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Review

An obscurity largely forgotten throughout the two decades and more since its disastrous 1980 release, The Apple has recently been afforded a growing cult status as a result of late-night repertory theatrical screenings, and now with this DVD release (along with Donnie Darko, a film neglected upon initial theatrical release but enthusiastically embraced by fans on home video, The Apple is one of the few films that has developed a legitimately fan-driven cult in recent years). So just what is The Apple? An absurd futuristic fantasy musical and religious allegory, The Apple is an almost indescribable experience: as bombastically bad as any legendarily wrong-headed Hollywood embarrassment one could care to recall (case in point: if you think the similarly beloved disaster Showgirls is high camp, you ain't seen nothin' yet... ), the film is also wildly entertaining viewing. Whether the latter assertion is entirely because of, or despite, the former assessment is a matter open to much debate. Suffice to say, you probably haven't seen anything else quite like The Apple in your life – though, 86 minutes later, perhaps many of you will hope that you never see anything quite like it again.

Set in the then-futuristic landscape of 1994 America (though filmed, quite obviously, in Germany), The Apple envisions a world wherein all fashion and design were apparently wholly dictated by glittery disco-era eyesores like Xanadu, roller rinks, and the Village People (the film also has a distinct gay sensibility, and not just for the one musical sequence where the background dancers are made up entirely of leather-clad men with handlebar mustaches), and evil, greedy entertainment magnates rule all media (uh, OK, so maybe it did get some predictions right). While all of America is swept up in the rock craze "The BIM," young folk singers Alphie and Bibi struggle to get their vanilla-bland ballads heard – only to be seduced by the power of the demonic music mogul and BIM-meister Mr. Boogalow, who drives the couple apart and catapults Bibi to pop-packaged mega-stardom. The Apple takes its biblical allegories to surreal heights – only a film that has a dance number in hell and images of BIM-followers taking a mark of the beast on their forehead could get away with a sequence wherein God descends from heaven in a Rolls Royce to essentially activate the Rapture – but the gleefully tacky sheen of the film's outlandishly dated musical numbers are perhaps even more compelling (pick your favorite: the eponymous fantasy sequence in the bowels of Hades, or the aforementioned leather-men power anthem "Speed"?).

Director Menahem Golan, the prolific Israeli-born schlock kingpin who co-managed the 1980s cinematic crap factory Cannon Pictures, was likely aiming for a cross between The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. What he wound up with more closely resembles an unholy hybrid of Can't Stop the Music and Logan's Run -- and God (or, more accurately, Mr. Topps) bless him for it, as The Apple must stand as one of the most deliriously disastrous films ever made, lamentably unforgettable songs and all.

 -- Travis Crawford