By Robert Scucci
| Published
It’s a damn shame that Neil Breen’s I Am Here Now isn’t available on streaming, along with his other five equally terrible yet enthralling (and endlessly entertaining) feature-length films. If you unironically enjoy experimental (read: downright awful) filmmaking that lacks any semblance of self-awareness or storytelling instinct, then you need to track down a copy and get into what is just one of many films that involve Neil Breen – who wrote, directed, produced, financed, starred in, musical directed, catered, and edited I Am Here Now – portraying a god-like figure who’s disappointed with humanity to the point of taking matters into his own hands.
Cobbled together with the worst dialogue you’ve ever heard, more royalty-free stock footage than you can ever possibly imagine, and Neil Breen performing Jedi mind tricks to expose “the corporations,” I Am Here Now is low-budget, high-concept, and such a disaster that you can’t help but stay engaged until it reaches its stunningly anti-climactic conclusion.
Listen, I know I’m a glutton for punishment and that not everybody is equipped to make it through movies of this caliber, but I Am Here Now, Neil Breen’s second feature-length film, will at the very least leave you with enough confidence to say “I can do better” should you ever want to pursue a career in filmmaking.
It Starts And Ends In The Desert
I Am Here Now begins with Neil Breen’s character, credited as The Being, descending from the heavens to take a critical look at his ill-fated creation, planet Earth.
Disappointed with how humans are treating the environment, and how corporations and government representatives line their pockets with money resulting from corruption at the highest level instead of focusing on solar and wind power, The Being, which is basically just Neil Breen with a bunch of old computer parts taped to his arms and chest, makes his way through a desert littered with baby doll heads for some reason so he can exercise divine intervention over his subjects, hoping to give them one more chance before he “destroys this planet, and this experiment.”
Proving his invincibility after getting shot by a guy in a pickup truck and waving his glowing hand over his own wounds to heal them, The Being strips naked from his robes, steals the guy’s clothes and truck, and heads out to the Las Vegas Strip to confront the politicians and CEOs who have put planet Earth in such a state of turmoil.
It’s Not A Matter Of What, It’s A Matter Of How
While the plot rundown for I Am Here Now sounds like it could make for a pretty compelling sci-fi drama, Neil Breen’s delivery is the stuff of legend, as he decides to take a non-linear approach to the storytelling while incorporating a plotline about twin sisters named Amber (Joy Senn) and Cindy (Elizabeth Sekora)– the latter of whom resorts to a life of prostitution after getting unceremoniously laid off from her important environmental job, because what other options does she have? Little does Cindy know, she’ll find herself entertaining one of the very corporate executives (portrayed by George Gingerelli and credited as “corporate executive”) that The Being is seeking to eradicate for the sake of humanity.
It goes on like this…
Neil Breen cures a man’s cancer by waving his hands in I Am Here Now. Neil Breen freezes time in I Am Here Now. Neil Breen is an infallible creature who shows mercy by giving humanity a second chance in I Am Here Now.
After all is said and done, Neil Breen goes back to the pickup truck owner who shot him, gives him his clothes back, robes up, and ascends into heaven, leaving the planet no better than it was when he arrived, all while thinking “mission accomplished.”
As much as I want to say that I Am Here Now is an amateur-hour endeavor at best, I have all the respect in the world for Neil Breen for pushing through and just going for it despite his obvious (and many) limitations as a filmmaker.
If you want to witness this spectacle of cinema yourself, you’ll be disappointed to know that you can’t find a copy of I Am Here Now on streaming, and it’s currently out of stock on Neil Breen’s website. As of this writing, however, a simple YouTube search will unearth a viewable copy if you look hard enough, and you can thank me later for tipping you off.
