The follow film is an addition to
my ‘Cinema of the Abstract’ project on the film website MUBI, collecting
together films of all areas of cinema that personify an ‘abstract’ and
unconventional mentality and mood to them. This is not for academic reasons or
as work, but a hobby that will also benefit in improving myself ability to
write for a public and centralise my personal tastes and views on this obsession
of mine, avoiding the pretentions and lackadaisical attitudes that I feel have
plague film writing, and in the case of how this project was started, make a
lot of para-cinema and cult film writing incredibly conservative in mind and
taste. All films that have this piece at
the top with have an ‘Abstract’ Rating and a personal score at the end. For
more information on this peculiar scoring system, and what the ‘Cinema of the
Abstract’ list is, follow this link – http://mubi.com/lists/cinema-of-the-abstract
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There must be a cautionary comment
before this review starts that this will be a completely subjective rather than
critical review. Up front, Things would be categorised as one of the worst
films I have seen if viewed through the traditional quality scale of cinema. This
review will however take a different turn that goes against this critical way
of viewing films. I have drifted into a new direction with all the films I’ve
seen since July 2012, but here this new mindset will go to its furthest length.
If you want to see this film, it has to be viewed from different terms to find
enjoyment and appreciation for it, particularly the view of these films that horror
and cult film fans have (who may know of this film and be reading this review).
Do not treat Things as cheap laugh or you will be incredibly baffled and
hostile to it after the end credits.
Taking in what I could get from
Things in terms of a plot, this Canadian straight-to-video piece of infamy
starts with two men visiting the brother of one of them. What they realise
however once they’re there is that the brother’s wife has been involved in an
experimental fertility treatment that causes her to birth the titular ‘things’,
giant ant-like creatures with piranha teeth that devour anyone in their sights.
What you need to realise however is that this film not only has scant
interaction with this plot but seems to be running away from its plot as far as
possible if it had been done on purpose.
It would be avant-garde if it actually intended to alienate its viewers. The reality
is that it wasn’t supposed to.
Made by two friends independently
(director and co-writer Andrew Jordan and co-writer/star Barry J. Gillis) this
is the cheapest looking and technically flawed film I have seen in a long time,
most of its Super 8 filmed footage, because of the lack of sound with the
material, silent until sound and dialogue was added in post-production. Viewed on
an intentionally muddy DVD release to recreate its VHS origins (or maybe because
the surviving source materials are videotape), many will be horrified (in the
wrong way) by its lack of conventional production value, almost all set in a
single house and almost completely lit in low-fi, bleeding red and blue lights
that blur the images even more. The notorious reason why this obscure Canuxploitation
film has gained a growing cult is its complete (and accidental) disregard for
the concept of plotting, pace and the idea of film as a narrative story. The first
half of the film consists of the three main characters talking about random
topics and wandering around the house’s kitchen and living room – drinking beer,
eating cockroach sandwiches, and noticing the once lost ‘Devil’s Daughter’ painting by Salvador Dali on a wall and a
tape recorder in the fridge. And those last two aspects barely skim the odd
moments which have nothing to do with the final narrative. The whole first half
has little to do with the plot and may last between 30-40 minutes or most of the
85 minute film. When the ‘things’ do enter the fray the film descends further
from its plotting, between moments of visceral gore and trauma dealt to the
rubbery ant creatures, with scene of the characters looking around that can
last many minutes, causing me to feel I was blending into the blood red lit
walls. The 4th, 5th and 6th dimension is even
broken without it ever being referred back to.
Now, this sounds like a complete
damnation of Things, but this is where my subjective and personal opinion comes
in. If I had seen this when I was much younger, when I followed the concept of
what ‘great’ cinema was through mainstream film magazines and canon lists, I
would have despised this. What has happened now however is that, having taken a
Film Studies course at college for A Levels and learn cinematic grammar, I have
started to break down the ideas I have been given into my own opinions. To put
it in a less pretentious way, it has made truly great films even greater but it
has allowed me to cherish films like Things and even view them as artistically
more creative and subversive in their failure than more better made movies. I was
bored in parts of Things, continually dumbfounded by the directions it went,
but never felt I had wasted 85 minutes of my life. In fact I am charmed by its
ineptness and was never un-stimulated by it throughout the first viewing. Even the
moments of boredom bring a smile on my face thinking back to it.
Yes it is a technical failure,
but in not following the rules of how a film ‘should’ be made, it is a breath
of fresh air to see after so many bland, ‘properly made’ ones. ‘Bad’ cinema can
be far more interesting than merely being ‘guilty pleasures’ or ‘so-bad-they’re-good
films’, but as legitimately abstract and creative in their mishaps and
production hiccups. I have heard about the members of the original Surrealist
Movement in the early 20th century going to see bad films, not for
cheap laughs, but because they saw their failings as undermining conventions
and puncturing the realities of film to create dream-like effects, something
that has become more potent for me just by viewing films for the interest of
them. This is rare - most bad films are a waste of celluloid, usually for me
examples of why sticking faithfully to clichés and bland story writing can make
whole genres of cinema landfills despite their great films – but through one’s
personal tastes and opinions we can all find movies which we are attached to despite being viewed as terrible creations. This
is not something that only exists for die hard film fans either, as when someone
is attached to a film knowing it’s usually viewed in contempt but not only doesn’t
sees it as a bad film, but finds enjoyment in it being a ‘bad’ film and being
different from everything else. (For example, this is likely why Plan 9 From
Outer Place (1959) is as loved as it is despite its reputation.) Legitimate avant-garde
cinema is known for practicing what would be ‘terrible’ cinematic practices on
purpose (like Jean-Luc Godard’s famous jump cuts in Breathless (1960)) to
question and play with the form, and if anyone was to use aspects of Things on
purpose, I would argue that the results would be legitimately great and fascinating
cinema. Things itself is a memorable and constantly engaging film even in
moments of boredom because you have no idea where it will go, utterly charming
in its oddness if judged by its own perimeters. Things complete displacement
from a narrative and a point to its existence, for example for myself as a
viewer, is hilariously inspired in hindsight to viewing so many films that are
handicapped by the idea of cinema as a story. The first half even reminded me
of Andy Warhol’s The Nude Restaurant (1967), a semi-strange work that is people
just talking for its whole length, if recreated as a home movie of Canadians
drinking beer for hours and speaking the first things that come to their minds.
And of more importance to why
this is loved by a small fanbase, that I will now add myself to, is because this
is whole done within a film that can glad be put in the category of ‘weird’
cinema amongst the higher budgeted and more acclaimed occupants. The post-synch
sound and video grain already creates a ghostly, Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers
(2009)-like effect on the movie, but starting with an opening scene, basement
set dream sequence of an undressing demon woman with a rubber, budget store
mask on is a perfect warning to the viewer of how the homemade cheapness and
the peculiar choices of its creators have melded together in one strange viewing
experience. This does not take into account the video inserts of a news
reporter (porn star Amber Lynn) who is almost an omnipresent narrator who has
no connection to the events in the main setting, and at one point talks about
the director George A Romero trying to get back the copyright back to Night of
The Living Dead (1968) and is never uttered about again. Things does have a
narrative conclusion but how it gets to it has no interest in going from A to Z
but rather from A to a completely different and made-up alphabet.
The results will test many, but
someone who is familiar with this film or has a taste in viewing ‘bad’ cinema
has the right mentality to get the most from it. This is the kind of film that,
if viewed properly, becomes ‘good’ cinema for either a) how unique it is
regardless of being a failure, b) a charm and sincerity to what you see, or c)
pushes itself into a groove that baffles and amazes at the same time. Things
ticks all three boxes, a personal project funded out of the creators own
resourcefulness that, for its mistakes, has a lot more to love and appreciate
than other films. Just remember to get yourself in the right mood to view,
maybe bring some beer with you, and avoid the growing number of giant ant-like
creatures that will appear from the television after putting the DVD disc or
VHS in....
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low)
– High
Personal Rating – 7 out of 10
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