SOCIETY – Bill is a suburban teenage nihilist facing the prospect of growing up and joining the ‘real world’ of his posh family and wider neighbourhood. From where he’s standing, turning into an adult doesn’t look like it’s going to be all that, and suddenly questions arise – is the world I’m about to enter full of good intentions? Or is it all a front for some polymorphous blob orgy conspiracy? ‘Society’ is one answer, and it’s a good one if you happen to be into polymorphous blob orgy conspiracies. I always used to feel a bit disappointed after seeing ‘Society’, but I like it more now. Back then, I thought I’d be in for ninety minutes of prosthetically enhanced gunk a la ‘The Thing’, only to find that the film was teasing its Screaming Mad George-facilitated money shot all the way till the end. But even though I never think Brian Yuzna has the deftest touch when it comes to narrative, the ‘slow simmer’ approach works better for me these days; ‘Society’ unfolds in the manner of the classic weird tale, where odd details accumulate layer on layer until the final flowering of the uncanny, and it’s to Yuzna’s credit that before he bares all with an outlandish punchline that tells you all you need to know about what really goes on in those golf club back rooms, he takes care to cultivate a pulsating atmosphere of surreal noir and thereby fashions ‘Society’ as a film that’s as much about build as it is pay-off. The whole ‘Beverley Hills 90210: the body horror remix’ thing feels more intriguing than it did, maybe just because of the changing landscape (both horror and otherwise), and the way the nineties look on film nowadays – nostalgia for the woes of entitled brats in oversized jeans has its rewards when it’s as squishy as this. ‘Society’ has a kind of satirical obviousness that you couldn’t really get away with in the present times, but it’s still probably Brian Yuzna’s best film and remains a high point of that late-eighties / early nineties era of horror.
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