
Society screened at the Cannes Film Festival on May 13, 1989,[1] and also screened at the Shock Around the Clock Film Festival in London the same year.[12] For its British release, Society was marketed in Video Trade Weekly with a picture of the film's theatrical premiere. Mark Kermode called this "stupid yet brilliant", as it demonstrated that the distributor did not know how to market the film properly but also showed recognition that traditional marketing for a genre film was irrelevant.[13]
Arrow Video released a limited edition Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on June 8 and in the US on June 9, 2015. It includes new interviews and artwork, a comic book sequel, and a music video by Screaming Mad George.[16] The Blu-ray release totaled sales of $1,096,955.[17]
Reception
Critical response
Society was a critical success in Europe,[5] but was shelved for three years before getting a release in the United States.[18] Said director Yuzna in an interview: "I think Europeans are more willing to accept the ideas that are in a movie. That's why for example Society did really well in Europe and in the US did nothing, where it was a big joke. And I think it's because they responded to the ideas in there. I was totally having fun with them, but they are there nonetheless."[19]
Variety described it as "an extremely pretentious, obnoxious horror film that unsuccessfully attempts to introduce kinky sexual elements into extravagant makeup effects".[20] Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "No one who sees the last half-hour of this movie will ever forget it—though quite a few may want to."[21] Wilmington likened the film's themes and message to that of Jonathan Swift's 1792 satirical essay A Modest Proposal.[21]
Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle wrote that the British press, who gave the film positive reviews, overrated it and stated that it would not play well to American audiences.[22]
Retrospective
Tom Tunney of Empire rated the film 4 out of 5 stars and wrote: "Way ahead of its time, this is a balls-out satire on the disgraceful layers that can lurk just beneath the Avon surface. This is anti-Ferris Bueller and fiendishly funny."[23]
In the early 2010s, Time Out London conducted a poll with several authors, directors, actors, and critics who have worked within the horror genre to vote for their top horror films.[24]Society placed at number 95 on their top 100 list.[25] Bartlomiej Paszylk wrote in The Pleasure and Pain of Cult Horror Films that the film has "one of the craziest and most disgusting endings in movie history".[26]
Scottish comic book company Rough Cut Comics acquired the comic book rights to Society in 2002, producing an official sequel. The comic book series returned in 2003 with Society: Party Animal by writer Colin Barr and artists Shelby Robertson (issue 1) and Neill Cameron (issue 2).[28][29]
A sequel, Society 2: Body Modification, was in development as of 2013, with a script written by Stephan Biro.[30]
^Ognjanovic, Dejan (September 28, 2008). "Interview: Brian Yuzna". Beyond Hollywood. Archived from the original on March 17, 2015. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
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