“Bad Biology” on 4KUHD and Blu-ray Combo Set. Purchase Here!
Jennifer and Batz don’t know each other and live two totally different lives but they have one thing in common, they are enslaved by their abnormal sexual organs. Jennifer, a young provocative photographer, embraces her vagina’s biological differences and immensely magnified hormones whereas Batz suffers monstrously from his radical rehabilitation of a once limp manhood. The contrasts continue as Jennifer must scratch the inflamed itch to be penetrated, luring men with her insatiable lust that ultimately end in their demise with an irrepressible emotional sway, whereas the botted-up Batz’s love life is virtually bankrupt due in fear of his conscious and uncontrollable enlarged penis. When Jennifer happens upon Batz in her peripheral during a photoshoot, she finds him intriguing enough to break into his home and watch him with a prostitute. The experience left the prostitute with a continuous orgasm long after penetration was over and left Jennifer with an impression that her vagina has finally found it’s match in life.
Seventeen years. That’s how long the inactivity span was between Frank Henenlotter’s last directed film and his next. Not since 1991 did Henenlotter, the madcap mastermind behind some of the more than unusual creature-esque concepts surrounding sexuality, addiction, and childbirth in a way that sheds light on society’s blatant distaste for the odd and grotesque, profess his creative talents with his trademark dark humor and unabashed practical effects that campy the content toward much to our enjoyment again until returning to the director’s chair with the 2008 shlock-sleazy horror-comedy “Bad Biology,” cowritten alongside American rapper R.A. “The Rugged Man” Thorburn as the musicians first taste of the film industry. Shot in and around the New York metropolitan area, “Bad Biology” is also produced by Thorburn alongside associate producers Dario Correale, Nicholas Deeg, Antonia Napoli, Vinnie Paz, and star Anthony Sneed under the LLC created for Bad Biology.
Not many would take on a role with heightened sexual absurdity, especially one with a puppeteered penis on the hunt for feminine pelvic regions or where a numerous clitorises ramp up sexual drive into murderous overdrive. Yet, first time actors Charlee Danielson and Anthony Sneed seem game for the roles as lonely sexual misfits Jennifer and Batz. To debut right out the gate as a character proclaiming to have 7 clits in the very first scene can’t be easy and I’m sure a deluge of thoughts questioning just what in the ridiculous Hell did I get myself into accelerated through her thoughts but Charlee Danielson doesn’t pull punches or need a second to rethink life choices in the feed the need role of lust, sex, kill, labor, birth and repeat. Same can be said about Anthony Sneed’s slinking and desperate peculiarities for Batz and Sneed’s willingness to browbeat his own anaconda trouser snake to assert back in being control. Danielson and Sneeds have tough jobs but pull off Henenlotter and Thorburn’s grotesquely envisioned gallows humor and body horror. While the confidence is there, the experience is not resulting in a stiff, monotone performances in nearly every scene and that can dampen the story’s eccentrical principals who are just delivering the lines instead of taking the lines to heart. Being that “The Rugged Man” is a rapper, the cast is comprised of other likeminded musical artists, mostly rappers as well, with Remedy, J-Zone, Vinnie Paz, and Reef the Lost Cause along with cameos from other artists and music producers. And being a film mostly about sex, “Bad Biology” fills out the cast with models and actors very comfortable showing their skin in Vivian Sanchez, Carolyn Thompson, Brittany Moyer, Vicky Wiese, Ginger Starr, Vladislav S., and well-verse indie horror scream queen Tina Krause (“Crimson Nights”, “The Fappening”).
Outrageous with bad taste, “Bad Biology” prides itself with point-blank profaneness and kitschy special effects, a resounding typical Frank Henenlotter production as the director hasn’t seemingly lost a step in 17 years between films. Yet, the story’s infiltrated by the need to incorporate strong personality cameos and is uneven in a way that hyper focuses on Jennifer’s quest, with inner monologuing, flashbacks, and direct camera speaking surrounding her spiritual search of a satiable schlong for her specialized snatch, becomes subverted by Batz’s less significantly told story quickly summed up in introspection while being pleasured by a homemade, industrial-sized masturbator. Doesn’t quite feel Batz receives the same valued introduction in contrast to his female counterpart, but he quickly forges a more interesting path having a roid-raging, self-aware, monster cock that’s addicted to large animal anabolic steroids and is isolated from the rest of the world. As polar opposite in the way Jennifer and Batz view and handle their sexual anomalies, the pair make the perfect odd couple, like “Ghostbusters’ Key Master and Gatekeeper, but at the cost of their own stories and their inevitable hookup that becomes flattened by a steamrolling climatic slasher-esque moment that doesn’t really involve them at all, segregating the leads momentarily from their own catalytic arc that deflates the finale into a flaccidity. Most of the comedy also falls flat but the dialogue is well bulbous in the skilled rhapsody and written dialogue that shocks and awes with every depraved bluster.
Scanned in 4K from the camera negative, “Bad Biology” receives a UHD plus Blu-ray 2-disc set from Severin Films. The HEVC encoded, ultra high-definition 2160p, BD100 and the AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, BD50 are both presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The 4K scan fills in the gaps of next stage video evolution though the gaps filled are minuscule at best. What makes the real difference is Henenlotter shooting in Super 35mm that provides a gritty grain overlay and similar, if not identical, saturation as film stock. Finer details more in the setting aspects, around darker areas, that are more illuminated by the pixel increase. Skin tones and grading are naturally set without much of a stylistic presence other than the gels used for the giant penis vision and the peering from inside-out Jennifer’s Uterine cavity. I do think facial details are not as firm, possibly smoothed too much during the restoration. The English language audio options include a lossless DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and a 2.0 stereo. Presenting flawless dialogue within the heavy soapboxing monologues and philosophical diatribes, “Bad Biology” promenades dialogue as an important part to the film’s machination. This doesn’t mean everything is flounders with a range of outrageous sound effects, including the gushings of childbirth, the whooshing whips of a conscious monster male member, and the squishy ins-and-outs of copulation. Spatial depths have finite proportions that relinquishes true depth to keep audiences near the action audibly. Closed caption English subtitles are optionally available. The 4K disc might have a capacity of 100 gigabytes but the format’s space on this release is quickly depleted for the feature and two audio commentary tracks – one with director Frank Henenlotter, director of photography Nick Deeg, and actor Anthony Sneed while the second commentary also includes Henenlotter and cowriter/producer R.A. The Rugged Man Thorburn. Both commentaries are also on the Blu-ray, housing over 5+ hours of special features which includes interviews with a Spook House entitled segment featuring interviews with Henenlotter, Thorburn, Deeg, production coordinator Michael Shershenovich, production manager Chaz Kangas, and David Henenlotter, an unorthodox interview between a basketball and actress Charlee Danielson In the Basement with Charlee Danielson, a lengthy back and forth question and answer between actor Anothy Sneed and cinematographer Nicholas Deeg, an interview with special effects artist Gabe Bartalos (“Frankenhooker,” “Basket Case 3”) Swollen Agenda, a behind the scenes of the film, photographer Clay Patrick McBride snapping cast and crew O-faces around Henenlotter’s apartment in F*ck Face, short film “Suck” directed by Anthony Sneed, R.A. The Rugged Man Thorburn music video for “Legendary Loser,” an imagine gallery, behind-the-scenes shots, and video covers and death stills. The standard 4K UHD release comes in the traditional black Amary case with an O-face compilation compositional cover art and has a lock-tabbed disc on each side. The release does not come with a reversible covert art or insert. Both idiosyncratic disc arts have whimsically crude caricatures of the main characters. The region free release has a runtime of 84 minutes and unrated.
Last Rites: “Bad Biology” marks a return to ungovernable psychotronic cinema for filmmaker Frank Henenlotter with new blood, a new story, and the same old objectionable orifices and organs of monstrous body horror.
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