Things

OK it's late and I don't have the energy to do it justice, but I am committed to telling the world about the 'Things' screening in Toronto this past Saturday. In case you didn't hear Things is the most hilariously incompetent and berserk movie ever made in Canada (NOT the worst though - that honor goes to 'Caged Terror' - competence isn't everything) and possibly the universe. It is mostly shot on Super 8 and basically involves some hosers drinking beer and wandering around the house. They are occasionally interrupted by an inert papier-mache ant with fangs - it doesn't seem to bother anyone too much that it ate its way out of one of the guys' wife's stomach - and 'newscasts' of moonlighting pornstar Amber Lynn reading cue cards WAY off to the side somewhere. There is one scene where a guy silently waves a flashlight around a bathroom for ten full minutes. Dialogue includes "Next time we go somewhere together I'm leaving you at home!" and "Does a toilet flush during a blackout?" Star Ray TV's legendary Jan Pachul shows up as some kind of 'mad scientist' and trumps everyone with his skeezing hyperbolic delivery even though he's basically playing the same mullet-headed boob as all the others. You can not believe that this thing cost two months and $30,000 to make. They must have bought a lot of beer!

But the real show was the guys themselves. Most of the crew showed up for this, the 19 1/2 anniversary screening - which they said was the first time they ever saw it with an audience! The director was a modest soft-spoken guy, but the co-writer/'star' was very stoned and just could not shut up. He seemed to alternate between embarrassed, pre-emptive defensiveness and attempted good-natured embrace of the audience's howling contempt for their work - signified by him going "HEHHEH" very short and sharp and loud about every thirty seconds during the movie. When Trash Palace proprietor Stacey Case paused the tape for intermission Gillis insisted on telling everyone how much better it was about to get. (It really really didn't.) After the movie he took to the stage and wouldn't let it go; he talked so much no one could start the Q & A, and when the director gave it a shot he talked over HIM. He repeatedly promised to give everyone an autographed DVD (with extras!!) and to interview people for a 'documentary' they were going to do about the movie. Unfortunately both were sidetracked when - AFTER the movie had been over for about ten minutes - they went to turn the camera on and couldn't get it to work. Instead we got to watch three of these guys torture the camera in the corner for perhaps fifteen minutes while Stacey tried desperately to fill up the space. Finally the guy - who had been moaning about the turnout intermittently all night - stood on the stairs and yelled something to the effect of, "I mean I don't HATE Stacey, he's gotta make a living..." at which point the heretofore mesmerized audience came to the collective realization that they might actually never ever get out of there alive, so I did everyone a favour and started making strong ready-to-go gestures like standing up and putting on my backpack. Fortunately the stars all suddenly went out for a smoke which gave us a chance to declare the evening officially over.

Marijuana is a hell of a drug. I feel privileged to have been a part of this event - now "Things" will have new layers of meaning every time I watch it, which I expect will be once or twice a year for the rest of my life. (And for the record, the free DVDs did happen, after I left...peace Barry!)

I am a bad movie buff. But "Things" made me hate all of Canada by proxy. It is seriously that bad. I watched it TWICE. Once with a buddy. (He has not visited my house since then, so he might not be my buddy anymore. I don't blame him, really.)

Then I showed it at a get-together with about a dozen friends who also love bad films. My hopes were that their good spirits and jolliness would find some seeds of corn in this turn. They were game - they tried to joke and laugh at it, but in the end it was Man vs. Machine. And, sadly, "Things"'s mean-spirited stupidity and bad sound quality triumphed over my friends' willpower - by the end, their spirits were broken. All they could do was sit there glumly and say mean things about my mom.

I am a bad movie buff, so I thought I "needed" to see Things. I was wrong. If you are a bad movie buff, and you're considering this, back away slowly. Trust me. You do NOT need to see Things. It is worse than Curse of Bigfoot. It is worse than The Creeping Terror. It might not be worse than the soul-crushing dreariness that is Theodore Rex, but it's a toss-up. Get out while you still can.

I actually BOUGHT this thing, and it's sitting on my DVD shelf right now. It's making me dislike the movies that sit next to it on the shelf by association. It's honestly that terrible.

THINGS is notable mostly as a curio, being the mainstream(?) film launchpad of blue movie queen Amber Lynn. So popular was she in the jizz biz, it was probably inevitable that she'd end up lending her...ehh..."star-power"...to some zot-budget video-exclusive horror flick. Well...in this apocalyptically awful mess, Amber remains fully clothed, but demonstrates that she is, indeed, able to read(!). Her participation consists entirely of prerecorded video footage which features her as a news anchor, blankly reporting some vaguely expository clack on a TV in the house where this "movie" takes place. As she reads from her cue cards with monotone vacancy, you'll wish Ron Jeremy was on-hand to shovel his hairy plonker into her flapping maw and shut her up.

What we're offered, besides the dramatic marvels of Ms. Lynn, is badly shot footage(sans synchronized sound)of two drunk morons in a trashy house, belching out lines of witless dialog as a woman in the bedroom gives birth to several quiescent paper-mache bugs which our cretinous protagonists proceed to exterminate. That's about all I can say for certain, as THINGS is such an unfathomably disjointed thatch of unfaltering laxity that it seems to want nothing to do with itself.

Sadly, I have little doubt that some will actually find reason to praise this steaming rejectamenta as some sort of "art brut" masterpiece, rhapsodizing with masturbatory ardor over its befuddling surreal quality and experimental concrete minimalism. God help them.

1/10...a legitimate contender for "all time worst" accolades.

I consider myself to be a bad film connisseur, but this movie is THE worst EVER!!! It's a badly made Canadian giant bug film, with even worse footage of former porno queen Amber Lynn edited between scenes as a reporter, reporting on things unassociated with this movie. Its a partial rip off of Evil Dead and Last House on Dead End Street, but without the charm of either. Watch at own risk,eh.

I have only this to say: You may not remember what happened in this film, (or you may TRY to forget) but you will never forget the experience of watching it. Trust me on this. It is BEYOND bad. Are you listening? BEYOND bad...