Bad Biology (2008)
A Killer What?
A penis. Though, I think I should state that calling it a killer penis may be overstating things. I’ll explain things better below but suffice it to say I’m not going to put a picture of today’s monster up.
Is It Any Good?
I have no idea how to answer this question. Does it exhibit the level of quality demonstrated by Frank Henenlotter throughout his career directing the films Brain Damage, Frankenhooker, and the Basket Case trilogy? Mostly, yes. Is it an ugly, repugnant, wrongheaded movie that seems to be filled with meaning but also utterly pointless that I don’t care to ever see again? Oh, definitely.
One can likely gauge how this movie is going to go for them in the film’s opening line, delivered by our protagonist (?) Jennifer: “I have seven clits.” Before we get to the reason for this movie ending up on this column we first follow the character study of Jennifer, a woman born with a malformed vagina that, among other things gives her an insane sex drive. She’s insatiable for sex and has it with any man she can find to feed her hunger which she compares to drug addiction. She frequently kills the men in the throes of passion or due to rapid mood swings due to her increased metabolism. Oh and also she gestates and gives birth to babies mere hours after a sexual encounter. She leaves them in bathtubs and wrecked cars and trash cans, screaming with unsettlingly mournful cries. Why doesn’t she just use a condom you ask? Oh, because the feeling of giving birth gives her sexual gratification of course.
I feel like I can end things there because you’ve probably already decided whether this is a thing you’ll ever watch at this point in the text but I’ll press on anyway. We now go to Batz, a creepy loner living alone in a giant house filled with cardboard boxes full of pill bottles. It seems that due to some mix-up at the hospital, his penis was severed when they went to cut his umbilical chord. The penis was reattached but he was impotent for his entire life and since the treatments to fix this condition were too expensive he began experimenting with animal steroids which made his penis absurdly huge but also sentient.
Jennifer finds out about his condition and sets about trying to bed him, thinking she’s found her soul mate but the penis, having grown tired of Batz not fulfilling its needs takes off on its own adventure into what I can only refer to, with no small amount of disgust, as a soft-core rape montage.
I think that the people involved in this movie really think they’re saying something about sex and gender and more, but just like Henenlotter’s ode to the malformed in the Basket Case movies it’s a really backhanded compliment. The dialogue is bad in this movie in general but it could not be more obvious that Jennifer’s monologues were written by two men.
And as I said, I get it, I love Frank Henenlotter’s movies and his touch is apparent in this film, but this movie is gross in the least fun way possible. It’s not the effects or the set dressing that make me queasy, it’s the message. I’m good with gross-out imagery and disturbing relationships, but I went in expecting V.C. Andrews and got Edward Lee instead.
Watch, Toss, or Buy?
I see no reason anybody really even needs to exist in the same space as this movie, let alone watch it.