REFLECTIONS OF EVIL

“Kim’s customers loved that we had commercially unavailable videos: bootlegs, originals or dubs of foreign releases, and copies of films provided by the directors themselves. These tended to live in the ‘Experimental’ or ‘Cult’ sections. Reflections of Evil, a self-distributed two-and-a-half-hour assault on commercial movies, good taste, and cinema as you know it was one such title. Writer/director/star Damon Packard creates what seems to me the closest equivalent to what Timothy Carey might have been making had he directed more than one feature, or lived to further experiment with consumer video tools. Any synopsis or summary (the film has a plot only in the way surrealist, underground films have plots) fails to convey what this abrasive, revolting, hilarious, and disreputable film offers, but suffice to say it is exactly the type of ‘only at Kim’s’ cinematic ephemera that kept customers wary of, and receptive to, future recommendations.”—Alex Ross Perry