Reflections of Evil

If you've ever asked the question, "What the hell did I just watch?!", prepare to ask it again. REFLECTIONS OF EVIL is definitely NOT for everyone. Some, might even say that it's not for anyone!

An absurdist nightmare caught on film, the casual, raised-on-Hollywood viewer will rip their eyeballs out over this one!

Writer / Director / Actor, Damon Packard plays the immense asthmatic named Bob, who resembles a cross between an overstuffed laundry bag and a shabbily-dressed Christmas tree.

We follow Bob on his various urban adventures, as he encounters a vast array of interesting, sometimes violent characters. All, while the ghostly Julie (Nicole Vanderhoff) attempts to break through to his plane of existence.

Or, something like that.

The disjointed, disorienting dialogue is, well, disquieting. It, along with the beyond-bonkers imagery, exists in some alternate, schizophrenic universe. Bob's life and mission are fittingly incomprehensible.

EXHIBIT A: The tour of the set of THE OMEGA MAN. This is sheer, crackpot brilliance!

EXHIBIT B: The tie-in with Steven Spielberg's filming of SOMETHING EVIL is genuinely bizarre, and ultimately hilarious!

EXHIBIT C: The Golden Guru segment is a gem! Hippies have never shone so bright!

Packard takes horror in an entirely new direction that's both inspired and insane. Watch Skid Row come alive! Suburban, pet dogs attack! Helicopters everywhere!

Through it all, Bob marches on.

Nothing can possibly prepare you for the utterly berserk, Universal Studios finale! It's alarming, disturbing, and VERY funny!

Imagine taking handfuls of mind altering substances while traveling through time and other dimensions. Here's your chance! Don't blow it!...

No matter how awful a film may be there will always be fans extolling its virtues on IMDb. In fact, to read reviews on IMDb is fascinating because almost every one has some viewer claiming it's either the greatest work of art they've ever witnessed, or the most useless dreck they've ever sat through, and oftentimes it's the same film being reviewed! Case in point, "Reflections of Evil." This grotesque home movie actually has champions, believe it or not. It seems that even a movie that is supremely tedious, wretchedly-filmed, non-acted, gross, badly written and directed, can still find a fan base as long as it's weird. It's the Andy Warhol-effect. He once made a film 24 hours long, hours of which entailed a camera trained on a man while he slept. Weird idea, therefore I'm sure even it would find supporters in this forum.

But really, c'mon: "Evil" is Reflections of Garbage. It's a dumpster of old footage and cheap film stock, used to present a story about a shambling, elephantine wacko who spends most of his time on camera wandering and eating... and wandering... and eating. Interspersed with this is some friend of the director being filmed prancing around various L.A. locations in a nightgown with a shell-shocked look on her face. The filmmaker, presumably gaining financing through a trust fund, relative's will, or some other sudden source, appears to have no idea what to do with the opportunity, therefore the "film" he makes go everywhere and nowhere. It's a made-up muddle.

But, I will say a few things in its favor, even though it's on a historical basis rather than the quality of the film. It does use extensive street locations in Los Angeles. When this stuff is seen twenty-or-so years from now it will be interesting, nostalgia-wise. As is, in reverse, the cobbled footage from ABC television that features promos from the summer of 1969. Then there is the dead-on 1971 flashback at Universal Studios with a good Spielberg impersonator and a correct time reference (He WAS making 'Something Evil' at the time, as shown). And the promo steal of Tony Curtis talking about Charles Bronson but being dubbed to say "Packard" is straight -out pirate film-making. But to relay this collage content is to hint that there is something worthwhile in this mishmash. There isn't.

I think it´s a pure masterpiece of art. Really. I have the deepest respect for this kind of filmmaking.

It´s not horror. It´s not splatter. It´s satire. The best satire I´ve seen in years.

I wrote this just have seeing it the first time:

"Reflections on reflections - Damon Packard, genius or just insane?

One sunny afternoon a strange spam-mail dropped into my mailbox. I first thought had to do with a project I was working with, but I soon realized that this was something completely different. It was about Damon Packard´s epic movie about a man called Bob and his trip through the streets of LA: Reflections of evil.

Damon wanted to give me a copy for free and I mailed him at once. I needed to see this flick. And after studying the very cryptic official page I was going mad. I MUST SEE THIS MOVIE!

I´ve never been so curious about something like I was this time. When I haven´t received a copy in almost one week and really felt sick. I wasn´t myself. I wanted to hear the mailman drop the package in my mailbox.

My angst disappeared on Friday morning. The mailman had a present for me. A dvd from Damon Packard!

A friend of mine got a copy the day before and said that this was very strange, so I just manage to keep away from the movie for a couple of hours. This was something special, and I didn´t want to see it at once. But what the f**k!

This is the story of a slightly tragic salesman. Or is he really tragic? Roaming the streets of LA, furious and clearly out of his mind. It´s like a roadmovie, but inside the heart of tinseltown. The city of happiness and madness. It´s not only about tinseltown, it´s about the american society, the fury of the people. This is the country that never sleeps and never seems to get some rest. People are furious and sad, confused and obsessed. Some reviewer said it made him think about Apocalypse Now - and I agree. This is the ultimate inner travel I´ve seen in many years.

Slowly the city around Bob is turning very weird. The hate comes out and the paranoia is over us. Helicopters is watching everything, cops are everywhere and people are just insane.

During the time the Bob is attacked by homeless people and dogs we´re turning back in time, till 1971. Bob, his mother and older sister is visiting Universal Studios and taking the tour. After his sister disappears and get´s involved with weird sect that makes her one of them. She dies of an overdose (I think). No she want´s to save Bob from the hell he´s in, from beyond the grave.

Let me say one thing, this is a movie that´s helluva hard to describe. The best way to understand what I mean, is to see it. Go get a copy goddammit.

Packard have shot the movie on 16mm, super8 and Digital8 on a very low budget. But this don´t mean it looks like crap, because it dosen´t. Packard and his cameraman is clearly very talented and the jumping from documentary dogme-style to classic dolly-shots are marvelous and works very well. The light is most of the time very tight and moody. Some people seem to be disturbed by the strange and noise soundtrack. But I don´t. Everything seems to be dubbed afterwards and it makes the feeling of the movie more surreal.

I know, I´m being hypnotized by this flick. I can´t help it. It had something that spoke to me very clearly. Maybe was it the inspiration from J. Kennedy Tools novel Confederacy of Dunce's or the surreal and unconventional storytelling? You´re pulled into Bob's strange mind and all the people he meet. And it´s impossible to stop.

Packard goes from very cheap physical humor to Woody Allen-esqe dialogues, from Jess Franco and Jean Rollin to Herzog and Fassbinder. The inspiration clearly comes from the movies from the sixties and seventies and it works well.

Does Packard want to tell us something with this movie? Maybe I´m very wrong, but I think so. This is a story about a country falling apart. About people who dosen´t trust the system and the constant `big brother' watching over them. The fear of that somewhere there´s a couple of fat men in expensive suites that makes all the decisions of the country's future.

Packard seems to have a love-hate relation to America, Los Angeles and the entertainment industry. Universal Studios become the symbol of the cultural decay of the world and when it almost literary turns into living hell at the end, it becomes clearer. There´s only Damon Packard to make E.T. a terrifying experience. E.T. - the symbol for peace and happiness, cute children and the moral people.

Probably some of you are just calling this movie crap. Some of you will just throw it in the garbage (don´t) and some people, like me, will love it. Adore it.

Give Packard a movie contract and some money, let him do whatever he want. He deserves it.

(and, yes...Damon isn´t insane. He´s a genius)

/Fred"

I recently found a copy of Damon Packard's "Reflections of Evil" on DVD at my local record store. This version runs 90 minutes, I guess the original was over 2 Hours. Anyways I thought the film worked perfectly on a 90 minute running time, because it's literally non stop massive insanity. Acid lovers be warned. The director will probably never make a film again, because of all the celebrities he sent thousands of copies to. The film is post dubbed, so all the dialog sounds very surreal and funny, especially some of the voices that are sped up. Anyways, the plot of the story concerns Bob, an overweight watch salesman who aimlessly roams the dirty streets of L.A, trying to sell watches to people when he's not cursing them out. The beginning of the film we see his sister, almost in a dream like sequence. The intro feels like an ode to filmmakers Jean Rollin and Jess Franco. Then we are treated to psychedelic color filters and street bums and drug addicts galore. A dark nightmarish underbelly of L.A is exposed to the viewer. Bob never has luck selling the watches, and his mom gets on him about his weight. He loves sugar and is constantly consuming sweets. One scene he's seen shoving his face with Mcdonald's food, an obvious critique on American consumerism. Yelling obscenities in front of Miss Congeniality posters, and falling head first on to the pavement over and over. Then the film goes into a 70's flashback. Bob goes to Universal studios with his mom and sister, his sister witnesses a cocky young Steven Spielsburg directing, before overdosing on PCP. Throughout the film he is haunted by images of his dead sister, she's returned to warn him about his eating problem. The universal studios turns into hell where people are forced to ride amusement rides over and over till they repeatedly fall and splat on the pavement. Images of chaos are thrown at the viewer full force, symbolism of of a 911 world, where chemicals affect the insanity of L.A's population. There's not much else I can say to describe "Reflections of Evil". Damon Packard is definitely an artist, maybe ahead of his time. In the history of cinema there have been directors like Bunuel and Jodorowsky, who have shown viewers what they don't want to see, but need to see. Packard definitely has the early shock element that was part of surrealism in cinema. Reflections of evil is funny and frightening in it's excess. It takes the viewer on a chaotic roller-coaster ride (literally) and doesn't stop till it falls head first. In other words I loved it!

I watched the whole movie. Not a lot of people can say that. This has to be the most obscure, most inscrutable, and downright strangest movie I have ever seen. The DVD also comes with Packard's previous work, but for God's sake don't look at that!!!