Nerding Day: Susie Q (Patreon)

Kids’ madness has evolved. Teen heroes can mention hand-holding and noscope twenty competing gladiators with half the satanic panic. I wish it happened sooner. I watched Spider-Man throw-spam his way through Saturdays because Marvel agreed to a superhero show without punching.

Imagine vehicular manslaughter and pin-up girls in that environment.

Odd poster. Visually, we have a family comedy. But “Death is just the beginning” evokes a body count, even in “Cake Frosting” font. In fact, A Haunting in Venice uses the same tag now. That tonal chimera captures Susie Q perfectly.

Suzie Q beat The Corpse Bride to the morgue by casting the Pink Ranger as a prom queen’s bubbly ghost. Amy Jo Johnson worked after Power Rangers, and I’d be less reductive today. But this was 1996, so your brain saw Morphin’ Time. The Putty Patrol finally scored a kill.

She says that a lot.

Disney must have been proud, because Susie Q still ran when I was paying attention, rather than coloring. And it ran a lot. Not quite “SVU is keeping USA alive” numbers, but as far as Disney Channel Originals go, it was right behind–

GAH. NO.

MY FUCKING MIND.

I don’t remember calculus or precalculus or cosines or which superpower backed Poppa Doc in Haiti, but I remember “Supernova Girl.” An ear parasite from Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century’s fake boy band. With a followup single in Zenon: the Zequel. And a remix in Z3.

Try to let go of that data, it has negative value. I don’t have a brain. I have a practical joke.

Another day, sci-fi Lance Bass. After I’ve ice-picked this song from my brain.

Speaking of music: Susie Q is named after an old Rolling Stones track. Only that’s a cover: it’s an old Creedence Clearwater Revival track. Only that’s a cover: it’s an old Dale Hawkins track. And catchy! I like some things, I promise. I’m not always hunting manifestos like Infinity Gems.

I think it’s still trendy to admit I watched more than Bloodrazor Two: Excoriation. It’ll suck next year, when this article sinks my BasedScore below citizenship levels. In my defense, Susie Q drips with nostalgia for an era no one involved experienced. So I should only be convicted for everything else I’ve ever thought or said.

Balls.

Is Susie Q good? Nah. There’s an impossible amount of filler, severe kink denial, and the talky words make brainstab. Luckily, my pallete’s warped. The bar for improving my mood is not cheerleading famine. And Susie Q’s existence is delightful. This week’s less of a crime scene, more of a food fight. Still a mess, but someone enjoyed themselves.

Not the title character. She gets bodied in the first five minutes.

After telling her nuclear family she loves them. And looks forward to the immediate, unsplattered future. She even makes her grandpa a promise, which she’ll get to after another fun night alive. It’s a brilliant joke, really. Not played for comedy, but I accept joy wherever it appears.

Then she gets a pseudo-engagement gift from her boyfriend. For her long life, in a single uncrushed piece. He’s a football star, like half the nostalgia 1950's population. Kind of like how the film 2020s will be half streamers, half conspiracy theorists. You don’t think you’ll miss it, but you haven’t been in a correction sphere yet.

On the way to her lifetime peak as prom queen, Susie remembers her Disney promise. Before she can deliver her grandfather’s expository papers, we cut to teens speeding with unlabeled bottles.

Is it Guinness? Turpentine? I like to think it’s soda, and they suck at driving. But the intonation is a DUI. A proud prom night tradition. This second, equally perfect joke is also played for drama.

And velocity.

The camera hovers on the corpses for a bit. TV-G is more of a feeling than a rating.

Until they plunge into the deep.

Their car should’ve exploded too. But the budget is less blockbuster, more puppet show. Non-karate puppet show. Watch Thunderbolt Fantasy.

I’ve given the intro a lot of attention, but it deserves it. This is the binary sunset of Disney Original trash. I haven’t seen a death underlined like this since Yamcha. And Susie Q ran between Mickey Mouse reruns and oven-fresh Mickey Mouse. The Disney sages saw obvious pin-up kink and said “Sure, but make sure she’s deader than the ice caps.”

Anyway, Susie’s dead and the movie’s over. The next scene jumps to the sequel, where we meet these people:

Who cares? Susie Q’s present-day plot is deader than Susie. The Whoever family has Mom, Sass, and Bread. While Mom’s inoffensive, you can see her watching the shift clock. Sass, on the other hand, is offensive. I don’t get all the smartass younger siblings in film. I was the youngest, and perfectly graceful to the geriatric apes in my space.

If Susie’s a bizarre romantic lead, Bread is normalcy itself. The space between thoughts. Contemplate Bread, and become one with aether. Or hungry.

The point, after twenty minutes of air, is that Susie’s haunting Bread. The worst kind of haunting: when the Pink Ranger follows you, tells jokes, does your classwork, fights your bullies, gets you back into varsity sports, and solves your daddy issues. Someone’s working through something here, and they’re offscreen.

It gets weird.

G ratings are for confidence.

Susie Q’s an early achievement in magic girlfriend research. I lacked the vocabulary to describe Bread before donating my brain to anime. He’s an Akamatsu-grade canvas for wish fulfillment, and acts as well as that role allows. We’re in a hip remake of Bewitched, with a few less mangled bodies.

Bread also makes one non-ghost friend:

I don’t get all the smartass blerds in film. I was bookish, and perfectly graceful to all the illiterate apes in my space. Anyway, Melvin falls out of the movie, in favor of harassment:

Naturally, Bread refuses the call. He’s horrified by the literal manic, semi-literal pixie, figurative dream girl. Before the stock joke, remember that Susie’s shattered the border between life and death. Bread’s reality is in pieces. Now return to the stock joke: dude, this is your one chance. Only two, maybe three, of your adult partners will dress up like the Pink Ranger. And only one by intent.

Ribbing actors a decade older than kayfabe is internet tradition. But knowing the den of horrors child stars go through, I’m all for it. Put Patrick Stewart and Judi Dench in these roles, I won’t blink. But one of them has to play a Ranger first. We can’t lose that weirdness.

Or the very casual, very heavy nature of Susie Q’s cosmology:

You can roll past that line if you’ve lived like a 1950’s cheerleader/valedictorian/Sentai hero. If you’re bathing in sin like the rest of us, that’s news. My transgressions could fill My Name is Earl Z. And I’m expected to fix them before enjoying hell’s metal scene?

To be clear: in Susie Q there’s a Christian heaven, you do community service for your loved ones first, and Bread’s dead dad didn’t give a shit about him. A Stepford fiance’s ghost is filling in, and no therapist is armed for that.

Or the bank heist.

I wouldn’t give you a movie that finds its shit. Susie Q panics as the runtime limps on. So Bread opts to put in his tenth of the relationship, and helps Susie rob a fucking bank. Just data, but guards shoot you just as many times for that. More, if you discover the Abraxas Project. The owner has a Mr. Burns thing going, without the subtler cackles. It’d be impressive, if Bread did anything but watch Susie be invisible and telekinetic.

Their ace? Sass is still in the movie, and a hacker. She plays tech support for the prom queen’s ghost between sprints of stock “precocious child” dialogue. While rival channels ranted about sobriety, Disney simply brought the drug experience to you. They were generous like that before buying out the human imagination.

The police are less generous.

Or more. Even in sane societies, it's a miracle to leave a heist without bullet holes. I suspect that Bread’s too translucent for a decent shot. His anti-character is natural camouflage.

Then Susie Q peaks. With Bread’s freedom on the line, Susie escalates from Sly Cooper to Payday 2. It turns out she hates three things: banks, clothes, and bacon. As a police station poltergeist, Susie finally lives up to the dream girl claims of the dialogue, DVD box, and horny expository janitor.

That’s a cop’s gun.

And that’s Will Sasso. Maybe you know him from MadTV. He also dug up George Carlin’s corpse with Chad Kultgen. In Susie’s shoes, you might go a little further. But I respect taking the clean kill.

I don’t get all the cop-slaying 1950’s prom queens in film. I’m dead, and perfectly graceful to the world of flesh. And law enforcement.

Bread finally appreciates his magic maid, so it’s time for Susie to split. Infinite Protestant Bliss awaits, and Bread’s labyrinthine tv high school can’t compete. For all my jabs at the G rating, that’s an excellent lesson. Most opportunities exist in hindsight, at 2 AM, halfway through a clear bottle. It tastes rotten and embalmed at the same time, but you’re not after flavor.

Or so I hear. Hey, remember Disney Channel Originals?

But Bread’s not heartbroken for long, or even a full scene. That would be growth. Instead, he finds a consolation waifu: Amy again. Updated for grunge.

Did Susie reincarnate while she was a ghost? Is time as weak as death? Did she choose Bread over heaven, like an inbred Eowyn? Are millions conditioned to respond to “Jeepers?” One answer fits, and it’s much easier to ignore. Instead, highlight the positive. Work hard and direct enough Power Rangers episodes, and you can make a film about your Rockabilly tulpa.

Or your vintage song of choice.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Neil Schafer, the cute ghost who helps you rob toll booths.

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