The height of the direct-on-video horror boom during the VHS era resulted in a lot of really strange films; the distinctive ambience, texture, and cognitive abuse conjured up by these films is radically different from the more widespread DVD-era concoctions made with handy consumer cameras. Shot through with fan enthusiasm, these films often have no regard for the normal cinematic conventions of narrative, characterization, or even shot composition. One prime example is Things, a daffy Canadian offering trying its damnedest to masquerade as a California production. Don't be fooled; this (mostly) 8mm wonder doesn't come from Los Angeles, the United States, or possibly even Planet Earth. It'll pull out your brain, fling it against the wall, and have you pleading for mercy by the half-hour mark. Yep, it's that kind of movie.
Living up to its title, this film does, indeed, involve Things. Exactly what those might be is up to interpretation, considering we start with a dream sequence in which a guy named Doug (Bunston) has a close encounter with a demon-masked topless woman whose child he's just sired. Or maybe it's not a dream... Cut to Doug's brother, Don (screenwriter Gillis) and buddy Fred (roach, arriving for a weekend of beer drinking with Doug at a remote house only to find the place empty. Naturally they kill time by unearthing a satanic text and contending with the local insect problem until Doug shows up just in time for his wife to explode in a storm of roaches. Turns out an experimental doctor on TV (Pachul), who's intercut with news reports by porn actress Amber Lynn for no reason, used some unorthodox methods to help the couple conceive, and now the result could kill them all.
As the world still waits for Song of the South to appear on DVD anywhere in the world, it's perversly gratifying to see Things get treated in a fashion so lavish it puts most studios to shame. You want audio commentaries? Heck, you get two. First up are director Andrew Jordan with Gillis, Pachul, and Bunston (along with a female guest), in what might be some sort of tribute to the inebriated and frequently digressive drunk commentary for Mallrats. It's a spirited and amusing track, with perhaps more actual structure than the feature itself. Then the Cinefamily gang from Los Angeles (including programmers Hadrian Belove and Tom Fitzgerald, previously seen in an extra for the astonishing Sledgehammer) pops up for commentary two, offering a trivia-laced audience participation accompaniment that will most likely reflect the warped and confused thoughts that form in your own head as you watch the film. You also get a nifty new featurette, "Testimonials on Things," with appreciative appraisals from Tobe Hooper, Jason Eisener and Rob Cotterill (the guys behind the terrific short "Treevenge" and the film Hobo with a Shotgun), Canuxploitation.com webmaster Paul Corupe, and Bleeding Skull's Joseph A. Ziemba and Dan Budnik. Gillis pops up for some incredibly tacky and surreal local '80s TV appearances plugging the film, while the cast and crew reunion to mark its 20th anniversary is captured in all its lo-fi glory as well. The package is rounded out with the original trailer, an investor pitch reel for the unfilmed Evil Island, more backstage discussion with a baffled Amber Lynn, and bonus trailers for Sledgehammer (of course), The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer, and Olaf Ittenbach's The Burning Moon.
