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VISUAL VENGEANCE BLU RAY RELEASE: Despiser (2003)

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Gordon Hauge (Mark Redfield) gets fired, kicked out of his apartment and dumped by his wife Maggie (Gage Sheridan) all in one day, then wrecks his car and wakes up under attack by the Ragmen and Shadowmen of purgatory, the world between heaven and hell. He soon meets others who are trapped here because they ended their lives in a moment of noble sacrifice, all united in combat against the dreaded Despiser, a horrific blast of 2003 CGI that crashed into our planet when his spaceship slammed into Russia in 1908 and caused the Tunguska event.

Despiser feels like a Canadian movie but it’s made in Virginia.

It has the tones of a faith film but is packed with tons of violence.

And it feels like parts of The Wizard of Oz, The Stand and Lord of the Rings yet has so many strange ideas inside it that it feels like nothing else.

As the official site says, director and writer Philip Cook “was intrigued by the idea of an alternative world like ours, recognizable but skewed, dark and ominous—a blend of our culture mixed with macabre fantasy. This concept became the purgatory, a place where, after death, one’s soul is purified of sin—by suffering. But in this story, something has gone terribly wrong with it. It’s no longer a clearinghouse for confused souls; it’s become bottlenecked, out of balance and fraught with conflict.”

Keep in mind that this isn’t a movie with a multimillion-dollar budget but instead is a combination of green screen shot on video footage and all the CGI money could buy in 2003. If you liked the strange worlds that show up in Fungicide, good news. This goes even harder, if that’s possible. It feels like if you stare at it long enough, you’ll be able to see a sailboat in its pixels.

Cook was a vet by the time that he made this, as he had already written, directed, edited and/or photographed hundreds of commercials for clients ranging from The Washington Opera to MTV. Before that, he worked on Nightbeast for Don Dohler, Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor and was the director of photography for Godfrey Ho on the Cynthia Rothrock movie Undefeatable. 

When he made this movie in 1998, no one was making movies with a stylized look like this. It’s accepted now — just look at how The Mandalorian has been filmed — but in the five years it took to make, Cook said that “the audience was jaded because 3D was everywhere. Special effects aren’t special anymore.”

I disagree. No movie anywhere looks like Despiser.

It even has some intriguing heroes beyond Gordon, like Nimbus (Doug Brown), a soldier who has been in purgatory since World War One, kamikaze pilot Tomasawa (Frank Smith), Jake (Michael Weitz) and Charlie Roadtrap (Tara Bilkins).

Joe Bob gave this three and a half stars and had these totals: “Forty-nine dead bodies. Five gun battles. Three crash-and-burns. Four motor vehicle chases. One sucker punch. Two body-transformation scenes. One hydrogen explosion. One Viking funeral. One peasant riot. Flaming church. Flaming car. Upside-down crucifixion. Grotesque insect destruction. Doll-stomping. Gratuitous shipwrecks. Kung Fu. Grenade Fu. Bazooka Fu.”

For those that look at the cover image for this and instantly think, “I need to know more,” or loved staring at blacklight posters at Spencer’s or played enough Gamma World, this is for you. It’s definitely for me.

I really can’t recommend this movie enough.

Beyond me loving this movie, if you want to hear Bill Van Ryn and I talk about it, we’re on the disc! Other extras include:

  • Producer-supervised SD master from original tape source
  • Commentary with director Philip J. Cook and stars Mark Redfield and Gage Sheridan
  • New 2023 interview with director Philip J. Cook and star Mark Hyde
  • The Making of Despiser
  • Deleted scenes
  • Blooper and outtake reels
  • Despiser: Storyboard To Animation
  • Original DVD menu animated intro
  • Behind The Scenes, image and art gallery
  • Despiser trailers
  • Visual Vengeance trailer
  • Trailers for Outerworld and Invader
  • Invader Trailer
  • Folded mini-poster
  • “Stick your own” VHS sticker sheet
  • 2-sided insert
  • Reversible sleeve With original VHS art
  • Limited edition slipcase

You order this now from MVD and Diabolik DVD!

It’s sold out now, but on the commentary track, we said that you got a free troll with the movie. How amazing is Visual Vengeance that the troll was actually included in the Diabolik DVD bundle?

It was such an honor to get to be part of this, a movie that I admire and hope to get others to see. Order it now!

VINEGAR SYNDROME BLU RAY RELEASE: Forgotten Gialli: Volume Seven

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This is the seventh Forgotten Gialli set from Vinegar Syndrome. ou can check out my articles on the others here:

This box set has the following movies:

Mystère (1983): 1983 is pretty late for the giallo, but hey — I’ve been trying to expand into the period before and after the major years for the genre.

Also known as Dagger Eyes and Murder Near Perfect, this film was written and directed by the Vanzina brothers, Carlo and Enrico. They loved the 1981 French thriller Diva, a film that moved away from the realist 1970s French cinema to the more colorful style of cinéma du look. Carlo also directed Nothing Underneath so he gets a forever pass from me.

Mystère is divided into chapters, starting with a prologue, then each section is one of the four days that follows, then an epilogue. The producers demanded this happy ending, while the brothers wanted something more cynical.

Mystère (Carole Bouquet, For Your Eyes Only and the face of Chanel No. 5 from 1986 to 1997) is a high class call girl in Rome who comes into the possession of a mysterious lighter when her friend Pamela (Janet Ågren, City of the Living Dead) and one of her customers are killed over it, as inside the lighter are images of a political assassination.

Unlike the normal giallo — or adjacent giallo or whatever this is — the hero, Inspector Colt, ends up killing the assassin (John Steiner, Shock) and his bosses and then leaves behind our heroine, who ends up tracking him down to Thailand and making up with him. He was good with nunchucks, maybe?

I mean, how many movies are you going to see that somehow take the spirit of the good parts of 1970’s giallo, mix in the Zapruder film, throw in some Eurospy and still end up looking like a super expensive perfume ad?

Also — thanks to BodyBoy on Letterboxd who called out that Mystère’s apartment looks like something straight out of Messiah of Evil.

Obsession: A Taste for Fear (1988):  Pathos: Segreta Inquietudine, the original Italian title for this movie, means Passion: Secret Anxiety. That pretty much sums it up, as this giallo feels closer to one of those Cinemax After Dark films that mixes up murder with softcore sex. Well, this movie also has Lou Gramm’s “Midnight Blue” in it, which is a first for any giallo I’ve seen.

This is the only movie that writer/director Piccio Raffianini’s ever made, which is pretty astounding, because the guy obviously had talent.

Diane (Virginia Hay, The Road Warrior and also the blue skinned Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan from Farscape) is a photographer whose favorite model — and lover — Tegan (Teagan Clive, who was also The Alienator) shows up bound and dead, just like the adult photos that our heroine is famous for. Imagine — a Skinemax The Eyes of Laura Mars and you’re not far off.

Lieutenant Arnold (Dario Parisini) is on the case and suspects both Diane and her ex-husband, particularly after other people close to her are tied up and stabbed, as if they were doing some knifeplay and then gave their lives up.

Eva Grimaldi, who was in Demons 5 and Ratman, is in this. And look out! There’s Kid Creole, from Kid Creole and the Coconuts, probably the last dude I expected to see walk on to a giallo film*. What is happening?

I love the first club that shows up in this film, with little people dancing, muscular folks dancing, mirrors covered with coke, quick cuts and improbably synth Gershwin songs.

Obsession: A Taste for Fear is a completely deranged film, one that supposes a world where everyone wears sunglasses at night, where colors come straight out of the brainstem of Dario Argento, where softcore porn photographers are huge celebrities, cops shoot laser guns, hovering cars are a dime a dozen and no one bats an eye.

Imagine if Rinse Dream made a giallo and had the money to get legitimate recording artists to appear on the soundtrack. Now, do some lines. And then, you will have just some of the strangeness that is this movie, which demands to get a release from a boutique label so that maniacs other than just me can obsess over it.

*To be fair, Kid Creole is also in Cattive ragazze, which is at least an Italian movie with hints of giallo made at the same time.

Sweets from a Stranger (1987): Caramelle da uno sconosciut has the elements of a giallo — a masked and black-gloved killer is slicing sex workers with a razor and then killing them with a bolt gun — but it’s just about how the women decide to stop taking it and empower themselves, which may not have been what audiences were looking for.

It was directed and written by Franco Ferrini (Phenomena, Nothing Underneath, Dark Glasses), who worked on the script with Andrea Giuseppini and got the idea while writing Red Rings of Fear. It’s the only movie that he ever directed.

Stella (Mara Venier) and Nadine (Athina Cenci) are a high end call girl and an older experienced prostitute who learn of the death of Bruna, a mutual friend. They organize their fellow sex workers Lena (Barbara De Rossi, Vampire In Venice) and Angela (Marina Suma) with the goal of finding out who the killer is and stopping him while the police are fumbling in the dark.

Ferrini has spent a lot of time working with Argento — as has editor Franco Fraticelli — so the film looks good. The first kill is totally Bava with a woman being killed while surrounded by sculptures of angels. In fact, it’s nearly one of the scenes from Blood and Black Lace. Thanks for noticing, Giallo Files. Steal from the best, right?

Yet it’s also a serious movie that doesn’t exploit the woman and shows the reasons why someone would sell their body, as well as the abuse and trauma that often comes with this profession. It’s an intriguing way to use the giallo form to tell a story about real life. Of course, the first two girls are simply to get you in, using the exploitative nature of the giallo trappings to whet your appetite for more mayhem and then making you consider the actual people who are often only presented as victims.

You can get all three of these in this new box set from Vinegar Syndrome.

Pigeon Shrine FrightFest UK 2024: So Unreal (2023)

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I’m obsessed by the idea of the ancient future, of movies that seem futuristic but were dated even at the time that they were made. Created by Amanda Kramer (Ladyworld) and narrated by Blondie’s Debbie Harry, this film ties together so many of the classics — and maybe not classics — of high tech films. It’s so intriguing to see them in this context, moments playing out and reminding you of a past that we lived through but still feels like a far off dream.

Films in this include 2001: A Space Odyssey, All the President’s Men, Avalon, Blade Runner, Alita: Battle Angel, Arcade, Beyond the Mind’s Eye, Brainscan, Brainstorm, Computer Dreams, Computers In Our Lives, Brilliance, The Cell, Club V.R., The Conversation, Cyperpunk, Cyborg 2, Darkman, D.A.R.Y.L., The Day the Earth Stood Still, Die Hard, Disclosure, Decoder, Don’t Touch Me (With Your Polygons), Double Indemnity, Dr. Strangelove, Emmanuelle In Space 5: A Time to Dream, Electric Dreams, Enemy of the State, Fail Safe, eXistenZ, Fortress, Futureworld, Ghost In the Shell, Freejack, Future Kick, Ghost In the Machine, GoldenEye, Hackers, Hackers: Wizards of the Electronic Age, I.K.U.,  Hardware, Johnny Mnemonic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jurassic Park, Kiss of Death, The Lawnmower Man, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace, The Making of Tron, Level 5, Looker, Lurid Tales: The Castle Queen, The Making of Arcade, Man of Steel, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future, Masterminds, Mindwarp, Mission Impossible, The Net, Nirvana, The Parallax View, Rendez-Vouz In Montreal, RoboCop, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Split, Sneakers, Steel and Lace, Terminal Madness, Synthetic Pleasures, The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, The Thirteenth Floor, THX 1138, Total Recall, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, Tron, Venus Rising, Videodrome, Virtual Encounters 2, Virtual Girl, Virtual Seduction, Virtual Sex, Virtuosity, WarGames, Weird Science, White Heat and The Wizard of Oz.

If you have any interest in these films, this is perfect.

I watched So Unreal at Pigeon Share FrightFest. It’s the UK’s best, brightest, and largest independent international thriller, fantasy, and horror film festival and has three major events each year in London and Glasgow. Learn more at the official site.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: The Bushido Blade (1981)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Bushido Blade was on the CBS Late Movie on April 27, 1984.

Imagine: On a late night in 1984, you could have turned on CBS and found a movie that stars Richard Boone (Have Gun, Will Travel), Mako (Akiro the Wizard!), Sonny Chiba (the meanest man alive!), James Earl Jones (Darth Vader!), Tetsuro Tamba (Tiger Tanaka!), Toshiro Mifune (the greatest Japanese samurai actor ever!) and Laura Gemser (Black Emanuelle!).

This is based on the true story about the Convention of Kanagawa that Commodore Matthew Perry (Boone) signed with the shogun leaders of feudal Japan. Perry was entrusted with a sword meant for President Franklin Pierce  by the Emperor of Japan, but it is stolen by Baron Zen (Bin Amatsu), a servant of Lord Yamato (Tamba), who wants to keep Japan isolated.

Yes, Mifune was in a movie about a very similar idea, Red Sun. In this film, he plays Commodore Akira Hayashi, who must find the sword and protect the honor of the Japanese. Soon, Prince Ido (Chiba), Captain Lawrence Hawk (Frank Converse) and Midshipman Robin Gurr (Timothy Murphy) and Cave Johnson (Michael Starr) are all on their own quests to get the sword back.

This is one of four movies that Rankin/Bass produced with Tsuburaya Productions (the others are The Bermuda Depths, The Last Dinosaur and The Ivory Ape). It’s directed by Tsugunobu “Tom” Kotani and written William Overgard, the same team who worked on many of these U.S. and Japanese co-productions.

Obviously this seems like an attempt to cash in on Shogun but it was made two years before that mini-series aired. Also: Laura Gemser is from Indonesia, yet in this she’s a half-Japanese female samurai who can speak English. Who cares? She should be in every movie.

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Micki & Maude (1984)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Micki & Maude was on the CBS Late Movie on February 17, 1989.

Rob Salinger (Dudley Moore) is happily married to lawyer Micki (Ann Reinking, who is mostly known for her dancing career). He wants a child but she wants a career. While interviewing cellist Maude Guillory (Amy Irving), he falls in love and gets her pregnant. Her father, pro wrestler Barkhas Guillory (Hard Boiled Haggerty), is beyond happy and starts to plan their wedding.

Our protagonist plans to tell Micki that he wants a divorce, except that she’s pregnant and kept the child for him. With help from his boss Leo (Richard Mulligan), Rob has a wife at day and at night. They may never have found out the truth if they didn’t both go into labor on the same day, in the same floor of the same hospital.

Yet somehow, these women become friends and kick Rob out of their beds. They both go on to great careers, but by the end of the film, it’s revealed that Rob has had several children with both of them.

Directed by Blake Edwards and written by Jonathan Reynolds, this film had Moore win a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy/Musical. And for those who love pro wrestling, this has appearances by Gene LeBell, Chief Jay Strongbow, Jack “Wildman” Armstrong, Big John Studd and Andre the Giant.

If you enjoy Edwards’ sexual screwball films — this is very close to The Man Who Loved Women and Skin Deep — you’ll enjoy it. And while Wallace Shawn is in the cast, he and Andre didn’t do any scenes together. You’ll have to watch The Princess Bride for that.

Junesploitation: Mirage (1990)

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June 24: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Cars! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.

I’m a big fan of killer car movies. We can subgenre this into filones, such as possessed automobiles (The Car, Christine, Ferat Vampire, Maximum Overdrive, Super Hybrid), killers in vehicles (Duel, Joyride, Death Car on the Freeway, Death Proof, Wheels of Terror) and movies that have killers who get in and out of cars (The Hitcher, Hitcher In the Dark).  There are even ones where the hero drives a car to get revenge (Rolling Vengeance, The Wraith, The Gladiator).

Mirage is somewhere in the middle of these, as a black pick-up truck is seemingly driven by a young man who could also be a demon. And all he wants to do is kill everyone that comes to his desert to make out.

My wife lived in Vegas for a few years and when I went out to meet her family, we went and shot guns in the desert and had a picnic. She said no matter how many times she went to parties or events in the middle of said desert, she never saw anyone just take off their tops and get drunk in the middle of a place where you get dehydrated immediately.

Chris (Jennifer McAllister) and Greg (Kenneth Johnson) are introduced to us as they’re making love in the back of their truck with a toolbox on the accelerator as it just drives out in the infinite space of the desert, as if nothing could stop it or hurt them. Along with another couple who are just as into arguing as they are having make-up sex, Trip and Mary (Kevin McParland and Nicole Anton), and her ex Kyle (Todd Schaeffer) and his new girlfriend Bambi (Laura Albert), the desert seems as good a place as any — I recommend a furniture store like in Chopping Mall — to soft swing. Also: Kyle is Greg’s brother, which suggests that Chris is a horrible person.

Yes, after a day in the sun of being stalked by a black truck and having Greg and Kyle get in a punchup, the kids find a note written in blood that says, “You are all going to die!” This note is more than prophetic as the driver of the black truck even has grenades that he uses to blow these kids up real good. Thanks to Unsung Horrors, I learned that the bad guy — known only as Villain in the credits — is B.G. Steers, who may be Burr Steers, who was one of the radio voices in Reservoir Dogs and the “Flock of Seagulls” character in Pulp Fiction. His character — other than the out there Trip, who dies bleeding from the mouth and speaking of the astral plane.

Steers, if he is Burr Steers, also directed 17 Again, Igby Goes Down and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

This was directed by William Crain, who also made Midnight Fear, and co-wrote it with Chuck Hughes and Michael Crain. It’s interesting in that there are too few desert and daytime slashers, even if you can see Chekov’s bow and arrow appear from the very open of the film. Also: the best part is when one of the jocks utters a gay slur and promptly gets run over by a truck. Well, the best part other than the effects by R. Christopher Biggs, who went on to work on Demolition Man and the TV series Martin. One imagines he transformed Martin into Sheneneh.

Strangely, this movie has an SST Records soundtrack with bands like Sister Double Happiness, Minutemen, fIREHOSE and Dinosaur Jr. What, no Saint Vitus or Negativland?

My friends from Unsung Horrors did an episode about this, which you can listen to here:

You can watch this on YouTube.

TUBI ORIGINAL: Viewer Discretion Advised: The Story of OnlyFans and Courtney Clenney (2024)

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Directed by Victoria Duley (Defying Death: Surviving Jaws, Love You to Death: Gabby Petito) and written by Savannah Lucas (Snapped, Gone Before His Time: Kobe Bryant), this documentary goes back and forth between how OnlyFans has created a place for normal women and men to be adult film stars and the case of Courtney Clenney, who may have stabbed her boyfriend Christian Obumseli.

While the police originally believed that this was a self-defense case, the model — who uses the name Courtney Tailor — was arrested and tried for the murder of Obumseli, a cryptotrader, who died from a knife wound to the chest. She admits that she killed him, but that he threw her to the ground and she threw the knife at him. There’s no way that a throw of ten feet could do the damage that this blade did unless Clenney is superhuman.

According to Investigation Discovery, when Clenney was arrested, “she was living at a rehab facility in Hawaii where she was undergoing treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse.”

Beyond that domestic violence turned murder true crime chapter, this doc also interviews plenty of OnlyFans models, including Meghan Sacks, Emma Magnolia, Sage the Flame, Sarah Juree, Paris Chateaux, Cleavon Malcolm, Stunt Lifestyle and Kazumi, as well as writer Samia Mounts, spiritual attorney Misty Oaks Paxton.

This has all that you expect from a cable true crime show, like reenactments, but for a show about amateur pornography, it’s surprisingly chaste and blurs out all of the nudity.

You can watch this on Tubi.

88 FILMS BLU RAY RELEASE: Yes, Madam (1985)

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After Inspector Ng (Michelle Yeoh) stops a gang from robbing an armored car, she learns that an assassin has killed a man who ends up being her boyfriend, Westerner Richard Nornen. As he lay dying, two pickpockets had gone through his belongings and taken what he died for, a secret microfilm that has info on all of the major gangs in Hong Kong. This brings in Scotland Yard’s Carrie Morris (Cynthia Rothrock) to find that microfilm — I love movies based on hidden microfilm, I must confess — and the two female cops take down the crooks in spectacular fights as their rivalry gives way to grudging respect.

This was Rothrock’s first film and it doesn’t show at all. While working as part of a martial arts demonstration team, Inside Kung Fu that team seeking a new male lead. Even though only one role was mentioned, the team brought their female fighters and the studio was so impressed with Rothrock that they rewrote the film for her. She was surprised as she thought this was going to be a period film and not a modern cop movie.

It’s also an early starring role for Yeoh, who was credited as Michelle Khan. Her first acting work was in a television commercial for Guy Laroche watches. She was told that it was with an actor named Sing Long. She didn’t speak Cantonese, so she had no idea that that was Jackie Chan. She appeared in The Owl vs Bombo and Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Stars before this; afterward, she was in Royal Warriors, Magnificent Warriors and Easy Money before her retirement, as she married Dickson Poon, who was the D in the D&B Group that made this movie. She’d come back in 1992 after her divorce for the incredible Police Story 3: Super Cop. Today, thirty years later, she’s one of the biggest stars anywhere in the world.

I think it’s kind of amazing how much of the score of Halloween shows up in this movie, almost a prophecy that one day, Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis would have to battle in Everything Everywhere All At Once.

This was originally released by 88 Films in their In the Line of Duty box set, along with 1986’s Royal Warriors, 1988’s In the Line of Duty 3 and 1989’s In the Line of Duty 4.

Now you can get the individual release. Extras include the audio being available in Cantonese and two different English versions. There are also new subtitles, commentary by Hong Kong film expert Frank Djeng, missing inserts, trailers and English trailers. You can get it from MVD.

MVD BLU RAY RELEASE: Stella Maris (1918)

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In this film, Mary Pickford plays not one, but two roles in a movie different from anything she had ever done before. One is beautiful, rich, but crippled Stella Maris and the other is deformed and abused orphan Unity Blake. For one of the first times in film, one actress would play two roles using double exposures and complex editing from director Marshall Neilan and cinematographer Walter Stradling.

Based on William John Locke’s 1913 novel, this begins with Stella Maris trapped in her London mansion bedroom. Unable to walk since birth, her wealthy family tries to keep her from the horrors of the world, such as World War I. There’s a sign on her door which tells anyone entering, “All unhappiness and world wisdom leave outside. Those without smiles need not enter.”

Unity Blake is an uneducated orphan who has been abused to the point that she is afraid of every person she meets. She’s been hired by Louisa (Marcia Manon) to work in the mansion.

John (Conway Tearle) may be married to Louisa, but it’s never been happy. He frequently visits Stella, who he has never told that he is married. Instead, he wants her to think that he is as perfect as her worldview.

One night, Unity loses the food she is delivering and as a result, a drunken Louisa beats her senseless. Louisa is arrested and jailed, while John decides to adopt Unity, who soon falls in love with him. Stella’s family wants her kept from the rich girl, as seeing another woman so broken will let her know that the world is a horrible place.

Unity decides to become educated, learning from her new guardian Aunt Gladys (Josephine Crowell), as Stella gets an operation which allows her to walk. She agrees to marry John, just as Louise gets out of jail, telling the young girl the truth about the man she is in love with.

That night, Aunt Gladys is overheard telling others that Louise will never allow John to live the life he deserves. Unity, realizing that John will only love Stella, murders Louise and kills herself, freeing John and allowing Stella to believe that there may be sadness, but there can also be joy afterward.

What I love about the golden age of media that we live in now is that movies like this, that may otherwise not be seen and could even be lost can now exist in my collection.

According to MVD, who released this film, “The Mary Pickford Foundation and the Paramount Film Archive partnered to access all elements available in the Pickford collections both at the UCLA Film & Television Archive and at the Library of Congress. Even though the archives were shut down during the pandemic, all parties cooperated to send the film elements to Paramount so they could be scanned in 4K resolution and commence work on the restoration.”

Using a 1967 35mm B&W Dupe Negative and an incomplete 1925 35mm Tinted Print, this has new digital inter-titles, repaired damaged to the prints, a stabilization of the actual playing of the movie and a frame rate that closely matches how audiences would have seen the movie in 1918.

Extras include a commentary track by Marc Wanamaker, author and film historian, as well as a pictorial book created by the Mary Pickford Foundation, a photo gallery and The Mountaineer’s Honor, an American Biograph short that has been newly mastered in HD with an original score by the Graves Brothers.

You can get this from MVD.

 

APRIL MOVIE THON 3: Ghosts (1996)

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April 23: Get Out! — A haunted house movie is today’s pick.

Ghosts began production in 1993 under the title Is It Scary? with the director Mick Garris and was supposed to play before Addams Family Values. For a time, it was the longest music video ever — Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” is longer now — and is still the most expensive at $15 million. That’s because it was all paid for by its star, Michael Jackson.

A lot of that money is because Jackson backed out of the original plan. Garris went to film The Shining miniseries and Stan Winston, who did the makeup and special effects, took over.

Unlike Thriller and Captain EO, two of Jackson’s long and expensive videos that were seen by millions and can still be watched in some places today, Ghosts has disappeared after playing before Thinner.

In a small town, The Maestro (Michael Jackson) loves to scare kids — Mos Def is one of them — and perform magic tricks. The town’s mayor comes to kick him out of town, saying, “He’s a weirdo. There’s no place in this town for weirdoes.” If this feels like how the public was treated Michael Jackson in 1996, it’s no accident.

Also: the mayor — as well as the ghoul version of the mayor and two other characters, Superghoul and a skeleton — is played by Jackson.

The Maestro challenges the mayor to a scaring contest and the first to show fear must leave town. He brings his entire family of ghosts to dance with him, then possesses the mayor. After that, the Maestro says that he will leave town, but falls to dust and then rises as the Superghoul. This makes the mayor so upset that he dives out a window, allowing the Maestro to remain.

I do have to say, a thing lost about Jackson after all his life’s controversies is just how good his music is. This features several I hadn’t heard before–“2 Bad,” “Is It Scary” and “Ghosts” from HIStory and Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix — and they’re really amazing. The dancing is great, too, as are the effects, if somewhat dated.

Of course, this was made after the first time that Jackson escaped child molestation charges and this feels like, well, that trial. Except it gets supernatural.

Written by Jackson, Garris, Winston and Stephen King, this has one jaw dropping moment, when Jackson becomes a dancing skeleton and escapes his mortal form. I’ve always wondered if he wished that he could do that in reality.

Nathan Rabin explained the end of this way better than I can and his words prove why he inspired me to write about movies: “Ghosts has a happy ending: The common folk and especially their adorable children welcome Maestro back into the fold and embrace him for being a showman and an eccentric with a straight line to the spirit world. In the real world, alas, Michael Jackson wasn’t as lucky. He had to die young and mysteriously to rehabilitate his terminally tattered image.”

You can watch this on YouTube.