I like the concept of religious films, or maybe I just hate atheists more, thanks Brad Jones. I would love to do a review of Left Behind: The Movie, but only if I can find it in the wild. For now, let's settle for something incredibly obscure.
I doubt this is religious, just felt like spouting more pointless self-trivia I guess.
Background
New World Order was directed by Jay Lee, never heard of him? Me either. You can find him tied to a number of generic horror flicks, but this is where he got his start as a director. Before then, he was a location manager and production assistant on scant projects. I don't have the highest expectations so far.
The movie never had any major distribution, so our only major company credit is Shoreline Entetainment, a sales company specializing in independent distribution, of varying degrees. While they're a well-established name these days, back then they handled z-grade, zero-budget garbage. Apparently they sold The Uniderground Comedy Movie, that obscure stinker by that Sham-Wow guy.
Their most major project in their early days was Dark Asylum, which was produced by Shoreline's founder Morris Ruskin, and I do want to see it, but the fact it's owned by LionsGate means they'd charge for rentals, I mean probably. Online or physical, it'd lead to giving money I'd never see again.
The film stars Lauren Fox, her most notable roles before then were in In and Out and Pi, but it seems she had dropped off. Somehow they got George Takei in this, everyone else has pictures to their credit, but there're too many to list and I never heard of them, if I listed them all it'd be longer than my actual discussion on the movie.
But speak of the devil
We start with the illuminati, no seriously, a triangle with an eye is the first thing shown, followed by occultist, religious and organizational imagery (you can apply to get yourself off the rolls in masonry if you're in good enough standing), set to stock footage of World War II and others, I'm guessing it's meant to represent popular conspiracies, but since this is right at the start I'm blind to their intent so far.
I'm reminded of The Republic, an aborted web series created by Ken Penders of all people. But even that was more cohesive than this.
We then meet our protagonist reading a diary entry by an occult novelist, and I had to get that from IMDb if I ever had a chance at following it the way I'm meant to. The narrative is split between the reader, our protagonist maybe, and the writer.
It goes to footage through the battery tunnel toward the MetLife building, I pass it nearly every time I go to work, it's not special. But I question how much perspective we see from the writer. Following more stock footage of New York, which goes to show how little of it has changed between 2000 to now (and though this movie was produced in 2002, little had truly changed.
Anyhow, the stock footage is useless as it goes right to the woman from the start discussing something with someone else. So far everything feels clunky, there's no solid progression. One second a book is being read, one second we go through different sections of New York, one second a conversation is occurring between the protagonist (I think) and an RA, one second someone else is introduced and the RA happens to leave.
Even Demon Island had better progression, at best the slower scenes happened closer to the end.
All I can say about this is that I admire old architecture.
So this is our protagonist, it seems, one who's been looking into the works of occultist authors. I'm expecting a twist, I don't know what kind just am. A common phrase you'd hear throughout this movie is "Noon blue apples", and it turns out this isn't traceable to real entries. In fact, this is the alternative title to the movie, which yields actual results, at least on Letterboxd. IMDb has the entry under New World Order for the record.
For now, the movie isn't that interesting, just spilling stuff in relation to the occult, but maybe it'll get better, this is only the first five minutes, let's give this another shot.
One hangup I have is that they're already interested in knowing more about the occult and have basic knowledge on it already. If you wanna peak my interest, have the protagonist already be blind to things like politics and... stuff, and as she looks more into them, finds it hard to keep to her beliefs.
Things of interest otherwise, the shop they go to looks fake but has a nice vibe, and the guy she's with gives me James Rolfe vibes, from the borderline thinning hair to asking for Rolling Rock. Most I picked up on the dialog was Hamlet and its connection to conspiracy.
Now, I'd like to say I'm interested in conspiracies myself, albeit unconventional ones. Like how the cartoon community is seeking to stifle MrEnter so they can prevent others from following his example and only present homogenized content meant to preserve an authoritarian atmosphere for cartoon reviews. Like how people only hated Donald Trump because he prevented the first female president from becoming so. Like how they only got Joe Biden so once he's no longer fit to serve they could give Kamala Harris his spot. Like how people are working to stifle Christians, they just write it off as nonsense to cover the trail. Like how Brad Jones is actually a grifter on religious and political content.
In other words, I'd like to believe I'm in the desired audience this movie is aiming for.
Eris, to give the protagonist the right name, hears interference on her walkman, or portable radio. I've seen transistor radios, this doesn't look like one here, and receives a message implying the inability to see the truth behind life. Then we just get jogging, before, and after, and the only thing significant is a masonry icon, and the number 58 apparently, but wait, this is actually alluding to a falsified sports event, which was all part of a mockumentary.
The Noon Blue Apples alludes to a painting, this predates the DaVinci Code, even the book if you could believe it. But then, we get an intensive looking in a bookstore scene on conspiracy stuff, but then again it's implied this was part of an assignment. All I got from this is that someone may have the hots for Eris.
It then goes to a sermon out of nowhere, no progression of Eris from the bookstore to there, unless this is showing us where conspiracies are the most common.
In another cut, it's Eris back to her room, and with her roommate, a discussion on late actor Vic Tayback's connection to the Kennedy assassination. Is this gonna be more hoakey than ROCK: It's Your Decision? Probably not. They then go into a discussion on Paul McCartney actually being dead, though at this rate with his ego and how he helped to destroy Lisa Simpson, all I'm gonna say is that the wrong Beatle died.
Here's another problem, all else from here on out is an information dump. Now sure, this movie is about conspiracies, but that's its downfall. It would be more interesting if a singular conspiracy had been the focal point from the start. My best hope is that she becomes obsessed with conspiracies. This may be shown as she hears conspiracies nonstop again through the interference on her walkman.
If you're out of the loop on known conspiracies, it'll be hard for you to follow along here. I get what they're going for here, but it really does feel like an info-dump, and I don't really know how I'm supposed to feel at this point. All I can gather is that everyone in this world is crazy, one you push the right buttons. There's less substance than Night of the Twisters, but at the very least it's not a boring lack of substance.
It feels as though they want to make the conspiracies feel as stupid as possible, while holding some kind of validity, where the points are delivered at face value with no expectancy of anyone buying it. This is a good approach to sharing beliefs, just share, don't cram, and by cram here I mean go on and on.
Then all of a sudden, well after constant research, Eris is all up in them conspiracies, and either her friends are the same, or not, I really don't know. They really need to get organized. They can call this movie Conspiracies for Dummies and get away with what it had.
I get where they're going with this and I appreciate the dedication on explaining these conspiracies, but some organization, even singular dedication, would've made it better.
But I kinda get my wish, noon blue apples is brought up and it's enough to cause the typical drop something in shock cliche. It was about a half hour before we got back to this, the remaining runtime is more than that so, go figure. We get more of the same, but at least now we get it in the main point of the film.
A bulk of the discussion is handled by a guy named Zeus, who has the same energy as a college professor at a liberal arts school, in other words, it's cool.
And this is a recurring theme for a stark bulk of the movie, going back to other conspiracies. I'm hoping this is a character deconstruction, that's the only means for justification. I'm not gonna lose my mind over slowburns, but I just want some stronger consistency, so I'm jumping around a bit, less I want to make this redundant.
I think I found something though, they throw in clues to conspiracies. The aforementioned masonic symbol, the 58, and I found an obscure one, Bob Dobbs, Church of the Subgenius. So if you're not in tune with the discussions, this is like a glorified I Spy of conspiracy symbolism. But with those constant interference messages, maybe her mind is getting fucked up?
There is a decent build to suspense, not suspense to something, but suspense in general. They were cutting it close here, less than two minutes to the hour mark.
The flow is getting a little better here when Eris feels something is wrong, leading to a decent joke when she sees her roommate again, and hey, the suspense grows ever more stronger.
So soon she gets a lead on the message, noon blue apples is an anagram basically stating "I am the messenger of god.", then whatever of the conversation, as we still have much of the movie this won't cut it for the conclusion.
One fault I noticed is the echo effect, it sounds clunky, you gotta be there.
And for now, there isn't that much else to talk about, all that's left is further deciphering Noon Blue Apples and possibly more explaining, plus whatever the ending may hold. But so far it's more engaging than Night of the Twisters. I'm willing to sit through to the end, and hey, insanity is a slow burn.
After what seems to be a long nightmare sequence of a night club and a graffitied bathroom, it seems Eris is reaching the end of her journey, where she is given a misanthropic anecdote about the expendability of the human race. The tension is levied with a little humor, Eris' one question to whom she is brought to is on the Paul McCartney theory.
After a while of losing myself in the narrative, we cut back to what I assume was a long dream sequence had during an interview with a clergy woman, but this cuts away too, I guess to convey the loss of sanity. She finds Zeus dead in the fashion of Jesus Christ, and his associates come to Eris, who has been driven insane with all she learned.
This goes back to a conspiracy on a typo regarding a biblical translation, where what was actually stated was that the world was wrought by female gods. We get to the New World Order aspect on Eris being invited to share what she knows. Turns out Zeus may've faked his death which was in order to get Eris to share.
At this rate I'm expecting her to die or just lose, but she puts up a decent verbal fight, even what sounds like wooden acting from Zeus has a nice delivery to it. The ending, while bitter, actually fits for the journey Eris took. She is driven to the roof by the cops due to them carrying a two striked cross (which I forgot the name of), and they went into detail on how it was used to shape geometrical imagery, with geometry being deemed a dark art. And then suicide. Why not? I do love how the people Eris fraternized with had the decency to leave after the fact, even Zeus was kind enough to pull the other girl away before she can get the book.
It's the little things. Also apparently nothing was in the book, perhaps to drive home the general futility in exploring conspiracies? They cut to four people, seemingly at random, but I do recognize at three of them from earlier in the film.
But you wanna know the biggest twist of all? It turns out Noon Blue Apples was actually just a masonic prank. The biggest drive to insanity was "It's just a prank bro" several years in advance. They saved this from being totally contrived by having it play out during the climax and before Eris' insanity truly took hold. So good on them.
Closing thoughts
The movie is a slow burn. It starts out a bit boring if you don't have the interest in popular conspiracies but when it hooks, it hooks. The movie is kinda like a conspiracy-themed ROCK: It's Your Decision, but the horror isn't by accident here, it's an effective deconstruction of one's psyche as they try to get to the bottom of a major conspiracy.
It may seem over the top at times, but that usually happened when Eris got further down the line.
It's sad this never got a major distribution deal, it would've held its head high above other movies at the time. I'm not asking for a Hollywood distributor, anyone could've done it, LionsGate, First Look Media, DEJ Productions, hell Artisan Entertainment's best films are its psychological deconstructions, they distributed Pi.
This is one of the most underrated films I've ever seen, and if you have the patience for it, you're bound to get a lot from it. I wrote the review as I watched it, so you caught my interest gradually increase in spite of all the babbling, but then again I had nothing to add to it since they were just discussions on conspiracies.
The technical aspects are a little off and even some scene cuts can come off as jarring, but that's just marginal issues, I don't think the director intended this movie to get that far, so way to craft a hidden gem Jay.
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