VERY BAD THINGS
Tagline: A very savage comedy. This fall. Tell no one.
Pizza: Pizza Guy
PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: 4TH OF JULY...AND OTHER DISASTERS
THE TONE IN VERY BAD THINGS IS A BIT OFF.
IT'S LIKE WATCHING FELIX AND OSCAR FIGHT OVER BODY PARTS.
IT'S LIKE WATCHING FELIX AND OSCAR FIGHT OVER BODY PARTS.
I don't know if I'm just lazy today, or numb from writing a lot elsewhere in my life, or maybe it's that I simply don't have that much to say about 1998's VERY BAD THINGS. It's a very competent movie; all the pieces are in place, yet it doesn't quite work. Black comedies are hard to pull off. While few ascend, most misfire. VERY BAD THINGS rides the middle ground, so in a way, it's winning. VB THINGS is not a VB movie, nor is it a VG movie. Yeah, I'm on the fence on this one, about what friends do after they accidentally kill a hooker during a bachelor party; perhaps it works best as a tutorial. Also, please don't confuse it with 1997's STAG, where they accidentally kill a stripper during a bachelor party - VBT offs a security guard whereas STAG does the stripper's escort. While both are morality plays, STAG's straightforward, while VBT is, as you already know, a black comedy.
Here, the friends are husband-to-be Kyle (Jon Favreau), boisterous Michael (Jeremy Piven), his brother and panic junkie Adam (Daniel Stern), subdued dude Moore (Leland Orser), and...loose cannon Boyd (Christian Slater). Part of the problem off the bat is that, although these characters are well-defined, you never really believe they'd all be friends. Bridezilla Laura (Cameron Nathanson-Diaz) pecks at Kyle about a payment to the tent company for the wedding while standing on line at the registrar's. It's her big day, so you sort of understand. But you also understand the look of quiet desperation on Kyle's hangdog face. He just wants to go on his bachelor party to:
Vegas. Of course. Vegas. Where someone once said it was the go-to place to act like a moron, and it caught on. But what happens in Vegas... Oh, what happens in Vegas.
Yes, there's liquor and blow in the hotel suite. And then, a stripper/hooker. And then, her accidental, MIDNIGHT EXPRESSy/messy death, crosscut with homoerotic wrestling on TV and in the room (I guess when guys do coke, they wrestle). What follows is a showdown of personalities. "There are always options," and since she's already dead, is there really a point in reporting this? Boyd suggests they lower her into the alley and into the car, at which point he's asked, "Have you done this before?" Yeah, in just about every movie Christian Slater is in.
What to do? The churlish and childish men have lots of disagreements, as any morality play should have. They also talk over and scream at each other way too much. It's relentless. And it gets worse. They kill the security guard, moving the crime from accidental death to murder, and that's the where situation's morality becomes a real test. The game should be over, but Boyd keeps it going, convincing the pack to dismember the bodies and bury them in the desert. Later, while the car wash employees are rinsing away evidence in case some sunglasses-wearing CSI type shows up, the gang sit nervously. But not Boyd. He's playing a violent video game.
The second half of the movie is the gang unravelling one by one as Boyd and Kyle try to keep it all together. I mean, the show must go on, and in this case, the show is the wedding. And we already know Laura is a bit overreactive.
The first to meltdown is Adam, and it's just great. He knows where the bodies are literally buried, and we get to watch his paranoia set in while doing things as trivial as gassing up his minivan or buying candy. Yeah, he's over the top (the whole movie's tone is, so it sort of seems okay), but Stern is really good at it. It's one of the better moments in a movie that tries too hard to be edgy and funny, often failing at both. Though it indeed has its moments, like:
The jump cut/montage of them shopping at Target, gathering tools for the forthcoming dismemberment and burial. And I loved when Laura is fitting the wedding party in their suits, and they just don't want to be there, and it's just so uncomfortable. I also liked the almost subtle payoff to the runner of the wedding chair cushions, and what happens to the dog at the end, which I won't give away in the unlikely chance you'll log off and race to see this movie.
PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: 4TH OF JULY...AND OTHER DISASTERS
You all know 1982's A CHRISTMAS STORY, right? But did you know that a year before that movie was released, American Playhouse on PBS aired another story with the same characters? And believe it or not, it was Matt Dillon who played the role of Ralphie. Actually, incarnations of slice-of-life author Jean Shepherd's (sort of) fictional family from Indiana have been broadcast since the mid 70s. Many regard this rare (unless you go to some site called YouTube) piece as the best of the lot, a statement that I'm sure rankles A CHRISTMAS STORY freaks.
The preamble has Shepherd himself taking us to that parcel of southern Americana, South of the Border (still around!) in South Carolina. What was weird for me in this mini-movie (56 mins.) was that they totally cribbed the music from JAWS (maybe the link is that they both take place during the 4th of July). I guess PBS could get away with that...it would look bad if you sued them. Or maybe they were given permission. Also odd, David Lynch is credited as a special effects assistant, and this was after ERASERHEAD and ELEPHANT MAN.
