The Jar

I am a HUGE fan of B-Movies so when I rented this I was looking for a cheesy no budget movie, hopefully about a killer jar or some crazy liquid in a jar that killed like the blob, that is how the cover looked. This is a boring, boring movie, and the acting does not help at all. The acting is bad, the picture quality is bad, the special effects are bad, this normally adds to a good movie but this was horrible. I can not really even tell you what this movie was about because it was so weird...I have seen other movies where a man goes slowly insane, which I guess is what this was about, but those movies were done well and this was...welll...not. Do not see this for the bad quality of the film, do not see this for any reason, unless you really want to torture yourself. That is all I have to say for THE JAR.

The plot involves a hairy guy named Paul who picks up a creepy old man who was injured in a car accident. The old man insists on taking along this jar wrapped in a bag. Paul takes the old man back to his (Paul's) apartment, the old man vanishes and Paul is left with this jar, which contains this little blue monster that looks like one of the Ghoulies. After that, things get weird as Paul hallucinates and/or dreams all this stuff.

I suppose there could be some symbolism in the film, but we know nothing about Paul before the dreams start, and the dreams seem to have no connection to anything that is happening. My theory is that the director or writer or whoever it was that decided to make this movie took all the weird dreams he had had in his life and rolled them into this painful film. None of the dreams are memorable enough to require a visual translation, though, so they're quite boring to watch. This begs the question of why he decided to do it.

This movie has the feel of a really bad student film. Someone attempting to make an "arty" movie.

Another interesting thing about this film is that it was made in Colorado, but appears to be badly dubbed. All the characters have these dull, out-of-place voices that don't seem to match their faces. It reminds me of B-Movies from the '60s like "Manos: The Hands of Fate" and "The Beast of Yucca Flats" that were either recorded without sound or had the sound erased, and then tried to put sound back in in post-production.

I think this is a bad movie, but I'm no expert. There could be some deep meaning to this film that I don't get. Give it a rent and see for yourself.

Many people seem to hate this movie... well, I love it! Caught occasionally on Telecapri (a regional, Italian TV station that used to show a lot of b-horrors 10 or 15 years ago), this strange film obsessed me for years, becoming a sort of legend: even talking to my friends, it looked like I was the only one who had seen "The Jar"! The strange images of this obscure flick had become part of my fantasy. Last year, I subscribed to an internet horror fans' forum and opened a post there, in which I described all the scenes of this movie, I had been recalling for years; there where other people in Italy who knew it! Obviously, they hated it too; but I finally got that film's title! I bought it on VHS on Amazon, despite the reviews found on this site. Yes, the dubbing was terrible (but it couldn't be worse than the usual Italian dubbing this sort of films get), the editing approximate and the story confusing; but all these elements, helped creating the odd atmosphere that this strange film surely has. Hallucinations, suspension between dream and reality, mystery, non-sense (I admit the candy store scene's a "WTF!?" candidate), isolation, terror and probably some inadvertent qualities too! I consider it as a bad dream: incoherent, maybe incomplete (according to another user's comment, "The Jar" was heavily cut for distribution's reasons), but fascinating and leaving my mind full of inspiration and weird memories. I still like it after all these years and I think it's not worse than many other B (or Z-grade) films that attempted to obtain a 'cult' position after years.

-Dario-

It's true. This flick isn't as bad as some of the reviews suggest as long as you have something else to do during the lulls. Needless to say there are plenty of lulls. I recalled watching this movie back about 16 years ago and was not impressed with it at all at that time. My first impression after all these years is that this was a student film someone managed to sell to a studio. The film is extremely low budget and not terribly exciting. However there are some decently freaky dream sequences that you might find worth watching if you like low budget horror flicks (like me) and the whole thought of this old man leaving a pickled punk in a dudes apartment where it takes over the man mind is at the least creepy. I suggest watching this movie while cleaning the house or surfing the net.... Every 20 minutes or so when something interesting happens you can stop what you're doing and watch for a minute or two.

If you were able to sit through movies like... Drive In Massacre Ghost Riders Garden Of The Dead The Cremators You wont have a problem opening The Jar.

Ths Jar, released in 1984, follows the day to day life of Paul as his life changes for the eerie after picking up a creepy old hitchiker. The old man vanishes but not before he leaves a mysterious object in a paper bag,hence-the jar. Paul then starts to experience strange illusions, one of which has his bath tub fill up with blood in which we get to witness some really cheap camera-trickish special effects. Paul then meets a new female neighbor, who seems to take an instant interest in dating him, despite the fact that she barely knows him and that he acts extremely quiet and creepy. This film is a complete mess from start to finish.There are so many meaningless points of this film-a part when we watch from the outside as Paul goes into a candy store and buys candy, we do not see him inside, but watch the door for 30 seconds.Its as though the filmmakers were just to lazy to get permission to shoot a scene inside.The female lead is a character that contributes absolutely nothing to this movie.All we know about her is that she has an attraction for schizophrenic single white males and bad movie roles(this movie). The acting is worse than "cue card reading" acting, the characters are shallow and out of place, the camera work is so much off its pathetic, and the special effects look like something out of a bargain bin.I do not recommend this film. This movie makes the countless slashers with masked killers look like masterpieces.