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Me and Lil’ Stevie: CREEPSHOW II (1987)

Posted in 2013, 80s Horror, Anthology Films, Ghosts!, Me and Lil' Stevie, Monsters, Peter Dudar Reviews, Sea Creatures, Stephen King Movies with tags , , , , , , , , on March 27, 2013 by knifefighter

Me and Lil’ Stevie
Periodically Enjoy
CREEPSHOW II (1987)
By Peter Dudar

creepshow II

(Exterior-day:  Establishing shot of quiet Maine town by morning.  There is a little boy sitting on his bicycle just outside the local newsstand, waiting for a very special delivery.  An old army-style canvas-covered delivery truck adorned with comic book graphics pulls up, and the little boy sits up tall on his bike.  The truck parks, and then there is a figure rummaging around the back of the truck, sorting through bundles of magazines.  The figure tosses a bundle out onto the curb, and the boy goes to reach for it.  Suddenly, the boy stops and looks up at the figure in the back of the truck.  The camera pans upward and we see that the figure is a man holding a ventriloquist dummy in the form of Master of Horror, Stephen King.)

Lil’ Stevie:  I wouldn’t do that, son…I really wouldn’t.

Peter:  Why not?  Little Billy, here, just wants the very first copy.

Billy:  Yeah!  It’s all mine!  I got here first!

Peter:  Go ahead, Billy.  Open it up.  You’ve earned it.

(Billy opens up the package.  Instead of being filled with comic books, the package is filled with autographed pictures of Justin Beiber.)

Billy:  Nooooooo!  (abandons his bicycle and runs away screaming).

Lil’ Stevie:  Hyuk Hyuk Hyuk…they fall for it every time!

Peter:  Welcome, Constant Viewer, to another fun-filled episode.  Today, we’ll be discussing Michael Gornick’s 1987 film directorial debut, CREEPSHOW II.  Gornick, like a lot of other directors that have cut their teeth on Stephen King projects, has a long history of working in the cinema, serving as a cinematographer, production manager, camera and sound engineer, actor, and producer.  He is equally steeped in made-for-television projects as well.  So, when George Romero (director of the original CREEPSHOW, 1982) passed on the project, Gornick stepped in (he was cinematographer on CREEPSHOW, and was familiar with the spirit of the project).

Lil’ Stevie:  And the fans of CREEPSHOW rejoiced!  Boo-ya!

Peter:  Not exactly.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  As you already know, Constant Viewer, we examined the original CREEPSHOW back in episode 7, and we happen to consider it a favorite of ours, so we want to treat this entry as fairly and unbiased as possible.

Lil’ Stevie:  Which means we sat our butts down and re-watched it, for old time’s sake.

Peter:  The film begins pretty much as we’ve established with the delivery truck, turning Little Billy’s wraparound segment into an animated storyline featuring him and “The Creep” (Tom Savini, special effects maestro and character actor, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, 1996).

Lil’ Stevie:  You’re already getting it wrong.  The Creep is played by Joe Silver (RABID, 1977).

Peter (sighing): Silver provided the voice.  Now, quit interrupting.  It bears mentioning that the original film was constructed with comic book panels and artwork interspersed with the live action sequences.  It made the movie feel like a comic-book-come-to-life, which was an enormous part of the campy charm that made the original so cool (not to mention comic art veteran Bernie Wrightson’s stunning contributions).  All of that is traded off for “The Creep’s” animated spookshow-host narration.  I found this to be an annoyance more than an upgrade.  At the time of this film’s theatrical release, HBO was already knocking ‘em dead with their “Crypt Keeper” in TALES FROM THE CRYPT.  This feels like a bad rip-off.

Lil’ Stevie:  Can we talk about my stories?   My stories are what bring the movie to life!

(Peter reaches down and snatches up an autographed photo of Justin Beiber)

Peter:  Here, this is for you.  Aren’t you his “Number-one fan?”

(Lil’ Stevie turns aside and throws up).

Peter:  Holy cow!  How are you doing that?  You’re a puppet.  You can’t throw up!

Lil’ Stevie: (Dragging his sleeve across his mouth) Oh yeah?  Well, you can’t write for beans!

Peter:  (Shaking his head).  You disgust me.  Anyway, the REAL Stephen King provided three stories for the film; OLD CHIEF WOOD’NHEAD, THE RAFT, and THE HITCHHIKER (with THE RAFT being the only one of the three segments to appear as a published story.  It was released in Gallery magazine in 1982, and then in the collection SKELETON CREW in 1985).  The first story, OLD CHIEF WOODN’HEAD, concerns Ray and Martha Spruce (George Kennedy and Dorothy Lamour).  The Spruces (a loving nod, perhaps, to Tabitha King’s family) are an elderly couple who own and operate the only general store in Dead River, Arizona.  The town, it seems, has washed up and blown away, and its few remaining citizens (most of them being Native American) are in debt to the Spruces.  Ray Spruce doesn’t seem all that concerned, though.  He’s done very well over the years, and feels obligated to give back to the people that supported him.

Lil’ Stevie:  The beginning of the story sees Ray outside his store, painting new war stripes on Chief Wood’nhead; the cigar store-style Indian statue that stands on the store’s front porch.

Peter:  While he’s working, his neighbor, Benjamin Whitemoon (Frank Salsedo, MAGIC IN THE WATER, 1995) pays him a visit.  Whitemoon brings a pouch of Native American jewelry that he has collected from his people as a kind of promissory note to pay off the debts his people have incurred.  “I’ll guard it with my life,” Ray promises.  He tries to convince Whitemoon that prosperity is in the air and that the town is going to come back, but he and Whitemoon already know this isn’t to be.  The pouch is the only payment he is going to see for his kindness, and by taking it, he allows Whitemoon’s people to remain borrowers rather than beggars.

Lil’ Stevie:  You NEVER promise to guard something with your life.  You just don’t do it.

Peter:  That’s right.  Because Whitemoon’s nephew Sam (Holt McCallany, GANGSTER SQUAD, 2013) and his buddies want that wampum.  They hold up the store, taking what little cash the Spruces have, but Sam has his eye set on the pouch of jewelry.  The heist quickly turns into a killing spree, with Martha gunned down while her husband watches helpless, trying to talk Sam out of what he’s about to do.  When Ray refuses to let go of the treasure he promised to guard with his life, he, too is murdered and the pouch is pried from his cold, dead hands.  And then Sam and his buddies are racing off to leave Dead River for new digs in Hollywood.

Lil’ Stevie:  Not if Old Chief Wood’nhead can help it…

Peter:  Precisely.  In E.C. Comics-style vengeance, the Chief (Dan Kamin, MARS ATTACKS, 1996) comes to life and goes on the warpath against the hooligans who killed the folks that took such good care of him.  The siege doesn’t end until all three are dead, with Sam’s scalp (which he treasured) clutched in his hand as he finds rest at his original post outside the store.  The Chief is the real star of this story, and the makeup effects for the statue come-to-life by Gregory Nicotero and company deserve mad props.  This film is one of the last of its breed; the kind with guys in rubber suits and prosthetic appliances providing the scares rather than CGI.  It pays off as you watch the Chief’s subtle facial movements and statuesque body motions.

Lil’ Stevie: …and the blood shots, squirting all over the walls as the Chief swings his tomahawk.

Peter:  On kind of a funny off-note, I’d always believed that Rodney Grant played Sam Whitemoon.  Grant is the Native American actor that portrayed Wind In His Hair in 1990’s DANCES WITH WOLVES.  It turns out that Holt McCallany isn’t even Native American.  Crazy, huh?

Lil’ Stevie:  Hilarious.  You’re an imbecile.

Peter:  (pulls out a tomahawk and crunches it into Lil’ Stevie’s head.)  Heh.  That’s funny, too.  The second story, THE RAFT, is about four college kids who race off to a lake after the summer season has ended to go for a swim in the lake’s secluded waters.  A joint is passed around as Deke and Randy drag their best gals, Laverne and Rachel, to the lake in Deke’s bitchin’ Camaro.  They arrive at the lake with the radio blasting terrible 80s music, and the boys race right into the lake and begin paddling toward The Raft.  The girls follow reluctantly, and as they are swimming, the boys notice a weird, oily membrane floating on the water (the membrane eats a duck alive, to their horror).  Once they are all up on the raft, the kids are held hostage by the membrane, which now seems to move and have a mind of its own.  Rachel buys it first, gently prodding the membrane to see what it is, only to have the membrane snatch her off the raft and eat her up.  Deke dies next, as the membrane slides effortlessly between the raft’s slits and begins chewing away his flesh.

Lil’ Stevie:  Randy and Laverne manage to survive all night, but thanks to Randy’s randy hormones, Laverne falls prey to the membrane.  As the gelatinous blob eats her alive, Randy decides to make a break for it and swim to the shore…but will he make it out alive?

Peter:  This was my favorite segment of the film, and Gornick’s cinematography skills really shine in how this was shot.  It’s beautifully done, the way the camera floats past the kids on the raft at eye-level.  It’s great stuff.  Again, all that’s missing is the neat comic book panels from the original film.

Lil’ Stevie:  The acting was a tad weak in this one.  None of these kids had star quality, and none of them had any meteoric rise to fame because of this movie.

Peter:  Sad but true.  The last segment, THE HITCHHIKER, stars Lois Chiles (MOONRAKER, 1979) as Annie Lansing, the wife of a successful attorney.  Lois has been throwing her husband’s hard-earned money at her favorite gigolo for sex, but in spite of her infidelity, she’s terrified of being home one minute late from the affair as it will anger her husband severely.  So, after an evening of wanton sex with her lover, she notices she’s late and will never be home on time.  She floors the pedal of her BMW in her bid to get home, and in the process, she accidentally runs over some hapless hitchhiker (Tom Wright, BARBER SHOP, 2002) holding a sign reading DOVER.

Lil’ Stevie:  Stephen King cameo!  King plays a truck driver, who happens to be the first on the scene after Annie Lansing disappears in her BMW.

Peter:  The shaken adulterer speeds away, trying to convince herself that she can always turn herself in if she can’t live with the guilt, but the guilt has already begun to manifest itself.  It seems the Hitchhiker isn’t really dead, and will haunt her ride home.  The corpse seems to turn up over and over again, until Annie is literally running his body into trees, and then driving back and forth over the poor guy’s remains until he is the nastiest road kill you’ve ever seen.

Lil’ Stevie:  We really ramped up the gore on this one.  Like the first segment, this tale is all about revenge.

Peter:  It’s really all about guilt.  We don’t honestly know if the Hitchhiker is really haunting her, or if she’s injured her head in the accident and is hallucinating the whole thing.  But Annie eventually makes it back home and parks her totaled car in the garage, where the Hitchhiker visits her one last time…

Lil’ Stevie:  And her husband finds her dead body in a haze of carbon monoxide.  Maybe she couldn’t live with the guilt after all.

creepshow 2

Peter:  A couple of things about this movie…Putting aside the lack of comic book panel framing, this film’s stories verge more on the serious side rather than the campy side that the original movie had.  The first film’s characters were more like caricatures, more stereotypical than typical.  This film opted to play it straight, leaving the comedy to the goofy animated “Creep” segments, and that detracts from the overall impact of the movie.  It’s no wonder that so many King and Romero fans were disappointed with this film (and that’s taking into consideration that Romero wrote the screenplay based on King’s stories).  The stories are very stripped down and one-dimensional, making them predictable in their outcomes.  But they work.  They are entertaining stories built on morality plays.  What would you do if you accidentally ran someone over and killed them?  What would you do if you and your friends were stuck on a raft with something trying to eat you?

Lil’ Stevie:  I’d make sure you got eaten first!

Peter:  Thanks.  I can always count on you.  I guess my final word on this one is that it falls under the category of “What could have been…”  This could have been great if it stuck to the formula that made the first movie so great.  It could have been great if they left out “The Creep” and stuck with the nifty comic book with its pages flapping in the breeze.  It could have been great with a bit more campy humor.  And it could have been great with one or two more stories.  The three tales (and the wraparound story with Billy getting chased by the bullies) just don’t offer a satisfying meal for us to feast on.  Two vengeance tales and a badly-acted hostage story fall short of a complete anthology film.

Lil’ Stevie:  Unless you’re Mario Bava.  BLACK SABBATH (1963) rocks!

Peter:  In the meantime, we’ll keep hoping King and Romero get it together and put out a legitimate CREEPSHOW III, unlike the one that was released in 2006 that had nothing to do with either of them.  Agreed?

Lil’ Stevie:  Agreed.  Well, boils and ghouls, we’ll be slaying ya…er, seeing ya next month! Bwahahahaha!

(Peter leans down and picks up Billy’s bicycle and climbs on, setting Lil’ Stevie on the handlebars.)

Peter:  Thanks a lot, Billy…thanks for the ride!  (Pedals away).

© Copyright 2013 by Peter N. Dudar

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The Ghost of Christmas Past Presents: ELVES (1989)

Posted in 2011, 80s Horror, B-Movies, Bill's Bizarre Bijou, HOLIDAY CHEER, William Carl Articles with tags , , , , , on December 21, 2012 by knifefighter

Bill’s Bizarre Bijou

William D. Carl

This Week’s Feature Presentation:

ELVES (1989)

“They’re not working for Santa anymore.”

Welcome to Bill’s Bizarre Bijou, where you’ll discover the strangest films ever made. If there are alien women with too much eye-shadow and miniskirts, if papier-mâché monsters are involved, if your local drive-in insisted this be the last show in their dusk-till-awn extravaganza, or if it’s just plain unclassifiable – then I’ve seen it and probably loved it. Now, I’m here to share these little gems with you so you too can stare in disbelief at your television with your mouth dangling open. Trust me, with these flicks, you won’t believe your eyes!

Ah, Christmas . . . a time to relax on the couch with a cup of warm cocoa (with mini marshmallows, of course), a time to bring the family together to view one of the great holiday films from yesteryear that always brings a tear to your eye and a lump to your throat. What is it to be this year? IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)? MIRACLE ON 34th STREET (1947)? The Mexican atrocity SANTA CLAUS (1959)? No, this year good cheer and warm cockles will be brought to you via the 1989 horror/fantasy film, ELVES. You’ve never heard of it? Well, there’s a reason. Several reasons, in fact.

During a typical Christmas movie title sequence, I discover the star is none other than Grizzly Adams himself, Dan Haggerty (Haggerty was the star of THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GRIZZLY ADAMS from 1977 – 1978). This does nothing to instill confidence in the director’s choice, but he does sort of resemble a coked-up Santa with his bulging belly and golden beard.

Next, we meet three typical 80’s chicks, complete with big hair, Spandex outfits, and candles. Their leader, Kirsten, played by Julie Austen (EXTREME JUSTICE – 1993) claims they’re the Sisters of Anti-Christmas, and they decry the holiday as a commercialized, media-driven event. Well, duh. Kirsten displays a piece of nearly pornographic art called ‘The Virgin of Anti-Christmas,’ and they try out a satanic ceremony so one of the girls can obtain the attentions of a boy. They hurry home as a thunderstorm approaches (at Christmas-time?), while something scrawny and wrinkled and rubbery tracks our naughty artist to her home, where she’s bitch-slapped by her German grandfather (Borah Silver, who played Prince on the KOJAK television series from 1973 – 1978). It’s his spell book the girls were using. In the stark lighting of the home, we can plainly see this ‘girl’ is at least forty years old. We also meet her mother, played by Deanna Lund (Valerie on THE LAND OF THE GIANTS TV show from 1968 – 1970), who looks both younger and prettier than her daughter, and she threatens to clean out the girl’s baby-sitting money from her bank account. Cue shower scene, where little brother peeks on Kirsten. When discovered, Sis calls him a pervert. He calmly replies, “I like looking at naked girls. And you’ve got f—-g big t—ts, and I’m gonna tell everyone what I saw!” Meanwhile, the rubbery creature conjured out of the ground watches as sister and brother make up and wrestle inappropriately on her bed. What is with this family?

Anyway, the elf creature breaks a window with its wobbling little rubber fist and we’re treated to two minutes of blurry elf-vision until the gremlin rip-off straddles the foul-mouthed kid brother. Sadly, it doesn’t kill him.

Our hero, Mike McGavin, played by Haggerty, walks into the local department store after giving a few shekels to the Salvation Army outside, so you know he’s a good guy. Due to the prevalence of elf-vision POV shots, we ascertain the creature is following Kirstin to her work in the department store cafe. Behind her, Mike is pleading with the store manager for a job, any job. I think we all see where this is going. The ‘teenaged’ girls get in line and wait to sit on Santa’s lap, where Kris Kringle cops a feel up her leg and talks dirty. Back at home, Mom drowns her daughter’s kitten in the toilet. Why? Just to be mean, that’s why! Joan Crawford had nothing on this evil witch!

Santa’s mild gropings get him fired, and he is promptly castrated by a rubbery knife in a little rubbery hand while he is snorting cocaine. Merry Christmas, everyone! Slay bells ring!

Kirsten arrives home and says, “It was a rough day at work. Santa got murdered.” Grizzly Adams—I mean, Mike—arrives home to his trailer and finds it padlocked. When the girl sees a little monster peeking in her window, her grandpa goes crazy and interrogates her. He speaks to his daughter in German and she screeches, “Don’t start in on those elves again!” Again? Is this a typical conversation in ANY home?

Mike makes friends with Kirsten at the department store, and he’s spotted by the manager. Soon, he’s the new Santa, getting peed on by infants and with a changing room with a bloody chalk-outline on the floor. Luckily, he used to be a detective, so he can investigate the death of the previous St. Nick.

Grandpa has another German friend from the old days, Ruebenkreutz (I’d love a Rueben with kraut, please) who gets really excited when he finds out Grandpa’s granddaughter has been “chosen” by the elf. Grandpa, however, seems less than thrilled.

It’s not Will Ferrell. It’s an ELF from the 1989 movie ELVES

After investigating in the local library (“Section 666”), Camel-smoking Mike discovers a link between the Nazis and the murder. You see, Hitler ordered his scientists to create a race of supermen (feeble little rubbery guys?), but they must mate with a virgin to achieve their true superpowers. Mike heads back to the store, where he plans to sleep, and the trio of girls break into the place for a party in the lingerie department. Yowza! Three boys show up to join the party. So now we have three bubble-headed, big-haired girls in fancy underwear, Grizzly Adams, an oversexed boy band, and the Elves of the Third Reich all in the same cheap location. Trouble is definitely brewing. And this is before the house detective is killed and three robbers in bad suits (also Nazis) show up. Several people are killed, and the store manager declares “It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow. You think anyone’s gonna want to shop here with blood stains on the floor?”

Back home, Gramps is determined to protect Kirsten from his wheelchair, but Mom doesn’t believe in any of his “stupid myths.” Mike enlists the aid of a professor who provides all the exposition necessary . . . and it deals with Noah’s Ark, God, and elves. He’s smart, you know, because he smokes a pipe. He even says about the Nazis, “If you ignore their brutality, they were just a bunch of crackpots.” What?

Mom goes a bit crazy when her daughter says she wants her father. “Go down to the study,” she screeches, harpy-like. “He’s your grandfather and your father!” I waited for the slapping to start (“He’s my father. He’s my grandfather. He’s my father.”) Gramps explains how Mom wasn’t harmed at all, that he needed to sleep with his daughter in order to produce a Kirsten – a receptacle for elf sperm. (All I can say is. . . Ewww!)

Mike tracks down another exposition-spouting John Waters look-alike professor to explain the very last pieces of the elf puzzle to him, and he’s off to the rescue. Racing to Kirsten’s house at an amazing forty miles per hour, his car is possessed by an elf spirit (what the what?) and blows up just as he leaps from the vehicle. But will he make it in time to prevent the master race from being created or even to stop the elf from getting his floppy hands on Kirsten’s virgin (Ha!) body? You’ll have to watch till the ludicrous apocalyptic ending to know for certain, but I really wanted to shout out “Oh, mighty Isis!”

Grizzly Adams himself (Dan Haggerty) is humanity’s only hope against ELVES!

Dan Haggerty must have been in his pre-Betty Ford Clinic days when he made this. He slurs his lines in a barely intelligible manner that sounds like Brando with a bag of marbles in his mouth. He’s pretty bad, seemingly bored out of his probably stoned skull.

And let’s take a moment to talk about the Elf himself. Despite his crinkled, scary face, the little beastie doesn’t look like he could chase down a double amputee. He’s weak, powerless, and if the elf-o-vision POV is any indication, he’s nearly blind. All he can do is sneak up on the clods in this move and attack them by surprise, because these schmucks don’t even try to fight back. At one point, the elf is actually frightened by a wind-up plush toy pig. They look like the kind of thing you can pick up at any Halloween City to decorate your lawn. Some poor P.A. is probably under it moving it around a bit. And what’s with the plural nature of the title of the movie? There’s only one damn elf in it!

Despite all these problems, ELVES moves quickly from point A to point B, with plenty of quotable dialogue, ugly violence, pretty girls with giant hair and 80’s slang, an extended nude scene by Deanna Lund in a bathtub, a throbbing synth score, car wrecks, scary faces inside Christmas trees, drugs, bad puppetry, and some seriously messed-up family situations. It’s never boring! With a bit of help from a few alcoholic beverages, this would be a laugh riot to watch with friends during the holidays. Peppermint Schnapps would probably be perfect.

More good lines:

“What’s going on? Are we going to be all right?” “No, Grandpa’s a Nazi.”

“Now that Hell is full, I wonder where you will go?”

“Santa said oral.”

A sick and twisted no-budget movie that’ll have you in stitches, this little wonder of ickiness is a cool antidote to all the syrupy Christmas films available, but I wouldn’t rush out to try and locate a copy. Good luck if you do, because it is tough to find.

I give it two incestuous Nazis out of four.

© Copyright 2011 by William D. Carl

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Transmissions to Earth: CELLAR DWELLER (1988)

Posted in 1980s Horror, 2012, B-Movies, Comic Book Movies, Demons, Detectives, LL Soares Reviews, Monsters, Supernatural, Trasmissions to Earth with tags , , , , , , , on October 18, 2012 by knifefighter


Transmissions to Earth presents:
CELLAR DWELLER (1988)
By L.L. Soares

As CELLAR DWELLER (1988) opens, we go back to 30 years ago, when a comic book artist named Colin Childress (Jeffrey Combs) is drawing some pages of a monster comic book. Looking for some evil-sounding dialogue, he searches through the pages of an ancient book of spells for something cool, and when he says one particular spell aloud, the demon he’s drawing becomes real, as does its woman victim. He grabs the artwork he was working on and sets it on fire, and the monster screams and dies in front of him. Unfortunately, Childress sets himself on fire by accident, and dies as well.

In present day (30 years later), young artist Whitney Taylor (Debrah Mullowney) comes to the house, which is now a bohemian art school called the Throckmorton Institute of Art. Whitney is obsessed with the old EC-style comic book that Childress drew called Cellar Dweller – which looks a lot like old issues of EC’s Tales of the Crypt. Somehow, she convinced the “board of directors” to accept her on as a student, even though the school’s headmistress, Mrs. Briggs (Yvonne De Carlo, who most people know as Lily Munster from THE MUNSTERS) looks down her nose at someone who wants to be a comic book artist and admits, if it was up to her, she never would have accepted Whitney as a student.

Mrs. Briggs gives Whitney a tour of the place, introducing her to the other students, including Phillip Lemley (Brian Robbins), an abstract painter; Lisa (Cheryl Ann Wilson), a performance artist; Amanda (Pamela Bellwood) who is making “video verite” art with a clunky video camera (that looks ancient now) and Norman Meshelski (Vince Edwards) who thinks he’s some kind of detective and wants to be the next Raymond Chandler (he writes using an old manual typewriter, and likes to act out scenes, so I guess this is a writer’s colony, too). During the tour, they pass a locked door which Mrs. Briggs explains leads to the cellar, where Colin Childress allegedly killed an innocent woman and then set himself on fire 30 years before, but Whitney is sure he wasn’t guilty.  Mrs. Briggs tells her the room is off limits.

The school is a weird mixture of an artist colony and a school. There are classes and critique sessions, but most of the time, the students just make art in their rooms in this house which is in the middle of nowhere with no television or other distractions.

The monster in CELLAR DWELLER is hungry indeed!

Right off the bat, Whitney and Amanda resume their old rivalry (they were enemies in their previous art school), but some of the other students aren’t so bad. She strikes up friendships with Phillip and Lisa. Whitney is also not a fan of Mrs. Briggs, who looks down on her and is clearly in cahoots with Amanda to discredit her.

When Whitney hears strange noises coming from the basement, she goes down there, even though she was told not to, and finds a bunch of Childress’s artwork and supplies (including that old book of spells, called “Curses of the Ancient Dead”). Despite the fire 30 years before, you couldn’t tell it by looking at the basement, which appears to have been untouched by the blaze that killed Childress.

Whitney insists on being allowed to live and work down in the basement, where her hero once drew his comics. At first, Mrs. Briggs is furious that Whitney went down there when she was told it was off limits, but she eventually relents, letting Whitney have the basement as her personal studio. But she also has Amanda film Whitney down there when she’s not aware – part of some weird scheme to doctor footage to make it look like Whitney is a plagiarist (which doesn’t make a lot of sense).

It’s down in the basement that Whitney’s work becomes more passionate, and we realize that what she draws begins coming true when she draws a page where Amanda is attacked and killed by the demon we saw in the beginning – and it really happens! In fact, the demon starts to kill off everyone in the house, one by one, until Whitney realizes what is going on. After a while, she doesn’t even have to draw the pages for them to happen for real – the pages begin to draw themselves! And the demon begins to gain more and more control over its existence in our world.

Will Whitney be able to stop the hellish monster before it kills her and all her friends? To find out, you’ll have to find a copy of CELLAR DWELLER.

Beware the CELLAR DWELLER!

Director John Carl Buechler, who also gave us such movies as TROLL (1986) (not be confused with its sequel – in name only – the camp classic, TROLL 2), as well as FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD (1988) and GHOULIES III: GHOULIES GO TO COLLEGE (1991), was also in charge of the mechanical and makeup effects for CELLAR DWELLER (his credits as a Special Effects guy way outnumber his credits as a director, including doing effects for everything from GHOULIES, 1985 to Stuart Gordon’s FROM BEYOND , 1986, to DR. MOREAU’S HOUSE OF PAIN, 2004).  The monster effects for CELLAR DWELLER are actually kind of cool, despite the low budget. The demon/monster of the title looks like the product of stop-motion animation at times, and at other times looks like a mixture of makeup and animatronic effects. The monster looks a little stiff at times, but is above-average for this kind of stuff.

The script by Don Mancini (who also wrote practically all of the Chucky movies, starting with the original CHILD’S PLAY, also from 1988) is incredibly silly. The whole concept of what Whitney draws coming to life has been done before, and here seems pretty goofy, in the way it completely defies logic. And there really aren’t any scares to be found.

The acting is okay.  Lead actress Debrah Mullowney (who would later be billed as Debrah Farentino) is actually quite striking and does a decent job, despite the silly dialogue and laughable motivations she has to convey. Mullowney started in television and CELLAR DWELLER was her first feature film. She later appeared on such shows as NYPD BLUE and the SyFy Channel series EUREKA.

You might remember Brian Robbins from TV shows like HEAD OF THE CLASS (1986 – 1991). He went on to become a producer and director, most recently directing the Eddie Murphy comedy, A THOUSAND WORDS (2012).

As for the rest of the cast, you might remember Pamela Bellwood (Amanda) from the 80s prime time soap opera DYNASTY, and Vince Edwards, who plays the most annoying character, the private eye wannabe Norman, became a TV star in the 60s with doctor shows like BEN CASEY (1961 – 1966)  and  MATT LINCOLN (1970 – 1971). Yvonne De Carlo, probably the biggest name star in CELLAR DWELLER,  appeared in tons of Hollywood films of the 1940s and 50s before becoming a household name in THE MUNSTERS TV show (1964 – 1966).

Don’t go into CELLAR DWELLER expecting something serious or compelling, but it is an entertaining little flick if you’re open to low-budget 80s horror films with more than a touch of camp.

© Copyright 2012 by L.L. Soares

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Friday Night Knife Fights: NEAR DARK VS. THE LOST BOYS – PART 3

Posted in 1980s Horror, 2012, Friday Night Knife Fights, Staff Writers, Supernatural, Vampires with tags , , , , , , on July 27, 2012 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS
NEAR DARK (1987) vs. THE LOST BOYS (1987)
PART 3 of 3
With Michael Arruda, L.L. Soares, Paul McMahon, and Mark Onspaugh

MICHAEL ARRUDA: Good evening everybody, and welcome to Part 3 of FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS. Tonight it’s the final segment of our NEAR DARK vs. THE LOST BOYS debate.

Up until now, it’s been all NEAR DARK.

LS: That comes as no surprise!

MA: After three rounds, it’s NEAR DARK 3, THE LOST BOYS 0. It’s time for the final rounds, where we’ll see if NEAR DARK continues its shut-out performance, as it hasn’t allowed THE LOST BOYS to score even one point yet. Or, will THE LOST BOYS finally muster some strength to get on the scoreboard and fight its way back to a comeback victory? Stay with us and find out.

Once again, I’m joined on our panel by L.L. Soares, Paul McMahon, and Mark Onspaugh. Thanks again for taking part.

MO: No problem.

LS: I say we skip the rest of the panel and grab some beers. We all know which movie is going to win.

PM: I don’t know about that, but the beer part sounds good to me.

MO: Me, too.

MA: Well, as good as it sounds, we don’t really know which film is going to win. There’s always room for a comeback. Let’s finish the panel.

LS: You’re never any fun!

MA: It’s time for Round 4. Which film’s director does a better job at the helm?

I’ll go first.

THE LOST BOYS was directed by Joel Schumacher, and the best thing I can say for it is the movie looks good. It’s a slick professional directing job by Schumacher. Too bad no one reminded him that he was directing a horror movie. I think he secretly thought he was making this for Disney, as it plays like PETER PAN: VAMPIRE.

LS: Good one!

MA: I can’t say that I liked the job that Schumacher did here. His work on THE LOST BOYS reminded me a lot of his two Batman movies—BATMAN FOREVER (1995) and BATMAN AND ROBIN (1997) —and that’s not saying much.

(The sound of someone gagging in the background)

MA: My favorite Schumacher movie is probably FALLING DOWN (1993) starring Michael Douglas, a movie I like much better than THE LOST BOYS.

LS: FALLING DOWN is a good one. I also enjoyed TIGERLAND and 8MM (both from 1999). So the dude is capable of making good movies. But the majority of his career has been garbage.

MA: So, it goes without saying, that I prefer the direction by Kathryn Bigelow on NEAR DARK. She did what Schumacher and the others who worked on THE LOST BOYS didn’t do: she took the subject seriously. NEAR DARK is a much more serious vampire film, and as a result, is a more rewarding experience, especially for the horror fan.

LS: But LOST BOYS does take some of its story seriously. It just completely drops the ball when it feels the need to add the Coreys’ lame storyline.

As for which of these two movies had better direction, I’ll put it this way. Joel Schumacher ruined vampires in LOST BOYS, and he ruined Batman. Just keep this guy away from BATS!

Schmaucher has been working for decades and never seems to get any better at directing. Kathryn Bigelow is another level. Another league! You can’t compare them.

NEAR DARK all the way.

MO: These are two very different films.

I thought Schumacher made a wise choice showing almost all the flying from the vamp POV – especially when we see the terror on the security guard’s face (and taking the car door with him was badass) or the couple necking in the car.

MA: That was terror? I thought he looked constipated.

LS: He’s right about one thing, though. Flying vampires look pretty goofy. The POV scenes made them less so.

MO: But the bar scene in NEAR DARK, with the beer mug of blood, death by spur, etc., and the bits like the “old” kid downed on his bike or Paxton picking up lovelies… and the aforementioned bleakness… I go with Bigelow. It’s funny how you can see NEAR DARK leading to THE HURT LOCKER (2008), and THE LOST BOYS leading BATMAN AND ROBIN (1997).

MA: Very true. Good point!

LS: One trajectory is leading up, and one is leading down. Guess which is which.

Jamie Gertz plays Star in THE LOST BOYS.

PM: Joel Schumacher made an interesting choice in casting the vampires of THE LOST BOYS as teenagers. Even if he only did it to heighten interest among moviegoers at the time, it was still something that hadn’t been done to death yet. He also blends the younger and older actors pretty well. A lot was done to make it all seem” cool,” in an effort to soften the horror. Scenes that should have packed an emotional wallop were glossed over for laughs. Did I mention that the film ends on a friggin’ punch line? I agree with Mark. You get a premonition of Schumacher developing into the director who would put nipples on Batman.

Kathryn Bigelow sets an evil mood in NEAR DARK, gritty and dusty with big open spaces and lots of leather and Stetsons, calling up the Western tropes she was going for.

LS: There’s even a scene with a horse and a tumbleweed, for chrissakes! (laughs)

PM: She blends the elements of the story together smoothly, and gets solid performances out of all of her cast.

At the end, she seems to lose control of the material, though. She uses some ridiculous ‘Hollywood’ explosions to wrap things up (a tanker truck doesn’t even finish jackknifing before it blows sky-high), and like I’ve said, Jesse and Diamondback seem to just give up. As much as I hated the punch line ending of THE LOST BOYS, it’s only a few seconds and doesn’t interfere with what’s come before.

I’m going with Joel Schumacher and THE LOST BOYS.

MA: Wow. I agree that the ending to NEAR DARK isn’t all that great, but you think Grandpa coming to the rescue is better? I think you just might have been distracted when you watched this one!

LS: I’ll say!

MA: Okay, Round 4 goes to NEAR DARK, even though Paul tried yet again to get THE LOST BOYS in there.

Which means that after 4 Rounds, it’s NEAR DARK – 4, THE LOST BOYS – 0.

LS: Can we leave and grab those beers now?

Jenny Wright as Mae in NEAR DARK.

MA: Not yet! Because now it’s the moment everyone’s been waiting for. The fifth and final round. And let me just remind everyone how the scoring works. With this final round, should we all choose THE LOST BOYS, then that’s considered a “knock out” and THE LOST BOYS would win this bout, even though it has yet to score a point.

MO (points to LS): That means he would have to choose THE LOST BOYS over NEAR DARK?

MA: Yep.

(They all start laughing.)

LS: I’m telling you, let’s go grab those beers!

MA: Not yet! Hey, stranger things have happened, but don’t quote me on that. I’m not making any predictions!

The final question is: If you had to pick, which film do you think is better?

Mark, take it away.

MO: For jokey, family fun (with some good makeup effects), I’d go with THE LOST BOYS. It’s also a good time capsule for 80′s fashion.

But, if it’s straight-up horror with style (my preference), I’d go with NEAR DARK. So, it’s NEAR DARK for me.

One final note: I don’t mind vampire films setting up different rules than the ones we are used to, if they adhere to them—on the TV series BEING HUMAN I am fine with vamps being out in the sunlight, but prefer vamps like those in TRUE BLOOD or NEAR DARK, where the sun is death.

THE LOST BOYS also sets that up, but seems to break several of its own rules when Edward Hermann casts a reflection and is not affected by holy water—I thought this was a cheap device to throw us off his scent as lead vamp—that lame “Don’t ever invite a vampire into your house, you silly boy. It renders you powerless.” quote by Edward Hermann doesn’t excuse this sloppy writing.

MA: I completely agree. It’s one of the lamest moments in the movie. It’s one of the lamest moments in the history of vampire movies, period!

MO: Finally, I will say the Eddie Munster reference in THE LOST BOYS made me

laugh. It’s probably the only line that did make me laugh.

LS: That’s funny. That’s the only line that made me laugh, too.

MA: Lucky you. I didn’t laugh. Paul?

PM: THE LOST BOYS tried too hard to be a comedy, and as such never really punched the fear or danger buttons for me. There’s nothing there to earn the R rating. If the film were released today it would be PG-13 without changing a frame.

NEAR DARK was more of what I want from a vampire flick—more evil, more danger, more blood, more creepiness. NEAR DARK doesn’t try to be “cool” and doesn’t shellac the scariness with jokes and wacky characters. Plus, if it came out today, it would definitely keep its R.

My pick for the best movie is clearly NEAR DARK.

MA: Truth be told, I’m not a fan of either movie.

I saw THE LOST BOYS when it first came out, opening to strong reviews, but I hated it. I thought it was silly, the humor a misfire, and I couldn’t get into it.

I saw NEAR DARK later, after word of mouth had proclaimed it an excellent vampire movie. I saw it, but wasn’t wowed. In terms of 80s vampire movies, I like FRIGHT NIGHT (1985) much better.

But to choose between the two, there’s no comparison. I’d go with NEAR DARK, hands down. I like its story better, and the overall feel of the movie is much more to my liking. It’s scary, gritty, and realistic. THE LOST BOYS is ruined by its goofiness, and simply put, it’s a joke that I didn’t find funny.

LS: Yeah, we don’t need to belabor this, do we? NEAR DARK is head and shoulders (and everything else) above THE LOST BOYS. And I think it’s better than your beloved FRIGHT NIGHT, too (even though it did have Roddy McDowell in it). But that’s another argument for another time.

MA: Yeah, maybe we should have done that one! Because FRIGHT NIGHT is way better than NEAR DARK! But like you said, that’s for another time.

Well, that’s it, folks. The final tally is—NEAR DARK – 5 and THE LOST BOYS – 0. NEAR DARK pretty much smoked THE LOST BOYS the whole way. It was never that close.

LS: I’m exhausted. Can we those beers now?

MA: Yes, now we can relax and have a drink. Okay, everybody, thanks again for joining us! And thank you Mark and Paul, for taking part. Until next time—.

Good night everybody!

(FADE TO BLACK)

© Copyright 2012 by Michael Arruda, L.L. Soares, Mark Onspaugh and Paul McMahon

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Friday Night Knife Fights: NEAR DARK vs. LOST BOYS – PART 2

Posted in 1980s Horror, 2012, Friday Night Knife Fights, Vampire Hunters, Vampire Movies, Vampires with tags , , , , , on July 19, 2012 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT:  FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS
NEAR DARK vs. THE LOST BOYS (Both from 1987)
PART 2  (OF 3)
With Michael Arruda, L.L. Soares, Paul McMahon, and Mark Onspaugh

MICHAEL ARRUDA:  Welcome back everybody!

Tonight, it’s Part 2 of FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS, NEAR DARK vs. THE LOST BOYS.  Once again, L.L. Soares, Paul McMahon, and Mark Onspaugh, and myself, Michael Arruda, are all here on this panel as we try to determine which of these 1987 vampire movies is the better of the two.

Last time, NEAR DARK took Round 1, and so the score after one round, is:

NEAR DARK 1, THE LOST BOYS 0.

On to Round 2.  You guys ready?

LS:  No, we like just sitting here.  Of course we’re ready.  Let’s go!

MA:  Question 2: Which film has the stronger cast?

L.L., why don’t you start us off?

LS:  A lot of the cast of THE LOST BOYS is actually quite good. I’m a big fan of Jason Patric, who plays Michael. He went on to some very good roles after this movie, and he’s a sympathetic hero (although why he still lives with him mom and goes to high school when he looks to be about 25 continues to baffle me). I also like Dianne Wiest as Lucy, the mom. She went on to be in a lot of high-brow flicks.

MA:  I’m with you with Wiest, but Jason Patric in this movie is a bore.

LS:  As for the vampires. Hey, I have to admit that I dig Keifer. The guy has presence. You believe he leads a gang of vampires. There was a time when I didn’t like him as an actor, but I’ve definitely changed my tune on that.

MA:  I definitely agree.  Keifer Sutherland makes the most of his scenes here, and I liked him a lot.

LS:  And Jamie Gertz is pretty hot. Edward Hermann is kind of goofy as Max. He’s not great, but he’s memorable. And I like Barnard Hughes as Grandpa. I guess he’s supposed to be a comic relief character, although he’s not the only one.

MA:  You liked Max and Grandpa?  Come on!  As much as I like Edward Hermann, Max is an awfully weak character for someone who is supposed to be a vampire leader and a love interest for Weist’s character.  I didn’t buy him in either one of these roles.  I think Hermann’s miscast.

LS:  Max is a dumb character. How can he be miscast? Who would you have chosen, Sir John Gielgud?

MA:  Let’s see.  It’s 1987.  How about Kurt Russell?  I would have believed him as a leader of the lost boys!

LS (shaking his head):  But he’s not supposed to seem like a leader of the lost boys. He’s supposed to trick you. Wally Cox would have been better than Kurt Russell, but I think he was dead already by then. It’s not really an important role anyway, and Hermann is just fine in it. His overly mannered presence made me laugh, unlike Corey Feldman’s jokes.

And who doesn’t like Grandpa?!!

….but everyone else in the movie?

The other vampires are pretty bland when it comes to personalities, so they didn’t impress me much at all.

And then we get to the true reason why THE LOST BOYS is fatally flawed. The “other” storyline that’s going on here. The one starring the “Two Coreys.”

MA (rolls eyes): Ugh!

LS: It’s like there are two movies going on simultaneously. The real one, where Jason Patric struggles not to become a vampire. And then there’s a second one, starring Corey Haim and Corey Feldman.

The horror that is COREY FELDMAN!

Corey Haim plays Sam, Michael’s younger brother, and he’s just another annoying brat. I hated all his scenes. But he’s Laurence Olivier next to Corey Feldman, possibly the worst actor in the history of movies.

MA:  I actually liked Haim when I re-watched THE LOST BOYS for this column.  Feldman, not so much, but I wouldn’t call him the worst actor ever.  Some folks in the TWILIGHT movies have dibs on that distinction.

LS: You liked Corey Haim? Well, there goes your credibility out the window. His performance is just made up of stupid jokes that aren’t funny, him whining all the time, and telling people he has nightmares because of comic books. He’s just a little jerk. As for Feldman. He’s not the worst actor ever? What planet are you from? I don’t like the TWILIGHT movies but even a shirtless (and brainless) Taylor Lautner could act Feldman under the table! Come on!

MA:  We’ll see how you feel this November when we review the final TWILIGHT movie.

LS:  In THE LOST BOYS, Feldman plays Edgar Frog, who, with his blander and less annoying brother Alan (Jamison Newlander), runs a comic book store and also keeps track of the vampire residents of the seaside town they live in, Santa Clara.  They’re supposed to be funny (one is named Edgar and one is Alan, get it?), but they’re just complete assholes. Feldman especially acts if he is in a completely other movie—some lame-ass teen comedy—because he certainly doesn’t take any of this stuff seriously, and personally I think that’s because he can’t. He doesn’t have the acting ability to portray a serious character. He’s a clown.

I can tell these characters are complete idiots the first time Sam goes into the Frog brothers’ comic book store. They have a conversation about Superman comics that is just friggin’ lame and shows that they probably know nothing about real comics books. And then Sam says “I’m looking for a copy of number 14 of Superman, which, if they had one, would be worth thousands of dollars. It’s just asinine.

But I’ll go so far as to say every single time this movie focuses on the two Coreys and their shenanigans, the entire movie comes to screeching halt. You lose any momentum that has been building, any attempts at the movie being scary, and you lose any belief or concern about the other, real, storyline. They just completely ruin the movie for you. And that goes double for Feldman, who is like cinematic poison here.

I don’t know if he’s this bad in every movie he’s in—because I kind of avoid Corey Feldman movies—but I don’t remember him being half as annoying in STAND BY ME (1986).

Director Joel Schumacher (more on him later) should have made up his mind. Did he want to make a good horror movie about a guy struggling to remain human, or did he want to make a crappy teen comedy where Corey Haim and Corey Feldman constantly do things to get middle-school kids to laugh? Because he can’t have both.

MA:  Well, he could have had both if he took both storylines seriously.  The  “Coreys” story is simply too goofy, but if those teens were portrayed as real people rather than as cartoonish vampire hunters, then their scenes would have been better.  In FRIGHT NIGHT, for example, the humor in the Roddy McDowall storyline works because McDowall took the role seriously.

LS:  Don’t mention Roddy McDowall in the same breath with those two teen twerps!  They ruined THE LOST BOYS!

Which brings us to NEAR DARK. I dug every single cast member, except maybe Homer, who got on my nerves most of the time, but nowhere near as much as the Coreys. And Jenette Goldstein as Diamonback either isn’t fleshed out enough or isn’t memorable enough to stand out for me. But everyone else—I don’t’ need to list them all, do I?: —is just really good here. I even like Tim Thomerson (a B-movie veteran) as Caleb’s dad, even though he doesn’t have a lot to do here, and I like Marcie Leeds, who plays his little sister Sarah, a lot. (Marcie is a way better child actor than Joshua John Miller as Homer, by the way).

Hands down, NEAR DARK has the better cast.  Even if THE LOST BOYS had even more good actors, it would lose. Because Corey Feldman’s performance is made of anti-matter and negates everything it touches.

MA: I wish you’d tell us what you really think about him.

LS: Sorry, I know I held back a little.

MA: Paul, what about you?

PM:  This is a tough call.

THE LOST BOYS had more name recognition with lots of popular Teen Beat pinup stars, multiple Emmy nominee Edward Herrmann and Diane Wiest, coming off her first Oscar win for HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986). Even so, not a whole lot of acting showed up onscreen. Herrmann and Wiest had very little to do, and in the end Corey Haim did the most of the actual acting in the film.

LS: You call that acting?

PM:  Yeah.  He’s pretty good in his scenes.

MA:  I agree with Paul.  I liked Haim in this movie.

LS (shakes his head): You guys have gone crackers.

PM: In NEAR DARK,  the actors were less well known, with Lance, Bill and Jenette Goldstein (who played Jesse Hooker’s girl Diamondback) all coming off ALIENS the year before.

The relationship between Caleb and Mae (Adrian Pasdar and Jenny Wright) in NEAR DARK was based on exactly the same set up as the relationship between Michael and Star (Jason Patric and Jami Gertz) in THE LOST BOYS, namely, a horny man thinking: “What a babe! I’m'a get me somma dat!” In NEAR DARK, though, the relationship is far more involved because after Mae bites Caleb, beginning his turn into a vampire, she’s put in charge of getting Caleb to make his first kill and turning him completely, something he is resisting.

Caleb and Mae have a sad love affair (with blood) in NEAR DARK.

LS: I really liked that aspect of the story.

PM: And as for child vampires, Homer would have Laddie for breakfast. The NEAR DARK cast evokes a lot more emotion than the cast of THE LOST BOYS, and is more believable to boot.

My vote for the best cast goes to NEAR DARK.

MA:  I agree with Paul that Dianne Wiest and Edward Hermann are fine actors, but neither of them had much to do in THE LOST BOYS.  I actually thought Corey Haim did an excellent job as Sam, but I didn’t like the plot he was stuck in at all, involved with those silly juvenile vampire hunters.

But I was most impressed with Kiefer Sutherland as the vampire David.  To me, he’s the best part of THE LOST BOYS.  I wish he had been the main vampire in the movie, and the story had been built around him.  Oh well.

LS: Sutherland is pretty much the main vampire in this movie, and it kinda was built around him, so I don’t know what you’re whining about. Their “big boss” is a secret until the end and certainly the movie isn’t built around him.

MA: If Sutherland were truly the main vampire he’d still be around at the film’s conclusion!

LS: That’s such a minor point. I’m judging the whole movie, not the last two minutes. Why are you so hung up on who ultimately is the “main vampire.” As far as screen time, and the impression he makes on you, Sutherland is the main vampire.

MA: I’m just saying he’s my favorite character in the movie, and for my tastes, he’s not in it enough, nor is the story built around him as much as I wish it were.  You obviously disagree.

In NEAR DARK, Adrian Pasdar is okay as Caleb Colton, but he certainly didn’t wow me.  But Jenny Wright as the vampire Mae, now she’s a different story!  Her quirky beauty in NEAR DARK makes her one hot vampire.  Sizzle!

I also really enjoyed Lance Henriksen as lead vampire Jesse Hooker.  To me, he’s the presence that is so sorely lacking in THE LOST BOYS.  Had Sutherland been in LOST BOYS more, then I think he would have given the movie that presence, but as it stands, he’s not as powerful a character as Henriken’s Jesse.  For me, Henriksen is the most memorable part of NEAR DARK.

LS: I can’t praise Henriksen enough. He is terrific in NEAR DARK. One of his best roles.

MA: Surprisingly, I didn’t like Bill Paxton all that much in this one, and this surprises me because usually I enjoy him a lot.  I think it’s because it’s the same “Bill Paxton” shtick we’ve seen before in other movies, and I don’t think it works as well when he’s a vampire. I didn’t find him as funny as a vampire, but I also had a hard time taking him seriously as a psycho vampire.

LS: I thought Paxton was annoying at times, but I think that was on purpose. Overall, I loved his performance in NEAR DARK. The guy is a force of nature, and he deserves more roles like this.

MA: Well, I found his portrayal of a vampire too annoying!

But I did enjoy veteran actor Tim Thomerson as Caleb’s devoted dad, Loy, who spends the bulk of the movie trying to save his son from the vampires.

LS: Thomerson is great.

MA: I like Sutherland and Haim in THE LOST BOYS, and I like Henriksen, Wright, and Thomerson in NEAR DARK.  Advantage:  NEAR DARK.

What did you think, Mark?

MO:  I love Dianne Wiest in THE LOST BOYS, and Edward Hermann is good as the bumbling, good-natured head vampire.

(MA& LS groan).

MO: But come on – NEAR DARK has Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein, all from ALIENS (1986), and Jack Deth himself, Tim Thomerson!

Gotta go with NEAR DARK on cast.

MA:  Round 2 goes to NEAR DARK as well.  After two rounds, it’s:

NEAR DARK – 2, THE LOST BOYS – 0.

Edward Hermann has a spooky secret in THE LOST BOYS.

On to Round 3.

Question 3: Which film has the more effective screenplay? 

Paul, let’s start with you.

PM:  I’m not a fan of horror movies that pretend to be comedies. What little threat there is in THE LOST BOYS comes from Michael allowing himself to get pulled steadily into David’s group so that he can be with Star. This tension is offset by Michael’s brother Sam getting pulled into the comic zaniness of the vampire hunting Frog Brothers. The first time I watched them enter the sunken hotel, I expected them to chicken out and run away screaming. That said, the screenplay balances those elements at least as well as a good YA novel would. It keeps the suspense all the way through to the end of the film, with the only real let down being that it ended on a punch line. A punch line, for chrissakes!

MA:  You found suspense in THE LOST BOYS?  Seriously?  I thought THE LOST BOYS completely dropped the ball on anything remotely related to horror.

LS: If it focused on Patric and Sutherland and Gertz as a love triangle, it would have worked.

PM:   NEAR DARK is solid, brooding and downright scary in parts, not to mention a whole lot bloodier than THE LOST BOYS. While Michael brazenly ignores that Star is hanging out with some very shady characters, NEAR DARK’S Caleb has been bitten and is forced to remain among her band of rowdies to stay alive. The stakes for him are higher (take the pun as you will).

However, the ending of NEAR DARK didn’t pop like it should’ve, it just kind of fizzed out. The vampires just seem to give up, a huge disappointment which seemed out of character. While that might have been done to keep the running time down, it looked like Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Red just plain ran out of ideas.

I give a slight edge to THE LOST BOYS in terms of screenplay.

MA:  I completely disagree.

I give the screenplay edge to NEAR DARK, hands down.

The screenplay to NEAR DARK by Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Red is a gritty realistic tale that remembers something important, something that THE LOST BOYS forgot:  it’s a horror movie, stupid!  It also remembers to be scary!

THE LOST BOYS screenplay by Janice Fisher, James Jeremias, and Jeffrey Boam ruins any chance of it being taken seriously by throwing in a silly vampire hunter plot that belongs in a kids’ movie, or at least a PG movie.  What’s it doing in an R rated movie? It just doesn’t fit in at all!

And the attempts at humor in THE LOST BOYS all misfire.  The humor is nowhere near as sharp or as biting—heh heh—as the humor in its 1980s contemporary, FRIGHT NIGHT (1985).

LS: Hell, FRIGHT NIGHT is a better vampire movie than THE LOST BOYS.

MA: But the worst part of THE LOST BOYS story is that the vampires are not treated seriously.  It’s a very superficial screenplay.  It comes off as “let’s write a story about vampires without really caring if anyone believes it or not.  After all, who believes in vampires?”  Sorry, but this is the wrong approach.

This surprised me, because screenwriter Jeffrey Boam, who passed away in 2000, has a lot of screenplay credits, and I like a bunch of movies he wrote:  THE DEAD ZONE (1983), INNERSPACE (1987), FUNNY FARM (1988) and INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989).  Oh well.  You can’t strike gold all the time.

LS:  Well, I agree about THE DEAD ZONE, but none of those other credits wow me.

Look, I’ve said it before. THE LOST BOYS had potential. If it stuck to the serious aspects of the story, it could have been a classic of its time. But the silly antics of the kids just overshadows everything and ruins the tone, and anything good about the script, and worst of all, those scenes aren’t even funny, so they sacrificed the good stuff for nothing! Watching it again this week, I noticed how good it could have been, and it kind of saddened me. . It was a lost opportunity. With a better script, a different director, and some changes in the cast, it could have been terrific. But as it is, it’s a bad movie.

Sam and the Frog Brothers. Three stooges who should have been left on the cutting room floor in THE LOST BOYS.

The screenplay for NEAR DARK is far superior. Sure, it’s dated now in some ways, and it certainly has flaws in logic, but overall, its’ a solid story that holds up very well over 20 years later. Kathryn Bigelow proved this was no fluke. She went on to make more great movies like STRANGE DAYS (1995) and she won the Oscar for THE HURT LOCKER (2008). And Eric Red is another talented writer. He also gave us THE HITCHER (1986, and 2007) and BODY PARTS (1991).

You can’t compare the quality of the scripts. NEAR DARK wins hands down.

MO:  I think the bleak, desolate vision of Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Red’s NEAR DARK holds up better than the jokey, bright and candy-colored screenplay of THE LOST BOYS, even though I liked some of the latter’s riffs on Peter Pan, including a pirate’s cave and seeking “mother” for those lost boys…

LS: Yeah, and the title of course. The Peter Pan riffs were one of the best things about THE LOST BOYS. And yet another aspect squandered by an otherwise putrid script.

MO: But I found NEAR DARK more intense and less hopeful, because of the lack of one-liners and kooky characters, and that made the triumph of our protagonists all the sweeter, because the film could have gone either way, as opposed to THE LOST BOYS where you just know they’re not going to kill off the two Coreys.

LS: Oh, I wish they had.

MO: So, I’m going with NEAR DARK, too.

LS; The only logical choice, I’d say.

MA: Okay, then.  Round 3 goes to NEAR DARK, despite Paul’s misguided vote for THE LOST BOYS.

Which brings the tally up to NEAR DARK – 3, THE LOST BOYS – 0.

And that’s all the time we have for tonight.  Join us next Friday for the third and final segment of this debate to see if THE LOST BOYS will ever score a point, or if NEAR DARK will march on towards a decisive win.

Thanks for joining us, everybody.  See you next Friday!

—END—

© Copyright 2012 by Michael Arruda, L.L. Soares, Mark Onspaugh and Paul McMahon

One more part to go. Don’t go too far. Squeak, squeak.

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Transmissions to Earth: THE BURNING (1981)

Posted in 1980s Horror, 2011, 80s Horror, Indie Horror, LL Soares Reviews, Psychos, Slasher Movies, Trasmissions to Earth with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on June 8, 2011 by knifefighter

Transmissions to Earth: THE BURNING (1981)
Movie Review by L.L. Soares

I don’t review many slasher films here. Mainly because that’s usually the domain of Nick Cato’s Suburban Grindhouse Memories column. But I recently saw a good one that I thought I’d spotlight here.

When THE BURNING begins, you think it’s just going to be another rip-off of 1979’s FRIDAY THE 13TH. We go to Camp Blackfoot to see a group of kids planning a prank to play on the camp bully, Cropsy (Lou David). Unfortunately, when he wakes up from a drunken sleep to behold the joke, meant simply to scare him, it ends up causing a fire and Cropsy gets deep fried. A bit of an extreme response to bullying, you might say.

Six months later, we go over to Camp Stonewater (across the river from Camp Blackfoot) in time to see the newest batch of kids out to have a fun summer. Little do they know that someone is stalking them, looking for revenge for what happened to him. Instead of hunting down the actual kids who did it to him, Cropsy seems to think all summer camp kids are the same. Which saves him time he might have spent on actually hunting down his attackers and finding out where they were now. Sounds like a kind of lazy psycho to me.

There is never any mystery as to who the killer is. After he gets out of the hospital,  Cropsy immediately finds a prostitute and goes back to her place – to commit a gruesome murder with a pair of scissors. Oh by the way, Crospy doesn’t go around burning his victims in THE BURNING, the title simply refers to what happened to him at the start of the story. For revenge, Cropsy prefers a pair of gardening sheers with “big long blades” as one camper describes them.

A funny thing happens at the new camp, though. THE BURNING becomes a kind of schizophrenic movie, as we get two movies in one. One is the horror film where Cropsy goes around killing campers. The other is a fun summer camp movie with pranks and characters coming of age. The reason why the summer camp scenes work so well is because these characters are actually fleshed out. The script does something called characterization, instead of just presenting us with a cardboard cut-out victims. And the cast actually isn’t half bad.

Among the kids are the great Jason Alexander (yes, George Costanza from Seinfeld himself) as Dave, the “cool kid” who is always joking around at the camp. There are also: Alfred (Brian Backer), the weird kid who is desperately trying to fit in, Woodstock the prankster (Fisher Stevens), Eddy (Ned Eisenberg), the guy from the city and resident lady’s man, and the new bully, Glazer (Larry Joshua). The girls include tomboy Tiger (Shelley Bruce), Glazer’s girlfriend Sally (Carrick Glenn), and the very pretty Karen (Carolyn Houlihan), who Eddy has his eyes on. Counselors Todd (Brian Matthews) and Michelle (Leah Ayres) try to keep the kids from getting into too much trouble. I mention most of the cast here, because they’re all really good in their roles.

Like I said, there are long stretches where it seems to be a summer camp movie, and it’s easy to get caught up in these kids’ lives, but things take a darker tone toward the end, when Cropsy finally makes his move and starts picking off the campers one by one when they’re stranded on an island during a canoeing trip.

Aside from the acting, there are some other quality elements in this movie. The soundtrack was by Rick Wakeman of Yes (which reminded me an awful lot of the horror movie soundtracks that Goblin did for Dario Argento), and future mega-producer Harvey Weinstein co-wrote the story and the script (and this was the first movie he got a producer credit on). The direction by Tony Maylam is also above-average for this sort of film.

Special effects master Tom Savini was in charge of the make-up and gore effects. While the murder/gore effects are good here (how could they not be?), THE BURNING  isn’t as over-the-top as some of Savini’s best (and most memorable) work.

If THE BURNING has developed a cult audience over the years, and it has, it’s because it is of higher quality than the usual slasher films of the early 80s. The kids aren’t just faceless victims waiting to be killed; they actually have a chance to develop onscreen and make us care about them. It’s been playing on the IFC channel occasionally, and if can catch it there, or on Netflix, I recommend you check it out.

-END-

© Copyright 2011 by L.L. Soares

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Suburban Grindhouse Memories: THE MUTILIATOR (1985)

Posted in 1980s Horror, 2011, 80s Horror, Gore!, Grindhouse, Nick Cato Reviews, Psychos, Serial Killer flicks, Slasher Movies, Sleaze, VIOLENCE! with tags , , , , , , on May 26, 2011 by knifefighter

Suburban Grindhouse Memories Presents:
By Sword, By Pick, By Axe, BYE BYE!
By Nick Cato

When you were a sophomore in high school, and a horror fan, sophomoric horror films were always a sure-fire hit.  The bluntly titled THE MUTILATOR (1985) was no exception.

The audience didn’t know what to make of the opening sequence, where a young kid accidentally shoots his mother (through the kitchen wall) while he polishes his dad’s hunting rifles as part of a birthday present.  Despite his good intentions, his father comes home to find his wife bleeding to death and his son standing there with a rifle.  The kid manages to run away after his old man lays a beating on him, but the kid sneaks back and spies his father having a birthday drink with the mother’s corpse.  Call me sick, but I laughed so loud at the absurdity of this scene a friend of mine elbowed my side, causing half of my valuable popcorn to fall onto the sticky floor.

Shot under the working title FALL BREAK, I’m assuming director Buddy Cooper changed the title when he realized his generic slasher film sounded too much like a generic teenage T&A beach movie.  Either way, THE MUTILATOR’s “plot” jumps ahead to the aforementioned kid now grown up, hanging with his friends, when he gets a phone call from his father.  Seems his old man wants his son (who he hasn’t spoken to in years) to help him shut down his isolated condo for the winter…and of course his son’s bored friends egg him on to do it (figuring they’ll use the place to party while they’re there).

It doesn’t take long for the body count to begin, and being we know who the killer is three minutes into the film, there are no surprises, no tension, and absolutely NO scares.

But what THE MUTILATOR does have going for it (if you’re a slasher film completist, anyway) are classic 80s gore sequences, including a guy gutted via outboard motor, some poor girl having a fishing gaff shoved into her crotch, plus various decapitations and amputations via axe, pick, and nearly anything else this kid’s crazed old man could get his hands on.

While I don’t know how this holds up on home video (I’ve only seen it once upon it’s initial 1985 theatrical release), THE MUTILATOR—for a film with such little suspense—managed to have the crowd screaming and cheering for more inventive (and graphic) kill scenes.  Thinking back on it now, I’m sure if there were any psychiatrists in the audience they must’ve thought we had all flipped our lids.  But at the time, this was a bloody good time for any high school horror fan.

(SPOILER ALERT!) ***

If any film had an ending that’s nearly as silly, twisted, and ridiculous as PIECES (1982), it’s the conclusion to THE MUTILATOR.  After our slasher is cut in half at the waist (!), he manages to hack a policeman’s leg off with his handy axe, even though his guts are strewn all over the dirt floor.  We all laughed.  Some booed.  But in 1985, the blood-hungry crowd still left my local suburban grindhouse oddly satisfied.

Director Buddy Cooper (who I met at a 1989 Fangoria convention in NYC) didn’t set out to break any new ground, and in fact his directing is nothing to write home about (the film also suffers from some horrendous lighting and acting).  But what Buddy did was create a fun, gory slasher film that audiences were craving at the time…and while THE MUTILATOR is forgettable (except for the ending), I’m glad to have seen it in it’s prime.  (There’s an “extreme uncut version” DVD available…but without a cheering, shouting, giggling audience, a home viewing can’t be half as fun…)

-END-

© Copyright 2011 by Nick Cato

 

It’s hard keeping your head on straight (or at all!) in THE MUTILATOR (1985)

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Suburban Grindhouse Memories: THE KINDRED

Posted in 2011, 80s Horror, Mutants!, Nick Cato Reviews, Science Fiction, Suburban Grindhouse Memories with tags , , , , , , on May 12, 2011 by knifefighter

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES: THE KINDRED (1987)
Something Fishy’s Goin’ on Here…
By Nick Cato

In the middle of 1987, THE KINDRED was released with minimal advertising yet managed to pack Staten Island’s (now defunct!) Rae Twin Cinema to the gills (full pun intended).  No one knew what to make of this film (even Fangoria magazine had little to say about it before its release), but it turned out to be a nifty little mad scientist/monster movie that was quite welcome after years of abundant slasher and zombie films.

An elderly scientist named Amanda (played by Kim PLANET OF THE APES Hunter) wakes up after spending three years in a coma.  She orders her son John to go back to her sea-side home and destroy her life’s worth of experiments and paperwork—and anything else she may have left behind.  John grabs his girlfriend and a few of his mother’s admirers and heads to her house, where they slowly discover genetic experiments and notes that claim John has a brother named Anthony who he didn’t know about.

Despite the decent set-up and general serious tone of the film, the audience laughed out loud when it was revealed Amanda had been trying to find a way to make people breathe underwater, convinced the earth would one day be nothing but a giant sea.  Okay, so maybe that IS a bit silly, but what goes on during the rest of THE KINDRED’s running time is creepy, at times scary, and always entertaining.  First of all, we discover John’s “brother” is actually a squid-like creature Amanda had created using John’s cell tissue.  It lives under the house in a deep cavern, and at times manages to stretch its tentacles into parts of the house.  AH—NOW the poster (see top of article) had began to make sense!  While everyone tries to figure out how to kill this monstrosity, one of Amanda’s colleagues wants to keep it, hence adding to the growing tension (and for a low budget film, the tension is quite well done).  Thinking back, it’s amazing just how serious the tone of this one is, even with a brief scene where a woman is attacked by a creature hiding in a watermelon in the back seat of her car (but trust me, it’s not half as goofy as it sounds).

By far the standout sequence that anyone who has seen this film remembers is when attractive co-star Amanda Pays transforms into a fish (see pic below).  One second she’s talking to a few people and the next—BLURP!—her nose melds into her face and her cheeks and ribcage slices into gills; hats off to the FX crew who pulled this one off (I saw this again a few years ago on late night cable and the effect still works fantastic—TAKE THAT you CGI bozos!).

Props also go to the legendary Rod Steiger, who appears briefly as Amanda’s superior—but MAN does he hand in a great performance as a whacked out scientist (Rod starred a year later in another fine, underrated horror film, AMERICAN GOTHIC, with Munster Yvonne DeCarlo—and yes I’ll eventually be getting to that one, too).

A lot of horror fans (at the time) complained about THE KINDRED’s lack of gore; but I had no complaints, enjoying the various genetic-abominations running around the screen in all their latex-age glory.  Plus, when squid-boy Anthony gets electrocuted during the finale (oops—post-spoiler alert!), he melts down with more slime, glop, and gloop than the ending of THE DEVIL’S RAIN (1975) and STREET TRASH (1987) combined (okay, maybe not THAT much, but enough to shut up the several schmucks in the theater who kept yelling for gore scenes).

THE KINDRED is no masterpiece and I doubt it’s on any monster-film fan’s top ten list.  But considering the budget this must have been shot on, and the fact the film moves along at a nice pace and I’ve never heard anyone say the didn’t like it, THE KINDRED more than held its own among the endless 1980’s sea of Jason rip-offs and DAWN OF THE DEAD wannabees.

It’s definitely worth checking out.

© Copyright 2011 by Nick Cato

Melissa (Amanda Pays) in mid-fish transformation in THE KINDRED (1987)

 

 

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Suburban Grindhouse Memories: JUST BEFORE DAWN

Posted in 2011, 80s Horror, Grindhouse, Nick Cato Reviews, Psychos, Serial Killer flicks, Slasher Movies, Suburban Grindhouse Memories with tags , , , , , , , on April 21, 2011 by knifefighter

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES
Two Machetes are Better than One!
By Nick Cato

On a brisk Friday afternoon in early 1982, an ad for a film titled JUST BEFORE DAWN caught my eye in the local newspaper. But what caused major interest in me was who the director was: Jeff Lieberman, who had directed the killer-worm epic, SQUIRM (1976), which I must’ve seen twenty-five times on TV during my childhood (and years later I finally found a DVD of his seldom-seen 1978 acid-slasher epic, BLUE SUNSHINE). I was geeked-out happy when I arrived at the (now defunct!) Fox Twin Cinema to see this new film by the director of that wonderful worm epic that helped me waste so many hours of my youth in front of the boob tube.

The legendary George Kennedy stars as a park ranger who warns a group of five future-victims not to go camping in the direction they’re headed (yes, I hear you yawning, but remember this was 1982 and every-other horror film released during this time had the same plot). As they get closer to the mountain they plan to camp on, they’re warned a second time by a crazed old man that there’s demons running around the hills (yet another staple of 80s slasher films). One of the campers is there to look over some property he has inherited, so the warnings mean nothing to him (can you say “mis-take?”).

When their RV can go no further, our victims—err—campers decide to hike the rest of the way up the mountain (I don’t know about you, but if I inherited land this remote I’d just give it to the locals). Before long our friends start getting picked off one by one, and unlike many slasher films of the time, Lieberman’s direction works: once camp is set, there’s (nearly) non-stop suspense and a sense of impending doom that has seldom been seen in a B-movie outside of the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974). Like HELL NIGHT (1981), DAWN relies more on scares than gore, and it works quite well.

Perhaps the best thing about JUST BEFORE DAWN are the killers: they’re backwoods, inbred-psycho hillbilly twin brothers (!), each one over-sized and truly menacing (one of them giggles each time he kills, yet unlike the wise-cracking post-Freddy slashers to come, his evil laugh actually adds to the tension). And let’s face it: the reason we go to see slasher films are for the kill/gore scenes, and while DAWN isn’t overly graphic, it’s still as brutal as they come: there’s a machete to the groin, one poor guy gets a fist shoved down his throat (part of a truly unique ending kill-technique), and one sequence where a female camper tries to hide atop a tree as one of the killers chops it down.

Despite taking half its running time for the goodness to begin, JUST BEFORE DAWN then kicks into high gear and never lets up. Lieberman doesn’t let his budget hinder the cinematography, which fans of the film agree looks much more professional than most slasher films (although much of the acting is nothing to write home about).

Like a cross between DELIVERANCE (1972) and THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977), JUST BEFORE DAWN is a gem of a backwoods horror flick that’s much more entertaining than the recent WRONG TURN films. Many of the night scenes are shot a bit TOO dark for my taste, but it’s worth squinting through for the great pay-off ending (that oddly horror fans have been split on since the films’ release).

As much of a “survival” film as a horror film, JUST BEFORE DAWN was a real treat, even during these early years of the slasher film uprising. There are a couple of DVD editions available today, one from the always reliable folks at Shriek Show.

It must’ve been a blast seeing it in a redneck theater…

© Copyright 2011 by Nick Cato

REASON ONE why it's never wise to skinny-dip in a slasher film...

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Suburban Grindhouse Memories Goes To PIECES

Posted in 1980s Horror, 2011, 80s Horror, Drive-in Movies, Gore!, Nick Cato Reviews, Slasher Movies, Suburban Grindhouse Memories, VIOLENCE! with tags , , , , , , , , , on April 7, 2011 by knifefighter

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES: When Slashers Became Absurd
By Nick Cato

“You Don’t Have To Go To Texas For a Chainsaw Massacre!”

With a poster blurb like that (not to mention the artwork), what horror fan wouldn’t be lured into the theater in less than a second?  And in 1982, my gang of high school freshman gorehounds and I hit the (you guessed it—now defunct) Rae Twin Cinema (where waiting in line to get in was often scarier than the film you were waiting to see: an adjacent OTB was often the scene of fights, ticked-off, bottle-tossing losers and drug deals gone awry).

You’ve heard of a “so-bad-it’s-good” movie?  Well, PIECES is a “so-bad-it’s-mind-boggling-awesome!” masterpiece.

Some poor eight-year-old’s mother finds his puzzle of a naked woman (and his stash of porn magazines hidden in his toy chest), but instead of throwing them out, the nag burns them right in front of the poor, young perv.  Furious, the kid decides his mother has earned herself an axe in the head and wastes no time making his dream a reality.  To say the audience went wild with laughter and gasps is an understatement.

In following the traditional slasher-film pattern, the movie then flash forwards forty years (to 1983), where there’s been a string of murders on a college campus.  Some psycho has been chain-sawing female victims, taking different parts from each one and leaving a string of amputees.  Christopher George (you’ve seen him in Fulci’s CITY OF THE WALKING DEAD (1980), as well as 1981′s GRADUATION DAY), Frank Brana, and Christopher’s wife, Linda Day George, all play detectives and head an all-star trash film cast, including  Paul Smith of MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (1978) and CRIMEWAVE (1985), and Jess Franco alumni Jack Taylor.  The nearly-inept screenplay was co-written by Dick Randall, who was responsible for a bunch of EMANUELLE and kung-fu films.

Oh yes, there’s also a host of cute college girls who get chainsawed and sliced & diced with more nudity than your average genre outing.  PIECES—as another poster blurb states—is “Exactly What You think It Is!”  The film never hid the fact that it was simply an excuse to show excessive gore, and as a young gorehound, I was in my glory here, especially when the camera didn’t cut away during one kill scene where we actually see a chainsaw cut through a victim’s mid-section.  While I didn’t find this sequence too entertaining during a recent DVD viewing, it sent me into a state of gorehound glee when viewed at this 1982 opening night screening.  With the exception of 1970’s THE WIZARD OF GORE (which I wouldn’t see until a few years after this, thanks to VHS), no other horror film (including the original version of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) actually showed the audience something this graphic before.

To be honest, PIECES is an awful, pointless mess of a movie, existing only to exploit gore and nudity: (i.e. it’s a teenage-boy’s-night-out type of film—and being a teenaged boy at the time, it was right up my alley!).

So while modern viewers can forget about any kind of story here, they can still thrill to Linda Day George—after she is too late to save a victim—scream the word “Bastard!” about 5 times in a row, in what could easily qualify for the worst piece of dialogue and acting ever committed to celluloid.  They can also have fun trying to figure out how the killer is able to sneak a 2-foot long chainsaw onto a tiny elevator simply by hiding it behind his back, right in front of his next victim (despite its ridiculousness, the scene is actually quite claustrophobic and cringe-worthy).

And next to the gore and nudity, the creators of PIECES also thought it’d be good to feature a bizarre foot fetish scene, a wacky karate instructor, a killer who dresses like he’s in a serious Giallo film and some scared girl peeing her pants.  (I should mention here that Italian exploitation/porn film icon Joe D’Amato was one of the three screenwriters…if his name’s unfamiliar, Google him—but don’t say I didn’t warn you).

Spoiler Alert! This Spanish-shot film (that tries to fool audiences into thinking this is all happening somewhere in America) has one of the most ridiculous endings next to THE MUTILATOR (1985).  It seems our killer (GASP!) happens to be the boy who had his porno puzzle burned 40 years earlier (making him one of the oldest slashers in horror film history), and has been busy building a human body puzzle from his freshly-cut victims (so those of you who thought MAY (2002) was original, sur-prise!)  This half-baked film then concludes with the freshly-stitched female Frankenstein coming to life and ripping some poor guy’s manhood off.  Yowch…

They just don’t make ‘em like PIECES anymore.

For grindhouse fiends, that’s sad news.  For serious cinephiles, that’s a blessing.  Either way, PIECES is one slasher film that no one who sees it ever forgets…and that’s saying something.

© Copyright 2011 by Nick Cato

NEVER get between a boy and his smut collection!

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