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How many here are familiar with the work of Neil Breen? I recently became aware of this guy when his first movie was discussed on a recent episode of Red Letter Media's Best of the Worst web show. Since then I've watched two of his three films, Double Down and I Am Here.... Now, and plan to watch his latest, Fateful Findings.
So, what's so special about this guy? Well, if you're into bad movies as I am, then Neil Breen's output is something truly special to behold. Watching his movies is like witnessing someone's fever dream. I know that description is kind of difficult to picture until you actually watch one of his movies, it which case it makes perfect sense.These movies don't really have a plot so much as a bunch of things that happen. Trying to remember them in sequence is a fruitless task since things that happen in one scene don't necessarily seem to be connected to the things that happen in the next.
Other features include Neil Breen's enormous ego. It takes an enormous ego to get a movie made, I suppose, but talent and ego should go hand in hand. John Lennon was famously a bit of a jerk but we forgave him because we liked "Imagine" so much. Neil Breen, conversely stars as the greatest secret agent/hacker/bioterrorist in Double Down and Jesus in I Am Here.... Now. If fact, his Double Down character has a bit of a christ-like angle when he gets the magic rock that he think can cure brain cancer. The old guy who gave it to him even says he is "the one" before he gacked it. So I guess he was Jesus in both movies.
Of course, Breen is a super-independent film maker. You can tell by how half of the crew credits are him and about a quarter are credited to "none." Weirdly he also gives himself a craft services credit. I'd love to know the details of that. Did he simply spring for the pizza for lunch or did he fire up a grill and flip burgers for everybody? I prefer to think the later with him wearing an apron and a little chef's hat.
Chances are, he probably also counted going to the drive through at McDonald's to get a value meal for just himself because quite a bit of the movie is just him in the dessert with a stationary camera. This was probably all just him and a tripod and this makes up a significant portion of the movie.
I haven't even touched on the acting because there aren't any actors in these movies. Ha! I don't know who all these people Breen got to appear in his films, but I suspect they're friends and coworkers because none of them show a scrap of acting ability. Breen in particular delivers the lines he wrote like a non-English speaking tourist trying to phonetically sound out phrases from his guidebook. In [i]I Am Here.... Now[i], he has a sex scene with this poor woman which is depicted with a close up of their faces, he's on top of her but no real movement is perceptible, so I'm assuming it's a sex scene. But they are staring straight ahead blankly. She, especially, has a deer-in-headlights look, but can you blame her.
It's had to blame the actors for delivering their lines badly when the lines are terrible to begin with. So far, both movies contain major screeds on some topic or another that Neil Breen thought was really important at the time. Double Down has a lengthy monologue about how dangerous bioweapons are. That's pretty much all it says: bioweapons are dangerous, but he goes on and on about it. I Am Here... Now has several lengthy speeches about sustainable energy like solar and wind.
Part of the fun of crap movies like that is to unravel the mystery. Figuring out what the filmmaker was thinking or trying to do and what it's all supposed to mean or why they did this particular thing is much more fun that the actual movie. For instance in I Am Here... Now, a female character is introduced who works for a solar energy thing but she gets laid off because corrupt politicians took bribes. That's pretty much the plot of that movie, incidentally. Her ****ty twin sister, who looks nothing like her, talks her into being a prostitute. But she this life choice didn't agree with her and the focus abruptly shifts to the ****ty twin sister who then gets laid off from her sustainable energy job because of corruption. I can only assume the original actress became unavailable or didn't want to make this movie anymore so Breen had to switch things to a new actress and basically just copied the character. It must be something like that because otherwise it doesn't make any sense.
For bad movie connoisseurs, Neil Breen is a rare find, like Birdemic: Shock and Terror or The Room. But these movies are definitely not for the novice. If other bad movies are like beer, this is hard liquor. You don't drink hard liquor the same way you drink beer if you want your liver to continue functioning by the end of the night. It may be that one has to build up their tolerance for bad movies before they're ready for the challenge of a Neil Breen film. I have, but I've watched several of those Mill Creek boxed sets that contain 50 crumby old movies. I've reached the point where other movies that get a reputation for being bad just seem that bad to me because I've see Cindy & Donna. It's kind of a treat to find something that pushes that boundary.
So, what's so special about this guy? Well, if you're into bad movies as I am, then Neil Breen's output is something truly special to behold. Watching his movies is like witnessing someone's fever dream. I know that description is kind of difficult to picture until you actually watch one of his movies, it which case it makes perfect sense.These movies don't really have a plot so much as a bunch of things that happen. Trying to remember them in sequence is a fruitless task since things that happen in one scene don't necessarily seem to be connected to the things that happen in the next.
Other features include Neil Breen's enormous ego. It takes an enormous ego to get a movie made, I suppose, but talent and ego should go hand in hand. John Lennon was famously a bit of a jerk but we forgave him because we liked "Imagine" so much. Neil Breen, conversely stars as the greatest secret agent/hacker/bioterrorist in Double Down and Jesus in I Am Here.... Now. If fact, his Double Down character has a bit of a christ-like angle when he gets the magic rock that he think can cure brain cancer. The old guy who gave it to him even says he is "the one" before he gacked it. So I guess he was Jesus in both movies.
Of course, Breen is a super-independent film maker. You can tell by how half of the crew credits are him and about a quarter are credited to "none." Weirdly he also gives himself a craft services credit. I'd love to know the details of that. Did he simply spring for the pizza for lunch or did he fire up a grill and flip burgers for everybody? I prefer to think the later with him wearing an apron and a little chef's hat.
Chances are, he probably also counted going to the drive through at McDonald's to get a value meal for just himself because quite a bit of the movie is just him in the dessert with a stationary camera. This was probably all just him and a tripod and this makes up a significant portion of the movie.
I haven't even touched on the acting because there aren't any actors in these movies. Ha! I don't know who all these people Breen got to appear in his films, but I suspect they're friends and coworkers because none of them show a scrap of acting ability. Breen in particular delivers the lines he wrote like a non-English speaking tourist trying to phonetically sound out phrases from his guidebook. In [i]I Am Here.... Now[i], he has a sex scene with this poor woman which is depicted with a close up of their faces, he's on top of her but no real movement is perceptible, so I'm assuming it's a sex scene. But they are staring straight ahead blankly. She, especially, has a deer-in-headlights look, but can you blame her.
It's had to blame the actors for delivering their lines badly when the lines are terrible to begin with. So far, both movies contain major screeds on some topic or another that Neil Breen thought was really important at the time. Double Down has a lengthy monologue about how dangerous bioweapons are. That's pretty much all it says: bioweapons are dangerous, but he goes on and on about it. I Am Here... Now has several lengthy speeches about sustainable energy like solar and wind.
Part of the fun of crap movies like that is to unravel the mystery. Figuring out what the filmmaker was thinking or trying to do and what it's all supposed to mean or why they did this particular thing is much more fun that the actual movie. For instance in I Am Here... Now, a female character is introduced who works for a solar energy thing but she gets laid off because corrupt politicians took bribes. That's pretty much the plot of that movie, incidentally. Her ****ty twin sister, who looks nothing like her, talks her into being a prostitute. But she this life choice didn't agree with her and the focus abruptly shifts to the ****ty twin sister who then gets laid off from her sustainable energy job because of corruption. I can only assume the original actress became unavailable or didn't want to make this movie anymore so Breen had to switch things to a new actress and basically just copied the character. It must be something like that because otherwise it doesn't make any sense.
For bad movie connoisseurs, Neil Breen is a rare find, like Birdemic: Shock and Terror or The Room. But these movies are definitely not for the novice. If other bad movies are like beer, this is hard liquor. You don't drink hard liquor the same way you drink beer if you want your liver to continue functioning by the end of the night. It may be that one has to build up their tolerance for bad movies before they're ready for the challenge of a Neil Breen film. I have, but I've watched several of those Mill Creek boxed sets that contain 50 crumby old movies. I've reached the point where other movies that get a reputation for being bad just seem that bad to me because I've see Cindy & Donna. It's kind of a treat to find something that pushes that boundary.