Think ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW as a maudlin message film and you’ll get an idea of the joys of THE APPLE. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a film so bad and loved every minute of it. This film pretty much fails on all levels.
The film starts with a big rock competition where Bibi (Catherine Mary Stewart, THE LAST STARFIGHTER) and Alphie (George Gilmour, only film performance) win over the hostile audience with a cheesy love ballad until the evil record producer/government dictator Mr. Boogalow (Vladek Sheybal, RED DAWN) tells his crony Shake (Ray Shell, VELVET GOLDMINE) to disrupt the performance. After losing the competition, Bibi and Alphie are invited to Mr. Boogalow’s party of sex and drugs where he uses his stars Pandi (Grace Kennedy, only film performance) and Dandi (Alan Love, GREGORY’S GIRL) to seduce them into signing record contracts with his BIM records. Bibi signs, but Alphie is scared away when he has demonic visions.
Everything in this film is done like it’s a Meatloaf song. Everything is way over-the-top dramatic and the metaphors are so obvious and hokey. The film sets up character traits and then abandons them when needed. The acting is really bad. Gilmour and Shell attain a new height in cinematic shlock. Sheybal is eating the scenery like it really is an apple.
Then in the end, the film throws in a hippie commune and God arrives driving a golden Cadillac in the sky. I love the film's 1980 vision of 1994. If my memory serves me well I don’t remember people dressing like flamboyant versions of the aliens in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE when I graduated high school. This film is classically bad and deserves high placement on bad cinema fans must see list.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
