Delightful Water Universe (2008)

Director: Trent Harris

Cast: Bill Allred as Vicious; Sina Amedson as Sheriff Butler; Kim Armston as Sassy; Dan Morley as Franklin; Stefene Russell as T.T. Swackhumma; Liberty Valentine as Lisa

To be honest*, Delightful Water Universe is an acquired taste. Some filmmakers enter a period when they are older where they make films or work that are low budget, even homemade, taking advantage of the newest technology when they become outsiders to the industry. This is not a bad thing, and is in fact an ultimate form of auteurism, these people happier making films without restrictions in ideas even if they could be restricted by resources. Ken Russell, for example, eventually went from helming expensive Warner Bros. films to making films in his garage, and Jean-Luc Godard arguably has been doing the same for the 2010s. The only potential issue is that of indulgence, which for me is charming if you follow the idea like I have that cinema should be viewed as part of human communication. It can also be idiosyncratic to say the least, in a way that is potentially off-putting.

Delightful Water Universe is charming if anything, even in its moments of titillation being merely actresses in exotic under garments but never explicit beyond this. It probably realises its plot, effectively a remake of Plan 10 from Outer Space (1995), but with a washed up male news reporter in a dystopian world and Bigfoot being a left wing political subversive, is a bit ad hoc at points and stretching its low budget. It probably finds joy in that too, and bless the production for thinking like this.

Made in 2008, when Barack Obama would become President of the United States soon after, the film feels of the George Dubya Bush days, now so remote in comparison it is amazing we once held that in some quarters as the end of civilisation. Films from that era, like this or a big box office failure like Southland Tales (2006), were probably right to deal with it with a cartoonish nature, suiting the tone of the era nowadays as we look back and see how absurd it was in real life. Harris to his credit hits ideas that are not that removed from the criticisms of the real first world even decades on, that there is a continuous barrage of advertisements and that the news is a puff piece for corporations, to which the protagonist is a washed up journalist who cannot pay his bar tabs and misses important events, like an American football star going insane and kidnapping a busload of Mormon schoolgirls.

The acquired nature of the film, structured like Plan 10, is that it is very determined to follow its plot with few tangents, mostly following our lead meeting someone, gaining new details and wandering on. It never really moves beyond this and the plot itself is very eccentric and loose to say the least. Between the title, a soda drink which is an Aldous Huxley approved soma, and a corrupt politician who fails at public arguments but still gets ahead of the polls^**, this is the low budget take on the likes of Southland Tale which are over the top and absurd.

Barring the explicit detail (curious and dropped) that Bigfoot rogered a male politician, which is technically a rape joke and another in the bizarre obsession in American culture being obsessed with the Cryptozoology  specific being randy for humans¹, there is always a sense of whimsy even when it is being serious. Even Harris' clear attraction to women is quaint, beautiful figures but contrasted by the second lead, a figure with a speech impediment who follows the reporter and is more assertive, a follow up from protagonist Lucinda in Plan 10 as a charming, downright lovable female figure who is not objectified or demeaned.

Harris works with what he has, which means this is a very eccentric sci-fi tale which does not try to look like the future in the slightest. That is to his advantage even if the viewer is not as fond of the indulgences, entirely because every idea I mentioned is something that transpires in real life and there is never any tech that has drastically dated in the slightest. Even the addictive soda drink is like sugar rich foods we warn children not to have and the film nearly turns into a low budget Chinatown (1974) as it involves politicians buying up land and access to water supplies. The difference too is that all of this has a sense of humour. That Bigfoot is real and is savvy enough to put windshield wipers and a giant kitchen sieve together to make a head garment that can pick up signals, used to promote his Dada-like political comments against consumerism. This, for all the padding in the film, is why I am glad to see a film like this, because even the semblance of the idea is wonderfully absurd.

I have not mentioned that this is a story-within-a-story, as Delightful Water Universe is actually a tale being written by another figure in his own story. A man in a mental institution, watching by a single male guard, he continues on the typewriter he is allowed to have whilst society outside is crumbling under a violent revolution. Said writer is shown to be an egotistical figure who thinks he is a literary genius, even the instigator of profound revolution, in spite of the fact he is neither and that the world (shown in stock footage) is burning down already around him.

This is the most interesting part of Delightful Water Universe, where this is Trent Harris showing how interesting he is as a creator, because we have to process that the absurdities of the plot inside the bookends are influenced by his clear incompetence and egotism, and that there is an unexpected sadness too. Namely that this figure is still pining for a female figure, entering the story as a member of those Mormon schoolgirls who comes to the lead, providing him the McGuffin of the windscreen wiper transmitter helmet and leaving the reporter pining for her after a one night stand, a love sick puppy onwards. It is this whole aspect, these complications, which bring up some additional questions, whether we are to question this entire main story in terms of bias or not. It does provide also an emotional connection as, with even his utter ignorance of himself, he is still someone to follow, where even his guard is just there to have someone to talk too, making the final with him stuck in the room and memories coming to haunt him a surprise change of tone to the film. That makes any indulgences with the film acceptable as they pay off eventually.

Abstract Spectrum: Eccentric

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

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* And in mind that this particular review was made possible because the director Harris was kind enough upload his films to YouTube temporarily through 2020 for the public to see, which can feel like biting the hand of a benefactor.

** Trent Harris to his credit, again, pointing out something we only come to realise happens in the 2010s and 2020s a lot.

1) From softcore like Sweet Prudence and the Erotic Adventure of Bigfoot (2011) to actual porn in The Geek (1971), this is surprisingly common. That is not including the literary genre of monster porn, which was surprisingly prolific and with a surprising amount of female authors.

Plan 10 From Outer Space (1995)

Director: Trent Harris

Screenplay: Trent Harris

Cast: Stefene Russell as Lucinda; Karen Black as Nehor; Patrick Michael Collins as Larsen; Curtis James as Talmage; Deva Cantrell as Guy; Gyll Huff as Rockwell; Jeff Price as Sanders; Karen Nielsen as Jazell; Burnadette Leroi as Burnadette

Obscurities, Oddities and One-Offs

The title is a reference to Ed Wood Jr's most notorious film, Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), the film above many which people referred to when they both talked of bad cinema but also so-bad-its-good. There have been possible challenges to it in pop culture memory, The Room (2003) springing to mind as possibly taking its crown in the modern day, but the notoriously shambolic sci-fi tale is synonymous with cult cinema. Plan 10 From Outer Space for me always sounded like a modern pastiche, which did exist especially in an era where Ed Wood managed to get a 1994 biopic from Tim Burton from a major Hollywood studio. The actual film, my first Trent Harris work, is not this but about Mormons. That is the first interesting surprise, and it gets more peculiar from there.

Trent Harris is a filmmaker who has had a few notches in cult circles of immense interest. Rubin and Ed (1991) with Crispin Glover is from this same era where we once had these wonderfully idiosyncratic productions bankrolled. The Beaver Trilogy (2001), spawning three films between 1979 and 1985 based on a figure Harris met called "Groovin' Gary, is his most well known work including the notoriety that it was long unavailable and that the middle one has a young Sean Penn playing Groovin' Gary. Here, the Utah raised filmmaker takes a look at a huge cultural aspect of his local culture, that Utah is famously of historical important for Mormonism, a controversial religion in terms of Christianity and where Harris turns this into a sci-fi tale of their beliefs with more aliens than in their actual writings.

The premise is that a young Mormon woman Lucinda (Stefene Russell) wants to write about Utah's history, only to find a tablet in the wilderness, connected to a controversial work by a Mormon founder which posited an alien influence on Mormonism. Now, Mormonism is a divisive belief system, and Harris' work tackles as much its beliefs as it uses it for artistic inspiration, taking into consideration that this faith grew in the 19th century, a potted history involved, but also bringing in some of its more idiosyncratic beliefs, such as Mormonism's reference to the cosmos and the other planets which is translated in this film as outer space being part of its form of heaven, here the dead gaining their own planet if they are good Mormons. As Lucinda herself will eventually say though, this only applies to her male brethren, whilst Mormons' most known practice of polygamy, in which men can have many wives, becomes a huge plot point which involves Karen Black, the cult and acclaimed actress, as a scorned woman in the midst of this conspiracy.

Plan 10 is also a film from knee deep into the nineties, and whilst it would take a precise discourse on aesthetic and fashion to explain this, the sense of this being a nineties production is felt in its colour and especially its eccentricity. "Eccentric" is the best way to describe the film as well as charming. Plan 10, whilst it is dealing with sexy saucer people who invite women on midnight "motorbike rides", is almost chaste, pleasingly so in a narrative structure which, baring a few tangents, is wholly devoted to its story of Lucinda uncovering this conspiracy and following it to the end. Barring her very crude Freudian slips, finding herself attracted to the next door neighbour who twerks in his undies at night through an open window, Lucinda is a very likeable and affirmative figure, taking in her stride a conspiracy that naturally makes her male seniors uncomfortable. Particular, as much a joke, because they fear it would make them worse off in the public view as a laughing stock, but becoming more suspicious as she digs further, even to the point of getting a cousin to help translate a Mormon created language to decipher old text.   

Baring the fact her brother is likely to be picking up transmissions, unwell as he eventually stands proud in front of a founder's statue in the nude, it is Stefene Russell's film and she is charming. Never demeaned, and the only explicit sexuality depicted through an outer space motorbike ride or two. The story is her growth, not just through her sexuality, but a general sense of growth from a nerdy figure who, be it struggling to get into a secret hideout unless she wears a costume or even getting shoved into a mental health asylum and having to escape, grows stronger in general by the conclusion.

And it does touch upon some problematic content about Mormonism. Not in a superior attitude either, but calmly critiquing points, such as Mormonism's struggle with racism, depicted in the difference between the "Nephites", light skinned population of Israelite origin who came to the Americas, and the "Lamanites", people who are seen as wicked but, as film tells the version, are depicted as dark skinned people, a nod to this problem within the Church. That and the gender politics, as this ultimately revolves around Karen Black wanting to create a gender war against Utah, which does happen in the most subversive aspect of Plan 10. She even gets to sing, which is admittedly awesome as I did not know Karen Black could sing.

The result was a very pleasant surprise, again an introduction to this very idiosyncratic director, and a great beginning at that.

Hobo with a Trash Can (2015)

Directors: Mark Charles Adams ("The Apple That Bit Back"); Tonjia Atomic ("The Hungry Ghost"); Lloyd Emmons and Kyle Leonard ("Condomdemned"); Steven A. Grainger as ("Grab Bag"); Christopher Kahler as ("Frying Saucer"); Claire 'Fluff' Llewellyn as ("Welcome to Retroville"); Vincent Marshall as ("Dr. Hanger")

Screenplay: Tonjia Atomic as ("The Hungry Ghost"); Lloyd Emmons and Kyle Leonard ("Condomdemned"); Adam Gibson ("The Apple That Bit Back"); Steven A. Grainger as ("Grab Bag"); Claire 'Fluff' Llewellyn  ("Frying Saucer" and "Welcome to Retroville"); Vincent Marshall as ("Dr. Hanger")

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

Another anthology, a no budget production too, an incredibly obscure one in which a group of directors, on the rule they are given a dollar and buy an object to built a story around, put together a film about a homeless man with a shopping trolley whose seizures when he holds certain objects lead to each tale. The title clearly wanted to ride the coat tails of Hobo with a Shotgun (2011), a neo-grindhouse throwback which was a talked of title four years previously. This is a very different work however, with none of that film's over the top gore or tone, but a collection of micro-budget films which feel like fragments.

The wraparound Welcome to Retroville is beholden to being cut up and divided between the stories within it as with other anthologies. Here it follows a homeless man who has the worse day possible, first assaulted by a woman (played by the segment director and daughter of Worchester, England Claire 'Fluff' Llewellyn) randomly with a frying pan in the street, then dragged off the street by the police accused of murder of her husband. Of interest in knowing this is a British-American collaboration, as Llewellyn played an important part in this film being made, and that there's a segment later on which is entirely set in England. It is a nice bit of unconventional patriotism rather something to be embarrassed about.

Your taste in this type of film is in lieu to it fighting against its limitations, especially over a very low budget, existing in a no man's urban environment where cops have no discernible appearance to real life police and shove paper bags over suspects' heads. The wraparound, alongside a sense of They Live (1988) by an apparent conspiracy with a frying pan technology and humanity's addiction to bacon, is not really explained. It is also tentatively connected to all the plots because of the fact, whenever he touches certain objects, the titular hobo will drop out of consciousness in a trance of green CGI and woozy synth, but this never being explained.

Like if there is an immediate issue with the film, it's that most of the anthology stories do not really grip one. The first segment Frying Saucer, in which a newly married woman (Llewellyn) slowly comes to realise her husband is an alien behind a conspiracy to make a frying pan, is fun in the sense of the little foibles and joys of no budget cinema, the amusing lines and eccentric nature of this being about a frying pan so good at cooking bacon it becomes "like the necter of the Gods". Subjective taste comes to play a lot more with these films however as a result. Here as with throughout Hobo with a Trash Can, you have to accept the varying acting, minimal technicality and a lot of oddness, but there was an additional issue having seen this anthology already beforehand that it does drag unless any of the segments were memorable.

Not at the point of Frying Saucer mind, which is still distilled with some personality and weird verisimilitude, where these problems are at least pushed back by the eccentricity of the production. With the first segment, you get many details that I found fascinating for myself to see - a strange anti-climatic story of domestic horror where, in an incredibly short Skype session, the actress playing the lead's mother (her actual mother) has an incredibly peculiar acting style in describing not to leave wine opened or it will go sour. For most, this is not the point of cinema - for myself, who has developed a taste for these micro-budget films, segments like these alongside many factors we want in cinema are now part of their virtues even if they are merely quirks.

Due to the nature of the production, the stories due have an extreme minimalistic nature than even other micro-budget films, at points even like half dreamt day dreams that were happened to be shot in digital video, marked in fake grain effects at least for the wraparound which is arguably an ill advised and dated touch to the neo-grindhouse aesthetic. Grab Bag is about a paper bag, like an attempt at a fairy tale in which a tiny man tricks various people to look in a paper bag that clearly shows them something they want to take out of it, only for them to be dragged into it and eaten gorily. In vast contrast, Condomdemned is where a condom leads to a man being paid by another to date a woman, all with the suspicious goal that he will have a camera on him to film them having sex; the tale has a twist to it, but honestly it is the kind of production where the quirks are more interesting, such as the icky if funny joke of a brand of condoms called "Double Dipping" which is made from reused latex.

After this we get the segment that makes Hobo with a Trash Can actually worth seeing by even people not necessarily fond of these types of films. The Apple That Bit Back begins with a shadowy Russian in the middle of acquiring a dangerous weapon, only to be bemused when the scientist he has paid off to steal it produces an apple in a suitcase...and becomes even more bemused when the apple is the actual weapon and is a homicidal sentient apple that escapes, attacking a couple of male housemates with divided views on the virtues of fruit.

The production is British, with our deadpan humour as one of the housemates suggests that fruit and five-a-day are comparable to the sign of Satan with Vitamin C, evoking that regardless of budget and resources you can win people over with ease. The apple segment, which leads to the amusement of man versus fruit, a rampage of apples rolling down the stairs on an unsuspecting victim, and the surprising toxicity of apple if you eat too many (which is scientifically accurate), is helped by being considerably more comedic in tone, openly silly, but it is also legitimately playful and creative in comparison to every other part. Even the actor with the less than stellar Russian accent gets around it by that broad voice being part of the humour and how his character is nonplussed by anything. Also in knowing of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978), which was a parody but had a franchise which included tomatoes attacking Paris and a children's animated series 1990-1, the idea of an apple taking a bite out of the Big Apple eventually is not that absurd and pleasingly embracing this absurdity of itself. Especially as you do have an apple appear at someone's bed side cabinet and be able to talk, menacingly telling them it will eat their soul, the short despite budget limitations made by people who thought out the funniest material for their story first.

After this however, a film which beforehand had dragged along has its newly acquired legs cut out from under it from two segments afterwards this which are confused or pointless. The penultimate The Hungry Ghost is a confused piece which starts with a man crying how hungry he is for a long period of time, only to invade a gambling den in a Chinese restaurant and start chewing on the patrons. It is revealed to have supernatural implications, as the players are not human and using souls as wagers, but even with the little bit of gore too it is an ill thought out sketch. God knows what the point of Dr. Hanger was. A few minutes long, it is worth spoiling entirely as, set in a bare room, it is about a governor's daughter getting an abortion by way of a coat hanger, which is the entirety of the story, baring the twist that the baby was through her father's molestation, and nothing else. Literally brisk in existence, the result is an actual non-sequitur in being a fragment, in a tone bleaker but inappropriate for the anthology and utterly in bad taste, as it is not shocking in a profound way but amateurish.

Neither helping in that the wraparound just finishes - no ending to its alien conspiracy, in which a homeless man is arrested for a murder he did not commit, become imprisoned in a shack against his will, and possibly involved in a shadowy scenario - leaving a film that eventually drags into in a monotony that few would have patience with if they were not used to this type of cinema. This is bad for fans of this type of cinema as those final two segments and the wraparound's conclusion do not help a work that, if it had a different finale half, might have been much more memorable. It is a shame as the Apple segment by itself is a thing to love and adore, the segment which pulls this anthology up to something worth seeing, left with a combination of absurdity that I admit to enjoy (deranged bag masters, homicidal apples) too. Against bland concoctions which I could do without however, it is in itself a distillation of no budget cinema itself where for everyone I have found rewarding, consistency is a danger as much as it is for considerably higher budgeted work.

On the Air (1992)

Creators: Mark Frost and David Lynch

Directors: David Lynch, Jack Fisk, Lesli Linka Glatter, Jonathan Sanger and Betty Thomas           

Screenplay: Mark Frost, David Lynch, Robert Engels and Scott Frost

Cast: Ian Buchanan as Lester Guy; Marla Rubinoff as Betty Hudson; Nancye Ferguson as Ruth Trueworthy; Miguel Ferrer as Bud Budwaller;  Gary Grossman as Bert Schein; Mel Johnson Jr. as Mickey; Marvin Kaplan as Dwight McGonigle; David L. Lander as Valdja Gochktch; Kim  as Nicole Thorne; Tracey Walter as 'Blinky' Watts; Irwin Keyes a Shorty the Stagehand; Buddy Douglas as Buddy Morris; Raleigh Friend as Hurry Up Twin; Raymond Friend as Hurry Up Twin; Everett Greenbaum as the Announcer; Sydney Lassick as Mr. Zoblotnick

It is amazing to think that David Lynch, whilst someone is even known in the mainstream, also had a hot period where he was also king of the world. Well, when the first season of Twin Peaks started in 1990, that happened, as was the moment he won the Palme d'Or at that year's Cannes Film Festival. Lightning had been caught in a bottle...only for Season Two of Twin Peaks to falter, although that was when David Lynch was not directly involved for most of the season, whilst Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) was not a highly regarded film in the slightest, only growing in reputation over the decades after.

Just by this time too, we also get a show from Lynch which only lasted seven episodes, a David Lynch comedy about a live variety show in 1957. Born in 1946, and having explicitly referenced the fifties throughout his career, On the Air is drawing on real television of the period of live variety shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show, starting in 1948 to 1971, among other such examples you can read up on from the era. That show famously had The Beatles, but throughout the decades had anything from vaudevillians and plates spinners to ballet dancers and Broadway show tunes, to which the show in the centre of On the Air, "The Lester Guy Show", is a live variety and sketch show lead by Hollywood actor Lester Guy (Ian Buchanan) in which everything goes horribly wrong every show but gets the ratings.

Of note, David Lynch only directed the first episode and penned the last. What this is in truth is David Lynch directing the pilot, among one of his most gleefully weird works I have seen, and his collaborators from the Twin Peaks era having to figure out how to follow on from his example.  Episode One is legitimately weird, which is surprising as One The Air manages to find a way to top this onwards. Set in the late fifties, The Lester Guy Show is run by eccentrics, complete botches in every worst slapstick related form possible transpiring rather than anything rehearsed, from a missed cue to Guy being flung in the air repeatedly. Who steals the show from under him is Betty (Marla Rubinoff), a legitimate holy fool as she is built on the surface as the problematic stereotype of the dumb blonde, the extreme version, only to be revealed as the heart of the show in spite of this. She represents a trend in David Lynch's work, a person at times that can come off as sweetly naive himself, of optimism and kindness even in the bleakest of circumstances. Usually such optimism is crushed under darkness or stilted bird performances in Blue Velvet (1986), but here Betty's improvisation during a disastrous broadcast wins the viewing public over, much to the concern of Lester Guy.

Whilst David Lynch is known for his dark material, when comedy is found in his career he reveals himself to have a very silly sense of humour. The opening credits perfectly set up the premise - in an era in the fifties where Hollywood had to introduce widescreen and gimmicks to combat the encroaching success of television, his regular composer Angelo Badalamenti created a beautiful jazzy track over scenes of streets and a broadcast antenna standing out on the Planet Earth like a colossus, only for fart-like noises to be heard, audibly someone making a raspberry and possibly like a failed blow on an instrument. Running gags that continue through the series are very broad - like the Hurry Up twins, two male twins in a jumper big enough for both of them to wear whose only purpose is to appear and for the narrator to always introduce them, or the sound effects guy having a sight issue which means, as also introduced by the narrator every episode, he sees everyone in duplication and objects to be superimposed over shots. Episode One is, in the right mood, hilarious and utterly baffling in how it plays out, working by itself even if had been a single pilot.

But it was not the last one, with the additional context that people other than Lynch himself now had to continue the narrative. Alongside Lester Guy and Betty are quite a few characters: Nicole Thorne, played by Kim McGuire who is most well known for Hatchet Face in Cry Baby (1990), as Guy's romantic interest and Head of Comedy, helping to try and sabotage Betty's career for her lover; the great, late Miguel Ferrer as the hardnosed producer Bud Budwaller who tries to keep this all together each broadcast; a European director, clearly based on German directors who fled to the United States from Nazi Germany, who is however incompetent and has to be translated by production assistant  Ruth Trueworthy (Nancye Ferguson), a confidant and friend to Betty; and a variety of other misfits. Episode 2 is the only episode which breaks from the main structure drastically. Betty is invited by the studio boss to dinner, which also breaks from the trend that he is never seen or heard for the most part baring being able to get so angry over the phone to Bud flame goes through the receiver like in a Looney Tunes cartoon.  Following on with Guy, Bud and Nicole trying to sabotage Betty's meeting, the episode thankfully is helped by the cast being great and the comedy still working because of how exaggerated it was.

After this, On the Air manages to find its groove, all entirely set within the set of The Lester Guy Show where a new guest is hired for each show - a legendary actor, a puppet star of a kid's show, even Betty's more famous older sister - and yet everything still goes wrong. The show manages to get stranger, as if everyone needed to make Lynch proud, in how between the reoccurring ducks, which grow in number and are never explained, to the gadgets clearly designed by Acme, On the Air finds ways to top itself.

Arguably, the show was too idiosyncratic to survive. Even if Twin Peaks was a huge hit, I would presume an incredibly weird comedy which has many Dad jokes and weirdness would not appeal as easily as a mystery. It does however leave so many memorable moments entirely based on repeating the same ideas that I have to admire the production. There is even a legitimately heart-warming sequence in the episode about Betty's sister, when after the puppet is insulted Betty and everyone brings his spirits up on live television, so charming even Bud is softened by the event. There is also even more of a high bar of strangeness, where the cuts to the TV audience includes dogs in clothes, where the magician hired for an episode (when his magical powers come back) causes vegetables to float and transformations to take place in a deeply weird finale to that story. This is all in mind they are meant to have followed David Lynch's episode, having to figure out his style but decided wisely to just be as odd in its own way as they could. Helping the show is the strength of its cast. Ian Buchanan caught my attention especially, managing to play Lester Guy as utterly egotistic but still compelling, as a former Hollywood star reduced to television, but the cast in general were perfectly cast in every role too.

On the Air tragically, or for the best depending on your viewpoint, only lasted seven episodes. The final episode, whilst not directed by David Lynch, is written by him and bookmarks the story by delving further into madness. Throughout the show it drew and exaggerated on culture from the period and earlier - all the episodes of the programme start with Lester Guy in a noir dark lit scene doing choreographed movements of mystery; there is a spy drama being rehearsed in episode two; the children's puppet show character draws from entertainment from that era of television. The shows climaxes on beatniks, specifically the Woman with No Name, who does interpretative dance against avant-garde jazz. Between Betty forgetting her mother's name, and that the European director hears "beatnik" and starts giving the Woman with No Name dozens of shoes to dance around, because it possibly means "shoemaker" in his language, this becomes a memorable moment in his career what is not necessarily the deepest moment of Lynch's.

It definitely has one of the most legitimately strangest moments in his career, which is a considerable achievement considering what he has created in his filmography, in the last episode's climax. Building, in its last line of the series, to what is a cheesy pun, On the Air concludes with the entire cast waving shoes in the air on mass as The Woman with No Name dances to droning atonal music and Lester Guy, after a machine to try to rob Betty's voice backfires, with a robotic noise for his own instead. It is appropriately the best way to have ended. It shows Lynch's collaborators were distinct, as they managed to make a show this is still compelling and legitimately hilarious in my weird sense of humour. Honestly, I think the show never getting a full season is not a bad thing, perfect as it is. The issue is that, barring rare releases such as on Japanese VHS, On the Air has never had a major rediscovery. There are a couple of titles in David Lynch's filmography inexplicably difficult to find, some like the original 1999 TV pilot of Mulholland Dr. not available because he finds it embarrassing, but On the Air could legitimately be seen as something to be proud of. It is glorious when experienced.

Abstract Spectrum: Surreal/Wacky/Weird

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

Petscop (2017-20)

Petscop is not a film, a television series, even a short film or a commercial. Petscop is a YouTube channel, a Let's Play of an obscure Playstation One game said to be from 1997. "Let's Plays" are videos on YouTube of people playing video games with them commenting on the material as they go along. It might sound banal, but I will admit to having watched a few even as someone who does not consider himself a videogamer. Unfortunately video games do not have as easy a system for preserving old and obscure titles from yore, even if retro gaming is popular and more are being restored, the most interesting Let's Plays for me which create a desire to start playing games again always the ones covering fascinating obscurities. Sadly most are not possible to play or (if Japanese) require you to understand the text, but witnessing them in action they shown how delving into the past and old artefacts is a compulsion regardless of medium.

Petscop, the first video released in March 2017, is an unfinished game and a banal children's title, something I can attest to as of the Playstation One generation. I knew of all the cheap titles released on the system (and filled the magazines eventually to their reviewers disgust) especially in the console's dying days before Playstation 2 effectively shoved it off its mortal coil finally, even played a few. Initially our commentator Paul is playing a cute armless mascot who has to acquire "pets", strange creatures littered around what is meant to be the only level that was fully developed. Unfinished games, or shelved ones, are a fascination for gamers too and the internet has allowed these works to be accessible for many. It is a dreamlike place we witness, a floating world of corridors with an emphasis on purplish pink. Some of the aspects come off as off-colour, like a ball pet who wins awards because she stays in a cage the longest, but the first episode is innocuous...

Well, that is until Paul follows a cheat that he was given a note on with the game, a button combination that opens up a new place underneath the level. Called the Newmaker Plain, it is vast and dark grassy environment with little there. This is where Petscop reveals itself to be a horror mystery that lasted until 2020. Full disclosure, this review will talk about everything explicitly about Petscop, but it is not a puzzle to solve, which might frustrate fans of ARGs (Alternative Reality Gaming), a concept that can link even back to the Blair Witch Project website that tied into the 1999 film, multimedia works particularly for YouTube where fan speculation and guessing mysteries exist. Petscop developed a cult, when the first four episodes were posted online, but it is also elusive in terms of what its themes are. We can confirm its creator as Tony Domenico, who had previous experience developing his own games before he came to this project.

Petscop for all purposes looks like a real Playstation One game. The initial set up is a bright if desolate world of a children's video game, of cute characters and pronounced colours, all with a birthday/party motif like a present on the opening screen or the trinkets that have to be collected being like novelties. Even when one finds a curious form of purgatory underneath, of an elusive windmill and a "tool" which can be asked questions to by a textbook, the mechanics of Petscop can be an actual game. The character moves and interacts with objects, the complexity found in the time delayed secrets or that the game itself for Paul hides secrets even in the secret option when a certain sound in the sound effects option is replaced continually. The only aspect which breaks potential credibility, as Petscop has an officially accepted fan version that can be played called Giftscop¹, is when a character named Marvin is introduced whom the player character can communicate to with Playstation controller buttons combinations. That is a bit ahead of us in terms of the plot, but as someone who once played his Playstation quite a bit, those controllers were never designed for anything barring a strange form of Morse code.

Petscop , in both its best aspect but also in a detail that may frustrate some viewers, also is not overtly scary. It has no jump scares, no explicit shock value, and neither does it became a conventional CreepyPasta (online fan spun urban legend) of a cursed video game that leads to death and game characters usually bleeding blood out of their eyes. (Sonic the Hedgehog is a great example of this, if you look up "Sonic CreepyPastas" online, where Sonic becomes the eye bleeding demon soul eater). What is eerie is how slow burn the web series was, especially now I and many do not have to wait to over three months for more videos if longer as the fan base did, with a tale never fully explained and drip feeding a full story eventually to its conclusion.

The one caveat which applies to the first ten episodes, before being stepped back from, was the overt references to a real life case about Candace Newmaker. Newmaker was tragically a young adopted girl whose adopted parents, rather than dealing with her disconnection to them through licensed therapists, went to an unlicensed one and killed her by accident during an attempted "rebirthing" ritual, a scenario which they effectively suffocated her to death under a pillow in a misbegotten and callous stunt which was documented as being cruel anyway. Any knowledge of this case, and now you know, could make Petscop  tasteless as it is initially set up with overt references to Newmaker, as the player character finds a place where (through a changing canvas and extremely long elevator rides) they can wander through rooms of adopted children. Creator Domenico has explicitly regretted using the real life references, apologetic to the point it is on the top of his Twitter account¹, and moving away from Episode 11 on with no references at all if possible. I do not condemn the project myself, especially with this creative decision having taken place and the creator himself finding a much more different direction for the better in his own work.

Rebirthing and child adoption is still the theme onwards as, to try to make sense of a fragment of this tale, it is a dark story of a man named Marvin. Possibly kidnapping his daughter because he felt she was the reincarnation of a childhood friend who vanished. This could all be a j'accuse, a mere attack, by another figure who is likely the creator as, whilst we do not see him, we read text written by him in the game. In the first half, most of the episodes are vague with the added context of Paul, a figure whose connection to the game becomes increasingly suspect as he is eventually perturbed by the content, as text bubbles are no longer cute but uncomfortable and the material gets considerably darker. It gets to the point, though a later episode does reveal the truth of what they are, there is even censorship of details too intimate for him which are obscured by black bars.

Adding to the nature of this, which is where viewer participation comes to play, is where the text accompanying these videos on YouTube suggest that others are involved releasing these videos whether Paul would want them to or not. This can be done in cinema, but online productions have run intentionally with this sense that even the medium itself you can watch videos through can be manipulated and offer much in what if even utterly vague as some of these accompanying messages were. An issue of how to preserve them in the future (alongside Petscop itself) is to be aware of, yet whilst YouTube exists these little touches are interesting, forcing you to read the author's text rather than ignore it for all the mystery it also evokes.

Of note as well is the fact Paul is not just playing this game, toying with the initial medium of the Let's Play where we will have a narrator most of the time talking. He is throughout talking to an unknown listener - Us or another person? - during the first ten episodes. Later he talks to someone we never hear, including referencing and questioning a fan theory he was kidnapped and pulled into a car. Halfway through he vanishes briefly, which lead to that fan theory, silence as we see the game continue on. One video, Episode 16, is literally a flashing message of the game having been left on, two minutes of this that asks that family and police to be called but the console to be left on.

Petscop escalates, and gets weirder and more compelling, when the "Demos" are introduced in Episode 11. "Demo" modes in old games, as I fondly remember, are that if you leave the game at the main menu untouched will go to footage of game play being shown. The demo scenes in Petscop change a considerable amount of the tone as the genre literally turns on its head, showing this had a first person mode and the ability to communicate to other figures with button mashing. As it transpires, when the secret menu is found, these demos are old games files and the puzzle grows in new options. If Petscop was a game, it would be such a fascinating one if you put the time in. Episode 11 also introduces the school which is symbolically of significance for the whole work, in first person with a glitch where it flickers and feels graphically erratic with collision detection issues to add to the ill omen of the environment.

This second half is liable to divide people. Those wanting more answers may be disappointed. Those who came to this, as I did, not expecting answers will be rewarded however in a different way; the plot outline I gave earlier barely covers what might or might not be involved, such as the extent the figure of Marvin who is introduced plays in the game's existence, or the theories that fans have suggested, but an emotional and symbolic conclusion is provided which succeeds. Suffice to say there is a lot to ask, and a question is left on the table as to what Tony Domenico's intention was with Petscop. Entirely subjective, it is however openly dealing with childhood trauma. It may have made a mistake in referencing the Candace Newmaker story, but what it does instead to compensate is very interesting. Structurally, a game about collecting pets turning into collecting three children over its course is a structure to which Petscop  with careful thought tackles neglect and mistreatment in dark stories of emotional bullying or kidnapping, which is very unconventional and could have easily become a crass and cheap shock work in another's hands.

Petscop never becomes crass or exaggerated, and it is poignant one of the biggest moments by the end is when passing a painting in the school (which the player is dragged to continually by an invisible force) you get a scene of the player and an unseen consoler play out, the later encouraging them to play a board game together (disturbingly called Gravediggers, like a morbid Battleship) whilst they ask the player ominous questions. There is no shock or twist, but the jarring change in tone and moment turns it into a huge moment for the production. The climax, which technically exists in two forms, was fulfilling for me too. In game, it involves a transformation machine and an actual use for all those trinkets collected, a sombre and matter of fact end which can be interpreted many ways, but clearly ends as it leads to a quiet stillness outside the school and returning back to the start screen, with the ability to play end credits in the options fully confirming this as the conclusion. The actual ending in 2020 was the video for the soundtrack, which was released to purchase. Mainly empty locations in Petscop, it however has an epilogue which suggests a potential happy conclusion or at least a new place, as family comes to be there for the armless figure in the centre. A cute little yellow blog who, in a running joke turned into a morbid detail, it cannot open doors due to the lack of hands, we follow this sprite during the entire production and it seems a sweet, strange ending that the last figure it meets does not come with a mystery but from a place of welcome arms.

Altogether, Petscop is an achievement. It is one I admire for its labour intensive creation and trying to a take a concept, a Let's Play, and turn it into something unique with a real dynamic weight. Coming to the web project, I did not consider this would take such a mature tone to very adult concepts, and the result is exceptional. It does evoke a concern, again, of how in say ten years a work like this is preserved if YouTube was ever turned off. Even in mere memory, it could easily happen that a work like this could be forgotten in the mass of content that is uploaded every day, but until that point right now this is just an innovative work a cineaste like me can admire as equally as regular cinema. Hence why it deserves to be covered like a film.

Abstract Spectrum: Atmospheric/Disturbing/Eerie/Slow Burn/Unsettling

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

========

1) Giftscop did remove elements from the game, like searching the special options, probably due to practicality for those producing that version.

2) The exact twitter post, (which I will link to HERE), is thus:

"Regarding Newmaker references. Most of you know that this was intentional but I wanted to confirm it.

It was extremely stupid of me."

[Archive]: The Plagiarists (2019)

One project I had considered writing for this month was ranking all the films and ephemera I saw in March 2020. This was doomed due to how long it was taking and that with some exceptions I want to move away from lists. They take too long and, unless it's the yearly reviews, lazy and not fun to complete due to how long they gestate. One piece of the writing I wanted to salvage is this, which is a barebones fragment which does not completely deal with this lo-fi oddity, but is a hint of it that hopefully will tantalise.

Also, even if this is a negative review, if I had the chance to see the film again I would gladly revisit and possibly cover The Plagiarists, as it was a real curiosity worthy for covering.

I never thought I would see a film with a black screen at the end showing all the books and materials references in a little reference section, but hey, The Plagiarists was an odd misfire. The structure, a mumblecore drama shot on videotape about a pretentious white heterosexual couple whose car breaks down and meets an older man, is compelling if you are open minded, reverberating onwards in the downfall of their relationship when the girlfriend is perturbed by the older man quoting a Scandinavian author off the top of his head and without quoting the reference.

Even shooting this film in Betamax has an unexpected aura that adds to experience, the rival of VHS being a very idiosyncratic choice in itself, which was said to have a higher picture quality and existed more commonly after its mainstream failure in industries like news broadcasts, befitting a film where one of the couple is an advertisement director who has higher inspirations. The problem is that this film decides to be vague in what it actually wants to talk about. Eventually its theme, alongside the breakup of a relationship, is the notion of legitimacy which I honestly have completely forgotten entirely, aside from The Hunger Games being quoted as an example for the argument and that it became nasal gazing over tranquil video fuzzed images of a beach.

I cannot help but think of Hal Hartley's Henry Fool (1997), which managed to ask of these subjects by having a garbage man character write scatological, crude poetry and make it funny. The Plagiarists at times looks like it is going to be subversive, especially as the older man accused of theft of intellectual rights is a working class African American man, only to wander off into something less.  

We Are The Strange (2007)

Director: M dot Strange

Screenplay: M dot Strange

(Voice) Cast: David Choe as Rain; Halleh Seddighzadeh as Blue / Prologue Narrator; M dot Strange as HIM; Stuart Mahoney as Ori / The Pastor; Chaylon Blancett as The Wooo Monster; Benjamin Joel Caron as Member of the Cult of the Strange; John Doremus as Sinistar; Luis Mendoza as Red Arm; Lari Teräs as Member of the Cult of the Strange

What do we get from internet created work? I am not talking about work from major companies either, but ordinary people in public who spend their time painstakingly putting together a parody video, let alone a fully animated feature length film like We Are The Strange which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and whose existence online is as much to do with its creator M dot Strange wanting to retain the rights to his work. Secretly a lot of us probably appreciate the productions who strain against restrictions more than some films praised by film critics; internet culture and their access means there are probably more people who have seen We Are the Strange than major canonical films. Whilst this paragraph is completely with wild guesses and conjecture which cannot be proven unless we ask every person who has seen the film, it does have to be considered whether the internet and YouTube is now a major driving force of entertainment, even with a project like this which is from the very early days of this type of production being in existence. Certainly, the content and style of the film is ahead of its time in what it is obsessed with.

We Are the Strange is a visual creation. Set up as a story within a video game with a character select menu, it has a stereotypical evil character whose only goal in life is to be evil and dominate everything, a female character named Blue who has an ailment which worsens when she talks or smiles, a child-like doll who is supposed to be the savoir, and a mysterious stranger and his paper clown sidekick as heroes. Truthfully, when these characters talk, We Are the Strange slips in quality. It is not the vocal performances, which I come to accept as M dot Strange's first film and made with collaborators over the internet doing their hardest, but entirely because whenever characters talk, it is usually generic clichéd dialogue and exposition. This is clearly a film that tells a story with its visuals, which is where the film is compelling, so when dialogue does appears it usually ends up betrays the creator's own best gifts.

This is more so the case as this is not a very complicated plot to follow either as it involves a stereotypical (frankly one dimensional) villain and characters trying to stop him. Video games have also been more complex at times, especially now but even in the past, with their plots and complexity, but this story fits the type of aesthetic of games which were entirely about the thrill of playing them, carried as much by the rich and energised music through the film. This is also significant as the real fascinating with We Are The Strange is that it is a kinetic collage of action and images, where the dialogue (over shaky at times) is interesting when it is part of the texture, not the exposition to tell what the images themselves do a better job at.

The aesthetic was of immediate interest in the first scenes. At first the independent quality stands out, intentionally evoking games from just the immediate past in the mid to late nineties to early 2000s, down to the motif of Sinistar from the 1983 video game being an evil sign of warning continually in the background, and arcade cabinets being a prop for part of the story. In knowledge that this is a micro-budget animated film, which looks already antiquated at the time, the hard work put into We Are the Strange should not be dismissed considering that even if some of the character animation is jerky at times, it also has an aesthetic which I personally love and gets more elaborate. Any unconventional aesthetic to animation inherently has a dream-like nature to it, and in this case the ambition is there to use various forms as well, including stop motion.

It is rewarding and if We Are the Strange does over complicated and confuse itself over a simplistic plot, the visual material is rewarding. Bleak and desolate video game streets are contrasted with the added strangeness in its motifs of aforementioned arcade cabinets being everywhere or the obsession with ice cream. When the film rests on mood or the weird, M dot Strange gets his best work, like an ice cream parlour that is full of human devouring monsters, the idiosyncrasies of the creator the most interesting parts. One example, whilst the character is a bit underused, is the paper clown, originally a kidnapping victim by the stereotypical gruff man with no name who either went through Stockhausen Syndrome or changed allegiances, a figure that being an "origami actor" is made of paper and can transform himself into various shapes. These kinds of touches are those you pluck out and see for being interesting even if skimmed over in the midst of all the other ideas.

Beyond this, the film is pulp which eventually leads to giant robots fighting and secret superpowers. There are probably too many characters and ideas even for this plot, as Blue whilst the secret heroine does not get a lot to do baring being sad, and even the plot point that the doll child was taught from birth to pilot giant robots is one that could have gone on longer. Nonetheless, even with this flaw and a few others, I did find the film a reward. The dew of what would become common on YouTube, let alone video games, is here in one film, a fascinating if sometimes difficult to follow work. The craft of the content does have to be admired, and that M dot Strange went on to make more films to the current day is of immense interest, suggesting what potential progression took place.

Abstract Spectrum: Kinetic/Psychotronic/Weird

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

Steel Justice (1992)

Director: Christopher Crowe

Screenplay: Christopher Crowe and John Hill

Cast: Robert Taylor as Detective Lt. David Nash; J.A. Preston as Jeremiah J. Jones; Roy Brocksmith as Col. Edward Rollin Duggins; John Finn as Lt. Bill Somes; Neil Giuntoli as Jerrod; Geoffrey Rivas as Sgt. Julio Melendes; John Toles-Bey as Detective Steve Totten; Season Hubley as Gina Morelli; Joan Chen as Nicole Loa

If you want evidence of how strange television could be, NBC financed a dystopian sci-fi drama in which a grizzled police officer, who lost his son tragically, encounters an ageless wizard who teaches him how to grow a toy dinosaur robot possessed with his dead son's soul into a giant fire breathing, car crushing one to deal with an illegal arms dealer whose cover is an ice merchant. This was a TV pilot, left as a TV movie which managed to get a release in the Oceanic territories on video, and clearly costing a lot of money.

I will be upfront that the film is bizarre but not abstract. The show shrouds itself as a neo noir tale with atmosphere, but director-writer Christopher Crowe and the film still shots the production with a pedestrian, static style. Crowe and his co-writer John Hill at this point were veterans of television, though with the fascinating caveat that Crowe himself did write Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans (1992). That does not however stop the TV film from being what it is, nothing structurally experimental or unconventional like the material itself, so the work can only be seen as a curious oddity.

That does not belay however that this is as mad as a box of frogs in terms of a premise. How this would have followed the feature length pilot, in a series that was cancelled and never seen, adds a lot of the aura with the experience of watching the production, attempting to meld a high profile superhero premise to a gritty sci-fi dystopia. The sense that this was not even deliberately trying to be surreal, merely part of an era of television where many high profile premises like this never succeeded to get off the ground, adds a greater context. This is of course the same era of Poochinski (1990), a failed thirty minute pilot about Peter Boyle as a cop being killed and resurrected in the body of an English bulldog.

The world itself is strange already without the magical aspects. A post-Blade Runner (1982) work, this is a dystopian world of severe ozone layer damage, surprising relevant to the modern day if by different means about the potential calamity that could behalf the environment. Here the ozone layer been destroyed so badly the climate is permanently warm, and that ice is now a commodity, both with legal ice bars and also the hint that it is also illegally shipped. A multi-ethnic community (mainly Asian) lives in this American metropolis due to severe global conflicts as well, and there are slums everywhere alongside rampant crime. Sounding like a cyberpunk world, this is also the world where drive-by shootings now use rocket and missile launchers even in crowded streets, which is arguably as strange as veteran actor J.A. Preston as an ageless wizard, born from the Macedonian era and who helped grow a wooden horse into a Trojan Horse, now in a world where no one considers the aftershock of using explosives in such tight streets.

Now, I' am game for game for peculiar genre bending, which this is a delight for, whilst also admitting the pilot does comes off as merely a prologue, only taking until the end for our lead Detective Lt. David Nash (Roger Taylor) to finally grow a giant toy robot into a fire breathing dinosaur. The juxtaposition is perplexing. Clearly Robosaurus was the get, a real life creation built in 1989 by inventor Douglas Malewicki, a prolific figure in aerospace engineering and game design as well, able to link in his career both co-designing the Skycycle X-2, a rocket Evel Knievel had to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in 1974, and table top card games like Nuclear Escalation that clearly follow an obsession with the idea we would blow each other to kingdom come in the eighties with nukes, as the games all follow a similar nuclear theme. Robosaurus, who exists to this day, was hired clearly with the idea of being a pre-existing piece of spectacular production that would be big even in a theatrical Hollywood film, an impressively ridiculous creation that inspired the Truckasaurus parody in The Simpsons as a fire breathing car crushing set piece for public shows.

How we got to this breakout role for the vehicle is the question requiring some mental gymnastics, especially as for the most part Steel Justice is a bleak tale, part gritty cop drama and part grounded dystopian drama, with some exaggerated and kitsch futurism but still grounded in the cesspool of crime. This is a tale about a police officer who can only come to his power by channelling his grief, with the unexplained issue that the toy Robosaurus is clearly possessed, likely by the soul of his dead son. Further complications arise as, whilst a bullet proof tank-like monstrosity, you have the concern that the emotions might be in there especially as there is at least one confirmed kill it is responsible for. Even in terms of a television series, this premise raises questions due to what the big production get is. Robosaurus is a very big creation to stalk the streets of this world, which would make him easy to spot, and it would requiring a bigger antagonist each time to be able to make up one full season of television, let alone if this every became a success.

The aesthetic, which I found the most rewarding in spite of the conventional composition of the series, is also dank. Many fog machines were used alongside neon lighting, TV budget sci-fi where even the immortal wizard has a part time job playing a saxophone in a night club to make sure he does not stick out like a sore thumb aesthetically. Quite a bit was clearly spent as you also have big names even in the tiniest of roles. Alongside character actor Roy Brocksmith as the villain, a weapons merchant who likes blowing up the competition so he can show his customers the worth of his products, you have a post-Twin Peaks Joan Chen as Nash's neighbour and potential love interest, a woman who may be a sex worker in the little we see of her life but would have likely grown in role if this had continued. R. Lee Ermey is also in the film, but in a cameo only consisting of two scenes, which is surprising as this is some time after the impact of his role in Full Metal Jacket (1987).

Most of this failed pilot is predictable in terms of structure, but it is amazingly lavish, an expansive production full of large crowds of extras, large metropolis sets and a big explosions budget which yet, in spite of its illegal weapons/revenge plot, has a lead hero from a superhero story or an episode of The Tick parody franchise. The result is not helped by how generically it is presented, but the combination is still peculiar. The question earlier worth repeating is trying to figure out how this premise came to be. The other is where would have it all gone in Episode 2. The show is not as talked about as other infamous failed TV pilots like Poochinski, but they exist in the area of conventional mainstream television when someone spiked the coffees, were so desperate to try something different regardless of logic, or were so exhausted in production idea meetings that accidental surrealism like this happens. Or all the above for all we know.

Even in terms of what we get, many questions are left unanswered. Our wizard character, who is following Nash to unlock his abilities, suggests that eventually a wider level of magic would appear in this city if the production had gone on. The issue mentioned earlier of what to do with Robosaurus also springs to mind as, having to juggle a weekly schedule and smaller budgets than films, this series if it had succeeds would have to cut costs or would still be cancelled for being too expensive, something which has happened a lot even with successful work but did not get big enough numbers into the modern day, the type of numbers Game of Thrones gets.

Thinking about it, I would like to see a cleaned up version and a proper release of this, even if it is pure cheese, considering how much trashy theatrical cinema is dug up and given 2k and 4k restorations since the mid-2010s. In an alternative world, we could have had this bizarre premise have a series and even a big blockbuster reboot, where you could imagine Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson channelling the ghost of his dead son from a tiny robot into a giant CGI one. Admittedly this is not that dimension, so we just have this TV oddity in a fuzzy rip out there on the internet. It is not a great work, just from how stilted director Christopher Crowe does shoot it. That is a shame as, bad premise or not, the TV budget sci-fi noir look is a style the production team should have been appreciated for. Even if lead Robert Taylor is very generic, an Australian actor whose career has lasted into the modern day in television and cinema both in his homeland and outside it, it is only because he is stuck with a generic grizzled cop role. There is the advantage of J.A. Preston as the secondary character, even in the generic exposition and magical helper role getting to be playful as a man who views everything as a lark, even in someone as interesting as Joan Chen in her little role who is tragically underused. Definitely, as someone who believes that everything including material I hate should be preserved and made available, Steel Justice should be available, but just in knowledge of such a curiosity even existing, it would get a bit of interest if you brought up its entire premise. Sounding like the premise concocted from a child's imagination on one hand, the other trying to be serious and sombre at the other, it's a contradictory mess but never boring.

Abstract Spectrum: Psychotronic/Weird

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