ALICE COOPER: ​THE ATTIC EXPEDITIONS BY WILLIAM TEA

 
You ever have a movie that feels like it’s yours? I’m talking about a movie that you love wholeheartedly, but that no one else ever seems to talk about, that a lot of people don’t even seem to know exists. A movie that just so perfectly checks off all the boxes of things that you love, so much so that you want to share it with the whole world, even though the fact that it’s so niche, so seemingly suited to you and you alone, makes doing that feel like a frivolous effort.

The Attic Expeditions is one of those movies for me.

The Attic Expeditions is what I generally refer to as a “mindfuck” movie. You know the type of thing: Think Jacob’s Ladder, Naked Lunch, or Lost Highway. Or, better yet, another unsung personal favorite of mine, 1997’s The Ugly. We’re talking about movies where reality itself is fluid, where cause and effect are divorced and distorted, and where the narrative adheres more to the logic of a dream than anything rational. Of course, “it was all a dream” is often used as a cheap explanation for the surrealism in such movies. Other reliable justifications include psychosis, supernaturalism, or even just plain ol’ mind games being played by a behind-the-scenes manipulator.

While The Attic Expeditions is not above employing such contrivances, it is noteworthy in that it truly goes for broke by using all of the above. The very concept of the “real” goes out the window entirely in the presence of such a tangled web of deception, illusion, hallucination, and mysticism.

Here’s the set-up: Trevor Blackburn (Andras Jones, best known for his bizarre kung-fu throwdown with an invisible Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master) is a mental patient in the care of the eccentric Doctor Ek (Jeffrey Combs). Though Ek tells Trevor that he was admitted after murdering his lover during a botched black magic ritual, Trevor himself remembers very little before the moment he woke up in the middle of a brain surgery procedure!

As part of Trevor’s recuperation/rehabilitation, Ek sends him to “The House of Love,” a halfway house full of headcases, each one weirder than the last, though none are really what they seem. There, Trevor finds a locked trunk hidden away in the attic, one which seems to hold the very memories he seeks. That’s when the murders begin.

Along for the ride are Douglas (Seth Green) another mental patient (or is he?) who quickly becomes Trevor’s confidante, and Doctor Coffee (Ted Raimi), who starts out as both a peer and a pupil to Ek but soon begins to question his mentor’s methods and motivations.

Eagle-eyed viewers will also notice Wendy Robie (“Nadine Hurley” on Twin Peaks), a young Tim Heidicker (one-half of comedy duo “Tim & Eric”), and, of course, shock rock’s living legend Alice Cooper in small roles. Though his screen time can be measured in single-digit minutes, Cooper steals the scene he’s in, portraying a raving lunatic who believe he’s shrinking (“Measure me,” he screams as orderlies drag him away, “Measure meeeee!”).
Sadly, there’s not much more to say about Cooper’s contribution here, although I will add that I think it might be one of his best acting performances of all time. Amazingly, that’s true of much of the rest of the cast as well. Though Combs, Green, Raimi, and even Jones are all much better known for other projects, I would argue that this overlooked little curiosity of a film contains some of their very best acting, in some cases even rivaling the roles they’re more popularly associated with.

Combs and Green in particular stand out. The former imbues his character with equal parts smug superiority, manufactured charm, and thinly veiled malevolence, while the latter takes cues from Brad Pitt’s twitchy turn in 12 Monkeys, but adds in a twist of dryly comic self-awareness that comes back to bite viewers who buy into his disarming charisma. It’s hard not to, when he gets all the best lines (asked why he’s in the nuthouse, his is-he-or-isn’t-he-serious response: “I cut off my testicles with a paring knife when they kicked me out of The Pink Floyd”).

It’s not surprising that The Attic Expeditions has long struggled to find an audience. General audiences seem to derive little to no entertainment from stories that “don’t make any sense,” let alone ones that don’t even try to. On top of that, the film’s low budget, quirky sense of humor, and methodic pacing have limited its crossover appeal, while its insular distribution by Blockbuster and overall lack of promotion swiftly relegated it to the clearance bin of Movies No One Has Ever Heard Of. And, yet, with its psychotropic blend of occultism, medical horror, sexuality, and paranoia, it stands out as a rough, admittedly awkward, but nonetheless engaging psychological horror headtrip.

First-time director Jeremy Katsen (who, among other things, would go on to helm the Wizard of Gore remake and the wraparound segment of the anthology film The Theatre Bizarre) is certainly no David Lynch or Dario Argento, but he synthesizes the flavor of both directors reasonably well and stirs in enough of his own vision and personality to cook up something unique that may taste downright strange the first time you take a bite, but gets better when you come back for seconds.

If all that isn’t enough to make you at least a little curious, then how about the fact that one of the characters is a ventriloquist with a foul-mouthed, googly-eyed, top hat-clad crocodile hand puppet which claims to have a consciousness of its own?

If that doesn’t sell you, nothing will.