Bad Biology

Introduction

You know you're in Frank Henenlotter territory when the film begins and a woman starts telling you about her seven clits. Jennifer (Charlee Danielson) was born with mutated genitalia that gave her an overactive sex drive, starting puberty at 5 and having multiple orgasms simply from crossing her legs. Working as a fashion photographer she picks up men to satisfy her addiction and kills them during intercourse, camera clicking as she goes. Her entire reproductive system works in overdrive so within 2 hours of sex she comes to term and delivers a mutant baby which she then abandons.

Unbeknownst to her, someone else in the city has problems with their genitals, a young man called Batz (Anthony Sneed), who has taken to injecting growth hormones into his penis. Far from giving him a member to be proud of, Batz now has a 24-inch horny drug-addicted penis.

Video

This has gone straight to DVD in the UK and the picture is excellent with good colours and typically over the top prosthetics and special effects makeup. Henenlotter constantly shifts the focus and keeps you off balance with the characters, particularly Jennifer, breaking the fourth wall and using plenty of POV shots.

Audio

Both the Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo tracks are horribly mixed, with the dialogue obscured by the ambient sounds and other effects. The 5.1 surround is the worst offender - I started with this and switched to the stereo when the sounds from the rears were drowning out the centre speaker.

The soundtrack is dominated by orgasmic moaning and it's a real shame there are no subtitles as I needed them to make out everything the characters said.

Conclusion

I'm a big fan of Frank Henenlotter's work considering Basket Case, Brain Damage and Frankenhooker fantastic horror comedies, so had high expectations of this. Sadly, it left me cold though whether this was due to the dreadful sound quality I'll never know. The film needed Jennifer and Batz to hook up way before the 3rd act by which time the mutant penis was on the loose.

It didn't seem as funny or grotesque as it should have been and, despite the rather brilliant concept and a notable debut performance by Charlee Danielson, Bad Biology doesn't have the charm or instant gratification of Henenlotter's other films. It certainly shares the bizarre sense of humour and love for the absurd of his other work, but didn't gel as his better films did and this, coupled with a shockingly bare-bones release, limits it to a rent only disc. Even then this will only really be of interest to fans of Henenlotter's films who want to give it a look.