Little Known Gems: The Jar/Charon (1984)

I’m so excited about today’s piece because it is about something I hold so dear to my heart: film restoration! 


Around this time last year, I flew to Denver to have surgery and I spent the next couple of months there to recover. I’m from that area, so I was very blessed to have my amazing family and friends step up and help me recover and take over doing so much, since I was severely limited in what I was allowed to do. 


When I was well enough though, my best friend, Yolanda, and I went to the Sie to see the first real public screening of The Jar, a film all but lost to time, and recently restored by Terror Vision. It’s also a film entirely shot in Denver! Not only that, but director Bruce Toscano discussed the making of this movie, and answered questions after the screening. I desperately wish I had had the foresight to take notes (which I usually do, by the way!) because I cannot remember a whole lot of what was said in detail. I was so deeply moved by their passion though. Not just of Toscano and his friends, but also of those at Terror Vision that saw the importance and significance of restoring this film. I was also heartbroken to hear that the post production experience cause Toscano to quit filmmaking, after completing his first film (he was emotional even talking about it). Most of this piece is going to be about the making of, or rather the “lore” and background of The Jar because it’s what makes this film so special. It’s a piece of film history!
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Some background:
The Jar was actually initially titled Charon (pronounced “car-own”) in reference to the ferryman in the River Styx in Greek Mythology. It’s obvious why the title was changed, but it wasn’t a choice by Bruce Toscano! Toscano also spent many months gathering film stock before pre-production of the movie even started, because it was so important to him for the film to have a rich color quality. Inspired by the color palette, and even the Goblin soundtrack for Suspiria, the film is rife with Argento references. 


The biggest setback, and arguably the reason for Toscano leaving the film industry after just one film, was in distribution. Not only was there no public screening of The Jar, but the home video transfer was atrocious. Instead of using industry standard pan and scan (VHS has a 4:3 aspect ratio, which means that in order to get the main subjects on screen, a transfer technician would need to pan to the action as they are scanning the transfer from widescreen film to VHS tape) they set the scan in the middle, which meant that large chunks of the movie has nothing on screen. This broke Toscano’s heart, as he felt that his work of art was destroyed and would never be seen as it should have. This poor transfer became a cult hit in its own right… in Italy! For some reason or another, the YouTube version of this went viral in Italy and maintained a huge fan base.
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All this changed when Terror Vision stepped in, and helped Toscano realize his vision. Miraculously, he has saved the original film copy, which gave us, in 2023, a rich, gorgeous color palette in 4K. 


So how is The Jar, as a film? It’s largely known as one of the worst horror movies ever made (personally for me that title belongs to Gingerdead Man but I digress). For me, The Jar  is one of those rare, truly experimental films. The dialogue, plot, and acting might be flat/non existent, but the risks and experiments that Toscano played in are genuinely visible to horror and film fans. You can see the love. You can see the playful approach to the whole project. No studio intervention. No slimy producer lurking in the shadows. I understand why studios make a lot of the decisions they do, and it’s mainly because they are playing for the masses, or the middle. There’s little room for pure experiment, pure creativity, and pure risk. The Jar does no such thing. It was a group of horror fans playing in the realm of horror film, and I loved it for what it was.
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