The Apple

source: The Apple

Trailer—The Apple

The Apple

If you are gay and of a certain age (as I am), you may remember a certain glossy "magazine of entertainment." This was AFTER DARK, which was the gayest non-* magazine ever, and it was most popular during the 70's and 80's. People like Liza and Bette appeared on the cover, and lots of tasteful male * and nearly-* photos abounded. It was glitzy, heavily-mascared, skimpy underwear-clad, pre-AIDS fun. That brings me to THE APPLE. Beyond the title number, set in Hell, which has to be one of my favorite bad rock movie free-for-alls (with horrid lyrics and extremely hard-working dancers), the "sex" number, with multiple beds full of women in slips and men in gold briefs, absolutely proves my point that this movie was merely a film transcription of the late, lamented AD. If XANADU and GREASE 2 can be issued on DVD, why not a remastered and remixed wide-screen edition of THE APPLE? Call your local congressman or gay cult-film fan TODAY!

I've been waiting for this movie all my life.until now,my favorite film musicals were "xanadu","voyage of the rock aliens",and "the pirate movie", but this one far and away exceeds them all.I'd heard about it for a few years,and finally got the chance to see (and tape) it.this was about three weeks ago,and i've seen it at least a dozen times since then.my friends have stopped coming over because i keep "subjecting" them to it,but i don't care,i'm part of the BIM family now.my coworkers have been giving me strange looks just because i walk around singing "popping power by the hour-SPEED","light my way child of love", the entire APPLE SONG,which i know by heart,and of course"hey hey hey bim's on the way".they may think i'm crazy,but i know someday Mr. Topps will come down and take me away in his holy pimpmobile.

Lokk, I'm not going to sit here and say that The Apple is a good movie. It's not. It makes zero sense. However, it's so much fun that you can't help but fall under its spell. It's the futuristic year of (gulp) 1994 and everything looks like a bad 80's music video. There's a sweet, folk duo whose bond is about to be tested when one of them sells out for fame and fortune at all costs. There's something about the Adam and Eve story woven through, but it's a little hard to decipher. Despite a lousy plot, The Apple does boast strong production values and a tuneful, infectious score that you won't be able to get out of your head for...well, forever. It's also the first film of the appealing Catherine Mary Stewart who later went on to films like Night of the Comet and The Last Starfighter. The recently released Blu-Ray shows the film in all its over the top glory. A must see for camp musical fans.

Vapid (largely due to the male lead's inability to act - not surprisingly, this was his only film), bizarre fantasy-musical-allegory. It gets points for its sheer audacity and the effort that was put into it - it was probably made on a relatively low budget, yet it manages to create a world of its own; apparently it was filmed in Germany, but it seems to be taking place on another universe altogether. For some reason, it reminded me of "Zardoz" (yes, and "Logan's Run" too): these movies are so bizarre that they belong in a league of their own, beyond "good" and "bad". Best song: "If you know how to be a ma-ster". (**)

I was channel surfing a few weeks ago when this...this...this..THING showed up on Flix. I was mesmerized. I grew up in the late 70's, early 80's and this felt like I was zapped back in time to movies like "Little Darlings", "Over the Edge", and "Xanadu". The whole look was scary. It looked like it was shot in a shopping mall. When I checked out the title, I thought "Where has this GREAT BAD movie been all my life! How come I've never heard of it before?" This is one camp classic that truly deserves a full resurrection. VH-1 should do a whole "Where Are They Now" on this movie. I'd love to know what the "actors" in this movie think of it now. Truly bad in a classicly bad/great way.

It was only a few years ago that I even knew about this Golan-Globus Cannon musical production that came out the same year as similar flops like Can't Stop the Music and Xanadu or better received hits of the same genre like The Blues Brothers and the original Fame. I'll just say that while I was weireded out by the direction of some sequences and the way they were put together, I actually did like many of the musical numbers and the way they tied to both plot and characterization. And I also thought the actors that sang, with the exception of Catherine Mary Stewart who was nicely dubbed by Mary Hylan, also did a good job. So on that note, I'll just say that The Apple is neither one of the worst nor one of the best of the movie musicals. It's just simply a fascinating futuristic look at a time 14 years after this was made at what the music industry would be like if Disco, Glam Rock, and Folk/Adult Contemporary were the only musical trends (or non-trends) to go to as choices...

Probably made as a "please God, let what happened to ROCKY HORROR happen to us!", project, THE APPLE is so audacious, so over the top, so totally awful that it is simply wonderful. The songs are cheesy, the acting horrendous, the costumes nightmarish, the concept bizarre etc., etc., but when all those negatives are put together, the result is a positively guilty pleasure to top all guilty pleasures. Please, someone, release a letterboxed DVD of this film so that all its rocky horrors squeezed onto the small screen can be seen in all their garish terrible/wonderfulness.......