THE STRANGENESS: A Review For A Movie That Tries To Sell You A Book.
By Hubbs Kowalski
Petey Waco was a little jacked that I used our conversation in my review for HATCHET.
“Dude, you totally ragged on me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You said I say goofy things.”
“Well, you do.”
“And you don’t?”
“Whose column is it, Waco? Maybe you should start writing your own columns.”
“Don’t use my name in your stupid fucking reviews again.”
“What the hell is your problem?”
“Nobody calls me goofy.”
“I didn’t call you goofy.”
“MOTHERFUCKER, DON’T FUCKING EVER USE MY FUCKING NAME IN ONE OF YOUR STUPID FUCKING MOVIE REVIEWS EVER AGAIN!”
“Fine.” That Petey Waco is crazy. And cruel. A real cruel dude.
So from here on out, I will never mention Petey Waco again. I may say Petey this or Waco that, but never will Petey and Waco be side by side in my reviews again. All I have to say to him is freedom of speech, Petey. Freedom of fuckin’ speech.
Fascist.
Anyway, I took some time out and got around to watching the old Trans World Entertainment VHS release THE STRANGENESS, a film I’ve had in my collection for years but never have gotten around to watching. My interest was piqued by the generous chapter afforded it in Stephen Thrower’s mammoth and utterly indispensable book NIGHTMARE USA. If you don’t own NIGHTMARE USA yet, you’re a fuckin’ fascist.
Just like Waco.
Anyway, there’s a closed mine that is waiting to be re-opened that has a history of miners dying in it. An incredibly motley crew consisting of two hard partying mine specialists, a geologist (I think she’s a lesbo, which is always a good thing), a company foreman-type who is a total ass and a writer and his hot blonde wife are going into the abandoned mine to see if its suitable to resume work. Inside they meet a monster and bam, there’s THE STRANGENESS.
Suffice to say, this low-budget monster movie is kind of a good time. Sure, the acting blows and its never very gory, but it’s quite a fun trip, although without having read the interviews and making of in NIGHTMARE USA, I wonder if I would have liked it less. Thrower’s book is one of the most informative books ever written, if not the most informative, on American exploitation films and their creators. The amazing thing about THE STRANGENESS is that all the inside the mine shots were sets and they are quite incredible. The monster is glorious stop motion by Mark Sawicki and Craig Huntley (both who are in featured roles). A labor of love, made for commercial purposes that really shows off the technical genius of this skeleton crew.
Bad part besides the acting is the horrible writing. Come to think of it, the movie does kind of suck but would probably scare the shit out of a 10 year old at two in the morning. So yeah, Thrower’s enthusiasm and journalistic digging into the making of the film is what made it for me, because without that general knowledge of the talent behind it and his pointing out interesting aspects of the production which you can look for throughout, it’s pretty much slow-moving and uneventful until the final act.
Sometimes you need that prodding and different outlook when approaching an incredibly obscure 27-year-old horror film.
I guess in the end, I’m suggesting you go out and get Thrower’s NIGHTMARE USA, because then, you’ll be tracking down the films he mentions in it. I’ve seen a lot of the films in the book, and a lot of them suck, but I’ll be damned if Thrower doesn’t make me want to take a second look at them.
Get it today before he unleashes Volume 2 of NIGHTMARE USA. Thrower is a godsend for exploitation lovers and seems all around like a pretty cool dude.
Unlike Petey. Who’s a goofy thing saying, threatening fascist who’ll probably sue me after this one.
LEGEND OF BIGFOOT
Your Drive-In Report by Hubbs Kowalski
(Editor’s Note: The following was sent in an email by Kowalski, somewhere in Georgia)
Poobah,
I found this drive-in in Clarkston, GA called the Rita. Shows triple features every night! It’s like heaven…but with BBQ! And PBR! Anyway, my laptop is acting the fool but I’m going to try to hammer this out. If the keyboard fucks up again, I’ll have to wait till I get to a library or some shit.
The tour is going good. We had four people show up last night. If you or Harvey could Western Union some dough to get us to Kentucky, that’d be pretty fuckin’ rockin’.
Hubbs.
LEGEND OF BIGFOOT (1976)
Directed by Harry Winer
Written by Harry Winer and Paula Labrot
Rated G
Sometimes catching the first flick of the night at the drive-in is a bummer. Tonight was a triple feature at the Rita, a drive-in I found in Clarkston, GA, that started with THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT, which I was pretty excited about. I love that Bigfoot. The way he just walks around, leaving footprints, taking a shitty picture and stinking up the place. It turns out though that THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT, while having a bit of Bigfoot in it, was really just one of those nature films from the 1970’s padded with stock footage.
You know the kind I’m talking about. The ones that put animals together that would normally not ever interact. Like cats and coyote puppies. Coyote puppies and skunks. Coyote puppies and chickens. Cougars playing with rabbits. There’s a lot of that here in BIGFOOT. It’s pretty cool, but you either need to be shit-faced drunk or terribly hung-over to appreciate it. Why? I don’t know why. It’s just one of those strange genres that can’t be enjoyed unless your inebriated or suffering.
The pic focuses on Ivan Marx, a tracker who hunts renegade animals for various people when the animals come around and start fucking up the natural order of things. Then somehow he gets hooked on Bigfoot to the point that his “head is reeling with Bigfoot”. That’s a pretty fair description of my mindset going in. Except I got no Bigfoot. I got coyote puppies and skunks, but no Sasquatch.
Marx is a pretty dramatic motherfucker, too. Throughout the narration, he’s “mystified”, “uncomfortable” and “prejudiced”. For a backwoods tracker, he’s a complex man.
Once he gets the Bigfoot bug, he gets all self-righteous in his demand for people to believe in Bigfoot and the use of Bigfoot’s name to sell things, like Bigfoot was God or something. All I know is that this shit is boring. This ain’t no NIGHT OF THE DEMON, I’ll tell you that. Ain’t nobody getting their junk ripped off by an evil Bigfoot.
So around the time of the eviscerated dead bear frozen in death with a seig heil pose, I wandered over to the other lot to see if Freddy was in row 8 to get some weed. Freddy, I was told by the management of the Rita, always has the best weed if not the best taste in movies. I scored a dime bag, smoked that shit and LEGEND OF BIGFOOT didn’t get any better. It was too late.
I expected better from director Harry Winer, the gaffer on Ken Osborne’s WOMEN UNCHAINED. Lately he’s been doing a lot of TV, directing VERONICA MARS and stuff.
Well, at least I was ready for Treat Williams in NIGHT OF THE SHARKS. NiGGhht……fuuuuckkkk KKkeboOArDDDDD
(Editor’s Note: The following was sent in an email by Kowalski, somewhere in Georgia)
Poobah,
I found this drive-in in Clarkston, GA called the Rita. Shows triple features every night! It’s like heaven…but with BBQ! And PBR! Anyway, my laptop is acting the fool but I’m going to try to hammer this out. If the keyboard fucks up again, I’ll have to wait till I get to a library or some shit.
The tour is going good. We had four people show up last night. If you or Harvey could Western Union some dough to get us to Kentucky, that’d be pretty fuckin’ rockin’.
Hubbs.
LEGEND OF BIGFOOT (1976)
Directed by Harry Winer
Written by Harry Winer and Paula Labrot
Rated G
Sometimes catching the first flick of the night at the drive-in is a bummer. Tonight was a triple feature at the Rita, a drive-in I found in Clarkston, GA, that started with THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT, which I was pretty excited about. I love that Bigfoot. The way he just walks around, leaving footprints, taking a shitty picture and stinking up the place. It turns out though that THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT, while having a bit of Bigfoot in it, was really just one of those nature films from the 1970’s padded with stock footage.
You know the kind I’m talking about. The ones that put animals together that would normally not ever interact. Like cats and coyote puppies. Coyote puppies and skunks. Coyote puppies and chickens. Cougars playing with rabbits. There’s a lot of that here in BIGFOOT. It’s pretty cool, but you either need to be shit-faced drunk or terribly hung-over to appreciate it. Why? I don’t know why. It’s just one of those strange genres that can’t be enjoyed unless your inebriated or suffering.
The pic focuses on Ivan Marx, a tracker who hunts renegade animals for various people when the animals come around and start fucking up the natural order of things. Then somehow he gets hooked on Bigfoot to the point that his “head is reeling with Bigfoot”. That’s a pretty fair description of my mindset going in. Except I got no Bigfoot. I got coyote puppies and skunks, but no Sasquatch.
Marx is a pretty dramatic motherfucker, too. Throughout the narration, he’s “mystified”, “uncomfortable” and “prejudiced”. For a backwoods tracker, he’s a complex man.
Once he gets the Bigfoot bug, he gets all self-righteous in his demand for people to believe in Bigfoot and the use of Bigfoot’s name to sell things, like Bigfoot was God or something. All I know is that this shit is boring. This ain’t no NIGHT OF THE DEMON, I’ll tell you that. Ain’t nobody getting their junk ripped off by an evil Bigfoot.
So around the time of the eviscerated dead bear frozen in death with a seig heil pose, I wandered over to the other lot to see if Freddy was in row 8 to get some weed. Freddy, I was told by the management of the Rita, always has the best weed if not the best taste in movies. I scored a dime bag, smoked that shit and LEGEND OF BIGFOOT didn’t get any better. It was too late.
I expected better from director Harry Winer, the gaffer on Ken Osborne’s WOMEN UNCHAINED. Lately he’s been doing a lot of TV, directing VERONICA MARS and stuff.
Well, at least I was ready for Treat Williams in NIGHT OF THE SHARKS. NiGGhht……fuuuuckkkk KKkeboOArDDDDD
CLOVERFIELD
CLOVERFIELD:
Stomp them yuppies while I puke!
By Hubbs Kowalski
My cousin calls me and says, “Hey cousin, let’s go see that CLOVERFIELD movie.”
I was half-drunk so I said, sure, why not? Plus it’s only $4 bucks at the drive-in. However bad it is won’t matter, because I’ve got enough beer to get full on drunk. And I’m a positive guy. I look at things as at least half-full whilst full on drunk.
CLOVERFIELD starts out with a bumper saying that the following footage is government property or some shit. I only kind of remember that part because now, I was about ¾ drunk. Anyway, there’s these yuppies in New York and they’re all rich and white and are filming the going away party of one of their rich yuppie friends whose job is sending them to Japan.
So basically, in no way, can I relate with any of these people. Something needs to stomp these people now.
About 15 minutes in, the shaky cam is getting to me. And I’m waiting on some stomping. I ask my cousin if its me or is the movie really that shaky. He tells me the whole movie is going to be that shaky.
It’s about now that I realize being full on drunk at CLOVERFIELD is not a good thing.
So this BLAIR WITCH/CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST with a Harryhausen tinge sci-fi’er takes a bit of time to get going. I guess to set up the characters enough that you want them to get stomped by something. Although that Malena or Marena girl is hot. I don’t know her name in the movie; it was something to that effect…Marena, Malena. I don’t know.
Look, I was drunk…
Anyway, then the thing shows up. It’s some kind of monster. Matter of fact, my cousin says it looks like that thing from THE MIST. And what little you see of it is kind of cool because the movie really is about the rich white yuppies’ trying to find this girl the Japan-bound guy loves and kind of fucked up his chance at smoochies with. Actually he did more than smoochies. Then he didn’t call her. Then she shows up at his going to Japan party with another dude. I also think one of the rich white yuppies was actually black or not all white. But she acted pretty white. I don’t know.
Look, I was drunk…
What’s most important to know is that CLOVERFIELD isn’t a monster movie as much as it’s a road-trip love story, kind of like Charlie Sheen’s immortal THREE FOR THE ROAD from 1987 with Kerri Green from THE GOONIES but filmed by an epileptic who obviously has no respect for Charlie Sheen movies from the 80’s. Because if he did, he would put the fucking camera on a tripod.
Look, I may be a tad drunk right now…
Towards the end of CLOVERFIELD, the camera finally comes to a stop. No shaky. By about halfway in, the thought of puking my guts out occurred to me about 300 times. This shit is really, really shaky and made me physically ill. But when that camera stopped, and my eyes tried to focus after 70 + minutes of Chinese-Olympic-caliber eyeball ping-pong, I puked.
All over the side of my cousin’s car. All the way to the shit-stank restroom. Right onto a piss-splattered toilet with a roll of toilet paper shoved in it for good measure. After puking, I looked over to the right of the stall to see these words etched into a 50th coat of red paint: WILL WORK FOR HOME DEPOT.
Jesus, I wish I was going to Japan. Chicks apparently like the vomit over there anyways.
I’ve seen the videos. I know these things. And in no way are they shaky like CLOVERFIELD. But the funny thing is, those videos didn’t make me puke.
Moral of the story: Don’t go see CLOVERFIELD drunk. Maybe don’t go see it all at the theater. For you general well being, it may be safer to watch it at home.
And stay away from those Japanese shit-puke videos.
They’ll scar you for life.
For more information on Charlie Sheen’s immortal THREE FOR THE ROAD, please go to its IMDB entry at THREE FOR THE ROAD
Stomp them yuppies while I puke!
By Hubbs Kowalski
My cousin calls me and says, “Hey cousin, let’s go see that CLOVERFIELD movie.”
I was half-drunk so I said, sure, why not? Plus it’s only $4 bucks at the drive-in. However bad it is won’t matter, because I’ve got enough beer to get full on drunk. And I’m a positive guy. I look at things as at least half-full whilst full on drunk.
CLOVERFIELD starts out with a bumper saying that the following footage is government property or some shit. I only kind of remember that part because now, I was about ¾ drunk. Anyway, there’s these yuppies in New York and they’re all rich and white and are filming the going away party of one of their rich yuppie friends whose job is sending them to Japan.
So basically, in no way, can I relate with any of these people. Something needs to stomp these people now.
About 15 minutes in, the shaky cam is getting to me. And I’m waiting on some stomping. I ask my cousin if its me or is the movie really that shaky. He tells me the whole movie is going to be that shaky.
It’s about now that I realize being full on drunk at CLOVERFIELD is not a good thing.
So this BLAIR WITCH/CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST with a Harryhausen tinge sci-fi’er takes a bit of time to get going. I guess to set up the characters enough that you want them to get stomped by something. Although that Malena or Marena girl is hot. I don’t know her name in the movie; it was something to that effect…Marena, Malena. I don’t know.
Look, I was drunk…
Anyway, then the thing shows up. It’s some kind of monster. Matter of fact, my cousin says it looks like that thing from THE MIST. And what little you see of it is kind of cool because the movie really is about the rich white yuppies’ trying to find this girl the Japan-bound guy loves and kind of fucked up his chance at smoochies with. Actually he did more than smoochies. Then he didn’t call her. Then she shows up at his going to Japan party with another dude. I also think one of the rich white yuppies was actually black or not all white. But she acted pretty white. I don’t know.
Look, I was drunk…
What’s most important to know is that CLOVERFIELD isn’t a monster movie as much as it’s a road-trip love story, kind of like Charlie Sheen’s immortal THREE FOR THE ROAD from 1987 with Kerri Green from THE GOONIES but filmed by an epileptic who obviously has no respect for Charlie Sheen movies from the 80’s. Because if he did, he would put the fucking camera on a tripod.
Look, I may be a tad drunk right now…
Towards the end of CLOVERFIELD, the camera finally comes to a stop. No shaky. By about halfway in, the thought of puking my guts out occurred to me about 300 times. This shit is really, really shaky and made me physically ill. But when that camera stopped, and my eyes tried to focus after 70 + minutes of Chinese-Olympic-caliber eyeball ping-pong, I puked.
All over the side of my cousin’s car. All the way to the shit-stank restroom. Right onto a piss-splattered toilet with a roll of toilet paper shoved in it for good measure. After puking, I looked over to the right of the stall to see these words etched into a 50th coat of red paint: WILL WORK FOR HOME DEPOT.
Jesus, I wish I was going to Japan. Chicks apparently like the vomit over there anyways.
I’ve seen the videos. I know these things. And in no way are they shaky like CLOVERFIELD. But the funny thing is, those videos didn’t make me puke.
Moral of the story: Don’t go see CLOVERFIELD drunk. Maybe don’t go see it all at the theater. For you general well being, it may be safer to watch it at home.
And stay away from those Japanese shit-puke videos.
They’ll scar you for life.
For more information on Charlie Sheen’s immortal THREE FOR THE ROAD, please go to its IMDB entry at THREE FOR THE ROAD
JOHN CARPENTER'S PRO-LIFE
MASTERS OF HORROR, MY ASS
by Hubbs Kowalski
MASTERS OF HORROR, MY ASS is a new attempt by Hubbs Kowalski to do some kind of “recurring shit” . When asked what that meant, Kowalski replied, “The fuck do you think that means? I’ll write about one every week.”
The releases are kind of old news, most of them have been reviewed, we explained.
“How about being a little more supportive? Fuck, we‘re gonna be flying high when that goddamn third season revs up!”
We have yet to inform Mr. Kowalski that there will not be a third season of MASTERS OF HORROR.
When pressed about the Jamaa Fanaka Summer “recurring shit”, Kowalski replied, “First, don’t be an asshole. Second, it’s coming. And third, you let that Diana Thoren chick just waltz up onto your site whenever she feels like it. I’m giving you quality stuff on a semi-regular basis. The fuck you bustin’ my sack for? I’m sure those homos at Huffington Post would love to have me. And those eggheads at Slate, too. Consider yourself lucky.”
Without further ado, the first installment of MASTERS OF HORROR, MY ASS
JOHN CARPENTER’S PRO-LIFE
Some of these MASTERS OF HORROR shows ain’t bad, as a matter of fact, CIGARETTE BURNS, the John Carpenter entry from the first season was pretty good. Carpenter’s second season entry , PRO-LIFE, is even better, give or take some lousy writing.
Anqelique runs through the woods and out into the road where she’s almost hit by doctor Alex (Mark Feuerstein, RULES OF ENGAGEMENT) and nurse Kim (Emmanuelle Vaugier, SAW II). They work in a abortion clinic somewhere in the middle of the Oregon woods and take Angelique there to make sure she’s alright. At the abortion clinic, they find out she’s pregnant and wants an abortion. Turns out, her father is Dwayne Burcell (Ron Perlman, CITY OF LOST CHILDREN), an abortion protester with a restraining order. Dwayne tracks down his daughter there and all hell breaks loose, literally, as we find out that the abortion foe’s daughter was impregnated by something evil from the bowels of inner earth.
The bad part about MASTERS OF HORROR are that the shows are cheap, which is fine, but some of these directors, like Carpenter, have a style that doesn’t seem to transcend to this under-funded television format. The two I’ve seen so far that break this mold are Joe Dante’s HOMECOMING and John Landis’s DEER WOMAN. However, that doesn’t make things all bad, as Carpenter ups the ante on implied torture and gushing gore, which oddly enough, has never been part of how he did business before.
The writing here is sloppy at points, especially when the story slows down to extend its running time. For example, Dwayne and his sons unload their weapons on a closed gate trying to get into the abortion clinic, but when faced with the wooden doors at the entrance, he sends the sons to try and find another way in, allowing to cut to more drama inside. A few more pads like this happen, which means you could probably do this tale in about 30 minutes and some change.
The monster is pretty impressive given the low budget, but the gore is a bit too digital for my taste. Acting is sub-par all around except for Perlman, who does a great job as the God-fearing father who learns too late the error of his ways.
While modestly entertaining if you catch it on TV, I can’t see anyone paying money to own this, especially when the true Carpenter feel is completely absent.
Ol’ John needs to quit cashing his remake checks and turn out a new feature worthy of his talents.
by Hubbs Kowalski
MASTERS OF HORROR, MY ASS is a new attempt by Hubbs Kowalski to do some kind of “recurring shit” . When asked what that meant, Kowalski replied, “The fuck do you think that means? I’ll write about one every week.”
The releases are kind of old news, most of them have been reviewed, we explained.
“How about being a little more supportive? Fuck, we‘re gonna be flying high when that goddamn third season revs up!”
We have yet to inform Mr. Kowalski that there will not be a third season of MASTERS OF HORROR.
When pressed about the Jamaa Fanaka Summer “recurring shit”, Kowalski replied, “First, don’t be an asshole. Second, it’s coming. And third, you let that Diana Thoren chick just waltz up onto your site whenever she feels like it. I’m giving you quality stuff on a semi-regular basis. The fuck you bustin’ my sack for? I’m sure those homos at Huffington Post would love to have me. And those eggheads at Slate, too. Consider yourself lucky.”
Without further ado, the first installment of MASTERS OF HORROR, MY ASS
JOHN CARPENTER’S PRO-LIFE
Some of these MASTERS OF HORROR shows ain’t bad, as a matter of fact, CIGARETTE BURNS, the John Carpenter entry from the first season was pretty good. Carpenter’s second season entry , PRO-LIFE, is even better, give or take some lousy writing.
Anqelique runs through the woods and out into the road where she’s almost hit by doctor Alex (Mark Feuerstein, RULES OF ENGAGEMENT) and nurse Kim (Emmanuelle Vaugier, SAW II). They work in a abortion clinic somewhere in the middle of the Oregon woods and take Angelique there to make sure she’s alright. At the abortion clinic, they find out she’s pregnant and wants an abortion. Turns out, her father is Dwayne Burcell (Ron Perlman, CITY OF LOST CHILDREN), an abortion protester with a restraining order. Dwayne tracks down his daughter there and all hell breaks loose, literally, as we find out that the abortion foe’s daughter was impregnated by something evil from the bowels of inner earth.
The bad part about MASTERS OF HORROR are that the shows are cheap, which is fine, but some of these directors, like Carpenter, have a style that doesn’t seem to transcend to this under-funded television format. The two I’ve seen so far that break this mold are Joe Dante’s HOMECOMING and John Landis’s DEER WOMAN. However, that doesn’t make things all bad, as Carpenter ups the ante on implied torture and gushing gore, which oddly enough, has never been part of how he did business before.
The writing here is sloppy at points, especially when the story slows down to extend its running time. For example, Dwayne and his sons unload their weapons on a closed gate trying to get into the abortion clinic, but when faced with the wooden doors at the entrance, he sends the sons to try and find another way in, allowing to cut to more drama inside. A few more pads like this happen, which means you could probably do this tale in about 30 minutes and some change.
The monster is pretty impressive given the low budget, but the gore is a bit too digital for my taste. Acting is sub-par all around except for Perlman, who does a great job as the God-fearing father who learns too late the error of his ways.
While modestly entertaining if you catch it on TV, I can’t see anyone paying money to own this, especially when the true Carpenter feel is completely absent.
Ol’ John needs to quit cashing his remake checks and turn out a new feature worthy of his talents.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HELLRAISER! (2007)
Happy Birthday Hellraiser!
by Eric M. Harvey
It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years since the original HELLRAISER. I remember that fall of 1987 very well, having just started the ninth grade. I remember also catching the bus with my best friend, MC Randelhi Fresh, and being dropped off at 6th Avenue and 167th Street, then making the 3 or 4 block trek down to the 167th St. Twin on an overcast Saturday afternoon. HELLRAISER had opened the day before and we’d been waiting for it, especially after the spreads in Fangoria.
Here in 2007, I stumbled across a used copy of HELLRAISER (the collector’s tin Anchor Bay put out with HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II-$5.99!) and figured why not? It had been a long time and it wasn’t in my collection. I spent the next two nights watching both movies and have to ask this question about the original HELLRAISER: How in the hell did this talky gore fest that reeks of a foreign film become such a watershed moment in the horror genre, and most importantly, with mainstream American audiences?
One of its strangest (and endearing) qualities is its look. Anyone familiar with British cinema of the 80’s knows that most of the films of that time have a look that’s very similar, nowhere even remotely what an mainstream American audience would be used to. I’m sure there are some film scholars who could define this look and the reason, but to me, HELLRAISER comes off almost as a TV movie. The American equivalent would be the Universal product of the 70’s such as TWO MINUTE WARNING and THE CAR. I’m very proud that I grew up in a generation that could sit through HELLRAISER and appreciate for what it was, rather than dismissing it due to its lack of flash.
Its lack of flash is also noticeable in its story structure. There’s a lot going on and much of it has nothing to do with Cenobites. In fact, it’s almost a whole hour into the movie before all the Cenobites show up. It takes its time setting up the characters and plot, although there’s many a moment where the damn thing just doesn’t make sense. I still can’t figure out if it’s supposed to be set in England or America (although it goes to great pains to fool you into thinking it’s America, it can’t lose the overly British look and vibe).
What I think sold HELLRAISER was its originality. Clive Barker obviously wasn’t going to settle for the same old horror clichÈs, and created an S&M netherworld that resonated with many a viewer. Most of the film’s sexual overtones (and dysfunction) were way over my head at 13 years of age, but the gore definitely delivered, which is what I was going for at that time anyway.
And in that department, HELLRAISER shows it’s age. Some of the effects (mostly the hooks in skin) are quite crappy, but some are still incredible works of art and quite sickening. The rebirth of Frank Cotton and his sinewy regeneration cycle provide proof of the superiority of prosthetic effects to CGI. Most important, many of these scenes elicit disgust and not for the sake of it alone like some lesser horror films of today (see Eli Roth). Every repulsive scene is integral to moving the story along and conveying the horror experienced by the characters.
After HELLRAISER ended, I had some minor quibbles. Ashley Laurence as Kirsty is quite the terrible actress. There are a lot of moments where it doesn’t make sense, especially in a film that explains a lot at the beginning, then kind of sidesteps other possible questions the audience might have for certain character motivations. And it is quite forgettable. It’s been two days since I’ve watched HELLRAISER and while I remember a lot of it, all of what I remember is rather hazy. Upon thinking about it, I had the same reaction when I was a kid. It was a weird film for me at the time, not similar to the horror films I was used to and while enjoyable, made no real mark on me as it has for others.
What is it now? Seven or eight HELLRAISER sequels, each one getting progressively worse, and ending up a straight to video franchise? They’re quite shit, but very much in demand due to their dumbing down to the lowest common denominator of horror fans. This unfortunate change seemed to happen with the Wilmington, NC lensed HELLRAISER III, which was an American scrubbing away of the foreign-feel associated with the first one and it’s sequel (which is quite good, if not better than the original).
It’s hard to envision the original HELLRAISER being released today theatrically, much less a modest hit that begs for an immediate sequel. What’s even funnier is reading Roger Ebert’s original review, calling it “… a movie without wit, style or reason, and the true horror is that actors were made to portray, and technicians to realize, its bankruptcy of imagination.”
There’s so much imagination going on here that, obviously, Ebert couldn’t process it. Maybe Clive Barker should’ve ripped off some Bergman and tickled Ebert’s snobby bone, guaranteeing a three and a half star review.
by Eric M. Harvey
It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years since the original HELLRAISER. I remember that fall of 1987 very well, having just started the ninth grade. I remember also catching the bus with my best friend, MC Randelhi Fresh, and being dropped off at 6th Avenue and 167th Street, then making the 3 or 4 block trek down to the 167th St. Twin on an overcast Saturday afternoon. HELLRAISER had opened the day before and we’d been waiting for it, especially after the spreads in Fangoria.
Here in 2007, I stumbled across a used copy of HELLRAISER (the collector’s tin Anchor Bay put out with HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II-$5.99!) and figured why not? It had been a long time and it wasn’t in my collection. I spent the next two nights watching both movies and have to ask this question about the original HELLRAISER: How in the hell did this talky gore fest that reeks of a foreign film become such a watershed moment in the horror genre, and most importantly, with mainstream American audiences?
One of its strangest (and endearing) qualities is its look. Anyone familiar with British cinema of the 80’s knows that most of the films of that time have a look that’s very similar, nowhere even remotely what an mainstream American audience would be used to. I’m sure there are some film scholars who could define this look and the reason, but to me, HELLRAISER comes off almost as a TV movie. The American equivalent would be the Universal product of the 70’s such as TWO MINUTE WARNING and THE CAR. I’m very proud that I grew up in a generation that could sit through HELLRAISER and appreciate for what it was, rather than dismissing it due to its lack of flash.
Its lack of flash is also noticeable in its story structure. There’s a lot going on and much of it has nothing to do with Cenobites. In fact, it’s almost a whole hour into the movie before all the Cenobites show up. It takes its time setting up the characters and plot, although there’s many a moment where the damn thing just doesn’t make sense. I still can’t figure out if it’s supposed to be set in England or America (although it goes to great pains to fool you into thinking it’s America, it can’t lose the overly British look and vibe).
What I think sold HELLRAISER was its originality. Clive Barker obviously wasn’t going to settle for the same old horror clichÈs, and created an S&M netherworld that resonated with many a viewer. Most of the film’s sexual overtones (and dysfunction) were way over my head at 13 years of age, but the gore definitely delivered, which is what I was going for at that time anyway.
And in that department, HELLRAISER shows it’s age. Some of the effects (mostly the hooks in skin) are quite crappy, but some are still incredible works of art and quite sickening. The rebirth of Frank Cotton and his sinewy regeneration cycle provide proof of the superiority of prosthetic effects to CGI. Most important, many of these scenes elicit disgust and not for the sake of it alone like some lesser horror films of today (see Eli Roth). Every repulsive scene is integral to moving the story along and conveying the horror experienced by the characters.
After HELLRAISER ended, I had some minor quibbles. Ashley Laurence as Kirsty is quite the terrible actress. There are a lot of moments where it doesn’t make sense, especially in a film that explains a lot at the beginning, then kind of sidesteps other possible questions the audience might have for certain character motivations. And it is quite forgettable. It’s been two days since I’ve watched HELLRAISER and while I remember a lot of it, all of what I remember is rather hazy. Upon thinking about it, I had the same reaction when I was a kid. It was a weird film for me at the time, not similar to the horror films I was used to and while enjoyable, made no real mark on me as it has for others.
What is it now? Seven or eight HELLRAISER sequels, each one getting progressively worse, and ending up a straight to video franchise? They’re quite shit, but very much in demand due to their dumbing down to the lowest common denominator of horror fans. This unfortunate change seemed to happen with the Wilmington, NC lensed HELLRAISER III, which was an American scrubbing away of the foreign-feel associated with the first one and it’s sequel (which is quite good, if not better than the original).
It’s hard to envision the original HELLRAISER being released today theatrically, much less a modest hit that begs for an immediate sequel. What’s even funnier is reading Roger Ebert’s original review, calling it “… a movie without wit, style or reason, and the true horror is that actors were made to portray, and technicians to realize, its bankruptcy of imagination.”
There’s so much imagination going on here that, obviously, Ebert couldn’t process it. Maybe Clive Barker should’ve ripped off some Bergman and tickled Ebert’s snobby bone, guaranteeing a three and a half star review.
PRIMEVAL (2007)
PRIMEVAL: AFRICA ADDIO meets ANACONDA by Eric M. Harvey
PRIMEVAL opened in theaters earlier this year. January, to be exact. For those not in the know, that’s when studios dump their shit product into moviehouses.
I couldn’t figure what the hell PRIMEVAL was about. They advertised it as a supernatural serial killer movie set in Africa.
Then I found out, right at the end of it’s two week theatrical run, it’s about a giant killer crocodile.
Note to PRIMEVAL’s marketing geniuses: I would have gone and seen it if I knew it was about a giant killer crocodile, you fucking idiots.
The studio seemed to realize that the “mysterious” marketing campaign was a failure (one of the worst I’ve ever seen) because now the DVD packaging is all about the crocodile.
There’s even a “Croc-umentary”.
A hunky cable news reporter without any personality (Dominic Purcell, PRISON BREAK) fucks up a story and is sent to Africa with his Rochester-esque cameraman (Orlando Jones) and a hot bimbo cat magazine reporter (Brooke Langton) who likes to save dogs.
The reason they go? To catch a giant crocodile named Gustave and inadvertently, fight the local African warlords.
Seriously, that’s the plot. But guess what?
This film is a fine example of cut-to-the-chase genre writing.
We got a disgraced reporter. We got a cameraman who lets you know he's a cameraman because he complains about an out of focus shot of a news anchor when we first meet him. We got a cat magazine reporter who wants to make the big jump to cable news reporting. We got a reason to go to Africa. We got a Steve Irwin clone that doesn’t even get a proper introduction to the rest of the cast; he’s introduced to the audience by a clip of his TV show, and then 5 minutes later he’s just tooling around Africa with the rest of them. This is screenwriting.
That’s a lot of ground to cover. So what do you do? You get a TV director (Michael Katelman, GILMORE GIRLS, NORTHEREN EXPOSURE) to craft this sucker into a streamlined, no bullshit action/horror pic.
Within the first 19 minutes, we get a mass grave with maggots, the crocodile has killed a stuffy British professor of some kind, we’re properly introduced to the main cast (see above), we go to Africa, we get ambushed by warlords in a pretty well-shot action scene (it’s not major in anyway, but old school in it’s execution, i.e. you can see everything).
We're not done though: a little girl gets eaten and Jurgen Prochnow (DAS BOOT, BEERFEST, BEVERLY HILLS COP II) as Quint from JAWS shows up and embarrasses the rest of the cast because he can actually act. All this in 19 minutes.
Most directors with lofty intentions would have dragged this son-of-a-bitch to the 40-minute mark by now. Not Katelman. He was the first unit director on Van Damme’s CYBORG (directed by Albert Pyun) and second unit assistant director on PREDATOR.
Hell, he was first assistant director on Pyun’s CAPTAIN AMERICA fiasco. He’s Cannon Pictures approved and Pyun-tastic!
You know, I really can’t believe how much I liked PRIMEVAL.
Maybe it's because you get to watch people say lines like:
STEVE IRWIN CLONE: Did you know Crocodiles haven’t changed much since the Triassic? Why should they? They’re the most efficient killing machines on the planet.
ORLANDO JONES: This crocodile’s like OJ Simpson. He messed up when he killed that white woman.
JURGEN PROCHNOW (a long way from DAS BOOT): You don’t seem stupid so you must be insane.
ORLANDO JONES: I would never say this in front of a bunch of white people, but slavery was a good thing. Anything to get the fuck out of Africa sounds good to me.
Maybe I liked when Jones says he’s going out to film establishing shots for the report they’re doing, doesn’t walk that far away from the camp, and encounters a rhino, zebras and a giraffe, which seem to be all hanging out together, as if he’s at Lion Country Safari.
All they needed was a bear and a cougar fighting and it would've been the best movie since WONDER OF IT ALL.
Maybe I liked it for the scene where Jones calls the crocodile a punk bitch, because his character’s from Brooklyn.
I really liked Prochnow’s Quint turn. We need more Quints in movies. A Quint would’ve made KNOCKED UP better; Quint could have been a Planned Parenthood doctor, “I’ll catch it…and kill it…for 10!”
The weird thing about the movie is the abundance of political commentary on the anarchic state of certain parts of Africa right now. It takes up a lot of time in this movie. Some good action scenes come out of it, but it veers the movie off course, especially in a giant killer crocodile flick.
Roger Corman always liked to have a little social commentary in his movies, but I’m sure he would have pulled Katelman aside and said, “Look, Mike, enough with the Africans. And where's the boobage?”
Now, I tell you, they don’t make this kind of movie anymore. So much so I kept thinking that it was made in 1993 and someone at Disney finally got around to releasing it.
Especially so since it went out under the Hollywood Pictures arm of the aforementioned conglomerate (“If it’s the Sphinx, it stinks!”).
But there’s some good gore, the croc isn’t bad for CGI and the supporting cast is up for the task. Langton as the cat reporter, I don’t mind so much; she’s hot and acts enough to look like she might’ve done some summer stock, but casting Purcell and Jones as your leads is about the stupidest thing one could do.
This is the second film this year I’ve seen Purcell in (the other was THE GRAVEDANCERS) and he just cannot act. There’s not one shred of personality in him. It’s incredible to me that he’s an actor. Apparently, his next starring role is in a supernatural Nazi film. Directed by Joel Schumacher. Which I guess is fitting.
Orlando Jones…well, he’s the most unfunny motherfucker ever to walk the planet. The best thing he did was play a retarded magazine seller in OFFICE SPACE and became immediately unfunny in the movie when he quit affecting retardation.
You get past these two shmoes, PRIMEVAL is good Saturday night, drive-in fun, provided you drink a six-pack. Or two.
And by the way, am I supposed to believe that since this was inspired by true events, two white reporters and their jovial Negro sidekick went over to Africa to catch a giant crocodile and fight warlords for CNN? For what? Sweeps week?
PRIMEVAL opened in theaters earlier this year. January, to be exact. For those not in the know, that’s when studios dump their shit product into moviehouses.
I couldn’t figure what the hell PRIMEVAL was about. They advertised it as a supernatural serial killer movie set in Africa.
Then I found out, right at the end of it’s two week theatrical run, it’s about a giant killer crocodile.
Note to PRIMEVAL’s marketing geniuses: I would have gone and seen it if I knew it was about a giant killer crocodile, you fucking idiots.
The studio seemed to realize that the “mysterious” marketing campaign was a failure (one of the worst I’ve ever seen) because now the DVD packaging is all about the crocodile.
There’s even a “Croc-umentary”.
A hunky cable news reporter without any personality (Dominic Purcell, PRISON BREAK) fucks up a story and is sent to Africa with his Rochester-esque cameraman (Orlando Jones) and a hot bimbo cat magazine reporter (Brooke Langton) who likes to save dogs.
The reason they go? To catch a giant crocodile named Gustave and inadvertently, fight the local African warlords.
Seriously, that’s the plot. But guess what?
This film is a fine example of cut-to-the-chase genre writing.
We got a disgraced reporter. We got a cameraman who lets you know he's a cameraman because he complains about an out of focus shot of a news anchor when we first meet him. We got a cat magazine reporter who wants to make the big jump to cable news reporting. We got a reason to go to Africa. We got a Steve Irwin clone that doesn’t even get a proper introduction to the rest of the cast; he’s introduced to the audience by a clip of his TV show, and then 5 minutes later he’s just tooling around Africa with the rest of them. This is screenwriting.
That’s a lot of ground to cover. So what do you do? You get a TV director (Michael Katelman, GILMORE GIRLS, NORTHEREN EXPOSURE) to craft this sucker into a streamlined, no bullshit action/horror pic.
Within the first 19 minutes, we get a mass grave with maggots, the crocodile has killed a stuffy British professor of some kind, we’re properly introduced to the main cast (see above), we go to Africa, we get ambushed by warlords in a pretty well-shot action scene (it’s not major in anyway, but old school in it’s execution, i.e. you can see everything).
We're not done though: a little girl gets eaten and Jurgen Prochnow (DAS BOOT, BEERFEST, BEVERLY HILLS COP II) as Quint from JAWS shows up and embarrasses the rest of the cast because he can actually act. All this in 19 minutes.
Most directors with lofty intentions would have dragged this son-of-a-bitch to the 40-minute mark by now. Not Katelman. He was the first unit director on Van Damme’s CYBORG (directed by Albert Pyun) and second unit assistant director on PREDATOR.
Hell, he was first assistant director on Pyun’s CAPTAIN AMERICA fiasco. He’s Cannon Pictures approved and Pyun-tastic!
You know, I really can’t believe how much I liked PRIMEVAL.
Maybe it's because you get to watch people say lines like:
STEVE IRWIN CLONE: Did you know Crocodiles haven’t changed much since the Triassic? Why should they? They’re the most efficient killing machines on the planet.
ORLANDO JONES: This crocodile’s like OJ Simpson. He messed up when he killed that white woman.
JURGEN PROCHNOW (a long way from DAS BOOT): You don’t seem stupid so you must be insane.
ORLANDO JONES: I would never say this in front of a bunch of white people, but slavery was a good thing. Anything to get the fuck out of Africa sounds good to me.
Maybe I liked when Jones says he’s going out to film establishing shots for the report they’re doing, doesn’t walk that far away from the camp, and encounters a rhino, zebras and a giraffe, which seem to be all hanging out together, as if he’s at Lion Country Safari.
All they needed was a bear and a cougar fighting and it would've been the best movie since WONDER OF IT ALL.
Maybe I liked it for the scene where Jones calls the crocodile a punk bitch, because his character’s from Brooklyn.
I really liked Prochnow’s Quint turn. We need more Quints in movies. A Quint would’ve made KNOCKED UP better; Quint could have been a Planned Parenthood doctor, “I’ll catch it…and kill it…for 10!”
The weird thing about the movie is the abundance of political commentary on the anarchic state of certain parts of Africa right now. It takes up a lot of time in this movie. Some good action scenes come out of it, but it veers the movie off course, especially in a giant killer crocodile flick.
Roger Corman always liked to have a little social commentary in his movies, but I’m sure he would have pulled Katelman aside and said, “Look, Mike, enough with the Africans. And where's the boobage?”
Now, I tell you, they don’t make this kind of movie anymore. So much so I kept thinking that it was made in 1993 and someone at Disney finally got around to releasing it.
Especially so since it went out under the Hollywood Pictures arm of the aforementioned conglomerate (“If it’s the Sphinx, it stinks!”).
But there’s some good gore, the croc isn’t bad for CGI and the supporting cast is up for the task. Langton as the cat reporter, I don’t mind so much; she’s hot and acts enough to look like she might’ve done some summer stock, but casting Purcell and Jones as your leads is about the stupidest thing one could do.
This is the second film this year I’ve seen Purcell in (the other was THE GRAVEDANCERS) and he just cannot act. There’s not one shred of personality in him. It’s incredible to me that he’s an actor. Apparently, his next starring role is in a supernatural Nazi film. Directed by Joel Schumacher. Which I guess is fitting.
Orlando Jones…well, he’s the most unfunny motherfucker ever to walk the planet. The best thing he did was play a retarded magazine seller in OFFICE SPACE and became immediately unfunny in the movie when he quit affecting retardation.
You get past these two shmoes, PRIMEVAL is good Saturday night, drive-in fun, provided you drink a six-pack. Or two.
And by the way, am I supposed to believe that since this was inspired by true events, two white reporters and their jovial Negro sidekick went over to Africa to catch a giant crocodile and fight warlords for CNN? For what? Sweeps week?
HALLOWEEN (2007)
HALLOWEEN: It ain’t as bad as it could’ve been
By Eric Matthew Harvey
I grew up on HALLOWEEN (1978). That film and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974) were two of the films that made me into a horror fan. I was never a monster kind of horror fan, although I liked those movies. No, I grew up on slashers and Italian zombie pictures, as well as the Romero kind. The funny thing is, those movies are technically adept and scary. Well, maybe not the Italian zombie ones.
When the HALLOWEEN “re-imagining” by Rob Zombie was announced, I, like many others, cringed and hemmed and hawed about what a disaster it was going to be. Well, I’m here to tell you it’s not a disaster, but it’s pretty fucking pointless and put together terribly.
In Zombie’s version, it’s all about Michael Myers and how he became Michael Myers. Yet you really don’t understand why he became Michael Myers because it’s never properly addressed. Other than some exterior influences, nothing much is revealed, kind of like the first one. But the first one understood that you didn’t need to know this back-story, so why take up the first half of a movie focusing on something you can’t (or won’t) explain?
Oddly enough, the first half is the best part of the movie. Here is where Zombie isn’t remaking HALLOWEEN, but adding to it. All of this begs the question; why not just create something new instead of attaching the stigma associated with HALLOWEEN to it? Zombie, while no means a seasoned filmmaker, does have an eye; it just gets lost somewhere amongst his horrid scriptwriting and wink-wink cameos and the use of white-trash stereotypes he’s so fond of (not to mention his annoying use of earthquake-cam and sloppy close-ups throughout this film).
The opportunity was there to create a new boogeyman for a new generation, but once he begins to really remake HALLOWEEN, with the same characters and dialogue and running through it like a Reader’s Digest abridged version, everything he somewhat accomplished in the beginning becomes null and void.
Zombie’s HALLOWEEN is not scary or suspenseful. It’s garden-variety slice and dice and brings nothing new to the table. I guess I didn’t expect it to, but after the leaps and bounds in direction he made with THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, I expected something a lot more.
But the end result isn’t abysmal. Compared to the last four true sequels, Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN ranks under HALLOWEEN 4 in quality within the Michael Myers saga. I expected to destroy it, but I can’t. It’s just not that bad.
It’s just there, unfocused and non-threatening, which may be worse than the all out hate I have for parts 5,6,7, and 8.
At least I remember those turds in some capacity, even if negative. Zombie’s film has created complete and total apathy within me and in a couple of weeks, I’ll probably not think about it all.
By Eric Matthew Harvey
I grew up on HALLOWEEN (1978). That film and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974) were two of the films that made me into a horror fan. I was never a monster kind of horror fan, although I liked those movies. No, I grew up on slashers and Italian zombie pictures, as well as the Romero kind. The funny thing is, those movies are technically adept and scary. Well, maybe not the Italian zombie ones.
When the HALLOWEEN “re-imagining” by Rob Zombie was announced, I, like many others, cringed and hemmed and hawed about what a disaster it was going to be. Well, I’m here to tell you it’s not a disaster, but it’s pretty fucking pointless and put together terribly.
In Zombie’s version, it’s all about Michael Myers and how he became Michael Myers. Yet you really don’t understand why he became Michael Myers because it’s never properly addressed. Other than some exterior influences, nothing much is revealed, kind of like the first one. But the first one understood that you didn’t need to know this back-story, so why take up the first half of a movie focusing on something you can’t (or won’t) explain?
Oddly enough, the first half is the best part of the movie. Here is where Zombie isn’t remaking HALLOWEEN, but adding to it. All of this begs the question; why not just create something new instead of attaching the stigma associated with HALLOWEEN to it? Zombie, while no means a seasoned filmmaker, does have an eye; it just gets lost somewhere amongst his horrid scriptwriting and wink-wink cameos and the use of white-trash stereotypes he’s so fond of (not to mention his annoying use of earthquake-cam and sloppy close-ups throughout this film).
The opportunity was there to create a new boogeyman for a new generation, but once he begins to really remake HALLOWEEN, with the same characters and dialogue and running through it like a Reader’s Digest abridged version, everything he somewhat accomplished in the beginning becomes null and void.
Zombie’s HALLOWEEN is not scary or suspenseful. It’s garden-variety slice and dice and brings nothing new to the table. I guess I didn’t expect it to, but after the leaps and bounds in direction he made with THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, I expected something a lot more.
But the end result isn’t abysmal. Compared to the last four true sequels, Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN ranks under HALLOWEEN 4 in quality within the Michael Myers saga. I expected to destroy it, but I can’t. It’s just not that bad.
It’s just there, unfocused and non-threatening, which may be worse than the all out hate I have for parts 5,6,7, and 8.
At least I remember those turds in some capacity, even if negative. Zombie’s film has created complete and total apathy within me and in a couple of weeks, I’ll probably not think about it all.
CONFESSIONS OF A HORROR WRITER by Victor Miller
Nice pic of Sean S. Cunningham and Victor Miller pilfered from Harry Manfredini at http://www.harrymanfredini.com/.
Confessions Of a Horror Writer
Washington Post, The (DC) - June 22, 1980
Author: Victor Miller; Victor Miller, a novelist and screenwriter who lives in Connecticut, is presently at work on his next film.
I WROTE "Friday the 13th."
I also went to a prestigious New England prep school and majored in English at Yale University. I have a lovely wife and two more or less well-adjusted children.
But I still wrote one of the most frightening and gory movies ever made. Now I have to deal with the consequences.
My children are proud, my neighbors are aghast, my parents are shocked, my friends are mystified and my agent is euphoric.
My kids are impressed. (They are 11 and 7, and I wouldn't let them see "Friday the 13th.") In fact, everybody under the age of 24 seems to be impressed. This low-budget ($500,000) thriller has reportedly grossed well over $25 million for Paramount and the producers. Most of that money has come from the deep designer-jean pockets of the 17-to-24-year old crowd.
My mother, a grande dame from the French Quarter in New Orleans, was no similarly impressed. After she and my dad spent their working lives putting me through all this high-class education, they are somewhat puzzled by the fact that, instead of imitating Keats, Shelley or T. S. Eliot, I am slogging in the sodden footsteps of George Romero ("Night of the Living Dead") and heading for twin-bills with "Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
My mother, in her late 60s, and my father, in his 70s, went to see my efforts at a theater on Canal street the week that "Friday" opened. Fearing cardiac arrest for one or both, I had told them they didn't need to see this film. I imagine it took some time and effort on their part to assimilate what they had seen and integrate it into their image of me. My parents had spent my entire youth turning on my night light and checking my closets for the monsters I was sure were there. They may even remember the number of times I called them home from dinner parties because I was afraid the baby sitter couldn't adequately protect me.
Yet they sat through, by actual count, one knife in the gut, two slit throats, one hunting arrow in the neck, one hatchet in the face, one body through a window, one arrow in the eyes, and one decapitation. I imagine that they must have been somewhat agrrieved to see the cinema of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard transformed into Grand Guignol. But when they called me the follwing day, my mother said, "It is a marvelous parody of horror movies."
I was not always a writer of gore and mayhem. I began as a playwright, attempting to delineate the depth of my artistic consciousness. The first play I produced went into rehearsal at 125 pages and came out at 70. The actors had trouble with the depth of my artistic consciousness.
Once burned, I turned to a less communal form of expression -- the novel. I also decided to deep-six my neuroses in favor of story-telling. For years, I wrote detective books, the Novelizations for the "Kojak" TV series, thrillers and sagas for six different publishers.
Perhaps I should have had a premonition that I was doomed to a grisly fate. In 1977, I wrote a novel called "Hide the Children" for Ballantine. It was about a busload of schoolkids being kidnapped -- written six months before those nuts did the same thing out in California.
But it wasn't until my friend Sean Cunningham -- a local producer responsible for the cult terror favorite, "Last House on the Left" -- asked me that I had ever attempted horror for the silver screen. He said, "I have $500,000 to make a very scary film that should grab as large an audience as possible."
Never having seen many horror films (I get scared when someone goes "boo"), I went out and saw everything I could. Then Sean and I sat in his kitchen drinking coffee for hours before I came up with the location -- a summer camp -- and the villain.
The modes of destruction took more coffee and a careful recollection of every physical fear I've ever had. I put the killer under the bed because any 9-year-old can tell you that's where killers hide. I put the ax in the face because I'm terrified of having my face messed up, and there's nothing quite as messy as a scout ax. Sean would edit each draft with phrases like, "Keep it relentless."
When the final draft was accepted, I cheered and took my wife out to several long dinners, but I did not go to the set where they were filming my movie. For one thing, the making of a horror film is about as fascinating as watching somebody spray for aphids. Worse yet, the actors look at the author as weird for having invented all the terrible stuff they have to do.
Suprisingly, after "Friday the 13th" was in the can, Paramount Pictures bought it and raised the ante. The put millions into promotion, and released it in 1,160 theaters across the country. A low-budget film which I had written for a low five-figure Writer's Guild scale was suddenly of the verge of becoming a monstrous flop or a hideous success.
Variety's critic hated the film, but couldn't change the fact that it was the top-grossing box-office hit in the country for three solid weeks -- and after five weeks. Variety still lists it as the third highest-grossing film in the national, behind "The Empire Strkes Back" and "Up the Academy."
My neighbors and friends are variously impressed or aghast.
To impressed all seems to ask me two questions:
1) Do you have a percentage?
2) Are you going to move to Hollywood?
I continue to be stunned by the first question. It seems to me a little like asking somebody if he's rich or how much she makes a week "take-home." The question is answered in behavior, so it doesn't even have to be asked. If I trade in my Ford Fiesta for a Mercedes 300SD, you know I got a percentage. If we move from Stratford to Westport, you know I'm raking it in.
Whether or not I move to the West Coast will depend on many many factors, not the least of which is the fact that I have spent a lifetime on the East Coast. The question is moot.
The aghast folks are legion. For the past five or six years. I have been active in my children's schools, their cub scouting, baseball, soccer and all the activities than an aging father is heir to. For one year I had my very own Cub Scout den and every Wednesday we played games, did "artsncrafts" and helped each other grow up. Little did these boys' parents know that every morning I was writing sado-masochistic terror (as well as a terrifically funny and altogether dirty book called "Toga Party" for Fawcett.)
Now my cover is blown. I am the man who thought up the hand that comes out from under the bed and sticks the hunting arrow through the throat -- a clear impossibility, but who cares in horror movies? I am no longer the pleasant-faced man with the children and the pretty wife. Mothers now have to think a few times before letting their children come and play ball in our yard. (They can never quite be sure I won't spring from the cellar looking like Tony Perkins on a bad trip.)
I spoke at two local high schools, brought in by popular demand because, though the teachers had not seen "Friday the 13th," every single one of their students had -- except maybe the Seventh Day Adventists and Quakers. In each instance, the kids all sat back against the wall. Now, as a former backwall sitter myself, I thought it was their reluctance to be called upon. But the teacher informed me that the kids were afraid of me!
Who could blame them? Hadn't I written a movie in which over seven (I lose count) beautiful young teen-agers are brutally snuffed out? Moreover, I had written a movie in the classical horror Puritan mode in which the kids' only sin was playful lust.
Thus it was that I had to spend the first 10 minutes of my talk assuring them that I carried no weapons in my briefcase. I informed that that I never spanked my kids, and didn't yell at them very much either. Gradually they moved their chairs a little closer and began to ask me how we put the hatchet in the actress' face without ruining her career.
I have a number of friends who are truly distressed with me, though they cannot figure exactly wherein my culpability ties. I would characterize these nice people as "old-time Humanists" with deeply ingrained Liberal frames of reference. Out of affection for me, they saw the movie. They understood on the way in that this was a horror movie and that actors would be cruel to one another in bizarre ways. But they were shocked and surprised in a way they had not counted on -- and neither had I!
Without spoiling the ending for you -- as New York Times critic Janet Maslin did -- I'll say that our heroine becomes locked in a terminal struggle with the villain. Time and again the heroine cannot bring herself to kill the villain. The audience, whether middle class or not, ends up screeming "Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!" (WE have a female villain, another victory for ERA and another defeat for Phyllis Schafly.) The effect on the liberal-human-type person is incredible. Surrounded by heretofore friendly theatergoers, you are now in the midst of a real true Roman mob scene and the Christians are tearing the lions apart! At the very least "Friday the 13th" lifts the veil of civilization and says, "There but for the grace of a modicum of conscience is as blood-thirsty rabble."
And so I am now a nice, occasionally liberal-type person whose friends are upset because I have reputedly undone the veneer that took years to apply.
Yet another result was the avalanche of hideous reviews. Our movie is what the industry calls "review proof" -- meaning that our audience either doesn't read, or doesn't read the critics.
But I myself am not review-proof. Notwithstanding the fact that I have written a blockbuster and all my dreams have come true, it really does hurt to have to deal with the incredible virtriol that has come my way since we opened on May 9. Hundreds of reviews of "Friday the 13th" have appeared in print, and I have seen only one which was positive. It appeared in the The Fairfield (Conn.) Advocate, and was written by a guy I know.
I really mentioned the Times critic's rage. She gave away the ending in the hopes that then nobody would come see our piece de drek. Worse yet: A nationally known critic printed our star's home address in his column and encouraged his readers to write and tell her what a louse she was for appearing in this film. (With all the loonies loose in our society, can anyone condone that little trick?) In short, "Friday the 13th" seems to have pushed a button in the critical solar plexus producing not just negative reviews, but rage.
I asked a knowledgable friend why we should be singled out so terribly and he said that our fault lies in the fact that our film attempts to do nothing more than appeal to the emotions. Our country, being still caught in the web of Puritanity, finds it necessary to punish anyone who has no higher goal than to entertain or to zap the nerve endings. That sounds just complicated enough to be correct, but it doesn't help me thassimilate e feelings. It's very much like being back in grade school when me and the guys were caught doing something offensive to decorum and the teacher made us feel like bad guys.
As far as the critics are concerned, "Friday the 13th" is the cinematic equivalent to belching in art class. What makes them angry, I suppose, is that this is a $25-million belch.
Okay. So how do I feel about what I've done?
In the main, pretty damn good. I am a storyteller and, judging by the box-office figures, I've told a story that a lot people are enjoying. My audiences have elected me to a very exclusive club whose members have written movies that reached the top and stayed there just long enough to keep from being anomalies. It is a strange feeling, one that makes me wonder where I'll be in a year, and what I'll be doing and so forth.
But, thanks to that hit, I can now command six times the amount I got for it on the next script. I have gained what people in the business call "credibility" and I am told that I can bank on that. (My creditors thought it was credible all along.)
And finally, I am happy to be a working writer. There are quite a few of us whose names are hugely unknown. We feed families by our efforts, we preserve shelf space for publishers, we work for a great deal less than the media superstars, we constantly disappoint the critics, we can't get a good table at Elaine's, we love our families, and we pray for a hit.
To do anything else would seem like work.
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