“He must have been hit by spontaneous combustion, I’ve read about that shit…”
A long time ago, I remember being over at a friend’s house, and they were working on a low-budget horror short, and played it for me on a VCR. Watching Things (1989) feels like that experience but taken to a transcendent level. Especially when in the movie, there are scenes where the characters watch a cheap horror movie on TV, making comments and drinking beers on the couch.
Shot on Super 8 film, Things was edited on video, consequently it all looks like it was Shot-On-Video. A couple of Canadians attempting their own The Evil Dead in an isolated house out in the forest. The film is about two buddies being dropped off at one of their brother’s place, hanging out and cracking beers, as supernatural and strange sights begin to make themselves known. And you really get to know that living room space by the amount of time we spend there. From the blown-out sound recording to the gaps within the editing, slime-soaked puppets and bloody special effects, everything that unfolds in Things gets even weirder still, complemented especially by the attitude of our protagonists towards everything happening.
“Hosers” is a specific category of person, popularised by the SCTV sketch of Bob and Doug McKenzie, and the dudes in Things feel like a real life example of hosers, regional dudes in flanette, keen to crack open a beer even if they’ve seen something bloody and violent. Barry J. Gillis as our hero, Don, with a quality that reminded me of Jason Mewes as Jay from Clerks; they may not be a professional or trained actor but there’s something that is real and can’t be faked. Particularly when he cries over someone who is dead, but can’t help but remark as he moves the body, “Ah geez, you are heavy.”
Adding to the baffling quality of the storyline are intercut news reports featuring adult film star Amber Lynn playing as a reporter clearly reading unrelated stories from cue cards off to the side. Directed by Andrew Jordan and co-written with his star Gillis, there’s something pure and unique about its attempt at ‘cabin in the woods’ horror cliches. From the use of red and blue lighting to accentuate the dream-like quality to the soundtrack’s mix of discordant synth and rock tunes, I was having a great time. By any objective standard, this would be a low-budget, amateur production that would be a bad movie. But there’s something winning to its bizarre, baffling Canuck slacker phantasmagoria. As the closing credits announce, “You have experienced THINGS!”
Available on Tubi (US). Recommended.
VHS Tracking 