Weird Science

Studio: Arrow Video

Jul 24, 2019 By Austin Trunick

In suburban Chicago, geeks Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) are too awkward and socially stunted to talk to girls, so they come up with a harebrained idea during a late-night viewing of The Bride of Frankenstein. Using Wyatt’s expensive home computer, they’ll program their own woman: even if she’s not real enough to serve them in more fleshy activities, they hope she’ll be able to teach them how to better interact with women. After hacking into government servers, hooking up cables to a Barbie doll, and making important decisions about things like breast size and whether or not their dream woman should have a brain, lightning strikes Wyatt’s home and his closet door blows wide open. Out walks Lisa (Kelly LeBrock), the girl they cooked up on their computer.

Like Long Duk Dong and Sixteen Candles’ played-for-laughs date rape, there are big parts of Weird Science that fall into a dark area of the John Hughes canon that has aged as well since the 1980s as Bill Cosby’s public image. Six months after giving equal voices to the diverse archetypes of white, ‘80s teenagers in The Breakfast Club, Hughes bizarrely narrowed his focus to two horny 15-year-old boys and their limited, sex-centered worldview. Even when you look at the movie through a nostalgic lens, it’s hard to get over how its women are treated like nothing more than commodities to be possessed, ogled, and built in a bedroom laboratory.

Where Weird Science subverts expectations and sets itself apart from the R-rated teen sex comedies of the era it so closely resembles is, surprisingly, with the Lisa character. Though initially built to function as their high tech sex slave, she develops a nurturing attitude toward the boys. Physically, there’s never more than a little kissing between Lisa and her creators. Instead, she helps them boost their confidence, stand up to a tyrannous brother and their parents, increase their social standing among their peers, and eventually land girlfriends their own age. Normally a premise like this movie’s would be an excuse for nonstop T&A, but Weird Science sidesteps that. Who’d have expected these geeks’ lab-grown fuck toy to be so motherly?

That still doesn’t forgive how Gary’s character, when drunk, slips into a Southern slur that was presumably modeled after an old bluesman but feels two dabs of greasepaint away from being a blackface performance. The joke goes on for way too long, and may be the most uncomfortable part of the movie. Weird Science was deservedly criticized on its release for being a shallow, pandering wish fulfillment fantasy. It’s hard to disagree when all the boys’ problems are more or less solved with snaps of their cyber-girl’s fingers.

Weird Science may be one of Hughes’ lesser features, but it still has a few charms. Hughes was inspired by old EC Comics of the 1950s; this may not be the same quality tribute to them that Creepshow was in ’82, but the influence shows in the movie’s plot and endearingly dated SFX. Bill Paxton has a fun supporting role as Wyatt’s meathead bully of a brother. Robert Downey Jr., American Ninja’s Judie Aronson, The Breakfast Club’s John Kapelos, Michael Berryman and Vernon Wells all have small parts.

Arrow Video have done an outstanding job with their special edition Blu-ray release in spite of a lack of involvement from any of the movie’s surviving principals. The heavy booklet includes essays from critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Amanda Reyes, the former necessarily addressing the movie’s sexual politics and going so far as to place its heroes within the context of being proto-incels. The movie itself is newly restored in 4K and looks fantastic. The original theatrical cut and an extended version are both included alongside a featurette breaking down the changes made to the movie for its cable version. Other bonus materials include newly-shot interviews with the casting director, editor, composer, special makeup artist, and actor John Kapelos. There’s also a retrospective documentary ported over from the anniversary edition DVD which includes reflections by Hall, a massive image gallery, trailers and promotional spots, and a PDF of the original shooting script included on the BD-ROM. Fans of the film will certainly be pleased.

(mvdshop.com/products/weird-science-blu-ray)

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