The Item on AllMovie

This outrageously weird oddity from Dan Clark was the first entry in the Sundance Film Festival's Dramatic Competition shot entirely on Digital Beta video, then transferred to film. This nightmarish and hyper-violent exercise involves the efforts of a group of homicidal thugs to obtain and safeguard "The Item," a disturbingly phallic worm-thing that may be the Devil himself. Curious mishandling of the creature revives it, whereupon it begins manipulating the minds of everyone it comes into contact with. The hoary premise of a devilish fiend's showing characters their worst fears is twisted into a perverse Freudian nightmare, punctuated by fits of slasher-movie gore and gun battles.