Okay, so it's 1994, not 1984, but it's all of those futuristic doomsday movies rolled up into one. Imagine a musical version of "Zardoz", and you've got the right idea of what "The Apple" will be. 1980 had its share of notorious musicals from "Can't Stop the Music" to "Xanadu", but the is the "Applegate" of rock musicals, a definite sabotage to the genre which seem to be making a comeback thanks to the movie versions of "Grease" and "Hair". it's as if the Grinch slid off his mountain top, landed in Hollywood, hated singing and dancing instead of Christmas and decided to ruin it for everybody.
Wait until you se Vladek Sheybal as the obvious villain of the film who is made up to look like Max Von Sydow in "Fash Gordon". He's the anthesis of the gooey as gumdrop pairing of Catherine Mary Stewart ("The Night of the Comet") and George Gilmour, your typical poofy haired pretty boy, getting to sing some of the silliest popcorn tunes I've ever heard, accompanied by the most bizarre backup and choreography. Stewart and Gilmour are signed by Sheybal's talent agency and are constant baraged by the interruption of audacious numbers that seems to have raided every tacky costume shop in town.
Ray Shell is unforgettable as Sheybal's flamboyant assistant who seems to be a black version of Tim Curry from "Rocky Horror", and there's no shortage of equally flamboyant drag characters in minor roles, including a heavyset performer who sings opera. Stewart and Gilmour end up in an underground cave of horrors where it's obvious that they are about to be drugged by the titled apple which is the size of a pumpkin.
Joss Ackland gets the thrill of playing a dual role, a Merlin/older Moses lookalike who plays Gilmour's fairy godfather and later on, God, a chevy driving deity who arranges for a bunch of hippies to be raptured while Sheybal and his band of merry men look on. The cast tried hard to get through this professionally with Grace Kennedy stealing every moment she's on with a few big Diana Ross like numbers (including one about the final moments of copulation), and long before she became more well known, Miriam Margolyes as Gilmour's feisty Jewish landlady who actually gets a few genuine laughs.
This is MTV at its earliest on acid, reminding me of the many hideously bad musicals that were produced and quickly closed on Broadway in the 1970's and '80s, and more modern ones that I've seen like "Dance of the Vampires" and "Bat out of Hell". The problem is that it is striving for camp without really thinking about how to do it. Camp masters John Waters and Tim Burton succeeded because they knew how to do it successfully and had stories that could be followed easily, no matter how absurd. This ends up being deliciously funny because it is so bad, and that's not camp. That's just disaster mixed into strudel.
Wait until you se Vladek Sheybal as the obvious villain of the film who is made up to look like Max Von Sydow in "Fash Gordon". He's the anthesis of the gooey as gumdrop pairing of Catherine Mary Stewart ("The Night of the Comet") and George Gilmour, your typical poofy haired pretty boy, getting to sing some of the silliest popcorn tunes I've ever heard, accompanied by the most bizarre backup and choreography. Stewart and Gilmour are signed by Sheybal's talent agency and are constant baraged by the interruption of audacious numbers that seems to have raided every tacky costume shop in town.
Ray Shell is unforgettable as Sheybal's flamboyant assistant who seems to be a black version of Tim Curry from "Rocky Horror", and there's no shortage of equally flamboyant drag characters in minor roles, including a heavyset performer who sings opera. Stewart and Gilmour end up in an underground cave of horrors where it's obvious that they are about to be drugged by the titled apple which is the size of a pumpkin.
Joss Ackland gets the thrill of playing a dual role, a Merlin/older Moses lookalike who plays Gilmour's fairy godfather and later on, God, a chevy driving deity who arranges for a bunch of hippies to be raptured while Sheybal and his band of merry men look on. The cast tried hard to get through this professionally with Grace Kennedy stealing every moment she's on with a few big Diana Ross like numbers (including one about the final moments of copulation), and long before she became more well known, Miriam Margolyes as Gilmour's feisty Jewish landlady who actually gets a few genuine laughs.
This is MTV at its earliest on acid, reminding me of the many hideously bad musicals that were produced and quickly closed on Broadway in the 1970's and '80s, and more modern ones that I've seen like "Dance of the Vampires" and "Bat out of Hell". The problem is that it is striving for camp without really thinking about how to do it. Camp masters John Waters and Tim Burton succeeded because they knew how to do it successfully and had stories that could be followed easily, no matter how absurd. This ends up being deliciously funny because it is so bad, and that's not camp. That's just disaster mixed into strudel.