DVD: THE DISTURBANCE

It seems as if I'd saved the best till last with the third and final DVD of the Rare Flix box set and it's surprising that this film isn't better known.

While playing beachball on a beach, the cosily attractive nice girl Susan (Lisa Geoffrion) finds herself drawn to the nearby geeky dude who's building a complicated sandcastle. Susan and Clay (Timothy Greeson) start going out which turns out not to be such a good idea. Clay has already been in a mental institution, he has hallucinations of a demon haunting him, he may or may not be committing a series of rape-murders (we only find out if these are real near the end), he has vivid and explicit sexual fantasies which we see, and his behaviour often otherwise odd. Once while he showers, he imagines his mother laughing at him and he attacks her with a pipe which isn't good news for the family cat. When Susan finally dumps him, he's incapable of accepting or even understanding what has happened but it does trigger the violent climax.

Given that this is cheap exploitation it's much better than you'd expect. Greeson and Geoffrion are both believable in their roles and the one explicit sex scene between is tender and touching rather than luridly gratuitous. Greeson is particularly good and the depiction of his madness and the terror of his delusions are light years from the usual drooling  psycho slasher fare.  He is truly insane but is portrayed as a victim of his madness than as monster. The lurches into hallucination are particularly well done and jarring, notably a scene on the beach when Susan is creating a sandcastle and Clay has to drag her violently away from it as an arm made of sand reaches out from underneath to grab her.

I've really rather enjoyed this Rare Flix collection of C-movies. While I can't honestly say that they are good movies, though The Disturbance comes pretty close, I've definitely found all three engaging in different ways and so I've ordered volume 2 from the States. If the standard is up these then I'll be well pleased.