Society - There’s a pretty entertaining film in there somewhere

I missed ‘Society’ when it was released in the eighties.  Apparently, it’s quite a cult classic (which is strange as I’m well up on my cult horror classics!) and, from watching it now, I can see why.  However, I’m guessing I’ll never fully appreciate it due to the fact that I’m watching it in 2017 through adult eyes who’s become a bit jaded and cynical towards cinema in general.  I can imagine it caused quite a stir on its release due to its weird subject matter and cliché-breaking narrative.

We meet our hero Billy who’s a young up and coming high school student.  He’s certainly not a nerd, as he’s played by future ‘Baywatch’ star Billy Warlock and is well-liked, plays college football and has a popular and attractive girlfriend.  However, despite seeming to have everything going for him, he starts to feel that the world is a slightly more scary place than he imagined when weird things start to happen.  And, when I say ‘weird’ I kind of mean bizarre happenings concerning those closest to him.  They start behaving oddly, sometimes violently and even appear to him in different forms.  However, naturally, whenever he tries to prove any of this to anyone – seemingly – neutral, there’s no proof to offer.

In my opinion, the film has one major plus side and one major downside.  I’ll start with the negative and that’s that the film is a little ‘uneven.’ Sometimes it seems to labour plot points that we actually ‘get’ quite quickly and it seems to repeat them over and over again to the point that we’re really kind of bored and waiting for the story to progress.  There’s clearly something dark and intriguing happening and there’s enough story here to make us want to know more.  It just drags it out too much and we start to just want to fast forward to something new and more pertinent to the plot.

But, on to the good… I’ve already mentioned that the film is interesting and you probably will want to know what’s really going on.  And, I have to say that the ‘pay-off’ is well worth the wait.  Or rather it is if you have a strong stomach.  The last act is certainly memorable and will stay with you for a long time to come.  It’s pretty intense and – hopefully this isn’t a spoiler – the special effects really are special and it’s great to see ‘practical’ effects being equally good as today’s computer generated effects.  Unfortunately though, the film’s cursed uneven-pacing shows up again and even slows down what its arguably the best part of the film.  Another plus point is that it really does subvert a few traditional traits of the genre.  I won’t go into which as a few things that happened really did surprise me when it came to characters and their overall role in the film.

So, having finally watched this film, overall I’m glad I did.  Yes, I’d probably enjoy it a little more if I’d already seen it back in the eighties and it ticked that nostalgia box with me, but I think the final act really does justify a watch for all horror fans.  It has all the element of a ‘Naked Lunch-style’ David Cronenberg film that us cult-horror fans can’t seem to get enough of.  Just don’t eat anything before you get to the last twenty minutes.  Seriously, it’s pretty intense!

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that