Sleeve text:

The Byzarre Brothers behind bars?

Four years after the events of Byzarre Brothers 2, things are quite a lot different. Having been defeated for the last time, Jake vows that he will have his revenge - and frames the Byzarre Brothers for the brutal murder of Beverly Hills. With them out of the way he commences his plan to become mayor of Alphaville - and begin the final Toupee Apocalypse. And this time, no-one can stop him... Perfect Game sees the return of the Byzarre Brothers, the Doom Crew and Jake the Frat, but in a frightening new Alphaville, in which nothing (and nobody) is quite how it seems...

Starring Phil Hayes as Frank Byzarre, Mark Davis as Francis Byzarre, Rob Short as Jake DeVrat, Paul Rostance as the Doom Crew, Glenn Reed as Professor Glendali, Nancy Spinks as Beverly Hills, Richard Gnosill as Fred D’Albert with James Lingard, Ben Fuller, Lizo Mzimba, robl, Simon Hargreaves and Richard Lewis Jones as the judge. Screenplay by Phil Hayes, inspired by Richard Gnosill, based on characters created by Phil Hayes and Mark Davis. Produced and directed by Phil Hayes. Copyright 1993 Byzness Films. Many thanks to Guild Television.

Plot:

We open on the empty offices of the Byzarre Brothers, and a voice over briefly explaining the story so far (including that of the missing Byzarre Brothers 3). A couple of newspaper headlines tell the story - “Popstar murder!” (with a photo of Beverly Hills) and “Byzarre Brothers killers”.

Ed Carter, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Frank Byzarre, introduces the news headlines for 23 October 1994. A television set is being watched by a security guard in a mental hospital, who goes off on his rounds. In one of the cells is a long-haired, wild-eyed Frank Byzarre. He has a flashback to an attempt to assault Jake the Frat at his HQ. Frank is tortured by visions of Beverly Hills, claiming that he killed her. He also remembers how his defence of explaining the events of the first two film sled to him being locked up as a loony.

Meanwhile, Francis Byzarre is leaving prison. He heads back to the offices of the Byzarre Brothers and fires up the computer. An image of Ed Carter fills the screen. Francis goes to the TV studios and meets Ed, who pretends to be Frank. He gives Francis the brush off, under the instruction of Jake, who is calling himself “Mr DeVrat”. Francis returns to the office to do some more research - he discovers that Jake owns a hair processing plant.

Jake is sitting in his office when he receives a call about a disgruntled security guard at a mental home he owns. He fires the man, but not before the guard has had the chance to release Frank from his cell. The Doom Crew return from South America, where they’ve located Fred D’Albert’s spaceship for Jake. Ed Carter is with them, and he’s brought the central processing unit from the ship - given to him by Fred D’Albert years ago in the South American jungle. Jake has an electronics genius holed up in his building - Glendali is just the man to repair the processor - and he dresses up as Eager to persuade him to do it.

After a quick stop off at home to get changed, Frank makes his way to Jake’s hair-processing plant, where he bumps into a sceptical Francis. He takes Francis to the TV studio, to investigate his claims of a double. When Ed appears he realises what’s going on - it’s his identical twin brother, who Frank thought had died.

Realising that they can’t go back to the office without being caught, they head to Jake’s old abandoned HQ - where they were once held hostage by Fred. Francis uses Jake’s old computer to try and break into the system and learns that Jake has located an ancient hair burial site beneath the town’s council chambers. Jake has bugged the computer and learns where he can get hair from - now he’s going to run for Mayor, with the inside help of Ed.

The Byzarre Brothers are musing on all this over a cold beer, when Fred D’Albert appears in the corner of the room - when the bomb detonated in 1990 he was thrown forwards in time. Frank and Francis leave the unconscious Fred on the floor and head over to Jake’s. While they’re out he recovers and leaves the HQ.

Jake is having trouble persuading Glendali to fix the computer, as he’s obsessed with pickled onions. Glendali finally relents and agrees, but only after he’s told Jake about weird signals he’s picked up from outer space.

Rifling through the papers in Jake’s office, Frank find a tape marked “Beverly Hills”. Jake arrives before he can pocket it. Jake tries to persuade the Byzarre Brothers of his new found decency, to no avail. He taunts them, calling them yesterday’s crimefighters, destined for obscurity. The Doom Crew throw them out.

Frank returns later that night to steal the CCTV tape, but is caught out when Jake enters the room to make a live political broadcast. Frank dives behind Jake’s chair, but loses his grip halfway through. Jake berates him live on air and pledges to lock up loonies like Frank. Frank tries to tell the real story but just sounds like a nutter. After the broadcast Jake realises that the tape has been stolen. When he goes back on air he over eggs his good guy image slightly, with a sickly tribute to the previous mayor. The Doom Crew cock it up by revealing to the viewing nation that Jake asked them to kill the old mayor. Jake denounces the Doom Crew and frames them for money-laundering.

Francis is on the computer and discovers that Frank wasn’t the first person to see the man in black (in Byzarre Brothers 2). Francis reads from the writings of Albert Korfberg, an author who killed himself in Paris in 1932. Korfberg wrote about underground hair and strange visions. Francis is afraid that Jake is in league with the men in black - the Niemandmensch - who want to get out into the real world.

Later that night Frank has another dream - of the Niemandmensch and of the death of Beverly Hills. While he sleeps, Ed is talking his fellow presenter Kate into doing a “screen test” for a movie sponsored by Jake. The screen test involves her dressing as Beverly Hills while Ed dresses as Frank and machine guns her.

John Doom Crew One has been tied to a chair in a test chamber when he is bombarded by subliminal messages by Glendali, who has again been fooled by Jake dressing as Eager. As the test continues, it becomes obvious that John is in pain. Glendali realises he’s been duped, but it’s too late - Jake knows that his subliminal influence will work, and tests it as part of his party election broadcast. With this help, he wins the vote. Now that he has full access to the area beneath the council chamber they have to act quickly. Frank disguises himself as Ed and gets the vital access details.

Following Jake underground, they finally reach a room which looks exactly like Frank’s living room, expect for the Niemandmensch sitting in the chair. After a verbal confrontation and some illusion, there is a tussle with some dopplegangers. The real Eager appears and lends a hand - he’s been exploring this strange world for the last few years. He suggests they dress in the discarded Niemandmensch outfits. Jake is brought in as a prisoner, but manages to escape when the catacombs begin to rock.

As the evening’s broadcast begins with a special report by Ed on Jake’s struggle against the international criminals the Byzarre Brothers, Frank breaks into the transmission suite and changes the tapes. Jake breaks in on the signal from the control room of Fred’s spaceship in South America, where he gloats over the forthcoming toupee apocalypse. Jake is about to press the remote control button to play the tape that will denounce the Byzarre Brothers when Fred D’Albert strides onto the bridge to reveal that he was manipulating Jake and needed the hair to power his spaceship. Jake can do nothing more than play the tape - which is the original version, showing him killing Beverly Hills. Jake is completely discredited. All that remains is for the Byzarre Brothers to head over to South America to retrieve him.....

Notes:

Filmed largely around the campus of the University of Birmingham, the third feature-length BB film to be completed was set a few years after the previous outings, and started with Francis Byzarre leaving prison after serving time as an accessory for the murder of Beverly Hills. Frank’s still behind bars, in a mental hospital. We managed to find vaguely unconvincing locations for all of these places.

In the absence of any kind of video processing kit, the flashback sequences were shot on Super-8 film and video recorded off a wall. So this film actually does have some ‘film’ in it. On the offchance that a particularly old and clunky piece of video processing kit called “the gemini” would be working, Phil shot some splitscreen material of the two John Doom Crews in the vain hope he could put it together in post production. Of course now he could do it on any old Apple i-mac, but he can’t be arsed.

Beverly Hills’ parrot hat made a reappearance, this time on the head of Nancy Spinks - the only piece of recasting in the films. Glenn had a rather nice suit and a moustache in this one. This was pretty much the same outfit he used for his impersonations of Gomez Addams. And of course, the blurring between Rob and Jake the Frat continued, in the shape of a rather nice purple suit.

Phil wrote lots of Albert Korfberg stuff, and only used a little of it for the film. It would be nice to think that the sequence with the Niemandmensch from Byzarre Brothers 2 had been skillfully designed to dovetail with this film, but it wasn’t. Phil made the white glasses in his bedroom and wondered what he could do with them. There you go - genius is 99% perspiration and 1% messing around with bits of sticky paper.

Credits:

Frank Byzarre & Ed Carter - Phil Hayes
Francis Byzarre - Mark Davis
Jake DeVrat & Eager - Rob Short
The Doom Crew - Paul Rostance
Beverly Hills & Kate Walker - Nancy Spinks
Professor Glendali - Glenn Reed
Fred D’Albert - Richard Gnosill
The Judge - Richard Lewis Jones
Security Guard - James Lingard
Reporter - Ben Fuller
TV Director - Lizo Mzimba
TV Technician - robl
TV Viewer - Simon Hargreaves

Screenplay by Phil Hayes, inspired by Richard Gnosill
Based on characters created by Mark Davis & Phil Hayes
Produced and Directed by Phil Hayes

Copyright 1992 Byzness Films.

Duration:

1hr:09min:30sec