NICE GIRLS DON’T EXPLODE (1987)

NICE GIRLS DON’T EXPLODE (1987)

Tagline: A comedy about love, trust, and the fear of spontaneous combustion.

(Comedy, Romance, Psycho Parents) [PG]

Well, how could you tell me such incredible lies? How could you do such terrible things to me? How could you destroy my life?

This extremely quirky dark comedy revolves around April Flowers's mother who is overprotective, because apparently whenever April gets aroused things explode and start on fire. This causes April to have a very limited love life. Once it becomes apparent that April’s childhood friend isn’t going to stop pursuing April romantically, her mother takes ever increasingly drastic measures to “protect” them both. 

One thing you start to realize about the 80s is that you have some completely amazing comedies that are absent of regard for anything and just let it fly. Some of those comedies land and some of those comedies are just really weird. This thing is a little bit of both. While there are some heartfelt moments and comedic timing that work pretty well in some parts, the last 45 minutes or so of this movie get us to the point where fatigue sets in. Part of this is because they give away what is really going on a bit too early and then we get a bunch of repeated sequences just happening in different areas. 

Barbara Harris (PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED) is great in this and does a solid job of delivering what they were asking her to. She plays April’s mom and reminds me a lot of Madeline Kahn’s character in CLUE. Michelle Meyrink (REAL GENIUS) who plays April Flowers had a brief 5-year career in Hollywood and has moved on to other things, but she also nails this role. She actually plays the character so well you can both empathize with her and understand why Andy isn’t willing to give up on her in spite of great cost to himself. Andy who is April’s love interest is played by William O'Leary (Home Improvement) and he was good in this role. I am not going to say his acting skills were super stretched here, but his casting worked. I guess this was a bit of a casting risk because it was his first movie, but as of 3 years ago, he was still getting roles. To round out the main cast we get Wallace Shawn who is most famous for THE PRINCESS BRIDE, which is inconceivable. Shawn is decent in this but might have benefitted from some better writing for his character. He basically plays a pyro which contrasts well with April who is trying to avoid starting fires. 

Where this movie gets a bit weird is that the “reason” all this is happening is pretty dark. I get that a lot of comedies are based in some sort of dysfunction, but this one is very messed up. It’s about as sadistic as giving into your 12-year-old’s fantasy that they are a kangaroo and getting them surgery to make that happen. The pacing is okay, but cinematically there really isn’t anything worth writing home about going on here. The score also is not as good as it could have been for a movie that came out in a decade that produced some of the best music of all time. 

Admittedly this thing has its issues but I don’t think that it falls into the category of bad. It’s definitely weird on a lot of levels, but there is still a certain sense of innocence about it that I really enjoyed. I should warn you that in spite of the “FIRESTARTER” sounding premise, there is zero sci-fi anything about this movie and we also don’t have a horror element at all. Overall I can’t recommend that you run to this thing, but if you are getting to the depths of 80’s flicks that are full-blown weird and think you have seen them all, this one is worth adding to the list of obscure oddities. This one gets a 3 out of 7. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF NICE GIRL FILMS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.