Artivels Undescribable Perfection

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Borgarkeri A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Michael_Elliott Disconnected (2017) * 1/2 (out of 4)Women are being brutally murdered by a psychopath. At the same time, video store worker Alicia (Frances Raines) begins dating a new guy but she's constantly worried that her slut sister Barbara Ann (also played by Raines) might be trying to do something wrong.Gorman Bechard made DISCONNECTED before doing PSYCHOS IN LOVE and I must say that the title of this movie perfectly summed up my feelings on it. I really did feel disconnected throughout the entire film and I had a really hard time trying to connect with anything going on. To say the film struggled to hold my attention would be an understatement. This film has quite a bit going on with it as you've got the entire story dealing with the sisters. You've also got the story dealing with the good sister and her new relationship. You've also got a detective (Carmine Capobianco) talking directly to the camera as he tries to solve the killings. All of this is going on in a film that runs 84-minutes and to say it's very fair to say that the overall movie is very uneven and it seems like they weren't quite sure how to handle everything.For the most part the performances are good enough for this type of film. There's some sleaze elements with some nudity and some mildly gory scenes but consider this is a slasher film, neither are really up there among the genre's more memorable moments. With that said, fans of the director might want to check this out but others can certainly stay clear of it. I will add that it was fun seeing a video store like they used to be.

Bloodwank I enjoy weird low budget horror from the early 80's more than most. Disconnected is weirder and lower budgeted than most early 80's horror. We were meant to be together...Here we have the lovely Alicia for a heroine, cracking up as her identical twin Barbara-Anne screws around with her boyfriends. Tormented by hallucinations and noisy psyche freak-out phone calls (which succeed in being genuinely creepy) she happily sets to it with a geeky new beau. But what does all this have to do with a crazed killer icing his way through the ladies of the area...? While other no-budget horror of the era was content with aping popular slashers of the time, Disconnected has more on its mind. References to older films, notably Shadow of a Doubt (which a character spoils) as well as various posters, and the heroines video rental job (where at one stage she comes across an obnoxious porno patron) give the impression of the film riffing on its own milieu even as it inhabits it, its an approach that can come off awfully obnoxious but here it works because everything is so damned strange that its tough to unpick any meaning. The joy is that the construction is as strange as the plotting, so the strangeness becomes inescapable, it curls out of just about every frame in a captivating web of strange and if you can succumb, well its a good experience. There are strange things that seem a result of ineptitude, like the main character referencing the lateness of the hour while sun clearly shines in her window, or one bit where the brightness through her window makes a scene near impossible to make out. Then there are strange things that seem deliberate and beautiful, like editing that shuns plot rhythm so the audience can never settle into a scene in case it cuts away without discernible point (a pivotal moment of the film takes place off screen in this way), but really likes cutting to weird background objects in scenes where the action is of interest. Occasionally the wacky technique comes up unsettling trumps (a couple of interesting kills) but mostly it's bewildering, and I sure like bewilderment. There are bar scenes that skip dialogue and environmental sound so we can see mouths move but hear only disco pop, there's even a cop talking straight to camera against a white backdrop for some kind of documentary touch. There's more of course, but I could carry on a long way on it and I haven't got all day. It is worth mentioning that the ending explains virtually nothing and summons suspicions of a lost script (or final scenes dreamt up on the fly), which may be a problem for some. Acting-wise this is about what you'd expect. Frances Raines is pretty solid as Alicia/Barbara-Anne, effectively frayed as the former and sexy and combative as the latter. Helps that she's a lovely looking lady as well (and shows her boobs). Mark Walker is convincingly awkward and strange as new boyfriend Franklin, and to be honest I can barely remember anybody else worth mentioning. Most people are going to hate this one, but I had a grand old time, its mixture of unabashed strangeness and cold sincerity with trash art musing aesthetics place it as one of the most unusual of its era, giving perhaps even Horror House on Highway 5 a run for its acid burn out money. I give it a 7/10, but suspect this is more like a 4 for the majority.

forecastfortoday Disconnected is quite a strange movie. It is half slasher film, a quarter crime thriller, and a quarter art film. It is, surprisingly, quite unpredictable, and even a little bit shocking at times. Unfortunately, the movie is brought down drastically by a low budget, making the film sleazy and unrealistic. The film itself kind of brings this feeling of "What the hell just happened?" at the end of each scene, not because of twists in the plot, but because the film is confusing.After coming home from work one day, Alicia (the beautiful, yet sadly unknown Frances Raines) finds an old man at her apartment, wanting to use the telephone. She lets him use her phone while she leaves the room to make some tea. When she comes back, the man is gone. She begins to receive obscene phone calls, which consist of a loud, electronic voice screaming at her. Meanwhile, Alicia begins dating a man named Franklin (Mark Walter) after her twin sister, Barbara Ann (Also played by Frances Raines), steals her boyfriend, Mike (Carl Koch). Little does Alicia know that Franklin is a serial killer who kills women after he sleeps with them...Made in 1983 (A golden age for slasher films), Disconnected is probably one of the rarest and most original slasher made for it's time. However, like mentioned before, the budget is so small that the film is basically a porn film without all the sex (Even though there is a ton of T&A in the film). Despite the low budget, the acting is actually not that bad for such a bad movie. Frances Raines is pretty good in her role as a damsel in distress, especially towards the end of the movie, which leads to her nearly having a breakdown from the phone calls. One of the things I didn't entirely like about the movie is why there are scenes that consist of the director of the film (Gorman Bechard) and a policeman who is trying to solve the case (Ben Page). There really isn't much explanation as to what these scenes are completely about. The policeman usually talks more about himself than the actual case, and ends up just disappearing from the film entirely towards the end.Overall, the idea the writers had wasn't a bad idea at all, the plot isn't bad at all. The actual movie, however, was bad. The budget, the confusing scenes, the music, and the strange artsy scenes made the film bad.

FieCrier Not very good, but somewhat watchable. Someone is killing young women in a small town; we don't see the killings or bodies until the killer is identified. Meanwhile, an odd but polite young man tries to date Alicia, a young woman who is working at a video store. She has a slutty identical twin sister. Alicia is getting strange phone calls: nobody there, or horrible sounds, or overhearing other people's phone calls. The calls may or may not be related to the killer.The movie gets a little odd after the killer is dealt with by the police. A restless night Alicia has is depicted through a series of black & white photographs. An old man in a black hat and black coat who was seen at the beginning of the movie shows up again at the end. I'm not sure if he is significant or not.As in Gorman Bechard's other movies, Carmine Capobianco talks to the camera. Here, he's a cop talking to someone, a journalist? Oddly, he's shot against a white wall, and wears the same shirt in scenes supposed to be taking place on different days.Lots of pop/rock songs on the soundtrack. Sometimes scenes play without dialogue or environmental sound, serving as little more than music video montage scenes. There's some good music by XTC and Hunters & Gatherers.If this was Bechard's first film as a director, as it seems to be, it's not bad considering that.