Nowhere (1997)

Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
John Ritter, Heather Graham, Rose McGowan, Denise Richards
A day in the life of Dark Smith (James Duval) an 18-year-old, alienated Los Angeles high school film student who dreams of the "End of the World" and is obsessed with finding his true and lasting love before "the end" comes in order to get away from his nagging, working class mother (Beverly D'Angelo) whom he lives with. The object of Dark's affections, Mel (Rachel True), a bisexual African-American girl from where he goes to school, feels for him deeply but can't commit herself to any one person or gender, splitting her time between Dark and her curvaceous, purple-haired, acid-tonged, lesbian girlfriend Lucifer (Kathleen Robertson). Dark, meanwhile, becomes enthralled by the beauteous Montgomery (Nathan Bexton), a young, blond, homosexual with two different color eyes from his school who's literally "a vision to behold the golden California sun."On this typical Friday morning, Dark, Mel and Lucifer drive in Mel's car to The Hole, their local coffeehouse hangout for breafast. They pick up Montgomery, who's standing lonely at a bus stop also looking for a ride there. At the Hole, Dark meets and commiserates with his best friend, queer industrial rock star Cowboy (Guillermo Diaz) who has troubles of his own: he can't find his boyfriend and band mate, Bart (Jeremy Jordan), who's on a self-destructive downward spiral that threatens both their romantic and musical partnership. Bart, at that very moment, is at the home of the scurvy, green-haired, drug dealer Handjob (Alan Boyce). Bart is far more interested in Handjob's wares than in the perversion of being offered by the dangerously sexy dominatrix duo of Kriss (Chiara Mastroianni) and Kozy (Debi Mazar), Handjob's live-in S&M girls.Also convening at The Hole for a "sugar gorge" are a trio of girls from where the gang also goes to school. They are the metal-mouthed, wisecracking Dingbat (Christina Applegate), the "brain" of the group; Montgomery's best friend Alyssa (Jordan Ladd), a poetess who warns him of the impending Armageddon which is supposedly happening tonight; and the meek and dewy Polly, nicknamed Egg (Sarah Lassez). While everyone is making plans to meet for that night's game of kick-the-can and the big blowout party happening later, the bulimic Egg is wooed in the girls restroom by a Teen Idol (Jaason Simmons from TV's "Baywatch") who is so famous that no one needs to utter his name. The Teen Idol offers to take Egg for a walk and she happily agrees.A little later outside The Hole, Egg's older brother Ducky (Scott Caan) arrives where Dingbat brings him up to date on his sister's budding romance with the Teen Idol. Oblivious to the fact that Dingbat has a crush on him, Ducky is googly-eyed over Alyssa. But she is head-over-heels for a Harley-straddling stud named Elvis (Thyme Lewis). Alyssa's torrid and kinky sex with Elvis at his apartment a little later gets an extra frisson from the psychic connection she shares with her self-destructive twin brother Shad (Ryan Phillippe), who at that moment is going at it with his luscious girlfriend Lilith (Heather Graham) after a fortune teller (Charlotte Rae) tells them about their impending deaths.While Mel and Lucifer race on the Venice boardwalk on their roller blades, Lucifer's sister Jana (Denise Richards), Jana's friend Shannon (Teresa Hill) and local hunk Noah (Kevin Light) watch them as they are modeling for a photo shoot on the beach.As the hot sun continues to beat down on Los Angeles, the weird stuff starts happening. While waiting at a corner bus stop to go home after classes, Dark watches agog as a trio of nattering Valley Girls (Traci Lords, Shannen Doherty, Rose McGowan) are vaporized by a raygun-toting Alien (Roscoe) who disappears before his eyes before he can film it with his video camera. Dark stands there wondering if was it real or just another acid flashback?And things go from bad to worse for Egg when the Teen Idol brings her to his place where, after she refuses his advances, the man suddenly flips out and transforms into a Mr. Hyde-type sex fiend who proceeds to rape and savagely beat her to a bloody stump.Bart, high on drugs, finally gives into Kriss and Kozy's demands for some fun and lets them do tasteless and other unspeakable things to him. At the same time, Mel sneaks into Dark's bedroom for a period of afternoon romantic sex, only to leave in a huff soon after.At the school baseball field that evening, Dark, Mel, Lucifer, Montgomery, Cowboy, Dingbat, and Ducky begin their game of kick-the-can; all of them high on halogenous to make the game more harder and interesting. Then Dark witnesses Montgomery vanish into thin air as well as the Alien lurking around the locker room where Montgomery was last seen. But Dark has no choice but to join the rest of his friends who are heading to the phantasmagorical party going on at the home of Jujyfruit (Gibby Haynes). Also at the party are two dumb fashion models named What (Devon Odessa) and Ever (Stacy Keanan) who are looking for some excitement.The only ones missing from the party are Egg and Bart, who are tucked in the sanctuary of their respective bedrooms, both of them bloodied and bowed by the unexpected encounters with danger. The devastated teens are each riveted to their TV sets, watching the mesmerizing cathode-ray vision of Moses Helper (John Ritter), a televangelist who hard-sells the eternal, everlasting salvation of Heaven. Bart's non-English-speaking Swedish parents, Mr. and Mrs. Sighvatssohn, (Christopher Knight and Eve Plumb) sit in front of their living room TV set and watch the news where the newscaster Julie (Lauren Tewes) talks about the hot dry weather over L.A., the unconfirmed alien abductions, and of the Atari Gang that the people are to beware of.As Egg and Bart succumb to the insidious exhortations of Moses Helper, and commit suicide (she by slashing her wrists and he by a gas oven), Jujyfruit's party cranks to full-blast.Meanwhile, Mel's little brother Zero (Joshua Gibran Mayweather) picks up his blond girlfriend Zoe (Mena Suvari) outside her apartment building and they drive through the city looking for Jujyfruit's party. Zero and Zoe follow a trio of scary looking drag queens (John Enos, Nicolette Gato, Brian Buzzini) on their way out of a convenience store, only to get lost on a back road. Zero and Zoe then come across Shad and Lilith in their car nearby. But they aren't very cooperative in giving Zero and Zoe directions to the party and they drive off. Things get even worse for the young couple when Zero and Zoe are accosted by the notorious Atari Gang (Aaron Smith, Tres Trash Temperilli, Sara Jane) roaming the city with automatic weapons made to look like video ray guns, who proceed to steal their car. After hitching a ride with Handjob and his girls, Zero and Zoe finally locate the party, wandering through the wild crowd like its a hallucinogenic version of Disneylands "Its a Small World" ride.But Dark is having no fun at all. Mel has just rejected both him and Lucifer to go off with Surf and Ski (Keith and Derek Brewer), a pair of blond-and-bronzed identical twins. Cowboy leaves the party and phones Bart's parents only to find out from the frantic, non-English speaking couple about finding their son with his head inside their gas oven. Also, Ducky gets a call on his cell phone from his father (David Leisure) who informs him about his sister Egg's terrible fate. Crazed with grief, Ducky leaps into the swimming pool and nearly drowns. But Ducky is saved by Dark and Dingbat who dive in after him. Going into the house to fetch a towel, Dark experiences yet another unsettling Alien sighting. Dark also walks into the kitchen to witness Elvis turning his murderous rage on Handjob by beating him to death with a tin can over him selling him and Allysa phony drugs.His day having reached its final low point, with Bart, Egg and Handjob dead, Elvis apparently on his way to jail, Montgomery and three girls kidnaped by an extraterrestrial, Ducky trying to drown himself, and Mel having abandoned him for good, Dark is left alone with nowhere to go... but home to bed for the night, where he encounters one final surprise: the reappearance of Montgomery who climes through his bedroom window. Montgomery tells Dark that he was abducted by aliens along with some other people who performed experiments on them. He asks Dark to lie in his bed with him for a while to sort out his thoughts. Dark asks Montgomery to never leave him, when suddenly Montgomery starts going into convulsions and his body explodes, splattering blood and body organs all over Dark's bedroom, revealing a huge, terrifying looking, beatle-like creature inside him. "I'm outta here," says the creature in Montgomery's voice, who crawls out the window. A blood splattered Dark sits on his bed too stunned to speak... and then screams.
  • 1997-05-09 Released:
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  • Gregg Araki Director:
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