Day 31 of the Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge is 26. MILITARY INVOLVEMENT. When the men in green take on the little green men. I’ve decided to go with a movie that gets unfairly maligned — Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers, which may be the most anti-government, anti-imperialism movie ever made. Trust me — I have plenty to say about this one.
Originally an unrelated script called Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine, this movie licensed the name Starship Troopers from the Robert A. Heinlein novel. That novel is as militaristic and fascistic as it gets. This movie? Well, upon its release, many critics saw it as a celebration of fascism. How anyone came to that conclusion is an absolute moron. This is a movie that rails against it from its very first frame, building on the mega mobile awareness that Verhoeven only hinted at in RoboCop.
There’s no way to not reveal my politics as I write about this. I usually keep that out of these articles, but a constant source of worry for me is that our universe has done more than slide to the right; we’ve seen Nazi and fascist ideologies written off as “some good people.” So when Verhoeven alludes to wartime newsreels and Triumph of the Will (the Mobile Infantry ad at the beginning is taken shot-for-shot from this film), he’s doing more than just some satire. I have no idea how anyone can watch a movie where Doogie Howser is wearing full SS regalia and see it as an endorsement of militaristic ideology.
In the DVD commentary, the director states that he “evoked Nazi Germany’s fashion, iconography, and propaganda because he saw it as a natural evolution of the United States after World War II, and especially after the Korean War.” Obviously, if we believe conspiracy theory, the Nazi powers that be became part of our CIA, NASA and military/industrial complex. We won the war and became the enemy. Verhoeven motto for the film? “Let’s all go to war and let’s all die.”
As manifest destiny takes mankind into the stars, they discover arachnids, called “bugs.” While it’s never outright stated, it seems like the bugs are several steps down the evolutionary ladder from humans and would have never attacked us if we’d just left them alone.
On Earth, citizenship in the one world government is a privilege that only comes from military service. That’s one of the reasons to sign up. You also get to be a pilot. Or impress the girl you’re in love with. That’s how Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) joins up, trying to win the heart of pilot Carmen (Denise Richards). Then there’s Dizzy (Dina Meyer), who is the way better choice, but as she’s more masculine, Johnny never sees anything in her until it’s too late. They also have a friend named Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris) whose psychic ability means he will be one of the ruling class.
The film unfolds in episodic form where we progress from basic training to initial battles with the bugs to the first meeting with one of the more intelligent members of their species, a “brain bug.” Throughout, commercials and military propaganda fill the screen, always ending with “Do you want to know more?” That’s ironic — real, uncontrolled information does not exist and executions air live on TV at 6 PM. This is the government-controlled media empire that we are constantly spiraling closer and closer to.
Every time Starship Troopers hints at the fact that humanity is doomed and that we’re in over our head — like the disastrous battle on Klendathu — these messages nearly erase those feelings. And one only has to look at the climax of the film, where an army of masculine warriors gathers around a very female creature and celebrate the emotion of fear as people celebrate in a moment that should be the emotional feel-good close of the film. But it’s hollow. And it’s wrong. And the emotions that it makes you feel are false, put in there to teach you a lesson.
“Come on you apes! Do you wanna live forever?”
“They’ll keep fighting and they’ll win!”
“These are the rules. Everybody fights, nobody quits. If you don’t do your job I’ll kill you myself.”
Yet every single authority figure in this movie has been scarred by the very Federation they serve, particularly Rasczak (Michael Ironside, absolutely amazing in every film and beyond that here), who goes without an arm until signing back up for service, his stump now replaced by quite literally an iron fist.
I still can’t believe that they sold kids toys of this movie.
We’ve covered plenty of monsters in wrestling, but it’s been awhile. Just in time for Halloween, we’re back to talk about the living dead in the squared circle.
Plenty of pro wrestling promotions have done zombie wrestling shows — I’m on one this Saturday night in Pittsburgh, cheap Foley plug — but right now, we’re talking about individual wrestlers that have become zombies and some zombie vs. wrestler themed films.
Probably the most famous zombie wrestler is The Undertaker. You could argue that he probably has the best gimmick — or the longest lasting — of the modern era of wrestling. He’s been an undead minion of Paul Bearer, the leader of a quasi-Satanic church, an unliving biker, an MMA fighting member of the walking dead, a semi-retired once a year fighter and now, inevitably, he’s back for “one more match.”
The Undertaker has been around since he made his official on-camera debut at the 1990 Survivor Series as Kane the Undertaker (he had done a previous TV taping three days earlier), making one of the best pushed first-night appearances ever, eliminating Koko B. Ware with his tombstone piledriver and Dusty Rhodes by double elimination. Soon, he’d be in the title mix and off to a career to has seen him be a face, a heel, somewhere in the middle and finally the kind of legend that no one wants to boo. Throw in his incredibly confusing connection with his brother Kane, that moment when Mabel crushed his face and he had to wear a mask, getting buried by all the heels and coming back to battle his twin brother after Leslie Nielsen (!) searched for him, that time he had the American flag inside his trenchcoat because undead dudes are jingoistic babyfaces, his association with managers Brother Love and Paul Bearer, his Ministry of Darkness, the Corporate Ministry and his epic 21-0 Wrestlemania streak and you have the kind of first ballot Hall of Fame career that few wrestlers will ever match.
Undertaker doesn’t do many full on zombie spots, instead of relying on a Michael Myers-like instant recovery and the power to a funeral urn that can heal him. He also used to use a body bag on his foes after he beat them, but we can only assume that parents got angry when little brothers got shoved into sleeping bags and put a stop to that.
ECW had one zombie. And only one. On June 13, 2006, the premiere of the SciFi version of ECW featured the late Tim Arson as The Zombie, who lasted all of a few moments before The Sandman mercifully Singapore caned him in the brain.
Finally, there’s Onryu, the Japanese wrestler Ryo Matsuri, who is just as much a ghost as he is a zombie. He won a cursed championship, died and must now forever walk the Earth. He has magic powers, such as being able to appear and disappear to his opponents, as well as disconnecting his hand so that he can make impossible rope breaks.
When I wrestled for Pittsburgh’s International Wrestling Cartel promotion, we were lucky to get to use Onryu for the Super Indy 3 tournament, which was won by Chris Sabin. In the first round, Onryu defeated fellow WMF wrestler Soldier before losing to Alex Shelley in the second round.
I first met Onryu in Tokyo after wrestling a six-person intergender match for the bonkers DDT promotion. Someone told me that Onryu wanted to meet with me before he came to America and I was honestly pretty excited, as I was a big fan of his work. I was kind of worried though — how does one talk to a zombie? The reply came: Onryu is a rock star. I’m not putting myself over — I’ve met plenty of pro wrestlers, big, small, famous and unknown. Only Onryu was legit a rock star, appearing before me like a miniature Japanese David Bowie in full zombie paint, wearing a long shirt and bell bottom pants with a dragon pattern all over them.
This is not my most insane Onryu tale. He stayed in my home for several days on his tour and we made sure to take him to plenty of places in the USA so that he got to see what our country is all about. His favorite? Target, where he stocked up on dishwands, those sponges that you fill up with liquid soap. He’d never seen one before and wanted to bring them back for all of his friends in Japan. Keep in mind, he was still dressed like a rock star in a small town Target, standing out as no one has ever stood out before.
Beyond wrestlers who have shuffled off this mortal coil, there have been plenty of wrestling vs. zombie movies, dating way back to Plan 9 From Outer Space. In this Ed Wood opus, or Johnson, formerly known as the wrestling Super Swedish Angel, rose from the grave to aid an alien invasion alongside Vampira. His part was played by pro wrestle George “The Animal” Steele in the Tim Burton biographical film.
Even better, there was a movie called Pro Wrestlers vs Zombies, where pro wrestlers like Roddy Piper, Kurt Angle, “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, Matt Hardy and Shane Douglas.
I had the chance to speak with Ashton Amherst, who is more than just a pro wrestler who has torn it up all over the country. He also played Angus in Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies!
B&S: So how did you get involved in Zombies vs. Pro Wrestlers? ASHTON: Originally, I was asked to be cast as a pro wrestler extra in the film. But, with real work and real life, I couldn’t commit to the 2+ weeks of filming in WV for that amount of money. So, in a twist, Sylvester Turkay, who was originally going to be the lead villain, backed out. I auditioned for the role and they liked me and kind of tailored it more to me than a big monster like Sylvester. Funny side note, he did come for one day of filming and is the monster that rips Kurt Angle off of me in the one scene. B&S: Had you had any acting experience before? ASHTON: Other than the acting that is pro wrestling, I had no real movie set experience.
B&S: What was it like working with some of the bigger names? ASHTON: It was awesome. I remember the first morning, we had gone late the night before. It’s 6 AM and I’m at the hotel Starbucks and it’s just me, Shane Douglas, Roddy Piper and Hacksaw Duggan in line. I’m like, “Oh shit, this is pretty damn cool.” Over the two weeks, I got to hang with them a lot and really got to know Shane, who was my idol as a teenage wrestling fan. Roddy really took a liking to Ryan Reign, who I had brought in as an extra a few days into filming and Roddy ended up helping Ryan a lot and taking him to Raw and some WWE stuff with him. So, it was very cool to meet those guys and get to hang with them.
B&S: Any stores (that you can legally share)? ASHTON: Oh man. So many (laughs). Day two, we were filming and they needed some extras to work with Matt Hardy in a fight scene. I was done filming that day and offered to get into some zombie gear and work kind of under a hood, so no one would know that it was me. We did a scene where he knocked me off a prison cell and when I fell the crash pads moved and I separated my shoulder badly!
They had to put me under at the hospital to pop it back in and when I woke up it was just Shane sitting next to my hospital bed. Very surreal (laughs).
But yeah, so after that I was in a sling the next week or so and I took it off to film scenes. The scene I mentioned early with Kurt, I reminded him probably five times that my shoulder was recently separated. He either forgot or didn’t care, because he jacked me up against the wall for about nineteen takes straight (laughs).
But we were put up in a nice 5-star hotel and the room service guys always remembered my hurt shoulder and would deliver me ice packs every morning or night after filming. Since Parkersburg is such a small place, the filming of the movie was a much bigger deal than it would have been other places. It was also probably 10 degrees or less most nights of filming. And the second week, the filming shifted to 6 PM to 6 AM. So we had some nice warm trailers to chill in, but the other like 1,000 extras that were just Parkersburg residents wanting to be in the movie stood in freezing temps just to be part of it, which was awesome. But yeah, all the fight scenes on the hill at the end? It was freeeezing. Then after those filmings, most of us would go to this local pancake house place. So you’d have a bunch of pro wrestlers, a male porn star guy, a Penthouse Pet of the Year, and all the other oddities in our troop just posting up eating pancakes at 6 AM in zombie makeup and ripped up clothing. SAM: Are you a horror movie fan? ASHTON: Absolutely! My poor wife has to live thru watching all the Halloweens roughly 100 times each October!
Thanks, Ashton!
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that WWE has made several series of zombie action figures and characters for their Supercard and WWE2K19 games, including a skull-faced “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, an even paler than normal Paige and even a brains craving Shinsuke Nakamura. Yeaoh! Brains!
I didn’t even get to the luchador named Zombie Clown! Man! But are there any pro wrestling zombies that I missed? Feel free to let me know in the comments. Do you have a wrestling monster that you’d like to tell you more about?
In case you’re wondering, past Mat Monsters have included:
Bill from Groovy Doom and Drive-In Asylum always jokes about movies where nothing happens as being his favorite movies. If that’s true, he must absolutely adore this movie.
Christopher Lee, the main selling point of this movie, said, “Some of the films I’ve been in I regret making. I got conned into making these pictures in almost every case by people who lied to me. Some years ago, I got a call from my producers saying that they were sending me a script and that five very distinguished American actors were also going to be in the film. Actors like José Ferrer, Dean Jagger, and John Carradine. So I thought “Well, that’s all right by me”. But it turned out it was a complete lie. Appropriately the film was called End Of The World.”
The film opens with a shaken Lee as a Catholic priest trying to get to a phone call. All hell breaks loose and a diner is destroyed, with the owner blinded by coffee before being killed and the pay phone being blown up. Turns out that Father Pergado is due to be replaced by the alien Zindar. Good start. And it was the trailer, filled with science fiction machines and evil nuns that got me interested in this picture!
Professor Andrew Boran discovers radio signals that predict natural disasters. He and his wife investigate, discovering that they come from a convent where aliens have taken over. The aliens want him to join them, as the Earth is too diseased to exist.
The leads are wooden and only seem to want to have sex with one another, yet there are no love scenes. They’re utter failures at being heroic and simply move the plot along to its conclusion, where we learn that the Earth is filled with glitter. It blows up real good!
There are some ridiculous moments, such as Lee’s true form and seeing nuns operate supercomputers. Seriously, if I just read the description of this movie, it’d sound like everything I love. But seeing the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
Today’s Scarecrow Psychotronic challenge is 25. INSTITUTIONALIZED. An antagonist from the funny farm. I’ve answered with Nightmare, which probably best known for being a video nasty, one of the 72 films that violated the British Obscene Publications Act of 1959. In fact, its distributor was sentenced to 18 months in prison for refusing to edit the film. It also brags that Tom Savini created the film’s effects, a credit denied by the FX artist.
After mutilating and murdering a family, George Tatum has been jailed for years. Now, he has been given the opportunity to be reprogrammed and returned to society. That said — he still has nightmares of his childhood and a trip to a Times Square peep show unlock flashbacks that make him a killer all over again.
En route to Florida — where his ex-wife, daughters and son live, George follows a woman home and kills her. Meanwhile, his doctors have no clue that he’s left the city.
Imagine his wife’s surprise when she starts getting all manner of threats over the phone. All she wants to do is carry on with her new boyfriend, Bob. She has enough to deal with, as her son C.J. is the worst of all horror movie kids. He often plays pranks that go way past the line of good taste, like covering himself in ketchup and pretending to be dead. So when the kid says that a man is following him, everyone thinks he’s just up to his normal young serial killer in training mischief.
After killing some of C.J.’s fellow students, George breaks into their house and kills the babysitter while mom is at a party. But C.J. calmly and cooly deals with it — he shoots his father with a revolver while dad has a flashback of catching his dad engaging in BDSM games with his mistress before he decided to kill them both with an axe.
The movie closes with C.J. sitting in a police car, mugging for the camera, while his mother returns to see her ex-husband’s body being removed from the house. How does C.J. know the camera is there? Has he learned how to break the fourth wall? Will he soon be able to hear his own theme song, much like Michael Myers? And when I’m asking questions, isn’t the full title, Nightmares in a Damaged Brain, way better than just Nightmare?
Director Romano Scavolini started his career in porn, which might explain the incredibly casual nudity in the film and its devotion to giving the viewer exactly what they want from a slasher. It knows exactly why you’re here and gives you what you need. He stated about the film that he wanted to tell a story that has roots in reality and not just fantasy. A story of no hope, because mankind is at the mercy of its own demons. And, perhaps most importantly, a story where a young boy is unable to deal with the fact that his parents might just happen to be down with BDSM.
According to Matthew Edwards’ Twisted Visions: Interviews with Cult Horror Filmmakers, Scavolini claimed that prior to receiving distribution through 21st Century Film Corporation, Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures had both wanted to buy the film, but only if the gore was cut down. Scavonli refused, feeling that “the strongest scenes had to remain uncut because the film should be a scandalous event.” Yeah, I’m gonna call bullshit.
This is a scummy, down and dirty affair. C.J. is an annoying kid, but who can blame him, He has the worst parents possible — one’s a serial killer and the other would rather party on down with Bob than deal with the wretched fruits of her ex-husband’s loins. It’s everything that 20/20 exposes on how horrible slashers movies are should be.
If you want to see this for yourself, it’s streaming for free with an Amazon Prime membership.
I wasn’t ready for Mirror, Mirror. I had no idea it’d grab me, thinking it was just another clone of The Craft. But nope. It’s something else entirely.
Megan Gordon (Rainbow Harvest) is the new girl in school, a shy and withdrawn goth who is taunted and treated like shit by everyone other than Nikki and Ron, a popular girl and her jock boyfriend. Now here’s where this movie stands out. Megan isn’t one of those fake Hollywood versions of what they think goth is. She honestly looks insane in so many of her outfits, wearing tiny hats and headdresses that Vulnavia would be proud to put on. Her hair is shaved in weird places and even when she has to wear her tennis uniform, she looks incredibly out of place and uncomfortable. In short, if I was 15 years old, I would be making her the perfect mix tape.
Megan’s dad has recently died, which is why she and her mother Susan (Karen Black!) have moved. In their new home, she finds an antique mirror in her room which keeps returning even when it is taken away. Oh yeah — her dog dies too, for some reason on top of the kitchen counter, and Willaim Sanderson (The Rocketeer, TV’s Newhart, Fight for Your Life) shows up as a weird pet undertaker who starts dating Susan.
Megan learns that the mirror gives her magic powers, which she uses to get revenge. But despite the warnings of the antique dealer who was in charge of the house’s furnishings (Yvonne De Carlo!) that the mirror grants its powers at the cost of the user’s life, Megan grows more and more addicted to having the power.
Soon, Megan starts to get everything she wants. And when she doesn’t, she kills everyone in her way. Along the way, she inverts the sexual predator role, going after the men in the movie with so much passion that they often beg her to slow down or to leave them alone.
I’m not saying this is a perfect movie. There’s an extra long sandwich-making scene that feels way off script. But Megan killing Ron is quite intense, as is the way she murders her rival in the shower. And not since 1988’s remake of The Blob has a sink been so murderous.
By the end of the movie, Megan has lost control of the mirror and it starts killing people she didn’t want it to go after. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the scene where the mirror is coated with blood, leading to Megan making out with her own reflection.
The end takes the sisterhood between the two main characters to a frightening conclusion when seen through the mirror’s reflection.
For a straight to video 80’s horror movie that was followed by three sequels, this is much better than you’d expect. You can find Mirror, Mirror on Shudder and Amazon Prime!
Day 24 of the Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge is 24. PUPPETS OR DOLLS: Sometimes they play back. When I first started dating my wife, this was a movie that she picked for us to watch. While I scoffed at the time, it’s been in our DVD player more times than I may like to admit. It’s an early film from James Wan, after the first Saw but before The Conjuring and Insidious.
You need to know a few things about this film.
First, it takes place in a fairy tale reality that has nothing to do with our world as you know it.
Second, no one acts like a normal human being.
Third, everything — and I mean everything — is shot in blue filter and overly processed, appearing washed out.
Finally, every single bit of the frame is overly art directed. Everything it too complicated. Everything is too dirty. Everything is too macabre. Nothing ends up being frightening because everything is too much, too much and way too much.
But I have a soft spot in my hard heart for this wacky little movie. It’s never really sure who it wants to be — is it about the dolls doing the killing? Is it the legend of Mary Shaw? Is it a police procedural? And why does the evil woman have such a frightening tongue?
Mary Shaw has an undefined moveset, as it were. Should we be worried about her ability to silence areas and kill people when they scream? Or should we be worried about someone else? or should we be worried about all the killer dolls? There is so much to worry about!
Big shout out to Donnie Wahlberg here, who must have just finished an acting class that said, “You gotta have some kind of object for your character so you can do object and hand work.” He was like, “What if I continually shave my face with an electric razor in every scene?” And everyone on set was real harried that day and said, “Sure, I guess that sounds good.” So basically all I can tell you about his character, Detective Jim Lipton, is that he shaves in every scene. It’s also hilarious to me that the above class I mention, which doesn’t probably exist outside of my brain, was an Actor’s Studio class and he wanted to credit James Lipton with the name of the character as a way of paying back his mentor.
So what can I say good about this movie? The theater set — I refuse to believe a small town that was the happiest town ever would name their theater after France’s Grand Guignol but go with this movie for a bit — is awe inspiring. I love how it looks, as nature has had its way with it, with a giant display case of hundreds upon hundreds of evil dolls. Seriously, if you have an issue with dummies, don’t watch this. It’s like Magic times one hundred and one, minus the talent and story.
Maybe I’m being too harsh. The studio got super involved with this one, to the point that Leigh Whannell (who also wrote most of the Saw and Insidious films, as well as writing and directing the superior Upgrade) was so displeased with the final film that he only writes scripts on spec now, instead of pitching to studios and being paid to write the screenplay.
I say all these things knowing that I’ll end up watching this movie once a year, laughing at some of its worst moments, puzzling over some of its poor FX and trying to decipher why the characters would act the way they do. I’ll also wonder how such a quaint little town has such a sleazy motel in it. And then I’ll watch it all over again.
The extraterrestrial invasion of Santa Mira is more than just the event that this film chronicles. No, Invasion of the BodySnatchers has transcended its simple science fiction roots to become a cultural touchstone. We often refer to people acting differently as pod people; those who may have never seen this film or its many sequels intimately know its plot and what it means.
Thanks to this new Olive Films Signature reissue, I’ve had the opportunity to watch this film again and my goal was to evaluate it as if I were watching it when it was first released.
The conceit is simple: Alien plant spores have shown up in a small California town and reproduce exact copies of human beings, taking on the exact physical characteristics, personalities and even memories of those that sleep near them. Within a month, they’ve completely taken over the town and created an untroubled world, a place of no emotion or worry, a place where everyone is one of us.
Near the end of the film, one of the pod people tells our hero, Dr. Miles J. Bennel (Kevin McCarthy) that their way is so much better. “Love, desire, ambition, faith – without them, life’s so simple, believe me.” When he exclaims that he wants no part of this new world, he’s told that he has no choice.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is bold in its depiction of love in 1956. Both Miles and his former flame Becky (Dana Wynter, Airport) are suffering through divorces and unlike many films of the era, they are not represented as bad people for their actions. Instead, their romance is championed. It may mean nothing to us watching the film 62 years after its release, but the fact that they stay in the same room and have a romance at all was groundbreaking.
Miles and Becky manage to escape the entire town being taken over until a dog is nearly run over. Becky’s emotional outburst alerts the pod people, who blast sirens as our heroic couple races against an army chasing them, up steps, through city streets, across mountains, even with Miles carrying her (there’s a charming moment in the bonus footage on this disk where Wynter says that McCarthy never complained or even got out of breath because he’s a gentleman) in a fruitless attempt to escape. They separate and when they finally find one another, Miles can’t wait to kiss his lover. In horror, he learns that she is now one of them too.
That’s when the most arresting images of this movie appear. Miles runs into the night, a non-stop chase that brings him onto a crowded highway filled with transport trucks loaded with pods bound for the major cities. He screams in vain at passing cars as they narrowly avoid hitting them, his panicked face streaked with sweat and rain and car lights in the deep dark night, bellowing, “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next!”
This was to be the original ending of the movie, but focus groups — yes they had them back then, too — wanted a happy ending. The promise at the end, where the FBI is alerted and the pods will obviously be stopped, rings hollow. That final image of Miles on the highway in abject panic as the camera pans up and away is just too powerful.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is filled with talent, with everyone giving their best performance, from the future Morticia Addams, Carolyn Jones, to character actor par excellence King Donovan and even future Wild Bunch director Sam Peckinpah, who has a minor role as a gas meter reader.
Some see a story within a story in this film, a meta-commentary on the dangers facing America such as McCarthyism while others see it as an allegory for the loss of personal rights in the wake of Communism. Several connected with the film state that it had no such aim, but you can graft any story onto any movie if you want.
This was remade in 1978, which is a really great version that goes even deeper (and gorier) into the storyline of this film, as well as Abel Ferrara’s 1993 Body Snatchers and the 2007 film The Invasion. And Santa Mira is, of course, the setting for Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. Obviously, the film is a big influence on John Carpenter, as you can see hints of it in his film They Live.
McCarthy would later reprise his role of Dr. Miles in the 1978 remake, as well as Looney Tunes: Back in Action. He’s also Fred Francis, named for that noted director, in Joe Dante’s The Howling. The interview segments with him on this disk make him seem like quite the likable fellow. Actually, all of the extras are heartwarming, making one feel that they’re sitting around with some movie-loving friends and discussing this together.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a film that speaks to audiences with the same confident power that it did in the mid 1950’s. It has lessons within it that should never be lost and I feel that it should be required viewing for all film lovers, even if you dislike science fiction (that said, it’s closer to a horror movie than pure SF).
The new Olive Films Signature release is packed with extras, such as a new high-definition digital restoration of the film, complete with two commentary tracks — one by film historian Richard Harland Smith and the other a roundtable featuring actors Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter, and filmmaker Joe Dante. Then there are several documentaries, such as “The Stranger in Your Lover’s Eyes,” a two-part visual essay with actor and son of director Don Siegel, Kristoffer Tabori, reading from his father’s book “A Siegel Film;” “The Fear is Real,” which has Larry Cohen and Joe Dante give their thoughts on the film; “I No Longer Belong: The Rise and Fall of Walter Wanger;” “Sleep No More: Invasion of the Body Snatchers Revisited,” which has comments from fans of the film including John Landis, Mick Garris, and Stuart Gordon; “The Fear and the Fiction: The Body Snatchers Phenomenon,” which delves deep into the production of the film and its many meanings; “Return to Santa Mira,” which explores the shooting locations; “What’s In a Name?” a discussion of the significance of the film’s title; a gallery of rare documents detailing aspects of the film’s production including the never-produced opening narration to have been read by Orson Welles (!); an essay by author and film programmer Kier-La Janisse and the film’s original theatrical trailer.
You can get the new Olive Films Signature release right here. But hurry — it’s limited to only 5,000 copies!
Disclaimer: I was sent this film by Olive Films for review and in no way did that impact this article.
Dr. Otto Frankenstein works in his lab all day and to the normal daytime world, he seems like an ordinary doctor. But at night, he works on perfecting his own form of life, Mosiac, putting together this inhuman human from several dead bodies. Then, once completed, Mosiac repays him by killing him and we still have an hour left.
Directed by Mario Mancini (who was the cinematographer for Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks and The Girl in Room 2A), this is a film featuring real surgical footage, nonsensical dialogue and a total lack of plot. Suffice to say I loved it.
Mosiac spends the rest of the movie replacing his constantly failing organs, which means that he must murder and murder and murder some more. Have you ever wondered, “What if someone used a giant leg bone to kill someone?” this would be the movie that answers your inquest.
Also, in whatever nameless city in some unknown country that this is supposed to be set in, possibly Germany, the women in the night have no issues with a gigantic monster in a leather Nazi-esque outfit picking them up with merely a few grunts. No money discussion — he kills them way before they tell him how much a half and half costs.
This movie was inspired by Italian horror, sex and gore comics, like Oltretomba. If you’re offended by the blood and guts and books of this film, consider this a stern warning: avoid these comics at all costs. They take it even further. And then further. And then some.
There’s a new blu ray of this that’s been released — the film is in public domain — that finally fixes the rough prints that are out there right now. It’s nearly impossible to find, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop looking. For all the foibles of this film, it has a certain something.
As a bonus, here’s some artwork that I did of the film.
Day 23 of the Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge is 23. Creepy Phone Calls. Reach out and touch someone before they reach out and touch you. At one point, 976 numbers were everywhere. You could call anyone and everyone — the Cory’s, Santa, Freddy — all for just 99¢ a minute. Most people have forgotten about them with the rise of the internet, but it’s important to remember them before watching this film, the directorial debut of Robert Englund.
Spike and Hoax (Stephen Geoffreys from Fright Night) are cousins who live under the overly watchful eye of Hoax’s super religious mother Lucy (Sandy Dennis, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, God Told Me To). They couldn’t be more different. Hoax is a nerd that’s afraid of everyone while Spike is a motorcycle riding bad boy with the girl of his cousin’s dreams, Suzie (Lezlie Deane, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare).
Both boys start using the novelty phone number 976-EVIL, which reads them creepy-themed fortunes for a few dollars. The real truth is quite sinister: Satan uses the line to find people to give them what they want in exchange for their souls. There’s a great scene here where a religious investigator goes to the home of 976-EVIL, After Dark, Inc. There is room after room of people, Santas, phone sex women and so much more, but in one dusty, cobwebbed closet lies the machine that powers this foul enterprise.
By the end of this movie, the cousins’ power dynamic has shifted and the literal gateway to Hell appears in front of their home. The way there is littered with 80’s cliches and a tone that is never sure if it fully wants to be comedic or horrific.
Still, this movie is not without its charms. The Deftones wrote the song “Diamond Eyes” about the film and it was popular enough to bring Spike back for the direct-to-video sequel 976-EVIL II: The Astral Factor. And England met his wife, set decorator Nancy Booth, while directing this movie. She would sneak R+N into the backgrounds of scenes that he would discover each day while watching the dailies. And hey, how many movies have uber religious old women get devoured by cats?
Hopefully, you’ve seen the new Halloweenby now. Either you’re feeling a little letdown or are excited to see some more carnage. Either way, we’ve got you covered.
Of course, your first move should be to watch the original or the incredibly great sequel. We covered the entire history of the franchise last year, so you can read all about that here.
Now, based on nothing more than my personal choices, here are ten other movies that you’ll either find much better than 2018’s Halloween or will keep your bloodlust sated. For now.
Bay of Blood: If you’re gonna watch a slasher, start at the beginning. After all, so much of the Friday the 13th films were ripped off scene for scene from this one. Plus, few movies of this ilk have a director as established as Mario Bava at the helm.
The Prowler: While not the finest stalk and kill movie you’ll ever watch, it may have the best special effects in the history of the genre, thanks to Tom Savini. From the very first scene, you know that you’re watching a movie that has no interest in playing nice.
Terrifier: Art the Clown may be a new character, but nearly everyone who watches his first solo film walks away freaked out and ready for more (if the sheer gore contained within doesn’t send them screaming for the door).
Blood Beat: The only movie I’ve ever seen where a samurai spirit kills people in time to a sex scene. Perhaps the strangest movie on this list.
Happy Birthday to Me: You’ve seen the poster, but you may not have seen the movie. Trust me — this one is an underrated piece of bloody magic.
Terror Train: Can’t get enough Jamie Lee? How do you feel about costume parties on trains and David Copperfield?
Popcorn: Sure, it’s a mess of a film, but it’s also original and packed with plenty of great murders. It’s finally easy to find, too!
Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!: This is a poorly made, sloppy and scuzzy piece of goofball goredom. And I’ll watch it over nearly everything made in the last five years.
Stagefright: An owl masked maniac takes on an entire theater full of actors in a movie where blood literally sprays like geysers.
Pieces: The movie that goes all the way, this one can upset even the hardiest of blood lovers. It’s also one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, perhaps not intentionally.
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