Kids! Don't Cave In To Temptation!
by Rich Bruso
August 2003
It was a bad beginning: Phil presenting us with this month's movie, Teenage Caveman. Immediately, I consult my reference books to see just how bad it could be. Initially, I am hopeful, as the title was listed as an early Roger Corman flick, as were the two others mentioned on the back cover. Elation turns to disappointment as I realize the two release dates didn't line up. Same problem with each of the movies on the back cover. Bad news. Now, Mr. Corman has been known to remake his own hit movies, but his name was nowhere to be seen on any of these movies. Worse yet, only the titles are similar. A review of the plot synopses of his works and the "Coming Soon" trailers on the video revealed totally different plots. Could somebody actually be trying to trick video renters into picking up their movie instead of a Corman movie? Weird.
"I'm sure I have been through worse," I say to myself as I read the rest of the video sleeve. The movie features actors I am not familiar with who starred in movies I vaguely remember being released. Oh, and it's set in the "Prehistoric Future." Wait a second; what is a "Prehistoric Future?" Can such a thing exist? Did we go into the future far enough to loop back on the past before written histories began? Will we see Fred Flintstone? Maybe Carl and Donne can explain it to me at the next happy hour.
So, on to the film. Let's see, somehow society has killed itself, all modern conveniences have been destroyed, and the remaining humans are living in caves in a hunter-gatherer society. Now there's a story I've never seen before. During a hunt, the tribal leader is killed for being a jerk, but his killers pretend it is an accident. This has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, but it does chew up about 10 minutes of screen time. We then learn that the father of one of the hunters is the tribe's holy man, charged by God with the odious task of ensuring the population stays within the means of the cave system. Of course, the best way to fulfill this task is to ban all other men from breeding. Things go wrong when he selects his son's sweetheart. A scuffle ensues, resulting in a fatal stab to the eye for the father and voluntary exile for the son and his five closest friends, who happen to be a convenient gender split of three men and three women.
After trekking for miles, an electrical storm forces these six into a cave, where they are apparently magically transported into another movie entirely. They wake up in completely different clothes in some sort of genetic engineering lab that survived the downfall of humanity. This is the home to two genetically modified super humans, one of whom wears the ugliest plastic clothing ever to be invented. As often happens in this type of movie, the cavepersons are invited to take a communal bath with the super people to ensure an "R" rating and strong rental sales. We then move on to a party scene, involving alcohol and drugs, both of which are apparently readily available even 100 years after the fall of humanity.
It is during this party that we realize the genetic mutations can be transmitted by intimate contact, proving social diseases also mutate. On the plus side, you stay young forever, are super strong, have heightened senses, heal quickly, and can't die unless you get your heart ripped out or head cut off. On the minus side, there is a 50/50 chance that you will explode instead of undergoing the super human transformation, leading to the most expensive special effect of the movie.
Luckily, the star and his girlfriend have abstained, so they remain human while their friends become either (a) super human or (b) goo on the walls. Not a lot of plot happens after this point, but, to be honest, that's par for the course, isn't it? We then run through several predictable chase scenes and a few fights before our hero succumbs to the female mutant. A typical guy, he then tries to convince his girlfriend that it is actually fun, she doesn't know what she's missing, everyone else is doing it, and there is surprisingly little chance she'll spontaneously explode. Yeah, right.
In a rush to end the movie, the producers kill off both original mutants, as well as every lead character except the hero and his girlfriend. Her fate is left unknown, but we are treated to a scene of our hero, decked out in the garish plastic outfits he found in the lab, returning to his cave to harvest more young people.
Maybe this movie symbolizes the struggle of youth to come to grips with the changes that adulthood brings. Maybe it's a story of how power can corrupt even the purest of souls. Perhaps it's an excuse to get young people semi-naked on film. Or maybe, just maybe, it's just a rotten stinker of a movie. You know where my vote will go.
As a result of this movie, Phil has been banned from our house for four weeks, followed by a six-month probationary period. If only we had sterner punishments for this kind of abuse.
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