Society - With many spoilers

What the shit was this?

It had me for a long time. It had me, alright.

So much promise… The creators of Society had the ingredients to create a four-star movie but instead traded away their dignity in an attempt at grabbing cult status. Maybe it achieved this? All I can say is that I’d never heard of it three weeks ago.

Having absolutely no idea what I was about to experience, seeing this flash up in the opening titles had me more than a little excited:

Although not familiar with Screaming Mad George's work, I had high hopes.

The dynamic where the viewer didnt know whether Billy was paranoid, as opposed to a secret society being against him was thrilling. There were moments where either outcome could have been plausible. Looking back though, it seems odd that Billy was genuinely eating an apple full of worms in his shrink’s office.

Overlooking the worm apple was easy. I could forgive the filmmakers for this, and perhaps it’s all interpretive, maybe he was a little crazy as well as being set upon by a secret society. The filmmakers showed their hand a little too early by displaying a blood orgy during the opening credits however, in my opinion. It completely gave the game away.

Something I probably read far too much into are the pranks played by Billy’s best friend. They seemed to punctuate how the movie was supposed to make the audience think at certain points. When the plot is pointing more towards Billy being mad, Billy discovers a doll representative of himself with a screw in it’s head, which I took to imply that he’s screwed in the head. Later he finds a sex doll placed as if it is eating the previous doll, implying he’ll be eaten alive. I have no idea what that horrible black shrunken head in his locker was supposed to represent.

Up until the point where Billy returns to his home after breaking out of hospital for the climax, this film would have scored 4 stars from me. It was a fun 80’s horror with terrible dialogue and far too many references to Billy’s “contribution to society” for it to be subtle, but I was onboard.

THEN STRIKES SCREAMING MAD GEORGE - and the film is completely ruined.

The society were real. I’m fine with this. They’re a weird parody of the illuminati’s lizard people who have always been in charge and always lived alongside us. Fine. What the fuck was going on after that? Shunting, they call it. Where a group of people melt together and swap body parts in order to make completely forced, terrible puns. “I guess I am a butt head”, or words to that effect, followed by Billy’s Dad making fart noises with his mouth, in the position that his asshole should be in, mark the point I lost all respect for this movie.

So, To Conclude:

Somehow a technical whizzkid was absorbed by a bunch of melted secret society members and met his end. I hated it. I really hated it.

1 middle finger

Here’s a meme: