Review: Disorienting Dick

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2022
Images from the Internet

Disorienting Dick
Directed by Richard Griffin
Reasonable Moving Picture Company; Scorpio Film Releasing
88 minutes, 2022
https://www.facebook.com/ScorpioFilmReleasing

Historically, director Richard Griffin likes to reuse cast members in phases. For a while it was actors like Sarah Nicklin, Michael Thurber, and Michael Reed, for example. Then, overlappingly, it was those such as Elyssa Baldassarri , Jamie Dufault, Johnny Sederquist (aka Ninny Nothin), and Anna Rizzo, and lately it’s been Samantha Acampora, Sarah Reed, and especially Graham Stokes. The last two also appear in his latest opus, the strongly LGBQT(etc.) themed Disorienting Dick. Stokes full frontal nudity in the first shot gives the viewer a – er – taste of things to come.

Graham Stokes

This is also a very sharp political commentary as we meet Dick’s mom, the appropriately named Maureen Whiteman (Leslie Racine Vazquez), a Qanon, conspiracy-focused, money and power-hungry politician running for Mayor in a city in Rhode Island (where this is filmed), who is reminiscent of Sarah Palin, Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Greene (though Maureen is intelligent, unlike those others). The mock political ad at her introduction is both ridiculously over the top, and yet quite scary as it is also reflective of a certain level of Republican “values” as they stand today; it is also a theme that permeates the whole film. The subtle Ayn Rand reference by Dick is also telling.

Leslie Racine Vazquez

Dick, in the meanwhile, has a fiancée, Pat (Sarah Reed), who wears a Jesus sweatshirt, but it’s pretty obvious that it isn’t going to last as Dick becomes, in the words of the film, “oriented” (rather than converted). You just know it’s going to conflict with his mom. I am enjoying the political aspects of the story so far, rather than it being more of a gay romp like Griffin’s previous (short), Gay as the Sun (2020; reviewed HERE), which also starred Stokes.

Sarah Reed

While Dick is in the closet and having wild, softcore fantasies about men, his mother finds out his desires, and has him taken to the “Clinic for the Terminally Dandy,” an evil right wing conversion therapy organization (conversion therapy, by the way, is now banned by our neighbors to the north, in Canada; in the United States, only Washington DC has barred the practice on adults). It is run by the evil doctor Hyde Hippocampus (Terry Shea), dressed in black with a black eye patch on his right eye and his Nurse Rached-type nurse assistant, DeFarge (Amy Thompson). Advanced treatment includes the “Lindsey Graham Initiative.” Sorry to give some of the jokes away, but it’s just a smidge of them, and I am trying to clarify that this is a smart film as well as smutty (meant in a good way). 

But that’s not the whole story, as Dick keeps getting kidnapped back and forth between the conversion therapy and a competing “Clinic for the Fabulously Dandy” run by the twin of the other doctor, Jekyll Hippocampus (also Terry Shea) but with bright red clothes and a red eye patch on the other eye, and a non-binary nasty also Nurse Rached type, Atari 2600 (Albert Lin). Therapy includes such things as “Jungian Interpretive Dance.” At the latter institute, they try to get Dick out of the closet. Between the two, no wonder he is so disoriented.

Amy Thompson, Vazquez, Terry Shea, Stokes

The set designs and clothing in the second, positive clinic, by Margaret Wolf and Angela Shulman, are bright pastel colors, which reminded me of the original “Star Trek” series. In the conversion one, the color theme is muted and white, with no pizazz. The director once told me that the comparison of the gay sex in his film The Sins of Dracula (2014; reviewed HERE) was hanging of the chandelier type, whereas the straight couple sex was missionary and boring. This is a similar idea here.

Perhaps I am reading too much into the story, but it almost seems like the percentages are flipped, where 90 percent of the characters are some shade or degree of gay or bi, and 10 percent are straight. It is an interesting concept. In all, this is a morality play on what is right and wrong, with the philosophically metaphorical devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, with one leaning toward straight and one towards being gay, but in this case, which is on which side? In fact, Jesus and the Devil appear in the film momentarily as that inner battle is in play (having those two in a Griffin release(ing) is nothing new (in fact Michael Reed has played both in different films of his, but I digress…).

Albert Lin, Shea

While some of the acting is appropriately over-emoted, there are a lot of really brave performances, by the likes of Victoria Paradis, Vazquez, and especially Stokes. The writing is especially sharp with both political and social commentary that does not drag the story down in any way, and at times quite biting (no pun intended); and the sex and nudity is all male on male and sometimes quite explicit, though not as much as, say, Shortbus (2006). The single lesbian scene is, not surprisingly, unseen. DD has a definitive direction in which it is going, and it follows true to its path, and I respect that, a lot.

There are a lot of elements going into this basic story, including sock puppets (you read that correctly), but deep down, it has a single theme. The last line of the film sums up the philosophy of Disorienting Dick in one sentence quite well (I will not give it away). You should definitely find out for yourself. Maybe the viewer might even learn something about themselves.

IMBD Listing HERE

Review: Lost Child

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2018

Images from the Internet

Lost Child (aka Tatterdemalion)

Directed by Ramaa Mosley

Green Hummingbird Entertainment / Laundry Films /
Variant Pictures / Breaking Glass Pictures

101 minutes, 2018

twitter.com/lostchildmovie

Have to say, I really like many of the local legend subgenre releases, whether the mythical beings are “real” (e.g., can be found on Wikipedia) or made up simply for a particular film. It seems many of them refer to backwoods areas like the Ozarks regions. This one, y’all, is one-a-‘em, about a life-draining spirit that comes in the form of a child called the Tatterdemalion (translated as a person in tattered clothing, or being dilapidated). This film actually began titled with the name of the creature, but they were wise enough to change it to its present, more accessible one.

Leven Rambin

Here, we meet redheaded Fern (a glamoured-down Leven Rambin, o the mainstream-level. The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, and “True Detective”), who has come home to said Ozarks after nearly a decade to look for her brother, bringing with her a strain of PTSD from multiple tours of combat. While ramblin’ about looking for her kin, she stumbles into a kid named Cecil (newcomer Landon Edwards) roaming around the woods by his own self, and takes him in.

Of course, everyone is nervous that the kinder is said tatten… you know what, I’m really glad they changed the name. Anyway, people keep giving Cecil different kinds of tests (like to see if he avoids salt). The response is left kind of open of course, not to show a hand one way or another.

That’s one of the things I like about the film, that you really don’t know what’s going on between suspicion, fear and reality. Meanwhile, Fern has been fading and weakening, having trouble sleeping and eating. While they take place, the viewer is left to try and guess if these tests prove if it’s the PTSD or perhaps the Tattythingie.

As a side note, one of the things that drives me a bit crazy and seems inconsistent in the storyline is that if Fern grew up in these here woods, why has she never heard of the Tattsrats if everyone else has? This seems like a bit of a plot hole. And let’s not talk about that Cecil wears the same clothes throughout most of the first half of the film, that are unstained while living in the woods, being tan cargo pants and a white tee.

Landon Edwards

Anyway, like most psychological or supernatural dramas, whatever this turns out of be, it has a pretty slow build, so the viewer gets some perspective about the people and the area, though a bit of patience is needed as an uneasy bond builds between Cecil and Fern. Luckily, it’s beautifully shot with hues that are of earth tones, nice angles, and the camera isn’t afraid to linger on a shot for more than five seconds, as with most modern releases; usually the bigger the budget, the less space between edits.

The film seems to take place in the early 1990s, considering the huge size of computer, lack of cell phones and internet, and I’m pretty sure Fern is coming back from the first Gulf War. It was a tipping point in history, just before different cultures would collide and then splinter even further thanks to the World Wide Web. But it also makes people to not be able to look things up and get instant answers (such as me looking up the Tattentinkle on Google).

There’s also three dudes that come acallin’ in one form or another. The first one is Mike (Jim Parrack), a relative Southern Gentlemen social worker type who isn’t afraid of a one night stand, another is Billy (Taylor John Smith) her estranged brother who is a patch of rough and violent southern gravel, and the third, Fig (Kip Duane Collins) is neck deep in the local mythology. Some extremes to choose from, but I’m willing to bet that not everyone is as they seem, even though I haven’t gotten that far (yes, I’m writing as I’m watching).

 One of the things I really like about this film is that it does not shy away from social commentary about the first Bush years. There is extreme poverty shown, a kids in custody problem (which currently still exists, even in the North, by the way), drug use, and essentially backwoods ignorance that one would hope has improved somewhat (though the occupant of present White House may show different).

Jim Parrack

A fanatical belief in creatures in the woods is similar to religious fervour, which brings fear, blame, and then anger in a misdirected way to adapt to what is going on around one; in logic it’s known as a fallacy from ignorance: my sheep died so there must be something evil out there as I don’t know why else.

As slow a start as the film kicks off on, it gradually builds, and the entire third act is an incredible thriller that comes as a surprise due to its step-by-step building of events and personae. If you’ve started the story, give it the time. There’s no jump scares, no viscera, but there is violence and hardship coming to a very satisfying conclusion.

This film has a lot to unpack. It’s more than just about some Untiddytang creature, it’s also about the overarching social and governmental routine as monster, which did not take care of veterans, was unsupportive of extreme poverty, and a social system of child custody, which is one scary mofo (I have loosely been involved with the latter, and see the results of government policy as it stands).

This is definitely from a female perspective, of a female character in a male society, but even with all the political and social standings it presents, it never takes away from the story nor does it hit the viewer over the head. It’s all subtle and emphasizes the points of the story rather than distracts from them.

Again, to be overly redundant, it’s good they changed the name of the film.