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April 01, 2008

Reflections of Evil

Or Why Rufus Feels Bad For Sylvestor Stallone

By Rufus

This post is a part of the 2nd Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon

Reflections of Evil (2002, dir. Damon Packard) is not by any means an enjoyable film. At no point in watching this did I ever feel the burning need to spread it amongst my friends, except in the what the bloody hell is this film type of way. Even then it is mostly torture and this is from a man who sat through four years of Cinema Studies classes and has his own maniacal desires to inflict his own brand of experimental filmmaking on the world.

If you tried to explain the film you’d fail, there is a narrative but it is largely nonsensical and unimportant. Julie is a spirit wandering through a 70s TV Horror Movie Afterlife trying to save her brother Bob (played by Packard himself) who is grotesquely overweight and gives off an aura of paranoia and violence everywhere he goes. There is also a flashback to a family outing to 70s era Universal Studios that includes a young Steven Spielberg killing his crewmembers on a low budget shoot gone wrong. None of this is really linear, and it is obvious there was no script. Most of the film consists of Bob eating, falling down and causing blood to spurt out of his head, and arguing and generally freaking out at people and dogs on the street. “I’m going to fuckin’ kill you!” “What the fuck you lookin’ at?” “Fuck you.” Etc is repeated until it becomes a mantra of today’s urban existence. This is intermixed with Bob wandering around suburbia, and even more flashbacks to hippies and golden haired drug gods that have no connection to the rest of the film.

Packard unleashed a wholly unsettling experience with this film. Technically it is extremely well made (albeit extremely low budget) and one only has to look at Packard’s other works on youtube (he posts under pookie67) to see that he should be allowed behind the camera (unlike he-who-shall-not-be-named of last year’s horror travesty Dark Harvest 2: The Maize.) The scenes are framed and shot well. The video effects are low budget but reminded me of the beginnings of the video art movement and the joy that comes from figuring out effects on a non-existent budget. The sound editing and editing style itself set me on edge and I began to feel as uncomfortable as Bob. In fact the sound design is one of the more interesting elements to this film. The sound is deliberately intrusive, and the sound of Bob’s headphones clicking against each other, digestive noises, grunts and rants are increased to very loud non-diegetic levels. So much so that I have to say that this is one of the most disgusting films I’ve seen. The scene where Bob goes through his refrigerator almost made me glad that I’m on the poor man’s diet of pasta and ramen. There is also one of cinema’s most disgusting vomit sequences about nine minutes into the movie that is only made worse with the sound editing. The low budget also required the use of post-production sound synching, but Packard used this in a novel way. The strangers that Bob encounter on the street are dubbed over in cartoon like voices, often accompanying fast motion that exaggerate these urban encounters

These are the moments I found fascinating about this film and why some scenes are literally demented genius. There is one extended sequence where Bob is attacked by dogs as he is walking down the street (dogs seem to be one of Packard’s main enemies in life). The scene in the diner where he sneaks bites of his sandwich while his mother berates him over how disgusting he is, was also quite good. There even might have been an appearance by Sasquatch (he was in the making-of but I didn’t see him in the film itself), and he ends up on Schindler’s List The Ride at Universal Studios. Or the fact that all souls within Universal Studios Theme Park’s bounds are cursed to relive horrible ride accidents for eternity. My favorite bit of the film wasn’t much of a scene at all but a shot that was of Bob sitting in an empty parking structure under endless rows of florescent lights, eating on the pavement cocooned in his fat and excess clothing. It was actually beautiful.

Do I think the whole film is genius though? No. I have a feeling that this film would have benefited from an episodic release on the internet (and a quick browse through Packard’s shorter work prove at least to me he works better in small packages.) It is viral filmmaking before it became a catch phrase. Too disjointed and overly long to enjoy in one sitting (as well as too insane to soak in), in smaller doses it would have been much better. The films descent into madness, paranoia, and a special Universal Studios themed hell would have played out better over the internet than in a full length feature. It’s sudden turn to conspiracy theories about chemtrails (government planes poisoning us with chemicals in their vapor trails) seems like it was birthed in the darkest sections of every internet forum I’ve had the pleasure of viewing.

I would not watch it again, and little bits of genius do not a feature film make. Even if I admire the who the bloody hell cares lets sneak into Universal with people dressed up in 70s outfits and film them (seriously) attitude Packard has to conventional filmmaking (and copyright) ideas, I cannot bring myself to inflict this on anyone. Although I find it hilarious that Sly Stallone’s son is trying to slowly drive his dad crazy by leaving copies of this film in his house every time he visits. It would drive me crazy too.

I’ve included a bit of the film that I found via the magic that is Youtube. If you want to get an idea of the film it is an hour and a half (although I believe you may be able to find the even longer version if you look hard enough) of this:

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