Things (1993)

Review by Sean Patterson



"Once upon a time there were three little prostitutes--you oughta like this one." A betrayed wife (Kinder Hunt) finds her husband's mistress (known only as Maegen), kidnaps her, and forces her to listen to two horror stories. The first story, written and directed by Dennis Devine, is about an evil mayor (Neil Delama) with a mysterious box. When he leaves the box open in a brand new brothel he disapproves of, the ladies inside must face the creature that is now loose. The second, directed by Jay Woelfel, is a bizarre tale about a woman who has dreams of her violent husband maiming her in various horrific ways. The movie is severely limited by its production values. The inconsistent lighting is distracting but standard for a movie of this type. Some of the dialogue is just out of sync enough to be bothersome. Half the music sounds like it's taken from a porn hits of the 70's album, the other half from an experimental emo/new wave synthesizer band. Throughout the film, the dialogue is hard to hear over the music. The cricket sound effect at the beginning of the second story is incredibly annoying. It's so loud I expected a six-foot cricket to jump through the window. However, the directors certainly make the best of a low budget. Some of the shots are very inventive, making good use of various angles and actor placement. The puppetry effects are very good, despite the monsters not being even slightly scary. The slimy creatures at least look like they could be alive, but not dangerous. The writing for the first story seems to make a point of being cliche, but easily falls into the rare so-bad-it's-good category. I have to believe that the movie was being self-conscious about it's schlock. How else to explain a line like "I'll be right back" being uttered by someone going off alone to slay a monster? The tongue-in-cheek dialogue and the better audio quality of the first story set it apart from the rest of the movie. It saves what otherwise would have been a rather boring and nonsensical low-budget horror movie. The second story isn't quite as good. The directing is as good as the first, but the acting isn't. What really makes it the runner up is the incomprehensible story. The dream sequences at the beginning of the story make it hard to believe the subsequent horrible things that happen. And there is no explanation for how a collection of body parts might coalesce into a monster. The acting from most of the cast is poor, but not so bad as to be boring. A few of the women get topless, but if that's what you're looking for, you'll be disappointed. While most of the acting is just funny, two performances stand out: First, the mayor from the first story. His bits of overacted menace and his over-the-top take on a power-tripping villian fit well with the lighter tone of that story. Second, the jilted wife and kidnapper who tells the stories. She's less Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction than she is Cathy Bates in Misery, and it works well. She does such a good job of it that, while watching, I began to think the movie was a meta-fictional experiment in how disturbed some horror movie actresses are. In other words, I genuinely believe the actress might have been a little crazy. 7/10