![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/THINGS2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It’s a question I’m often asked when I tell people I’ve been hosting a little get together with friends called BAD MOVIE MONDAY for the last two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s the worst movie you\u2019ve ever seen?\u201d<\/em> That one’s easy. It’s a movie called THINGS, and it is the purest form of trash you’ll ever see.\u00a0 <\/em>If you don’t know anything about it, THINGS was the brainchild of writer Barry J. Gillis and director Andrew Jordan. The movie supposedly had a budget of $350,000. However, that seems to be such a ridiculous exaggeration that I won\u2019t even bother trying to debunk it. No way this cost that much. Either that, or hiring porn star Amber Lynn for three minutes of screen time cost a LOT more than I thought it would. Oh, and speaking of Amber Lynn, there\u2019s two things to I want to say about her. One is that she is, by far, the best and most professional actor in this movie. Yeah, she\u2019s totally reading off cue cards on a \u201cNews Studio\u201d set in scenes that have nothing to do with the rest of the movie and were shot months if not years after principal photography, but she still knows how to act, which is refreshing. Two, is that she seems really sweet. Like she\u2019s a big sister who went to her little brother\u2019s party because she\u2019s pretty and popular and knows it\u2019ll help him get more people to come. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know she was paid to be in this, but in the behind the scenes footage she seems to be really amused by these guys. She\u2019s laughing and telling them stories about working on “52 Pickup” directed by John Frankenheimer. It\u2019s just cute, and these days I\u2019ll take all the nice and sweet moments I can get.<\/p>\n THINGS is a very Ontarian movie made by very Ontarian people, and not just because there\u2019s an actual line in the film that goes \u201cThe blood is dripping like MAPLE SYRUP.\u201d Imagine if Bob and Doug McKenzie tried to remake Evil Dead and you\u2019ll be within the ballpark of the insanity that awaits you.<\/p>\n As far as I can piece together, I\u2019ve only seen this nine times after all, THINGS is about two friends, Don and Fred, who go up to visit Don\u2019s brother Doug at his remote woodland cabin surrounded by murderous snakes and bears. However, unbeknownst to them, Doug and his wife Susan have participated in strange experiments by the evil Doctor Lucas in order for her to get pregnant because Doug is impotent. Soon after the friends arrive she gives birth to little THINGS that attack Don, Fred and Doug in various ways, and the three have to try to survive the onslaught.<\/p>\n Barry J. Gillis, who stars in the film and co-wrote the script, also did much of the music along with cast member Bruce Roach and director Jordan. I could make fun of the music, but you know what? It\u2019s memorable at least. You\u2019re not going to forget this soundtrack. You really won\u2019t. It\u2019ll haunt your dreams for months after watching the film<\/p>\n Doug Bunston, who plays uh\u2026 Doug, was meant to be a co-producer until he was forced by his family to get a \u201creal\u201d job. Which is an attitude by family members I\u2019ve always found idiotic. Because, even in this case where the movie is utterly terrible, the guy\u2019s going be remembered for the work he did. No one ever asks you to sign a movie poster because you were a great grocery store clerk. Always support your children\u2019s dreams, even if they\u2019re stupid dreams. Dreams are what you\u2019ll remember when you\u2019re old, not the awful reality.<\/p>\n Bruce Roach, who plays Fred, ran a video store called Video Gore in Scarborough Ontario and could only be on set for a short time, which is why his character disappears halfway through the movie in a scene that is both underwhelming and completely over the top. You don\u2019t see him die or anything. The character just isn\u2019t there anymore and the other characters go \u201cOH MY GOD! Fred just got sucked into the third, fourth and FIFTH dimension.\u201d Then later, when he comes back into the movie, literally nothing is mentioned of this. He just randomly bursts onto the screen swinging a real chainsaw, which apparently was an actual functioning saw that he almost cut himself with after slipping on all the fake blood on set.<\/p>\n I feel like I\u2019m not accurately conveying the surreal quality of the film. This is the kind of shit that\u2019s so utterly odd that even Dali couldn\u2019t come up with it. How can I describe the long stretch of running time that Fred spends marveling on everything in the room including the fact that the cabin has running water and a plastic fish on the wall? How can I describe the fact that the guys inexplicably eat sandwiches with cockroaches inside of them? How can I describe the bonkers dialogue? \u201cI was just trying to eee-eee-eease the tension!\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s all madness, all of it, but that\u2019s kind of what I like about this film. You don\u2019t watch THINGS for the intricate storytelling or the acting. You watch it because it\u2019s made by people with access to cameras who had the crazy notion that they could pull an actual movie despite having no money, no experience, and no idea what they were doing. The film consistently manages to surprise me. It consistently makes me smile. Because I never know what to expect from one moment to the next even though I have legitimately seen it nine<\/em> times. I\u2019m never bored. How could I be? I doesn\u2019t follow any of the rules of film-making. It just sort of IS, and I\u2019m good with that. In fact, I recommend this to anyone with a dream and a camera. This will inspire you. Because if these guys did it, that means you can do it too. You can\u2019t do any worse, that\u2019s for damn sure<\/p>\n Oh, and before I leave you to decide whether to inflict this upon yourself or not, here’s a list ten things that I promise will happen during the film. It’s been a tradition of mine to make one of these lists for every BAD MOVIE MONDAY, and so why break tradition?<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n\n#1 – Gratuititties within the first minute. The naked lady in the scene was an actual prostitute they hired. She wore a mask because she was ashamed of appearing in the movie.<\/div>\n#2 – Tragically, and somewhat confusingly, Amber Lynn will not show gratuititties.<\/div>\n#3 – The dialogue is more surreal than anything Luis Bu\u00f1uel, Salvador Dali, Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch could have ever come up with.<\/div>\n#4 – The incompetence on display gives newfound respect for movies like Blood Feast or Mutilations. At least those movies understood things like how to record SOUND.<\/div>\n#5 – Pain. Suffering. Torment. Agony. This movie goes in raw and doesn’t use a safeword, unless that safeword is “MASOCHISM”<\/div>\n#6 – The film is often hilarious despite itself. It’s so weird that you start to laugh. You don’t even know WHY you’re laughing half the time, you just are.<\/div>\n#7 – Chainsaws, Drills, Blood, Monsters and Screaming. Oh my!<\/div>\n#8 – “What the hell is going on?” you will often ask, but I will have no answers. After all, I’ve only seen this nine times now. How could I possibly understand any of this?<\/div>\n#9 – THINGS courtesy of mildly modified Halloween props and one monster shriek sound effect from John Carpenter’s “The Thing”. See what they did there?<\/div>\n