Saturday, December 27, 2014

The Disturbance (1990)

Clay, who was recently released from an institution, attends regular group therapy sessions.  He's haunted by nightmares and hallucinations of demons. But on the plus side he makes a killer sand castle.

One day at the beach he meets Susan. She's playing volleyball with her friends while Clay sits awkwardly near the water building sand castles.  Susan introduces herself and a few days later they run into each other again at the beach.  The two start dating and a montage of adorable dating scenes soon follows.  But Clay's mental issues  soon cause trouble in their relationship.

Susan wonders why Clay won't tell her where he lives or anything about his life. While the viewer wonders why Susan isn't aware that those are red flags warning her to run away from this guy as fast as possible.  Clay lives with his parents, who are concerned due to his prior hospitalization, and because he won't do his chores around the house.  They ask about how his sessions are going with the doctor, but Clay just blows off the question since he's stopped going and is out of Thorazine - with a drug like that we know Clay is in serious trouble.

Clay's hallucinations and dreams start getting stranger, and Susan is alarmed by his behavior.  The last straw occurs when Susan is building a sand castle on the beach, and Clay screams  at her and then tackles her because he sees a demon hand rising up out of the ground.  Susan gets made and later dumps his ass , which causes Clay to go nutzo trying to get her back.  It doesn't seem to be going well based on the bloody hand print on the door of her apartment.

In between watching cartoons at his parents, dating Susan, and working as a dishwasher (prior to getting fired), Clay has hallucinations of killing other women..... or is actually killing other women.  It's not clear if it's his imagination or reality until the end of the film.

This is a low budget independent movie. The lead actor doesn't have any other acting jobs listed on IMDB.  It's not particularly interesting, but it's not the worst thing I've ever seen either.

No comments: