When Willy and Lacey were kids, they watched their mom and her boyfriend — who wore her stockings on his face — make out. Their mother was so upset, she sent Lacey to her room and tied Willy to his bed. It didn’t work, though. Willy would get out and stab the guy to death with a giant knife in front of a mirror. And that’s only the first few minutes of this one!

Now we’re in the present and Lacey (Suzanna Love, who was married to the director of the film Ulli Lommel and appears in all the sequels) is married with a young son, living with her aunt, uncle and Willy (Nicholas Love, Suzanna’s real-life brother)on a farm. Willy’s never gotten over killing a man, so he doesn’t talk and often steals knives.

Over dinner, Lacey announces that their mother wants to see them one last time before she dies. Willy burns their letter and this starts off a series of dreams where she is tied to a bed and nearly stabbed, which makes her husband send her to a shrink.

And that shrink? Skinny Dracula himself, John Carradine, who shot everything in one day. He tells them that she has face her fears and go back to her childhood home. As they look at the house, we see the dead boyfriend reflected in the mirror he died in front of. Lacey goe shithouse and smashes it, which is totally not what you should do. Nor should you take those pieces and try and fix the mirror. Mirrors are cheap. Go to Wal-Mart. Buy a new and uncursed mirror.

The pieces left behind start to glow red and kill everyone in the house after Lacey and Jake leave. Speaking of mirrors, Willy hates them. One of them made him strangle a girl, so he paints them all black.

The shards of glass start doing evil things, like levitate pitchforks, rip off Lacey’s shirt and impale young lovers with a screwdriver. I was cool with the shards of glass until then. You’ve taken it too far, shards of glass! I guess we can blame them for the aunt and uncle dying too, right?

This being 1980, Jake decides to bring a priest in to fix everything. This causes Lacey to get possessed by a mirror shard and attack everyone. She kills the priest, too, but not before he removes the mirror’s control over her.

That’s when the best solution comes up — let’s just throw the mirror in a well. This releases all of the souls, with Lacey, Willy and her son happily exiting a graveyard. Oh no — a piece of the mirror is on her son’s shoe!

I was wondering where so many of the plot points of this movie would go and they’re often lost as if this were a foreign film. But it isn’t!  So I did a little digging into the director, Ulli Lommel.

Lommel had one crazy career, starting with appearing in Russ Meyer’s Fanny Hill, then acting in Fassbinder’s surreal western film Whitey (as well as several other of the director’s films). Moving to the U.S. in 1977, Lommel became connected to Andy Warhol, who became involved in his films Cocaine Cowboys and Blank Generation, a movie that starred Richard Hell and was filmed at CBGB.

Seriously — a movie that rips off Halloween, The Amityville Horror and Argento lighting while feeling like more than two movies mashed up into one that also features a girl cut her own throat with scissors, a child get his neck broken and a priest get his face melted? The acting is horrible — but are you here for that? Nope. You want to get freaked out when people’s eyes get replaced with a piece of a mirror.

Part of me wants to make fun of this movie. But another part of me wants to protect it from mean people who say things like its lack of attention to details. Or horrible editing which cuts on action. Or the fact that none of its characters appear to be actual human beings. And the camera angles are more dad doesn’t know how to use the video camera than art. But yet, I love this. I want to love it more, but I love what it can be more than what it is.

The Boogeyman was followed by two sequels that use footage — a lot of footage — from the original. Supposedly, a Boogeyman Chronicles web series is due this year.

You can find this streaming on Amazon Prime or grab it from Diabolik DVD.

Want to learn more? Author Stephen Pytak wrote a way better piece than I did in the new Drive-In Asylum. Grab it now!

I could tell you that Inferno is about a man searching for his sister. I could also say that it’s about a New York City apartment building that is the gateway to evil, as well as the home of an ancient alchemist. But I could also tell you that it is the cinematic equivalent of a lava lamp, a swirl of images and colors that conjures mood and menace like no other.

A sequel to Suspiria in spirit, this film is also based on the concept of “Our Ladies of Sorrow” (Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Suspiriorum and Mater Tenebrarum) from Thomas de Quincey’s book Suspiria de Profundis. These three witches rule the evil of our world — Mater Lachrymarum as Our Lady of Tears, Mater Suspiriorum as Our Lady of Sighs and Mater Tenebrarum as Our Lady of Darkness.

Rose (Irene Miracle, Midnight Express) is a poet in New York City who discovers The Three Mothers, a book that tells the tale of the three sisters and how they rule our world through sorrow, tears and darkness. Each of them has been built a home by the author, Vaerlli, with Mater Suspiriorum, the Mother of Sorrows, living in Freiburg (hey there, Suspiria).  Mater Lachymarum, the Mother of Tears, resides in Rome (hey there, Mother of Tears). Finally, Mater Tenebrarum, the Mother of Darkness, is right there in NYC (you’re watching her flick).

Rose realizes that she’s living in Tenebrarum’s home and asks for her brother, Mark (Leigh McCloskey, TV’s Dallas), to come see her. She also starts exploring her apartment building, finding a ballroom filled with water in the basement. Dropping her keys, she has to swim through the water to find her them. Then, a corpse rises from its watery tomb, but she escapes.

Now we’re in Rome, where Mark tries to read Rose’s letter, but he keeps getting thrown off by a gorgeous student (Ania Pieroni, The House by the Cemetery) who leads him on a chase. He leaves the letter behind and his friend Sara reads it. She’s both frightened and fascinated, going to the library to find her own copy of The Three Mothers. Well, you’re in an Italian horror film, Sara, so a mysterious man is going to attack you. That’s just how these things go. She gets away and asks Carlo, her neighbor, to stay with her. Again, Sara, you are in an Italian horror movie, so chances are that you are about to be murdered by a black-gloved killer.

Mark finds the dead bodies of Carlo and Sara, along with two pieces of his sister’s letter. After speaking with the police, he walks outside to see a taxi with the mystery woman staring at him. You never see the woman again, but she’s really the Mother of All Tears. Mark calls his sister, but cannot hear her due to the connection. He promises to visit just as two shadowy figures chase her, finally using broken glass to slice her throat.

Mark makes good on his promise, heading straight to Rose’s building where he meets all manner of folks: the nurse (Veronica Lazăr, The Beyond), the old man she takes care of (Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Cher’s grandfather in Moonstruck), the concierge (Alida Valli, Miss Tanner from Suspiria) and Countess Elise De Longvalle Adler (Daria Nicolodi, wife at the time of Argento and uncredited writer of the film) who tells him that Rose is missing.

Mark follows bloodstains he finds outside his sister’s door, but suddenly he passes out and is dragged away by a black-robed man. Elise sees this and the man follows her. She’s overcome by cats before the man stabs her to death, just as the concierge and nurse help Mark go to sleep.

Later, Mark finds the antique dealer who sold Rose the book in the hopes of discovering more clues about his sister’s whereabouts. The man has no info for him, but we follow him throughout the night, where he has a nice evening of drowning cats in Central Park. However, he falls into the water and an army of rats attacks him, shredding and gnawing on him. A hot dog vendor hears the commotion and walks across the water to stab the antique dealer with a knife. What does this have to do with the rest of Inferno? Your guess is as good as mine!

Meanwhile, Elise’s butler tries to steal her possessions, but he’s killed. When the concierge finds his corpse, she drops a candle and sets the room ablaze. She gets tied up in some curtains and falls out a window to her death. As the house burns, Mark finds the secret crawlspace in the basement. He follows a series of passages until he finds the old man in the wheelchair, who ends up being Varelli, the author of the book. He tries to kill Mark with a needle, but is choked to death before telling Mark, “Even now, you are being watched.”

Mark follows one of the shadowed figures until he ends up in a luxurious chamber, where the nurse reveals herself to be Mater Tenebrarum and becomes death itself. That said — the fire from above sends debris crashing down and the film ends.

After Suspiria became a surprise success for 20th Century Fox, they bankrolled this film. However, a change in management at the studio led to the film never receiving the release it deserved. While it played in Italy, it sat unwatched in the U.S. for five years before a VHS release in 1985 and a one week New York City theatrical run in 1986.

This is not Argento’s favorite film, due to painful memories of an extreme case of hepatitis that he suffered during the filming. At times, he was in so much pain, he had to direct on his back. At other times, only the second unit scenes could be filmed by Mario Bava! That’s right — Bava also worked on the film’s optical effects, matte paintings and trick shots! For example, the skylines in the film? That’s Bava using photos glued to milk cartons. And the apartment building itself is an optical illusion, as it was only a few floors high and had a Bava-created sculpture to cheat the eye. Bava also was a camera operator and lighting technician for the film — all uncredited — with his son serving as assistant director.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I love Inferno. If it’s your first Argento or Italian film, you’re about to be overwhelmed. This is a poetic, lyrical, erotic blast of cinema, unafraid to go off into a thousand directions at once with the thinnest of storyline thread to hold it together. It’s a union of the new — Argento — with the old master Bava providing one last gasp of his brilliance. Fuck every critic who savaged this movie. Time has proved what fools they were.

Enough words. Watch this at once! It’s available on Shudder and Amazon Prime. You can also buy it at Diabolik DVD.

Sure, Jaws was frightening. But now, “just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…you can’t get to it!”

A woman walks her dog along the beach before she is pulled under the sand by an unseen creature. Her screams alert Harry Caulder, a harbor patrol officer who is swimming in the ocean. He reports her disappearance to LAPD detectives Royko (Burt Young, Amityville II: The Possession) and Pianadosi, who can do nothing without a body.

The woman’s estranged daughter, Catherine (Marianna Hill, Messiah of Evil) calls Henry about her mother. Even after she finds a dog with a severed head, no one can figure out what has happened. The cops believe that a serial killer is at large, but much like the aforementioned Jaws, the powers that be want them to keep a lid on it after the media starts using the term “Blood Beach.”

After another attack on a teenage girl, Captain Pearson (John Saxon, making every movie better just by his presence) begins digging up the beach to discover the killer.

Meanwhile, Hoagy (no, not Michael Caine, but a co-worker of Henry) is closing the harbor patrol when a man attacks his girlfriend. She knocks the rapist to the ground and the creature castrates the man. And then the beach devours Marie, the French stewardess who lives with Henry, leaving only her hat and an eyeball.

Oh yeah — Harry and Catherine used to be lovers and now try to reconcile.

Finally, someone survives an attack, a man who was using a metal detector on the beach. However, he’s in shock and unable to explain what happened. And when Hoagy tries to warn Mrs. Selden, who has watched the murders throughout the film, he’s pulled under while she simply looks on.

Catherine decides to investigate the access tunnel to the beach where they found the survivor. She discovers the remains of every victim as Captain Pearson installs motion detectors, cameras and explosives all over the beach. Soon, a giant worm emerges and the cops blow it up real good.

That said — Dr. Dimitrios believes that because it’s a worm, it can regenerate. With small sinkholes showing up all over the beach, he just might be right.

Blood Beach does what we expect from Jaws but inverts the danger. There’s some fine character work by Burt Ward, Marianna Hill is as lovely as ever and there are plenty of monster attacks to keep everyone in suspense. It’s not the finest in horror, but it’ll do once a few beers have started to work themselves into your brain.

Co-written and produced by Charles Kaufman, brother of Troma Entertainment co-founder Lloyd Kaufman, this is a rough affair all about an insane woman and her two even crazier sons capturing and torturing three young women. It’s our thank you to mothers everywhere — happy Mother’s Day!

A bunch of hippies are about to graduate from a Growth Opportunity workshop, which is a very 1970’s affair. Two of them, Terry and Charlie, plan to rob and kill an old woman who gives them a ride home. They didn’t expect Ike (Frederick Coffin, Alone in the Dark) and Addley, the woman’s two sons, to come out of the woods and cut off Charlie’s head. And then Mother herself chokes out Terry.

Now it’s time to meet our heroines, three women who have been friends for a long time (the Rat Pack!) who reunite every year for a camping trip. Abbey, Jackie and Trina are having a blast in the woods when the boys abduct them in their sleeping bags, then torture and abuse them.

The next day, Abbey and Trina make their escape, yet discover the dead bodies of Terry and Charlie, as well as Jackie who has been destroyed and left in a drawer. Meanwhile, Queenie, Mother’s deformed and werewolf-like sister who feeds on dead animals, has been sighted in the woods.

Jackie dies of her wounds as the Abbey and Trina make a plan of revenge against the brothers. They dispatch of Addley and then Ike jumps out of a window to attack them, but gets Drano poured down his throat, a TV dropped on his head and is finally killed with an electric carving knife. Then, they use inflatable breasts to suffocate Mother.

I liked how the girls have a strong relationship and defend one another, somewhat defying the Final Girl convention.

After burying Jackie in the woods, the girls attempt to leave, but Queenie leaps to attack as the credits roll. This would be surprising if it wasn’t ruined by so many of the trailers.

If this film looks like it was shot in a grimy murder house, well, it’s because it was. It was shot in an abandoned house in Newton, New Jersey that had been empty for 15 years, with the original owner being killed inside the home and another body had been found just prior to filming.

Beatrice Pons was billed as Rose Ross and Frederick Coffin was billed as Holden McGuire due to their membership in the Screen Actor’s Guild prohibiting them from appearing in non-union films. In fact, Beatrice was supposedly so eager to accept the lead role that she voluntarily breached SAG’s “Global Rule One” policy, by changing her name!

There’s also an insane Hollywood party opening, packed with old men and young women hooking up, roller skating, coke snorting and a butler with a long coat and no pants. This scene feels like it inspired the Boogie Nights pool parties scenes at Jack Horner’s house.

Mother’s Day was kind of, sort of remade in 2010 with Rebecca De Mornay as Mother. It isn’t as well regarded as this film.

While this is a Troma movie, I tried not to hold it against this film, It’s a pretty simple, quick moving affair. And well worth checking out. Maybe you shouldn’t share it with your mom, though. Get her some chocolates or something.

Have you ever paused a movie and yelled aloud, “I LOVE THIS MOVIE!” and you’re all alone in the room? If you’ve answered in the affirmative, you understand the pure joy that I felt while watching this movie.

Dean Miller, an American reporter, is waiting to interview a nuclear scientist when a military plane lands and mutated men emerge, killing everyone in their path. Even the worst wounds only slow them down as they hack their way through their victims, pausing to drink the blood of those they kill.

General Murchison (Mel Ferrer, The Visitor) shuts down any news stories about the attack. Meanwhile, the city is overrun with the killers and their victims, who soon join their ranks. Miller saves his wife at the hospital where she works as the city’s power is shut down.

It turns out that they’re fighting humans who have been contaminated by a leak in the nuclear power plant (that’s why the scientist was meeting with Miller in the beginning) and now they have strength, speed and reflexes beyond the range of normal humans. However, because they can’t regenerate red blood cells, they must consume blood. There’s only one way to kill them, which will be familiar to zombie movie fans: shoot them in the head.

No one is safe — the general is looking for his daughter and her husband, but by the time they are discovered, they are infected and must be killed. And Major Holmes warns his artist wife to stay in the house when two infected men break in and kill her friend and almost murder her. By the time he gets to the house to save her she’s been infected and he must kill his wife.

That’s the theme of this movie — everyone gets turned into something horrible, even a priest at the church where Miller and Anna try to hide. Finally, they make a last stand in an amusement park, using submachine guns and grenades to keep the attacking horde at bay. Major Holmes tries to save them, but Anna can’t hold the rope and falls to her death. This being an Italian movie, we see every moment of her demise.

Miller then wakes up. It was all a dream, except he goes back to the airport and the movie starts all over again!

Known as City of the Walking Dead in the U.S., this is a fast-moving, down and dirty gore packed film. Directed by Umberto Lenzi (Eaten Alive!, Cannibal Ferox), this film feels like it’s out of control from the first scene. Once that plane opens and the mutated fiends emerge, it’s an orgy of heads being opened up, breasts being eaten, gunshots galore and eyes being ripped from their sockets. In short, this is. a true crowd pleaser. How can you not love a movie where a studio full of disco dancers are mauled and murdered by an army of mutated killers?

There was a remake announced in 2015, which was to have been directed by Tom Savini. While that movie hasn’t shown up yet, you can always watch the original on Shudder!

There are moments in horror movies where even the most jaded of us can be upset at a visual or idea. In Alligator, there’s plenty to be disgusted by, but for me, the dead dogs being floated down a sewer were the closest I’ve come to being grossed out by a film in some time!

Somewhere in Florida, a young girl watches as an alligator nearly devours a man at a tourist trap. So of course, she asks to have an alligator of her own. Ramon the alligator and the young girl live happily together, as he becomes her best friend. But her drunk father comes home and flushes him down the toilet. It’s these kinds of beginnings that lead to animal massacres like we’ve about to watch. Fathers, don’t flush your daughter’s animals down the commode, I implore you!

Years later, a lab is working on a growth formula intended to make livestock bigger. So puppies are, of course, needed for the experiments. The discarded puppies end up in the sewer and Ramon is there, having survived for over a decade. Now, those dead puppies have turned Ramon into a 36-foot long monster who can’t stop eating.

David Madison (Robert Forster, The Black Hole) is on the case, along with his gravel throated boss Chief Clark (Michael V. Gazzo, who wrote A Hatful of Rain and almost won a Best Supporting Oscar for his acting in The Godfather Part 2) and reptile expert Marisa Kendall. Coincidentally, Marisa turns out to be Ramon’s childhood owner! What are the odds, you may ask? What are the odds indeed.

Turns out that nearly all of David’s partners die, a fact that comes true when Kelly (Perry Lang, The Hearse) gets torn apart while they’re in the sewers. No one believes David that there’s an alligator. And Slade (Dean Jagger, who was in King Creole with Elvis, a film written by the above mentioned Gazzo) is going to make sure that it stays that way, because his company is working on the hormones that have made Ramon into a monster.

That all changes when tabloid reporter Thomas Kemp takes photos of Ramon eating him, Yep, he makes the front page at the cost of his own life. Everyone is hunting the monster, even if David can’t catch him and gets suspended. But Ramon is on the prowl and soon kills a cop and then a young boy at a party. Even big game hunter Colonel Brock (Henry Silva, Megaforce, Escape from the Bronx) can’t handle the gator and dies. The cops screw up again and Ramon goes wild at a wedding at the mayor’s (Jack Carter, The Glove and Catskil in Heartbeeps, because he was a Catskills comedian) house. The mayor, Slade and the groom, who was the lab guy conducting the experiments, all become apertifs for Ramon, who is wedding crashing like a champ. Chomp? Champ.

Finally, Marisa and David remember how Jaws ended and blow Ramon up real good, just in time for another baby alligator to get flushed down the toilet.

Lewis Teague (Cat’s Eye, Cujo) directed this from a script by John Sayles (Piranha, Battle Beyond the Stars, The Howling) that is filled with strange humor, like the first victim, a sewer worker, being named Ed Norton. Quentin Tarantino was inspired by this movie and Robert Forester is in Jackie Brown because of that fact.

This is a film that isn’t afraid to show you plenty of chewed up body parts. Or dead dogs. Nope, it’s going to go for your throat like it’s titular beast.

Some claim that this Ideal Toy game was based on the movie, but I’ve seen no evidence. It does line up well with the Jaws tie-n game that they made. Which would make sense, because Alligator also recycled Jaws‘ theme music along the way!

This movie — and Xandau — are why the Razzies exist, awards that celebrate the worst in movies. It’s the only movie that Nancy Walker — Rhoda’s mom and the Bounty paper towel lady — ever directed. It’s Bruce Jenner’s film debut. And I don’t care what anyone says, I love it in spite of everything bad you can say about it.

You can see why the movie happened. Producer Allan Carr was riding high off the success of Grease. Disco had finally hit the mainstream with Saturday Night Fever. And there was probably so much coke going around that everyone had a constant nasal drip. The time was ripe for what people had been clamoring for: the origin story of the Village People.

Wait — what?

The Village People — you probably know the words to YMCA — were created by Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo. While in New York, Morali attended a costume ball at the Greenwich Village gay disco “Les Mouches.” There, he was taken by all of the macho male stereotypes that he saw in the room and thought — this could be a music act, with each member being a different gay fantasy. Soon, they were signed to Casablanca Records, where their songs “San Francisco (You Got Me),” “Macho Man” and “In the Navy” played in clubs all over the world.

The truth is that the Village People were all one person at first: Victor Willis. Once the album became a hit, Morali and Belolo quickly put out an ad that said: “Macho Types Wanted: Must Dance And Have A Moustache.” From that big success to the time this movie was ready to come out, disco was just about dead, a fact that Carr had foreseen, changing the title from the original Discoland–Where The Music Never Ends! 

So what’s it really all about? Jack Morell (Steve Guttenberg, Police Academy) — named for Jacques Morali, of course — wants to be a composer. But for now, he’s DJing at Saddle Tramps, a disco. His roommate, Samanta Simpson (Valerie Perrine, Superman) is a newly retired supermodel. He writes her a song and everyone loves it, so she uses all of her connections to get him a deal. Her ex-boyfriend Steve Waits of Marrakech Records — get it, Casablanca Records? — wants her back, so he agrees to listen to a demo.

However, Jack’s vocals pretty much suck. So she recruits all of her fabulous friends, like waiter Felipe Rose — the Indian! And model David “Scar” Hodo — the Construction Worker! Randy Jones needs dinner, so he joins up as the Cowboy! We almost have formed Voltron…I mean, the Village People!

We’re treated to a solo song by David the Construction Worker called “I Love You to Death” where he fantasizes about all of the women who will be chasing him once he’s popular. When this scene played in San Francisco, supposedly movie screens were decimated with eggs.

Meanwhile, Samantha’s former agent (Tammy Grimes, who is one of the commercial stars in The Stuff) wants her back in the modeling business and orders her secretary Lulu to make it happen. Somehow, Ron White (Jenner), a tax lawyer, gets mugged on his way to delivering a cake to Sam’s sister, but then Lulu gives Jack drugs, then Ray Simpson — the Cop! — shows up and the four sing the song “Magic Night.” It’s all too much for Ron, who runs away.

The next day, Ron and Sam get back together and hook up. Now that he has a reason to help, he offers his office for further auditions, where we meet Glenn Hughes — the Leatherman! — and Alex Briley — the G.I.! — who finally form the full version of the group. Blink and you’ll miss W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless trying out! Finally, Ron’s boss Richard says (Russell Nype, who is also in The Stuff) that their company shouldn’t have anything to do with the group, so Ron quits the firm.

The band then goes to the YMCA to rehearse, which leads to a musical number for the song of the same name. If you’re looking to see plenty of naked men in a PG movie, well, here you go! I won’t judge! Marrakech offers too little money for their contract, so the gang decides to throw a party to raise some funds.

Seriously: this is the most raw dong I have ever seen in a non-porno movie.

Samantha agrees to model again for a milk commercial, as long as the Village People can be there, too. The TV spot — with six small boys dressed as the band — starts with Samantha pouring them milk and turning into the song “Milkshake.” Of course, the milk company balks at this. I’ve been in advertising for some time. I can only imagine the meeting where they showed this video to them and the blank stares turning into faces filled with pure rage.

Norma White (Barbara Rush, It Came From Outer Space) decides to help and invites the guys to be part of her fundraiser. Sam lures Steve to the show by suggesting they can canoodle, so Ron dumps her. Meanwhile, on Steve’s jet, Jack and his mother Helen (June Havoc, sister of Gypsy Rose Lee!) win the record company owner over and the Village People are signed!

Everything works out just fine. Ron and Sam get back together. He gets his old job offered back. And following a song by Morali’s other band The Richie Family, the Village People finally unite for “Can’t Stop the Music.”

If only reality had been so kind. After all, the infamous Disco Demolition Night in Chicago, the evening most people claim was the death knell for disco in the United States, happened two weeks into filming.

Even with a TV special — Allan Carr’s Magic Night — featuring Hugh Hefner and Cher, along with a new Village People song Ready for the 80’s! that was cut from the film, it was to prime America for a movie that by the time it was filmed no one really wanted to see.

Oh man, the lyrics to that song:

I’m ready for the eighties things look positive
I’m ready and I’ve got a lot of love to give
There’s hope in every heart and love on ev’ey face
The eighties promise everything is just gonna be great

But hey — Baskin Robbins had a flavor made for the film. Can’t Stop the Nuts was offered for the whole summer of 1980. Think I made this up? Nope. I have evidence.

It’s also one of the first appearances of Ray Simpson as the Policeman. The previously mentioned Victor Willis, the original lead singer, quit the group during pre-production. Turns out he wanted to let everyone know he was the straightman of the group and had insisted that his wife, the soon to be divorced and renamed Phylicia Rashad, be written into the film as his girlfriend. Her role in the film ended up being played by Sammy Davis Jr.’s wife Altovise Davis.

Even crazier was that filming in New York was constantly delayed by protestors who were upset about the film Cruising. Many of them thought that this film was that film, so they protested against the wrong movie!

The film failed. Disco died. But why are we talking about this all thirty-some years later? Simple: disco never really went away. And neither did the Village People. Victor Willis is even back in the group, after years of fighting. Sure, there are two different Village People bands touring. But people love them. They’re a part of our culture, even if this movie is pretty much forgotten (outside of Australia, where it’s a New Year’s Eve tradition).

If you want to see it for yourself, Amazon Prime has it for your viewing pleasure. I also want to inform you for some reason this movie is 2 hours and 3 minutes long. I have no idea why it has to be so long. Plan your evening accordingly.

Today is the 138th anniversary of the founding of Antonio Bay, CA.  I see no better time to tell you about one of my favorite movies, which comes from that fictional town.

As the town is about to celebrate its 100th anniversary, the stroke of midnight brings chaos. It all starts with an old sailor (John Houseman, in a scene shot after the initial filming was done to add more of an overall scary feel) freaking some kids out with the tale of the Elizabeth Dane. At the same time, Father Malone (Hal Holbrook, adding some star power) drunkenly finds his grandfather’s diary from a century ago, when the founders of the town deliberately sank and plundered a ship full of lepers in order to build the town and the church.

Things get even crazier when a fog rolls in, bringing back the ghost of the Elizabeth Dane and its crew members, who kill the entire ship full of men. And then there’s Nick Castle (Tom Atkins!), who finds a young hitchhiker named Elizabeth Solley (Jamie Lee Curtis!). And oh yeah, DJ Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau!) is given a piece of the Elizabeth Dane by her son. The entire town flips out overnight, with windows breaking, car alarms going off and dogs barking at the sea.

It doesn’t get any better the next day. The driftwood that Stevie was given mysteriously changes words from DANE to 6 MUST DIE and leaks all over her equipment, making a tape player read part of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”  Nick and Elizabeth seek out his missing fishermen friend and find the body of Nick Baxter with his eyes torn out. It gets worse. The corpse gets off a table and tries to attack her before carving out the number 3. And Kathy Williams (Jamie Lee’s mom Janet Leigh!) chooses to ignore the priest’s warnings that everyone is doomed while worrying about her husband being lost at sea.

Local weatherman Dan (Charles Cyphers from Halloween) has been flirting with Stevie the whole time, but he gets attacked by the fog in a scene that feels like it was lit by Mario Bava. And the fog rolls toward her and her home, where Nick saves her son at the last minute. Finally, the crew of the Elizabeth Dane comes into the town’s church, seeking the gold cross made from their stolen riches. Blake (special effects master Rob Bottin), their leader, grabs it as the crew disappears.

At the end, the priest wonders why they didn’t take him when they promised to kill six. He doesn’t wonder long as the fog rolls back in and he’s beheaded.

This was the first movie Carpenter would direct after Halloween and was inspired by The Trollenberg Terror, a movie where monsters hid in the cloud. It also had a real-life moment that spurred it forward — when promoting Assault on Precinct 13 with his then-girlfriend, producer Debra Hill, Carpenter noticed a strange fog move quickly past Stonehenge.

This was part one of Carpenter’s two-picture deal with AVCO-Embassy (Escape from New York would be the next movie) and was a low budget film with a $1 million dollar budget. That said, Carpenter and Dean Cundey shot it in the anamorphic 2.35:1 format, so it looks amazing. The scenery b-roll that plays as the fog grows closer looks otherworldly and anywhere but California. It’s gorgeous. 

After viewing the rough cut, Carpenter felt that the film was terrible and didn’t work. He added the campfire scene at the beginning and several new scenes while reshooting others to be more horror and gore-filled. The budget only went up $100,000, but nearly one-third of the film was reshot.

The Fog is packed with references to other films. Charles Cyphers’ character is named for screenwriter Dan O’Bannon, who made Dark Star with Carpenter. Tom Atkins’ character, Nick Castle, is named for the actor who played Michael Myers in Halloween (he’d later co-write Escape from New York and direct The Last Starfighter), the babysitter’s name is taken from Richard Kobritz, the producer of Carpenter’s TV movie Someone’s Watching Me! And George “Buck” Flower plays Tommy Wallace, named for Carpenter’s art director and the future director of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch and the original It TV movie.

There’s more! John Houseman’s character is named after horror writer Arthur Machen, an Arkham Reef is mentioned as a shoutout to Lovecraft and the town’s coroner is Dr. Phibes. Bodega Bay, the setting of The Birds, is also mentioned.

There’s some great acting in here, particularly the speech Atkins gives about his father almost dying on the ocean. And Barbeau is great as she channels famous New York City DJ Alison Steele, The Nightbird. And Carpenter is in the film as the assistant Bennett who is named after a friend from USC, Bennett Tramer. If that name sounds familiar, Carpenter also used it for Laurie Strode’s potential love interest (and victim of mistaken identity in Halloween 2) Ben Tramer in Halloween. Even Stevie’s car is a reference to another film Carpenter loves: it’s a Volkswagen Thing (her last line, “Look for the fog,” echoes the last line in that movie’s “Watch the skies”).

At one point, John Carpenter mentioned creating an anthology series for TV that would have The Fog create supernatural events in other cities before connective ties to the original film would be shown. Sadly, this series never happened and in 2005, a remake was produced. The less said about that, the better.

Looking for a copy? You mean you don’t already own this? You can grab the limited edition steelbook from Shout! Factory or watch it on Shudder. It’s better than any horror movie that’ll come out this year. Maybe even any year.

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