WEIRD SCIENCE
US, 1985, 94 minutes, Colour.
Anthony Michael Hall, Ilan Mitchell- Smith, Kelly Le Brock, Robert Downey Jr, Bill Paxton, Vernon Wells.
Directed by John Hughes.
Weird Science was written and directed by John Hughes who had written Mr Mom, National Lampoon's Vacation and European Vacation as well as directing Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink. Anthony Michael Hall, the star of Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, is also star of this film.
The film is an adolescent male fantasy. Two gawky youngsters are able to create a computerised ideal woman (from computer and Barbie Doll). She acts as a male wish-fulfilment. She is in fact Kelly Le Brock from The Woman in Red. There are many sex jokes, lavatory humour and oddball raucous American style jokes. The film would not be acceptable to those who see men treating women as objects of fantasy.
The film has many references to other films: the boys are obviously Frankenstein types, do some computer games as in War Games. The destruct ion of the house is reminiscent of films like Poltergeist. There are bikers who invade the home from such films as The Hills Have Eyes and Mad Max 2 (including Australian actor Vernon Wells).
While the film may appeal to the teenage audience group it reflects, it appears as rather silly instead of clever and a disappointment to those who appreciated Hughes' The Breakfast Club.
1. The audience for whom the film was made? American audiences? Young American males? The reaction of a female audience?
2. A piece of Americana? Anarchical comedy? Middle America, school, homes? Computers? Computers fulfilling fantasies? The oddball characters, especially the bikies, the statue-like grandparents etc.? The special effects and stunts? Musical score and songs?
3. The title and its teenage language? The focus on adolescents and science? Weirdos? Strange results from their experiments?
4. The portrait of Gary and Wyatt: rejected by the rest of the school, in the gymnasium and their pants pulled down, their embarrassment? Their being ridiculed by the jocks? Their attraction towards their girlfriends? At home, their friendship, relying on one another? The idea for the computer and the Barbie Doll? Their unexpected success? Their reaction to Lisa? her treating them according to male fantasies of being waited on? Her changing their image, clothes, the car? The reaction of the jocks? The party and their embarrassment, in the bathroom? The party and the house being completely disrupted? The bikies entering? The humiliation of the jocks? The night with Deb and Hilly? Chet and his comments? His being turned into the monster? The grandparents in the cupboard? The parents returning and everything in order? Lisa disappearing? Their being changed?
5. Lisa as the computerised beauty? The Barbie Doll and computer intelligence? Her appearance, clothes, style? Her controlling the boys? Waiting on them? Like a housekeeper? Like a mother? Like a girlfriend? The change of clothes, the car? The older boys and their infatuation? The party and its lack of success? The bikers coming? Lisa restoring everything to order?
6. Chet and his place in the home, army? His smugness? Humiliation? As a slime monster?
7. The people at the school: the boys and their superiority, the girls? The antagonism towards Gary and Wyatt? School activities - the American school scene?
8. The absent parents? The ignorance of what went on? The grandparents caught in the cupboard smiling?
9. The bikers - intruders from horror films?
10. The theme of the American male and his wish fantasies? should the film be taken? How seriously should the film be taken?
