JED JOHNSON
Bil’s rating (out of 5): BBB.
Alternate Title: Andy Warhol’s Bad
USA, 1977. Factory Films. Story and Screenplay by Pat Hackett, George Abagnalo. Cinematography by Alan Metzger. Produced by Jeff Tornberg. Music by Mike Bloomfield. Production Design by Gene Rudolf. Costume Design by John Boxer. Film Editing by David E. McKenna.
Bonkers satire on suburban morality overseen by Andy Warhol’s production studio, starring Carroll Baker as an aesthetician who runs hit women out of her home between beauty treatments on her clients. Perry King shows up looking for work and she breaks her rule about using men to carry out the violent jobs that she brokers, allowing this dangerous stud to take up space in her house and turn her life upside down. Meanwhile, her girls go out on their increasingly disturbing assignations, one of them to kill a noisy dog that is driving Brigid Berlin crazy, another to kill a woman’s baby because it won’t stop crying (which she then deals with herself in a very gory scene), all the while King waits on his own assignment to murder someone to finally be given the green light. There’s a humorous edge to this ridiculous movie that will be lost on anyone who can’t pick up on its ironic tone, it’s not quite as campy as Paul Morrissey’s low-budget delights but its nasty sense of burlesque is somewhat dampened by watching it at home and not with a midnight madness crowd. Baker gives an outstanding performance, as solid and electrifying on screen as ever, and Susan Tyrell steals the show as her morally conflicted and perpetually sobbing daughter in law.
