REFLECTIONS OF EVIL
dir. Damon Packard, 2002
137 mins. United States.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, OCTOBER 28 – 7:30 PM

The plot ostensibly follows Julie, who died of a PCP overdose in the 70’s, as she searches from ‘beyond the ethers’ for her brother Bob (played by Packard himself), now an overweight watch-salesman on the streets of LA dying of sucrose intolerance. In actuality, we spend most of the run time with Bob, alternately sheepish and rage-filled, as he eats and pukes and screams his way through the hell of downtown LA.

Strangely prescient of many viral internet-comedy tics – “bad” filter effects, digital distortions, pitched voices, looping audio – think Tim and Eric but more explicitly terrifying, the film is essentially a two-hour-plus panic attack with comic relief. REFLECTIONS OF EVIL dives headlong into the trauma and terror of America in the early aughts, and features one of the best on-screen uses of ET and Universal Studios, in an unauthorized sequence that famously earned Packard a lifetime ban from the park.

This one will shatter your brain and leave you puking on the sidewalk with joy. Buckle up.