Wow...There have been many films that have come along that have achieved a level of awfulness so great that they become legendary. I could name a dozen off the top of my head, a dozen that in one way or another ended up defining a Director/Actor's career, a genre, or a generation. You may see so many of these films in your lifetime, or at the very least witness the countless references from a variety of sources, and you'll usually leave with the same question: can it get any worse than this? It can. It has. It may have happened all the way back in 1989, but in my estimation, it may never be this perfect ever again. What exactly happened? THINGS happened.What is the plot? It doesn't matter. Who are the characters? It doesn't matter. Should you care about anything that happens? That really depends on the stability of your own mind. Is it entertaining? As entertaining a movie of this caliber can be. What exactly is wrong with it? Everything....and yet, nothing at all.This is a movie that exists (and succeeds) on its own twisted level of distress and incompetence that it's amazing it can still be classified as a "movie." Whereas most films rely on the cohesion of its parts to form a unified whole, THINGS approaches an unparallelled level of disconnection between everything that's supposed to be holding it together that you may find yourself wondering if this is just some horrible dream.And this is where the film succeeds. This is where THINGS comes together in all its glory. No other film in all my years of watching films has come closer than this film has to accurately duplicating the experience of a nightmare, failing in every respect to address the following questions with clarity and logic: Who are these people? What are they doing? Where are we? What am I looking at? What is that? What just happened? When will this end? (This final question compounded more so by the never ending credits that suggest a full cast & crew of hard working filmmakers, but whose contributions nevertheless remain inexplicable.) This is the kind of dream that is so confounding, so intrusive on your own solace, that to finally be granted the relief of having it end would only bring about the worst headache imaginable.THINGS is unparallelled and unequalled. No other film is as great a contradiction of style and execution. It is awful in the absence of coherence and logic, and yet still manages to reach a level of perfection because of it. If you truly want to experience the greatest of the great bad films, then do what you can to find THINGS. Trust me when I say it's an experience you'll never forget. Ever.

I didn't really know what to expect when I started watching Things. I had never heard about it in the 80's, 90's or even early 00's. From the first minute it was clear the movie was going to be a very unprofessional one. But it still turned out to be a truly incredible viewing experience. The acting was horrible, dialog pointless, plot laughable, special effects not so special, music bad, pacing painful, editing spastic, picture quality like a 7th generation VHS copy (I watched Things from DVD)... and yet it managed to entertain.Everything is so hilariously wrong that this is a pleasant viewing experience. Things is up there with enjoyable turkey turd gems like Manos - Hands Of Fate and Plan 9 From Outer Space. If you cannot appreciate a movie that is so bad that it is actually good I would not recommend Things. At all. In all aspects Things is so bad that it is great fun. Having porn-actress Amber Lynn on the cast just makes it even better (or worse) as she is not much of an actress (which didn't come as a big surprise). This film really left me speechless with a big grin on my face.

"Things" really has to be seen to be believed:it's perhaps one of the worst pieces of late 80's horror garbage I have seen including such abysmal low-budget atrocities like "The Shaman" or "Return of the Family Man".The ugliness oozes from the screen,the cinematography is amateurish,the acting is diabolical and the script is so disjointed that it doesn't make sense.Two lazy beer drinkers go to this creepy house to drink tons of beer from the icebox and end up having to fight some ant-like monsters with sharp jaws that were born from woman's womb.Utterly awful and inept piece of garbage with Casio keyboard music,laughable dialogue and paper-mache effects.A porn star Amber Lynn plays the small part of reporter:she clearly enjoys reading news from cue cards.A must-see for fans of the worst horror films ever made.You won't believe your eyes-"Things" is a sheer genius of atrocious cinema.

OK it's late and I don't have the energy to do it justice, but I am committed to telling the world about the 'Things' screening in Toronto this past Saturday. In case you didn't hear Things is the most hilariously incompetent and berserk movie ever made in Canada (NOT the worst though - that honor goes to 'Caged Terror' - competence isn't everything) and possibly the universe. It is mostly shot on Super 8 and basically involves some hosers drinking beer and wandering around the house. They are occasionally interrupted by an inert papier-mache ant with fangs - it doesn't seem to bother anyone too much that it ate its way out of one of the guys' wife's stomach - and 'newscasts' of moonlighting pornstar Amber Lynn reading cue cards WAY off to the side somewhere. There is one scene where a guy silently waves a flashlight around a bathroom for ten full minutes. Dialogue includes "Next time we go somewhere together I'm leaving you at home!" and "Does a toilet flush during a blackout?" Star Ray TV's legendary Jan Pachul shows up as some kind of 'mad scientist' and trumps everyone with his skeezing hyperbolic delivery even though he's basically playing the same mullet-headed boob as all the others. You can not believe that this thing cost two months and $30,000 to make. They must have bought a lot of beer! But the real show was the guys themselves. Most of the crew showed up for this, the 19 1/2 anniversary screening - which they said was the first time they ever saw it with an audience! The director was a modest soft-spoken guy, but the co-writer/'star' was very stoned and just could not shut up. He seemed to alternate between embarrassed, pre-emptive defensiveness and attempted good-natured embrace of the audience's howling contempt for their work - signified by him going "HEHHEH" very short and sharp and loud about every thirty seconds during the movie. When Trash Palace proprietor Stacey Case paused the tape for intermission Gillis insisted on telling everyone how much better it was about to get. (It really really didn't.) After the movie he took to the stage and wouldn't let it go; he talked so much no one could start the Q & A, and when the director gave it a shot he talked over HIM. He repeatedly promised to give everyone an autographed DVD (with extras!!) and to interview people for a 'documentary' they were going to do about the movie. Unfortunately both were sidetracked when - AFTER the movie had been over for about ten minutes - they went to turn the camera on and couldn't get it to work. Instead we got to watch three of these guys torture the camera in the corner for perhaps fifteen minutes while Stacey tried desperately to fill up the space. Finally the guy - who had been moaning about the turnout intermittently all night - stood on the stairs and yelled something to the effect of, "I mean I don't HATE Stacey, he's gotta make a living..." at which point the heretofore mesmerized audience came to the collective realization that they might actually never ever get out of there alive, so I did everyone a favour and started making strong ready-to-go gestures like standing up and putting on my backpack. Fortunately the stars all suddenly went out for a smoke which gave us a chance to declare the evening officially over.Marijuana is a hell of a drug. I feel privileged to have been a part of this event - now "Things" will have new layers of meaning every time I watch it, which I expect will be once or twice a year for the rest of my life. (And for the record, the free DVDs did happen, after I left...peace Barry!)