Taglines: Meet the new bugs on the block.
Meet the Applegates starts off in a forest with a family being attacked by a family of huge Brazilian Cocorada. It then moves to a typical-looking family moving into a well-off suburban Ohio neighborhood. They are the bugs that were seen earlier, after they took on human form and met every “normality” standard from the magazine Family Bazaar.
They moved to the suburbs after the husband, Richard, got a job at a nuclear power plant; he works there to one day cause an explosion that would rid the world of humans and let bugs be. But after a while they drift from its normalities — the son, Johnny, a straight-laced A student, begins listening to heavy metal and becomes a junkie; Richard and his wife, Jane, drift away from each other, he having an affair at work and she becoming attached to her credit card; lastly the daughter, Sally, becomes a pregnant lesbian after being raped by a jock from the high school.
They each show their true bug form at least once in the film—Johnny does while smoking marijuana with his metalhead buddies, Sally while being raped by the jock, Richard when infiltrating the nuclear plant, and Jane when two Family Bazaar agents come to their house. As they drift away from normality (and nearly been found out by the neighbors) their aunt, Bea, is sent to help. She becomes a nuisance and they decide she should be taken care of. Richard decides to not blow up the plant, and kills Bea instead.
Meet the Applegates is a 1990 American black comedy horror film directed by Michael Lehmann. It was filmed in 1989, but not released until 1991 due to the financial difficulties surrounding New World Pictures, the film’s production company. It takes a dark, satirical look at the end of the world, nuclear holocausts, alienism and terrorism. It was filmed in Oshkosh, Appleton and Neenah, Wisconsin. It has gained a cult following.
Meet the Applegates (1991)
Directed by: Michael Lehmann
Starring: Ed Begley Jr., Stockard Channing, Dabney Coleman, Robert Jayne, Camille Cooper, Glenn Shadix, Susan Barnes, Savannah Smith Boucher, Roger Aaron Brown
Screenplay by: Michael Lehmann, Redbeard Simmons
Production Design by: Jon Hutman
Cinematography by: Mitch Dubin
Film Editing by: Norman Hollyn
Costume Design by: Joseph A. Porro
Set Decoration by: Nancy Nye
Art Direction by: Kara Lindstrom, Adam Lustig
Music by: David Newman
Distributed by: New World Pictures
Release Date: February 1, 1991
Views: 100
