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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: NEWSBOYS: DOWN UNDER THE BIG TOP (1996)

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DIRECTED BY: Steve Taylor

FEATURING: Newsboys (John James, Peter Furler, Jody Davis, Duncan Phillips, Jeff Frankenstein, Phil Joel), Phil Madeira, Greg Menza

PLOT: A popular contemporary Christian pop band takes a break from their tour to try and organize a grand finale for a dying circus.

Still from "Newsboys: Down Under the Big Top" (1996)

COMMENTS: In the fall of 1967, the Beatles were experiencing the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Their newest album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, was already being recognized as a landmark in the history of pop music, and their worldwide broadcast of “All You Need Is Love” had reached more than a billion people in the heart of the Summer of Love. On the other hand, they had abandoned the grueling work of touring, and their manager Brian Epstein had just died, leaving the band without anyone to advise them or act as a buffer for their wildest ideas. In the face of this adversity, and with the confidence that comes from being the biggest rock band in the entire world, the Beatles moved forward with a Christmas TV special, Magical Mystery Tour, that would go down in history as their first mammoth flop. The program, a hodgepodge of proto-music videos, improvised sketches, and random clips slammed together in hopes of achieving comedy via cognitive dissonance, is actually the kind of thing we like around here, being that it is so wildly ungoverned by factors such as logic, restraint, or taste. Despite that, and the fact that other Beatles projects like the “Get Back” sessions have been rehabilitated through the passage of time, the Magical Mystery Tour remains a hard watch.

So if the Beatles couldn’t do it, what on earth made Newsboys think they could pull it off? This 90s-era Australian-American pop band that brought a Savage Garden-Barenaked Ladies-Gin Blossoms musical sensibility to the upper echelons of the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) charts does not immediately seem like a good match for a personality-driven medium like film. And they’re not. Their songs are mildly catchy, their vibe is low-key amiable, and their humor is mainly of the dad variety. We’re not exactly looking to Newsboys to let their freak flag fly, and the banner they end up hoisting is pretty benign.

(A necessary sidenote: Newsboys are still around, like the Temptations having gone through numerous personnel changes . A recent lead singer for the group was accused of heinous sexual misconduct, but at this stage he and his collaborators are years away from joining the band. So you won’t see any known offenders in this film.)

There is something exceptionally odd about the whole production, but it’s the kind of strangeness rooted in inexplicable choices. Why choose a circus theme and then not have any of the trappings of a circus? Beyond the big tent itself and a couple clowns, the circus is mostly talked about, not shown. Why spend so much time demonstrating the lameness of the slate of performers? Not catastrophic awfulness, mind you, but just categorically bland and weak. Why give characters elaborate quirks and then not commit to them? Twins Carlene and Darlene never get into lockstep, and while we can be grateful that the presence of little people as mob enforcers is not played for the stereotypical cheap laughs that you might expect, the result feels less like trope subversion and more like virtue signaling. The film doesn’t even know what kind of joke it wants to tell. It’s not as over-the-top loony as Spice World, only dips its toe into the waters of Spinal Tap-style mockumentary, and definitely has no interest in the subversiveness of Head. I supposed they’re too Christian to get no-holds-barred weird on us, although they even soft-pedal the evangelism: a prayer is cut short by hijinks, while a copy of the Bible is revealed to have been stolen from a hotel. (Um… commandment?) It seems like someone in the Newsboys camp wanted to get outrageous, while somebody else kept a tight grip on the leash.

So if the story’s not the thing, then their best option would seem to be to appeal to the mass of diehard, rabid Newsboys fans. Big Top doesn’t really do that, either. The filmmakers seem to recognize that none of the band members has a grain of personality, but resting what little plot exists on the shoulders of lead singer John and bassist Phil only highlights how threadbare the story is. The movie can’t even work up enough interest to see Newsboys being Newsboys, aside from snippets of a concert and two full music videos clumsily dropped in during the last ten minutes (a fact the director helpfully lampshades). Of course, this turns out to be the right move, since those videos contain exponentially more wit than anything that has come before.

Down Under the Big Top is definitely a strange object, baffling in that it does nothing to satiate rabid Newsboys fans, and also doesn’t go far out enough to draw in curious outsiders or connoisseurs of weirdness. It just sits there, without so much as an “I Am the Walrus” to justify the effort.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“It truly is a weird little movie that, on the surface, seems worthy of derision. However, it really depends on the angle from which you want to critique it… Is it terrible from a cinematic perspective? Absolutely. Does it have storytelling issues? Without question. However, it possesses an awkward, oddball charm that is kind of fun.” – Nicole Pramik, Sci-fi Fantasy Lit Chick

(This movie was nominated for review by Jenn. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.) 

Newsboys: Down Under The Big Top [VHS]

Newsboys: Down Under The Big Top [VHS]

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    Capsules

    CAPSULE: HOUSE OF DREAMS (1963)

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    “The house stood alone,
    a mere ghost in the midst of the modern, uncaring world.
    Within her skeletal fibers secrets remained secluded forever.
    The only one who might have revealed them
    was now lying in a world where neither time nor flesh existed.”

    – quote from Lee Hansen’s novel in House of Dreams

    DIRECTED BY: Robert Berry

    FEATURING: Pauline Elliott, Robert Berry, Charlene Bradley, Lance Bird

    PLOT: An author writing about a haunted house begins having eerily prophetic nightmares.

    COMMENTS: A low-budget horror film made by college students, House of Dreams is, understandably, an amateur effort. It’s also rather impressive for what it manages to accomplish with limited resources and a novice crew. It contains way too many uninteresting scenes of marital bickering, broken up by far too few dream sequences. Reverse the proportion of dream to reality and it would be a satisfyingly weird little chiller along the lines of Carnival of Souls (to which it’s often compared). House of Dreams doesn’t quite succeed in sustaining a spooky atmosphere but, in its best moments, it conjures surreal dreamscapes worthy of ‘s Blood of a Poet.

    Lee Hansen (Berry) suffers from writer’s block. As he struggles to complete his latest novel, he begins experiencing disturbing dreams. If that wasn’t bad enough, his wife Elaine, a recovering alcoholic wrestling with her own demons, accuses him of neglecting her. She wants to take a vacation to rekindle their romance but he insists on finishing his book first. What seems like a responsible adult decision backfires on him as the subject of Lee’s book, the “old Winninger place,” takes over his unconscious mind.

    Filmed on location in an actual rural Indiana “haunted” house owned by the director’s mother, House of Dreams makes good use of a genuinely creepy setting. Each of Lee’s nightmares begins with him driving to the dilapidated house and slowly approaching it from the front walkway. He reluctantly enters the front door which, of course, opens on its own to welcome him. What happens next varies from dream to dream but, amid the usual ghostly tropes, some startlingly original images appear, each nightmare concluding with a frightening final scene.

    Creative use of interior architecture and unusual camera angles add to the mood of unease. With a few simple props and generous use of chiaroscuro lighting, Berry and his cinematographer show how less can be more when it comes to crafting suspenseful horror. The minimalist soundtrack, an original score, also takes a less-is-more approach.1 Occasional metronomic tappings add tension to the scenes of everyday life, and menacing electronic organ strains accompany the dream sequences. A scene in which Elaine suddenly appears in Lee’s study, wearing a ghostly white dress, feels all the more unsettling for taking place in complete silence.

    As tragedies begin to befall Lee’s family members, he realizes his dreams foreshadow things to come. Unfortunately, the family drama element of the plot isn’t very compelling. The student actors aren’t quite up to the task, and unnecessarily long conversations are a major weakness in the script. Pauline Elliot isn’t bad as Lee’s wife,  and Berry does his best in the lead (a role intended for a professional actor who ended up declining the part). As director, actor, writer, and editor, Berry demonstrates a solid grounding in the fundamentals of storytelling. Footage of the Winninger place, including shots of the dramatic staircase and the overgrown well, periodically intercuts the domestic moments, illustrating the house’s growing hold over Lee and his relatives. White roses, briefly glimpsed in the opening act, recur throughout, a symbol whose full significance isn’t revealed until the very end.

    Eventually, Lee decides to investigate the Winninger house in real life—or is he already trapped inside the nightmare? His penultimate foray plays out like all the other dream sequences. Lee drives to the house, he hesitates on the walkway, and the front door hangs open, taunting him to enter. Will Lee escape the house’s strange power or has he already become its final victim? Fans of low-budget ’60s horror will find House of Dreams worth a visit.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “…an arduous regional horror, shot for peanuts in Decker, Indiana by a group of film students in 1963. Like the long-lost sibling of Herk Harvey’s altogether more interesting Carnival of Souls (1962) this throws any established notions of narrative and logic to the wind but, unlike Harvey’s enduring diamond in the rough, fails to engage the hapless audience.”–Kevin Lyons, The EOFFTV Review 

    1An alternate score written in 2019 received Berry’s approval, and the latest Blu-ray release from Vinegar Syndrome/Bleeding Skull includes both.

    House of Dreams [Blu-ray]

    House of Dreams [Blu-ray]

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    366 Underground

    366 UNDERGROUND: BRAINSTARE (2025)

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    Beware

    DIRECTED BY:

    FEATURING: Fake AI actors

    PLOT: An employee of the futuristic Malos megacorporation submits himself to a mandatory scanning of his deepest and most profound memories.

    Still from Brainstare (2025)

    COMMENTS: Made a few months prior to the release of ‘s Incorporeal Man (2025), Brainstare was another attempt at creating a human- written script exclusively using  AI technology. While Incorporeal Man reveled in the unnaturalism of the final product, seeking a so-bad-is-weird cult status, Brainstare is determined to go for a more “decent” look and production quality. Some serious problems, though—especially in terms of pacing—make it an even more challenging viewing experience.

    Brainstare is divided into two acts, chamber dramas played in two different interior locations. The plot, set in a dystopian future, follows Anthony, an empolyee of the Malos Corporation, who has to submit himself to a scanning of his deepest memories or risk being fired and ostracized. The first act—with an exhausting duration of about one hour and twenty minutes—observes our protagonist in his home with his partner and colleague Sheba, as she tries to persuade him to proceed with the necessary tests. Their conversation develops gradually into the portrait of a one-sided relationship where Sheba seems to play the role of a reward for an obedient worker rather than a real love-partner.

    What an excruciatingly slow development that is! The AI does an acceptable job visualizing people and environments, with an uncanny aesthetic recalling rotoscope animation. The audio also presents no difficulties: both the characters’ voices and sound effects do their job. But the only aspect of the production real humans worked on —the script—-proves to be the worst element. Outrageously repetitive dialogues and an extensive use of the thesaurus make a telenovela seem brilliant in comparison.

    The second act, mercifully shorter than the first, shouldn’t be discussed too much to avoid possible spoilers. Not that the story has tremendous reveals and twists; let’s just say that the debates regarding the moral implications of a scanning of our most profound memories and thoughts continues, with new commentary on our relationship with the unconscious.

    There is material for a good “Black Mirror”-esque narrative here, but the execution is underwhelming, to say the least. Slow plot advancement and dialogue straight out of a soap opera make The Room, or even Incorporeal Man, preferable viewing options.

    Baldersion has made Brainstare available for free viewing on YouTube.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    No independent reviews found at the time of publication.

    Capsules

    CAPSULE: PINK LADY’S MOTION PICTURE (1978)

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    Pinku redi no katsudo dai shashin

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    DIRECTED BY: Tsugunobu Kotani

    FEATURING: Keiko Masuda, Mie, Isamu Ago

    PLOT: A director, a producer, and a folklorist seek the perfect idea for a movie to promote the pop band “The Pink Lady.”

    Still from Pink Lady's Motion Picture (1978)

    COMMENTS: How to promote a pop band cinematically? Through a musical, of course, but what kind? This movie takes this question as its starting point, exploring it through three distinct tales that traverse genres and styles.

    The subject here is the iconic, albeit obscure, pop musical duo “The Pink Lady,” mad up of two girls singing as one. According to Wikipedia, they were a short-lived, briefly popular act from the late-70s and early-80s, featuring Mie and Keiko Masuda (formerly known as Kei). The movie makes clear from early on—especially through its exaggerated acting—that it will retain a lighthearted comic tone, while at the same time being self-conscious and self-referential.

    This aspect of self-parody becomes apparent as we watch a film director, a folklorist, and a producer come together to brainstorm ideas for an upcoming movie about the duo. Each one of them has his own idea of what this movie should be, and chaos ensues. For viewers, this results in a fun romp, a mix of genres, each depicting a different take on the musical they want to create. We have an old-fashioned romantic melodrama, a cheesy sci-fi monster movie, and a western. Mie and Kei are always the protagonists, with playful musical numbers accompanying the story beats.

    Pink Lady’s Motion Picture isn’t afraid to embrace absurdism. It doesn’t always makes perfect sense, and it doesn’t need to. But it’s not subversive or transgressive in any serious way; it’s harmless, mindless entertainment for mass consumption by a local, albeit westernized, Japanese audience. The flick is also of sociological interest, depicting, through the juxtaposition of disparate cinematic genres, a society divided between tradition and foreign influence.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “…[the production] consciously emulated the breezy stream-of-consciousness aesthetic of A HARD DAYS’ NIGHT (1964), and can also be viewed as a forerunner to SPICE WORLD… The film overall is colorful and energetic, but bears the marks of a hasty and ill thought-out production… fans of Mei and Kei will likely be satisfied.  Everyone else, however, is advised to turn their attention elsewhere.”–Adam Groves, The Bedlam Files