This innovative and profoundly bizarre 12 minute short was made back in 1983, yet in the mid-2010s it become enormously popular on Reddit, TikTok and YouTube. An early work by writer-producer-director Cecilia Condit, it followed BENEATH THE SKIN (1981) and preceded NOT A JEALOUS BONE (1987), SUBURBS OF EDEN (1996) and several other well received shorts. In POSSIBLY IN MICHIGAN (and also BENEATH THE SKIN) Condit appears to have been referencing her relationship with the late Ira Einhorn (1940-2020), a pioneering civil rights activist and convicted murderer (of his ex-girlfriend Holly Maddux in 1977) who at the time of MICHIGAN’s production was on the lam in Europe.
POSSIBLY IN MICHIGAN (1983) Film
According to Ms. Condit, “I consider myself a storyteller whose work swings between beauty and grotesque, humor and the macabre, innocence and cruelty.” That sums up the tone of POSSIBLY IN MICHIGAN, which on the surface has a very simple narrative involving Sharon (Jill Sands) and her friend Janice (Karen Skladany) getting stalked through a shopping mall by Arthur (Condit), a nut who wears a frightful open mouthed mask.
Arthur follows Sharon home in the belief that “the moment he kissed her he would become the man she would want him to be.” He mentally transforms himself into Prince Charming (Bill Blume), which doesn’t stop him from being killed by Janice, who together with Sharon dismembers his corpse, after which they cannibalize the juicy bits and leave the remains to be disposed of by garbagemen.
Amid this more-or-less straightforward account are nutty diversions like a discussion about perfume that devolves into a recollection by Janice of “mother’s crazy sister Kate” who put her poodle in a microwave “to dry it,” and much miscellaneous visual wizardry. Juxtaposed is 1980s-quality video stock with TV footage recorded directly off a monitor screen (to denote the characters’ memories and/or fantasies) and video effects that were state-of-the-art in 1983.
That was a year, let’s not forget, when music videos were finding their footing in popular culture (courtesy of the 1981 instituted MTV), and POSSIBLY IN MICHIGAN has the look and feel of an early 1980s music video. All the dialogue is delivered in mocking sing-songy cadence, and bears more in common with music lyrics than traditional speech (“How do I meet the strangest men? They always seem to find me. Remember that time way back when I kissed a guy who ate his women friends?”), accompanied by synthesizer music by co-star Karen Skladany that’s alternately silly and creepy. There’s even some feminist sloganeering, with the antagonist named Arthur because, according to Condit, “I felt like art was used against women so often, so I thought I’d call him Art-her.”
The net result is a pic that’s campy and overwrought, but also genuinely disquieting, with worms and decomposition figuring prominently in the visual onslaught, and the troubling real-life underpinnings impossible to ignore.
Vital Statistics
POSSIBLY IN MICHIGAN
Director/Producer/Screenplay: Cecelia Condit
Editing: David Norosny
Cast: Jill Sands, Karen Skladany, Bill Blume, Cecelia Condit