SCTV alums John Candy (SPACEBALLS), Eugene Levy (CANNIBAL GIRLS), and Joe Flaherty (REALLY WEIRD TALES) reunite for an early stab at stateside recognition in the Canadian/American co-production GOING BERSERK, the second of only three feature films by otherwise prolific comic-turned-television director David Steinberg (THE WRONG GUY). John (Candy) is a drummer who runs a limo business on the side with his partner Chick (Flaherty) and is engaged to Nancy (THE WONDER YEARS' Alley Mills), daughter of senator and future presidential candidate Ed Reese (Pat Hingle, THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN). When Reese targets Reverend Sun Yi Day (Richard Libertini, DAYS OF HEAVEN) and his religious organziation ("My body, my soul, my money") for fraud, the reverend and his mistress Angela (Dixie Carter, THE EVENING SUN) - who has been using aerobics to brainwash cult members - plant a post-hypnotic suggestion in John to murder his father-in-law during the wedding.

Not one of the great eighties John Candy comedies, GOING BERSERK is alternately hilarious and desperate. As many jokes succeed as fall flat, with setpieces involving punks and bikers, a brainwashed heiress named Patti (hmmm...), male strippers (John defends a mobbed stripper by literally hurling groping females off the stage), and parodies of kung-fu movies (actually it seems more like a A Fistful of Yen from KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE), THE BLUE LAGOON, as well as FATHER KNOWS BEST with Elinor Donahue taking on Jane Wyman's role as the battered Margaret). Levy appears in a subplot that goes nowhere as Chip's sleazy producer friend Sal DiPasquale (Levy) - director of Kung Fu U. - who blackmails Reese into letting him shoot John's and Nancy's wedding. The supporting cast includes Ernie Hudson (PENITENTIARY II), MORK & MINDY's Elizabeth Kerr, Kurtwood Smith (ROBOCOP), and Julius Harris (LIVE AND LET DIE). The film was the first producing credit for Denise Di Novi (BATMAN RETURNS), with VIDEODROME's Pierre David and Claude Héroux on the Canadian side.