[THE GHASTLY
LOVE OF JOHNNY X screens Friday May 31st at 9:00 pm and Saturday
June 1st at 9:00 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review by Bob
Ignizio
Extraterrestrial
juvenile delinquent Johnny X (Will Keenan) is sentenced, along with
his band of like-minded followers, to exile on the planet earth until
such a time as he performs an unselfish act. Based on the way Johnny
is behaving when we first meet him, tearing up a diner while in
pursuit of ex-girlfriend Bliss (De Anna Joy Brooks) and his special
“resurrection suit”, it doesn't seem as if that will be happening
any time soon. But after Bliss escapes with soda jerk Chip (Les
Williams), oily show biz manager King Clayton (Reggie Bannister)
approaches Johnny with an offer: he'll help the alien get the girl
and the suit if he'll re-animate his dead star Mickey O'Flynn (Creed
Barton). Sounds like it should be fun, but alas it never really pans
out that way.
If nothing else
THE GHASTLY LOVE OF JOHNNY X looks gorgeous. It's carefully
composed shots have that unique silvery glisten that one only gets
from shooting on real black and white film stock, and the costumes
and set design perfectly convey the aura of fifties schlock nostalgia
that director Paul Bunnell is going for. Good looks aren't
everything, though. Despite a good cast (that aside from those
already named includes small parts for Paul Williams and the late
Kevin McCarthy), and the obvious fact that Bunnell has both passion
for this kind of material and enough talent to conceivably pull off
his vision, the film never clicks.
A lot of that
probably comes down to the editing, which lets way too many scenes
overstay their welcome. This feels almost like a first rough cut
rather than a finished movie, and a little tightening up would
definitely have helped. No matter how much tightening might have
taken place, though, it wouldn't be enough to make JOHNNY X
the cult classic it so obviously wants to be. It aspires to campy
humor, but has precious few big laughs. And if you're going to
include multiple musical numbers in your film, the songs need to be
better than what's here. Plus there just aren't any of the big
show-stopping scenes that every good cult movie needs.
One need look no
further than one of JOHNNY's most obvious influences, THE
ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, for an example of how it's done. Just
about every song in ROCKY HORROR has the kind of hooks that
instantly get stuck in your brain. Even if ROCKY HORROR
sometimes seems conflicted about exactly what sort of message it
wants to send, it at least delivers the goods with multiple scenes
that pushed the envelope back in the early seventies, and likely
still do for many viewers today. Even if you think ROCKY HORROR
is a bad film, you can't help but remember it. THE GHASTLY LOVE OF
JOHNNY X, on the other hand, isn't likely to stick with even its
admirers for long. 2 out of 4 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment
We approve all legitimate comments. However, comments that include links to irrelevant commercial websites and/or websites dealing with illegal or inappropriate content will be marked as spam.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.