(1983) zero stars
Loser brothers, Bob and Doug McKenzie blow their father’s beer money and are forced to quickly come up with a plan to replace it before the old man finds out. Naturally taking the path of least resistence, the two dopes attempt to cash in big time by fradulently pretending that they found a mouse in a beer bottle and demanding free beer from a liquor store. When told to take a hike, the two idiots go to the Elsinore brewery where their favorite beverage is manufactured. When presenting their mouse-in-a-bottle story once again, Elsinore management miraculously hedges their bets and gives the dummies jobs inspecting beer bottles for mice (picture the opening credits of Laverne and Shirley) as a way to avoid a lawsuit. Sigh, it was painful writing this much and I haven’t even described the main plot. Sigh.
The razor thin plot involves scene chewing Max von Sydow at his scene chewiest playing Brewmeister Smith, an evil scientist plotting to take over the world (you thought differently?) by lacing Elsinore beer with a powerful psychotropic, which has the marvelous effect of turning otherwise normal people into rageful attack dogs when they hear particular musical cues from a cheap synthesizer. As is always the cinematic case, Brewmeister Smith tests his formula on patients from the local mental institution, The Royal Canadian Institute for the Mentally Insane where for the millionth time mental illness is portrayed inaccurately and for laughs. Sigh. We see the effect of the rage drug when Brewmeister Smith has the mental patients don hockey garb and play a game while the ominous synthesizer tones cause them to beat each other silly (and I mean silly, it was such fake fighting)
More plot. Sigh. We learn that the former owner of the brewery was murdered and his daughter, Pam, has inherited the plant. Her uncle Claude, meanwhile, had married her widowed mother and does not wish to give up control of the brewery. Not surprisingly, Claude is in on the evil plot with Brewmeister Smith. Eventually Bob and Doug stumble onto this evil plan and after being framed for the murder of some employees and later committed to the mental institution, the brothers eventually escape to save Pam, and, more importantly, the day.
Strange Brew, like Wayne’s World (1992) and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) is another film about two losers accidentally saving the day. Based on a sketch from the excellent SCTV show (1976-1984), Strange Brew is as low budget as you can get. Most scenes take place in two or three settings, which could be forgiven if the film was remotely funny. Why zero stars? I didn’t laugh or even smile once through its painful 90 minutes. I remember watching this with Octo and Gary when we were 15ish and howling with laughter. We were idiots. Like Back to the Beach (1987), which also made Octo and I howl, Strange Brew has not aged well (or perhaps it was never funny to begin with). Worse, the script is just lazy. At one point Bob, donning a black hockey mask and pretending to be Darth Vader states, “Luke, I am your father” to which Doug states, “He’s seen Jedi like 17 times”. I mean, come on, everyone knows that line comes from The Empire Strikes Back! Hmmmm, The Empire Strikes Back.
Now I feel better because Boba Fett is awesome.
12 comments:
Man, I remember loving this as a kid too...maybe, I will let the memory live and make sure I never watch it again.
You did forget the best part of the set-up though, JPX. They put a mouse in their beer bottle to scam the beer company, but they put in a LIVE mouse...LOL, oh, the hilarity!
I also remember this more positively. But jpx and I are of different opinions on H&K too, I might have to revisit this to see if it holds up.
I've never seen this one either, but it sounds terrible. I hate those two brothers just from their pictures. I could punch them in the face.
What do you mean Back to the Beach doesn't hold up? It's been a long time, so I'll have to revisit that one.
I met Frankie Avalon once. I was like ten and super excited because I loved him at the time.
I've tried and failed twice to watch Strange Brew. The pictures alone brought back a slew of bad memories.
But correct me if I'm wrong - there's no mention of weed whatsoever in the film, right?
DISQUALIFIED!
Harsh, harsh, harsh, JSP, you're harsh! The poor guy suffered through this terrible movie. Let him have it or I'll start a Horrorthon revolt!
I knew that there wasn't any weed in this film going in but I decided that it was definitely in the vein of a stoner film. For those who are nostalgic about Strange Brew don't watch it, allow your memories to recall a better film than it is. It was an excruciating experience to get through.
Little known fact, Strange Brew was loosely based on Hamlet (very loosely).
That's too funny. That's right, "Elsinore," is the setting of Hamlet.
I'm still laughing, daughter "Pam" instead of son "Hamlet,” and uncle "Claude" instead of "Claudius," who also kills his brother and marries his widowed wife. Really, they should be shot for doing this, and I should be shot for saying this, but, JPX, I'm going to need to borrow Strange Brew from you to satisfy my compulsion of watching anything and everything remotely related to Hamlet, even this disaster.
I am the biggest SCTV fan you're ever going to meet. However, I never saw this movie because I couldn't bring myself to. I knew how bad it was.
The "Bob and Doug McKenzie" material on SCTV isn't just one sketch (or even a repeat sketch like "Wayne's World," to which it bears a more than superficial resemblance). SCTV didn't work that way. Instead, most of their regular characters existed in the same fictional space (like in comic book "crossovers"); and, even better, that fictional space was the imaginary SCTV Television Network (offices, studios, surrounding town etc.) in Melonville, USA. There was even a mayor of Melonville, the seemingly mentally impaired Tommy Shanks (John Candy) who would get frequent airtime for his incoherent "fireside chats." Unlike Saturday Night Live, SCTV (which was NOT live at all) therefore had a rigid structure: everything you see on the screen is either the "real" SCTV feed from Melonville or it's "The Office" style backstage scenes. It's perfect because they could cut into and out of sketches rapid-fire. So, Bob and Doug McKenzie (characters created solely because of Canadian broadcasting law that required each program to contain two minutes of "exclusively Canadian" material -- the McKenzie brothers are a cynical joke designed to satisfy that requirement in the most ridiculous possible way). They show up all the time as peripheral characters in a lot of the SCTV "backstage" material, always "about to do their show" or whatever. It's hilarious.
I love SCTV and I've been meaning to Netflix some episodes to see if it holds up. I recall it being much better than SNL.
More on Hamlet; the murdered father appears only on video sort of like a ghost who guides people to his murderer.
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