Things [1989]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

This is a big one. We have been waiting to get our hands on this for years, probably even longer than we waited to see "Saving Christmas." This movie has a cult around it with its fans calling themselves "Things-ites" (I feel like there should be something more smooth than that but okay) and a reputation as one of the worst movies of all time. For us, it had some of the worst picture and sound quality since something like "Guru, The Mad Monk" or "Crazy Fat Ethel 2" and had a plot that was virtually impossible for anyone, even Sarah, to follow. The dialogue makes Neil Breen look like Shakespeare. It doesn't even feel like a planned movie so much as something a bunch of drunk Canadian rednecks decided to do on the fly because they happpened to have a camcorder. It also has the curious addition of porn star Amber Lyn in it as a newscaster who occasionally reports on what it happening in the movie and hands-down the best actor in the film.

The plot, as we have come to understand it, is about a guy who can't concieve a child with his wife so he asks for assistance from the evil doctor next door to make it happen. We are only really able to gain this information from poorly constructed conversation, a symbolic dream where the guy asks for a baby from a naked woman wearing a ram head mask, and a seemingly out of place scene of a guy torturing people in his basement (clearly where the bulk of the film budget went). All this happens pretty early in the film and then the next hour involves the guy's brother and his brother's friend coming over to raid his fridge. They find a tape recorder in the fridge that gives them infomation about this previous nonsense and then one of them puts his coat in the fridge because he's too hot. Yes, it's the kind of movie where this kind of illogical stuff just happens. Eventually the guy's bedbound wife starts screaming and bleeding and a thing bursts out of her chest like in "Alien." It turns out this thing is one of the THINGS which look like lawn spiders someone got at an iParty around Halloween. The rest of the movie is them wandering around the house in the dark, fighting the things. Occasionally someone will seemingly die and then come back later. In the end, the guy's brother is the only one left and he JUST LEAVES THE HOUSE. We were so angry.

This movie steals from and references enough good horror movies, including "Evil Dead" and George Romero's work, that it seems like the creators may have had an idea of what they were going for although nothing worked. This movie has poor picture quality, poor sound quality, poor dialogue, poor acting, poor special effects, a poor plot, a poor set, poor costuming, poor hairstyles (the 80s!), and just poverty of sense. Please experience things.

Quotes:
"Next time you come with me, you're staying home."

"You never told me you were a kindergarten artist."
"No one told me you were an asshole. I had to find out for myself."

"My niece did that before we tortured and ate her." [We still genuinely do not know if this was supposed to be a joke or if it was a reveal that all the characters are actually psychopaths.]

"They ate Susan! They ate her to the skull!"

And of course:

 

Spoon Rating: 9