The idea that the upper classes are parasites feeding off the common man is hardly a new one. It has been explored in virtually every sub genre of every art form known to civilisation ever since man realised that living off someone else's work was a far better idea than doing the work yourself. Brian Yuzna's infamous film, Society may not be treading any new ground on the thematic front therefore, but the utterly insane visceral physicality of his vision doesn't so much push the envelope as demolish the entire post office. By the climax of this film your jaw will be hanging so wide that you could fit an entire arm through it, which incidentally is just one of the bizzare and twisted things that will be happening on screen and burning themselves indellibily into your memory at the time. This film has a certain reputation and it doesn't disappoint.

The story revolves around a young man named Bill. Bill may belong to an outrageously wealthy family, date the head cheerleader and be captain of the team at the prestigious school he attends but he is still a typical teenager. He worries about fitting in, he feels alienated from his family and friends and has a nagging suspicion that maybe there really is something he isn't being told. Of course most teenagers feel like this but it turns out that Bill has good cause to worry as it looks like he might just be right. As his suspicions grow and people who try to help him meet with grisly accidents, Bill realises that his family are quite possibly a group of murderous shape-shifting mutants who regularly indulge in incestuous orgies with other members of their bizzare secret 'society'. Perhaps not such a typical teenager then.

Despite the inherent wildness of the premise, the majority of the film plays out with surprising restraint. The audience is kept very much in the dark about what is actually happening and so can empathise with Bill's paranoia as his life transforms from idyllic to horrific. Brief glimpses of the surreal, like the shot of a naked woman showering behind frosted glass with what looks very much like her torso on the wrong way around, are very effective at building up a sense of wrongness though it is never so obvious as to completely give the game away. These moments are kept few and far between and Yuzna relies primarily on good story-telling and a steadily increasing sense of claustrophobia and confusion to maintain viewer interest.

The is Yuzna's first film however and so it is not surprising that he makes a few mis-steps here and there. Society often falls into the same pitfalls that plague many films from this era. The acting leans towards the hammy, the characters (other than the lead) are paper-thin and the pacing is off. There is so much else here to enjoy however that these problems almost become endearing when the film is watched in context. Whereas its many contemporaries were often derivative re-hashes of ideas seen a thousand times before, Society is a true original and stands well apart from nearly any other 1980's horror film.

As Bill tries to uncover the truth and the film pushes into its climax there is an abrupt change in style. As Bill is finally given the answers he has been searching for in a high class party at his family home Yuzna finally snaps and lets special effects master, Screaming Mad George out of his cage to wreak his special kind of havoc. The party-goers begin their 'shunting' ceremony which seems to be a cross between rape, cannibalisation and mutation all perpetrated upon a luckless non-society victim. As the shunters gleefuly go about their business they transform and mutate, their bodies breaking down and merging with one another to form a single lubricated mass of writihing twisted flesh. At one point a man actually turns into an enormous hand with distinctly 'amorous' intentions. The entire end sequence is such a lunatic piece of audacity that it completely transforms the film from what was a slightly surreal horror-mystery into...well, into Society.

Society is a film like no other before it and no other since. It is repulsively absurd and absurdly repulsive. It will quite possibly make you feel quite ashamed of yourself for watching it. In fact, in all probability you will be turning the volume down and desperately hoping that nobody comes into the room to see the kind of crazy shit you like to watch and that is exactly the way horror should be.

Rating: 8/10

Review By Matt Compton