Society (1989) - Brian Yuzna

"Society is a 1989 American body horror film directed by Brian Yuzna and starring Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Evan Richards, and Ben Meyerson. Its plot follows a Beverly Hills teenager who begins to suspect that his wealthy parents are part of a gruesome cult for the social elite."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_(film)

"Society was a success in Europe, but was shelved for three years before getting a release in the U.S.[8] 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."[9]"



The film visuals are based on a 1929 Salvador Dali Painting titled "The Great Masturbator", currently on display in a museum in Madrid.

My fan-made trailer, using the film's excelent soundtrack:




I got a copyright warning stating that this trailer cannot be displayed in 2 countries: Germany and Austria,

As an european I feel compelled to make a trailer for this american film, because:

1) Visuals
2) Music
3) Salvador Dali surrealism theme
4) Originality
5) Strangeness


The folks in the USA are just regular people like the europeans, chinese, africans, etc. The difference in the styles of Cinema are due to powerfull Hollywood owners who attempt to become a Soviet-Style Nanny State to control what an U.S. citizen should our should not watch.


The US Cinema had it's golden age of freedom between 1968-1984, and then it went downhill, A period that begins with the fall of the Production Code and ends with the bankrupcies of the smaller american film studios.


The future might be brighter because of the new streaming companies, but looking back at the 20th century, this 1989's "Society" was a very unusual and bizarre fluke of the american Cinema. For this reason alone, I wanted to make a trailer.

This is one of those films I know I have seen but retain little memory of. First saw it way back in 1990, when I was about 12 or 13.
This is definitely a film I need to revisit again, since it has been so long.

Yeah this is like Cronenberg turned up to 11... I got the impression watching it that most of it though was exploitation, like, "let's turn Cronenberg up to 11... because"

It's still a classic cult movie though, and worth watching if you consider yourself a cinephile.

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you didn't need to say anything for me after that...

That is one of the weirdest movies I've ever heard of.

Society is great. Its class commentary might not be subtle, but it's staged in an incredibly memorable way and all the while doing weird and interesting things with high school protagonist tropes.

I know that the focus is often on the last act, where the body horror really kicks into gear, but the first two-thirds deserve a lot of credit for building a disturbing and disorienting tone.

I thought this was a really fun movie. Sure it felt early on like it was gonna be a rote 80s thing but I trusted the recommendations and then some sinister undercurrents started to pop up so I rode it out. It's been about 10 years but I remember feeling really rewarded.
I was super-disappointed that my closest movie-friends, who love Horror and Cronenberg and humor and parody and subtext and all that, told me it was absolute garbage and they couldn't believe I recommended it to them.