Pick for the Weekend: Remote Control (1988)

– Remote Control is the movie for the weekend. In this section every Saturday or Sunday Celluloid Dimension picks a movie for the weekend. The selections are preferably underrated movies or neglected movies that we think should get more attention. Have fun with these recommendations. –

Remote Control (1988) Directed by Jeff Lieberman

Jeff Lieberman’s nostalgic romp reminisces about 50’s allegorical sci-fi horror extravaganzas deep into the golden 80’s during the video rental fever in this wonderfully eye-catching meta-film yarn, or should I say…meta-videotape? In a confident sense of pop panache, cult horror director Lieberman introduces the memorable juvenile hero of this itinerant plot about alien conspiracy and VHS nightmare, Kevin Dillon plays Cosmo, an assertive and sympathetic L.A. video store clerk who gets embroiled in a bizarre event that involves the technological spectrum, a TV, a VCR, and a freaking videotape that masquerades as a goofy sci-fi B-movie of the 50’s but actually its mere viewing has deadly implications -sort of like Ringu before Ringu. It serves as both a piece of video rental culture and a homage to 50’s sci-fi filmmaking, and the rapid-fire storyline is permanently smart in its interchangeability of 50’s McCarthyite paranoia with late 80’s American Reaganism. Solid proof that to be socially critical, a film doesn’t necessarily have to engage in cerebral, academic musings. Part critique of the hazards of feverish nationalism and part populist diversion. It might appear archaic to new generations and the third act might be too far-fetched, but for those of us who were lucky enough to have tasted the comfort of a video store, we know that those were the days of a more civilized cinephilia.