Meet the Applegates

Meet the Applegates
Directed by	Michael Lehmann
Written by	Michael Lehmann Redbeard Simmons
Produced by	Denise Di Novi
Starring	Ed Begley, Jr. Stockard Channing Dabney Coleman
Cinematography	Mitch Dubin
Edited by	Norman Hollyn
Music by	David Newman
Distributed by	New World Pictures
Release dates	November 1990 (Australia) February 1, 1991 (United States)
Running time	90 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$5 million
Box office	$485,772

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 and Neenah, Wisconsin. It has gained a cult following.

Plot

The film 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. At the end of the movie they return to their lives in Brazil, and are visited by the townspeople that grew to love them, although the plant did not blow up, enough radiation was released to remove the hair from much of the town's population.

A deleted scene reveals that Aunt Bea survived and still intends to destroy the world.

Cast

• Ed Begley, Jr. as Richard P. Applegate
• Stockard Channing as Jane Applegate
• Dabney Coleman as Aunt Bea
• Robert Jayne as Johnny Applegate
• Camille Cooper as Sally Applegate
• Glenn Shadix as Greg Samson
• Susan Barnes as Opal Withers
• Roger Aaron Brown as Sheriff Heidegger
• Lee Garlington as Nita Samson

Reception

The film was met with mixed reception.

External links

• Meet the Applegates at IMDb
• Meet the Applegates at AllMovie