The Apple (Menahem Golan, 1980): USA / West Germany

Reviewed by Conner Emery. Viewed on DVD.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show and it’s success were both a surprise to the film industry. The movie brought a perfect combination of catchy and camp, while it’s fans brought more and more people to the theaters to experience it all for themselves. It’s no surprise then, that someone, somewhere would think it logical to try to recreate the same success by going about making a film in a similar enough way. But when you take something like The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s formula, you’re bound to run into a few bumps along the way. Unfortunately for The Apple, it ran into them all.

The Apple‘s plot is nothing new. In the future, there’s one company (BIM) that controls all aspects of everyday life. The unique take on this however, is how they control it. By signing hopeful bands, they build up stars whose music they use to force people into doing crazy things to show how much of a fan they are. In one memorable scene, they have everyone in the US stop what they are doing (including operating surgeons and Firemen) so that they can exercise to the BIM theme song. The story revolves around Bibi (Catherine Mary Stewart) and Alphie (George Gilmour), a couple and duo who part ways after disagreements over the contract BIM gives them. Bibi becomes a superstar, while Alphie goes his own way trying to win back Bibi’s love and remind her what life is really about.

If you haven’t guessed by now, this film is a rock musical. The first problem with The Apple is that it forgets the most important part of a musical: The Music. If you’ve ever heard  a song and thought, haven’t I heard that before? Or maybe, aren’t those lyrics a little overused? Well then, you must not have seen The Apple. The songs are not only extremely repetitive, the opening song in particular repeating the lines “Hey, Hey, Hey. BIM’s the only way” for 3 of the songs 5 minutes, but have an over reliance on cliche lyrics such as “You’re my light in the darkness“. And who would have thought a hippie would be singing a song called “Child of Love”. Of course all this would be forgiven if the songs were catchy, but alas, they couldn’t figure out how to work that out.

But the movie isn’t all bad. The production values tower that of Rocky Horror with it’s massive ensembles and glitzy outfits, the budget really shows. And their vision of the future all seems to work quite well for the world they’ve created. But there’s one thing that is a little odd, and that is the choice of date for the future world they live in. Had it been set in the distant future, it might have been more believable, though half the fun is watching this knowing that this is their take on, well, 1994. Needless to say, they weren’t exactly visionaries.

Perhaps the strangest part of this film, is that it’s all an allusion to the creation story in the bible. Bibi is the one who signs the contract for BIM, the contract being the apple and BIM’s leader being Satan. God is portrayed as the leader of the hippies, who Alphie eventually joins as he finds peace with them. And this allusion is in no way subtle. The ending of this movie is by far the most bizarre ending a film can have, and it really has to be seen to be believed. If you’re looking for a movie that is so bad it’s good, but have seen all the classics, look no further than The Apple. If there’s ever a movie where you’ll be entertained for the entirety of the film, this is it. Just be sure to invite others to watch it with you.