Jarv’s Schlock Vault: Disturbance

Disturbance/ Choker/ Being

I would put a quote here, but it’s not worth it- for fuck’s sake, they couldn’t even settle on a title, and as for that tagline- “They are here”. What the fuck? Who is here? Is that meant to be menacing? A good tagline is “It’s not his close encounter but his last encounter” or “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” This is not up to those standards, and kind of indicative of the film as a whole.

This time out, I thought I’d go for a much less well known bit of schlock- as opposed to the obvious Troma ones due to come and Rutger Hauer/ Dolph’s stellar efforts- and I wish I hadn’t.  Needless to say, this is the first one coming out of the vault that I don’t recommend. There are some chuckles to be had, but really I have to say treat with caution as it hovers around the “unwatchable” mark for a long time. There are the enjoyable schlock movies that are hours and hours of fun, and then there are those dismal efforts that are so bad they’re actually bad. This, I’m afraid falls into the latter category.

When I was reading up on it (aren’t I thorough) to remind me before writing this, I couldn’t actually find the bastard because of the name fiasco. Such incompetence usually leads to much hilarity, but this film may be the exception that proves the rule. Do not, under any circumstances, fall for the very cool DVD cover. It’s nothing like that. Remember the cover Driller Killer had? This is exactly the same con.

In this instance, I have to talk about the plot for longer than I normally would, because it actually does matter. I would say beware spoilers, but I think this fucking stupid plot is impossible to spoil- I’ll leave things out, because they won’t help and I’m attempting to distill this rubbish into a coherent synopsis, but I’m not trying to avoid anything.

Lovefilm have the plot summary as “A convict on death row manages to escape execution when he tells a story of alien invasion. Convinced by his tale, the authorities inject him with an alien foetus to enable him to track down the evil beings…” which comes straight from the DVD cover and I suppose, technically, is accurate- in the same way that Ikea instructions are totally accurate. Except it isn’t (as anyone that’s tried to assemble a chest of draws will attest), not at all. The actual plot is overly developed knucklehead runs around putting his hand over people’s mouths who then vomit green goo and die. There’s some hot women doing something or other that I couldn’t really work out and the cops just follow around being clueless. It’s got no coherent structure (there’s a whole load of incomprehensible flashbacks) and an ending that’s not only obviously coming, but downright fucking confusing as well.  There’s some bollocks about telepathy and knucklehead is apparently the head baddie’s “well, I guess you’d call it brother”. What a load of shite.

The film opens with a pseudo interview with a serial killer. This is actually quite good- it’s well acted, well lit and kind of menacing. Once again, the film is pulling an outrageous blag- the rest of it isn’t like this. Immediately afterwards it cuts to a hot chick escaping from somewhere or other. She bumps into our knuckleheaded hero, they have a fight, she vomits green goop and dies. If you’re not confused by now, then you’re doing better than me. This is an integral problem with the film- I’m not fussed about linear storytelling, but if you’re going to jump around like this then please for the love of god at least help the viewer out a little bit. There’s no indication at all that the opening sequence is a flashback and as a result the jump to the chase is disorienting and confusing.  I wouldn’t mind if it was a one off- if it was just to establish a mood and then fast forward into the thick of the action- but it isn’t.

The script is, as is to be expected, complete and utter shit, but not in a fun way- there’s fuck all in the way of entertaining quotable lines (there’s a frankly inexplicable exchange where head baddy has to get the cop’s wife to explain what giving birth is like)and they’ve no thought at all for continuity. For example, they do implant said bonehead with an alien foetus, but it turns out the foetus is an alien cop. Is he a cop or a foetus? I don’t know a lot about Alien society, but I suspect that you don’t go straight into law enforcement the moment alien daddy blows his spuds. It’s just daft. Not to mention the fact that the bad aliens can apparently just hop from person to person with nary a thought, whereas alien plod was in surgery for about 10 hours.

So why on Earth would I put myself through this horseshit? What about it is remotely entertaining?

2 things. Firstly the acting. The lead, our erstwhile psycho alien cop, is played by Paul Sloan who delivers an Earth shatteringly dreadful performance. He’s a mighty Cro-Magnon of a man anyhow (sort of like Dominic Purcell with a neck), the kind of man that wasn’t born, rather built out of poorly fitting Lego blocks. I strongly suspect that steroids have indeed shrunk his genitals and acne covers his shoulders so that they resemble the surface of the fucking moon. They’re about the same size.

Anyhow, Sloan wanders around without a clue, growling rather than delivering lines and he clearly shows a commendable dedication to looking badass, (he never buttons his shirt- regardless of how cold it is). To be honest, I suspect he’s got the range of an Irish setter (“look happy…now!”), but he is built like a brick shithouse and does at least try.  The main villain (brilliantly named “Leader”, bet that took all of 3 seconds to think up) is played by Hayley DuMond as some kind of psycho goth chick with an accent that fluctuates from Dick van Dyke cockernee to the Deep South. She really, really can’t act. Their combined suckitude is highly amusing for a while. Well, for a good 20 minutes or so.

Secondly, the fight scenes. This is without a shadow of a doubt the most ineptly put together fighting that I’ve ever seen. I can’t think of the last time I saw an allegedly professional production where not only can you tell that they aren’t really fighting, but you can also see clear air between the kicks (which don’t look hard either) and the target. It’s staggeringly inept, and once again hysterical. Especially when you consider that Sloan’s Mortal Kombat style finishing move is to put his hand over their mouths until they vomit green goo. I’ve seen Troma movies with more convincing action.

Overall, would I watch this again? I have to say no, and it kind of pisses me off- because I really, really should like this film. It hits a lot of my buttons. Especially when you look at the design on the DVD case (US or UK). I can’t help but wonder if they’d put half the thought into the actual fucking movie as they did into that, then maybe (and I know this is a long shot) it might not have been a steaming pile of garbage.

Aren’t you glad that I’m here to take these hits for you…

Postscript: since I started writing this review (now that I know that the UK Title is B.E.I.N.G), I’ve discovered a 2 disc special edition of this bunch of arse on sale from Amazon for £2.98. I’m normally a mug for things like that, but I’d rather spend the £3 on a fucking Big Mac.