In her monthly column, “A to Z Trash,” bad-movie enthusiast Eliza Jansen presents the best parts of the worst movies of all time, in alphabetical order. This month, it’s a film she used to watch before bedtime: “Lawnmower Man,” a bewildering 1992 fable with biblical themes and some seriously outdated CGI.
During the darkest times of my life (so far!), Lawnmower Man was my go-to lullaby. I’d stumble home from a night out, unable to sleep due to some chemical, and I’d listen to it. The director’s cut is also a must-see; at a snooze-inducing 142 minutes compared to the theatrical cut’s 108, it opens with a chimp taking down some evil corporate drones with a handgun. It’s the perfect cinematic depression and hallucinogen all at once.
The film was originally titled “Lawnmower Man by Stephen King,” but King’s original fantasy short story was combined with director Brett Leonard’s original plot “Cyber God” and distorted beyond recognition. King sued the production company to remove his name from the psychedelic and unintentionally hilarious end result, but perhaps he was just jealous of “Lawnmower Man’s” unique vision of existential horror. No film adaptation of King’s work is as horrifying and mind-blowing as the sex scenes in this film, which we’ll discuss in more detail later.
The Lawnmower Man is a pre-Matrix, post-William Gibson take on Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon tale: a simple janitor who, through an experimental but degenerative procedure, triples his IQ, tasting the height of human intelligence only to have the side effect of brutally returning him to mediocrity. The test subject here is the euphemistically named Job (Jeff Fahey), a very Simple Jack kind of guy whose sole purpose in life is summed up in his job as a maintenance man in the film’s title.
While the biblical Job was tested by God, this Job receives a divine gift from Pierce Brosnan’s Dr. Angelo (Angel! Awesome!) and becomes God through a cursed process. Brosnan wears tiny gold earrings and plays the scientist dopey throughout the film. Fahey looks just like Trey Parker in a yellow jumper and blue overalls ensemble that makes him look like a deranged Minion. It’s impossible to take either seriously.
Brosnan’s brain-boosting technique is even more incredible, as the recipient dons an embarrassing full-body tactile gyroscopic constrictor and a VR headset, allowing complex learnings to be absorbed into the subconscious as he flies through a KidPix-level environment of bouncing spheres and rippling hypercolor skies. It’s a silly Windows 2000 screensaver perfect for blissful bliss, but it must be said that Fahey is surprisingly expressive in conveying the character’s evolution throughout the process. His face and vocabulary change with every ride on this silly machine. Like Adam, he’s now vulnerable to adult emotions like shame, and understanding grows in his eerily blue eyes. He inexplicably begins to feel his muscles tighten and sexual desires his once-childlike mind never contemplated. Oh my, this leads to an unforgettable scene of virtual sex.
Wanting to share his love in different ways, Jobe sneaks his love interest, Marnie (Jenny Wright), into Angelo’s lab, and the two spin around in a hilarious computer-generated void, their faceless avatars bumping and rubbing against each other. They melt together and transform into a conjoined dragonfly. Hot! It all goes horribly wrong when Jobe reveals that he’s advanced enough to dispense with the middleman in foreplay. He can read Marnie’s mind and tells her, “I love you so much.” [she] What Marnie really wants is for him to transform into an alien creature with a lamprey-like mouth and spit mysterious alien slime onto her writhing virtual body. The experience is existentially devastating for Marnie, or is it a reality-shattering orgasm? Her brain melts and she is left with just a limp, mute body hanging limp inside Angelo’s device. Not to blame the pervert, but this is one of the most upsetting things I’ve ever seen.
From there, Jobe’s guilt spirals into godlike madness. He uses his superhuman digital powers against Angelo’s bosses at Virtual Space Industries (a god in a machine raging against a machine), including taking down the director, a terrible performance by Dean Norris in an embarrassing half-British accent. By the time Lawnmower Man reaches its manic climax, with Brosnan and Fahey rendered as glowing mannequins in an eye-sore CGI room, you know it’s time for bed. I programmed this movie as the end of a long Halloween movie marathon, and when the time came, I easily shooed most of the remaining guests out the door. Put it on the lawn and go mow.
