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Now streaming: SUBHYSTERIA (2010/2026)
Does the name Leonard Zelig sound familiar?
SubHysteria: So inept, they couldn't manage to focus the promotional stills!
SUBHYSTERIA (2010/2016) Leonard Zelig / Written by Leonard Zelig and Improvised by the Cast / Videographer: Philip Armand (16x9) / Production & Costume Designer: Tao Garcia / Editors: Gustavo Bernal & Javier Perez-Karam / Composer: Daniel Belardinelli / Acted by: Lavrenti Lopes, Osvaldo Benavides, Estelle Bajou, Sally Gilford, Ginger Kroll, Héctor Palma, Quadiri Bolare, Hwalan Shub, and Rebecca Aleman / Countries of Origin: USA & Venezuela / Distributor: Breaking Glass Pictures / Rated: TV-MA / Length: 85 mins.
Just when you think contemporary cinema can't get any more amateurish comes SubHysteria, the pixellated equivalent of playing slop pool. It's a shoot-now-figure-it-out-later, hand-held, sub-Film Tech 101 project, set entirely in a subway car, directed by Venezuelan duffer Leonard Zelig and extemporized by 16 "actors" as they went along.
Lights flicker and the camera jiggles — you’ll need a fistful of dramamine to ease your way through this seizure-inducing jumble — after an explosion, or possibly an earthquake, plunges 16 strangers who are all trapped inside a subway car into the titular frantic state of agitation. The computer system is knocked out, of course, making contact with the outside world — never mind a paying audience — a virtual impossibility.
Video:
Trailer: SUBHYSTERIA
The list of those longing to vacate the stalled carriage includes a chaste pair of soon-to-be newlyweds (whose first fight plays out in public); a coked-out, gun-toting former police officer demoted to transit cop; a lesbian couple, one of whom had the good fortune of stowing a couple of bottles of booze in her purse; and a devout apostólico who, after downing half-a-bottle of Johnny Walker Black, predictably enough, goes from proselytizer to defrocked, F-bomb dropping madcap. That's not all, but perhaps that's enough for now.
The few flashbacks tell you nothing about the characters that we couldn't have surmised. Add to this the kneecapping of any element of surprise via title cards that act as chapter stops and telegraph things to come: 8 Hours: Passengers begin to mistrust one another; 25 hours: Love is questioned amid the turmoil; 40 Hours: Someone's going to get killed.
What’s the gimmick? In the end, a voiceover tells us it was all improvised, and the participants knew nothing of the other characters or how the action would shape up. No shit, Sherlock! No one with any respect for the medium could have possibly envisioned a completed project as good for nothing as this.
Why, with all the screeners at my avail, was I drawn to this particular title? Does the name Leonard Zelig sound familiar? The director’s parents must have been Woody Allen fans; what other possible explanation could there be for naming their baby boy after Allen’s titular human chameleon, a man able to assume the character and physicality of anyone in his presence?
Perhaps if the filmmaker had a copy of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three on set, he might have accidentally assimilated enough directorial knowhow to turn SubHysteria into something other than one of the worst movies not just of this year, but of all time.
Rating: Less than 0
Watch it at your own risk on Tubi, The Roku Channel, Fawesome, as well as on various other Ad-Supported Video on Demand platforms.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Now streaming: SUBHYSTERIA (2010/2026)
Does the name Leonard Zelig sound familiar?
Now streaming: SUBHYSTERIA (2010/2026)
Does the name Leonard Zelig sound familiar?
SubHysteria: So inept, they couldn't manage to focus the promotional stills!
SUBHYSTERIA (2010/2016) Leonard Zelig / Written by Leonard Zelig and Improvised by the Cast / Videographer: Philip Armand (16x9) / Production & Costume Designer: Tao Garcia / Editors: Gustavo Bernal & Javier Perez-Karam / Composer: Daniel Belardinelli / Acted by: Lavrenti Lopes, Osvaldo Benavides, Estelle Bajou, Sally Gilford, Ginger Kroll, Héctor Palma, Quadiri Bolare, Hwalan Shub, and Rebecca Aleman / Countries of Origin: USA & Venezuela / Distributor: Breaking Glass Pictures / Rated: TV-MA / Length: 85 mins.
Just when you think contemporary cinema can't get any more amateurish comes SubHysteria, the pixellated equivalent of playing slop pool. It's a shoot-now-figure-it-out-later, hand-held, sub-Film Tech 101 project, set entirely in a subway car, directed by Venezuelan duffer Leonard Zelig and extemporized by 16 "actors" as they went along.
Lights flicker and the camera jiggles — you’ll need a fistful of dramamine to ease your way through this seizure-inducing jumble — after an explosion, or possibly an earthquake, plunges 16 strangers who are all trapped inside a subway car into the titular frantic state of agitation. The computer system is knocked out, of course, making contact with the outside world — never mind a paying audience — a virtual impossibility.
Video:
Trailer: SUBHYSTERIA
The list of those longing to vacate the stalled carriage includes a chaste pair of soon-to-be newlyweds (whose first fight plays out in public); a coked-out, gun-toting former police officer demoted to transit cop; a lesbian couple, one of whom had the good fortune of stowing a couple of bottles of booze in her purse; and a devout apostólico who, after downing half-a-bottle of Johnny Walker Black, predictably enough, goes from proselytizer to defrocked, F-bomb dropping madcap. That's not all, but perhaps that's enough for now.
The few flashbacks tell you nothing about the characters that we couldn't have surmised. Add to this the kneecapping of any element of surprise via title cards that act as chapter stops and telegraph things to come: 8 Hours: Passengers begin to mistrust one another; 25 hours: Love is questioned amid the turmoil; 40 Hours: Someone's going to get killed.
What’s the gimmick? In the end, a voiceover tells us it was all improvised, and the participants knew nothing of the other characters or how the action would shape up. No shit, Sherlock! No one with any respect for the medium could have possibly envisioned a completed project as good for nothing as this.
Why, with all the screeners at my avail, was I drawn to this particular title? Does the name Leonard Zelig sound familiar? The director’s parents must have been Woody Allen fans; what other possible explanation could there be for naming their baby boy after Allen’s titular human chameleon, a man able to assume the character and physicality of anyone in his presence?
Perhaps if the filmmaker had a copy of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three on set, he might have accidentally assimilated enough directorial knowhow to turn SubHysteria into something other than one of the worst movies not just of this year, but of all time.
Rating: Less than 0
Watch it at your own risk on Tubi, The Roku Channel, Fawesome, as well as on various other Ad-Supported Video on Demand platforms.