It’s Unstreamable! A column where I, arts writer and Scarecrow librarian Jas Keimig, recommend you films and shows you can’t watch on major streaming services in the United States. This week we dive headfirst into two very different films that are book adaptations: one about an extremely scary medical doll that comes to life and the other an unfinished Polish masterpiece.
Got a recommendation for Unstreamable? Gimme the scoop at unstreamablemovies@gmail.com.
Canada, 1988, 103 min, Dir. Sandor Stern
In honor of 4/20 this week, I wanted to write something about a film that genuinely freaked me the fuck out while stoned — Pin: A Plastic Nightmare.
The Canadian horror film — adapted from the 1981 novel of the same name — follows the Linden family, whose patriarch, the cold and distant Dr. Linden (played by Lost’s Terry O’Quinn), uses ventriloquism to give voice to his anatomical doll named Pin in order to teach his kids about bodily functions. What he doesn’t realize is that his mentally ill son Leon believes Pin is actually alive, learns ventriloquism, and starts speaking to the doll on his own. After a car crash leaves Leon’s parents dead, he starts to use Pin to control his younger sister Ursula’s life and sexuality. It gets scary!
I went into this thinking that Pin would become alive by some sort of magic, but instead it turned out to be a knotty character study on what controlling parents and mental illness do to two siblings. The movie wouldn’t have worked without a genuinely creepy Pin and, for that, we can thank Jonathan Banks of Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad fame. He voiced Pin long before becoming famous, and writer Will Harris (who’s on Substack!) asked him about the movie for The A.V. Club in 2011:
AVC: Pin (1988)—Pin
JB: [Uncertainly] Pin? Was that a TV movie?
AVC: It was theatrical, but not a terribly wide release. It was a horror movie about a teenager who was obsessed with a medical dummy. Reportedly, you did the voice of the dummy.
JB: Uh, yeah, I don’t really remember that. I mean, I kind of remember. In the sense that it makes me think, “Where’s my residual check? Because I haven’t seen one ever.” [Laughs.] That was Sandy [Stern]. Sandy was a neighbor of mine. Nice guy. That’s all I got. Next!
King! Alas, there are probably not many residual checks for him as Pin went straight-to-home-video here in the United States, but has a decent cult following. Drink an entire weed soda and lock the fuck in!
Find it in the Horror section under Stalkers.
FROM THE UNSTREAMABLE ARCHIVE (AKA 2024):
Poland, 1988, 166 min, Dir. Andrzej Zulawski
On the Silver Globe is many things — an epic space opera, a Christ allegory, an unfinished film, long, experimental, confusing, riveting, and unstreamable. Based on Jerzy Zulawski’s 1903 book of the same name, the movie follows a team of astronauts who crash land on a distant Earth-like planet and form a society on the supposedly uninhabited terrain. Years into the future, a scientist named Marek (Andrzej Seweryn) returns to the planet looking for the original astronauts and is hailed by the people as a Messiah who has come to free them from the telepathic bird-like humanoids called Sherns.
Everything in this movie is hauntingly surreal from the dialogue, to the costumes, to the landscapes, to the close-up shots of various characters — though it’s a pretty difficult watch. Director Andrzej Zulawski shot the film between 1976 and 1977 before the Polish government shut down the increasingly chaotic production over worries about its subversiveness. It was only in 1987 that Zulawski “finished” the work with a series of shots of modern-day Poland and a voiceover explaining the narrative gaps and the rest of the story he was unable to film. In 2016, the Polish Film Institute released a definitive 4K digital restoration of On the Silver Globe approved by Zulawski before his passing and DP Andrzej Jaroszewicz. Nearly 50 years later, the film remains as hypnotizing as ever.
Find it in the Directors section under Zulawski, Andrzej.
Looking for more? Browse our big list of 400+ hard-to-find movies over on our website. This column also publishes on Substack as a newsletter. Give us a follow over there.
*The fine print: Unstreamable means we couldn’t find it on Netflix, Hulu, Shudder, Disney+, or any of the other hundreds of streaming services available in the United States. We also couldn’t find it available for rent or purchase through platforms like Prime Video or iTunes. Yes, we know you can find many things online illegally, but we don’t consider user-generated videos, like unauthorized YouTube uploads, to be streamable.
