whitetigerzone

Before the glut of slasher movies that followed Halloween, there were the cheap @ss demon/devil movies that followed the Exorcist and Carrie, and this was one of those movies that sort of fell into the overlap. For a long time, I had this memory of being suckered into going and seeing one of these movies, when I typically would have known better, because the TV promo somehow made it look really good. Anyway, for years, I've told people about going to see this awful horror movie back in 1981, when I was a teenager, and as I was walking out of the theater when it was over, I found myself behind these two very elderly ladies who were probably suckered by the same TV promo that got me there. Anyway, one of these little old grey haired hunched over ladies says to the other one "I shouldn't have come to see this. It'll give me nightmares." and the other one, with undisguised contempt and unrestrained annoyance loudly says "Nightmares? How the hell could that movie give you nightmares? It was so STUPID! I WISH it was scary enough to give me nightmares! Give you nightmares! Give me a break!" Still makes me laugh forty years later.

The negative reviews here are most likely from guys for whom this movie struck a nerve. The acting and writing are excellent. You know this because this movie actually causes the viewer to feel compassion for and root for a character who is very nearly a complete solipsistic, self-absorbed buffoon. I don't know how someone could view it and find no comedy in it, unless they so strongly identify with the main character that they too acutely feel his pain. I was chuckling throughout and the perfectly delivered line "You wish!" made me lose it.

A big part of the humor is that the main character is a devotee of what is itself even a fading form of nerddom: the Dungeons and Dragons inspired tabletop fantasy role-playing game, and that he's even been able to assemble a clique of players for his own homemade, unpublished specimen. It's one of those domains in which the competition is so fierce because the stakes are so small.

The movie reminded me a little of the also excellent Big Fan (2009), another humorous character study of an obsessed man-child.

I was surprised, after watching it, to see how old this movie was. The actors in it, esp. The lead, deserve more additional roles and recognition than they've gotten.

Another reviewer who identifies as an attorney working in elder care disputed the premise of this movie, but I had a friend who was an attorney who ten years ago told me a story about one of his clients, an elderly man, still of perfectly sound mind, who was caring for his wife, who had Alzheimer's. One day, when he was driving her somewhere, he got lost and he pulled over to the side of the road for a minute to look over the directions. A cop came along, spoke to them and discerned that the old man was "confused" (he was not only dealing with some cop intruding on him, but his wife who was panicky). Next thing you know, they have some court appointed "guardian" LIVING IN THEIR HOUSE. Treating them like children, questioning everything they do and reporting on it for further evaluation. AND THEY HAD TO PAY HIM! My friend, their attorney was working to get this guardianship dissolved and get this guy out of their house. As far as I'm concerned, that is in and of itself a terrifying abuse of power and a violation of that couple's constitutional rights! My attorney friend assured me that the court appointed guardian process was ripe with corruption and graft and it was pretty well known to be within the family court system. Maybe not the assembly line racket portrayed in this movie, but still a vile outrage that needs to be exposed.