Some of us watch horror films every day or almost that, the genre a fact of life rather than some mystical font of fear, I don't by and large approach the genre looking for fear and I'm not sure I know of many serious fans who do. And yet these films still work for us or work upon us, in such a way that a chord is struck and the viewing becomes valuable. Hallucinations may not be a film of great note, but it does approach the genre and its foundations in an unexpectedly interesting fashion, making somewhat astute comment on its operation. Especially unexpected given that it happens to be the debut film from the Polonia Brothers, Mark and John (RIP) who were best known for making a lot of films viewed by much of their audience as among the worst ever. Together with Todd Michael Smith they play three brothers left home alone when their mother has to work late. Frictions arise and grow between smart John, slow Mark and fractious adopted Todd, especially when a series of progressively bizarre and threatening hallucinations set in. Initially the hallucinations are fairly standard spooky affair, the sort of thing one could easily imagine result harmlessly from a young imagination fed on horror literature and cinema. A book about Herschell Gordon Lewis is shown, as is a Stephen King title and a poster for The Return of the Living Dead, standard stuff to breed standard fantasies. But without any figure to bring the brothers back to reality their fantasies move from the outside to the in, becoming body horror. Urination, defecation, vomiting and more are clearly alluded to, the implication being that the commercial horror referenced previously finds its roots, its essence in the body, the body and awareness of the body and its function. And as the film goes on it moves deeper, predictably finding the spring that feeds said roots. Its surprisingly well handled stuff until some needless exposition in the finale, yes the acting is not especially worth of the term, the film is unimaginatively shot on unattractive video and sometimes the blood is rather pink of hue, but it moves at a good clip and delivers several arresting scenes of grisly weirdness, even managing to mildly disquiet in the process with its ideas. It is not something I can really recommend to anyone other than devotees of 80's SOV horror or strangeness, but to those that way inclined this is well worth a watch. 7/10
