The Stranger

1980’s The Apple might be the greatest bad sci-fi disco musical biblical parable ever told. It takes place in a not-too-distant future (1994!) that looks a lot like an Eastern Bloc airport. In this bleak dystopia, the music industry—nay, the world!—is held in the thrall of the sinister Boogaloo International Music, a multinational record company headed by the suspiciously goateed Mr. Boogaloo. The plot follows Alphie and Bibi, two innocent Canadian folk singers. After losing a rigged Eurovision-style song contest, the duo are lured into BIM’s evil clutches (there’s an apple involved). Alphie resists, but Bibi is transformed into an absurd disco diva at BIM’s command (disco is evil; folk is good, duh). Her redemption comes in the form of a persecuted hippie sect, a miraculous conception, and a Godlike figure who appears in a heavenly Cadillac, but the film’s redemption comes in the form of wonderfully ludicrous musical numbers like “The Apple Song” and “Speed.” By Eric Grandy