Call me downright stupid, but I desperately want a big-budget version of Cannon Group’s 1980 anti-corporate, proto-surreal, biblically twinged, satanically dystopic, hard-rocking, soft sci-fi, neo-musical, The Apple, set in the distant year of … 1994.

That’s when I first heard about The Apple. Reading a snarky synopsis in a zine I can’t remember, I thought it was right up my weird alley. A decade later, I finally picked up a new copy at, can you believe it, the then-burgeoning Best Buy. Recently, selling old DVDs to Vintage Stock, I found this at the bottom of my collection and had to rewatch it. I truly liked it, more than I had in the past. Time heals all wounds, right?

The Apple uses the futuristic set designs of shopping centers, hotel lobbies and abandoned malls to create its 1994, where the spiritual fate of the world rests on the demonic visage of Mr. Boogalow (Vladek Sheybal), head of the music label BIM, which has its own theme song, “Do the BIM.”

Pre-American Idol, small-town Canuck kids Bibi (Catherine Mary Stewart) and Alphie (George Gilmour) appear on a futuristic talent program warbling the oh-so-syrupy “Universal Melody,” making them total superstars to the trend-swilling public. Well … one of them.

You see, Bibi is seduced by the voracious system, fully taken by the drugs, the sex and the unflattering costumes. Meanwhile, the virtuous Alphie eschews the whole system, writing protest songs nobody hears — probably the truest thing about this movie!

Something happens that makes the story even stranger: In between songs about how to “taste the apple” to make your dreams come true, Boogalow turns into Satan, small horns and gnashing teeth abound. Yikes!

Bibi becomes a total sellout in the period of two days. Although he’s tempted by the devil’s daughter (singing the sensuous, disco-fied come-on of “I’m coming … coming for you”), Alphie comes upon a hippie cult led by Mr. Topps (Joss Ackland), who is, to be sure, the Almighty.

As a matter of fact, Topps sings about a “child of love” and then, in his stately showroom-model Chrysler LeBaron, takes Bibi, Alphie and the rest of the commune to, I believe, Heaven. Praise be!

From its strained biblical allusions to Cannon’s low-budget way of depicting the apocalypse, The Apple is a PG-rated blend of Jesus Christ Superstar and Escape from New York. For a musical, the songs are the odd-man-out component; their lyrics are banal and the music substandard, but, I must admit, they’re also the biggest earworms I‘ve ever heard!

So, sure, the movie is pretty much “so bad it’s good” material, but perhaps it deserves more love — or, really, any love — so others can see what I can now see in The Apple.

And maybe we can start the campaign for a remake. Let’s all do the BIM! —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

When the A-bomb, the H-bomb or other weapon of mass destruction lands at your front door, chances are you are not going to have amped-up automobiles, musclebound warriors or underground shelters to wait out the remaining mutant feeders.

If pressing the button does happen, I probably will carry on until I finally die, with a slight cough, bloody sputum and a wheezing gait. Really, what else can I do?

That’s the frightening premise of 1983’s speculative Testament, more of a smaller, quieter film about the end of the world. Directed by Lynne Littman, it comes from a sliver of time when The Day After and Threads shocked viewers with stillborn suffering, unflinching sadness and incurable empathy in the wake of global tragedy.

Stay-at-home suburban mom Carol (Jane Alexander) and her three kids are alone when the news reports atomic bombs are dropping near their small California town. As the world is left reeling in the constant ordeal, she tries to keep her family and their structures going. The newlywed couple across the street welcomes a new baby, their elderly neighbor works on his SOS signals, and all the local kids perform a play about the Pied Piper.

At first, with their spirits high, it seems like it might work. But with no further news, messages or support, it doesn’t look good for them or their community. Food and supplies get low, the rats come in, Carol takes in a couple of kids whose parents died, and, eventually, the family succumbs to various illnesses that take Testament to a grounded, highly emotional level that really makes you feel something.

You would think movies like this would make people think differently about the end of the world, but, as we’ve seen the asshole Trump flirt with Armageddon so fervently, it’s like they truly want the world to end, seemingly unaware real people, real families and real communities would die or live this nightmarish scenario. I don’t think they care.

Testament, I believe, might happen sooner rather than later.  —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.