Feature

Terribrill: MAC And Me

Ali

7th August 2011

Forget Super 8: there was only one alien invasion movie worth seeing last night, and it didn't have a train crash in it - hell, it was a train crash.

Having built a writing career on reviewing terrible movies no one else would touch with a bargepole, I'm well-equipped to appreciate and celebrate truly awful films. Far from being part of the Ironic Appreciation Society (with their Thundercats t-shirts and their posters of The Blob, which they haven't seen), I believe there's a handful of films so unspeakably awful, they transcend quality and take on a whole new lease of life as fascinating case studies. Hence our Terribrill series.

Say hello to MAC And Me. The Prince Charles Cinema thought it worthy of their Good Bad Movie Club, and I'm not about to argue with them. I've heard a lot about this film, mostly because it's a shameless E.T. rip-off but also because it has levels of product placement that would shame a Michael Bay movie. But nothing - and I mean nothing - can prepare you for just how totally, amazingly awful MAC And Me is.

Firstly, claims that it's an E.T. imposter are accurate - even though it was released six years after Steven Spielberg's timeless masterpiece, it looks approximately eight thousand times worse. It's about a kid who befriends an alien from outer space, but even though E.T. was funny-looking and mysterious, he had character and was capable of expressing emotions.

Whereas MAC looks like an Ian Hislop waxwork left out in the sun.

"Hey guys, design sent over the cute alien puppet, it sh-OH MY GOD."


What an ugly, godless, lipless freak. They should find whoever was responsible for thinking this was an acceptable design for a kid's movie and add him to the sex offenders register. Jesus, I mean... look at it. It looks like an aborted foetus who deserved it. It could be something HR Giger designed when he was hung over. Guillermo del Toro would veto him for being too creepy. If a human fucked a Yoda, this would be the result.

Naturally, MAC's abhorrent physical appearance makes the supposedly 'heart-warming' relationship between him and disabled kid Eric hard to comprehend. Imagine if your young son found a scorched, hairless, one-eyed doll with a rat living inside it in the sewer, then said he wanted to be friends with it. You'd kick it over the nearest fence and move house immediately.

This was all in the days before you could create a CGI alien buddy for your child actor to act badly alongside. Unfortunately, MAC represents a failure on every level of practical effects (or EFX, as it reads in the credits). His misshapen eyes are incapable of blinking, which means conversations with him soon take on the qualities of a chat with an inmate behind a perspex window who's made it obvious he wants to kill you when he gets out.


What's more, his terrifying mouth, like a little puckered asshole, never changes shape. This means MAC is incapable of expressing any emotions whatsoever and is limited to sitting, swaying menacingly and whistling - even though he has no lips to purse. No lips you can see, anyway. Christ knows what his innards look like when his outards are so grotesque.

Then there's MAC's family, who get lost in the desert at the start of the movie and have to find their way back to their little mongoloid baby. Needless to say, scenes in which these malnourished freaks sway wordlessly through the desert in silhouette are absolutely fucking terrifying. I've had peyote freak-outs that left fewer psychological scars.

Upon uploading this picture, my computer started screaming.


And then there's the product placement. Oh, the product placement. Actually, I'm not sure if this is technically product placement at all, because there has to be a line somewhere when a movie stops being a movie and technically becomes an extended advert.

These aren't just scenes of subtle brand inclusion: MAC And Me basically has a plot that revolves around the consumption of the following brands.



Eric the disabled kid eats Skittles and leaves packets around his bedroom with the logo strategically placed towards wherever he thinks the camera would be if anyone ever made a movie out of his life. Naturally, when MAC is stillborn into our world, Eric feeds him Skittles and finds out, wouldn't you know it, MAC loves Skittles too. Who wouldn't love Skittles, they're a wonderful confectionery and come in all the colours of the rainbow!



Don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that Coke appears in almost every shot of the movie. There must be several dozen cans of the stuff around the household, so either Eric's mum works for Coca-Cola, or she doesn't give a solitary shit about her childrens' sugar intake. Considering she lets Eric chomp on Skittles morning, noon and night, we're going with option B.

The filmmakers explain the constant inclusion of Coca-Cola by having MAC get addicted to it; Eric, apparently an expert on interplanetary dietary requirements as well as an annoying little shit, says "It must be like what he drinks on his home planet!" Several times, drinking Coke brings MAC and members of his family back to life. Because the great taste of Coke brings out the best in you!



MAC And Me is essentially a thinly-veiled advert for McDonald's. Characters drop casual mentions of McDonald's sandwiches and products into conversation. The sister of one of the main characters works in a McDonald's. And in case you haven't twigged, the fact they called the alien MAC (Mysterious Alien Creature) doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.

The Golden Arches loom large over the movie, particularly in a show-stopping scene in which Eric and MAC - housed inside a teddy bear suit and looking like something from The Orphanage - attend a birthday party at a McDonald's. For reasons unknown, when they arrive, there is a team of breakdancers performing a routine in the car park. As opposed to my local McDonald's, where there is a team of crackheads performing an overdose in the car park.

The wonders continue when they get inside. Ronald McDonald is there, obviously, horrifying all the children by whispering threats into their ears and serving them poisoned food. Then, for reasons lost to funk, music begins to play and every single patron of the restaurant starts dancing in unison. Even the team of American Footballers who just stopped in for a Big Mac start hand-jiving. For no reason whatsoever.

By the time MAC, still in his bear suit, gets on the counter and starts popping and locking, the restaurant's employees have thrown out all concepts of health and safety and join in with the spontaneous dance explosion. In the ensuing jubilation, Ronald McDonald kidnapped and ate three small children.



I won't spoil the rest of the movie for you, but rest assured, it's just as awful as I've made it sound. If not worse. It's directed by Stewart Raffill, who had directed Star Wars 'homage' The Ice Pirates just four years earlier. After MAC And Me, he would be hired to direct Mannequin: On The Move, as if the studio had asked themselves 'Hmm, our first movie sucked... but how could the sequel suck even harder?"

MAC And Me is genuinely great fun to watch: every scene is hilarious but never in the way intended. The characters are all hopelessly written, down to a man; at one point, Eric's mother wakes up to find her new home completely ruined and bedecked from top-to-toe in desert paraphernalia (sand, cacti etc), but instead of throwing a shit-fit and finding out how the hell her kid Laurence Llewelyn Bowen-ed her house, she just sighs, "I'm going back to bed!" Great parenting, lady. No wonder your kid is crippled.

Actually, the best thing I can say about MAC And Me is at least the kid is disabled in real life. I think I'd be disappointed if he wasn't. It certainly makes this scene extra horrifying. What a brave little guy!

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