Cleveland reveals that Bill's family and their rich friends are actually an entirely different species from Bill. To demonstrate, they bring in a still-living Blanchard. The wealthy party guests strip to their underwear and begin "shunting"—physically deforming and melding with each other—as they suck the nutrients from Blanchard's body, absorbing him. Their intention is to do the same to Bill, but he escapes and runs around the house, finding his family engaged in similarly disgusting activities. He confronts Ferguson, killing him by reaching inside him mid-shunt and pulling him inside-out. Bill escapes with the help of Milo and Clarissa, who is also of the alternate species, but has fallen in love with Bill. Cast Production After having several of his productions fail for lack of finding a director, Yuzna decided to move into directing. As producer of Re-Animator, he held the rights to a sequel and knew he could find financing. He used this as leverage for a two-picture deal, the first of which turned into Society. Yuzna said that he wanted the safety of having two pictures to establish himself as a successful director. Societys script appealed to Yuzna partly because it was thematically similar to a failed project he had begun with Dan O'Bannon. Yuzna altered the script from a traditional slasher film climax about a religious cult to the surrealistic aliens. The production company introduced him to Screaming Mad George, who they knew to also be interested in surreal gore. For the film's most surreal and gory sequence, the "shunting," Yuzna based it on his nightmares. The sequence was further inspired by The Great Masturbator, a Dali painting. Author Jon Towlson identifies political themes imported from paranoid science fiction thrillers, such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Invaders from Mars. Yuzna later cited the film's mix of paranoia, black humor, satire, and gore as alienating mainstream audiences. Release Society premiered at the Shock Around the Clock Film Festival in London in 1989. For its British release, Society was marketed in Video Trade Weekly with a picture of the film's theatrical premiere. Mark Kermode called this "stupid yet brilliant", as it demonstrated that the distributor did not know how to market the film properly but also showed recognition that traditional marketing for a genre film was irrelevant. Society was a success in Europe, but was shelved for three years before getting a release in the U.S. Said