It's rare nowadays for a film to come out that truly challenges and muddles its viewers. "The Item", an independent production that was a Sundance critic's darling several years ago, is precisely that, challenging to watch (because of its production and plot) and confusing as hell.
Shot on Super 8 video, the film resembles a public access sketch comedy show gone horribly wrong. The plot is vague at best, held together with rubber bands and chewing gum Tarantino/Hong Kong-esque ultra-violent sequences with buckets of fake blood. Characters are developed somewhat, but still seem cryptic judging from their seemingly random actions surrounding the film's title character, a phallus-shaped worm creature that messes with its victims' heads, using its own blend of dark philosophy and their fears and morals to lead them towards self-destruction. Though it takes away any hope of understanding the characters, this is a brilliant innovation to the enjoyable but rather simple creature feature, and it's really the only way the film could have worked on any level of seriousness, given the silly appearance of the puppet.
Does this film even want to be taken on any level of seriousness, however? Judging from the opening sequence alone, set on a soundstage with a fan (excuse me, a desert), with glow sticks and a goofy visual gag leading to the film's first use of comic ultra-violence, one would think not. Factor in an entire sequence where our faithful anti-heroes (and anti-heroine) hunt down a group of transvestites, which seems to have no purpose other than to kill time (and some transvestites), and the evidence against a serious intent grows. Even if this film wasn't made light-heartedly though, the ridiculous close-range shootouts (complete with flashes of light in lieu of bullets and generic gun/shooting sounds), awkward camera-work that makes characters appear to "slide" instead of walking or running realistically, and demented ending will insure its status as a cult classic.
The ultimate question though, is not whether the film should be taken at face value, but whether it should be taken at all. Artisan has grossly misrepresented this film in their video distribution, with cover art and description trying to push this as just another creature feature, and that is what I was expecting an average creature feature. It is definitely not, and although it was a bit too absurd and sloppy for me to handle (especially the goofy camera-work) and I was really disappointed with how the ending provided absolutely no closure at all (and in fact just confused things even more), it's worth at least one viewing, if only to see how the potential of "creature psychology" could freshen this rather tired genre.
Shot on Super 8 video, the film resembles a public access sketch comedy show gone horribly wrong. The plot is vague at best, held together with rubber bands and chewing gum Tarantino/Hong Kong-esque ultra-violent sequences with buckets of fake blood. Characters are developed somewhat, but still seem cryptic judging from their seemingly random actions surrounding the film's title character, a phallus-shaped worm creature that messes with its victims' heads, using its own blend of dark philosophy and their fears and morals to lead them towards self-destruction. Though it takes away any hope of understanding the characters, this is a brilliant innovation to the enjoyable but rather simple creature feature, and it's really the only way the film could have worked on any level of seriousness, given the silly appearance of the puppet.
Does this film even want to be taken on any level of seriousness, however? Judging from the opening sequence alone, set on a soundstage with a fan (excuse me, a desert), with glow sticks and a goofy visual gag leading to the film's first use of comic ultra-violence, one would think not. Factor in an entire sequence where our faithful anti-heroes (and anti-heroine) hunt down a group of transvestites, which seems to have no purpose other than to kill time (and some transvestites), and the evidence against a serious intent grows. Even if this film wasn't made light-heartedly though, the ridiculous close-range shootouts (complete with flashes of light in lieu of bullets and generic gun/shooting sounds), awkward camera-work that makes characters appear to "slide" instead of walking or running realistically, and demented ending will insure its status as a cult classic.
The ultimate question though, is not whether the film should be taken at face value, but whether it should be taken at all. Artisan has grossly misrepresented this film in their video distribution, with cover art and description trying to push this as just another creature feature, and that is what I was expecting an average creature feature. It is definitely not, and although it was a bit too absurd and sloppy for me to handle (especially the goofy camera-work) and I was really disappointed with how the ending provided absolutely no closure at all (and in fact just confused things even more), it's worth at least one viewing, if only to see how the potential of "creature psychology" could freshen this rather tired genre.