Red Letter Media

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Favorite recurring character? (Select 4)

  • Jack / AIDSMobdy

    Votes: 257 24.0%

  • Josh / the Wizard

    Votes: 77 7.2%

  • Colin (Canadian #1)

    Votes: 460 42.9%

  • Jim (Canadian #2)

    Votes: 230 21.4%

  • Tim

    Votes: 386 36.0%

  • Len Kabasinski

    Votes: 208 19.4%

  • Freddie Williams

    Votes: 274 25.5%

  • Patton Oswalt

    Votes: 27 2.5%

  • Macaulay Culkin

    Votes: 541 50.4%

  • Max Landis

    Votes: 64 6.0%
  • Total voters
    1,073
Kids In the Hall: Brain Candy was a movie I remember seeing advertised as a kid and it sticks with me because "Brain Candy" was such an odd title.

I never saw it, but it looks like a wonderfully weird and fascinating slice of 90s culture, the whole look of the movie screams 90s and the gallows humor and cynical satire reflects the darker side of the sunny optimism of 90s culture, which the movie itself is satirizing.

It's more like someone made a period piece about 90s culture than an actual movie from the decade, it's too bad they didn't go with the darker ending as that would have made the movie amazingly prescient in correctly predicting that the sunny optimism of the 90s wouldn't last.
 
Dom Cruise said:
I never saw it, but it looks like a wonderfully weird and fascinating slice of 90s culture, the whole look of the movie screams 90s and the gallows humor and cynical satire reflects the darker side of the sunny optimism of 90s culture, which the movie itself is satirizing.
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It's an uneven movie, and even at their 90's peak KITH could be a bit too mannered, a bit too college smartass for some people. Like they were the They Might Be Giants of comedy, or something.

But it's a good movie, with good performances and a lot of funny lines in it, and it's way smarter and more daring than any of the SNL movies that followed it. It's as much a mid-90's time capsule as Clueless, but in a savagely cynical way that's more relevant now than it was in '96 - which already seems like a more innocent time.
kithdrugdealers.png
 
I forgot to mention that the plot of Brain Candy is remarkably similar to the Stephen King short story The End of The Whole Affair, another story where a seeming miracle cure that changes human behavior (but for violence instead of depression) has disastrous long term side effects.

Obviously one's comedy and one's horror but the plots are remarkably similar enough to where I wonder if any of The Kids in The Hall had read that story.
 
Patreon Update:

Hey everyone! We just shot a new Half in the Bag for the movie The Black Phone, recently released on VOD. We also did a pointlessly detailed breakdown of the new Rob Zombie Munsters trailer. We have a bit more to shoot for the wraparound of the episode and then we're also prepping to shoot a new Best of the Worst soon as well, featuring the return of a long-dormant gimmick!.
 
Introvertigo said:
Patreon Update:

Hey everyone! We just shot a new Half in the Bag for the movie The Black Phone, recently released on VOD. We also did a pointlessly detailed breakdown of the new Rob Zombie Munsters trailer. We have a bit more to shoot for the wraparound of the episode and then we're also prepping to shoot a new Best of the Worst soon as well, featuring the return of a long-dormant gimmick!.
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Oh my Gooooooood, Junka is back?!
 
Sexual Chocolate said:
It's as much a mid-90's time capsule as Clueless, but in a savagely cynical way that's more relevant now than it was in '96 - which already seems like a more innocent time.
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It's so interesting to me how anti depressants and their "over prescription" seemed to be such a 90s trope looking back. So many comedic digs at prozac and zoloft. Anti depressants had been around for decades prior. What was it about SSRIs in particular that made them such a target?
Introvertigo said:
Patreon Update:

Hey everyone! We just shot a new Half in the Bag for the movie The Black Phone, recently released on VOD. We also did a pointlessly detailed breakdown of the new Rob Zombie Munsters trailer. We have a bit more to shoot for the wraparound of the episode and then we're also prepping to shoot a new Best of the Worst soon as well, featuring the return of a long-dormant gimmick!.
Click to expand...
Oh thank god, that Munsters trailer was shit. I don't know what Rob Zombie was going for but I can't find a single thing that was working about that trailer.
 
frozenrunner said:
I could never really get into Kids in the Hall back in the day, but part of that was being a teenager and being weirded out by how fucking gay the show was. (Hey, it was the 90s.) The clips from the video were pretty funny. I should give them another chance.
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I wouldn't bother. The laugh track is intolerable, hearing it in 2022, and even some of the best bits haven't aged greatly. It was pretty good in the 90s but not worth revisiting.
 
Hybrid Icing said:
I wouldn't bother. The laugh track is intolerable, hearing it in 2022, and even some of the best bits haven't aged greatly. It was pretty good in the 90s but not worth revisiting.
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I thought it was a studio audience? Also, the filmed sketches and (some) of the monologues are still gold. And yeah, the show was super gay at times but unlike modern homo shit you were dealing with Thomson who knew the difference between lecturing/preaching to an audience and being able to make fun of his own sub-culture. It helps they were all funny.


Think about when that was made and consider A) how appropriate it is now and B) how the Canadian government media corporation would commit mass sudoku if that ever aired today.
 
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Brain Problems said:
I thought it was a studio audience? Also, the filmed sketches and (some) of the monologues are still gold. And yeah, the show was super gay at times but unlike modern homo shit you were dealing with Thomson who knew the difference between lecturing/preaching to an audience and being able to make fun of his own sub-culture. It helps they were all funny.


Think about when that was made and consider how A) how appropriate it is now and B) how the Canadian government media corporation would commit mass sudoku if that ever aired today.
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See, the Kids in the Hall weren't really comedians, but time-traveling documentary filmmakers.
 
KrewlKween said:
It's so interesting to me how anti depressants and their "over prescription" seemed to be such a 90s trope looking back. So many comedic digs at prozac and zoloft. Anti depressants had been around for decades prior. What was it about SSRIs in particular that made them such a target?
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Direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription medications (especially those that deal with mental illness) rose significantly during the 1990s, and regulations that were initially against this were eased around 1997. We're talking a budget increase from $55 million in 1991 to $664 million by 1998, but that's peanuts compared to how much they spend now. Comedians observed the increase in commercials and poked fun at it.
 
Brain Problems said:
I thought it was a studio audience?
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You're right. I said that wrong. Still, the studio laughs make it harder to enjoy the show today.

Brain Problems said:
Also, the filmed sketches and (some) of the monologues are still gold.
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Yep. But I dare you to sit down and try to make it through three episodes in one sitting.

I loved it then but it's a tough re-watch.
 
"The first 30 minutes of the movie is just kids swearing and beating the shit out of each others, and it was wonderful" - Jay Bauman
"We do not see child abuse on camera in movies anymore *applauses*. It's a film about family." - Mike Stoklasa
 
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