Box Art Review #6 - Society

Box Art Review #6

Society (1992 )

Directed by  Brian Yuzna

Starring  Billy Warlock and Devin DeVasquez

First things first, can I just point out that homie’s name is Billy Warlock. Holy moly, that’s the coolest name since Max Power.

The Movie

Body horror is my second favorite horror genre, right after horror comedies. Unfortunately, it’s a genre with relatively few entries, most of those entries are by the same guy, and it’s pretty much dead in recent years. There was a short boom of gross out body horror flicks in the 80s, most of the movies people remember, like The Fly, Scanners, The Brood, and Videodrome, were done by the master, David Cronenberg. Some other “classics” include the Blob remake, From Beyond, and I guess you could include movies like Alien, American Werewolf, and The Thing where fucked up shit happens to people’s bodies, but I dunno if I’d outright classify those as body horror. For a film to fit the body horror moniker, you basically have to have character’s who’s bodies undergo some kind of horrifying transfiguration (you could even technically throw in Kafka’s Metamorphosis if you really wanted to), usually said transfiguration involves a lot of goopy, slimy guts or random shit growing out of people’s extremities, or some kind of neato vfx riff on decomposing bodies.

Society premiered in 1989 at Cannes, but didn’t get an official American release till ’92, which should further prove the fact that body horror (as horror fans identify it) was a short-lived 80s fad. The director, Brian Yuzna’s Wikipedia page is a laundry list of mediocre to semi-decent horror sequels that includes entries to the Re-Animator and Return of the Living Dead series; Society almost doesn’t fit with the rest of his repertoire with its political themes and artistic integrity. Basically, a rich kid from Beverly Hills can’t shake the feeling that he doesn’t quite belong with his friends and family and then eventually finds out that that’s because they’re all horrifying monsters. Basically, all the rich people are an entirely different species from human beings, and they have this annual feeding/orgy called “shunting” where they sort of melt into one big weird monster and feed off the poor. Honestly, you could remake this movie right now with 99%er themes and it would win awards probably.

The Cover

This cover is almost great. I mean, I feel like they didn’t really commit to the idea. In a perfect world, this cover would just be the girl, and the face being pulled off would have a lot more strands and sick gooey shit coming off of it. Also, the face beneath needs to be horrifying, not just another face. I really like the font actually, but as it is now, you could easily mistake this as some kind of erotic thriller. They really don’t need both of those taglines either, You are what they eat is perfect really, the other one is just overkill, and sort of adds to that erotic thriller misconception possibility. Maybe the problem is the title, in context it fits like a glove, but the way it’s executed here is a real bummer. I like the font, (one of) the taglines, and the face removal idea in theory, but when they’re all put together in this way it’s really just a missed opportunity.

I also feel it’s necessary to point out that the Tartan (presumably British) DVD cover features a screenshot where a dude’s head is inside of a comically oversized asshole, though I don’t think anyone would guess that without having first seen the movie. You can totally check out what I’m talking about here.

Movie: 4/5

Cover: 2/5

Society