Good concept, poorly executed.

Boring

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

Back when I was a pre-teen thumbing through the horror sections of movie review books, I came across a picture called "The Jar." A sucker for weirdness, I was intrigued by the description of a man who can't rid himself of the terror born by a demonic jar. Sure, the reviewer said the movie was inexcusable, but I didn't care. I had to see this film! For more than a decade, I scouted 99-cent bins and garage sales, hoping it would turn up. Then I found a copy on eBay for $8. Finally, this oddity would be part of my collection.After just watching - no, enduring - "The Jar", I'm a lot less enthusiastic. As so many reviewers at IMDb have duly noted, the movie is pure, unadulterated crap, and not even in a good way. Sure, there is an instance or two when the sheer gobbledygook generates an unintended laugh, but that's not nearly enough to save it from its fate as one of the all-time worst pictures. This isn't a B-movie; it's a Z-movie.Despite the cool box cover, depicting a ghoulish little creature ready to pounce out of a jar, the storyline is hopelessly dull. Protagonist Paul (played by Gary Wallace, who hadn't been heard from before this movie and hasn't been heard from since) selflessly brings a creepy old man to his apartment after a car accident. But along for the trip is a mysterious object wrapped in brown paper - the title object, as we soon learn. From the moment the jar is in his apartment, Paul endures a series of horrific visions that rank as some of the most incomprehensible jumble ever filmed. Nothing - not even shattering the jar into a thousand pieces - can shake the curse. Paul seeks out his friendly female neighbor for help, but she morphs into the creepy old man. Then Paul finds a severed head buried in a planter. The end. At least that's what's decipherable. To gain a better understanding of this mess, you'll have to track down writer George Bradley or director Bruce Toscano. Of course you might have a hard time since neither one had been heard from before this movie or has been heard from since.What else can be said? The acting in "The Jar" is indescribably bad, making the cast of "The Beast of Yucca Flats" look like Oscar nominees. Wallace is particularly awful as he wanders around aimlessly, occasionally letting loose the most unconvincing of screams and outbursts. Special effects? We are literally talking kids-in-the-basement type fare. In one scene, when Paul is cut, you can see where the camera stopped so the fake blood tube could be put into place. Production quality? The visuals are shaky, very poorly lit and at times out of focus. Character's heads cropped out of the frame for no reason. The end credits are virtually impossible to read and have no musical accompaniment. Have you ever seen a movie whose end credits have no sound?And so there it is. Like so many reviewers before me, I have to strongly advise against watching "The Jar." Sure, all of our descriptions of how bad it is may leave you curious. You may feel like you have to see it for yourself. "I like bad movies. I'll be fine," you might be saying in all your infinite wisdom. Listen, I like bad movies as much as the next guy. But when people talk about liking bad movies, they're really talking about "good bad movies." This one's just bad. And unpleasant. And dreadful. You will be a worse person for seeing it. How it ever made it onto the shelves of our video stores against such implausible odds will forever remain a curiosity in silver screen history.

Ths Jar, released in 1984, follows the day to day life of Paul as his life changes for the eerie after picking up a creepy old hitchiker. The old man vanishes but not before he leaves a mysterious object in a paper bag,hence-the jar. Paul then starts to experience strange illusions, one of which has his bath tub fill up with blood in which we get to witness some really cheap camera-trickish special effects. Paul then meets a new female neighbor, who seems to take an instant interest in dating him, despite the fact that she barely knows him and that he acts extremely quiet and creepy. This film is a complete mess from start to finish.There are so many meaningless points of this film-a part when we watch from the outside as Paul goes into a candy store and buys candy, we do not see him inside, but watch the door for 30 seconds.Its as though the filmmakers were just to lazy to get permission to shoot a scene inside.The female lead is a character that contributes absolutely nothing to this movie.All we know about her is that she has an attraction for schizophrenic single white males and bad movie roles(this movie). The acting is worse than "cue card reading" acting, the characters are shallow and out of place, the camera work is so much off its pathetic, and the special effects look like something out of a bargain bin.I do not recommend this film. This movie makes the countless slashers with masked killers look like masterpieces.

I must say I'm a glutton for punishment. I rented "The Jar" simply because I knew nothing about it and it cost a mere ninety-nine cents. The sad fact of the matter is I should have checked imdb.com first. Perhaps had I done this, I could have saved myself the agony. Scratch that...I'll rent almost anything for a dollar without first considering that I'm sacrificing precious time as well.The film begins with a motorist picking up a bizarre old man after an accident. Instead of taking him to a hospital or to the police, he brings the crazed old coot to his apartment. The man soon disappears, leaving behind a jar containing a hideous demonic thing. It is not long before it begins to grate at the man's sanity, causing hallucinations, mood swings, paranoia, and depression. This ultimately endangers his job, the potential for romance with a new neighbor, and perhaps even his life."The Jar" is little more than a forum for a load of disjointed, barely related, surreal visions. The overall effect is to bore the viewer to tears. Decent acting? Continuity? Look elsewhere for these elements. They are absent from this film. Any reasonable person will grant that "The Jar" was hampered by a low budget. However, budget cannot be an excuse for a film this bad, certainly the worst I've seen in 2002.

The plot involves a hairy guy named Paul who picks up a creepy old man who was injured in a car accident. The old man insists on taking along this jar wrapped in a bag. Paul takes the old man back to his (Paul's) apartment, the old man vanishes and Paul is left with this jar, which contains this little blue monster that looks like one of the Ghoulies. After that, things get weird as Paul hallucinates and/or dreams all this stuff.I suppose there could be some symbolism in the film, but we know nothing about Paul before the dreams start, and the dreams seem to have no connection to anything that is happening. My theory is that the director or writer or whoever it was that decided to make this movie took all the weird dreams he had had in his life and rolled them into this painful film. None of the dreams are memorable enough to require a visual translation, though, so they're quite boring to watch. This begs the question of why he decided to do it.This movie has the feel of a really bad student film. Someone attempting to make an "arty" movie.Another interesting thing about this film is that it was made in Colorado, but appears to be badly dubbed. All the characters have these dull, out-of-place voices that don't seem to match their faces. It reminds me of B-Movies from the '60s like "Manos: The Hands of Fate" and "The Beast of Yucca Flats" that were either recorded without sound or had the sound erased, and then tried to put sound back in in post-production.I think this is a bad movie, but I'm no expert. There could be some deep meaning to this film that I don't get. Give it a rent and see for yourself.