Underated Classics: The Mind-Blowing Humor of 'Senseless'

Chronicled by Afronuts @ Friday, July 22, 2011

It was a Thursday evening (yesterday to be precise) and I was home back from work, seated on the bed viewing a movie on my laptop. Wifey was in the kitchen getting dinner ready, her Mum and younger brother were in the sitting room playing with Timi and watching a Yoruba movie (My mother-in-law has a passion for the genre).

A.Y. was in the room with me all cuddled up and fast asleep in his bassinet cot. I was using earphones to listen to the movie I was watching so that I don’t end up disturbing his sleep with the sound.

As the movie progressed, the funny bits in it began to happen but I couldn’t laugh out because I might wake the baby. So I stifled it and I’m sure I must have looked like a bloated animal with all the puffed up cheeks and mad tears falling through my eyes.

This movie was funny!

Eventually the movie reached a level where the hilarity was just too much. I got up from the bed and ran into the kitchen where Wifey was, sat down on a stool and burst into manic laughter!

Wifey looked at me as if I was high on crack. I told her it was the movie that was doing this to me.

And what movie was this?

You’ll be surprised to discover that it’s not even a new movie and that it's one I've actually watched before; it dates back as far as 1998 and didn’t seem to get much acclaim. Maybe it’s because the plot and storyline was a bit too predictable and sort of too loose, maybe it’s because it came out at a time other blockbusters like Titanic and The Wedding Singer were taking all the glory and stealing the people’s hearts.


I’m talking about the movie Senseless, which stars Marlon Wayans and David Spade.



Damon Wayans as Daryl Witherspoon

David Spade as Scott Thorpe

The storyline follows that of a Daryl Witherspoon (Wayans) who volunteers for a drug experiment in order to raise money to pay for his tuition and support his Mum and siblings. He hopes to be able to do more by winning an academic competition that would earn him a Wall Street job with a high profile company. However he has a contender, the spoilt, rich, proud and arrogant Scott Thorpe (Spade) who does is bent on wining the competition too.





Mathew Lillard as Tim, Daryl's roomate.

Brad Dourif as Dr. Wheedon, the doctor supervising the experiment.

Tamara Taylor as Janice, Daryl's love interest



Daryl has had to do all manner of odd jobs to keep his schooling going. Eventually he came across an Ad asking for volunteers for an experiment. He ended up being the only one left after others took off on hearing about possible side-effects. He had actually been dozing when it was read out so he never knew what he was in for.

Daryl gets overdosed

The drug in question was meant to enhance his five senses (sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch) beyond the ordinary. But he was warned to not exceed the daily dosage.
In desperation to exceed expectations or make a very good impression to the people that matter for approval for the Wall Street job, he took an overdose and suffered hilarious catastrophic consequences.

Lorraine (Kenya Moore) getting frisky with Daryl (Wayans)
...and then side effects show up

Daryl begs for a suit in a shop after getting totally robbed
of everything including his clothes, thanks to another side effect!

 Like I said earlier, the storyline was a bit weak and could have been better but what actually made you overlook that was Marlon Wayan’s performance.


The dude had me laughing like a jackass all over the place. Many of the scenes where he was on the desperate search to make some bucks were really funny but the scenes that followed his usage of the drug had me rolling off the bed and almost tearing my sides with laughter. Even in the process of writing this, I started laughing again as I remembered those scenes.

Wayans was the one that gave the movie life. And you know why I believe its not a bad movie to keep in your library? Because you can never get tired of watching Wayans make an ass out of himself all through the 93 minutes of the movie.

Daryl about to get into trouble making fun of Patrick Ewing (As himself)

If you never saw this movie back then, I guess it’s probably because Titanic and other blockbuster hits caught your attention.
And if you’re looking for something to make you go ROTFLMAO then go look for this movie, it’ll knock your rib cage in.

The movie starred other notable acts like Mathew Lillard (Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo movies), Brad Dourif (the voice of Chucky in the Child’s play movies) and Rip Torn.



Here's a funny scene at the begining of the movie where Daryl tries to donate blood just to raise some bucks. Since you can't do it twice, he pretends to be a different person each time so he could drop more blood and get more money.







And here's another out of the many scenes that cracked me up and made me roll off the bed. It's the scene where Daryl uses his super senses to eavesdrop on a girl talk between his love interest, Janice and her friend.






The idea behind the story was good and it had a lot of potential but I felt it wasn’t explored properly. This could have been a very funny movie that would have spawned off sequels to allow for exploration of more interesting stuff surrounding the story’s idea unless…I’m talking to people without a sense of humor…



Oh…and please don’t mistake the 1998 Senseless for the 2008 Senseless. They are two different movies. While the former is comedy, the latter is a disturbing horror movie.




The Sick Horror   vs    The Comedy