Classic Movie Review: 'Coneheads'

Coneheads (1993)

Directed by Steve Barron

Written by Tom Davis, Dan Akroyd, Bonnie Turner, Terry Turner

Starring Dan Akroyd, Jane Curtin, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, Phil Hartman, Sinbad, Michelle Burke

Release Date July 23rd, 2023

Published August 30th, 2023

Am I more mature or less fun? It's a sad question that I was forced to confront as I sat through another movie from my youth that was not nearly as much fun as I remembered. Coneheads is an utterly dreadful movie. When I was a teenager, with a heavy nostalgia for the glory years of SNL tI had actually only experienced via reruns, I liked Coneheads. As I once said in a column on this very website however, linked here, movies don't change, you do. That's very clear to me after watching Coneheads for what I thought would be a nostalgic look back at a cult favorite.

Coneheads began life as a popular running sketch on SNL in the late 1970s. Beldar and Prymaat Conehead (Dan Akroyd and Jane Curtin) are aliens from the planet Remulak who are hiding out on Earth and trying to cover up the fact that they are very obviously aliens. They have giant cone shaped heads and they speak in a staccato monotone, like some kind of robot affecting a human voice. That's the joke, the juxtaposition of the attempts by Beldar and Prymaat to seem like suburban Americans versus the tension of them obviously being aliens.

It's a great sketch premise. I imagine that it is a premise that Dan Akroyd had in mind for many years before he got his big break on SNL. It has the feel of something improvised on stage at Groundlings or a Second City show. On SNL that improvised vibe fueled the 5 to 6 minute sketches with one character entering the world of the Coneheads and obliviously accepting the premise that these are normal suburban parents or someone growing more and more frustrated in their attempt to prove that they are aliens.

The movie expands this premise by drawing out both of those ideas. On one side, you have co-workers like Sinbad and neighbors played by Jason Alexander and Lisa Jane Persky, obliviously accepting the pretense of Beldar and Prymaat. On the other side, you have INS Agents played by Michael McKean and David Spade who pursue the other story track, attempting to prove that Beldaar, Prymaat and their teenage daughter, Connie (Michelle Burke), are aliens. That neither side proves to be very funny illustrates the difference between a sketch comedy premise and a movie.

There is a third track of story in Coneheads, one equally as uninspired. Connie has a boyfriend Ronnie, played by Chris Farley. The joke of Ronnie is that he buys the premise of the Coneheads and has no problem falling for Connie. Ronnie's desire for Connie is met with contention by Beldaar who forbids Connie to see Ronnie and threatens Ronnie to get him to stay away from his daughter. This is a tired sitcom premise that gains no new shine from the father in this scenario being a weird alien creature played by Dan Akroyd.

The lasting legacy of Coneheads is the term 'Parental Units.' Members of Generation X cribbed the term 'Parental Units' from the sketch and the movie as a loving yet ironically distancing reference to their own parents. Why? It goes along with the premise that Gen-Xers appreciate their parents but must maintain a lengthy distance from actual feelings. Parental Units fits perfectly in the sweet spot of Gen-X terminology. That being said, the less remembered about Coneheads, the better. Watching it again after 30 years made me question my very nature as a human being when I was 18 years old. Who was I then?

I was 18 when I saw Coneheads on the big screen and convinced myself that it wasn't that bad. Like a Gen-Xer, I perhaps liked the movie ironically and then over time I convinced myself that I actually enjoyed it only to revisit the movie now and realize that I had gaslit myself. I was so engrossed in irony as a teenager that it came back around to bite me as an adult. Apparently, I 'liked' Coneheads as an ironic joke. At least, that's what I want to believe because having watched it now, I can't imagine what I might have seen in this cringe-fest.

Coneheads is a desperate one note joke that cannot sustain a feature film. At times, Coneheads is a downright Cronenberg movie in terms of body horror and at other times it's a bad sitcom that would have died an unmourned death as part of a family TV block in the 90s. Watching Coneheads today brings on a bout of secondhand embarrassment that made my skin crawl. I didn't laugh with the movie, I cringed away from the screen and begged the movie to be over. The performances are universally bad, the premise is thinner than paper and an all star team of then current and former SNL stars are wasted in poorly written supporting roles.

Adam Sandler is one of those wasted in Coneheads and considering his track record, that is saying something. Sandler has made a habit of making bad movies but he has always done so earnestly, seemingly aware that his movies were terrible but happy to keep cashing checks. In Coneheads however, even Sandler is better than the joke of Sandler's character. Sandler plays a criminal who helps Beldar obtain a fake social security number and identity. Sandler's character is named Carmine Weiner. That's the joke. His last name. It's Weiner. If you don't find that hilarious then this movie is not for you.

Even compared to the dregs of SNL movies, like Night at the Roxbury or It's Pat, Coneheads is dispiritingly bad. One note jokes and desperate callbacks to the famed sketches on SNL fall flat and are repeated ad nauseum until the film mercilessly ends following a laugh free visit to the Coneheads famed home planet of Remulak. Here we get to see comedy all stars like Dave Thomas, Tom Davis, who also co-wrote this movie, Tim Meadows and the dear departed Phil Hartman deliver not one single funny line or bit of physical humor. How do you take this lineup and get zero laughs?

Coneheads is my own personal Mandela Effect. I convinced myself that it was a hidden comedy gem. Then I saw it as an adult and found out that the movie I thought I loved as a teenager is in fact a truly terrible film, an epic boondoggle of bad ideas. The old saying goes, you can't go home again, Coneheads the movie is my thesis statement on how the concept of home that you remember as a child likely did not exist. Elements of it were real but you carry a romanticized nostalgia that mentally fills in the gaps to create the illusion of your childhood. Coneheads, for me, was one of those illusions and I am genuinely disillusioned to have discovered this.

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