Ezra Buzzington | Through the Shattered Lens

A film that gives new meaning to the word pointless, Do Not Disturb is about a screenwriter (Stephen Geoffreys) living in a run-down motel. He hasn’t written anything in two years and is haunted by the murder of his girlfriend. When a crass producer comes by to demand that the writer get to work, the writer decides to kidnap the producer, bound him in a bathtub, and remove his body parts one-at-a-time. This gives him the inspiration to write again, which makes his agent (Tiffany Shepis) happy even if she is not always happy about the method he’s using to regain his creativity.

This talky movie is about living in a crapsack world. Everyone is greedy, unlikable, and depressed. Stephen Geoffreys and Tiffany Shepis both give good performances, showing they have more talent than their films usually allowed them to show. But the movie itself feels pointless, a slow-moving and meandering slog through a world that just isn’t that interesting.

Do Not Disturb (which was originally titled New Terminal Hotel) got some attention in 2010 as the last film that Corey Haim completed before his own death at the age of 38. Haim was dating Shepis at the time and was visiting her on set when he asked if there was any part that he could play in the movie. A role was invented on the spot and Haim plays a jaded rock star that the screenwriter meets at a bar. It’s an extended cameo and a pointless one at that, with Haim playing the role with an accent that I think was supposed to be Australian.

There is a twist at the end of the movie but it’s not worth the trouble that it takes to reach it. Some people may want to see this film just because of the cast. To many people, Stephen Geoffreys will always be Evil Ed and Corey Haim will always be Sam Emerson. Those people will have more fun rewatching Fright Night and The Lost Boys than sitting through this movie.

The 2022 film, Bleach, tells the story of Jonah Paxton (Mark Justice).

Born in Nevada, Jonah never knew his mother. He was raised in a trailer by his abusive father (Lorenzo Lamas), a degenerate gambler who molested Jonah and forced him to wear dresses in an attempt to shame him into “being a man.” When the mob threatened to come after Jonah because of his debts, he sold Jonah to his uncle, a drug dealer named Matthew (Eric Roberts).

In the mid-80s, grown-up Jonah has some issues. That’s not surprising. He’s haunted by his past and has hallucinations in which the devil is raping him from behind. (Yikes!) He also has visions of selling his soul to a mysterious woman (Mindy Robinson) who throws money at him. In what might be the real world, Jonah is hired by El Jefe (Robert LaSardo), who explains that he loves horror films but that the whole trope of the final girl upsets him. He gives Jonah a million dollars to film an actual snuff film. He tells Jonah that he wants high production values. He wants to watch Jonah become a monster. Jonah takes the money and films himself murdering two women who picked up at a bar and one woman who unfortunately entered the room at the wrong time.

While El Jefe waits for Jonah to bring him the tape, Jonah finds himself having even more violent hallucinations. He sees demons. He sees the devil. After he crashes his car in the desert, he has a vision of a woman (Tara Reid) who claims to be his mother and who encourages Jonah to commit suicide. While the police investigate Jonah’s crimes, Jonah is haunted by the ghosts of his victims and his already tenuous grip on reality continues to loosen. Soon, Jonah is drinking bleach and trying to purify himself with fire….

Bleach is a mess of a film, one that is occasionally surreal but which is more often just boring. The film’s tone is all over the place and certain scenes are so drawn out that they go from being disturbing to being dull. The moments of dark comedy fail to land but the glimpses inside Jonah’s mind are appropriately twisted and bizarre. By the end of the movie, Jonah’s scarred and blistered body is an undeniably shocking sight. Physically, he’s come to reflect the monster that he truly is. But, in the end, the film is too unevenly paced to be really effective and it ends with a shoot-out that is so clumsily choreographed that it’ll probably lead to more laughs than pathos.

Eric Roberts is memorably sleazy as the faux friendly Matthew. One gets the feeling that both and Lorenzo Lamas were only on set for a day or two but both of them make the most of their screen time. Both of them offer a glimpse into how to make a monster.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed: