High Anxiety (1977)

dir Mel Brooks

Ohhhh I get it. Mel Brooks is like John Waters for straight people. Not that there’s anything wrong with it! Straight people are just like us. Love is love, after all, even if it does gross me out a little to see them kiss in public. I don’t necessarily think they need to be getting married and having babies, but hey! I have straight friends!

This one is a lot of fun. Maybe it’s because I’m a total Hitchcock lover or maybe it’s because it was the first Mel Brooks feature I ever stumbled across on my own, but I love High Anxiety. I mean, Young Frankenstein is great. My dad showed it to me when I was pretty young. Then my friends showed me Blazing Saddles around my junior year of high school. Also great. High Anxiety is admittedly just okay, but to me that’s enough. Nostalgia fuels the heart.

The first time I saw High Anxiety was in the era of my membership to The Frida Cinema, when I could get into every showing for free or cheap. I can’t recall for the life of me who I went with but I believe it was sometime around 2016? 2017? Anyway, something that’s odd is that I’m noticeably more disturbed by heights now than I was before this era, leaving me to believe that High Anxiety actually gave me a fear of heights. Was it worth it? Probably not. I can’t fly these days, hell, I can barely even picture going up in a Ferris wheel. Maybe don’t watch this film if you’re susceptible to fear. Go watch something else, like Hairspray. You’ll love Hairspray!

“I understand now. I understand now! It’s not height I’m afraid of, it’s parents!”

Maybe the most relatable message of all time. And the wicked witch cameo at the end is very Lynchian. 13 years before Wild at Heart did it. Cheers.