Hay everyone, its yer old pal the MooCow here, and ummm….holy cow, what the heck do we have here?? Somecow the Indie Film Cafe kids have stumbled onto (and you can blame the MooCow, of course) one of the weirdest, moost grotesque, way the F out baffling bit of moovie weirdness yer ever gonna see – and its none udder than Damon Packard‘s Reflections of Evil! And boy howdy does we has a straaange cowversation about this little splash of cinema weirdness on the latest episode of Indie Film Cafe, with Moody, the MooCow, and poor Ri Maku, who had NO IDEA what she was in store for!
:=8o
Yeah, good luck trying to figure out the narrative in this one. This very large, very angry homeless person wearing no less than 75 pairs of headphone wanders around a nightmare version of L.A. trying to sell watches, eat copious amounts of snacks, and find his sister Julie, who was swallowed up by Stephen Spielberg during a trip to Universal studios in the 70’s, only to discover that both of them are dead and he is in hell – which we kind of figured out already. The ghastly over-saturated colors, the incredibly abrupt and seemingly random cuts, constant violence and extreme cursing, and the disjointed voices, mixed with the loud, jarring squelches and slurps and slorp sounds, makes for what can only be politely described as a caustically nightmarish cinematic experience for the uninitiated. Well, at least its a fun one, right?? Welllllll…..
Ok, udderneath all of this stuff there is actually an interesting story here, wrapped up in some pretty interesting editing technique IMO, BUT you do have to suffer – and the MooCow does mean SUFFER!!! – through a long-ass weird disturbing story to finally get to put things together, and I am willing to bet that moost viewers are not gonna have the patience to sit through all of dis. Epic in scope and length, nightmarish in execution, the moovie cud have dialed both back a bit and still made its points.
The moovie stars Damon Packard himself, and he is also the writer and director; and while udder folks do pop in now and then as minor characters, and a few famous folks (like Tony Curtis) who show up and bits and pieces edited in to make it seem like they’re really there, this moovie really is a one-man show – kind of like a Neil Breen flick, if Neil Breen were on all of the drugs. I mean ALL of them.
This flick ranges from the subversive to the downright inscrutable, with healthy helpings of blasphemy, grotesquery, buffoonery, and huge swirling indigestible chunks of nothingness. This isn’t a moovie so mooch as a fight for your sanity, and Damon Packard isn’t playing – he WILL drive you bat shit insane, if you allow him. Its an attack on society, film conventions, Hollywood and Hollywood’s moost beloved members (especially Stephen Spielberg, who clearly peed in Packard’s Cheerios at some point), and pretty mooch everything else. Packard, who also works as an editor, has made udder weird short and full-length flicks before (especially the MooCow’s favorite Foxfur, hopefully covered next season on Indie Film Cafe!), but nothing comes off quite like this film, and if you are a serious film nerd then you really need to check this ambitious but punishing film out!
Well, the votes are in, and ummm…yeah, Ri Maku was not shy about scoring this one all the way up to a solid 10. Moody went with a 9.5, while the MooCow, generously, score the film an 8.5, giving a total Stink Score of 28.0 for Reflections of Evil, and that’s a Stinky Average of 9.3! On the Ladder of Stink, this moovie ranks pretty high up there, along with the likes of Barn of the Blood Llama, Fungicide, Thankskilling, and Curse of Bigfoot! Huzzah!!!
HERE is the trailer, check it out! And there is a NEW ONE for the blu ray release! And someone made a blu ray trailer with Belinda Carlisle, as you do! Woohoo!!! Check out Damon Packard’s personal Youtube page for moore videos and wacky stuff! Be warned, there are at least 4 different versions of this flick floating around; on Youtube you get a compressed version, but the original uncut director’s version is HERE on Amazon, but it ain’t cheap. TrashCult.com has it too for a bit less. DVDParty.com has the Damon Packard authorized full length original version on 2 DVDs! You can find the DVD on Ebay as well, but who the heck knows what version yer getting?? You can stream it for cheap at PivotShare.com, and its on Prime.
The good news is that both DVDParty.com and Pit of Infinite Shadow BOTH have the 20th anniversary Blu Ray version, so rush out and git her hooves on a copy soon! MoviePosterdb.com has the digital version of the poster that you can download for FREE! Bleeding Skull, Pop Matters, and 366 Weird Movies.com all have reviews, as does Underground Film Journal and Unboxed Watched and Reviewed has a video review – check ’em out! Also Film Threat Livecast did an interesting video interview with Damon Packard you should check out as well, the MooCow would LOOOVE to git him on our Indie Film Cafe Spotlight one day!
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