So Bad It's Good Rating:
Cannon films was a low rent movie studio whose reign of schlock hit its stride back in the 1980s with countless forgettable but fun popcorn films like Chuck Norris’ Invasion USA, along with just about everything Charles Bronson starred in during that era--yet I never realized that Cannon began the decade in the most audacious way possible by releasing what has got to be one of the most bizarre experiences to be ever committed to celluloid: The Apple. Starring 80s heartthrob Catherine Mary Steward and character actors Vladek Sheybal and Joss Auckland (just about the only actors in the cast with salvageable careers after this turkey), The Apple was co-written and directed by Cannon Films co-runner Menahem Golan as some sort of a musical fantasy/drug hallucination that serves as a warning about the pitfalls of fame…I think….
Taking place in the far flung future of 1994 (dig those flashy, glittery automobiles, dude! This MUST be the 90s!), Steward stars here as Bibi, a fresh-faced innocent from Moose Jaw Canada who, along with her life partner Alphie (George Gilmore), venture down to the scary and weird USA so they can enter the Worldvision Competition, which is a televised singing competition that’s not unlike today’s American Idol (somebody should really check Simon Caldwell’s video library to see if he got the idea for AI from this flick). Bibi and Alphie bravely try their luck with singing their extremely sappy love song--but they’re up against Pandi and Dandi, another singing duo who are the most popular thing since sliced bread thanks to their evil corporate backing.
Pandi and Dandi sing the popular song BIM during an elaborate, over the top
production number that--despite the large number of scantily clad hot babes
dancing around--is still one of the most gayest things ever seen onstage since
Liberace first tickled the ivories. Both the tone-deaf songs and the
production numbers look like they were taken from other films--and not very good
films at that. The staging and choreography of the scenes with these wacky
singing and dancing "kids" lack any style--as well as rhythm--whatsoever, with
the songs containing such lame lyrics as "Life is nothing but show business in
1994!" The Apple of the title refers to the seduction of sweet, innocent talent
into the raw world of the music business.
But as if the viewer might be too dense to get this theme for themselves, Golan
slams it into them with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face in a dopey
dream sequence that Alphie has where he and Bibi are tempted in hell by the
devilish Mr. Boogalow (Sheybal), whose name makes him sound like a refugee from
a Sid & Marty Croft TV show. Filled with much glitter and satin and headbands,
The Apple feels like a bad 1970s LSD trip that just won’t stop. This is truly a
film that is so bad, it’s good, and it really has to be seen to be believed.
Because I’ve barely scratched the surface describing some of the off the wall
stuff that’s on display here--stuff that will either make you stare up at the
heavens and go, "Why, God, why?" or just laugh out loud in enjoyment of a truly
bad flick that’s so intensely awful that it boarders on being both surreal and
sublime at the same time. --SF
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