Things (1989)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: A man and his wife have trouble conceiving. The wife undergoes a dangerous experiment by a mad scientist to get pregnant and spawns little monsters that attack the man and his brother and his friend in some remote run-down house. Its a very poor (in every sense of the word) attempt to make a creature feature. 

Here are some of my observations regrets as I watched the film:

• What have I started?! The pre-credit graphic is an atomic bomb exploding. Couldn’t be more appropriate.
• A man walks into a basement where a woman is doing laundry wearing a Halloween devil mask. He tells her that he wants her to have his baby because his wife and he are having trouble conceiving. Without hesitation the woman in the devil mask starts to disrobe down to full frontal nudity. While this is happening the sound heard is a terrible synthesizer score with periodic laughs. I’m not 100% sure if the laughing is the woman’s or the soundtrack score. 
• It is the woman’s for sure. And she already had his baby and when the man goes to see the baby (he pronounces baby like beb-bee) it’s a creature that attacks him. It was all just a dream. 
• Holy shit this could possibly beat Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny for worst movie of all time. The production design, sound design and acting are all complete and utter shit. I’m not exaggerating. I’ve seen student films in college more professionally produced. For instance the sound has a constant hiss or hum like a common late 80s camcorder. 
• Amber Lynn? The pornstar? Yup. And so far she’s the best actor in this turd. And ironically this movie’s production budget is lower than any of her pornos. 
• This movie is makes a Troma movie look like a Miramax movie. 
• “They get the beastiality station up here.” Referring to putting on the TV. Actual line of dialogue. 
• So these two guys are at a friends house/shack. He has a “rare” “Salvador Dali” “painting” as well as a “painting” given to him from the “Queen of England.” I swear to you this house is a dump and in no way will someone who gets gifts from the Queen should or would live there. 
• “I think you’ve been reading the Lazy Man’s Guide to Living a little too much lately. Next time you come with me, you’re staying at home.” Actual dialogue. 
• There’s just random loud burping and farting noises for no apparent reason. 
• The one guy just complained of mosquito bites on his very thick sweater covered arm. Ugh.
• Doug’s wife dies giving birth to a snake-like creature. 
• “What are we gonna do….with Susan’s body? I never thought….I would live…..with the dead.” 
• “Tomorrow, we’ll make the 9-mile bike to Dr. Lucas.” 9 miles on foot? With a dead body? Why are they not thinking of using the phone to call an ambulance?
• Fred, Don’s friend, just disappeared right before their eyes. Don claims it was spontaneous combustion even though there was no explosion. 
• I just spent  one whole minute watching Don and Doug wipe blood off them with paper towels. 
• “You never told me you were a kindergarten artist (!!!!).” “You never told me you were an asshole either, I had to find out myself.” These two are brothers by the way. And Doug the kindergarten artist, has the “rare” paintings in his home. 

Some-Thing

• “How do you get paper children? You fuck a bag lady!” Actual joke in the film.
• There’s a very good chance I won’t make the rest of the 50 minutes without killing myself, so please tell my wife I love her. 
• I literally dozed off for about 10 minutes. I didn’t miss a THING!
• Don is drilling something into a wall and is pulling and pushing the drill at the wall. This “actor” doesn’t know how a drill works. 
• He also doesn’t know how a plug and extension cord works.
• Fred’s back. And with a chainsaw. That is obviously not really on.
• I think I’m watching the anti-christ of movies. 
• The credits start with the disclaimer: “You have just experienced Things” FUCK YOU!!!
• Tommothy Lucas? Did some inbred parents combine Tommy and Timothy for their kid’s name?

Is It Actually Scary: Its downright frightening! No seriously, I had the willies since it started. Its a borderline snuff film. Every sentence out of every actor’s mouth sent shivers down my spine. I had nightmarish visions while trying to understand this film. I’ve contemplated suicide on a number of occasions during the 83 minutes it was on. If it wasn’t for me dozing off I think someone, including myself, may have been hurt. The Marquis de Sade would have trouble experiencing Things.

How Much Gore: I can’t believe I have anything positive to say about this retched, vile, abomination but it does have quite a lot of gore. One scene in particular has the evil Dr. Lucas cutting off a near-dead man’s hand, then pulling out his eye and then having his nurse slice his throat. And afterwards he pulls his intestines out. 

Actor-Thing

Best Scene: If you like gore then the aforementioned scene I just described is the only scene worth watching. Now, bear in mind, its not a well-done scene at all. But does have a lot of gore. What makes it great is that its the only scene worth saying “its-so-bad-its-good” the whole rest of the movie is just SO BAD never reaching its good status. The sound effects of Dr. Lucas pulling out the man’s eye is hilarious. Its as if someone made squishy noises with their mouth and used that as the sound effect. When they pull out the guts its through the neck of his shirt. But to be honest, this scene is not worth seeing the rest of the film for. JUST STAY AWAY FROM THIS FILM ALTOGETHER! I cannot stress this enough.

Special Effect-Thing

Worst Scene: The worst scene is the end credits because that means you were stupid or masochistic enough to sit through the entire picture.

Any Nudity: The woman in the devil mask doing laundry gets full frontal nude. Porn star Amber Lynn wears a horrible blue suit with huge shoulder pads. Go figure.

Pornstar Amber Lynn is more ashamed for being in this film than Hot Crotch Coochies.

Overall: What more can I say about Things to highlight how god-damn awful it is. I feel bad mocking it because it’s like mocking a special needs kid. This movie should seriously be banned from viewing. Every copy of the film should be rounded up and burned—NO! Exploded! It is so poorly made, written and executed that it is seriously the worst film I’ve ever witnessed. I would rather watch The Room, Birdemic, Miami Connection, Molly and the Ghost and The Brothers McMullen all in a row on a loop for a week than watch Things ever again. I would feel guilt if I ever showed a hated enemy this film as torture. I actually told Brian that I refuse to watch this movie with him, knowing full well how horrid it is, for fear of breaking up our friendship. 

Thank you Thing.

But you wanna know the most pathetic thing; the saddest aspect about Things? Its that apparently there is a cult following regarding this film. It has fans! People who have watched it more than once and had fun doing so. While I know there’s a lot of sick people out there, I never would think that people are sick enough to like Things enough to call themselves, Thing-ites! I’m not making this up. But maybe its me. Perhaps I made a crucial error in how I watched Things. For one, I am completely sane and a college-graduate. Two, I was alone with no other person to bounce laughs off in mocking it. And third, I also was completely fucking sober which is a huge mistake that I own up to. I am a different man now after seeing Things. I think I can now relate and empathize with war veterans. My soul is dirty and broken and I will spend the rest of my existence attempting to put the pieces back together again.

Score: 0.2 Will to Live (out of 10)

Thing of Regret