The Item (1999) Online

OK, I had more fun watching Microwave Massacre that this steaming loaf. I enjoy a good B-Movie with some beer and a buddy, but this one hurt. I have a friend and we get together to watch what we term "Schmeg Movies". We enjoy the low budget gag/horror films. We have survived the likes of Manos The Hands Of Fate, Jack Frost 1&2, Psycho From Texas, Street Trash, Brain Damage, etc... But this movie was one of those where the people involved took themselves WAY to seriously! They actually thought they were making "Pulp Fiction" meets "Dead Alive" or something of the sort! The whole thing is very weak! It even looks like it was shot on a home video camera! Artisan should be ashamed of themselves for marketing this piece of trash like it is a real movie! Even the DVD case is deceiving! From the looks of it you are getting a real movie. 16x9 anamorphic, DD 5.1, commentary, etc..... You have been warned.......

The experience of watching this movie is akin to watching a train wreck and loathing yourself for the indulgence afterward.

There's virtually nothing redeeming that I can say about this exercise in cinematic excrement.

Correction, there IS one. While perhaps not the worst movie ever made - so long as Battlefield Earth is still in circulation - this movie is DEFINITELY the worst digital-video-transferred-to-film flick yet to come down the pipe (notice the sewer analogy there).

Simply put, the film is a mess. It reeks of pretentiousness, is chock full of bad acting (and after watching it I really don't know or care if the acting was intentionally bad or just naturally so), terrible writing and a completely lame and pointless plot.

The real villains of this film are Artisan, the same company that brought the Blair Witch Project to cinema screens.

These jokers have pulled every lie and deceptive marketing trick in the book in packaging this travesty.

To begin, there's the box cover art, followed by the plot outline on the back. Taken together one is led to believe that the film is a grade B thriller with an interesting story premise.

WRONG!

If only it were that. Instead of a simple yet crackerjack story about four people who act as go-betweens in the purchase of a strange creature locked in a box, we are treated to gobbledygook that involves copious and ludicrous gunplay, a battle to the death with ninja transvestites, and a creature that looks like a modified Doc Johnson sex toy that psychoanalyses its victims to death.

There is only one way to get anything remotely resembling payback on your rental investment, not to mention the 90 minutes of your life that it will end up wasting, and that is to watch it with some friends where you can mock the thing to scorn. Just make sure there aren't any bricks handy as someone might very well be tempted to lob one at the TV fairly early on.

Look, I love good and bad films, but this film is terrible. I'm not one who needs linear plot, but the level of convulution (Is this a word?) here is staggering. The movies tries to tell an interesting story about a box with a worm and fails, badly. Jeez, where to start. For one, the "chase" sequence where SPOILER everyone is on rollerskates, come on. How about the faux tension build up when the team of transvestites arrive (leading to the afore mentioned chase scene). Oh, what about the dialogue between the main thug and the scientist, explaining what is in the box. Bad, Bad, Bad. There were some interesting parts, about two. But after that another terrible scene, like the ending SPOILER SHE HUMPS THE WORM!!. Look, this film was made by an pretentious under skilled director in conjuntion with woefully bad actors using a script penned by a commmunity college screenwriting class drop-out.

PS There is no relation between this film and Eraserhead or Shallow Grave. Those are two good films, this one is the opposite.

I went to this expecting....well, I had no idea what to expect, but I imagined it'd be pointless gore with a badly written plot and idiotic dialogue. Yes, there was tons of pointless gore, but there's nothing wrong with that when properly used. But, to my surprise, it was funny, well-written, and the best damned movie I've ever seen about a 40 lb. psychic worm. It also definitely beats any other movie with such a ridiculous idea like floating brains and creeping hands, with some of the freakiest scenes I've ever sat through and one of the best scenes of girl-on-psychic worm action ever plausible, with a great ending. If only there were more psychic worms that reveal people's inner truths, this world would be a lot better place.

There is so much to say about this film. None of it is good. Sometimes I wonder if film festivals, and Artisan Entertainment in particular exist so weirdos and nutcases, i.e. people who truly should NOT be allowed to make movies, can make movies. Don't take my statement wrong. Film festivals often ensure that worthy directors, writers, actors, etc., hit the spotlight and have a chance to become great. I KNOW this. But geez, with stuff like this coming out of them... violence for the sake of violence, murder, extremely thinly veiled references to sex and sex objects (I mean the disinfectant scene with the worm makes you suspect, but then she talks about the worm being phallic just in case we were mysteriously struck blind), and the language are almost unforgivable. We're supposed to believe that they're criminals and that criminals swear naturally, but to imagine these people as felons we'd have to be on drugs. The lead protagonist, while attempting to play someone who's tough and not afraid to die, is so pathetically thin and pale that you simply can't believe he's done time. His 'Second In Command', so to speak, cries at one point in the movie because the other felons 'make fun of him'. Another of the four criminals, played by Dave Pressler, actually gives a good shot at doing his part, and you really feel for him at a couple of points during the movie. The last, the woman playing Lauren, has so few lines of dialogue that you can't really tell if she's a good actor or not. Maybe that's a good thing.

The last gripe I have is about the 'special effects'. Most of them are extremely over done. Bullet holes smoke like a Yosemite Sam cartoon, ricochets throw off bright blue sparks like downed power lines, during a chase scene that should never have happened in the first place everyone seems to be on roller skates (I can just HEAR the smug voice of the writer/producer saying to himself 'oooh, it's art') and idiotic little squealing tire and whoosh effects accompany actor movements from time to time that just leave you shaking your head and trying hard to stop the fingers of one of your hands from pressing the eject button. I maybe should have given in, it had more sense than I did. By the way, are the drag queens an attempt to satirize the lifestyle or were their parts simply a favor done for someone in the movie biz to get the video distributed? They are unnecessary and rather... sickening.

An EXTREMELY pointless and slow-witted movie with one or two funny and/or interesting scenes (read 10 seconds) which is why I gave it a 2/10 and not 1/10. Oooh, look, it's art!

-The Dude

anyone who was associated with this abomination as well as anyone who enjoyed it is cordially invited to board the bus for Royal Oak, Michigan for an appointment with Dr. Kevorkian...can't really pinpoint whether it was sicker or stupider than anything i've ever seen...the cover of the film promises something that seems interesting...when you are subjected to the Chinese girl doing her art thing during the beginning credits, you know that's not going to happen...if i had any sense i'd have turned it off at that point...horrible script, poor excuses for acting and an overall mean-spirited attitude make this a candidate for the absolutely worst movie EVER...do yourself a favor...dodge this bullet...

This is probably one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and I don't mean "bad" in the 50's Sci Fi B-movie way, I mean "bad" as in bad! Bad script, bad acting, even the blood and gore is badly done. The "item" itself, nothing but a horney muppet, isn't even the worst thing about the movie. An hour and a half of my life that I'll never get back.

This movie has to be the worst movie I have ever seen in my life. This movie is the definition of B-Movie's It's horrible, and not even funny horrible! Some films your just like wow that was so bad it's funny, but no, with this movie your like, wow that was so bad it makes me want to rip out and swollow my own eyes. Even though it is the worst movie ever made you should still watch it, just to be able to say I have seen the most HORRIBLE movie ever created!

Thats all I have to say! Bye

hor·ri·ble Pronunciation Key (hôr-bl, hr-) adj. 1. Arousing or tending to arouse horror; dreadful: `War is beyond all words horrible' (Winston S. Churchill). 2. Very unpleasant; disagreeable. 3. The movie "The Item"

Saw the Item on the Sundance movie channel, absolutely insane! The comments on this page crack me up. Practically a 50-50 split. The Item is most definitely a love it or hate it proposition of a movie. Even in my home, my girlfriend found the movie "all wrong" and my brother and I laughed our asses off! Too many so called "art films" take themselves too seriously. But the Item is never serious, always bashing cliches and playing with expectations. And while rough around the edges, this dark little ass kicker is always surprising. The Item is a sardonic and colorful freak-out. And that is its strength: you never know if the Item is kidding or not. It's a real strange brew: grim and comedic, beautiful in a low budget way, ridiculously brutal, and in the end... well, the end is so totally strange and sexual it's hard to classify.

(SPOILER) There's a graphic sexual encounter between a beautiful Asian woman and a muppet/grub/creature thing (I can't be the only one brave enough to admit I was kind of turned-on!). I am not a big film geek. Hollywood movies are predictable and indie movies are pretentious. The Item is neither. It's like a carefully put together car crash, you wince, you can't stop looking, and you can't get it out of your head the next day. So I'm voting a lO for this punk-garage-band of a movie.

I admit that when I rented this movie I was consciously searching for bad horror. For the first ten minutes I just stared at the screen in confusion. And then as soon as the shooting started (Alex: "I gotta pee...") I was laughing my ass off. I loved this movie. I loved the symbolism, and I loved the fact that Alex told the artsy chick that her art was obvious (I am not a fan of art, by and large). I thought the actors were stellar, and their performances very nearly made you forget that the "monster" ("monkey?") of the movie was a rather poorly designed puppet covered in vaseline. In films of this budget it is uncommon to find an entire cast that can hold their own. I did adore Alex, but I think Martin was my favorite!!!

This is a feeble and desperate attempt to tap into what is left of the underground comic book audience. Film makers have made other attempts like this and they always seem to go wrong. "Fritz the Cat", "Heavy Metal" ... they just don't seem to work. But this is hardly even an honest attempt. It is a dodge that claims to succeed if they just get your attention. They got mine, don't let them get yours.

After reading a few of the comments posted here about this 'film' I have only one thing to say...you got off easy!

Most people seemed to have rented this tripe and had the ability of just pressing stop. For those of us unfortunate enough to see it at the Toronto International Film Festival we weren't so lucky. The 'director' and 'cast' of The Item were present (and I think were watching the doors) and spending $12 on the festival ticket is much worse than seeing it in a "rent one, get one free" deal.

Worst movie ever made? I'd be inclined to agree.

What can be said that hasn't been said before? Some mediocre gore aside you're left with what the film has become famous for; Ultra cheap Super 8 film, dialogue written by a third-grader, and a penis-like slug that resembles something Jim Henson would have created on an acid bender. I used to be able to sleep at night feeling "The Item" would probably never be seen by human eyes again, but the fact that it's out on DVD now is just shocking... Apparently someone thought there was a demand for it!?!

A film to avoid at all costs (unless you watch it with "A Beautiful Mind" so you can have a craptacular double bill) but trust me, watch it and you'll want those 2 hours back on your death bed.

I had a chance to see "The Item" and was pleasantly surprised. This film combined the aspects of other Blockbuster films (like PULP FICTION) and the twist is that it does this while making fun of itself.

It was well acted, the lead actress was superb and her character was refreshing (think La Femme Nikita only brunette and Latina).

Entertaining aspects like Drag Queens doing martial arts in pumps are still making me laugh. In short this flick is KOOL.

Something was tugging at mind mind to buy this when I saw this director's cut on DVD in the store. I just had this sneaking suspicion that there was a little joke being played on the unsuspecting consumer to buy a creature-on-the-loose horror flick. Yes, there is irony in the central focal point of the cover art: The eye. The summary on the back mentions "What they discover is that they have unleashed a deadly creature -- and none of them are getting out alive." Sweet irony, and you'll find out why when the film is over... I watched this and was so overjoyed at finding this true gem!

Instead of a monster on the loose cliche we are treated to an over-the-top live action comic book style thrill ride. Four felons basically have to watch over a box with a creature in it until the next morning for a "client" to pick it up and pay them. Not to worry, this doesn't involve people wandering off and getting killed off from a bloodthirsty monster. Rather, we are treated to a rather classy time of soul searching and imagination. The "monkey" as the characters call it in the film finds the holes in their lives and helps them confront and vent their emotions. That alone takes this film to a completely higher level of experience and quite frankly I have NEVER seen anything like this before -- in this style at least! It would be as if you took Eraserhead and threw in lots of guns that never run out of bullets. All the violence against the group is done by each other and definitely takes directions you wouldn't expect. As for that ending? Even director/star Dan Clark admits he leaves it up to you.

This film has it ALL: Perfect title, amazing visuals, comic book style violence a la John Woo with superficial amounts of blood, sharp dialogue, and what other film gives you (in order) a boy-boy kiss, a boy-girl kiss, a girl-girl kiss, and a girl-worm kiss! The controversial love scene at the end is actually quite restrained and and not as shocking as it appears to be when you consider the context of the moment.

Frankly, I'm astounded that so many films like...oh, say Charlie's Angels or countless others get wide release and heavy promotion and just can be forgotten so easily, but genuinely TRUE finds like The Item have to find their recognition through word of mouth and discovery on the store shelf (like I found it). Trust me, once you experience this film you will not easily forget it. Thank you Dan Clark, The Item truly is "dark outsider cinema" and WOW what a trip it was!

i can honestly say this movie has haunted me since the night i watched it 11 years ago when i was 9 yrs old. my mother would often rent me and my little brother movies, particularly horror films, and then would obviously leave us alone to watch them while she went about her business. So as you can imagine, me and my brother were very confused at what exactly we were viewing, me being 9 him 7. The scene that is forever burned into my mind was when the girl had some sort of sexual encounter with the giant penis worm alien, who had some sort of penis worm alien tentacle if i recall correctly. Who knows? maybe i created this disturbing memory, or could it be real? i haven't seen the movie since so i don't know the answer. Confused is an understatement. Side note: my mother often just picked a movie according to the cover art without further investigation, so me and my bro always ended up watching some kind of soft core porn as a result, this one being a fonder memory, along with movies that featured topless women answering telephone calls or doing topless detective work on some sort of tropical island resort. fond memories, good childhood.

Oh my god!!! this is the ABSOLUTE WORST movie ever created in the history of the entire world. i've never seen anything this BAD in my life. the cover is very deceiving. the "worm" doesn't look anything like what they hint at on the cover of the box. Basically, it looks like talking p*nis. Honestly, it's TOTALLY RIDICULOUS. I worked at a video rental store and rented it. I got off work at 5 pm, walked home (i didn't even have a car at the time), watched the first 20 minutes, ejected the DVD and walked right back to the rental store after walking all the way home, and put it in the drop box. I wouldn't chance being caught dead with this CRAPPY MOVIE in my house or be seen returning this garbage!!!! Afterwards, whenever a customer came up to the rental counter with it, I refused to rent it to them. People asked us for our opinion on movies all of the time and trusted us. I was brutally honest but some people still wanted to rent it. Those that did, I made them rent it from another clerk...not me and promise that clerk that they would not come back mad at us and demand their money back. Of course, I had a great relationship with my customers so they told me that I was right, it was a waste of time and money. Is there a way to give it negative stars, like putting every copy of this HORRIBLE movie that exists in the world into a rocket and shooting the thing straight into the sun??

Strange to see such a terrible review of this film. I am shocked. Everyone I have introduced this film to has loved it. Its insane, and quite funny. I don't take this film too seriously, yet it has a lot of great qualities. The acting is awesome, the filming is hilarious. It's filled with awesome quotes Hahahaha. I feel this film teaches you great lessons and is just enjoyable all around. It's a classic in my collection....found this VHS in someone's trash and will treasure it forever ;) "in days of old when nights were bold and science was not invented the earth was flat and that was that with no man discontented." Love The Item forever <3 your art is obvious

It's pretty clear that this atrocious movie was largely trying to be an over-the-top dark comedy with plenty of Tarantino-like dialogue and characters. It sprinkled in a touch of disturbing imagry (crappy, pretentious goth art and an alien penis-creature with its eye-lids sewn shut ala "Hellraiser 2: Hellbound"), low-budget camera stock (video), ninja transvestites and tried to pull off a Sam Raimi kinda feel.

Boy, did it ever fail.

I like dark comedies and I love off-kilter, disturbing fare but -geez- this was just so unprofessional that you had to wonder why anyone watching it even cared! Clearly, the actors were having fun but none of that translated to me, watching it.

Heck, I could almost respect it for some of the nice camera angles and filming techniques but just about as I was ready to give credit where credit was due, something appallingly stupid would happen. People get shot for no reason (and I'm talking NO REASON, here ... not even within the context of the four thugs who are the centerpieces of the film), the stereotypical drag queens were -well- kinda offensive (rather than funny), the pacing seemed sporadic, the dialogue -while peppered with realistic jargon and cutesy internally-referential life-comments that made you think these characters were real people- was superficial, and the "monster" of the movie was never given any real build-up before it started messing with people's minds. Worst of all, there was no real explanation for any of it other than the director/writer/star decided to throw so much blood around that "Kill Bill, vol. 1" would look pristine and "white" by comparrison.

This is a very bad movie. Extremely bad. "Manos..." and "Invasion from Inner Earth" bad... Not "cult-classic" bad.

It's just ... plain ... bad.

a 6 average? Ridiculuos. I saw a preview for this movie, and admittedly it looked interesting. i did notice it was shot on video, but it looked like it had some blood and monsters, demons, whatever. So i checked the good ole IMDB, and saw a fairly high rating, so holding my breath I gave it a shot. What did I get: The usual boring amateurish crapp representative of every SOV production. It's trash folks, plain and simple. I will admit some of the acting was decent (the hispanic woman was pretty good, and deserves better opportunities), but this is a piece of junk apparently lauded only by a bunch of independent film fan boy geeks, willing to praise anything not financed by a studio. Nothing happens in this movie and it feels like a cheesy soap opera for the most part, and no, what I thought were monsters in the preview were nowhere in the film.

I watched it yesterday. I had seen the rating of 3.5 and judging by the cover I thought it was going to be a low-budget creature feature about curiosity. That's how they sell it, and boy it's wrong.

Now, most of the reviews here criticize the technical aspects of the movie and are based on how awful the movie looks. Well yes, the movie looks awful. Based on technical aspects the movie would earn a 0 with its poor lighting (the eternal flaw of all Super 8 movies), the goofiest camera work (did this had a DP??) and the most awful looking puppet ever; nevertheless, the beauty of this film, is in the script and the acting.

The story is simple, 4 criminals are hired to buy "something" from a scientist and deliver it to the buyer. The scientist reveals to them that the Item in fact is a dangerous living organism. When he changes his mind and refuses to sell it, the criminals kill him before he explains why the creature is so dangerous.

When the criminals take the creature home in order to wait for their client, their personalities clash and the character study begins. Each of them has inner demons, conflicts that have haunted them since they started the group, and each of them will face the creature who works more like a Hannibal Lecter than as a Jurassic Park Raptor. It's as weird as it sounds.

In the end, it's not the creature that matters, but the conflicts between characters, and why they behave that way.

Maybe I'm being too generous by rating this a 7, but I feel that even though this movie has the most awful production values I ever have seen, the script and the acting were outstanding and had me wondering about how this was going to end.

This is no simple creature feature, this is more like Eraserhead meets Tarantino and the most awful puppet ever.

Rating: 7/10.

Sex, action, comedy, drugs, guns, drag queens, and tons of fake blood, who could ask for more? The sexual innuendo is the icing on the cake. Whether you're into weird porn or bandit action films, this is your dig. Gather 'round the family for tons of classic, senseless violence! Don't expect to get this film out of your head any time soon, cause it won't. Perfect exploitation of worms! This movie will penetrate its way into your heart.You'll watch it, you'll love it, and you'll also leave n

best live action comic book movie ever. puts all of star wars to shame. hotter than a hobbit. really funny...gets better on repeated viewings.... your real friends will thank you for turning them on to it... people who "don't like" "the item" aren't just stupid, they're WRONG...

I wish the independent film channels would show this film more often. My friend and I saw the movie once and wanted to see it again but we do not know when we'll be able to. This is such an neat movie. I hope these people get their movie out to the bigger audiences of the world.

I've seen so many movies and when somebody who is a movie buff like me throws out the term "the worst movie i've ever seen", that is a comment to be taken seriously. I sat through the entire movie for one reason... 5 minutes through the movie I thought "This might be the worst movie I've ever seen"... I was curious. It kept getting worse and worse... it was so painful!!!!! Everything about this movie was horrible! You know, all I really ask of my horror movie rental experience is that it's not made by someone with a hand-held camera (excluding Blair Witch) and has SOME kind of entertainment value. This movie should have had a huge brown scratch and sniff turd on the cover. If you see this film on the shelf, run away. Warn others.

When I first rented this I looked at the case and thought "Hmm looks descent", hoo boy was I wrong. This "thing" that shouldn't even be called a movie much less a B-movie, was nothing more than a muppet show with horrible camera shots, paper cut-out effects, and action scenes that just baffle the imagination. For example, whenever there was a shoot-out, even when all the person had was a pistol, they NEVER reload their guns after firing like mad for five minutes. Another example would be when a lady attempted to kill a group of people(with a knife an inch long) was shot repeativly as she ran what looked like 30 feet, you think she'd die after getting hit by a combination of bullets of an Uzi and two 9mm pistols.

It's as if a group of 8 year olds made this movie. It deserves a 0/10