Disconnected (1984)

Director: Gorman Bechard

Screenplay: Gorman Bechard and Virginia Gilroy

Cast: Frances Raines as Alicia / Barbara Ann; Mark Walker as Franklin; Carl Koch as Mike; Professor Morono as Joey; Carmine Capobianco as Tremaglio

Synopsis: Alicia (Frances Raines), a video store employee who has a rough patch with her boyfriend Mike (Carl Koch), finds herself drifting towards another named Franklin (Mark Walker), who charms her enough to start dating despite being clearly obsessed with her. Unfortunately, alongside this fact, he's more than he lets on, encompassing a series of issues that includes Alicia being tormented gradually more by creepy, strange phone calls.

[Spoilers Throughout]

Disconnected is a little curiosity, unearthed from a still ripe era of very productive and vast American cult cinema of genre film making. In truth, as that era had countless productions, more titles will be uncovered which will surprise and baffle - in this case Disconnected feels, in truth, sandwiched between the burgeoning No Wave/Cinema of Transgression films of the eighties and the horror movies being made in the decade when cinemas and VHS were viable options. That's a very important consideration to keep in mind as, whilst it promises a slasher or a regular horror film in premise, about a woman tormented by phone calls, Gorman Bechard's production feels like an experiment by a filmmaker who wasn't going to tackle conventions normally and had to work in lieu of limited resources, making an unconventional experience that'll alienate many but entice the oddballs like myself.

The factor of the greatest interest for me with Disconnected is that, alongside its sparse production and the structural tone, is that the story's technically two different narratives which take place and threaten lead protagonist Alicia. Potential new beau Franklin, if his obsession with visiting her video store despite having no player wasn't enough to qualify as a stalker, is also an individual who seduces and kills women with total disregard of blood being difficult to clean off his white bed sheets. This part of the narrative is where the film slides the closest to the bizarro cheap horror films from the era, a logic to the material which never feels fully formed, between Frances Raines playing Alicia's twin sister Barbara Ann, a man eater whose place in the film feels abrupt and un-formed, to how Franklin's end comes when police officers just happen to be in the right place outside his apartment to enter all guns blazing. However the film ends that plot thread very early, as if finished, only to continue onwards in what feels like the epilogue, Alicia going through the emotions of the incident, including a very eerie (and legitimately interesting) moment where, even if it is illogical and grotesque, she hands up a framed image still covered in blood, the red contrasting the white walls completely. From then on, setting up the threatening phone calls earlier, they continue to torment her with the film following Alicia possibly slipping into delusions as said calls escalate and take place in unnatural circumstances, always after being picked up a second time in a moment blaring out a horrible electronic screech in response to being previously slammed down.

From https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNWNlOGRjMTctOGQyYy00ZDRhLT
lkMGUtYTNiMmI1YTgwNDdmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjY1NTc4MjU@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1333,1000_AL_.jpg

The storyline with the phone calls is when the sense of pretence, for the better, that Disconnected exhibits really comes to the fore. For all its wooden moments of acting and flaws it's clear Bechard can still make a film, beginning with the idiosyncratic editing choices which can seemingly cut to random objects like a big eyes cat clock but feel too deliberate to be dismissed. Set in rooms with very white walls a lot of the film's length, a septic and distinct mood is felt alongside the faltering performances which stand out as part of the style even if unintentionally. It'll irritate viewers expecting a regular slasher flick, but the reference to the likes of No Wave filmmaking feels appropriate as this feels like an art student deliberately making a horror film but not renouncing his interests. After the eighties and another horror film named Psychos in Love (1987), Bechard has made low budget concert films and dramas, so that's not much of a reach for a theory; by all accounts though, by Vinegar Syndrome staff who released Disconnected on physical media¹, Bechard wasn't very impressed with his own work with the earlier film, which doesn't stop me from admiring its virtues, but aware now with greater context that his clear experiments were against moments where the film does have an unintentional absurdity to them too.

From https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMDRiYWFjODMtYmM1Yi00OTg2LTk
wNWEtYWM4NWRjMDlhMzhlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjY1NTc4MjU@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1333,1000_AL_.jpg

Yet, whilst I cannot ignore the clear technical faults, for abstract cinema it's also appropriate weird in the best of ways, reaching a state one hopes as a cult movie fan where a film's flaws, the unnecessarily long scenes of night club dancing in emaciated halls and every hesitant dialogue exchange inexplicably about the lack of foreign films on a video store shelf, actually adds to the viewing experiment rather than detracts from it. There's also the fact that, due to its two part structure, Disconnected also has the virtue of being unpredictable, both intentional and by accident but a virtue to admire. Both when its flawed and also when its successful, I can point to a film like this and say that is when I appreciate the fringes of cinema and when it disregards structural conventions, not only allowing a true sense of the unexpected into the situation, but with the touch that Disconnected actually bookmarks itself with a plot point that is mysterious and never explained but set up fully, a moment of additional surprise which it should applaud itself for.

Abstract Spectrum: Avant-Garde/Lo-Fi/Psychotronic/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

Personal Opinion:

Another of those fascinating little discoveries from the State's strange cult cinema past, the kind of material Vinegar Syndrome have been digging up for quite a while; sadly the kind of film with limited appeal, but for someone like me my kind of outsider strange horror cinema.

====
1) Shock Waves podcast episode 121 - an interview with the Joe Rubin and Jeff Gittel from Vinegar Syndrome which can be found HERE.

From https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMmE3YjQyODAtNmY5MC00NTE0LWFhOTctOWVh
NDk5ZjU3ODZiXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_SX1777_CR0,0,1777,999_AL_.jpg