Screwballs

Screwballs (1983)

Lately I’ve been on a kick to check out all the great 80s teen sex comedies that I remember growing up. I’m not sure that anyone who didn’t grow up in the 80s would really understand the status that seeing these movies granted you. If you managed to catch one of these, then the next day you were the center of attention at school as you retold all the best jokes and regaled everyone with the naughtiest bits. As I’ve gone back and checked these movies out I’ve been kind of disappointed in them. More often than not they don’t live up to what I remembered. Screwballs is one of these movies that actually still is funny, and ironically enough I don’t think that I had ever seen it before checking out my review copy from Severin films.

The story here is very simple and straightforward. The movie starts with 5 different guys getting detention. You have the jock, the rich kid, the masturbator, the nerd, and the new guy all ending up together being punished. In some way all of them ended up in trouble because of the school’s only remaining virgin, Purity Busch. So the 5 decide that before homecoming they will at least get to see her boobs! This sets up the rest of the movie, which is nothing more than a series of set pieces that involve plans that fail in their mission or them partying and having fun. The final set piece is of course them succeeding in a most spectacular way.

Okay I think we all need to be honest here. If you are looking for a fine piece of cinema or something that will stimulate your intellect you aren’t going to sit down and watch Screwballs. This movie is and was intended to be an over the top goofy fun. Like I’ve already said Screwballs delivers the goods and gives the audience what it wants. There is an impressive amount of female nudity on display, plenty of crude jokes (including the “classic” Ward weren’t you a little hard on the beaver line…), and great characters that are fun to watch run around on the screen. You would also think that in this kind of movie that the performances wouldn’t be that important. But you would be wrong. As absurd as some of the scenes in this movie are it still takes an actor or actors with some comedy chops to pull them off. Probably the best performance of the bunch is Alan Deveau as Howie (the nerdy one). He is a creepy little bastard, but a funny creepy little bastard!

One thing that you can say about Severin is that they do go all out these DVD releases. Included on this release is a great interview with the director of the movie, Rafal Zielinski. The interview is about 10 minutes long and talks about he became involved with the project. He also mentions a few of the rules that Roger Corman, who came up with ½ the money for the movie gave him in directing the movie. There is also a nice interview with the co-writers of the movie Jim Wynorski and Linda Shayne (who also plays Bootsie). Of course Wynorski is a pretty well known name in 80s cheesy movies (Chopping Mall rules!) and Shayne is nifty as well. There is a lot in their interview about where some of the scenes came from and what inspired them. Also there is a neat bit about working with Corman, who sort of pulled the rug out from under them after they had written the script. Also included are short interviews with Kent Deuters who starred in the movie and a Canuxsploitation expert talking about how the Canadian film industry spawned a movie like Screwballs and those that came after it. As you can tell some effort was put into creating special features for this long over due release of Screwballs.

Screwballs does what many of the Porky’s inspired teen sex comedies of the 80s failed to do. It is really freaking funny and should be a must see for fans. This is a nice addition to the already great catalog of Severin films. For more information check them out at http://www.severin-films.com/

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer