of unknown origin (1983)

[miscellanium]

i'm sure it would've been ultra-hip at the time but having to work in this fishtank environment would be terrible imo. looks very cool tho

the "is it worth watching this for lawrence dane" rating: 3/5

dane only has a handful of scenes, but the story and quality of the acting overall means that the rest is still fun to watch imo. the movie itself has gotten mixed reviews - stephen king loved it, apparently, while other critics felt it didn't have much substance. i think that criticism is fair; it does feel like a story where the strength would be in the interior narration, which we lose without having a voiceover or anything like that in the movie. there's a note in the credit that claims no animals were injured, but i'm not a fan of the use of what looks like footage from lab experiments of rats being made to attack each other. that's still animal cruelty, even if it wasn't instigated for this movie specifically.... could be worse tho, i could be watching the beginning of nothing personal again lmao.

the plot: the one-sentence summary would be something like, a classic wall street yuppie stays home to finish a business deal while his family goes on vacation but discovers he's not alone - a giant rat has decided his house is its territory. when it comes to the office setting, this is a very different beast (heh) than films like, say, scanners or american psycho. whatever the corporation is doing, it's nothing blatantly nefarious or parasitic. (i had to look it up - they're investment bankers? so closer to parasitic than not but at least we're shown them actually doing things rather than dicking around like bateman lol.) i've seen people argue that the film is a type of commentary on the "emptiness" of corporate success and i can see where they're coming from, but in my opinion the movie doesn't really lean into that. maybe the book it's based on is more explicit with this theme? the movie feels more like a classic man versus nature narrative, with the setting serving as a means of visual contrast - the clean buttoned-up office appearances vs the disheveled "uncivilized" look main character bart is rocking by the end.

lawrence dane plays eliot riverton, his boss, who seems to be very sympathetic and tolerant of bart's difficulties - up to a point. the last interaction they have, he tells bart to go home before any of the other employees see him like that. he doesn't inquire after what's been happening, but bart also doesn't choose to seek support. in a way it's a very macho movie - he tries to get help from other men who fail and eventually has to take matters into his own hands, alone, and make his home safe for his heterosexual nuclear family. eliot does what he can to support his employee, but.... despite the big company dinner party, there's no real familiarity there between them. so, again, i can see where the social commentary argument comes from, but it seems largely incidental to the actual plot of the movie.

that said, i did enjoy watching this! i've seen it thrice now in different environments and it's held up each time. peter weller of robocop fame gives us a solid performance as the main character and the supporting cast is great as well. it was fun to see louis del grande in the same movie as dane again, lol, and i look forward to seeing him once more in the dane episode of, well, seeing things. the female actresses aren't given a lot to do with their characters imo. jennifer dale as the secretary gets more screen time than the wife, which isn't saying much given the depth of their roles or lack thereof. their acting helps them sell what they're told to hawk. the practical effects with the giant rat are fun and there's a lot of close-ups of cute little rat feet. the overall tone of the movie feels a bit tongue-in-cheek/self-aware at times but not to its detriment. (eliot keeps expressing disapproval of a minor character smoking, which is morbidly amusing to me since afaik dane kept smoking most/all of his life.)

i had to upload the dane cut to the internet archive here, since i guess warner brothers doesn't want people sharing the dinner party scene on youtube? lol whatever. but that means it's not easy for me to include autocaptions or anything like that, since i chose to keep subtitles off when i was editing the original video. the movie isn't hard to find with subtitles/captions though; i checked out a library dvd the first time i watched this, and it's easy to find online whether torrenting or streaming.

highlight:

as a buddy said, "he's presenting himself so sluttily"

he is SO hands-on in this movie and constantly making little gestures i really feel as though that's all him and not the director because it is a CONSISTENT pattern throughout all his roles. he even walks arm-in-arm with weller before this but it didn't cap well. SIR,,,


this scene is SO funny in a deadpan way and the movie knows it. loved seeing dane's character process just what his prized employee was talking about at this extremely fancy dinner


why is he SO cute here to me???? gonna scream


t....tummy..........................................


he fingersnaps at weller with both hands as he's leaving weller's office and again it doesn't cap well but t's super cute. future gif material






he's out of focus for most of this scene since it focuses on jennifer dale, but after dale's character leaves he spends a moment Contemplating, pictured above, then tries to throw some paper into a trash can across the room and pouts when he misses lol. material for social commentary i suppose but mostly it's just adorable because i have rabies for him and i recognize this

there's a lot of little details i noticed going through the screencaps, like he has the same photo of some military guy near his dinner table and on his office desk. a son, presumably, though we don't know whether the son's alive or dead. i wonder if the book develops dane's character more....
but anyway, this is an interesting enough movie on its own to make it worth watching in general imo, however you end up choosing to interpret it. if you check it out, feel free to let me know what you think!

Comments

[shadowbliss]

Cool

[pendulumscale]

fuckin love this dumbass, self-isolation rat-man movie. i had no idea that stephen king was into it, but that doesn't surprise me. it's like the kind of movie/script he wishes he could wrote but he fuckin sucks at developing characters/relationships.

thats an interesting thought re: the movie being so macho. like id noticed that when we first watched it, but i guess i was so drawn in by the man vs nature thing (or man vs house......should be a genre of its own lol) that i didn't really think about it. damn, if you dont sometimes let in your boy best friends into your heart and open up to em about your problems, the foundation of your life will fall apart cause you gotta realize you cant handle it all on your own.

i wish i had a boss like dane. hes so chill about his employee having a month long mental breakdown and ruining his company sponsored dinner lol

[miscellanium]

tbh just more evidence for my position that king is a better storyteller than writer. he liked rituals too!

there's been a lot written about the house/home in horror films, especially for american films - it basically is a microgenre of its own already and i've seen people compare the amityville horror to hausu to paranormal activity.... but i think the house in unknown origin isn't a source of horror in the same way as amityville, the horror is more on a meta level as we see this guy destroy his own home like ahab sinking the pequod. which is arguably another story about the problems that arise when a man is determined to handle something all on his own, haha.

you're right, boss dane is incredibly chill about everything. maybe this is addressed in the original novel? or maybe this is a job for fanfiction lol