Long before Ron Jeremy dazzled adult audiences with his generous endowment, John C. Holmes brought the porn industry to prominence with his similarly sized genitalia. The Academy Award-winning 1997 film “Boogie Nights” featured Mark Wahlberg loosely disguised as the noted hardcore pioneer, documenting his rise and fall in the industry. Now “Wonderland” brings the porn legend’s bloody, vice-filled post-XXX career to the screen with Val Kilmer standing in as the violent, drugged-out former porn king.
On July 1, 1981, Los Angeles was shaken by a bloody quadruple slaying on Wonderland Avenue. Some of the goriest, most brutal killings to grace the already-crime-polluted City of Angels, these slaughters become known simply as the “Wonderland murders.” And at the center of the investigation is John Holmes, a known associate of the dead and frequent guest of the home-turned-killing-ground.
“Wonderland” seeks to show two distinctly different accounts of the story: one related by Holmes as he sits down with detectives, and one related by a shady colleague of his while also being interrogated.
But the film is not simply about the savage homicides on Wonderland Avenue — the picture takes care to portray Holmes’ abusive relationship with his young girlfriend Dawn (Kate Bosworth, “Blue Crush”) and the almost-maternal role of his estranged wife Sharon (Lisa Kudrow, “Friends”). Kilmer does a deft job of portraying the polar extremes of Holmes’ colorful persona, between his moments of wretched abuse (and assault) and sexual tenderness.
The film, however, comes up short, as it fails to offer audiences any genuine resolution. While two contrasting accounts of the same story are offered, no definitive answers are given before the titles at the end of the movie. And while a tidy summation would certainly be inappropriate, some sense of closure would be immensely helpful.
The second disc of the DVD package, however, is a documentary that accomplishes everything that “Wonderland” sets out to do, but in a cleaner, more satisfying manner. “WADD: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes” is Cass Paley’s thoroughly entertaining reflection on the life of the porn legend, from the tales related in “Boogie Nights” through those in “Wonderland” and up to his tragic death from AIDS, which neither film fairly recounts. “WADD” fascinatingly portrays the varying accounts of John Holmes, cutting between interview subjects who adore the porn star as a darling and those who recall him as a pathological liar with a temper. Moreover, the interviewees account for a who’s who of industry figures, from Ron Jeremy to Al Goldstein to Larry Flynt, and extend through those who were closest to Holmes, with the noted exception of his biological family.
This critic first encountered the gem of a documentary when covering the 1999 Florida Film Festival, and after five years the film has finally found a way into the flow of mainstream cinema, albeit as the equivalent of a “B track” on a DVD. If Lions Gate has any sense, they will grant “WADD” its own release and allow the documentary to shine independently of “Wonderland.”
The other fascinating feature offered up on the DVD is the original Los Angeles Police Department crime-scene video of the Wonderland murders. It is certainly unsettling to watch such a vivid and gory account of the slaughterhouse and realize that the blood-smeared bodies are not those of make-up-laden actors, but of savagely murdered humans. Still, the jarring nature of the footage works to make the story of “Wonderland” all the more poignant, and it serves as a testament to the relative accuracy of both “Wonderland” and “WADD” in relating the grizzly murders.
For those short on viewing time, the wisest plan of attack for this DVD may well be discarding the first disc and simply sticking with “WADD.”
