Entertainment

Raunchy, R-Rated 90s Comedy So Filthy That Its Stars Want You To Forget It Exists

By Robert Scucci
| Published 1 hour ago

Mid to late 90s sci-fi comedies had a lot of fun with the “unsanctioned medical experiments going terribly wrong” plot, and with pretty solid results. 1996’s PG-13 rated The Nutty Professor cleaned house at the box office with $274 million, as did 1997’s G-rated Flubber with $178 million. Both of these family-friendly remakes proved there was a real market for this kind of humor. So much so that Marlon Wayans wanted in on the action, but with a little more R-rated edge in the form of 1998’s Senseless.

If there’s ever been a word to describe Senseless, look no further than the title. All of the familiar “unsanctioned medical experiment gone wrong” beats are here, but with a whole lot more flatulence, low-brow humor, and sexual innuendo. Senseless earned just $13 million at the box office against its reported $15 million budget, effectively putting it in the red. Even worse, it currently sits on Rotten Tomatoes’ wall of shame with an unthinkable 6 percent critical score, alongside a slightly more forgiving 45 percent approval rating on the Popcornmeter.

If you’re looking for the kind of punisher that performed so poorly it now only exists on ad-supported streaming, probably in a last-ditch attempt to recoup losses, Senseless is exactly what you should seek out. Personally, I don’t hate the film, but you really have to be in the right mood to choke this one down.

Co-Written By Craig Mazin

Co-written by Craig Mazin, best known for Chernobyl and The Last of Us, Senseless is a far cry from what the filmmaker would later prove himself capable of. Honestly, you can say the same about Marlon Wayans, David Spade, Matthew Lillard, and Rip Torn. The problem with Senseless is not the talent involved, but the cinematic experiment they embarked on here. They are all funny people in the right context, but somehow never quite figure out how to channel that energy.

Senseless centers on Darryl Witherspoon (Marlon Wayans), a struggling economics student working multiple odd jobs to make ends meet while also supporting his family back home. To stay in the black, Darryl engages in questionable practices like selling blood, plasma, and other bodily fluids to the appropriate venues for extra cash. When he learns about a controversial drug experiment overseen by Dr. Thomas Wheedon (Brad Dourif), Darryl jumps at the chance to get paid.

The experiment is simple on paper. Darryl injects a glowing green substance into his butt, which increases each of his five senses tenfold. Here’s the catch. If he messes up the dosage, he will lose one sense entirely while the remaining four go completely out of control. As you’d expect, this is exactly what happens in Senseless.

David Spade Doing His Usual Slappable Jerk Shtick

The primary conflict outside of the questionable chemicals coursing through Darryl’s bloodstream comes in the form of David Spade’s Scott Thorpe. Scott comes from a life of privilege and serves as Darryl’s direct competitor in an academic competition overseen by Randall Tyson (Rip Torn). Whoever wins gets fast tracked to a high paying Wall Street job, something Darryl desperately needs.

Spade is fully typecast as the same slappable jerk he played in films like PCU, Tommy Boy, and Black Sheep, and you get more of the same here. As much as I hate Scott Thorpe as a character, I have to give Spade credit where it’s due. He plays this kind of role so convincingly that I genuinely hated him as a person for years because I didn’t think it was humanly possible to fake that level of smugness.

At first, Darryl uses his heightened senses to impress Randall and undermine Scott, seemingly recalling stock figures from memory when he’s actually just reading a newspaper planted across the room that he can zoom in on. But things quickly spiral when Darryl is struck with sudden bouts of blindness, hypersensitive smell and taste, and the ability to hear what goes on in the women’s room in graphic detail as his love interest, Janice (Tamara Taylor), chats with her gassy friend behind closed doors.

Meanwhile, Darryl’s roommate Tim (Matthew Lillard), a straight-edge punk and hockey player, suspects he’s abusing hard drugs and intervenes whenever possible to keep him from going down the wrong path. If I had to describe Lillard’s vibe here, it’s what Machine Gun Kelly thought looked cool and then based his entire pop punk persona on.

Why It Failed

Senseless is a fascinating failure because everyone involved reliably brings exactly what you expect from them. The problem is that in this context, we get too much toilet humor and too many gross-out gags without fully leaning into their characterization. There are plenty of cheap laughs, most of them built on farts and funny faces. As a concept, Senseless has potential, but it simply does not work as a feature-length film because those gags can only stretch so far without being properly grounded.

I could easily see Senseless working as a recurring sketch where Darryl, or someone like him, keeps getting into ridiculous situations thanks to the drug, with the whole thing wrapped up in a few minutes. Some of the standalone gags would absolutely work in that format, but that’s not what we got. Instead, the film becomes an exhausting exercise in seeing just how far it’s willing to push things.