Summer of Slash: Wrap-up

Well, as you can can see apparently the summer only lasts a few months in my world. I know that technically I have an entrie month to watch more slasher/horror movies and write about them, but the truth is that I've pretty much covered all of the titles I wanted to cover. This isn't really the end of my horror movie writing, though (of course not!) as a month from now I will be joining three others in coutning down the best horror films of all time over at the place for movie polling, Wonders in the Dark. Since the four of us plan on taking our lists and finding common films among them to make the list, some of the films I will have placed on my list won't get featured, so I plan on doing my full countdown (all 100 movies!) over here in small, one-to-two paragraph reviews of each horror film. That way I can continue the horror theme (all the way through October, which this blog will once again host an Italian horror themed blogathon) while reviewing other movies, too.

Thanks to everyone who commented on my horror posts (and to those of you who read without commenting, too), and my apoligies for dropping the ball the last few weeks and not replying to comments. School is over for the summer, and work stuff won't really pick up until mid-September, so I plan on getting a lot of reviewing done here on the blog (I have a handful of 2010 films I've watched, ranging from:The Green Zone to Greenberg to Chole to The Ghost Writer, and so much more). Be on the lookout for my John Huston reviews for Adam's John Huston blogathon, and next month I'll be contributing a piece on Videodrome for Tony's David Cronenberg blogathon.  Go to those blogs and participate in the discussion.  See ya around.

Summer of Slash: Maniac

William Lustig's Maniac is a brilliant slasher film; one that William Friedkin called not just "a great film", but, "one of the scariest films of all time." Now, Mr. Friedkin's comments – not always a pillar of reliance (see: Jade) – are quite a shock to those who think Maniac is nothing more than a gratuitous, misogynistic splatter fest. The film is so much more: it's a 42^nd Street Cinema version of Taxi Driver; a film that deserves more credit than just its superb gore effects by make-up maven Tom Savini (who lays claim the film's most infamous death). Lustig's direction is top notch even despite some splotchy pacing, there is a chase scene in the film that is rather intense; Joe Spinell's portrayal of Frank Zito, the homicidal killer with obvious woman problems, paints a portrait of a disturbed serial killer almost as unnerving as Michael Rooker's in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer; and that ending…what an ending…it totally squashes all of the N.O.W. complaints about the movie, and, especially when compared to drek like Lucio Fulci's The New York Ripper, it's clear from the ending that Spinell and Lustig were not interested in glorifying the murders of these women, but in how these murders haunt the killer…showing (in a dream sequence) that they (the murders of the women) are literally eating him alive.




The film opens with Frank Zito (Spinell, who also wrote the screenplay), a man who is quite systematically slaughtering women as he struggles with his own demons – primarily those of his childhood, and his being raised by an abusive mother. Isn't that how it always goes? But Maniac – quite surprisingly – isn't schlocky like, say, Pieces; rather, it is a jolt to the expectations a jaded horror fan like me has when watching a movie that on the surface seems like nothing more than just your ordinary slasher.

What elevates the film is Lustig and Spinell's decision to follow Zito through every single moment of his nights killing these women (and sometimes men). Again, it reminded me of McNaughton's chilling Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer in that it's unrelenting. Oh, not so much because of its violence – although the film is infamous for one of the most famous Savini-conceived head explosions in the history of horror films – but because it is so savagely unflinching in its approach of this character. Zito dons clothing not at all unlike what Vietnam War veterans were wearing at the time. It's a bit of context that Lustig doesn't explicitly reveal, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think that Zito, like Travis Bickle, was a Vietnam War veteran and he's struggling to cope with reality – a mixture of his own demons from his past and the demons from the war. Much like Abel Ferrara's The Driller Killer released just a year before Maniac, here you have a film that follows – quite uncomfortably – closely a person whose last remaining thread of sanity is about to break before our eyes, and both William Lustig and Abel Ferrara found New York City to be the perfect backdrop to display their morbid tales, and one can't help but think of the Vietnam veteran context throughout both films.

In addition to Martin Scorsese and Paul Schroder's obvious influence on the characters of The Driller Killer and Maniac , the two lesser films (in comparison to Taxi Driver) also share a similar tone. There's nothing tongue-in-cheek here, nothing at all sardonic or preachy or heavy handed: they're simply unflinching portrayals of evil. All three films are also quite visceral in their violence (yes, even Scorsese's film), but perhaps none more than Maniac, a film that boasts some of the best work Tom Savini has ever done.

One of the film's most famous scenes is when Zito follows a couple (the male being played by Tom Savini) just coming out of an all night disco club. As the couple proceeds to dabble in the usual slasher goings-on in a parked car that gets people killed, the woman begins to have second thoughts as she sees Zito standing in front of their car (yup, that would do it). And in a horrifying instant Zito jumps up on the hood of the car and proceeds to shoot the man point blank with a shotgun, creating one of Savini's most famous head explosions. It's quite a shocking scene, and it's probably the only time, aside from the end, that the film feels like a standard slasher as Lustig slows the scene down a notch below slo-mo, and dwells on the gravitas Savini often approaches his gore effects with. You can tell that perhaps more than any other effect, this was the one Savini was most proud of.

The ending is quite the visceral jolt, too, as Zito continues to murder women, even a modeling agent that he sort of begins to have feelings for (although every now and then we're treated to heavy-panting POV of Zito looking at his future victims and mumbling disturbing things to himself), and at the end of it all looks around his room which is littered with creepy as hell mannequins. As he begins to weep and scream on his bed – his nightmares catching up with him – the mannequins turn into his victims, and in an inspired bit by Spinell and Lustig the women begin devouring Zito. It's a gruesome scene, but one that clearly put the film on a whole other level than something like New York Ripper.

Now, why do I keep bringing up Lucio Fulci's piece of tripe? Because Maniac was famous for infuriating the women's right group N.O.W., who picketed the film and probably gave the film better publicity than Lustig and his producers could afford. The film was a hit despite the protests, and I'd like to think that's because fans of the film saw what the film really was, and that it was in no way glorifying its violence towards women. Yes, the film is brutal and unrelenting, and yes the victims are women; however, they're not victims because they're independent or displaying their sexual freedom or power; they're being murdered by Zito because he has a complex with women. It's that simple. Maniac is certainly less offensive than something The Last House on the Left or I Spit on Your Grave, and it's certainly nowhere near the misogynistic pile of shit that Fulci's New York Ripper was, which had such disdain for women that it sickens me to even think back on the film. The ending of Maniac clearly shows that this is not a person who is doing this because he wants to or even that he has to…Lustig and Spinell offer no easy answers as to why Zito does what he does, but it obviously tortures him to no end, as evident by the final scene in which he is literally eaten alive by his past crimes. Yes, there's no denying that the character Frank Zito, due to the abuse of his mother, hates women, but the filmmakers don't, and that's what differentiates Maniac with the aforementioned Fulci film.

Spinell was so distraught by N.O.W.'s protesting of the film that he wrote up a script as a rebuttal; the sequel was apparently about Zito, who turns out to be a children's show host, murdering abusive parents. Spinell died shortly after filming began, however, and the movie remains unfinished. William Lustig would follow this up with Maniac Cop (a nice piece of violent exploitation, but nothing to write home about), and films like Vengence and Uncle Sam, which are extremely forgettable films (I know I've seen them both, but I can't remember a damn thing about either of them). Savini of course would continue to refine his skill of slicing and cutting and blowing people's heads off with films like The Prowler and The Burning. Spinell was a great character actor of the 70's and 80's having bit roles in both Godfather films, William Friedkin's Sorcerer, Rocky, and Nighthawks. But Maniac gave him a venue to be a lead actor. He was brutish, yet had an everyman quality (that is, inner city New York everyman) that made it easy to see why he was such a perfect choice for Frank Zito (who also had to rely on his "everyman" looks). He was right at home in these New York roles, and after Maniac he continued to act in bit parts in various genres. I haven't seen enough of Spinell's work to know what kind of actor he consistently was, but his performance as Frank Zito is hypnotizing. He's basically on screen the entire film, and he does a great job of making Zito has loathsome character, but a character that we're actually intrigued enough by that we wonder what plagues a guy like that, and why he is the way he is. It's a high wire act, a performance like this, and Spinell executes it brilliantly. I can think of only a handful of performances where an actor has portrayed a serial killer this effectively.

Now, the ending suggests that Zito's demons will not catch up with him and that he will continue to kill and the police in New York will continue to be baffled by the string of murders. And I suppose that this is where N.O.W. took offence: Zito does indeed live at the end of the film. The fact that such a monster lives on is an unnerving thing to think about, but that's what horror films are meant to do, and had the film gone the simple slasher route (where a Final Girl is responsible for killing him) then the film would lose a lot of its punch. Maniac isn't an easy film to get through, and Spinell's amazing performance (it's essentially a one man show) is beyond disturbing, but it's a horror experience that does everything a horror movie should do, and it's certainly one of the best slasher to be released during the early 80's, and one of the better horror films I've ever seen.

Summer of Slash: Capsule Reviews, Part 4

Back with some capsule reviews.  These have been in the can for a while, but a mixture of grad school, work, and the hard drive for my desktop computer blowing up it's been a bugger of a time getting some new horror posts up.  I have a review for Maniac ready to go, too, but I'm still waiting for my computer to get fixed so I can get some screencaps up (my Netbook doesn't have a disc drive). In these capsule reviews you'll find brief thoughts on the Ozploitation version of Rear Window, a zombie movie penned by the man who came up with the idea for Alien, One of the best worst movies I've ever seen (one that would make Umberto Lenzi proud), and possibly one of the worst horror sequels I've ever seen.  Reviews after the jump...

Road Games:


"Who digs a hole in the middle of nowhere?


This line kickstarts what is a great little Australian thriller – about a truck driver named Quin (Stacy Keach) obsessed with a van that he thinks is responsible for the slew of dead female hitchhikers – that is more Rear Window than The Hitcher. So, it only gets a paragraph because it's not really a horror movie, even though the queen herself, Jamie Lee Curtis, shows up half-way into the film. There are some great moments of tension in the film (constructed out of very minimalist effects, after all, the film almost entirely takes place in the cab of a semi truck), but there's nothing here that makes the film a slasher. Thanks to the wonderful documentary about the Ozploitation movement in Not Quite Hollywood, I was able to hear about this film directed by Richard Franklin (Psycho II and the Australian cult hit Patrick), and about how it kind of pissed off the Australian filmmaking community because it used well-known American actors. However, Keach and Curtis are outstanding here essentially playing James Stewart and Grace Kelly, and there are some wonderful taut scenes throughout. However, the pacing is quite deliberate, so be warned: not a lot happens in this film. The ending is kind of a chore, but the set pieces are nice, and the Franklin is able to elicit some good tension out of Keach being confined to the cab of a semi truck (much in the same way Stewart was confined to his wheelchair in Rear Window) for almost the entirety of the film. It's all a slow burn, and at time the deliberate pacing is a chore to get through; however, the good outweighs the bad by a mile as the film is a lot of fun (thanks to the performances) with its classic storyline that pays homage to Rear Window in a respectful way.

 

Slugs:


Well, here's one of those movies that is so-bad-it's-good. It's like the best of Umberto Lenzi (Nightmare City) and Lucio Fulci, mixed with the cheese of Bert I. Gordon films. So, in other words: it's gloirious. Since these types of movies are never as fun to read about as they are to watch I'll keep this brief:

• The acting is so wonderfully awful, and it just reeks of the 80's. It just may be some of the most wooden acting I've ever seen in a horror movie with a semi-budget.
  
• Of course the only scientist in town is British, and he looks like a cross between Dario Argento and Jeff Van Gundy.
  
• The character Phillips, who I think is the town's water deputy or something like that, I couldn't figure it out, is the poor mans Leslie Nielson. He utters brilliant lines like: "You aint got the authority to declare Happy Birthday, not in this town…now get your ass out of here!" Brilliant.
  
• You know you're in trouble when the director's idea of tension is cutting back and forth between each actor's lines and any kind of reaction from periphery characters. This film has TONS of reaction shots, and they're all gloriously awful.
  
• There's a lot of cheap blood and guts in this film as the slugs simply sit on top of a victim, make loud snail-like noises, like the silly snails and spiders of Fulci's horror movies, as we see traces of guts through the horde of slugs.
  
• One of the film's best moments comes when a man in a restaurant starts choking, falls off his chair, and then has his eye explode as a stream of slugs comes flying out of the empty eye socket. It reminded yet again of something right out of a Fulci film.
  
• Like any good D-grade horror movie the film consists of a lot exposition to not only explain the confusing story, but also to pad the film to an excruciating extent.
  
• 
  
  I know I'm preaching to the choir when I speak to how entertaining this kind of bad movie is, so, if you're one of those people and you haven't seen Slugs yet, what are you waiting for!
  
  

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2:


I have no interest in spending more than a few sentences on this movie. Perhaps I just don't get it, but I didn't find this movie the least horrifying, funny, or clever; and if it wasn't for a hilariously over-the-top (and all too sparsely featured) performance by Dennis Hopper, this would have gone down as one of the worst and most unnecessary sequels ever made. It's an interesting premise as Hooper tries to take the nihilism from the first film and re-channel it to be some kind of jokey, tongue-in-cheek horror movie that features way too much of the cannibal chainsaw family we only briefly saw in the first film. The sequel is at times excruciatingly repetitive and way too long. Despite its great set piece at the end, and the aforementioned great performance by Dennis Hopper, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is just too much of chore to get through with attempts at industry-specific humor that ends up just falling flat on its face. A missed opportunity that shows Hooper really was merely a one hit wonder. (Note: I admit that I am probably one of the few horror buffs that doesn't slurp up and gush all over the original TCM, so take that for what it's worth. Yeah, I may be a bit harsh on Hooper, but I've just never been impressed with the man's abilities as a filmmaker.)


 

Dead and Buried:


Gary Sherman's (Death Line aka Raw Meat) Dead and Buried is an interesting take on the zombie film. Sometimes great and atmospheric, and sometimes a bit slow and plodding it's ultimately more of a curiosity for hardcore horror/exploitation fans. From a Dan O'Bannon (Alien) screenplay, Dead and Buried begins benignly enough as a passer-through taking snapshots of the beach. When he happens upon a beautiful stranger he begins taking pictures of her. This seemingly serene beginning has your typical soft focused, early 80's aesthetic; however, it turns ugly quickly as just as the poor bastard's about to get some on the beach a horde of creepies come sidling up to him and proceed to set the man on fire. It's quite a jolt, a legitimate shock after the almost comatose tone of the preceding five minutes. The scene of the photag on fire is nicely juxtaposed with the peaceful environmental surroundings. He survives the attack, but by design, as we come to find out that the small town of Potter's Bluff is attacking and murdering people to create a race of zombies.


Now these aren't your typical zombies that plod along and groan and moan for "more braaaaaains"; no, these zombies are simply reanimated corpses…in the voodoo sense. The film is an interesting mishmash of exploitation film and a more cerebral horror film, and it never really takes off despite the film's eerie tone and atmosphere. I like that Sherman tells us immediately who the killers are, and that the mystery is more interested in whether the sheriff of the New England town, Dan Gillis (James Farentino), can catch on that there's something really weird happening under his nose. It's not just the murders, but there's something else going on: Gillis' wife keeps disappearing at odd times of the night and people we've seen murdered keep popping up around town. Dead and Buried is at its best when focuses in on these moments; however, they are few and far between as the deliberate pacing really hurts the film.

There a few standout scenes, though: viewers will recognize one scene where the attractive woman on the beach at the beginning of the film dresses up as a nurse and pays a visit with macabre intentions to the burn victim from the beginning of the film. Quentin Tarantino would late homage this scene with Daryl Hannah in Kill Bill. The other scene is near the end when sheriff Gillis watches an old reel-to-reel of his wife and him making love, and an evil secret is revealed. It's quite an eerie scene as the town's coroner (Jack Albertson) watches with delight as his master plan is revealed. Dead and Buried isn't the greatest horror film of 1981, and it certainly doesn't live up to the talent that worked on the film, but it is a decent enough horror film with some creepy moments as the fog drenched town of Potter's Bluff makes for a good creepy atmosphere. Just be warned, the film is pretty deliberate in its pacing inducing more than a few yawns. (Note: This movie was inexplicably added to the infamous 'Video Nasties' list in 1984. I have no idea why. There's nothing remotely 'nasty' about this movie.  Just further proof that people were overreacting to horror films in the 80's.)

Summer of Slash: Eyeballing a Meme

Hans from the always wonderful Quiet Cool blog has pegged me for the latest meme making the rounds. This meme started over at The Dancing Image. The inspiration for the meme is "a gallery of images chosen by you to stand for so much of what makes Cinema such a rich and exciting medium." Here are the rules(cut and pasted from Hans' site):

1. Pick as many pictures as you want - but make them screen-captures. These need to be moments that speak to you that perhaps haven't been represented as stills before.

2. Pick a theme, any theme.

3. You MUST link to original gallery at The Dancing Image.

4. Tag five blogs.

I'll tackle the last part first: I'm going to ape what Ed Howard did and simply invite all readers to participate.  It's just better that way.

Okay, so my theme for this meme came to me pretty easily since I'm already doing a theme for the summer.  Naturally, most of the movies I have at my disposal are horror movies, at the moment, so I went ahead and tried to think of one element that I love about horror movies, and I my mind went to eyes.  The Italians love 'em and so do I.  There's something about the eyes: cliches like "windows to the soul" are apt for horror films; there's something seductive and alluring about a close-up shot of the eye; there's something vulnerable about seeing an eye exposed, which leads to many cringe-worthy moments in horror films where eyes are injured (again, a favorite of the Italian's); and there's just something cool about the way eyes are often framed in horror movies.  So here is my gallery of 'eyeball images' from an array of horror films.  Pictures and titles of the films come after the jump...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pictures are from the following films (in order of appearance):

Poster art from the giallo, Eyeball (Umberto Lenzi)
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Dario Argento)
City of the Living Dead (Lucio Fulci)
Deep Red (Dario Argento)
Friday the 13th: Part 3 (Steve Miner)
Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme)
Midnight Meat Train (Ryuhei Kitamura)
Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper)
The Beyond (Lucio Fulci)
The Church (Michele Soavi)
Opera (Dario Argento)
Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes (Lucio Fulci)
The Girl Who Knew Too Much (Mario Bava)
Zombi 2 (Lucio Fulci)
Zombie Holocaust (Marino Girolami)

Summer of Slash: The Funhouse

The Funhouse is a light-hearted, fun little slasher film that, when held up to all of the other slashers I've watched this summer (almost 30 now), actually achieves what so many hope to accomplish: to be (at the risk of sounding repetitive) a light-hearted, fun little slasher movie. What's even more shocking is that it was directed by Tobe Hooper – who turned down Steven Spielberg's offer to direct E.T. so he could make this film (the two would of course team up in one of the genres oddest partnerships that resulted in the pretty-awful Poltergeist) – a director I have stated numerous times on the blog that I am not very impressed with (his most famous film, you know that one about the chainsaw-wielding maniac, is a tad overrated in my opinion…good, hell even insanely influential, but still overrated). There are some genuine scare moments, and some memorable instances that evoked the kind garishness of an Argento film (the ending at the funhouse is painted with bright colors and oddball noises coming from every direction). It's ultimately a silly little movie, though, but it was probably the last time Hooper was ever any good.

It almost seems pointless rehashing story summaries with this series, as you can pretty much guess as to what the general story arc is going to be based on the film's title. However, The Funhouse has some tricks up its sleeve. Specifically the opening scene: a POV of someone with black gloves getting a knife from the drawer and donning a Halloween mask, creeping up on a girl in the shower (boobs within the first two minutes, by the way...it's clear we're getting into 'slasher glut' territory now), and violently pulling open the shower curtain (with faux Bernard Herrmaan music playing in the background) and attempting to stab her until we realize it's a fake knife, and that the perpetrator is the girl's younger brothers. So, right away Hooper is riffing on the material here, while paying homage to the subgenre he is indebted to he lets us know from the onset that isn't going to be a slasher flick that plays things straight.

After that awkward moment of sibling, ahem, rivalry, Amy (our Final Girl...but more on her later) deliberately disobeys her father by leaving the house to go hang out with some friends at a traveling carnival.  Now, it's not the fact that she disobeyed her father, but consider this: in most horror films you're supposed to empathize with the Final Girl, she is usually a character of virtue, of morals ans standards...certainly most Final Girls are not so brash and flippant.  And this is where Hooper compounds upon the fun he had in those opening minuets: the characters here suck.  And I don't mean that they're poorly conceived or that they aren't fully fleshed out characters; no, I just mean they suck as humans.  You're glad they get stuck in the funhouse and get picked off one by one.  These aren't enjoyable people to be around, and it is in that decision that Hooper does something interesting with what is your basic "dead teenager" movie.

Once in the funhouse Amy and her friends partake in the usual teenage hijinks: they harass the carnies, smoke some weed, peep in on a nudie show, view a magic show, and visit the freaks-of-nature booth.  After all of the hijinks (and we're talking a good 40-45 minutes worth, here, causing me to scream at Hooper to pick up the freaking pace) one of Amy's friends, Richie, dares the group to spend the night on one of the rides that a crazed carnie who doesn't speak (and wears a Frankenstein's Monster mask) is in charge of.  As they contemplate this they find themselves peering into a room where the obviously mentally askew ride assistant (still donning the mask, so obviously something weird is under there) is trying to hook up with a prostitute.  One instance of premature ejaculation later, and he finds himself strangling the hooker because she won't refund his money.  The kids see this in a "Scooby-Doo" type moment, and the film finally commences with the slashing.

Hopper establishes the off-ness of the funhouse -- its ethereal qualities where things come alive at night, where monsters literally dwell -- with gusto.  The film, for the most part, is a lot of fun once you realize that Hooper isn't interested in playing it straight, even for a second.  There's a lot of humor in watching this group of losers wander through the funhouse, getting offed by the manager of the road show and his deranged "son" (the 'thing' in the Monster mask, who when unmasked, provides one of the film's best jolts), who in one of the film's most bizarre scenes takes his frustrations out not on one of the annoying teens, but on a wooden shelf.  Scary!

The final 30 minutes (once the horrendous plot is tossed aside in favor of fun, creepy set pieces) of the film are indeed like a really good, spooky funhouse ride. Weird mannequins, clown figures, and various animatronics pop out of all corners, and come in all shapes and sizes – all with an equally annoying, high pitched maniacal laugh. The bright colors pop off the screen as you can clearly see that Hooper knew what to do with his budget, and that this wasn't just some throwaway low-budget slasher movie, but that he was trying to do what the Europeans - specifically the Italians - were doing with their garish and ethereal, not to mention completely unsettling and off-putting, set pieces. The Funhouse showed signs of hope for a director whose horror career began with a meteoric rise unlike anything seen in the genre, but sadly, after his next couple of films he would crawl back to the film that made it him famous, make a joke of it all, and then be forgotten forever.

When The Funhouse was in pre-production, Hooper received a call from Steven Spielberg to see if he wanted to direct his family film about an extra terrestrial (Spielberg wanted to release an R-rated horror movie about a month apart from his PG family film, and I find it odd that he approached Hooper for the latter).  Hooper, committed to his project at the time, respectfully declined and continued working on The Funhouse all the while wanting to work with Spielberg at some point.  Spielberg, unable to direct the two films at once (at least take credit for them), because of a clause in his contract with Universal, asked Hooper to take directing duties on Poltergeist; however, as it is somewhat famously known, the cast and crew all claim that Spielberg, not Hooper, made all of the decisions during the filming of Poltergeist.  The film, of course, was a huge hit, but Hooper would instead go back to having his name attached to smaller, science-fiction collaborations with Alien screenwriter Dan O'Bannon: Invaders from Mars and Lifeforce.  However, in 1986 he would put the nail in his own career coffin as he returned to the cannibal family that helped his name become synonymous with low budget, successful horror film.  The problem was that he turned his monstrous group of chainsaw killers and cannibals into a big, drawn out joke (more on that another time...a review of that film is pending), and audiences weren't wanting that.  The film doubled its 4 million dollar budget, but failed to enrapture audiences the way the original did, a metaphor for Hooper's career trajectory post-1980's.

Back to the film in question though: The Funhouse does serve as an example of the Hooper actually giving a damn, and the film has enjoyed cult status. Even though a lot of its notoriety probably came at first from having been put on the infamous Video Nasties list, a mistake, however, by the DPP after they confused The Funhouse with another movie floating around as a bootleg that was using Hooper's title (that film was called Last House on Dead End Street), the confusion was cleared up, and I think it's pretty clear that no real major cuts were made to this film (what was there that was objectionable to cut, anyway?), altering its tone or flow. But there's no denying that during the VHS bootleg era, if your film found itself on that infamous list, interest among horror buffs immediately piqued. But that's only part of the reason I think The Funhouse is a somewhat beloved slasher film (I don't think anyone would defend its merits too passionately), as I was pleasantly surprised while the film unfolded just how tight everything was in the film.  Its running time is just right, its scared are good, its aesthetic is pleasing and creepy, and it made me smile in a good way.  It's everything a fluff, tongue-in-cheek horror movie should be. And I think it's just now starting to be rediscovered in that vein, the kind of film that belongs with Evil Dead 2 and films of that ilk.

It's not just the humorous opening sequence, or the fun monster aspects of the film, but I also liked how Hooper plays with the conventions of the already established, albeit fairly young, prolific subgenre. The Final Girl, Amy, in The Funhouse is a wimp who doesn't rise to the challenge like the prototype for the Final Girl character that John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis laid out in Halloween. Amy cowers in the corner at the end of the film while the monster's buffoonery is the primary cause of its death.  She just screams and watches as he trips and blunders into a bunch of cogs and gears until he is killed. It's an interesting take on one of the slasher's most tried-and-true tropes.

I was trying to think of a modern example of the kind of feeling I had while watching The Funhouse , and I suppose I would liken it to Sam Raimi's 2009 return to horror, Drag Me to Hell, a horror film that plays by the rules and conventions of the genre, but doesn't take itself too seriously. It understands, like The Funhouse, that the audience is there to have a good time and have the pants scared off of them. Unlike another "funhouse" type slasher I watched earlier this summer, Tourist Trap, the tone of The Funhouse isn't confusing, it knows exactly what it is, what it's trying to accomplish, and doesn't strive to be exploitative or too serious (a major flaw of the otherwise enjoyable Tourist Trap). And for the better part of 45 minutes (all after the plodding set-up), Hooper's film succeeds in having the appropriate tone for this kind of slasher movie: a fun and scary trip through a funhouse of horrors. This one kind of snuck up on me, and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

In Lieu of Slash How 'Bout Some Links?

I'm slow on content right now because my computer blew up the other night, and I'm waiting for my tech savvy brother to help me put a new hard drive in it. So, even though I have a review that's been in the can for awhile (I'll post it later today, maybe) I felt like I should point everyone to something much better: Tim Brayton's "Summer of Blood" series on the Video Nasties.  Now, most of my readers will already be familiar with Tim's writing.  He's one of the best out there, and I implore all of you to check out his latest entry on the infamous Nasty film Island of Death.  If you know of Tim's writing, and you know of the infamy of that nasty little Greek POS, then you know that the combo of both is going to be gold, Jerry, gold!  So, do yourself a favor and head on over to Tim's site and read through his archives for some great horror reading. Make sure you keep following his series this summer, horror fans, as the best is yet to come, I'm sure.

On a more serious note: Tim also has asked his readers to partake in a little donation for the Carry on Campaign.  Just click on the link to find out what that's all about.  I usually don't pitch for others when they're asking for donations, and I usually don't donate to online causes; however, Tim's personal story is a powerful one, and I know he's on the up-and-up, therefore I didn't hesitate for a second to do something I rarely do: donate to a cause I know very little about.  Tim explains it all in the aforementioned hyperlink, and I was moved enough to feel compelled to donate a small amount of money to a great cause.  Check it out and help Tim reach his donation goal.

One final, non-horror related, link for you all: don't forget that Bryce's Christopher Nolan blog-a-thon has started (we're in day two now) over at his blog Things That Don't Suck.  Check it out!

Okay...enough shilling from me...I'll be back later with a review of Tobe Hooper's Funhouse.

Summer of Slash: Alone in the Dark (1982)

Director Jack Sholder's sneakily good little slasher is one of the more underrated and intelligent entries into the subgenre. Released during those oh-so-infamous and fertile years for the slasher subgenre, 1981 – 1984, Alone in the Dark was initially dismissed as 'just another slasher' movie; however, the film has gained quite a reputation among horror buffs for its innovative casting (Jack Palance and Martin Landau as psycho killers!) and intelligent take on the slasher film (not to mention the curiosity factor of it being the first film ever produced by the soon-to-be major horror purveyor, New Line Cinema). Alone in the Dark is a helluva a good time, an extremely entertaining and satisfying horror film (thanks to some hilariously oddball performances, specifically Jack Palance), and is now rightfully somewhat of a cult hit – considered to be one of true gems amid the over-satiated years of the slasher boom.

The film opens with a surreal dream sequence as we see a man walking towards a diner as an eerie red haze hangs in the air.  Once inside the diner we see Donald Pleasance wielding a big ass machete with a crazed look in his eye, a look that only this King of B-actors can give.  It was at this moment, a mere five minutes in, that I knew this movie was going to great.  It just felt different.  And what follows is one of the oddest slashers I've ever seen: mixing the macabre with the classic slasher tropes, hilariously dark comedy, and moments that hint that the filmmakers were trying to sneak in some social commentary.  It's quite the mix.

The film employs a slow-burn mentality (it feels very British that way) to its horror as the story takes a while to kick into high gear.  After the dream sequence we're introduced to Dr. Leo Bain (Donald Pleasance!) and his state-of-the-art psychiatric ward. He's showing a new doctor, Dan Potter (Dwight Schultz, Murdock from "The A-Team"!) around the hospital and explaining the hospital's policies and philosophies, especially in regards to the patients on the third floor – a floor designed without bars on the windows, that is electrically monitored, and harbors the worst patients. It's on this floor that's where Frank Hawkes (Palance), "Preacher" (Landau), and Fatty (Erland van Lidth, in a really creepy performance) dwell. One night while Dr. Potter is out with his wife and daughter at a punk concert (the band they see is called "The Sic Fucks"…great name; and a funny sidebar: apparently a member of the band ran across Jack Palance years later in New York and introduced themselves stating that they worked on the same film, and that she was a member of the band The Sic Fucks...apparently Palance just looked are her and replied: "honey, we were all sick fucks working on that movie." ) the power goes out across the city, leaving the electric censors useless on the third floor of the psychiatric hospital, thus, the crazies escape and carry out their plan to kill Dr. Potter, the man they feel is responsible for the apparent death of their beloved former psychiatrist.

This set-up leads to what is essentially a slasher film (escaped psychos on the loose, armed with various weapons, looking for revenge), and even employs a lot of the slasher tropes found in more popular fare where a killer (or killers in this case) stalks the patrons of a specific location (I'm thinking of stuff like Friday the 13^th, My Bloody Valentine, and Black Christmas) as the action crescendos at Potter's house where there are numerous people inside who are in peril; however, there is really nothing banal about the film, in spite of how ordinary the film seems. Alone in the Dark is a riot, the kind of horror film that has you smiling more than it does groaning, and it's no wonder why its popularity has continued to grow over the years. What's even more impressive is that it's clear that the filmmakers had a theme in mind, and not just any kind of horror theme, but one that seems to have no place in a horror film I just describes as a "riot".

Once the patients – "Voyagers" as Dr. Bain calls them – get out of the hospital there seems to be an epidemic spreading, causing others to go crazy too, no doubt caused somehow by the power outage. What the filmmakers wisely do at this point is keep the killing to a minimum (there's an initial killing spree, but after that it's mostly implied terror), get the established actors who are acting insanely and killing people off screen (which is impressive considering that must have been one of the novelties of the film, not to mention a selling point, in having these somewhat established actors in this kind of horror movie), and move all of the primary characters in peril into one location – causing the tension to build in a subtle way. However, despite the film's success in aesthetically creating a non-banal slasher film, there's something deeper and more intelligent thematically going on here: this movie is essentially about PTSD – a term they didn't quite have yet post-Vietnam – and how these people who are relegated to being called "crazy" get to see what it is they fought for on the outside. This theme is punctuated with an ending that is pretty abnormal for a horror film as Hawkes – a paranoid POW – wanders into the same Punk Rock club that Potter and his family went to the night before. As he beats up the bouncer and takes his money, he wonders into the club and meets a woman who claims to have seen him before. She laughs at him and seems a little off herself, until Hawkes pulls a gun and sticks it in her stomach. She merely laughs, and directs the gun for him from her stomach and into her mouth. Cut to black.

Man, what an ending for a slasher movie, and what I think Sholder and his crew are going for here is essentially the theme that these people are diagnosed as crazy, but that we're all messed up. Especially the culture in the early 80's when postmodernism and irreverence (and an overall apathy for things) was sweeping the nation, I'm sure it looked weird to those who left for Vietnam in the 60's, came home later in the 70's, and were trying to get acclimated to a culture that cared little for what happened to them and why they did what they did. It's not as if taking the Vietnam War and using it as thematic template for a horror film theme is groundbreaking, though. Two years earlier Antonio Marghereti's Italian horror movie Cannibal Apocalypse (with John Saxon, no less) explicated the same themes of the effects of the Vietnam War – specifically the POW experience – on those who had to not just return home, but come back and try and return to a way of life that now seemed wholly alien to them.

I know I'm probably reading way too much into things here, but Sholder and co-writer Robert Shaye (who also produced the soon-to-be genre bending A Nightmare on Elm Street, as well as producing/taking over writing duties for Wes Craven, hiring Sholder to direct, on the follow-up A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge - another film that pushes the slasher envelope, thematically speaking) clearly seemed to be going for something "more" here, and whether they succeed or merely grasp at straws depends on whether you are willing to believe that a horror film could not only strive for something that deep, but pull it off. Sholder would later be called a hack (unfairly I might add), a director-for-hire after the critical and financial debacle that was his follow-up Freddy's Revenge. But I think that has to do more with Shaye's script changes and his reluctance to work with Craven said script.  Alone in the Dark clearly shows a director who is more than willing to try new things with an-already-tired subgenre, and I think when people call Sholder a hack they're doing in hindsight (but more on that later).

The film's acting is better than most slashers, which shouldn't be a surprise when you look at the cast. Even though Pleasance gets a lot of crap for his selection of roles, he's pretty good here as the doctor who so badly wants to believe he can fix these people (there's a great scene near the end where Potter and his family are yelling at him from within the house as they watch Bain try to reason with the maniacs from the window), and you know…you can never go wrong with Jack Palance. Landau brings some seriousness to his role as the deeply disturbed "preacher", a man who invokes God and quotes the Bible as he slashes people, and as I mentioned earlier, van Lidth is really creepy and effective as the obese child molester "fatty" (there's a creepy-as-hell scene where we see him try and lure a little girl into her upstairs room).

The music by Italian composer Renaldo Serio is very Goblin-esque (no surprise as he worked often with Joe D'Amato who always had a penchant for ripping off elements that were better than what he could afford) and pretty decent, and the cinematography by Joseph Mangine (a low-grade porn DP most of the time) is really nice in evoking that Assault on Precinct 13 type aesthetic where a certain group of people are trapped in a confined space, and you have to shoot it in a way that doesn't make it too boring with its minimal sets, or conversely, too claustrophobic by trying to cram all of the action and characters into the frame at once.

But let's get back to first time director Jack Sholder for a moment: There's real tension here, and it's no wonder that New Line pegged him to be their man to follow-up Wes Craven's hugely successful A Nightmare on Elm Street. As I mentioned before, Sholder (who edited the famous slasher The Burning before getting this gig) gets a bad rap for A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, but that film actually has an interesting homosexual subtext, and was content with keeping Freddy somewhat in the shadows and scary. Freddy's Revenge showed that Sholder was interested in playing with the genre and exploring varying themes that some may have considered taboo (homosexuality, PTSD) at the time, and themes that you certainly didn't see - or ever expect to see - in a horror movie. Sholder seemed to understand this, and with Alone in the Dark has created a great slasher film that oozes atmosphere and tension in the film's final 30 minutes (there are some great scenes once all of the characters get confined to the house, especially near the end where Potter's daughter feels something lurking outside her window in what is one of the film's most famous scenes - mostly due to the jolt provided by the effects of Tom Savini), a final 30 minutes that really showcased the director's talents. However, one look at the man's oeuvre on IMDB and you can see that the unfair panning of Freddy's Revenge really hurt the man's career (he was relegated to directing crap like The Hidden and Renegades, so no wonder people think he's a hack).

But in 1982 Sholder made what is one of the finest slasher films produced in that ever-so-prolific era – a tension-filled doozy of a thriller with all of the tropes that appease die hard slasher fans, done with panache and style to spare, and a deeper thematic subtext about the horrors of returning home from Vietnam when home no longer looks the way it did when you left. Sholder was a somewhat brave director for the genre, as you can imagine that the ordinary horror fan who is buying a ticket for the latest slasher movie or latest Freddy Kreuger movie doesn't want to see a film about PTSD or oppressed homosexuality. That's why I give Sholder a lot of credit here for creating a really fun and campy slasher movie on the surface while willing to slide in a much deeper and cerebral subtext. I think what did Sholder in as a director was lack of subtlety, the over nature of the homosexual themes in Freddy's Revenge, and that may have cost him what looked to be a promising career as a horror director. Nevertheless, in 1982, Sholder and his incredible cast created one of the best and most memorable slasher films to come out of the "era of the slasher".

Summer of Slash: My Bloody Valentine (1981)

One of the things that make Canadian slashers stand out more than their American contemporaries is their propensity to be consistently not awful. I think the primary reason for this is their attention to detail in things like setting and atmosphere and pacing. Canadian slasher films were much more interested in evoking a mood through the settings and the towns they took place in; in addition, they also tried a little harder to establish their characters, rather than just making them "dead teenagers". The Canadian slasher film seemed to strive for more – whether they succeed or not is up for debate, of course – instead of simply moving from one bloody kill to the next. None, perhaps, did this better than My Bloody Valentine , which along with Bob Clark's Black Christmas, is one of the quintessential Canadian slashers.


What's so impressive about My Bloody Valentine? Well, on paper not much as one glance at its story (and just how damn simple it is), and you can see that it's amazing how effective the film is. You have a small town with a history, a Valentine's Day dance, a killer on the loose, and horny young people being warned by crusty old townsfolk not to take the legends of a mining mask-donned and pick-axe wielding maniac lightly. The history of the small town goes like this: 20 years ago in a small mining town a man named Harry Warden found himself trapped in a coal mine due to a gas explosion, his foreman leaves to attend a Valentine's Day dance (the name of the town is Valentine Bluff, how appropriate) leaving the him trapped in the mine. Warden goes a little nutso and resorts to eating the remains of his dead co-workers until he finally escapes the mines, kills the foreman by cutting out his heart and placing it in a heart shaped box, warning the town that if it ever held another celebration of Valentine's Day he would kill again. Flash forward 20 years as the history of Harry Warden is almost erased from the memory of the small town (with the exception of those crusty old people who constantly warn the young whippersnappers, visual examples below...) as a group of young miners and their girlfriends decide to throw a party in the mine. Bad idea. And you can guess the rest.

My Bloody Valentine won't blow you away with its originality (the story, when you get down to it, is your basic slasher premise: the return of a psychotic killer, usually on some kind of holiday night, hell-bent on killing everyone in their sight); however, what's interesting about the film is the way the film's director, George Milhaka, values pacing and character development over simple hack and slash tropes (this was a staple of the Canadian slasher film…just look at a movie like Terror Train , a pretty generic idea that focused its energy in other places that American slashers weren't interested in), which makes the killings – when they do happen – much more effective. I like how Milhaka uses the cramped space of the mine to his advantage, and lets things play out in the background (like the famous shot of the dude stuffed in the refrigerator) without drawing too much attention to the grisly images.

The film was notorious for having cuts made to every one of its death scenes thanks to Paramount's knee-jerk reaction to the backlash against the gore of their film released a year earlier, Friday the 13th; however, those scenes have been restored since the film's unrated release on DVD. The death scenes are pretty stellar in the film (nothing close to its copycat film, the American The Prowler, which posted some of Tom Savini's greatest effects) too as when a man gets a pick-axe through the jugular and his eye pops out (obviously edited out of the theatrical release), a girl has the back of her head shoved through a nozzle - later revealing water and blood coming out of her agape mouth, or when a woman's face has been set to "tumble dry low". However, despite the film's violence, My Bloody Valentine still favors atmosphere over gore (you honestly don't lose much if you watch the Theatrical version over the Unrated version, well, except the awesome gore effects...but the tone doesn't change or anything), and really the film plays out more like an Italian giallo picture than a slasher film. The killer in his mining costume is pretty creepy, and often we see the killer chasing their victims from his POV, and it's quite effective (or maybe I'm just biased towards Italian horror motifs).

What's even more impressive is how My Bloody Valentine's paltry budget (estimates vary between 1.5 and 2 million) didn't handicap the film in becoming one of the most polished slashers of the 80's. In addition to the small budget (which seemed odd considering the success Paramount was coming off of with FT13) had a treacherous and hellish shoot. In Adam Rockoff's wonderful book Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film (a must read for horror fans) he describes the shoot as such:

The Sydney Mines [where they shot the film] were in use at the time and the crew only had a few abandoned mine shafts in which to film. Along with the inherent problems of shooting in a working mine, the production was fraught with other difficulties. In addition to spending $30,000 to repaint a part of the mine which an art director erroneously defaced in an attempt to create a dingy look for the set, the production was threatened with a lawsuit by an artist whose uncredited work is briefly shown in one scene. The minor fiasco cost them $15,000 to settle out of court.

[B]ut perhaps the biggest threat to the production came from the locals themselves. Eventually, the actual mine workers got fed up. They worried that the powerful lights which were being used to illuminate the mine's dark shafts would somehow cause an explosion and gave the production 24 hours to vacate the premises. Since the film was not done, the production went into "triple golden time" – the film industry's version of overtime – a nightmare for cost-conscious producers and especially devastating to low budget productions. Mihalka was racing to finish and had not slept in over a day, but as [John] Dunning [producer]says, "The result is great…he did a helluva job."

Whereas most cheaply made slashers (that is, slashers made on the cheap) do indeed seem cheaply made, My Bloody Valentine looks like a (gasp) real movie. Scenes are clearly lit, competently framed and blocked, and the acting doesn't induce as many scoffs as one would expect from a low budget horror flick. That shows the skill involved in making this film, as all one has to do is point to countless slasher movies that were also limited in their budget and in the abilities of those making decisions behind the camera. There's nothing worse than watching a poortly lit horror scene and not knowing what you're supposed to be afraid of, and since most of the action in My Bloody Valentine takes place in a mine it could have been easy for the filmmakers to muck it up, showing cut-corners or shortened work days; but, they don't, and they seem to understand filmmaking 101 better than any other slasher film released in 1981 (a prolific year for the subgenre, which usually didn't showcase a whole lot of filmmaking competence).

There's a reason why My Bloody Valentine still remains a classic among die-hard horror fans: its execution of its simple formula is classic, and its aesthetic doesn't reek of amateur hour (like a lot of slashers coming out post-Friday the 13^thdid); rather, it's a well paced horror film that maintains a high level of tension throughout despite its reliance on classic slasher tropes. The film amps up the tension at the end with a chase through the mine, and a denouement that occurs on a moving mining car that is superb. It also uses its setting and spacing to great effect, with an array of scenes that are executed perfectly by having the action take place just off camera or in the periphery. The filmmakers use sound to great effect, too, as the final moments in the mine are brilliantly executed examples of how sound can amplify the horror of a horror film. It's quite impressive.

However, what I really love about My Bloody Valentine is that when shit happens, shit happens…what do I mean by this? Well, when the killer wants to kill someone, he does it. There's no padding or false tension like so many slasher films, and at the end during that fantastic chase sequence, the killer actually, you know, moves with purpose. Allow me to invoke The Prowler once again: in that movie (made the same year, 1981, as My Bloody Valentine) you have a killer donning a WWII gas mask (that looks eerily similar to the mining costume the killer wears in this film) you have a killer who stands around and lets the characters meddle with door knobs and try to get away as he slooooowly stalks his victims. It's obvious padding for a pretty bland slasher movie. In My Bloody Valentine, however, you have a killer who doesn't mess around with his victims. There's no toying with their emotions, he simply just pick-axes them to death, and that swiftness of horror makes it far more terrifying than the plodding killers found in countless slashers post-1981 (aka the Jason Voorhees syndrome). Plus, you have an ending that doesn't try to be tricky or arbitrarily ambiguous. We actually witness the killer getting away, swearing revenge on the town; an ending lending itself to a sequel (that will most likely never happen now that the film has been re-made), rather than toying with us by making us believe the killer is dead (ahem, Jason Voorhees, anyone?) and won't appear again, only to have them show up with some ridiculous reason explained to the audience in the sequel. I liked how straightforward the filmmakers were here.

I always appreciate it when slasher films don't toy with me to the point where I get bored waiting for something to happen. I also appreciate it when slasher films don't try and make the killer out to be some kind of invincible monster. Much like the owl suit-wearing psycho in Michele Soavi's Stagefright, the killer in My Bloody Valentine isn't concerned with making sure we understand how creepy and evil they are…they have one purpose and one purpose only: to kill. I don't need to see countless scene after countless scene of the killer simply standing there looking creepy and menacing while a girl screams for her life. I'm more scared by a killer that actually moves fast and kills with purpose; in addition, the design of the killer (especially if they're wearing a mask or a costume) should speak for itself without the director having to draw a lot of attention to it.

My Bloody Valentine continues to be one of few slasher entries that remain at the acme of great horror films of the 80's. It's a perfect example of how to do the slasher film right, and it remains exhibit B (exhibit A is Black Christmas) as to why the Canadians knew how to do said slasher film better than the Americans. If you want to see a good example of the slasher film, and you remain unsure of the subgenre, you need to check out My Bloody Valentine, a film that provides sufficient evidence that even the slasher film can be deconstructed, enjoyed as a lark, and still be fulfilling in a way that all good horror (or any genre for that matter) movies are: getting us to come back to them again and again, no matter what year it is.