I honestly have no idea why Ruben Galindo Jr’s film is titled Don’t Panic (aka Dimensiones Ocultas, which sounds suspiciously more accurate to me)
outside of the fact that it’s also the title of the steadfastly Eighties song
sung by the film’s lead, Jon Michael
Bischof. When Michael’s (Bischof) jerkwad pals show up after his
seventeenth birthday party is already over, he panics. His drunk mother might hear them. When his helmet-haired bestie Tony (Juan Ignacio Aranda) starts playing
with the Ouija board that he and the rest of the gang gifted to Michael, he
panics. Don’t they believe in the
Devil?! When Michael starts having
visions of a demonic killer picking off his buddies and his eyes turn red (not
bloodshot, but red), he panics. That
last one, at least, I can understand.
It can certainly be argued that
just about any (if not every) film involving teenagers being either stalked by
monsters/slashers or turning into monsters/slashers is actually a film dealing
with sexual frustration/awakening (I suppose the argument could be made to
encompass all films involving teens, period).
Don’t Panic is no
different. Michael, we are lead to
believe, is a virgin. He has a “golly
gee” sense of puppy love, and this is directed toward Alexandra (Gabriela Hassel). The two play hooky from school and enjoy a
light, pleasant dating montage that’s as syrupy as it is superficial. Alexandra is also a virgin, but she seems to
handle it better than Michael (even though she expresses her vast love for him
after knowing him for one day). Michael
is coded as so nascently pubescent (despite his actual age), he wears
children’s pajamas (they have little, colorful dinosaurs on them; everything
but the footies), he doesn’t bat an eye about wearing them out in public, and strangest
of all, no one ever comments on this. He
has no car, riding a bike everywhere. He
gives Alexandra a “Magic Rose” that will never wither “as long as love exists
between [the] two.” Michael is a child
doing childish things, and the concept of love in this film is just as
simplistic. Pretty in Pink this ain’t.
All of Michael’s sexual frustrations
start after messing with the Ouija board, which is also the night he is
introduced to Alexandra. Many times, his
visions happen at night when he’s sleeping, and they typically end with him
springing out of bed, a reference to the dreaded wet dreams of teenaged boys
everywhere (with blood being dripped on his face, a substitute for ejaculate). The blood red eyes that he gets at the most
inopportune times is the equivalent of the erections boys get when sitting in
class, idly considering sex with all of the women in their lives, or bouncing
around on just the right seat on the school bus (or, let’s be honest, for
absolutely no reason at all other than for their dicks to make them aware that
they’re awake and have had a full pot of coffee). The visions of Virgil (did I forget to
mention that, according to this film, the Devil uses the alias of Virgil?) slaying
other young teens (with a giant dagger; get it?) is the peristaltic contraction
of Michael’s sexual vexation. Even after
Michael and Alexandra have sex, Michael can’t deal with the relationship
maturely, because the whole of his being is subsumed by hormones, and the
killings and visions continue. He has a
hard time even facing Alexandra, perhaps embarrassed by the intimacy they
shared. Michael’s maturity (or what
maturity this film will allow any of its characters to attain) is shown in a
scene where he throws his toys around his room and tears down the car posters
from his walls (the act itself is still immature, however; it’s the realization
that maturity needs to happen, whether Michael likes it or not). Virgil continues to stalk Michael and his friends,
an omnipresent avatar of the sexual spark that has been ignited in Michael, one
over which he still has no control.
Similarly, Virgil is a metaphor
for the domestic stress in Michael’s life.
His mother is an alcoholic. We
assume that this addiction kicked in after her husband left her or was part of
the reason why he did. Michael’s dad is
absent from his life, sending money on occasion, never having time to see his
son. Naturally, these are the things
Michael’s folks argue about whenever they speak. In this sense, the murders are a means for
Michael to vent about the tensions at home.
Note that Virgil doesn’t stalk adults, because they hold authority over
Michael. His targeted victims are
Michael’s peers, a means of becoming king of the heap, as it were, to mirror
the beastliness of the adults in Michael’s life and gain control over some
aspect of his life. In other words, to
become an adult. This also ties in with
Michael’s sense of sexual frustration, because his mother is the only woman he
has had in his life for some time. She
saunters around the house in silky robes and negligees, constantly trying to
touch and comfort him, while still convinced he’s going crazy. Since sex with his mother would be
transgressive, Virgil gives Michael an equally satisfying (and somehow less
transgressive) outlet for the Oedipal feelings he may be harboring.
Let me be clear; this film is a
mess. Its story is as vanilla as a bean,
the characters are, by turns, stultifyingly bland and obnoxious, and the
effects work floats along at about sea level.
And yet, there is an otherworldly dementia at play that makes it kind of
enjoyable. This is the sort of cinematic
world where a character stops to buy smokes while he’s supposed to be sitting
watch over an intended victim, where a character thinks that a Ouija board is
THE FUNNIEST THING EVER, where a character shoots up his girlfriend’s house
after being the most dreadful, uninvited dinner guest in the history of cinema
(and that’s okay in the end). The film
can’t really decide if it wants to be more of a domestic melodrama or a
supernatural slasher (and in either capacity it’s a fairly rote, drab affair),
so it splits the difference and gifts the audience with these surreal bits and
character traits. It’s essential viewing
in the same way that P.T. Barnum’s
“Feejee Mermaid” is: you don’t believe a lick of it, but you’re drawn in by its
horrific mishmash of oddball pieces.
MVT: Michael’s petulant
man-child persona is truly one for the ages.
Make or Break: The opening
birthday/post-birthday party sequence cements the full flavor of this
particular dish: simultaneously mundane and arch.
Score: 6.5/10
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