If David Lynch had been born 20 years later and fetishised 1980s home-computing tech, this is the kind of film he might have made: black-and-white analogue surrealism, with smudges of dot-matrix horror. Director Albert Birney stars as “Computer Conor”, a shut-in who makes a living from virtuosically tapping out ASCII reproductions of people’s favourite photos and, on his downtime, watching several VHSs simultaneously on his three-television-high stack.
Outside is Mary (Callie Hernandez), an unseen grocery-delivery girl, and the unsettling writhings of the biological world in the shape of an emerging cicada brood. But Conor is invaded from within when he subscribes to Obex, a mail-order sword-and-sorcery video game that allows you to personalise your own avatar. Initially disappointed, he becomes more enveloped when his printer of its own accord spits out a command: “Remove your skin.” And then the game’s radiant demon Ixaroth arrives in his apartment and spirits away Conor’s pooch, Sandy.
Obex’s first half bears a distinct resemblance to Eraserhead, with a tightly wound protagonist doing the rounds in his personal microverse. Birney racks up the intensity with askew shot choices, insistently sluggish pacing and atonal sound design and score (supplied by Animal Collective founder Josh Dibb). But once Conor dons a Zelda-style cap and heads through the portal, the film loosens up: as well as a live-action homage to classic role-playing games, with Mary transformed into a power-up vendor, his adventure cuts closer to the kind of pastiche silent-movie picaresque Guy Maddin delights in.
Lovingly conceived and fun though it is, it’s arguable if Obex amounts to more than fan service at the retro altar. Despite the grotesqueries of the bug invasion, Birney doesn’t tap the same torrent of molten surrealism and ambiguity as Lynch. He instead resolves the quest along conventional lines, as a direct transposition of Conor’s childhood issues, as well as making it a cautionary tale about vicarious escape into virtual realities. But shot with much DIY inventiveness and gusto, this 8-bit junkyard will intrigue old heads and gen-Z nostalgians alike.
• Obex is on digital platforms from 9 March.
