Login or Register for free.
The UHF of the film world.


Bob Doto [Film Festival 11.18.08] movie review horror

Share on Google+


Year: 2008
Release date:
Director: Frank Henenlotter
Writer: Frank Henenlotter / R.A. Thorburn
IMDB: link
Trailer: link (NSFW!!)
Review by: Bob Doto
Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Frank Henenlotter: 2008 NY Horror Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient.

Bad Biology: Best Feature Film, Best Special Effects.

Unlike zombie films where agreed upon laws and rules govern the plot’s trajectory (head-shot = death, bite = infection), Henenlotter’s films are seemingly lawless, and therefore completely rhizomic and anarchistic in nature. This means that Henelotter’s films obey only the laws of Henenlotter and therefore can project out in any and all directions. If Romero is a Puritan then Henenlotter is the antinomian par excellence.

Try this: Henenlotter’s latest film Bad Biology is the story of Jennifer (Charlee Danielson) who is blessed/cursed with having clitorii buried throughout her body (seven alone inside her vagina), which allows her to experience seven times the pleasure of any other woman. She and Batz (Anthony Sneed), also blessed/cursed with an equally (though different) challenging mutation, are unaware of each other’s existence until they finally meet and descend into a love connection the world has never seen. Lots of illicit sex, a whole bunch of babies put in the trash, a woman with a vagina for a face, and an ill soundtrack by Prince Paul round out this Henenlotter/R.A. the Rugged Man movie.


Still with me?

But what makes a film like this work? What makes it good, and what makes people at festivals really enjoy it? First, it’s extremely funny. The jokes are well placed by people who know how to place them (RA Thornburn trying to go down on Jennifer as we get an iconic from-in-the-vagina-cam angle is one star example). The humor, though definitely of the low-brow variety, is almost so low-brow it comes back around again to be no-brow. The humor just IS. And as such we the audience can just relish in its authenticity.

Secondly, this is an FX driven film. That could be really bad if the film took itself too serious as to rely on it, but Bad Biology takes itself just serious enough to not rely on anything but whatever itself is. And what is Bad Biology? For one thing it is the latest collaboration between Henenlotter and make-up special effects master Gabe Bartalos whose more-real-than-real contortionist art has graced everything from the face of Tony Clifton to the walls of the bloody Guggenheim.

So, you can see we’re not dealing here with simple pooh jokes. We’re dealing with pooh jokes with a price tag. And that’s what excites me about Henenlotter’s work. The sharpness of the writing, and the quality of the imagery allow some pretty questionable acting (and there’s definitely some) to just ride along the crest of the genius wave. Even more, due to the precision of the films best moments, the “low points” become almost palette cleansers—little pieces of ginger—with which we can see the film’s next burst of insanity with fresh eyes and ears.

Bad Biology is a film well deserving of its praise and marks another notch in the already gnarled bedpost of Frank Henenlotter. Judging by his lifetime of work (Basket Case, Brain Damage, Frankenhooker, etc.) my guess is that that post is long overdue for a coat of high gloss wood varnish.









Leave a comment








Related articles
Posted on Friday, August 19th, 2011 15:48 GMT By agentorange
Posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 6:39 GMT By Hal MacDermot
Posted on Sunday, September 28th, 2008 18:56 GMT By agentorange
Posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 1:22 GMT By agentorange
Posted on Sunday, May 24th, 2009 16:45 GMT By Rick McGrath
Posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 21:29 GMT By quietearth