 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 | 🎙️ EPISODE 517: 07.25.22  This one, perhaps, holds the distinction as having the worst video quality of a movie reviewed on this site. TAke a look, y'all: IMG_4346.jpeg. I'm not sure what this is a transfer from, because it's broken down into 8 parts (maybe cheap LaserDisc?). There's about five minutes early on that are completely unwatchable. Anyway, it looks like shit which is fitting because the movie is also (mostly) shit. Written and directed by Nicholas Jacobs (whose only other feature credit is an impossible-to-google, anti-Bush political satire from 2004 called, Weapon of Mass Destruction), The Refrigerator is about as deep as it's one sentence tagline would indicate: "The film tells the story about a couple that move into an apartment in New York with a refrigerator that contains the portal to hell." And, yes, that is certainly what this movie is about! |
Steve, Nanny and Eileen throw a party at their apartment one night. The refrigerator brings the other kitchen appliances to life and begins slaughtering the guests. Juan ties the refrigerator shut, and the surviving guests flee. Later, another couple is shown interested in buying the apartment.None of that happens! (as you'll see) I can't imagine there are multiple versions of this floating around, but oh well... it will just have to remain one of the great mysteries of time (either that, or I cut open a hole in the multiverse?).
The film begins with a rowdy, horny, drunk couple returning to their crappy NYC apartment. They start to get it on before the fat dude looks like he's gonna have a heart attack. The girl goes to get a drink of water and the refrigerator comes to life and eats her. Title card drop. It's dumber than a rock, but also fantastic...
RIP lady (we never find out what happened to that guy btw)
Much of this film is soundtracked by salsa/Latin music, which is probably the funniest choice for a score to a movie about a killer fridge.
We're then introduced to Steve, a totally normal guy in a totally normal scene...
what was his job in Ohio? a gourmet cheese salesman at a cake shop?
Steve is a newlywed and he and his wife Eileen are preparing for a big move out of the sticks in Ohio to New York City. He picks her up at a school where she works for a teacher. They are young and they are free...
seems like an unnatural amount of prolonged screaming, no?
Eileen's mom tells her about melons before they leave...
goddam that melon squish sound FX is gross
They rent (or buy? this part is unclear) an apartment in the East Village on Avenue D from the sketchiest dude imaginable (he calls is "Avenue Diablo" hmm). As they leave town, the first of two songs play that were clearly written for the film as it features the characters' names and explains the plot. It's hilarious...
"you sly fish, you old kissing fish, you" ... classic husband talk
As the song tells us, Eileen has big plans to become a Broadway star and Steve is gonna help her by being a supportive man. There are actually some interesting domestic relationship beats/undertones and commentary in this. I mean, it's not flushed out or expanded on or handled with anything resembling competency, but they are present!
There first night in town, Steve calls his wife a "kissing fish" (again) and then has a dream involving dry ice and two miniature people talking to him inside the haunted refrigerator (the guy ends up being his boss, whom he hasn't met yet IRL but don't worry about it)...
he is the WAFFLEMAKER!
He wakes up in a manic state and begins to make waffles before he realizes he has got to get to work. Eileen gets a call about an audition for a Broadway show (wow that was fast!) and drinks a Budweiser in the morning as she pretends to accept a Tony Award...
fantasies just hit better with a morning brewsky
The fridge sort of comes alive here and lures her into the freezer with some ice cream. It tries to capture her arm but she pulls it out, sustaining a minor scrape. She also finds some strange bloody bones in the drawer and it rips her dress as she's making soup. Then Juan, the building super/plumber shows up, to fix their toilet and stuff. Juan is originally from Bolivia, where he was once a dancer...
sick moves, Juan!
Eileen is going to be later for her audition as crap just keeps holding her up (Juan's dancing, a phone call from her husband, etc.). The last straw is when she can't find her keys...
I love how the drums build up in this scene for real
She misses her appointment and then the fridge magically opens, revealing her keys inside. The soup is burning and she's very upset. We then get the first of a couple very odd flashbacks to her as child, crying and telling her mother that she'll be a good girl. Later, when Eileen's husband returns from work, he finds her in a distraught state. To make her feel better, he brings her to the hottest restaurant in New York City: The Doghouse, a restaurant where the waiters are dressed like dogs...
being from the area, I can vouch that his in fact the nicest place in NYC
Look. This movie is incredibly stupid and bad, but I have to say that its two leads have a little something. They're both really going for it, and Steve (Dave Simonds, who would go onto play a government agent in not one, but two 1997 A-list features: The Peacemaker starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman, and Conspiracy Theory starring Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts) is especially good as the constantly annoyed hubby trope.
That night, Eileen wakes in a dream state to find ghoulish versions of her mom (in a French maid outfit?), her husband (with a mousetrap stuck on his ear?), and lastly... A FETUS, before it spits up a bunch of blood...
I love Steve's stance in front of the open fridge there
The fetus is in reference to a conversation they had earlier about having kids. Eileen is on the fence about it, but Steve wants her to start popping out babies ASAP. Classic wife/husband dynamics.
Later that day, Juan shows up with his an assistant to do some work around the apartment as Eileen goes out for some fresh air. Juan leaves and the fridge eats his helper guy...
I actually found this clip on YouTube as a standalone in much better resolution!
Meanwhile, Eileen finds a shaman lady in a shack in the middle of the city who also ends up being her neighbor? She says a bunch of cryptic shit about the male-driven society, and then there's another cool song about what's happening in the plot...
the composers for this music are listed as Christopher Burke, Adam Roth and Don Peterkofsky, and there's basically no info online about them not related to these songs
That night Eileen returns home and finds a black cat in the fridge. She tries to hold it, but it scratches her before jumping out of the window. Later that night Steve returns and they begin to hook up but it's too hot in the bedroom without air-conditioning. So, Steve does what anyone of us would do in this situation. He opens the haunted fridge, puts a fan inside it, a blanket down in front of it, and says "here we go!" ...
his response to the haunted fridge leaking blood is WAY too casual imo
So after a night of sex in front of a fridge that's leaking blood, Eileen gets up and cooks her man a huge breakfast like a good little wife. And Steve tells her a dream he had about eating with his future kids and he describes cooking sausage as "pressing down on their little brown bodies with a spatula" which is easily the most fucked-up thing in this entire film...
again — even though it's handled worse than poorly — the stuff about domesticity, and the strain/pressure that comes with it, is clear
Then, against Eileen's wishes, her mother shows up for a visit unannounced. She somewhat comes clean here about not always being the best mom and the pressures she's felt to live up to the ideal of the perfect wife/mother. She offers to clean the apartment while Eileen steps out and, well...
all of the FX of the killer fridge are basically handled differently each time
Looking for her mom, Eileen goes up to the roof where she finds the shaman and Juan in another shack and they just straight up tell her that her refrigerator is the gateway to hell!!! ...
yeah they literally just told it was the gateway to hell so I think it's safe to assume it's "possessed" lol
Also, don't think we didn't see whatever the heck that weird man/water faucet thing was supposed to be...
Honestly love this ☝️
So Eileen tells Steve that their fridge is the gateway to hell and — typical MAN behavior — he tells her that they're just trying to scare them into selling so they lose money? Not sure Steve is the financial mastermind he thinks he is. In another dream state, Eileen sees the actual gateway and there are zombie people trying to lure her inside, including her mom...
why wouldn't you want to come along!
Then, a fed-up Eileen decides to do battle with the evil appliance...
PLUNGER. MOUSE TRAP. DEFROST. ACTION HOUSEWIFE.
It spits out Juan's friend's head and her mother's arm. But when Juan shows up it's just a melon and some carrots.
Well, at this point, she's pretty damn done with the whole situation and she tells her husband that he's got to get rid of the fridge AT LEAST. But fridges cost like $300 or $400, he tells her. (Being a WOMAN, she just doesn't understand that.) And they get into a pretty big fight about it which includes Steve literally explaining what it is a refrigerator does...
just gotta give your wife some pills to make everything better, that's all
Eileen ends up taking the Valium he brings her and drifts off to sleep. Then, later that night, Steve has a final encounter with the fridge which begins with it spitting out toilet paper tentacles or something? ...
Then he sees his tiny little boss inside the fridge and, possessed, he tries to carry Eileen through the gateway but she stabs him with a kitchen knife...
his little kissing fish, the one that got away...
Then, the shaman, Juan and some totally random guy we've never seen before show up. Juan lassos the fridge (LOL) but a ton of other appliances also come to life and they comically slaughter the shaman and the random dude. It's a delirious scene and totally worth the 80-minute wait...
love how they just included this random guy so they could do one more on-screen kill
Cut to some time in the future, and Juan and Eileen are a couple now, living out their dreams as performers doing a special Bolivian dance...
why does the camera linger on this little stage manager dude lol
And that's that. The final scene is of a bunch of guys cleaning out the apartment for its not next apparent victims. Then sketchy landlord guy who rented the place spits out the window, hitting two guys below who get super pissed off about being spit upon, and then it says "THE END" ...
what
This movie is stupid and bad and tough to watch given the poor quality. It's a film that time forgot. Only it hasn't, because — even in this rough version — it exists. Almost 8,000 views on YouTube and a French-dubbed version (in much better quality actually) has 1.5K since 2021. I watched it. I reviewed it for you. I'm not sure why, but why do we do anything? The Refrigerator exists as an answer to that existential question, perhaps. And for that, I am very grateful.
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 516 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 518 ⫸
⫷ EPISODE 516 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 518 ⫸
The Refrigerator is a 1991 supernatural comedy horror film starring Julia McNeal, Dave Simonds and Angel Caban. It was written and directed by Nicholas Jacobs. The film tells the story about a couple that move into an apartment in New York with a refrigerator that contains the portal to hell. It was released on June 1, 1991.
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