A Few Things About Things

When I decided to watch the 1989 shot-on-video horror movie, "Things, I had a good idea of what I was getting into. After the 84 minutes I spent watching it, I feel confident in saying that, if you are of the right mindset, you will have a good idea with this movie. Barry J. Gillis stars, kind of, as Don Drake, a guy who ends up in a friend's house with two of his buddies, somewhere in Canada, or is it supposed to be New Jersey? It doesn't matter.

In this house are creatures, things, as it were, that crawl around and seem to inhabit other people's bodies. This makes the guys go insane and makes one guy have to go shirtless after having blood sprayed on him. It's difficult to sit here and describe the plot because that is not what "Things," or any other movie like it is about. It is about enjoying the experience of watching a really crappy movie just for the hell of it and enjoying the way in which it is poorly made, poorly looped, poorly edited, to such an extreme that you will experience very few dull moments. I know not everybody is that enamored with such cinematic failure, but I am. As such, I enjoyed "Things" as a sincerely made effort made by a group of guys in Canada who somehow convinced porn actress, Amber Lynn, to appear in a few scenes as a news anchor whose teleprompter is off to the side somewhere.

Mayhem ensues soon enough, bad looping happens, the camera points above the actor's heads a few times, ugly crawling bug-like things show up, Amber Lynn's big 80's hair is on display, crazy music happens, all in just 84 minutes. I'll take it. "Things" appears to be shot on film then transferred to video for the then booming home video market. If only the "Things" movie tie-in novel would end up on Ebay.