Lunatics: A Love Story

The epitome of a Sam Raimi film, this movie is not for everyone. If you don't like Raimi's film making, stay away, but if you do you're in for a treat. Ted Raimi does a fine job as a quasi-sane recluse who just wants to be loved, but still has some psychological issues to work out.

In L. A., agoraphobic Hank Stone (Ted Raimi) has not left his apartment since moving in six months ago. He has disturbing delusions about brain spiders, a mad doctor, bad rappers, and other stuff. Nancy (Deborah Foreman) thinks that she's cursed. She gets dumped by her cruel boyfriend Ray (Bruce Campbell) and loses her hotel room. She gets chased by a gang of street thugs. A random phone call brings the two loners together.

It takes almost forty minutes to bring the two leads together. It takes too long to get going. Quite frankly, I wonder if this would be better as her story over a crazy night. He could be a part of her crazy night. 80's star Deborah Foreman faded out as she advanced into her 30's. It's an old Hollywood story. This low budget B-movie is reason enough for her to start thinking about retiring. It's not that good. Hank's surreal delusions aren't compelling or funny enough. I keep thinking about the rappers. Only weak comedies think that those guys are funny. The movie seems more interested in its b-level special effects. It needs better humor or better romantic chemistry. It needs something better.

Deborah Foreman has been dumped on the street by her boyfriend; she's a jinx. As she is about to be assaulted by a street gang, the telephone rings, and it's Ted Raimi, trying to call a help line; he hasn't left his apartment for six months because of his natural fear of giant spiders, extra-terrestrials, mad doctors, and of course, rappers. He invites her over, but the street gag is blocking her, so he puts on his superhero costume and sallies forth.

Josh Becker's movie is quite a clever little romantic comedy, that satirizes.... well, to be honest, I'm not sure what. Is Miss Foreman a jinx? Is Raimi insane? Apart from his delusions, I mean, and do their delusions include love at first sight? And just because you think the mad doctors are out there -- and the film maker cooperates by showing them to the audience -- what's a crippling insanity? It's a question that afflicts us currently, not just personally, but politically.

In any case, the performances are good, the camera work watchable, and I had a good time.

"Xena" star Ted Raimi (Sam's brother) plays Hank Stone, a formerly institutionalized mental case who (when off his medication) suffers from rather nasty hallucinations and has a phobia that he will be attacked if he ventures outside his apartment. Sort of "Repulsion" (1966) meets "The Secret Lives of Dentists" (2002). It is titled a romance and is inaccurately billed as a comedy.

When he is not dealing with the imaginary spiders creeping around it his brain, the rappers that appear when he plays music, the "hot" billboard girl who seduces him, and the mad doctors prodding him with needles; Hank finds the time to feel lonely and impulsively invites an unseen girl he has dialed on the phone to come up and see him sometime.

The girl turns out to be Nancy, a neurotic but squeaky-clean damsel in distress (she has p....d off a local street gang). Hank is extremely pleased when Nancy arrives (not surprising as she is played by Deborah Foreman-arguably the most beautiful of all the young Hollywood actresses of the 1980's). This was one of Foreman's last films, she wasn't getting quality stuff and had begun to fade a tiny bit physically; director Josh Becker unnecessarily compensates for this by limiting her extreme close-ups.

Hank and Nancy discover they share both an interest in poetry and a tendency to lash out violently at each other during moments of mental disturbance. But Hank's love for Nancy will inspire him to face his demons and venture into the world to save her.

Josh Becker wrote and directed the film, not Sam Raimi of "Evil Dead" fame. Raimi produced the film and Becker was one of his close associates, which may account for the confusion.

The low budget special effects are actually an asset as they give a unity to the expressionistic feel of the film; as does the wonky jazz score.

While some viewers really connect with this film, mainstream viewers will be either bored or irritated. Bored because this is a minimalist movie in which what little happens does so in an unconvincing manner and without a build-up of suspense or real tension.

Irritating because the story is structured wrong. It is supposed to be a romance yet the characters do not meet until minute 42 of the 87 minutes running length. They are only together on the screen for about 20% of the film. This also means that the story be told from two separate points of view, which distances the viewer and makes it necessary to expend a lot of energy achieving a strong identification with either character.

Nonetheless, there is a lot of originality here and the overall the viewing experience is a pleasant one.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

This just has to be one of the funniest films ever, and nobody ever talks about it. I was lucky to have stayed up one night and had Showtime on, and this film was on. When I saw the Raimi family had something to do with this film, I knew I had better watch it, and I did. Now I own it and watch it all the time. This is a great film. On a scale of 1 to 10 this is a rare but well needed 10!