Dark Night Of The Soul
Directed by Ron Atkins
Cut Throat Video
Whether you want to believe that the odious creatures that inhabit Dark Night Of The Soul (DNOTS) are of a higher consciousness, or are merely a pathetic group of dope-smoking, Dungeons And Dragons fanatics run amok in an attempt to attain unconsciousness is moot; the film is excruciating to watch and so nauseatingly bad that the view you subscribe to becomes irrelevant. A profane Skele(narra)tor who incessantly babbles pseudo-esoteric ravings (with nary a hint of irony) forces a group of college students to get high, erstwhile the rest of his crew (also adorned in the height of He-Man fashion) suck and fuck them into the ‘mental plane’. So these omnipotent creatures get everyone high? And then rape them? It sounds like every party I went to in the 80’s.
Anyhoo – the ‘higher conscious’ being who spouts extraneous, faux-esoteric rants claims he will free them from the physical plane of existence – through opiates and non-consensual sex. DNOTS is a muddled mess of lo-fi filmmaking at its worst and actually usurps the throne from Plan 9 From Outer Space as the worst film ever made. Surreal filmmaker Alejandro Jordorowsky, after discovering that he was acknowledged as an inspiration for the film, promptly sued the producer/writer to have his name taken out of the credits (a court date has yet to be set). In the end of DNOTS it didn’t make me question the meaning of life or death – only why I bothered to sit through the entire film…
