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Jun 27, 2017 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

Two starry-eyed Canadian kids win a knock-off version of the Eurovision Song Contest, toppling the first domino in a chain of events that somehow leads to the world falling into a sort of disco-dystopia. Set in the far-off, futuristic year of 1994, Bibi and Alphie quickly learn that the music business is (quite literally) Hell as their innocence is stolen away by a devilish mogul named Mr. Boogalow in an Adam & Eve analog that goes so far as to feature a musical number where the young singer is urged to bite into a volleyball-sized apple. Part Biblical allegory, part 1984, and entirely one of the best camp musicals ever committed to film, The Apple features incredible, Busby Berkeley-esque dance numbers and some of the best sci-fi fashion of the 1970s. If the movie somehow wasn’t wild enough, it wraps abruptly with God descending from Heaven in a flying, gold sedan and rapturing all of the hippies into heaven.

If you’ve never seen The Apple, then you’ve never seen anything like The Apple.

Directed by Isreali filmmaker Menahem Golan and intended to be the first major release from his newly-acquired American studio, Cannon Films, the movie was received so poorly at its Montreal Film Festival debut that Golan had to be talked down from the ledge of his hotel balcony. (How empty and sad the 1980s would have been without all of the Chuck Norris, breakdancing, and ninja films he breathed life into over the following decade.) If at that point it had been retrofitted for the midnight movie circuit, we’d probably be talking about The Apple in the same way we do The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and fans would be lining up in sequin-covered costumes for weekly screenings at a Chelsea theater. Unfortunately, Cannon – who had initially believed they had the next Grease or Saturday Night Fever on their hands – washed their hands and moved on, and The Apple saw limited release in theaters and on video.

It would take thousands of words to do full justice to this movie, which is one of the most mind-boggling spectacles cinema has ever seen. It’s the perfect sort of cult film – unintentionally campy, with an insane premise, great production value, and memorable songs – that most people, once they’ve seen it, spend the rest of their movie-loving lives trying to get it in front of as many other people as possible. We’ll go ahead here and let one of the movie’s musical numbers speak for itself. “Coming” is probably the least subtle musical double-entendre for sex ever recorded, and that’s even before a kaleidoscope of acrobatic dancers start air-humping in the background:

Kino Lorber Studio Classics’ release of The Apple is proof that independent home video labels need to exist and thrive. Where someone could have easily gotten away with just putting out a cleaned-up, remastered Blu-ray – especially when you consider the old, standard-def DVD edition was eBaying for more than double this release’s MSRP – this joint production with cult specialists Scorpion Releasing puts in extra effort. The main attraction here is a 45-minute interview with star Catherine Mary Stewart, who is thankfully never hustled along and is allowed to talk at length about her experience on The Apple, as well as future roles in movies like Weekend at Bernie’s and World Gone Wild. She also provides a full-length commentary for the feature (which, we should mention, looks better than it ever has on home video.) Given that many of the other principals involved with the movie are either dead or don’t talk about it, it’s hard to imagine anyone will be able to top this release of The Apple until someone digs up the lost-then-found-and-now-tragically-lost-again festival print of the movie, which contained additional footage and musical numbers that filled in a few of the movie’s wackier plot holes.

www.kinolorber.com/product/view/id/4170