THE JAR (1984)

No sooner do I finish watching Best Worst Movie do I put a film that is actually, legitimately worst than Troll 2.


The film opens with blackness. A voice explains, "I consume the lifeless moments of shadows, the flickering seconds of memories. I stand on the edge of darkness. I am the night." And so on.

The voice belongs to Paul (Gary Wallace), a balding, bearded "meek-ling" (TM) wrapped in a comfortable 80s sweater.


One night, Paul is driving down a road (re: obviously sitting in a car someplace dark as water is trickled over the windshield) when he finds a man on the side of the road. The grizzled old man (who could've been played by John Carradine) is rambling and holding something wrapped in brown paper. He won't go to a hospital and doesn't want to go home, so Paul takes the old man to his apartment. We see every second of their leaving the vehicle, entering the building, going upstairs, and entering the apartment.

Seconds later, the old man has vanished, leaving behind the thing. Paul unwraps it and finds a jar with an inanimate blue demon fetus puppet inside. Well, I assume it's in the jar. All we ever see is him looking down, and then the extreme close-up of the demon puppet.

Weird nonsense begins happening. Paul's bathtub fills with tomato soup and a boy emerges from it. Then it's gone. He brushes his teeth and in the darkness behind him the old man suddenly appears (re: he turns on a flashlight pointed at his face. And after he turns it off, you can still see him standing in the dark!). He takes a shower, and he's awash in a green light (Oh, there's a green switch. It was there all the time!) before plummeting into, I guess, a pit of some sort. Suddenly, he's back in his apartment, naked and curled. He stands and we see... IT! (*gasp*)

All of this is done without any dialogue, just an occasional anguished yell from Paul, which is as atrociously acted as the rest of his performance. Annoyed, he announces his meek resolution that he's not going to take this anymore and tosses the jar into a receptacle behind a building somewhere.

In the elevator, he meets a nice girl named Crystal (Karin Sjoberg). He offers to carry her rocking chair for her and she immediately likes him. They have coffee, and he makes a total Annakin of himself, talking about his severe problems and constantly looking like he's being scanned. Still, they make plans to get together later.

We also learn that Paul was in a terrible car accident that traumatized him. "I think it messed up my head more than anything else." Is he being haunted or is he having severe hallucinations because his brain's broken? Neither. It's just a crappy, pretentious art film.


When not putting around his actual apartment, he's transported places like a park on a sunny day, where he watches kids on a merry-go-round. Then, he's back home and a monster arm comes from no where and knocks him down. This annoys him, so he shouts, "It's got to stop! I'm not going to let you keep haunting me! I'm not going to let you keep tearing me apart!" (This is done meekly, without the panache of, say, a Tommy Wiseau.) Apparently back in possession of the jar, he gets a heavy metal rod and smashed it with a palpable strike. Problem solved? Nope. We're not even halfway finished yet!

Shortly after his chum or his boss Jack shows up for some light chatting, Jack opens a box. It's filled with light! He's suddenly running down a street in the rain (re: comically running in place!) and Crystal is there, photographed in blue and green light! She impales his face with a thing of long nails. After, an unseen force tears through his paperboard wall. These scenes are all as disjointed as I'm making them seem, by the way.

On his way to dinner with Crystal, the world is filmed in a stark blue-gray and they use a smoke machine. He even walks starkly, though his meek 80s sweater betrays any potential toughness. A handsome teen is swept off by a man with a giant meat hook. He gives chase. The boy and Paul now stand on a roof as smoke blows "artistically" around them. The boy, I think, is daring him to jump, but Paul just runs away.


He arrives at dinner, and moments later is shouting at Crystal. She takes it with aplomb, which impresses Paul, who says, like a true creep, "Normally when you yell at a stranger they tell you to go to hell! But not you."

After dinner, a stranger says something ominous then either dies or disintegrates. Paul gets home and stares into TV static. An old man, a stranger, holds up the Death tarot card (?). Another anguished scream. He walks down a dark street with a flare. In his apartment, he looks like he's being scanned again. He pleads with the jar again, again with meek resolve, and throws the jar out onto the street or a puddle. It explodes again.

He then opens a closet door and suddenly he's outside, in the hills during the day, where some monks are carrying a cross through a valley. Then, it becomes a battlefield, complete with barbed wire, machine guns and a helicopter! Another anguished scream.

Returned, he has fantasy sex with Crystal. He then finds real Crystal and pleads desperately for help. Here's the big twist: He embraces her and she becomes... the old man! In a panic, he kills the old man, but really he's killed innocent Crystal. He brushes away some ash or dirt from the floor or a plant or something and sees a face. Another anguished scream.


Jack shows up. The apartment is empty. He sees the jar, and now he screams in terror. The end.

The Jar is a terrible, awful film. The jacket says the thing in the jar is trying to possess Paul. That's false. It's just one bad, pretentious scene after another. Nothing makes sense. It just tries to wow you with its mood and all the "psychological" images and leaps to places unknown, but it is a total failure. Think Pi without the plot or the art or any semblance of talent.

Not only is, effectively, nothing happening, but it is also a badly made film. It was filmed on video. They used only the lamps in the room. Actors are WAY out of frame. Entire scenes are shot out of focus! And these are clearly all first takes. I'll forgive it's cheapness. I understand ambition. But, clearly, it's a case where they're working with nothing, but they have a camera.

Its greatest failing is that the actor who plays Paul is awful. We never once see a character, just a bad actor. He's thoroughly unlikable. All we're seeing is a meek, sweaty creep. I couldn't care less about his situation. And every single line, every single moment is acted wrong. Not just badly, but wrong. It is a total failure of a performance.

The whole thing is awful, but like a lesser Troll 2 or The Room.

This does have done redeeming element, though. The music. The film has an excellent 80s synth score by Obscure Sighs (how apropos) that plays throughout. It makes for a great film to listen to in the background, especially since nothing's happening on screen.

The Jar has 87 votes on IMDb HERE. It can be purchased on VHS on Amazon HERE.