LogFAQs > #945764513

#12 Frances Raines





Remember that time you discovered an offbeat, unknown music artist? It was like snorting pop rocks, achieving enlightenment, and the opening of your third eye resulting in the world looking like an episode of The Brak Show in the style of Aeon Flux. And you wanted the rest of humanity to share in this delight. Family, friends, neighbors, strangers, that guy always hanging around the gas station on Tuesday mornings insisting he needs change so he can somehow drive 70 miles away to visit a family member who suffered a serious medical condition yet it seemingly occurs to them every single week on the exact same day.you tell everyone of this miracle until it reaches the point of all existence ignoring your pleas to listen. You just want to enrich their lives.

Thats how I feel about Disconnected with Frances Raines. If her resume is the music album, it's the best song on there. Niece of Claude Raines, the Invisible Man himself, Frances isnt merely the star of Disconnected. No, shes the Elmers glue that holds the DIY production together. Shes not just cute in that girl-next-door appeal, but her acting is believable in a way that feels too good for B movies yet strangely at home.

Before going more into Disconnected, I must ramble about how I even came across it. It all started with the Women in Prison genre. Good times were had, especially the material from Jack Hill like The Big Bird Cage and The Big Doll House. The 80s productions became sleazier with Chained Heat and the like. Still, I needed more. Like an 80s yuppie hitting the end of a cocaine trail on the stomach of a $1000 escort, I thought I went to the brink with Jess Francos 99 Women yet I wanted another fix soon after.

Thats where director / writer Tim Kincaid and his $3.50 budget productions came into my life with Bad Girls Dormitory. Bad acting with shoddy direction in a cliched story. I immediately watched the second feature on the DVD I had containing Kincaids Riot on 42nd St. Same results. During these viewings I did notice a cute girl in brief roles with little to do but bounce her terrible 1986 hairstyle in the air with confidence. I thought nothing of it and went on to check out Kincaids alien rape movie appropriately titled Breeders. This time, the cute girl had more to do. By that I mean exercise in the nude for over two minutes in a movie with a runtime of barely 77 minutes. Its the highlight of the movie. Thats when I made the all important decision to see everything else in Raines filmography of 7 credits.

The slasher nerd that I am should have been properly introduced to Raines through the North Carolina-lensed hack-n-slash movie, The Mutilator. Too bad it took until 2016 for it to receive a DVD / BD release. Just a circumstance of living in the U.S. It doesnt matter as the wrongs were eventually righted. Better yet was the release of Disconnected in 2017.

The story has finally come full circle. If David Lynch traded in a portion of his talent for the ability to capture wood paneling in all its glory, you get an idea of Disconnected. Raines portrays twin sisters. A serial killer stumbles into their lives with the charm of a Twitch streamer fanatic. Things happen and by halfway through the story, its just one of the sisters left alone in her apartment as she loses her sanity while a phone constantly rings. On the other end of it are voices of those that have supposedly died. Raines sells it hard. I feel so bad for this young lady surrounded by movie posters and Groucho Marx dolls. Its also a shame her grip on reality falters and it becomes difficult to distinguish the truth from the ongoing nightmare. Did I mention the events may be a prank by a malevolent being? Its all over the place and it shouldnt work, but it defies the odds. Only lately has it been rescued from total obscurity, Disconnected and Frances Raines is far from being embraced by the world. It's a step.

Selected Horror Filmography:
Disconnected
The Mutilator
Breeders

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Reading up on the Bat-Family: https://bit.ly/2Us5RhG