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Set in the early 1960s, with Kennedy in office, air raid drills frequenting schools and the Cuban Missile Crisis looming on the horizon, Gene Loomis (Simon Fenton) and his younger brother Dennis (Jesse Lee) have been forced to move again due to their father’s new blockade ship assignment, originated at an army base in Key West, Florida. Meanwhile, movie producer Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman) takes advantage of the public paranoia to market his new monster flick “Mant!,” about a man mutated with an ant thanks to atomic bomb radiation that “only screams can describe” – or so insists the tagline for the black-and-white shocker. The film-within-a-film stars Ruth Corday (Cathy Moriarty), a sardonic, irritated woman who is tired of playing the leading lady in Woolsey’s schlock, but can’t bring herself to leave him. Gene decides to woo Sandra (Lisa Jakub), a wise-beyond-her-years, forward-thinking girl, while his new friend Stanley (Omri Katz) pines over blonde Sherry (Kellie Martin), a teen who thinks she’s mature due to being easily influenced by rebellious, leather jacket-wearing, older ex-boyfriend Harvey Starkweather. While the CDE (Citizens for Decent Entertainment) tries to boycott the showing of Mant!, Woolsey hires several local children to assist with the premiere. All the teens in the town end up at the screening, where monster movie mayhem, an overzealous producer and a neurotic theater owner’s sporadic decisions culminate in disasters of the unplanned kind. |
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Goodman isn’t a typical leading man, but he does well at the head of a cast of youngsters who aren’t annoying and surprisingly not scripted with every stereotype and cliché for high school kids. His character is convincing as a take on William Castle, who directed such horror films as I Saw What You Did, 13 Ghosts, The Tingler, and House on Haunted Hill, and is notable for his ominous silhouette in a director’s chair puffing on a cigarette. Rather than being concerned with quieting the local hysteria, Woolsey decides to rig his theater with electric shock devices underneath the seats. He’s still from the school of thought wherein monster movies have a villain that can be defeated at the climax so viewers can feel relieved – but he also knows that it takes more and more to scare people, so resorting to creative tactics to supplement the visual frights is the logical next step. It’s still a far reach from what horror films have currently evolved into with imagery only. Matinee raises questions about moral decency in films, as well as allowing children to see questionable materials and letting them make their own decisions – that could turn them into delinquents. First Amendment rights, role models, negative influences, and “harmless” movie magic are examined with a light, flippant touch that fails to evoke genuine emotions, vocal laughs or suspense. Much of it is also designed strictly for avid ‘50s/’60s sci-fi/horror enthusiasts. Interestingly, juxtaposing a monster movie with the Cuban Missile Crisis, similar to Them! (1954) which played off of nuclear fears of that decade, is perhaps too deep for this screenplay, which is executed without passion, with faulty pacing and predicaments that are too dull, even for a family-friendly movie. The Mant! footage, however, comprises some of the best bits, cleverly utilizing puns galore, tributes to the actors/studios/fictional characters of such films, and spoofs of comparably low-budget, special effects-laden B-movies - while also paralleling the events unfolding in the real world of the ‘60s (despite being marketed to audiences of 1993). - Mike Massie |
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