Bad (1977) Online

Although Andy Warhol's association with this movie was merely nominal, the late Jed Johnson and his screenplay writers produced, (whether consciously or not hardly matters), one of the truly subversive masterpieces of American cinema. It is a more devastating critique of capitalism than any film ever produced by the so-called communist countries, and it forces us to face so many different issues, and ask ourselves just what we have collectively allowed our society to become. (Britain, by the way, is rapidly catching up in this respect; we usually trail the US by about five years in such matters!). It is too, one of the most strangely MORAL films, peopled, (with one exception), with characters so hideous, or selfish, or self-seeking, or ruthless, or just plain cruel, that empathy is thin on the ground, and yet the exception, (the docile, trusting, slightly naive, and conventionally "plain" and "square" Mary; was that name deliberately chosen for its symbolic value I wonder?), emerges as the true survivor, whose basic humane values are so cogently reflected in her closing line of the film, "Looks aren't everything". All the values that we are brainwashed into believing are "sharp", "hip" or "cool" are turned on their head, and even more amazingly, one of the ultimate messages that this remarkable film delivers, edges very close to an anarchist philosophy, that meaningful change and revolution has first to start with the individual, and that conventional "values" are hollow and riddled with hypocrisy if those espousing them are secretly pursuing hidden agendas of their own. (Step forward all the various "gate" participants of the last few decades..!). Certainly not a film for the squeamish, (how could the American ratings board or any caring parent allow children to watch such a movie?), but a film which I am sure the passage of time will show to be one of the most important American films ever. It really is that good! Technical credits are all outstanding too, (a brilliant score by the late Mike Bloomfield which fits the sleazy overall mood like a glove), and a performance from Carroll Baker that is worthy of an award. Approach this film with an open mind and some lateral thinking, and you too might discover that it is an unexpected revelation. A masterpiece!

"Andy Warhol's Bad" concerns a rapacious middle-age housewife in NYC who runs an electrolysis business and a murder-for-hire (with only female employees) business out of her home. There are various subplots, involving her hired assassins, their clients, and her mentally dull daughter-in-law who lives with her (and whom she cruelly exploits). Although often considered "camp", a la the films of John Waters, "Bad" is in reality more of a satire in the vein of "Gulliver's Travels". The critique is presents of contemporary, capitalist values in American society is right on target, so that the thoroughly unrealistic plot seems all too real. Even more, this film has perhaps the funniest, most original dialogue of any film ever made - you'll never forget the dangerously paranoid Brigid Polk (a.k.a., Brigid Berlin) and the two amoral sisters she hires to kill a dog. The acting, by both pros and Warhol superstars, is excellent. It even manages to successfully pull off the few moments of poignancy that are allowed in the bleak world it depicts (the assault on the dog and his owner, the final epiphany of L.T. when his empathy prevents him from killing an autistic child and his subsequent confrontation with Hazel). This is not a film for most people - it is far too pessimistic, brutal and graphic - but if you can stomach that, it is more than worth your while to see.

**SPOILERS** ANDY WARHOL'S BAD is not as disgusting or outrageous as, say John Waters' PINK FLAMINGOS or Pasolini's SALO, but it still ranks up there among the most disturbing and unpleasant movies ever made. While usually referred to (and marketed) as a comedy, it's a satire along the lines of Todd Solonz's HAPPINESS--there's humor, but of the extremely dark variety, the kind you laugh at only because you'd otherwise scream.

The story itself is as sleazy as they come. A bored housewife (Carroll Baker) runs an electrolosis business out of her Long Island house. In addition to that, however, she occasionally hires young women to commit various acts of vandalism, assault or murder for paying clients. The movie opens with a relatively mild example of this, when a girl enters a scuzzy midtown diner, overflows the toilet and trashes the place.

However, the darker side of Baker's business slowly surfaces as we soon witness acts of cruelty which are difficult to watch: a man's legs are crushed underneath the gears of a garage lift, a dog is stabbed repeatedly, and, in the movie's infamous highlight, an incessantly crying baby is hurled from a high rise window. This scene is chillingly grotesque, yet is followed immediately by a goofy joke (a mother yells at her son as they walk by, "That's what I'm going to do to you if you don't shut up!"). Whether or not you find that funny will pretty much determine your feeling about the whole movie--either it's a devilishly clever satire or a hideously immoral sick joke. Maybe it's both.

A subplot involves Baker hiring her first male hit-person (Perry King, in one of his best performances) to kill an autistic boy of whom the mother has grown tired. There's also an interesting scene between King and hit-girl Stefania Cassini (from SUSPIRIA and BLOOD FOR DRACULA). Also in the cast is Susan Tyrrell as Baker's dim-witted and clueless daughter-in-law, whom Baker treats like garbage. More sensitive viewers may find the use of a down-syndrome baby in the role of Tyrrell's child unsettling.

Overall, ANDY WARHOL'S BAD is as sick and depraved as it's reputation would suggest, but it's well-written and well-acted, with some clever and biting satirical elements. It's more similar in tone and theme to Warhol's early underground films than the in-name-only FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA films by Paul Morrissey. BAD was also the first "Warhol" movie in several years in which Warhol was actively involved in the production. While there's lots of sex talk, there's very little nudity (although we do get a nice look at Cassini's bare buns). But there's some graphic violence and rough dialogue that will likely turn off even jaded viewers.

Like Joel Reeds vastly inferior BLOODSUCKING FREAKS or Carl Reiner's cult classic WHERE'S POPPA, ANDY WARHOL'D BAD has actually grown MORE shocking and disturbing than when it was initially released. While it's certainly not for everyone, it's worth checking out for those who enjoy the occasional sick movie.

"Andy Warhol's Bad" is probably one of my top ten favorite comedies. Imagine a John Waters movie and make it ten times more offensive! Great stuff! This is quite a turn from director Paul Morrissey's underground improvisation opuses, but isn't a bad change.

Carroll Baker is great as Hazel Aiken, a lady who runs an electrolysis clinic in her home and a murder-for-hire business on the side, utilizing only female killers (save for new employee Perry King). Baker is fabulous and reminded me of Kathleen Turner in "Serial Mom", just without the constant happiness. Susan Tyrell is great as Hazel's daughter-in-law Mary, who spends her life residing in Hazel's house caring for her baby. Always looking frumpy and whiny, Tyrell is hilarious! I see now why John Waters seeked her out for a part in "Cry-Baby"! Perry King is a painfully obvious Joe Dallesandro replacement. Reportedly Dallesandro turned down the part for work in Europe, which unfortunately didn't lead to anything that helped his career. He would have been perfect here and would have acted with/had another sex scene with one-time girlfriend Stefania Casini (they had worked together in "Blood for Dracula"). Casini's Italian accent is thankfully left intact and is very sexy as a redheaded assassin. Also making an appearance is early Warhol regular Brigid Polk as Estelle, a bitchy fat lady who wants cop Lawrence Tierney's dog killed for something he said about her weight! Jane Forth is almost unrecognizable as a screaming passerby who is splattered with blood when a woman throws her baby out the window! As you can tell from these examples, "Andy Warhol's Bad" is not for everyone. For those with a very broad taste in humor and those not easily offended.

Andy Warhol's final factory film production caused quite a hoo-hah when released in the UK back in the seventies, with the tabloid press running shock-horror stories about its content, especially the scene where the baby is thrown from the tower block window. Yet Bad is more than an exercise in bad taste - although it was clearly influenced by the work of John Waters - it's rather an anatomy of the social and ethical consciousness which Capitalist society creates in its citizens.

Hazel (a stupendous performance from Carroll Baker) is a middle-aged woman with a daughter-in-law on welfare who runs her own business: she gives electrolysis treatment as well as running a hit firm from her kitchen! What makes the film's portrait of Hazel and her milieu so extraordinary is that her money-making schemes are shown to be perfectly ordinary, reasonable and even morally equivalent; there's little difference between removing someone's unwanted body hair and removing a person who irritates or annoys them from their life. The most striking aspect of Hazel's routine of hit jobs - effected mostly by dumb young women, task-orientated as the Protestant work ethic has trained them to be - is that so many of the hits involve parents disposing of their unwanted offspring because there's something wrong with them, they get in the way of their comfortable lifestyle. The film shows the final product of late Capitalism's insistence on the consumer's right to their own lifestyle just as they want it once they've fulfilled their task of being a productive, money-earning citizens.

The people in Bad are stupid, petty, vindictive and, when they can get away with it, lazy. This form of consciousness is epitomised by Perry King's L.T., a wandering hunk who Hazel (who would prefer to employ women) promises a hit job. L.T. lolls around Hazel's house, masturbating over porn mags, laughing over the cruelties of daily life, arguing with Hazel and generally just waiting for someone to give him something to do; he's eye-candy but seemingly completely without any volition to create a life of his own. Yet at the moment of crux, when he is called upon to kill an autistic child whose mother wants to share more quality time with its father, L.T. refuses the job, his humanity somehow re-asserting itself. Elsewhere in the film, Hazel's mentally challenged daughter-in-law has mouthed protests against the immorality - but her dumb Cassandra act and L.T.'s sudden sense of revulsion against the prevailing nihilism are merely jerks of a dead human spirit, barely registering as more significant on the level of narrative-importance than someone committing an act of pyromania at a cinema, attacking a neighbour or getting some hair removed from your back.

Bad underplays its nihilistic scenes - the evils portrayed are banal and quotidian. It's horrifying portrait of a humanity reduced to spite, casual violence and idiot babbling is all the more shocking for it feeling, as a filmed portrait of daily life, more accurate a depiction of how people are than most Hollywood films ever achieve. It also feels very now - the people who populate Bad have multiplied throughout the Western world. Andy Warhol's final film makes you wish that more crazed, sarcastic, bitchy, ironic millionaire artists would plough their money into making films of their vision...

This is one of my favorite films. Such a great parody about "good" and "evil". Carroll Bakker is outstanding. It also gives some great insights as to what it was like to live in NYC in the late 1970s. Fantabulous! It's a story about a mom who does odd jobs for the mafia. She "opens the channels between you and a client." The jobs range from messing up a bathroom in a diner, to killing a dog for a vicious lesbian. In the end though, her karma catches up with her. She always uses women to do her dirty work, and the one time that she uses a (hot) male who she's sexually attracted to, her entire world falls apart. Women are easier because they are inherently more vicious. Please watch this film. It's an outstanding slice of life movie.

Andy Warhol's Bad or should it be Jed Johnson's Bad, is fascinating for the very fact that the film was released. Also for Carroll Baker's performance as Mrs. Aiken, a woman who runs a hair removal business out of her kitchen.

Baker's performance makes Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest look like a harmless little kitten. What fun it would be to see the two of them in a fight! The film seems to be made to appear as a low budget film but in fact is probably the most sophisticated of Warhol films. Baker's acting is superb and she probably has the best dialogue.

The other characters you won't forget for a long time. Oddly, Perry King's performance and character is the most bland. In fact, all of the males here are bland. It is the women that stand out.

Here is a harsh, brutal look at life in Queens when a woman or women have to come up with creative ways to make a buck. This is about mean people who no longer care about law or anyone who tries to adhere to law or impose any moral code whatsoever.

Kill or be killed. One of my favorite films but certainly not for everyone!

"Bad" speaks to those of us who like to voyeuristically revel in wickedness for its own sake. This film is filled with abuse that good people everywhere proclaim they are incapable of fathoming. It is the realm of sick people with evil imaginations that prey on the weak, homely, helpless. However, because it is cinema, "Bad" should be viewed with a discerning mind. It is very funny at times to watch human folly in all its excesses. This film takes "bad" human behaviour to the extreme. It is camp that very much resonates in the same spirit as "Pink Flamingos" and "Meet the Feebles". This film will upset those who take themselves far too seriously. Without a sense of humour, the prospective viewer will be lost in a self-righteous fever.

It's fair to say that "Bad", the final film produced by Andy Warhol's studio, is not for everyone.

Hazel Aiken (Carrol Baker) is a New York housewife who runs an electrolysis clinic from her home, as well as running an all-female "murder for hire" business. Her life is complicated by the arrival of boarder LT (Perry King), who is waiting for the call for his first contract killing.

The film is loaded with offensive scenes, including a mother throwing her unwanted baby out of the window of a skyscraper. However there is a strange morality to the film, which explores a world completely without morality, where life is completely meaningless. The film is full of deeply dark humour. This was the most expensive of Warhol's films, and may be his most accessible. If you're a fan of cult film-maker John Waters, you'll probably love this. In fact, this is one of the great cult movies. Recommended to people with strong nerves and stomachs.

I've just watched the DVD of "Andy Warhol's Bad" manufactured by Cheezyflix. Their Statement of Purpose, before the film begins, informs us that they specialize in films with only the poorest of production values, direction, acting, scripts, etc.

I have always considered "Andy Warhol's Bad" to be a film of considerable merit; an indictment of our sick society that was ahead of it's time, with strange performances befitting the characters, a literate script with the darkest humor I had ever encountered, fine direction, cinematography, and production design. In the Spring of 1977 I first saw this film at the Filmex Film Festival in Los Angeles. This festival was hardly the type to show the caliber of trash Cheezyflix specializes in. (Filmex premiered Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" the same year.) I also recall that Vincent Canby, in his New York Times review, was very respectful of "Andy Warhol's Bad".

I am appalled that Cheezyflix has this film in their inventory. How unjust that the typical Cheezyflix audience, that takes pleasure in ridiculing inept, inane films, is now being encouraged to regard "Andy Warhol's Bad" as something to demean.

The measuring stick of dark comedy. Subtle, yet outrageous. A despicable work of art. This is Andy Warhol's Bad. Meet Hazel, Hazel appears to be a regular house wife. She runs a beauty salon out of her house, she also lets her sick mother, and morbidly depressed, freshly dumped, daughter-in-law, live with her. Hazel also let's young ladies who need a place to live, stay there too, for a little extra money. The thing is, they're all going through Hazel, acquiring jobs as hit women, to do anything from vandalizing buildings to murdering unwanted infants. You see, Hazel really likes money. One of Hazel's young ladies has a friend named L.T. (not played by Joe Dallesandro), L.T. is broke and needs a "job". Hazel doesn't usually hire guys, but what the hell. So she lets L.T. stay for a few days, to wait for the job to come through, although there will be plenty of rent money due. L.T. is a lazy smart-ass, and Hazel's non-existent patience quickly runs thin with this mooch. Meanwhile, we the viewer are subject to one offensive, gruesome, and often humorous crime after the other. Bad also includes hot women like Carroll Baker, and Stefania Casini, hilarious dialogue, and were even given the pleasure of a couple cameo's by Adam Sorg from Color me Blood Red, as Hazel's insignificant, discouraged-looking husband. There isn't one character in Bad that isn't either evil, or miserable. Even the cop has bad intentions. Everything in this movie revolves around either money, revenge, or simply causing someone misery because it's funny. The Highlights of Bad include a very dry-humored, mean-spirited, Hazel, and her lonely, whipped puppy-dog of a daughter-in-law, and let's not forget the spiteful racist, Estelle, an outlandish hog of a woman, just looking for a fight. Calling Bad politically incorrect would just be silly at this point. Bad is the first, as well as the last Warhol Film that wasn't directed by Paul Morrissey. Thus film has a different feel all together, Bad doesn't have that improvised charm of a Morrissey/Warhol, but is more determined to shock than ever. If you've never seen a Warhol, it's probably best to start with this one, then Trash, if you like that one, Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula will definitely impress. They say Bad has something to offend everyone, a lot of us have seen more offensive than this, but as far as dark comedies and cult films in general go, Bad is among the elite. As far as I'm concerned, they should have called this movie Andy Warhol's Awesome. 9/10

If you're not sure what irony is, imagine a housewife in Queens running a legitimate electrolysis shop while also running an illegitimate "murder for hire" operation. But Hazel Aiken's real pet peeves are using off color references (toilet talk) in her kitchen or after deliberately scattering broken glass, sets up her male boarder to walk barefoot through it, threatening him if he gets blood droplets on her rug. Orchestrating the murders of auto mechanics, babies and dogs is just part of a days work. Carroll Baker is perfect is the self-absorbed Hazel Aiken who prefers using women to carry out these dastardly deeds. It is only after she breaks from tradition and hires L.T (Perry King) as her newest recruit, do things go astray. Every job is bungled. Hazel's homely, depressed and poor daughter-in-law (Susan Tyrrell) is the only soul with a conscience in this dark but funny flick. Of all the "underground" Wahhol movies, this would be considered closest to "ground level". It also stars Brigid Berlin (then Brigid Polk), Cyrinda Foxe, Mary Boylan, Stefania Casini, Charles McGregor and a list of lesser known "Warhol" affiliates. It's a "must see" for those who appreciate the offbeat.

Deviant behavior abound in the Andy Warhol produced warped black comedy about a penny-pinching suburban housewife who rents out rooms to girls who agree to kill people(or dogs, if the job calls for it)! The assignments can be a bit grotesque such as stabbing a retired cop's beloved pooch, a crying baby,crushing the legs of an illegal who pushed a guitarist into a moving subway train resulting in dismemberment, suffocating an autistic child, etc.

I think one has to be in a particular mindset to watch a mother chunk her baby out an apartment window just to save cash on paying her hit woman while it splatters blood on a passersby as it hits the sidewalk below! Caroll Baker's character cares nothing about what her lodgers do except that she gets paid. Susan Tyrell steals the film as a pathetic wallflower, daughter-in-law to Baker, who seems to be the only one with any moral compass whatsoever. Perry King is a lech with no redeeming qualities, awaiting the call to kill the autistic child..he seems perfectly able to fulfill his task, but once it's go time, he weakens, perhaps showing that he isn't a completely cruel person, just more or less obnoxious. I think one must have an appreciation for this kind of demented humor as it features characters who are morally dubious. Stefani Casini(Suspiria)has a funny cameo as a hit woman who likes to ridicule and abuse Tyrell just for the hell of it, and removes a victim's finger so she can stuff it in Baker's ketchup bottle! The film also features two sisters, Glenda and Marsha(Geraldine Smith & Maria Smith), who like to play kinky sex games when they aren't mutilating dogs for an easily agitated client(Brigid Berlin)with uncontrollable body gas. Glenda is a pyromaniac who sets fire to a theater-house(killing 14 people!)and a car the sisters steal. Caroll also performs electrolysis treatments(hair removal)in her home and must contend with an unhinged cop always calling(or stopping by the house)to demand she supply him with killers to arrest after a homicide as a means to keep him happy! I think BAD will be accepted more by fans of trash who enjoy stuff directed by John Waters, where characters show a tendency to be psychotic in a cold-blooded manner, with little conscience or guilt for their actions. We see an ugly side to people who wish to be rid of annoyances which leave them unhappy..so miserable they will have people kill for them in order to do so. The humor is performed straight, unlike something you might see in a Water's film, but it doesn't make the acts presented any less shocking(if anything seeing a woman toss her child out a window to it's death with little expression or concern is even more shocking and potent than if it were Divine!).

Although the direction credit officially goes to Jed Johnson (may he r.i.p.), the actuality is a bit different.

In fact, the film was directed by Andy Warhol himself. Jed was in charge of lighting and interiors (He was credited as editor/producer in prior Warhol productions.) Andy was concerned with bolstering his lover's career, therefore the numerous credits.

Jed established a successful interior decoration business in NYC after their break-up.

Jed brought his skills to the plate, for which he will be greatly remembered in NYC and elsewhere.

"Bad" was one of the most offensive, hilarious and brilliantly written films I saw in the 70's. Carroll Baker puts forth an incredibly bland, sarcastic performance as a housewife with a clan of hit women on the side (hey, a woman's gotta pay the bills). My only misgiving about the film was Perry King never made a very good Joe Dallesandro, and I got the feeling while I was watching it Warhol and Johnson were doing everything they could to replicate him. The saddest thing about this film is that after waiting for years for it to show up on DVD, it's finally been presented in such poor, dismal quality that it's almost not worth watching. Why would a company called CheezyFlicks release this, and release it in such poor shape? This needs a better release, as well as a remaster, so it can really be appreciated. What they've done to this classic film is a real shame.

A tough middle-aged woman, Carroll Baker, does electrolysis out of her home and runs a female-assassin service on the side. Enter a studly male lodger, Perry King, who joins the band of cold-blooded vixens and... this intoxicating indie follows the nightlife of the sick and twisted throughout New York city as they: drop a car on a mechanic, beat up an old man (Lawrence Tierney) and his dog, toss a crying infant out a window, plan the murder of an autistic child, and hang around talking about nothing.

This isn't a great so-bad-it's-good flick, but then again it's not a terrible b-movie (or rather, d-movie) either. Real actors deliver lines professionally, making you forget the anemic budget. And you'll be tempted several times to stop watching... the adventure gets trudgingly-painful, especially when the storyline centers on Susan Tyrrel giving another purposefully-annoying (though hypnotic) performance; and many of the perfectly-pointless diatribal-conversations drag on way too long.

But by the very end... As blues guitar icon Mike Bloomfield's pornesque instrumental rendition of "You've Got The Cutest Little Baby Face" plays (like in the opening credits)... You'll realize that what you experienced, for better or worse, was some really weird, and very original, stuff.

Bad, also known as Andy Warhol's Bad, is directed by Jed Johnson, the editor of the two better known films to feature the great artist's name; namely, Blood for Dracula and Flesh for Frankenstein. Like the aforementioned titles, this one features a similar trashy and sleazy atmosphere and while it doesn't benefit from as strong a plot, Bad is still lots of fun and is likely to delight fans of the genre. The title, while seemingly unimaginative, is actually very fitting as while the film is not 'bad' for those who like this sort of thing - it certainly is in very bad taste! The plot is rather wayward and at its centre focuses on a beauty salon which is ran by Hazel from her house. However, it would seem that this business does not bring in enough money so Hazel is also running a sideline in hit jobs, which she has carried out by women who work for her. Things are shook up a little when a young man arrives in town looking for work and ends up getting to stay at Hazel's house and she decides to use him on a hit, despite the fact that she prefers to use women.

Bad doesn't follow a particular plot narrative, and instead focuses on a number of individual characters and basically relies on them to make something happen, which they often do and the result is a film that stays interesting for most of it's duration. The film stars Umberto Lenzi favourite Caroll Baker in the lead role and while it's not a great performance, she certainly does fit the tone of the film. There's no role for Joe Dallesandro but Perry King takes up that area of the film and doesn't do anything that couldn't have been done by Joe. The film is categorised as a comedy and it is rather funny at times, but the humour is extremely black and the film is not a laugh a minute either. It soon becomes clear that the film is not really going to go anywhere and indeed the ending doesn't really wrap very much up although it does contain one of the best moments of the film. Overall, Bad is certainly not for everyone; but it's a definitely worth a look if you caught the other two films baring Andy Warhol's name. Recommended!

It may have had the biggest budget of any Andy Warhol film but you'd never know it based on the crude production values of BAD. Nevertheless, this is a fun and frequently very funny movie. Carroll Baker, in a role reportedly turned down by Shelley Winters, is terrific as an electrologist/assassination broker who has her hands full with a useless husband, sickly mother and crazy daughter-in-law. Baker is a thief, sadist and racist. One of the film's highlights has her trying to rip off a blind newspaper peddler. Baker's "girls" are a mixed bag of pyromaniacs, dog-killers and overall mayhem- makers. Stefania Casini is the best, and most creative, of the lot. She overkills her victims and terrorizes Susan Tyrell, who plays Baker's shrill daughter-in-law. It's unlikely that Warhol had anything to do with BAD and it's closer to one of John Water's mid-career films like POLYESTER but it's still a lot of fun. Brigid Polk, nee Berlin, is a standout as one of Baker's more ornery customers.

I've only watched a few of Warhol's films but BAD now joins FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN (1973) and BLOOD FOR Dracula (1974) in being the most interesting examples of his work (so far, anyway), if still not exactly good cinema!

Tacky in presentation and patchy in effect, the film is tasteless enough to keep one watching - sometimes incredulously - till the very end; Mike Bloomfield's pounding score helps, too. Carroll Baker seems comfortable enough with her unusual (to say the least!) role - though she had cut her teeth in Italian cult films during the previous decade. The rest of the cast is eclectic, if not especially rewarding: Perry King, Susan Tyrrell (playing a simple-minded ugly duckling who's been left stranded with a child suffering with Down's Syndrome!), Stefania Casini and Lawrence Tierney. The first three appear as temporary residents in Baker's house - a hair-removing business indulging in criminal activities on the side! - while Tierney is one of their victims (or, rather, its master as the target was actually his dog!). Baker utilizes several colorful killers for her alternately anarchic and murderous jobs: King is a wastrel, while Casini (who comes off best, despite struggling with the English dialogue) is a tough foreign broad, for instance; among others, there is also a memorable sister act - one of whom is a pyromaniac.

Among the film's most hilarious - or, should I say, horrifying - sequences: a young one-armed man reacting passively to Casini's killing of the mechanic responsible for his disability; a journalist reporting a fire in a cinema, which left 14 people killed, saying that one should thank God that the film being shown was a Hispanic release with limited appeal - as, otherwise, the number of victims would have been far greater!; and, particularly, three scenes involving violence perpetrated on children: a jaw-dropping yet hysterical one where a distraught mother callously throws her crying toddler out the window of a tall building, splashing bystanders with its blood (the baby itself is then voyeuristically shown splattered on the pavement)!!; another in which King punches a retarded boy several times - and even throws him across the room - in order to make sure of his condition, but still can't bring himself to 'execute' him; and the end sequence when Baker's body is discovered by Tyrell who, in her amazement, lets go of the baby (which comes tumbling down to the floor).

One last thing; "Leonard Maltin's Film Guide" erroneously lists this as having been made in 1971 - but that's quite impossible since, at one point, Tyrrell's character is asked what was the last film she watched and the reply comes that it was "that Watergate thing" (alluding obviously to ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN [1976])!

I finally watched Andy Warhol's Bad, from 1977, which I've had on DVD for years without running - yikes! Felt like I needed a shower when it was done --- it reminded me a bit of early John Waters, but with more bitter and less wit. I almost turned it off a few times - I especially can't handle violence against animals - but then I'd catch some Mike Bloomfield soundtrack music or hear a great line and decide to stick it out.

I've seen Carroll Baker from the original Lolita get pretty scuzzy in other movies late in her career, but this one was a shocker. And what a trip to see Susan Tyrell - who I just recently watched in the early Oingo Boingo brothers cult flick Forbidden Zone - as the lone "good guy" in the whole flick (well, until she drops her mongoloid baby in shock from finding Baker's corpse).

I think I get what the movie is saying RE rampant (& seemingly contagious) immorality overtaking both decency and sanity, especially circa '77 NYC (a cesspool indeed), but I find like-minded movies such as Jules Feiffer's Little Murders, those cynical Death Wish and Magnum Force movies (and even The Warriors) were far less abhorrant (and less abberrant) in the way they portrayed the psycho decline of civility and civilization.

Of the three Warhol films I have seen,(Frankenstein, Dracula, and Bad), this is definitely the most entertaining. The humorously grim story and unforgettable cast of crazies should make this a favorite in anyone's camp/cult collection. For fans of John Waters and anyone seeking to view a film made way outside the mainstream!

I just watched "Andy Warhol's Bad" for the first time in 40 years, and it didn't disappoint.

I originally saw it at a midnight showing in late 1977 at the U. of Minn. with a raucous crowd, and we all hooted and hollered at various points. This time, I watched a DVD all by myself, and I was grimacing (in a good way) rather than hooting and hollering. This movie is still dark and shocking all these years later.

It was Warhol's attempt at a Hollywood-sized movie with a bigger budget to work with, but it's still filled with Warhol mid-70's "scene- sters" trying to act in supporting roles. However, three real actors (Carroll Baker, Perry King & Susan Tyrell) are the leads, and they all do fine work. And kudos to the late Charles McGregor, a 70's Blaxploition stalwart who plays a really creepy, crooked, "slacker" cop in his final role. He was excellent as well.

I kept waiting for the ***SPOILER ALERT*** "baby out the window scene", and it shows up late to churn your stomach in a thousand knots.

Check it out if you're looking for something a little different from a "blast from the past" movie.

This isn't so much a comedy that makes you laugh as a comedy that makes you snicker. There is almost no funny dialogue, nothing amusing and the acting is mostly horrendous. That said, I enjoyed the movie very much. I wish it didn't look like the sets were lit by candles (you can't see anything) and I wish Carroll Baker were let loose a little more - her flicking a cigarette at her husband was a highlight for me. Tyrrell is mostly around only to be tortured and Perry King just sits around and argues with Baker. Those easily offended might want to catch a re-run of "Touched by an Angel" instead.

In John Waters' brilliant book "Shock Value," he writes the following: "One must remember, there is such a thing as good bad taste and bad bad taste. It's easy to disgust someone; I could make a ninety-minute film of people getting their limbs hacked off, but this would only be bad bad taste and not very stylish or original." And there you have it. "Bad" is pretty much a ninety minute film of people getting their limbs hacked off (figuratively, of course). It's designed for people who think they're "cool" to laugh at the acts of cruelty and violence.

Andy Warhol must have thought he was on a roll after lending his name to Paul Morrisey and Antonio Margheriti's brilliant yet deranged "Flesh for Frankenstein" and Morrisey's outstanding follow-up "Blood for Dracula," but Warhol wisely stopped letting people use his name after this one.