Andy Warhol’s Bad [VHS]

From 27 September to 27 June, Herbert Foundation is dedicating an exhibition to Andy Warhol’s printed matter and cinema, including 22 of his films. While the exhibition focuses on Warhol’s work from the 1960s, we turn to his very last production. Andy Warhol’s Bad (1977) is a delightfully absurd soap opera brimming with pitch-black humour. A mother runs a beauty salon from her kitchen, which doubles as a front for a female hit squad.

Director Jed Johnson went from cleaner at the Factory to becoming Warhol’s editor and lover. Yet the actors saw him as ​“just a kid who didn’t really know what he was doing” and ended up directing themselves. Camp that lives up to its title? Absolutely – but Bad is just as much an anti-conformist, feminist masterpiece that ruthlessly turns gender roles and bourgeois morality upside down. 

Awaiting a proper restoration, we’re screening the film straight from videotape! Gloriously gritty, exactly as it should be.