Disconnected

My review was written in January 1986 after watching the movie on Active video cassette.

"Disconnected" is a low-budget horror film made by locals in Waterbury, Connecticut, which tries to surmount the cliches of the genre, but emerges as a routine picture. One-man filmmaker Gorman Bechard shows some style, especially in flashy insert shots, but needs to come up with more original material.

Frances Raines toplines as Alicia Michaels, a young woman who works as a sales clerk at Valley Video, a home video store. She's had a fight with her deejay boyfriend Mike (Carl Koch), accusing him of having slept with her twin sister Barbara Ann (also played by Raines), and now a young guy Franklin (Mark Walker) keeps hanging around Valley Video trying to get a date with Alicia.

Meanwhile, the cops are investigating a series of slasher murders, with evidence (shown to the viewer but not known to the cops) implicating Franklin. Alicia is plagued by annoying phone calls that feature harsh noises. She also becomes involved romantically with Franklin.

Although Bechard plants some interesting clues in the opening reel, plotline goes haywire when Franklin is seduced by twin Barbara Ann, murders her and then, in a poorly designed scene (it's largely omitted, referred to verbally later) is killed by the cops. The killings continue after Franklin's death with an open-ended finale ponting at the real killer.

Bechard's exposition scenes, particularly with the lackadaisical cops, continually mock the rigid format of slasher films, but ultimately his picture lapses into these cliches, such as the overuse of he phone call gimmick. Leading lady Raines, who has been featured in many B-films of late, is impressive in her dual role, combining vulnerability with the ambiguity of possible madness necessary in a "Repulsion"-type heroine.

Both the (extremely) low budget production values and the bad acting helped to create a film that was reminiscent of giallo, which brought a sense of nostalgia to the table for me- however, Disconnected has characters that are the 'every day' american type, and this, alongside the graininess of the cheap film stock, makes the film seem much more like a 70's film than an 80's one. The more real violence contributes to the 70s feel- other than the acting, there is no cheese to be found here. The first 3/4 of this film were absolutely fantastic. A real sense of tension and a blend of realistic, sleazy subplot alongside a more surreal main plot made Disconnected an absolutely unique and interesting piece. After the subplot culminates however, the film falls off, and begins to wear out its welcome. Overall this film is actually really cool as long as you can stand the super low budget feel.

You have to give Disconnected a hand for daring to go against the grain and do something different. It's not your typical "teens in the woods/at a grad night/at prom/at camp/etc." being hacked up kind of horror movie, but that doesn't mean it works. In fact, it doesn't work.

Besides some flashes of potential here and there, Disconnected fails to make much of an impact due to a lack of suspense and underdeveloped characters. The entire thing is as baffling as a David Lynch movie but without the finesse. It's hinted that there might be something supernatural at play which gives it a slightly dreamlike feel, but I can't tell if that was intentional or because the filmmakers weren't sure what they were doing. However, it's probably the most interesting aspect of the film.

Four stars...for THIS film; all the proof you need to realize the rating system here just can't be taken seriously. "Disconnected" is, for lack of a better description, a movie for people who are truly into film. It's not a movie to simply watch for entertainment, or as a distraction, but rather something to be studied for it's technique, camera angles, experimental ideas that come together to create a totally unique experience. New wave music and 80's fashions are on display, as this intriguing story that centers around a group of people that love movies and music...and sex and murder, unfolds like some nostalgic dream. The fact that the cast, both male and female, is gorgeous, doesn't hurt the production at all. Alicia works at a local video store where she rents big box movies to the locals. The store is decorated with movie posters. When she goes home to a place that is also covered with movies posters, you realize that Alicia is a big movie fan. She has an identical twin sister, Barbara Ann, who is as crazy about her sisters boyfriends as Alicia is about classic movies. One of the men sis decides to steal, is a violent, psychotic serial killer.. But things aren't as they seem, and Alicia has unknowingly invited an evil force into her home, by way of a mysterious old man, who seems homeless, and in need of a phone to call for help. That old man disappears when Alicia turns her back. She assumes he has left her house...but he hasn't. This evil presence manifests itself through the telephone, when Alicia starts being terrorized by a horrible, evil, ear splitting sound on the other end of her phone line. The connection between the serial killer and this evil force isn't explained, but the whole thing is just such a chilling and fascinating mix of horror and oblique mystery. "Disconnected" is sort of a punk rock movie, with it's music and clothing, and those night club scenes. The characters are those hip people who always seem to know the cutting edge bands and the underground music venues. Shot on a tiny budget, the gray, late Autumn scenery creates an atmospheric and unsettling world. Strangely the recent horror film "It Follows" has a very similar aesthetic to this film, and I wonder if the director of that movie is a fan of this obscure gem. The bluray restoration for "Disconnected" is a welcome addition to any fan of cult and avant garde horror, and it already goes for a hefty price on auction sites. And this film is exactly that; a film for movie collectors and serious film buffs. Casual viewers will most likely not comprehend the greatness that is this film..

Once again we're in the realms of slasher movies that just about fit the guidelines of the category. As with Dead Kids and Murderlust, Disconnected attempts to branch away from the hackneyed likes of The Prowler and Edge of the Axe without straying too far from the stalk and slash rulebook.

After the credits have rolled we meet Alicia (Francis Raines) the protagonist of the feature. On her way home from work one day she finds an elderly man hanging around mysteriously beside her apartment. Sympathetically she allows the stranger to come inside and use her phone, but whilst she's making a cup of tea, he vanishes from her living room without trace. Later that night, Alicia tells her twin sister Barbara Ann (also Francis Raines) about the mysterious visitor, but she laughs it off telling her sibling that he probably just made a call and left suddenly. We soon learn that these twins don't exactly see eye to eye, mainly because Barbara Ann keeps sleeping with Alicia's boyfriends behind her back. Mike (Carl Koch) is the latest in the line of unfaithful partners to get the chop, not only for the aforementioned cheating, but presumably also because he has the worst case of 'bad mullet syndrome' that I have ever seen! Imagine a mid-eighties geek with a poodle on his head and you may be able to conjure up your own visual image.

Down in the dumps and on the rebound, Alicia meets up with a guy named Franklin (Mike Walker) and agrees to go out on a date with him. Franklin comes across as a polite fellow and he hides pretty well the fact that he loves nothing more than picking up promiscuous women, taking them back to his flat and then slaughtering them with the handy switch blade that he keeps in his bedside cabinet. Around the same time that Alicia meets this undercover maniac, she begins receiving bizarre and frankly quite credibly eerie persistent anonymous phone calls. As the bodies pile up around the city the Police get more and more baffled. Is Franklin the mysterious caller or is the petrified female just a little disconnected?

Disconnected is certainly an oddity of a feature. Almost as intriguing as it is bemusing, it will at times leave you staring at the screen in confusion. After the killer is revealed and dealt with half way through the runtime, the mystery is still un-resolved and to be honest the conclusion remains inconclusive to the viewer. Gorman Bechard's direction will have you as baffled as the illogical plot line. 88 of the 90-minute runtime looks to have been shot and edited by a retarded gibbon, but then every once in a while he manages to pull off a standout shock sequence that feels out of place amongst the rest of the point and shoot mediocrity. The director's obsession with wide, spacious and eminently tedious backdrops is as tedious as a HBO documentary and the chapters look to have been sewn together using a chainsaw and a tub of wallpaper paste.

The dramatics from the supporting actors are generally non-existent, but Francis Raines showed flashes of potential. OK, so she's certainly no Merryl Streep; in fact come to think of it, she's no Sharon Stone either; but for a breakout performance, I've certainly seen worse. One thing that is worth mentioning is the cheesy but still rather enjoyable soundtrack, which must have soaked up the majority of the minuscule budget. Look out for the hilarious nightclub scene, which in true slasher cheese on toast tradition shows us why the early eighties will always remain a bad disco memory to those that were alive and kicking at the time.

Bechard didn't attempt to hide the fact that he was making a shlock-a-lock feature. One character says, "I feel like I'm stuck in a low budget horror film, because some man is going round killing young women!" Another mentions something about nudity and violence and you can tell that the director knew exactly which audience he was aiming to satisfy. I guess in a way he succeeded, because for all its nonsensical and off the wall ramblings, Disconnected remains worth a watch. Yes it's confusing, and yes it makes very little common sense; but as an authentic take on the slasher formula, there are worse attempts floating about. Track it down if you can find it.