Things (1989)
You will have experienced it...
Where to begin with Things, the no-budget Canadian horror film from 1989 directed by Andrew Jordan (not to be confused with the increasingly fetishy series of films of the same name, which is also about creepy crawlies but which markets itself, at least in one instance, on the presence of excessive female nudity)? Certainly, not dwelling on this other Things IP is ideal (Things 5 begins with a disclaimer about how gratuitous the film’s nudity is, dictated to camera by women displaying some of this gratuitous nudity, just in case you were going to call their bluff).
As for the Things that is the brainchild of Andrew Jordan and Barry J. Gillis, the opening line might be a fair place to initiate conversation:
I want you to have my baby. My wife and I tried to have a baby, but we could never get one. Now it’s up to you, my true, fair love.
Fantastic. So much to take in immediately. Of course, I neglected to mention who is speaking, and to whom. Perhaps the actual best place to start is the first shot: a woman wearing a demon mask hanging a sheet to dry in an unfinished basement. Perfect. So many questions. Why the mask? Where are we? What is this music?
Then, the man (his name is Doug) comes in to speak the fateful opening lines. And the way he says it, with that weird affect, and in time with the strange music, makes the whole thing feel like we’re in the intro to some bargain bin Talking Heads ripoff basement jam band song. He calls the woman his fair love, and without skipping a beat she strips naked (and keeps the mask on).
Now, textually speaking, this all makes perfect sense so far. It’s when the masked woman decides not to have the man’s baby (because she’s already had his baby) that the firm foundation of world building that has already been established begins to crumble. Thankfully, this opening salvo proves to be nothing but a horrible nightmare. The monstrous child lashes out at the pervy man, and the man snaps awake. He brings his wife some ibuprofen or whatnot, and boom: the opening credits drop. Climactic.
Things has a well-established reputation for being a notoriously bad object. As such, it feels rather gauche to be discussing it at all. But listen, I’ve run out of ideas, and my secondary personality has a lot on their plate right now. So…Things: a masterpiece in Z-grade Canuxploitation horror dumpster fire so white hot that the flames lick up and singe your eyelashes when you lean in to absorb every broken frame.
All this being said…all I want to talk about for a good long while is the news report scene that happens less than 10 minutes into the runtime. Glorious brain ooze melts from my face pores trying to comprehend. Yes, the set looks nothing like a newsroom…it’s more akin to, say, Andrew Jordan and/or Barry J. Gillis’ garage. There is little time to even think about this lack of basic production design, because we hard cut from one news anchor to the other, who is on a different set (vacant empty void cinema at its finest) with a much different (and far worse) audio capture. She’s standing; he’s sitting in an armchair (real news anchor stuff right there). She has an actual news report intro that is half competent; he is on screen for less than a second. We don’t cut back to this mysterious male anchor after he introduces himself. Poor Johnny Scott…stuck in the void space for eternity.
The anchor who actually delivers information is Amber Lynn, model and adult film star. Her character’s name is also Amber Lynn, which I find pretty funny. And I guess she is slumming it here, because from everything I’ve seen she was already an established dancer, model, and porn star by 1989. I’d never heard of Ms. Lynn, and her Wikipedia page is a mess with poorly formatted citations, so I sought out Mike Sager’s The Devil and John Holmes: and Other True Stories of Drugs, Porn and Murder, in which Lynn occasionally features. Sager, once an acolyte of Hunter S. Thompson, can be quite the wistful orator when he wants to be:
I am somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the Motrin finally kicks in—the electric pain scorching down the back of my leg begins to subside; once again I can feel my foot on the gas pedal. The ache in my heart is another matter. I remind myself to breathe. (Sager 135)
I tend to be suspicious of such poetically inclined individuals…what are you trying to hide, Sager? I take his words with a fine grain of salt, pinched between my semi-callused fingers…the nip of pain I feel as the tough salt rolls down to a more vulnerable part of the skin reminds me of when I used to play guitar; I did it just to wile away the hours of my youth, because what else was I going to do with it? Back then, it felt good to feel bad, and the music didn’t so much soothe the soul as it salved the burning malaise just enough to get by. Now, I’m lucky to have an hour a week where I find the energy, let alone the time, to play. The calluses have become soft tissue; my fingers are fragile, but perhaps this is a sign of something. I remind myself to continue writing garbage Substack posts…
Sager (“a recovering cuckold, damaged goods, the male animal at his lowest”) describes Lynn as a woman caught between two lives: “her porn self and the real woman inside, the girl who had her fun and her issues, the woman who wants legitimacy and a normal life” (138). Lynn’s early years in show business appears to be characterized by heavy drinking and a crack cocaine addiction (138). Now it’s 2011, and she’s sober but lonely. Lynn’s story is, to put it mildly, dark and littered with tragedies. Her mother died when she was very young. Her entrance into the adult film industry occurred while she was underage and unwittingly high on crack. While she enjoyed fame and success, it appears the experience left some scars. She describes the rock bottom of her addiction as “a can’t-get-myself-out-of-my-closet type of drug addict” (155).
Lynn was, alongside Ginger Lynn and Traci Lords, evidently one of the “Golden Goddesses of Porn” (I’m not sure if Sager made this moniker up, or if it was a thing in the 1980s) (150). She posed in Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler and began starring in adult films, all long before 1989. She also has plenty of acting credits in non-porn films. How she ended up in this bottom-rung homemade horror movie is beyond me.
Sager’s profile of Amber Lynn is mostly just fine. He makes a few snide remarks in a very Hunter S. sort of way. But he demonstrates a genuine interest in conveying Lynn’s life and her personality. At the same time, it’s hard for me not to recoil at his characterization of her journey:
We talked for hours. She spoke about her charity efforts, her work with addicts, her desire to be seen as a legitimate player in entertainment history rather than as a closeted embarrassment …. The sun moved across the sky. The light softened. The longer we spoke, the more beautiful she seemed, the more human, the more real. (155)
The sentimentality of it all is acceptable. I don’t mind that. It’s the idea that humanity is realized when someone transcends the things in their past that you think are ugly that bothers me. And I’m sure Sager didn’t mean it to come across this way. I’m sure he means that he had no idea Lynn’s story was so layered, and that he left the conversation having seen a full person on display. But her being “more real” also just reads like saying people in her profession are lesser-than-human. Or that folks with drug problems (if they never find the means to overcome those problems) are somehow less human, less real.
At least the story departs from Lynn in her own words. He jokes that she would be on the Mount Rushmore of porn, and she gives an eloquently simple summation of what it really means to be human:
Amber Lynn was all the things [younger] Lynnie never was …. For a while, that’s all I cared about; killing off Lynnie. But now I’ve come full circle. I don’t want to be Lynnie, but I don’t want to be Amber anymore, either. I just want to be myself (157)
So…that’s the news reporter who, at this point, has only been on-screen for 20 seconds. Shall we proceed?
Oh, wait, we can’t move on just yet. I forgot to mention my favorite line of dialogue in any movie, ever:
We will speak briefly with the leader of the Soviet Union concerning topics of the George Bush administration and the threat of nuclear war.
I mean, this is like brilliant freeform poetry. I had to listen to this line roughly 15 times, because I was 30-second rewinding over and over in order to make sense of what the hell was going on in this scene. And every time I heard it, I started laughing for a completely different reason. This line of dialogue has layers like an onion. First off, “topics of the George Bush administration” is such a great thing for a news anchor to say. No specifics; just “topics.” And the threat of nuclear war is last, as if it’s an after thought. Not to mention that this is a local news station (anchored by someone who appears to have been kidnapped) who somehow has access to the leader of the Soviet Union. And the cherry on top: all of this and more, but only “briefly.” Good luck covering nuclear war in such a brief segment (and all those Bush topics, too!).
Speaking to this need to rewind: after this news segment scene, I basically needed to watch this film on two different devices, with one on a delay, so I could more easily rewatch moments before my brain entirely melted. It was like watching a movie in the style of a round. Immediately following the Amber Lynn scene (which had my brain somersaulting), we get the “are you home” scene. This scene is delightfully silly, but also there are so many things to pick apart that it simply did not suffice to watch it in real time.
The dubbing in this movie, for one, is obviously quite poor. It almost would be surprising if it were good. The real enjoyment of this scene are the line deliveries, and the incessant call for this guy named Doug (Doug Bunston). “Doug, Doug, Doug, are you home?” is delivered with such gentle care and concern by Doug’s brother Don (Gillis), and the swelling music adds to the ambient absurdity of it all. This juxtaposed with a few lines later, when the character seems to care so little about finding Doug and has diverted his attention to the desire to have a few hot women and beer. But the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it delivery of the secondary character Fred (Bruce Roach) saying, “Is he home?” is perhaps the greatest thing to ever be captured on an audio track. It is superbly otherworldly, like a Tim & Eric bit but perfectly genuine. This movie combats irony with a rubber chainsaw, and I dare say it is a masterpiece as a result.
I’d be here forever if I picked apart every pitch perfect bad line (“they get the bestiality network up here?”) and line delivery (“a job well done, bitch!”), so perhaps we should move to some plot description. The script makes it fairly simple, as it explicitly states the movie it is ripping off as it is ripping it off. The boys are looking for some brews, but instead they find an Aleister Crowley book and a tape recorder in the freezer (huh?!). They play the recording on the tape as one of the characters recites the premise of Evil Dead (in which a group of characters listen to a recording on a tape that ultimately leads to demonic mayhem).
Sorry, hold up. I know I was about to do a professional film critic thing and summarize the film for y’all, but the freezer thing bears repeating. Not just because the two guys find objects that Doug has put in the freezer, but because they follow this up by putting a jacket in the freezer (“it’s a good place to keep it,” and also it’s “for storage”).
So, we have the demonic, Necronomicon setup. Some freaks are torturing and murdering folks in a second location while the two bros and Doug go to town on some (watered down, literally) beers and stacks of sliced white bread (i.e., sandwiches). They only just barely get through one of the sickest pranks in human history before Doug’s wife is eaten from the inside by the demonic monstrosity that she was impregnated with.
Dr. Lucas (one of the aforementioned torturing, murdering freaks) is the culprit behind the homicidal beasty bursting forth from poor Susan’s womb. This may or may not be relevant later…and I’m saying this having watched the entire movie. It is still unclear to me.
Also, I promise that we will exhaustively pick apart the dense plotting of this creature feature masterpiece. But…we have a Johnny Scott sighting. This time, his appearance involves the most confusing scripted joke I think I’ve ever encountered. Computer: enhance.
The text of the bit is as follows:
Johnny: “Tabloids report that ‘bagel boy’ Rob Camilletti, Cher’s boyfriend, has been seen around town with Traci Lords in some of the hottest Hollywood clubs.”
[woman walks in from off-screen]
Woman: “Don’t you mean ‘ex-porn star Traci Lords’?”
[the pair laugh]
[cut to Amber, who is also laughing]
[cut back to Johnny and the woman, getting intimately close on the armchair]
Both: [in unison] “Are we still on air?!”
[the fastest cut you’ve ever seen to the next scene]
So here’s what I know. Cher dated a guy named Rob Camilletti. He worked at a bagel joint in Queens. He was 22. She was 40. They dated through a chunk of the 1980s and broke up in 1989 (the year of Things. This must be important!). Apparently, the two remained friends.1
Traci Lords, as we previously covered, was one of the “Golden Goddesses of porn” in the 1980s, and she seemed to run in the same circles as Amber Lynn.2 So there’s something of an in-joke there, I suppose. But how does this relate to Camilletti?
The reference to an ‘80s tabloid story would be fine on its own, I suppose, if the details weren’t so muddy and if the button of the gag was that a third person enters the scene and immediately gets romantically interested in our mysterious male anchor (and really, who wouldn’t be interested? The smoldering anchor in his armchair…only visible for seconds at a time because the film refuses to hold a shot on him long enough for him to say sentences in full). Who is this woman? Why does she enter in the middle of the news report, then later act surprised that they are still on air? You’ve been on air the entire time!
Then, of course, there is the obvious thing: why the fuck does the editor of this movie cut away from poor Johnny so fast? Is Johnny a ghost? Is Andrew Jordan scared of the ghost of Johnny Scott?
OK. I’ll digress. Where were we with this plot?
The “things” of Things are basically ants with long sharp teeth. And they don’t seem to pose too much of a threat, as Don kills the first one they see instantly. Instead of being terrorized by monsters, the brothers spend a good portion of the midsection of the film wandering around the house doing things that I don’t understand (at one point Doug changes his shirt and combs his hair, at another point he starts strangling himself).
Eventually, the boys find trouble in the basement, where a “thing” attacks Doug from behind, causing Don to smash him over the head with a hammer (“Oh, I hammered your head in. Are you alright?”). Don’s lines in this sequence are particularly fantastic, and if you only watch one scene of this film, this one gives you a good idea of the hilarity of errors that it is.
Don’s strenuous effort to get Doug back to the safety of the kitchen is all for naught, as a creature bites off Doug’s fingers as soon as he gets up there. Doug perishes, and Don puts him in the closet for safe keeping. This entire time, we are left to wonder: where the hell is Fred? Did I miss his death scene? Lo and behold, Fred reappears with a chainsaw to wreak havoc on a horde of mutant ants. Fred and Don fight back valiantly. The situation might look dire for the duo, but never you fear! The news reporter pops in halfway through the climactic battle to inform the audience that Don and Fred have escaped to a hotel in Dallas. Except, that isn’t what we see play out. Instead, Don watches on as Fred is eaten away by Things.
Dr. Lucas shows up (finally) and says he is going to frame the massacre on Don. Or…he actually has no idea what is going on and truly believes Don is guilty. So is he a deranged psychopath mad scientist or not? To put it into perspective, we did see him butchering people for no stated purpose at the beginning of the film.
Whatever…doesn’t matter. Dr. Lucas dies (I think), and Don runs away. A man slowly pulls Don onto a bridge, and the two walk off toward Sacramento. Or DO they?! The man on the bridge ominously says, “are you sure this isn’t all a dream?” We hard cut to…something going on back at the house. There’s a bloodied Dr. Lucas spouting Evil Dead nonsense, and Don repeats “I’ll be OK.”
Cue: the end title card. It reads: “You have just experienced Things.” And an end card has never been so true! Things is exactly what it says on the tin: an Experience. It has been heralded in certain circles as the worst movie ever made, and this title may be well deserved and well earned. Essentially nothing about this movie is correct, but somehow all of it still works effortlessly. It is one of the most entertaining things around in the film world, quality be damned.
And to reiterate, the film feels entirely genuine. There is a lack of filmmaking competency and skill, but the spirit of creative expression is alive and well under the hood. And if it isn’t evident that these guys are giddy about being able to make a feature film, they drop in a behind-the-scenes bit with Amber Lynn in the post-credits that shows how excited they are to be working with an industry professional with industry stories. Lynn also seems truly excited to be sharing stories with the filmmakers, and the story she tells divulges a similar star-struck feeling of meeting Ann Margaret on the set of 52 Pick-up.
This is what we sign up for. This is the type of bad film worth preserving, championing, and experiencing.
At Bleeding Eye Cinema, we don’t rate movies based on their artistic merits. We rate them based on strangeness, on a scale from Colin Hanks3 to full-on, run-to-the-eyewash-station Eye Bleeder.
Things is well on its way to being on the Mount Rushmore of eye-bleeders. As such, it fittingly rates as: Certified Eye Bleeder (5/5).
References
Sager, Mike. 2014. The Devil and John Holmes: And Other True Stories of Drugs, Porn and Murder. The Sager Group.
I learned this all from a local news segment from a Chicago station, which was retelling this story for some reason during a segment that opened with a clip of Will Smith’s “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” music video redubbed with new audio by a viewer of the news station…every stone I turn for this article adds like 10 questions to my running list of questions. One of the anchors calls Camilletti a goof, by the way, which I find hilarious.
Again, this “Golden Goddesses” thing is according to Sager. The majority of Lords’ porn career occurred before she was 18, so as far as a Mount Rushmore of porn is concerned, Sager hopefully looked elsewhere. For what it’s worth, the LA Times article reporting on the Justice Department’s case against the porn producers that filmed Lords underage describes her as “teen-age porn queen Traci Lords.” Hollywood in the 1980s…what a messy artifact.
Colin Hanks is the true cinematic touchstone of milquetoast normieness—no offense, Colin.