The real horrors are within the mind. A viscerally unnerving, audio-visually hallucinatory experience that embodies the terrifying reality of schizophrenia & the effects of the institutions that mishandle the treatment of mental illness. Infused with proto-Lynchian bizarre terror, surreal sequences and offbeat humanistic moments that are hard not to think influenced Harmony Korine in Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy, Jane Arden’s unsung masterpiece of surreal high art The Other Side of the Underneath is a complex, harrowing, and ultimately one of a kind experience that predates a lot of the profound weirdness we all love and see today, ranging from the films of Lynch and Jodorowsky to a lot of the great horror films that have disturbed us over the past 50 years. Arden does an impeccable job at blending discordant noises and bizarre metaphorical and allegorical sequences into the psyches of the schizophrenic characters on the screen. I’ve gotta say, I didn’t expect this film to go as far off the rails as it did, or unsettle me the way it did. You thought Midsommar was terrifying? Wait until the commune scene. Masterful filmmaking by a criminally underrated filmmaker. Excruciatingly surprising that Jane Arden didn’t have a more prolific career, and extremely unfortunate that we lost her the way we did. The Other Side of the Underneath is an undeniable masterpiece, though I wouldn’t recommend for the weak minded, easily distressed or beginners of experimental cinema.