Showtime’s Emmy-winning, hour-long Masters of Horror
series, written and directed by some of the genre’s leading practitioners, has from
its inception married its predilection for macabre, spookiness and well-timed
gore with interesting topicality and sociopolitical inflections, as with John
Carpenter’s Pro-Life.
Another such piece was Joe Dante’s first-season offering Homecoming, which tackled the issue of the
war in somewhat controversial fashion. Now, with The Screwfly Solution, Dante (The
Howling, Gremlins) returns to the
series, tackling a conflict as old as time itself — the eternal rift between men
and women.
Blending social observation and satirical commentary with
the sort of budgeted horror mayhem that series fans have come to expect, The Screwfly Solution is adapted by Sam
Hamm, from James Tiptree, Jr.’s award-winning short story. It begins with an
unexplained outbreak of isolated homicides around the world, normal male sexual
urges suddenly transformed into violent rage. With the number of incidents on
the rise, a father-son pair of scientists, Alan (
Gould, most recently of Ocean’s Thirteen), find themselves locked
in a desperate race against time to figure out both how and why this war
between the sexes has turned murderous. Is a mysterious virus making every
red-blooded man a potential lady-killer? Could the extermination of all women
lead to the extinction of the human race?
in telling a story from a very focused and specific point-of-view, the
narrative conceit herein might be a bit too big, even though it’s framed in
such a fashion, with Kerry Norton (Battlestar
Galactica) co-starring as Alan’s wife Anne, as to make its stakes personal.
is much more graphic than Dante’s previous series entry, but the material seems to
dictate that. Some of the delight to be found in his usual light touch, though, is missed, if understandably not appropriate. Priestley and Gould are an interesting match, and each give good performances. If the piece’s wide-turn climax catches some off-guard, the worst that can be said is that the movie feels like it deserves a larger palette.
The Screwfly Solution’s DVD bonus
features include kick off with an audio commentary with Dante and writer Hamm, in
which they talk about the making of the movie, and adapting the short story’s
South American setting for production in Vancouver, but also discuss the state
of the horror genre and industry in general. A brief making-of featurette is
also included, while a segment entitled “The Exterminators” takes a more focused
look at the movie’s special effects. Rounding out matters are a DVD-ROM copy of
the screenplay and an image gallery. B+ (Movie) B (Disc)