DEADTIME STORIES (1986)

`Deadtime Stories' digs for horror in fairy tales

Houston Chronicle - December 2, 1986

Author: BRUCE WESTBROOK, Staff

"Deadtime Stories" lurks in a curious subgenre of the horror film: the anthology movie.

Such efforts rarely succeed. Two hours of unrelated vignettes is a difficult format to pull off, and even when it works - as with George Romero's "Creepshow" - box-office success is not assured.

That's because moviegoers are such a highly conditioned lot - perhaps more so than the audiences for any of the other popular arts. Movie audiences are so accustomed to a single plot with a beginning, a middle and an end that several short stories stitched together, to many people, may seem like a cheat.

Early television was more open to the format - anthology series were common in the '50s and early '60s. But they almost disappeared until 1984, when "Amazing Stories" and the revamped "Twilight Zone "and "Alfred Hitchcock" brought the short-story form back to television.

Those series have all drawn from the fantasy realm, which, in turn, is closely related to horror . And horror has been the focus of the few anthology films of any kind in recent years: "Tales From the Crypt" and "The Vault of Horror " in the early '70s, the made-for-TV "Trilogy of Terror" in 1975 and "Creepshow" in 1982.

Except for "Trilogy of Terror" - with its infamous voodoo-doll segment starring Karen Black - each of those films was patterned after the notorious E.C. comic books of the early 1950s. The producers must have figured horror is a lurid genre, so why not go for the gusto and adapt the grisly stories and vivid styles that prompted congressional hearings and almost destroyed the comics industry in an overprotective backlash?

"Deadtime Stories" ignores such notoriety. It goes elsewhere -

and earlier - for its material. It turns to fairy tales.

Not a bad idea, on the surface. There'senough violence and horror in fairy tales to satisfy the blood lust of many hard-core gore fans. A huntsman is ordered to carve out the heart of Snow White; an evil witch transforms herself into a flame-spewing dragon. Disney Productions, for all its respectability, has been offering these traumas for years in its animated fairy-tale adaptations.

But Disney has always played it straight. "Deadtime Stories "strives for horror with humor, and it doesn't work - at least, two-thirds of it doesn't.

This is the kind of film that plays best in theaters with torn screens and decades of snack-bar goo on the floors. It looks sleazy, with all the ambiance of a porno movie between the sex scenes. A few special effects are worthwhile, but the no-name cast can't act, and the production values are largely el cheapo. And unlike an old Roger Corman flick, it's not even cheap charm - it's dismal and dreary.

The obligatory framing device involves an impatient uncle telling warped versions of fairy tales to his insomniac nephew. He spins three yarns, and the first and last are losers: a plodding medieval plot about two bickering witches, and a camped-up "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" (Goldie is a telekinetic Carrie type) that's gleefully vulgar without a touch of the wit it gropes for so desperately.

That leaves the middle segment, a modern-day retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood."

In this case, Red is Rachel, a teen-ager who gets her grandma's prescription mixed up with that of a junkie. He turns into a werewolf when he doesn't get his fix by nightfall - you take it from there. It's a wickedly ironic sendup of the familiar story, with a welcome twist at the end.

But if anthology films need one thing, it's consistency, and "Deadtime Stories" doesn't deliver.

Director and co-screenwriter Jeffrey Delman makes a game effort in his first outing. For all the film's R-rated excesses, there's a certain innocence about it, and you can sense he was aiming for more than the standard shock schlock.

Storytelling was more on his mind - but he doesn't pull it off. And when you don't tell a good tale in two tries out of three, that qualifies an anthology film as a failure.

Certainly, one successful half-hour is worth something, but when you have to sit through the bad to get to the good, you're better off staying at home.

There's always that old copy of "Grimm's Fairy Tales" to curl up with - and the originals were probably scarier than the retreads, anyway.
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MOVIE REVIEW- `Deadtime Stories' tells grim fairy tales

The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution - November 28, 1986

Author: CAIN, SCOTT, Scott Cain Staff Writer: STAFF

Movie Review : "Deadtime Stories."

Papa Baer, Mama Baer and Baby Baer, three escaped mental patients, discover that there is an intruder inside their house in Amityville. In fact, the trespasser is in the shower. Papa Baer rips back the curtain and discovers a dizzy blonde. She is Goldi Lox, a murderess of tiptoe-through-the-tulips insouciance, and she is not a bit flustered at being discovered. "You were expecting perhaps Janet Leigh?" she asks perkily.

If this incident - a blunt vulgarization of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" - strikes you as funny, then "Deadtime Stories" will be your cup of tea. People who like horror in straighter form should hold out for "A Nightmare on Elm Street, Part 3."

The connecting thread of "Deadtime Stories" is that Little Brian can't sleep and begs Uncle Mike, who is babysitting, to tell him just one more fairy tale. As bachelor uncles are prone to do, Mike tells stories that practically guarantee Brian will not go to sleep anytime soon.

The humor is ample but none too subtle. In the "Goldi Lox'' episode, the Baer family is being tracked by Officers Jack B. Nimble and Jack B. Quick. The Baers seem incapable of committing a crime on purpose, but Baby Baer is serving a sentence of 4,726 years.

In an episode based on "Little Red Riding Hood," Rachel is a shapely young woman who jogs through suburbs in a spiffy red outfit. She stops at a drugstore to pick up medicine for Granny, and the smitten pharmacist accidentally gives her the prescription for Willy, who needs sleeping pills to get him through nights with full moons.

When Willy discovers the error, he sets out for Granny's house to exchange packages. Unfortunately, Rachel hasn't arrived. She has stopped for a rendezvous with her boyfriend in a secluded area of a state park. By the time she arrives at Granny's, the moon is out and Willy has turned into a werewolf.

"Deadtime Stories" opens with a medieval tale in which Peter (played by "Family Ties" heartthrob Scott Valentine) is the slave of two witches. The hags want to revive their sister, who has been dead for 37 years. To complete the potion, they need a virgin and Peter is ordered to bring one to their cave. When a curvaceous blonde is laid out on a table in front of them, each of the bloodthirsty witches is anxious to perform the dirty deed, but Florinda takes precedence. "You can kill the next sacrifice," she says consolingly to Hanagohl, who sulks but is clearly putting the promise into a mental ledger.

Campy horror movies are few and far between. Writer-director Jeffrey Delman and producer Bill Paul worked on "Deadtime Stories" for four years, making another episode whenever they could raise more money. More power to them. Let's hope they don't have as much trouble next time.

"Deadtime Stories." A comic- horror trilogy, directed by Jeffrey S. Delman, who wrote the story and is a co-author of the screenplay. Rated R for abundant violence, nudity and profanity.