The 80's - unplugged. The murders - unveiled. The legend - unzipped.
Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 1.85:1, Dolby Digital (5.1), Dolby Surround Sound, Audio Commentary, Deleted Scenes, Photo Gallery, Short Film, English, Spanish Subtitled, 2 Discs
Wonderland explores, in Rashomon-like fashion, the multiple murders that took place high atop Wonderland Avenue in L.A.'s Laurel Canyon in the summer of 1981. At first the victims were thought to be mere drug dealers and party hounds, but the case became elevated to a classic L.A. noir when they were discovered to be connected to infamous porn star John C. "Johnny Wadd" Holmes.By the time our story begins, Holmes has fallen from being perhaps the biggest and most famous star in the hardcore industry to a state of financial and pharmaceutical ruin. As played by Val Kilmer, Holmes is devoted to his teenage girlfriend Dawn (Kate Bosworth) while still married to his wife Sharon (Lisa Kudrow), and the three form a most unique love triangle. Meanwhile, in the midst of his spiraling demise, Holmes befriends local drug dealers Ron (Josh Lucas) and Susan Launius (Christina Applegate) along with their "business partner" David Lind (Dylan McDermott), but he soon gets himself neck deep into debt and desperation. To save himself from the wrath of notorious gangster Eddie Nash (Eric Bogosian), did he set up his best friends for murder? It all depends on whose story you believe.
"A film whose effects are as hard to wash away as blood." Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post
"Fast and frenetic and so unvarnished that it can make you feel unclean watching it." Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
Editor's Note
Fast cars, fast women, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, with guns and ammo thrown in for good measure--that was the world of porn star John Holmes in Los Angeles in the 1970s. But everything came tumbling down in June 1981 when he was accused of taking part in a multiple murder that forms the basis of James Cox's dizzying WONDERLAND. Val Kilmer, who previously embodied rock lead singer Jim Morrison in THE DOORS, transforms himself into the famous porn celebrity in this excitingly sordid tale of excess, which is told from the point of view of several different players, echoing Akira Kurosawa's RASHOMON. Under the stage name Johnny Wadd, Holmes was rumored to have had sex with more than 14,000 women in some 1,000 X-rated films; his dangerous life caught up with him when he died of AIDS in 1988. Cox has assembled an unlikely cast for this lurid story, including such well-known television stars as Lisa Kudrow (FRIENDS), Dylan McDermott (THE PRACTICE), and Christina Applegate (MARRIED WITH CHILDREN), in addition to Carrie Fisher, Janeane Garofalo, and Eric Bogosian, among others. In order to ensure accuracy, Cox hired Holmes's girlfriend, Dawn Schiller (played by Kate Bosworth), and former wife, Sharon Holmes (Kudrow), as consultants on the project. The handheld camera shots echo the wildness of the world of the man known as Long John Holmes.
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