Ligação Mortal

Disconnected is the perfect word to describe the style of this very bizarre '80s obscurity, which is executed in such an off-kilter manner, with disparate scenes edited together in a seemingly random manner, that it actually proves quite mesmerising.

Frances Raines stars as pretty video store clerk Alicia, who begins dating a guy called Franklin (Mark Walker) unaware that he is the serial killer who has been butchering local women. Meanwhile, the poor girl is also having to contend with a series of bizarre, unsettling phone calls that are pushing her to the brink of insanity. While this sounds pretty straightforward, writer/producer/director/editor/tea-boy Gorman Bechard's unique creative approach makes for an unusual viewing experience to say the least.

From the get go, this is one weird movie, the first ten minutes or so making very little sense: Alicia helps an old man to her apartment, where he uses her phone and promptly disappears; Alicia and her friends dance to a really bad band; a man entertains a woman at a bar by doing the same magic trick twice; Alicia accuses her boyfriend of sleeping with her twin sister; Franklin visits the video shop despite not owning a player; a cop talks directly to camera about the murders: all of this is edited together in such a strange fashion that it beggars belief (throughout the film, Bechard chucks in random shots of everyday objects for good measure).

The film then trundles along in a relatively logical manner until midway, when Franklin is shot dead by the police, after which Alicia's scary phone calls become more and more frequent. No explanation is ever given for these occurrences, the film ending with Alicia smashing her phone (after the earpiece bleeds!?!), and with the reappearance of the old man from the beginning, whose relevance is also a complete mystery.

Go into this one expecting to not understand what is happening, and you might just find yourself entertained by its sheer craziness; if not, then there's always the lovely Miss Raines to hold your attention, the actress spending much of the film wandering around in her underwear and taking off her top to provide the obligatory nudity (she also plays Alicia's twin sister Barbara Ann, giving us twice the opportunity to appreciate her charms).

4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

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.

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.

Pretty much loved this through and through - the blaring pop-punk soundtrack - Francis Raines' believable acting/characterization - the weird off-kilter blend of the banal and truly bizarre - the use of real apartments/clubs/videostore/Waterbury streets in which it all takes place - guaranteeing nothing feels like a "cheap set" despite (and/or because of it) being a low-budget production.. there's great choices being made all over the place here including a plethora of odd-ball, random little details - like shrimp newberg for dinner (!?!) - realizing she lives right across the street from the cemetery - or the ridiculous Groucho Marx statue in her apartment (that takes on a truly creepy demeanor at one point) - make it much richer a watch than expected and not just a by-the-books/let's-make-a-buck exploitationer.. and when it shifts from being (mostly) "I know where this is going" into something darker, more sinister and more somewhat incomprehensible - it manages to become truly frightening and nightmarish.. and that cacophonous noise coming out of her phone is pretty darn unsettling.. all of the reviews I read (positive or negative) pointed out a particular shot as a complaint towards being amateurish - a shot that actually had me almost leaping outta my seat thinking how bold and beautiful a choice it was - and it doesn't feel out of place in a movie that is doing a lot of things its own way.. Director Bechard's Psychos In Love is probably better known - possibly better regarded - than Disconnected - but I found this one to be more enthralling, more particular, more interesting - and less straining to be funny or quirky.. and in the words of the Disconnected nice-guy-but-a-serial-killer, Franklin's trade-mark sign-off that I got a kick out of once I realized he was going to keep saying it: "ok - see ya - bye"..

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.