They made some movies with serious balls in the eighties, man. And this is one of them.
The movie's basically a vicious, over-the-top satire of what I think many people are afraid is secretly going on with those at the top tiers of society: a covert culture of unimaginable depravity, perversity, exploitation, and soul-annihilating sociopathy. Kind of like Eyes Wide Shut. And that this Hell on earth going on behind the facade of these majestic mansions is, in some mysterious alchemical way, what keeps them on top.
The plot is driven by this popular kid from an expensive Beverly Hills neighborhood who is obsessed with his fear that everyone in his life is not what they seem. And based on what we see, this actually looks like it's true: his family is wooden and distant, and all his "friends" appear to regard him with veiled contempt -- except the two whom his parents openly dislike, of course.
After a series of events which gradually make his world seem more suspicious, it turns out that he was adopted into this family for the sole purpose of being a human sacrifice at one of their parties.
After witnessing one of his friends basically getting turned into a tapestry of mangled flesh, and witnessing bizarre body mutations, he escapes with the help of his other friend -- which seems a bit unlikely, given how cunning and powerful that "Society" was portrayed as being. But I guess they needed to tack on a happy ending.
But damn, though -- the movie symbolically taps into a LOT of effed-up things that one's innermost heart fears is going on in secret.
Like his high school debate for class president. What appeared at first to be the unpopular nerd vs. the popular athlete was really a fixed game where both sides were completely controlled by the same force... Like how I feel about every presidential election.
Or the fact that in the end, which one of his friends gets "sacrificed?" The relatively fat and unattractive one. It makes you think. Why do I just accept that as a movie cliché? Are we, on some level, just like the awful Society that frivolously ruins and desecrates whom they regard as "inferior"? Would we enjoy doing the same if we were born into such a high caste?
Is this Society, at the end of the day, just the natural order of things? very disquieting.
Another symbol that I think most only see the surface of are the surreal body mutations. In the end, the part where the protagonist witnesses his poor friend (who happens to be Jewish... not sure what that means) gets turned into a huge elastic abomination while getting fisted and eaten. It's not just weird, man, it MEANS something. It could be:
-hallucinations brought on by the trauma of seeing your friend get murdered
-and this is the scariest thing: it's simply the closest visual metaphor we can get for the unimaginably, appallingly sadistic thing they do to people as part of their ritual. I think it's something like eating their soul, not just raping someone but forcing your way into their deepest being and chewing it up like a damned wad of bubblegum before discarding it, leaving the person an utterly devastated wreck.
That's some ballsy sh*t, man. And SCARY. There's like, more going on in the heavens and the earth than we know. Some genius said that once. I appreciate this movie for being the few that makes me feel that way.
The movie's basically a vicious, over-the-top satire of what I think many people are afraid is secretly going on with those at the top tiers of society: a covert culture of unimaginable depravity, perversity, exploitation, and soul-annihilating sociopathy. Kind of like Eyes Wide Shut. And that this Hell on earth going on behind the facade of these majestic mansions is, in some mysterious alchemical way, what keeps them on top.
The plot is driven by this popular kid from an expensive Beverly Hills neighborhood who is obsessed with his fear that everyone in his life is not what they seem. And based on what we see, this actually looks like it's true: his family is wooden and distant, and all his "friends" appear to regard him with veiled contempt -- except the two whom his parents openly dislike, of course.
After a series of events which gradually make his world seem more suspicious, it turns out that he was adopted into this family for the sole purpose of being a human sacrifice at one of their parties.
After witnessing one of his friends basically getting turned into a tapestry of mangled flesh, and witnessing bizarre body mutations, he escapes with the help of his other friend -- which seems a bit unlikely, given how cunning and powerful that "Society" was portrayed as being. But I guess they needed to tack on a happy ending.
But damn, though -- the movie symbolically taps into a LOT of effed-up things that one's innermost heart fears is going on in secret.
Like his high school debate for class president. What appeared at first to be the unpopular nerd vs. the popular athlete was really a fixed game where both sides were completely controlled by the same force... Like how I feel about every presidential election.
Or the fact that in the end, which one of his friends gets "sacrificed?" The relatively fat and unattractive one. It makes you think. Why do I just accept that as a movie cliché? Are we, on some level, just like the awful Society that frivolously ruins and desecrates whom they regard as "inferior"? Would we enjoy doing the same if we were born into such a high caste?
Is this Society, at the end of the day, just the natural order of things? very disquieting.
Another symbol that I think most only see the surface of are the surreal body mutations. In the end, the part where the protagonist witnesses his poor friend (who happens to be Jewish... not sure what that means) gets turned into a huge elastic abomination while getting fisted and eaten. It's not just weird, man, it MEANS something. It could be:
-hallucinations brought on by the trauma of seeing your friend get murdered
-and this is the scariest thing: it's simply the closest visual metaphor we can get for the unimaginably, appallingly sadistic thing they do to people as part of their ritual. I think it's something like eating their soul, not just raping someone but forcing your way into their deepest being and chewing it up like a damned wad of bubblegum before discarding it, leaving the person an utterly devastated wreck.
That's some ballsy sh*t, man. And SCARY. There's like, more going on in the heavens and the earth than we know. Some genius said that once. I appreciate this movie for being the few that makes me feel that way.