Creating Rem Lezar

1989 | Color | 48 min.

Starring: Jack Mulcahy, Courtney Kernaghan, Jonathan Goch, Kathleen Gati, Karin Kernaghan, and Scott Zakarin

Directed By: Scott Zakarin

Zack’s behavior is driving his parents and teachers up a wall. Instead of concentrating on his schoolwork, he spends all his time daydreaming about his imaginary friend, the supremely lame superhero, Rem Lezar. After catching him doodling a picture of Rem Lezar’s Quixotic Medallion during class, his exasperated teacher sends him to the principal’s office. Once there, Zack throws an epic temper tantrum (You know, the “No one understands me! Stay out of my room!,” kind of thing. Frankly, he seems a few years too young to be so angsty.) and storms out of the principal’s office. Instead of being in a metric ton of trouble, he is allowed to casually stroll down the halls of his school, singing the first of the countless, saccharin-sweet, and heavy-handed songs which make up most of Creating Rem Lezar. This song, the first of many creepy musical numbers with our two child stars and their guru/mentor/tormentor Rem, features the startlingly redundant lyrics, “When I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming of a dream,” (which just has to be a line from one of Jewel’s poems, right?). Hooboy, this one hurts, folks.

*deep inhale* “Goldussssst!”

In a bizarre coincidence, Zack’s classmate Ashlee happens to share his delusion, err–I mean, umm, “delightfully creative” quirk. One day in art class, Ashlee notices Zack sculpting a statue of Rem Lezar. After the obligatory, “Go away, you’re a girl,” “Hey! Girls are equal to boys!” exchange, the two team up and decide to make their shared psychosis a reality. Together, the kids collect all the materials necessary to create a Rem Lezar of their own. Of course, they do so with a musical montage of the two children gathering the parts to assemble their odd idol. Of course, the collection of random mannequin parts comes to life and sings a song, ending with Rem Lezar cradling the children in his arms as they fall asleep. Yikes.

“Yes, my children. Suckle at my teats and grow stronger…”

Despite breaking the laws of reality and springing magically to life just moments earlier, it seems Rem is missing the source of his magical power, his Quixotic Medallion (a bauble so gaudy even Flavor Flav wouldn’t be caught dead wearing the damn thing). Rem tells the two children that they must find his medallion or else he will disappear forever (as would his name disappear from several national and international registries, I’m sure) With the help of Rem, the kids set off on a quest to find the Quixotic Medallion, but the manifestation of Zack and Ashlee’s doubt and fear—the floating, disembodied head Vorock (who is, ironically, far less creepy than Rem himself)—stands in their way. Will the children be able to find the medallion, or will Vorock succeed in thwarting the children in their quest? One thing is for sure, there’s going to be an insufferable number of cringey musical numbers along the way.

“Zack, I’ve come to raise your self-esteem…and to reap your eternal soul.”

For a film which only clocks in at 48 minutes, Creating Rem Lezar takes a herculean feat of willpower to watch through in one sitting, thanks mostly to the painfully banal songs which make up the vast majority of the film. I assume the character of Rem Lezar is supposed to be a supportive and nurturing authority figure, but he just comes off as creepy and inappropriately intimate with our two child protagonists, constantly touching them, visiting them in their bedrooms at night, and even napping with them. Several psychotherapists are thanked in the credits, which makes perfect sense, as something so earnest, sincere, misguided, and completely lacking any sense of irony or self-awareness could only have come from higher education in the soft sciences. The intent of the film seems to be to empower young children, but the message to parents, who I assume are supposed to watch this nightmare with their children, seems to be to listen to your child no matter what. If your ten-year-old child has an imaginary friend, indulge them in their fantasy instead of getting them to the nearest neurologist for a thorough checkup. Now, I don’t have children of my own, but good lord, this doesn’t seem like good advice to me.

Oh man. The “9/11 Truthers” are gonna have a field day with this one…

Annoyingly, the origin of Rem Lezar’s odd name is never explained at all. Rem, I suppose, could be a reference to REM, or rapid eye movement, the phase of sleep where we have our most vivid dreams. Given the film’s bizarre, dreamlike nature, this seems to make some sense. On the other hand, the only explanation I can come up with for the word “lezar” is that it is the Creole word for “lizard,” which makes a great deal less sense, unless Creating Rem Lezar is less a bizarre, misguided attempt at an empowering children’s film and more a story of a Lovecraftian, shape-shifting, nightmare-reptile which invades the dreams of impressionable youths, masquerading as an amiable–if somewhat inappropriately friendly–superhero, in a wicked plan to sow delusion and madness in the minds of poor, unsuspecting children through mind-numbingly awful sing-songs. Having seen this film, that explanation seems more than plausible.