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WICKED WORLD

Written By:

Chris Jackson
Screenshot 2022-08-28 at 12-37-08 Wicked World (1991)

A gentleman and a lady get very comfortable with each other on a sofa while another chap sits in an armchair and watches intently, occasionally fondling a gun. Abrasive metal music blares away while the lady takes her clothes off, stopping just short of baring all as the camera cuts between shots of her heaving frontage in varying states of undress so rapidly that what is already the most unerotic of trysts quickly becomes comical. Another couple enters the room, seemingly oblivious to the saucy goings on right in front of them. They change the music and start dancing in a school disco sort of fashion, while a slightly tubby grey-haired man wearing a gas mask peers in from the dark night outside through the balcony window (how he got there is anybody’s guess), completely conspicuous to all yet still somehow remaining unseen by everybody. The nearly-naked lady goes for a shower, the man with the gun decides to shoot everyone, the gas mask man enters and murders the gunman, then rounds things off by slaughtering the lady who had gone for the shower.

This all happens in the very first scene of Wicked World, and things don’t get any more pleasant or sensible throughout the remaining 90 minutes. It turns out the man in the mask is Harold, a lunatic who hates everything he sees and hasn’t been able to stop killing people since his three daughters committed suicide together and his second wife left him. In a stunning coincidence, the father of one of his victims, who happens to be a police officer and isn’t entirely innocent himself, moves in next door to Harold, and the film flits between countless flashbacks of both of their lives – told by a now-lobotomised Harold from his wheelchair while he’s being pushed around a park by a nurse (who, of course, he despises) – en route to the eventual showdown between the two. Insanity.

Wicked World was made in 1990 but unreleased until the late-2000s, and it isn’t difficult to see why it sat on the shelf for so long. The overdubbed dialogue is badly written, badly delivered and badly edited (on multiple occasions, the same lines are repeated within a few seconds of each other), the CGI (apparently added just before the film’s DVD debut) is entirely unconvincing, the non-linear structure of the film makes the whole thing appear to have been made by a cast and crew who have never seen or even heard about what a “film” is, never mind possessing any of the skills involved in actually making one, and neither have they any understanding of how humans speak, behave or interact with each other in real life.

And yet, despite its catalogue of catastrophic flaws, this chaotic display of ineptitude is really quite endearing and it’s difficult to take your eyes off what’s going on (or, more likely, what’s going wrong). Almost every scene features multiple moments that make you question your sanity, and the non-stop cavalcade of carnage (both intentional and otherwise) throws so many unhinged sounds and images at you that you keep watching out of sheer amazement that such a demented, grungy and mean-spirited movie even exists. Every time a new camera trick or special effect is introduced – and there are plenty of “experimental” techniques spread liberally throughout – your brain melts just a little bit more. Clearly the product of a deranged mind, you certainly can’t say it’s a predictable film. Having said that, there are a fair few genuinely effective and unsettling moments to be found as well, so your perseverance is pretty much guaranteed to be rewarded, regardless of whatever your views on no-budget outsider art might be. Towards the end, you might even start to wonder if this really is a terrible film or if there was some sort of method behind the madness. Is this actually the work of a bonafide genius? It may well be, but the jury is unlikely to ever reach a unanimous verdict.

Director Barry J Gillis (the man responsible for 1989’s THINGS, which is another film that needs to be seen to be believed) provides an audio commentary which answers a few questions, but he sounds as mental as you’d expect from watching the film, spending a lot of time cackling to himself, repeating the film’s dialogue (that we can’t hear because the audio has been completely removed for the audio track), revelling in the on-screen violence and making bluntly honest statements like “there’s my brother again. I don’t talk to him any more for over 12 years or more and I don’t plan on it. Nothing to do with the movie-making, just other stuff”. It’s rare that an audio commentary is as bizarre as the film itself, but Gillis proves to be quite a unique individual. He also reveals that he wasn’t happy with the original DVD edit, so he revisited the film for a director’s cut Blu-ray release in 2019, which is also included on this disc. A couple of minutes longer and with many changes made to the editing and sound effects, this version of the film is slightly more restrained than the original version but still as incoherent.

As surprising as it is that Wicked World even exists, the existence of enough footage to create an hour-long behind the scenes documentary is perhaps even more unbelievable. Getting to watch a true master at work is always a pleasure, even when the quality of the footage is as low as it is here, and you get the impression that working on the movie was as manic and disorganised as the end result is. Elsewhere, the original trailer is included along with a music video by the band Marshall Law whose cacophonous ditties are slathered throughout the movie. The son of Eddie Platt – the actor who played serial killer Harold – gives a brief tribute to his late father, and Barry J Gillis himself makes an appearance in a near 25-minute piece, filmed in 2019, where he gives updates about the status of all five movies that he’s made.

Wicked World is an absolutely staggering movie for a multitude of reasons, and this Blu-ray is a real treasure trove of trash. It’s not a stretch to say that it’s an essential purchase for any aficionado of the absurd. Those with less tolerance for this sort of thing should definitely steer well clear though!

Chris Jackson

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