The Apple

The fact that this made it to DVD is troubling.

"A Funky Fantasy That'll Rock Your World!"

Hello and welcome to a new week of horror and confusion here at The Tagline! Today as long threatened I will be talking about a movie I was exposed to several weeks ago, the way you might be exposed to high amounts of radiation, or a deadly plague. I will say for the record that no, I did not sit through this whole movie without assistance, I was watching the Rifftrax for it, and even then this movie was so enchantingly horrible that it was sometimes difficult to focus on the riffs over all of the disco music and bedazzled packages. Made on the leading edge of the 80s (1980 exactly) when the grisly hold of disco had loosened, but not yet let go completely. This movie reminds us all of those dark times. Also it reminds us that sequined banana hammocks are not a good idea, ever ever ever. Set in the distant future of 1994, The Apple is maybe the most ham-fisted movie about the rapture ever produced. The plot revolves around a couple from Moose Jaw, Canada that sings really bad folk love songs, and attempt to win over a crowd at some sort of... music contest or something in the US? Probably sit down, the stupidity of this plot might knock you over.

I am not super threatened by this devil.

So people are starting to be won over by their crummy folk music, not surprising because judging by the way they dress they must exclusively love horrible things. The competition is rigged though, by the nefarious (snrk) Mr. Boogalow.. Boogaloo... bugaboo... this vaguely European devil man. Ah okay, I looked it up, it's Boogalow I was right the first time. Anyway, this guy runs a evil music company called BIM (Boogalow International Music) which we are told by their performance at the beginning of the movie is definitely on its way. Using really super subtle imagery, like having the main character guy (whose name is Alphie) have vivid hallucinations of Boogalow as a devil man and his effete assistant as a serpent, the movie makes it clear that this guy is probably definitely the devil. He is making everyone wear shiny triangle stickers on their heads, revealing to us that this is the end times, as predicted in Revelations... sort of. I don't remember there being so much singing and choreographed dancing but I mean... I certainly felt like I was trapped in Hell on Earth, so I guess they were doing a pretty good job actually.

I don't understand why they chose to use a giant ridiculous
over-sized apple instead of a regular sized one.

Anyway, Boogaboo wants to sign Alphie and his lady Bibi (god these are just the best names) to his record company, enslaving them to his decadent power or whatever a record devil does, but Alphie sees an elaborate and homo-erotic dance number warning him of the danger he's in. Bibi doesn't pick up on those obvious cues though, and so is drawn down into perdition and sparkly clothes and really ridiculous hair choices. Alphie retreats to be a loser without a job who sexually harasses his landlady, who is Professor Sprout (no really I was surprised too). The movie time skips into the even more distant future of a half a year later, when Alphie attempts to rescue Bibi from her prison of vice and money, and the world is now dominated by mandatory choreographed dancing one hour of every day, even if your house is burning down or something. Truly this presents a chilling vision of the nature of damnation, as it pertains specifically to disco I guess.

I guess that guy is the anti-christ and the other lady is..
the whore of Babylon? Cleopatra? I'm not sure.

We are then treated to the grossest implied/barely not actual porn sex sequence I've ever experienced, accompanied by trippy visuals and naturally it is also a song complete with weird dancing/bed grinding. It was a really troubling experience and it stayed with me. What's really important though is that through being boned by Alphie, some lady sees the light and helps Bibi escape from BIM to live in caves with a bunch of hippies. Apparently in the devil future, your choice is slave of Satan, or cave dwelling hippie. So Bibi and Alphie live together for another year, and Bibi gives birth to what looks like a four year old child. Then just as BIM's secret police close in with their scary triangle riot shields, God comes down from heaven in what looks like a holographic gold Mercedes, and leads all the hippies and that one other lady Alphie boned into outer space to a new planet, where they will be safe from ambiguously foreign devils with one little golden horn.

Look at those effects man! Fuuuturrristic.

That is really what happened in this movie. I am not kidding. I wish I was kidding. Hippies fly into space to escape the evil disco devil. People dance around in sparkling bikinis, and there are a lot of transvestites, which I think tells me something about how the movie's creators imagine the face of evil. I don't share their fear of bad disco dance numbers... well okay maybe I kind of do, but I don't envision disco causing the end of the world. Or of becoming a hippie and living in a cave. There isn't a lot more I can say, except that you should really consider carefully before you watch this movie. You could be seriously harmed in the process, and once you see it... you can't unsee it.

That's it for today! Join me again on Thursday when I review The World's End!