I’ll be honest, it’s been a long time since I’ve actually seen most of the movies on this list because of how, uh, relaxed I am about updating my blog, so I thought maybe if I rewatched this movie before writing about it I might better remember what the hell happens in it, but nope. I watched 1994’s The Club last night, completely sober, and hoo boy get ready for a bunch of incomprehensible bullshit with some above-average special effects. (For 1994, so I mean, you know. They’re okay.)
Welcome to THE CLUB, by which I mean hell I think, or maybe straight up demonhood, I’m not entirely sure, but it’s definitely one of those? It’s prom night for our cast of Breakfast Club-diverse teens and apparently they go to a rich-ass school because prom is held at an actual fucking castle and yes it is haunted, kind of, maybe? We have Generic White Boy and Generic White Girl who are in a serious high school relationship, we have Depressed Nerd with Long Hair and a Beret, and of course we have Black Best Friend and her Abusive Red-headed Boyfriend. (Bonus points, guess right now who doesn’t survive this movie. You’ll be right.) And skulking around being weird and flamboyant is Kid Who Doesn’t Go To This School, who we discover GASP has been DEAD FOR TEN YEEEEAAAAARS.
That’s right, Kid Who Doesn’t Go To This School is in THE CLUB and he works for Satan, or with Satan, or just fucks around being a demon and messes with people for fun, that’s also unclear. This Demon Kid stops time at midnight for….reasons? and starts torturing our select group of high schoolers based on whatever fateful happenings were in motion when he stopped time. For example, one girl was about to be physically and sexually assaulted and her boyfriend was trying to save her. For another example, another girl was about to be…physically and sexually assaulted and uh…her boyfriend was about to physically and sexually assault her. Neat. I mean, it was 1994, we didn’t know women were people yet, but get ready for all two of our female characters to get threatened with beatings and rape repeatedly while we focus on the internal struggles of our two leading men for like EVER, GOD.
I’ve got to give some points to Joel Wyner, the actor playing Demon Boy, for his crazed-Billy-Zane-in-Titanic looks and his Jim-Carrey-in-The-Mask acting, because he is working very VERY hard and I think even he probably doesn’t know exactly why. You join The Club by committing either suicide or murder, and Demon Boy is clearly trying to rack up some new members, but he’s also just kind of prancing around harassing people who aren’t suicidal or murderous in the least, but I mean….I don’t know, he’s just doing his best I think. I want to buy Joel Wyner a muffin and let him know he’s a good boy, because he tried.
I guess I won’t spoil this movie if anyone wants to watch it, because it’s certainly trippy as shit and it’s got some decent practical effects for the time, but I can’t actually say it’s necessarily…good. It’s definitely trying to do a lot of things, so B- for effort I guess. It’s free on Amazon Prime though, so if you have an hour and a half you could go there and do that but also Netflix just added the original Candyman and, gang, I had NO IDEA how good that movie is, so go watch that instead. It’s brilliant and I feel like no one told me. IT’S FUCKING GREAT. Did you know they wanted Eddie Murphy to be the lead and the only reason he wasn’t cast was because they couldn’t afford him??? What the hell would that have been???? Did you also know that Tony Todd negotiated an extra grand for every time he was stung by a bee during filming, which ended up being 23 times??? Damn, Candyman was great. I should have just watched Candyman instead of The Club.
I give The Club…..THREE HORRORS, WHICH IS SOMEWHAT GENEROUS. It’s definitely more interesting than the basic bitch 2 horrors, but ughhhhhhhhhhh I don’t need to see it again.
Candyman gets a solid five horrors, I’m gonna watch that shit every day until Jordan Peele blesses us with his take in 2020, because damn.
Horror in order 