Things (1989)

Today on Movie Russian Roulette, Alex watches the strangest goddamned thing he's ever seen.

"My name is not Inigo Montoya. You didn't kill my father. Prepare to live."

Overview: The movie opens with a man talking with a woman in a demon mask. He asks her to bear a child for him, as he and his wife haven't been able to. She strips silently, then goes to take a shower. When the man insists she doesn't need to freshen up, she states she's already borne his child and hands over a cradle. The man oohs and ahhs, but then the baby is a monster who attacks him. The man then wakes up from this dream that the movie spent the first ten minutes on. The significance of this is never really explained.

The movie is ostensibly about demonic "things" that look like bloody spiders with toothy maws that attack a group of Canadian friends up in the boonies to visit a friend. However, the movie spends most of the time ignoring the actual threat in favor of the friends sitting around, drinking, and talking about everything from shitty movies to Satanic cults.

The occasional action and gore scenes are interspersed with cuts to a "news" report that doesn't even pretend to look like it's coming from a studio, where a woman with no other significance delivers exposition directly related to what's happening in the house. There's also a subplot about UV rays being able to double human lifespans. The significance of this (say it with me everyone) is never really explained.

Eventually, the main character (whose name is stated only a few times for half the movie) maybe goes crazy and hallucinates everyone and everything that happened in the movie, in what was I think intended in a shocking twist? It just comes off as abrupt, as nothing in this movie is foreshadowed, like a major character disappearing with the explanation of "I think he was sucked into the fourth or fifth dimension through that mousehole!"

Notable quotes/moments:
A lot of the soundtrack is fond of Hotline Miami-esque warbles, which contributes to the surrealism of it all. In fact, most of the movie feels like a fever dream. Inspired by Evil Dead. Directed by Max Headroom.

Unnamed character: "They get the Bestiality Network out here! Ha hah!"

At one point, we cut from the drinking buddies to a scene where hospital staff are slowly torturing a man who has had most of his skin removed while a disembodied voice chants "Kill" in the background. The significance of this is never explained.

Don (main character): "Next time you come with me, you're staying home!"

"You never told me you were a kindergarten artist."
"You never told me you were an asshole."

Don accidentally bashes in the head of Doug, his brother. Blood is rapidly gushing out of the wound, and Doug isn't moving. "Ah, I hammered yer head in... are you ok?" He then goes to get bandages.

Don, attempting the Herculean task of replacing a fuse while dramatic music plays: "I'd better watch myself, I'm not very good at electricity things."

After the movie's climax, the camera lingers on a dripping sink for several minutes for no particular reason.

Helpful stranger: "Are you sure this wasn't all a dream?"

Final line of the movie as Don locks himself in a closet with his brother's corpse: "I'll be okay... I'll be okay..."

For those valiant enough to sit through the credits like I did past a little blooper where the reporter lady talks about a past role, one of the early scenes is replayed almost word-for-word, except Don has a demonic echo on his voice. No one comments on this, and the movie ends immediately after.

My thoughts: Holy hell, I thought I had seen the weirdest the movie world had to offer after Zardoz. I was so wrong. Canada, I take my hat off to you if you can play host to a movie production this deranged. Perhaps there's hope for you after all.

"We'll confuse and annoy you with our weird films!"

 As you may have gathered, the pace on this movie is beyond slow. Often when it seems the movie is gearing up for some action, we'll shift to the guys drinking whiskey, bitching about not having brought food, and pranking each other, like they had to leave the camera running when they took breaks and decided to just throw it in to pad time. The central story is very simple: monsters kill people... OR DO THEY? However, the manner in which it's told defies all explanation. I wish I could convey just how incomprehensible some of the choices of the script are, but I don't have the words.

I do have plenty of words, however, for the actors. Further research has revealed that this was made by a group of friends who loved horror movies and wanted to make one of their own. All fine and good. However, I'm pretty sure they'd send any acting coach running in terror. Delivery is understated, muddled, and often slurred or otherwise incomprehensible. This isn't even just bad equipment or bad special effects (the gore is actually quite good) like Birdemic, it's just plain ol' bad delivery.

Not that their equipment is good, mind you. This movie was shot on a shoestring budget, and it shows. It's an indie movie in every sense of the word, not like these corporate imitations we get today, but as a result, a movie released in 1989 looks like it came from around 1971.

Basically, this movie is like the lovechild of Hotline Miami and Evil Dead as directed by Max Headroom. It's unlike anything I've ever seen, and anyone with a stomach for gore and even a little bit of a taste for the weird owes it to themselves to give this one a try. This movie can and will annoy, confuse, and mystify you. And it's all about some Canuck rednecks getting drunk and wandering around a house while they ignore spider-demon-babies bent on killing them all. Or do they?

I give this movie a Detective Cage Applies Proper Police Procedure out of five. Yell at me on Facebook.