Writer: Ken Methold Cinematography: John Stokes Music: Frank Strangio
Cast: John Doyle, Nicola Bartlett, Ray Barrett, Nathalie Gaffney, Pamela Hawkesford
Real estate agent Mark (John Doyle) is driving through the Australian bush when he sees a woman being kidnapped by your typical rape-hungry backwoods person. The following rather timid rescue attempt doesn’t work out too well for Mark, for the backwoods guy isn’t alone. A few minutes later, Mark finds himself stretched over his own car’s hood and raped by a guy who dresses up in a mouse mask for the occasion.
Afterwards (we don’t get to see the rape), the backwoodsies (that’s the technical term, I think) take Mark and the girl to their camp. In a surprising twist of fate, Mark manages to escape after a time and even stumbles into killing one of his tormentors. Next thing he knows, Mark finds himself – still in the bush – breaking down in front of an aggressively blasé woman named Cleo (Nathalie Gaffney). Unimpressed by the backwoods rapist threat, Cleo takes Mark to a mansion where she lives with another girl called Helen (Pamela Hawkesford) and an older guy with an upperclass accent and Hugh Hefner’s dress sense (that is, none) called Rupert (Ray Barrett).
Motivated by the uptick in straight-to-video productions originating from the United States and itching to honor their favorite horror directors with a gruesome tale of their own, a handful of Canadians with no discernible talent for production, writing, special effects, direction or performance scrounged together a budget and some Super 8mm shooting equipment and went to work. The end result, released directly to rental VHS in 1989, was Things, 84 minutes of graphic violence and unbridled stupidity that feels more like an acid trip interrupting a drunken stupor than a film. To say that Things is dreadful is to understate its case to a degree that borders on the criminal, and while it may not be the worst film yet produced on this Earth it certainly earns points for trying.
