Crosstalk (1982)

Crosstalk is an Australian movie from 1982.  Imagine "Rear Window" with a self-conscious computer surveillance system. This movie is a perfect example of what I've been looking for out there for Cybertronica Obscura. It's not a classic, it's not well known, it's bizarre and the real questions this movie poses have nothing to do with its execution or even its original intended purpose.

What the hell is this movie? I will spoil this movie at the end of this review for those who really have to know. You will be warned and it will be highlighted so you will not be tricked. 

For those who want to watch this movie who do not want any spoilers, I will tell you the following... If you cannot watch David Cronenberg's early films without being 'bored,' if you cannot watch movies with no real action, or modern production values, you shouldn't even be on this page, and you most certainly will not like this film so go look at porn, or play videogames or whatever it is you do when you can't find another Transformers sequel. If you think Cronenberg's THE BROOD is interesting, or enjoy Canadian sci-fi and horror movies which you simply have to sit back and watch and wait, then this could be for you. If you thought DEMON SEED was interesting to watch (though not the greatest film ever made of course), and if you liked Peter Weller's OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN, then this is up your alley.  If you really liked WORLD ON A WIRE, this you will find worth watching, (because you really have to be able to sit and wait to enjoy it) though not as intellectually interesting.  

The movie does not have a 'standard plot,' and if you can't stand not knowing where the movie is going because you must view only what you know is going to happen next, and 'what you want to see' then forget it. There are only a few things I can say, (what the hell could one say about early Cronenberg for instance?) This is a bizarre film about a computer programmer, a computer called the I500, some creepy corporate guys and a tiny little conspiracy. 

This is by no means a terrible film with horrible pacing, it is how people used to make movies 30 years ago. Its 'action' or events that occur are meant to be mysterious and slow, and there's a weird mystery that takes place, some of it doesn't really make sense, some of it does, and where it all leads is not purely awesome, but this is one of those movies where you start laughing at what's happening because it's simply so bizarre and crazy. It's not awful, the actors put in an acceptable performance and the situation is odd and moody, and while is not high in production value, there's a lot of weird things that are going on which you wonder just what people were thinking in 1982. 

I thought it was fun and knew right away this was going to require what I would call CRONENBERG ATTENTION where you must go with everything that's happening and settle in to the mood and the bizarre events that unfold. This unfolds like OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN or perhaps WORLD ON A WIRE, and has a similar mood, and gets crazier and crazier as it moves along, though it doesn't have the great performance that Peter Weller turned in for OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN. A lot of Canadian films of the 70s and 80s are like this, quiet, strange and unfold in bizarre ways.

This begins about a computer that's connected to everything from the blender to the air conditioning, a 'smart house' type of computer which controls every electrical thing in a house or apartment (and car, and everything else). For 1982, this movie suggests a lot of strange things that could all be real today. It was probably hysterically odd and unthinkable back then, but today, though the boxy set-up is outdated, everything this computer was doing in this film could be done now today.

Of course, when you have a computer hooked up to everything, guess what could happen... with all these potentially dangerous appliances controlled by it? Even worse, what if the corporation that is selling them to people want to make money from it no matter what could be wrong with it? The computer starts acting strange, and this is exactly the kind of film I like to see, the weird imagining of what some sort of 'artificial intelligence' could be like, and how things could go wrong, but even more, what twists could happen, and what other bizarre things could be thrown into the mix to make things even more bizarre? 

This is great B-movie craziness at its best (worst). Its a bad movie that's good, but with that, its the kind of film only die-hard early Cronenberg fans could sit through. It isn't as good as Cronenberg, but it just feels somewhat similar, and goes batshit crazy as you go along. There are some corny things that happen where your average viewer will say, "hey that's not possible, that's ridiculous." You have to be the kind of person who loved watching shit like that unfold. What I like most about this movie is that its going outside Hollywood territory, and you're not getting the usual tropes so you're finding unexpected things happening and that can be rewarding if you want to watch something 'different.'

There are quite a few movies I've found that I'd recommend like this, but only to a select few people who have the ability to enjoy stuff like this. This is entertaining because of its weirdness and its crazy premises. Some of the view of technology is reaching beyond what's possible at the time, and some of its odd imagining is not quite accurate, and yet some of it is in a bizarre and impossible way. Watching a movie like this takes a certain kind of mind, and I wouldn't presume to suggest to all audiences that they could possible like watching this. Movies can be complicated, and this is why I don't like giving generalized ratings like thumbs up or down, or star-ratings, because movies simply aren't like that.  A thumbs up on David Cronenbergs the Brood is ridiculous if you're thumbing up Forest Gump and Jurassic Park to people, and give generalized reviews and ratings to everything. I cannot review movies in this way. 

This is not a high-minded intellectual film, at least in the way that one might watch Children of Men, and just because it has a computer doesn't mean it is going to be or has to be TRON or TERMINATOR. This is more like DEMON SEED, but stranger and a little bit more ridiculous, but I give it credit for being ridiculously batshit crazy.  This is not standard fare, it isn't COMMANDO, it isn't PREDATOR and it most certainly isn't WARGAMES. There's nothing "Spielbergian" about it.  I will say that this is an example of how 'film really is forever' and how film looks so much better and makes even bad movies more watchable than the cheap cable movies of the 90s. The simple feel of film gives such a quality to certain movies in my opinion that makes them infinitely more watchable than the latest cheap digitally shot 'movies.'  There's a lasting power to it. This movie probably had even less of a budget than many of the crappy digitally shot Asylum movies which I can barely watch for more than a few minutes, and yet for some reason even 16mm film adds quality to this. 

The leading actor does remind me of the actor in WORLD ON A WIRE quite a bit actually, and perhaps the filmmakers were indeed inspired by that film, but it isn't trying to be as epic. Imagine if Roman Polanski made another movie in 1978 about people in an apartment only with an artificially intelligent computer. Perhaps this movie was inspired a little by Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW, but throw in an A.I. surveillance system. However, you also have to imagine that this movie also has one hundreth the budget of those films. It does pretty well with what it has, and I'd say it's better than an ABC TV movie of the week.  I really am not trying to sell you this film, but this is exactly the kind of stuff I look for and don't find all that often. "Usual fare" bores the shit out of me. This simply isn't your usual fare, and who knows what people thought of this movie at the time it was made.  One could see this movie being a lot more interesting today. No supernatural shit takes place and there's nothing particularly 'surreal' going on, unless you count the computer behaving strangely...

There's some unusual retro-computer stuff that is interesting to look at, and then of course how it fits into all the situations imagined for it in 1982. This kind of thing is what Cybertronica Obscura is all about.

Now, I will go and spoil this film for you, so if you want to be surprised, (and I suggest you read nothing further if you actually do want to seek this movie out and watch it--I'd advise you attempt to find the highest quality version possible so that the computery soundtrack is more entertaining. Spoilers ahead so be warned....

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So here's what happened... Our leading man who looks like the guy from WORLD ON A WIRE is a computer programmer, and is quite a bit like the character in WORLD ON A WIRE. He has been working on the latest high-tech computer system for some company which is really trying to sell them to the industrial market. It seems to run everything and is connected to everything in the house or apartment (think ELECTRIC DREAMS or DEMON SEED). It's not as advanced as the computer in DEMON SEED, or so they believe... Shit starts going wrong in his house in the country (Like HOMEWRECKER) and his computerized car goes berserk and he runs off the road. His company needs him to finish his work so they set him up in a new apartment and get him a nurse/physical therapist (but was it the computer that tried to kill him, or was it them?) He continues his physical therapy while he fucks around with this fancy computer system which is connected to surveillance cameras and stuff in the apartment building. 

More strange shit happens with electrical stuff, and we meet some oddball characters out of a Roman Polanski movie. Like REAR WINDOW, our wheelchair bound programmer starts to notice that this computer is spying on people, and has recorded something which looks like a strange fucked up murder involving a crazy psycho guy, his wife and his S & M mistress. Did he chop his wife up and put the pieces in the electric drain disposal? What the hell is this computer trying to tell him? What did it see? Did it try to kill him or not? 

Meanwhile the CEO is actually trying to kill him... either because he's discovered strange glitches in the computer and the deal must go through whether it works or not--and what could be worse than a computer that tries to kill people, and why would a CEO care about that? However, the computer is getting even weirder... it's obsessed with the psycho guy who seems to have killed his wife. Its data is scrambled with what happened, what it recorded, what it is trying to do? What is it trying to say? I cannot spoil anymore, but needless to say, shit just keeps on getting weirder and more fucked up as it goes along. There's a strange 'remote controlled' robot, (remote controlled by the computer), some twists and games played by the CEO guy and his henchmen, and other antics with the physical therapist and the guy's wife thinks he's crazy.  

The production values are not the greatest, but there's some good location shots, and some weird electronic music, and a weird pace that in a strange way keeps you interested and wondering what the fuck is going to happen next. If only this movie had had a bigger budget and some better actors, this could have been one hell of a Cronenberg or Polanski movie.  It's late-night fare that might even bring back a few odd memories of the 70s or 80s.  When compared to the 'cable movie' cheese of "Homewrecker" I found this to be much better and much more interesting to watch--though I found "Homewrecker" an amusement, simply based on its premise, there's something darker and edgier about this film, and of course it is 'film.'  Mostly the odd stuff that happens here is a crazy amusement, and not particularly intellectual, but there's plenty to wonder about in this time-capsule of a film.

If you happen to know of some odd rare movie like this let me know, which involve computers, genetic engineering, clones, DNA, strange technology or robots or something--I'm interested.

If you happen to like this kind of film after you watch it, I'd highly recommend these others if you haven't seen them:

WORLD ON A WIRE

DEMON SEED

IDAHO TRANSFER

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE

OF UNKOWN ORIGIN (Not really Sci-Fi, but Cronenberg-esque)

THE BROOD

BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW

THE COMPANION

ELECTRIC DREAMS

SURGE