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Geek Tyrant
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Retro Trailer For The Surreal and Grotesque 1989 Body-Horror Film SOCIETY — GeekTyrant
This week's retro trailer is for the 1989 horror movie Society , directed by Brian Yuzna. It's a surreal and grotesque blend of body horror and social satire film. The story follows Bill Whitney, a wealthy Beverly Hills teenager who begins to suspect that his family, and the high-society world around him, are hiding something sinister. As paranoia sets in, Bill uncovers a disturbing conspiracy involving his parents, his sister, and the elite of Beverly Hills, who are part of a grotesque, shape-shifting cult that literally feeds off the lower classes. The film gradually descends from psychological thriller into full-blown body horror, culminating in a famously disturbing and surreal finale known as 'the shunting.' Society offers a wild and crazy critique of class division, privilege, and the parasitic nature of the upper class. It also features over-exaggerated, almost cartoonish grotesquery, as it shows the elite as monstrous entities who sustain themselves by devouring the poor, both figuratively and literally.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘A Poet' Review: A Pathetic Man of Letters Sets the Stage for a Cringe-Inducing Satire of Prestigious Art Spaces
Oscar Restrepo (Ubeimar Rios) is a bum. Call him a lush, a louse, a putz, a schmuck, a sad-sack, and a dumb-SOB and all would apply. He can take them, and then some. He is, after all, a man of words — poor Oscar's a poet, and woe unto all those who know him. But good news for all those that take in 'A Poet' ('Un Poeta'), director Simón Mesa Soto's immensely appealing and often caustic character study-turned-social-satire premiering out of Cannes' Un Certain Regard sidebar. Put together with impressive efficiency — the film only started shooting in January — this art-world send-up explores the many fears and frustrations the acclaimed director felt in the decade since making the 2014 short film Palme d'Or winner 'Leidi,' channeling them into a darkly-funny burlesque that speaks of verse while playing like a Dan Clowes comic brought to manic life. More from IndieWire Michael Douglas: Silicon Valley Has Made Producers 'Look Like Paupers' Milly Alcock Shares the Advice She Received for Playing Supergirl: 'There Will Be Battle Scars' Oscar's a poet, alright, and not much else. He isn't much of a father to the high-schooler Daniela (Allison Correa), who obviously lives under a different roof; he isn't much of a caregiver to his own aging mama (Margarita Soto), who still supports her failure-to-launch with an allowance and a pair of car-keys; and he isn't even much of an author. Oh he was, of course — winning a number of literary prizes as a precocious youth that now hang on his mantle, alongside a photo of José Asunción Silva, quietly taunting a middle-ager riven with writer's block. It's no wonder why he drinks. And when he gets in the cups, what else can he shout about but 'poeeeeesíííííaa,' stumbling along the back-allies of Medellín and slurring his words, but leaving no doubt as to the passion that animates him. Director Simón Mesa Soto shares in that fervor, mining his main character for pathos, not ridicule, framing Oscar as a true-blue romantic — a kind of holy fool susceptible to even the most obvious of scams but only because this staunch aesthete has devoted all of his attention to verse. And if Oscar's perhaps more guilelessly dogmatic about art-above-all, he's hardly alone in a country that puts writers like José Asunción Silva and Gabriel García Márquez on its currency. Problem is, Oscar doesn't have too many of those pesos. Recognizing that more prosaic reality — while looking to at least buy his way towards his daughter's good graces — our poet soon accepts a teaching gig at a local high-school. There, he meets Yurlady (Rebeca Andrade) — a lower, lower-class student with a natural aptitude for… well, take a guess. Any number of discrete films could build from that premise, and 'A Poet' tries quite a few on for size, playing with elements from the inspirational teacher school and the late-coming-age redemption drama before setting into a more sardonic register once the teacher tries to make his student a star. The duo are both aesthetes in a world of opportunists, including but not limited to the 14-year-old's family, who can recognize a meal-ticket when they see one, and to Medellín's literary elite, who see the very same but for much greater sums. If the 39-year-old Soto — who works as a teacher in between films — sees in Oscar a version of his own path that didn't run through Cannes, the director pours just as much of his own experience into Yurlady — a promising talent from a background that lends itself to easy clichés. If she could just prove she's 'serious' by filling her verse with laments about poverty and race, she might even win over a few deep-pocketed European backers. I wonder where Soto came up with that idea. Split into four chapters and filmed on grainy, 16mm stock that leaves a mask of schmutz around the corners of the frame, 'A Poet' loops around questions of art and commerce in an endearingly loopy tone. The film's bawdy sense of humor plays off a non-professional star — himself a full-time teacher from a nearby school — that looks like he was drawn by Robert Crumb and acts the part just as well. While outcast valentines like Owen Kline's 'Funny Pages' and acrid satires like Radu Jude's 'Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn' might serve as stylistic and thematic comparisons, Simón Mesa Soto really owns his own voice, mixing high-art with bad taste to piece apart the mechanisms of a mess-up. Few leave unscathed as the handheld camera whip-pans and fast-zooms between cringe-comedy and genuine pathos and back again — especially once the hapless prof paves his own road to hell with his good intentions. Well, more like self-serving intentions; Oscar might only want to see his young mentee celebrated for her work, though at no point does Yurlady indicate a similar ambition. That we do really feel for Oscar when he inevitably screws himself up and out of a feel-good movie reflects Soto's tonal dexterity. The Colombian filmmaker certainly offers a welcome F-U to World Cinema good manners, but he's not just taking the piss with his tale of a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and no king. 'A Poet' premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution. Want to stay up to date on IndieWire's film and critical thoughts? to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers. 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