I still don’t know what to think about this entry in the HALLOWEEN saga. I saw it in the theater back in the day, but I might have only watched it once since then. I know I like HALLOWEEN 4, which boasts one of the best endings in the entire series and possibly Donald Pleasence’s best performance as Dr. Loomis, but HALLOWEEN 5 just sort of sits there as a blank spot in my head after all these years. One thing is for certain: man, the masks from that era were just terrible, weren’t they?
Okay, this ad (circa 1986) from Los Angeles independent station, KTLA, trumpets this showing of Wes Craven’s SWAMP THING as a ‘world television premiere’. I don’t know if I’m going to fall for that shit. I don’t mean to be a grumpy old fart here, but why did it take approximately five years for this to show up on network television? For God’s sake, PROM NIGHT (1980) was on NBC less than nine months after it was released. Nice try, KTLA. Five years, my ass.
I tried–I really did–but the highest-grossing film of 1984 was my first brush with the saying “don’t believe the hype”.
Few movies in the 80s created such a summer blockbuster shitstorm as GHOSTBUSTERS. The ‘no ghosts’ logo shirt could be found everywhere. The Ray Parker Jr. theme song–which apparently ripped off the Huey Lewis & the News hit “I Want A New Drug”–was on MTV every hour. The trailer was programmed into the ground, and the stars of the film were ubiquitous, appearing on everything from “Entertainment Tonight” to late night talk shows.
The excitement was too much for me, and the idea of a big-budget horror-comedy left me practically pissing my pants by the time it finally hit theaters. Mercifully, my sister decided to take me to see it as ‘an early birthday present’. I still remember sitting there in the dark before the lights dimmed. The atmosphere was almost like a party, and the anticipation of kids and adults alike was crackling up and down each row.
In retrospect, it was easy to understand how GHOSTBUSTERS became my first experience of a film not living up to the hype. Sure, the cast was excellent, the lines were funny, Slimer was neat-o, and the effects were cutting-edge, but in the face of such media hype, a film twice as good would still have been short of the mark.
GHOSTBUSTERS was just one of the numerous films of that era that had an unstoppable marketing freight train hitched to it. CROCODILE DUNDEE (1986), WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (1988), and BATMAN (1989) suffered similar overexposure. So much so, that it was tough to think these films got made for any reason other than so you could buy a corresponding Happy Meal at McDonald’s. It made me realize that if you put enough money behind something, you can sledgehammer damn near anything into popular culture and make it a hit.
I eventually outgrew my ‘no ghosts’ shirt, filed away the theme song single, and slowly started whittling down all of my memorabilia for the film. More than 40 years later, this is one of the only things that remains: the Free Booklet of the Movie’s Funniest, Most Popular Lines!
With this tiny trinket of 80s blockbuster memorabilia, you can relive such moments as “I’ve been slimed–I feel so funky” and “This chick is toast!”.
If anyone remembers where they gave these out, I’d appreciate the memory jog. I can’t recall any of my friends having one, and I haven’t ever again run into another after all these years.
Sorry to be the bearer of sad news again, but Charles Cyphers has passed away. Best known for his portrayal of Sheriff Leigh Brackett in John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN franchise, he had recently turned 85 years old on July 28th.
Cyphers was a familiar face in the Carpenter camp, first appearing in the director’s ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976) before getting his high-profile gig in HALLOWEEN (1978). He went on to reprise his character in a number of sequels over the following years after appearing in THE FOG (1980) and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981). He even turned up in the director’s made-for-TV biopic, ELVIS (1979), starring another Carpenter favorite, Kurt Russell.
The actor achieved more than just his genre credits, though, as he appeared in a number of theatre productions, as well as prominent television shows such as Wonder Woman, The Dukes of Hazzard, Seinfeld, ER, and the acclaimed mini-series Roots.
Lately, I’ve been feeling that I haven’t highlighted Ti West’s creative “X” film series enough, so with the arrival of its final entry, MAXXXINE, to streaming, I figured this was a great time to do so.
I just saw this over the weekend, and it’s a hoot. Mostly serving as a continuation of West’s first entry, X (2022), and a nice way to extend star Mia Goth’s range from its prequel, PEARL (2023), MAXXXINE finds adult film star, Maxine Minx, taking the leap from porn to commercial films in the hot Hollywood summer of 1985 . Unfortunately, it looks like someone knows her dirtiest secrets and soon the bodies of her friends start piling up around her.
I moved to L.A. in the summer of 1985, so I was naturally a little biased toward this entry, but West does a nice job keeping that vibe alive amidst the terrifying true backstory of Richard “Night Stalker” Ramirez, who slayed more than a dozen people in the area over the preceding year. Though it isn’t the tour-de-force she was given in PEARL, Goth continues her winning streak as a woman desperate to escape her past while pushing ahead to superstardom.
MAXXXINE is available on a number of leading streaming outlets, including Amazon Prime, AppleTV, and YouTube. Check out the full list on the film’s official website here.
Before we get our week started, let’s take a minute to pause and reflect on the awesomeness that is the PHANTASM poster.
While a lot of horror posters insist on leveraging a minimalist approach with mysterious, blackened shadows and limited text to capture imaginations and box office returns alike, PHANTASM does a complete one-eighty and gives us so much to feast our eyes on! The silver sphere! The Tall Man! Those little robed fuckers who look like Jawas from STAR WARS!
And to make all this even better, the artwork is contained within the shape of a tombstone topped with a great tagline: “If this one doesn’t scare you, You’re Already Dead!” Now this was a talented marketing team who knew what audiences wanted to see!
It’s time to fly one last time with Nandor, Nadja, and Laszlo…but not you Guillermo!
The sexy folks over at Gizmodo have let us know that FX has locked in Monday, October 21st for the return of everyone’s favorite bloodsucking roommates.
The series will likely go out with a bang, as the cast recently showed up at Comic-Con to give the lowdown on what we can expect from he show’s sixth and final season. Will we get awesome cameos? Will the documentary crew ever be seen? And, most importantly, will Jackie Daytona ever make another appearance? None of us mere mortals know for sure. For now, be patient, file down your teeth, and pop over to Gizmodo to check out the original article.
The “Friday the 13th” folks were a little late in finding a tie-in rock star for their franchise. The good news is that they snagged the perfect one.
For the kids who didn’t have MTV, NBC’s “Friday Night Videos” was possibly your singular lifeline to music. Sure, TBS’s “Night Tracks” was far superior, and USA Network’s one-two punch of “Night Flight” and “Radio 1990” was working on a whole other level, but “Friday Night Videos” gave you a close enough peek at the latest Billboard sounds that you wouldn’t be made fun of at school on Monday morning.
“Friday Night Videos” could be counted on for one thing–the most superficial choices when it came to their programming. That’s not a bad thing–you’d be nuts to show some ‘bubbling under’ college hit in favor of something like Janet Jackson or John Cougary Mellonballs–but you can imagine my surprise when Alice Cooper popped up one night with the theme to the latest Jason Voorhees adventure, FRIDAY THE 13th PART VI: JASON LIVES.
Cooper’s career was kind of in the shitter by the mid-80s after a hard left turn into new wave and an even harder turn into drugs and alcohol. Though it was only a moderate success, the slick synth metal and hummable chorus of “He’s Back” was Cooper’s first step back up the rock ladder. By the end of the 80s he was once again in the top ten, in heavy rotation on MTV for the first time, and had even appeared in John Carpenter’s PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987).
In retrospect, the sixth FRIDAY THE 13th is generally regarded as one of the more entertaining and humorous sequels. Cooper, having gained the moniker of The Godfather of Shock Rock from his outrageous, horror-drenched stage shows featuring guillotines, electric chairs, and gallons of fake blood, ended up being the perfect match for a goofy mid-80s entry of our favorite campy film series.
Though that fateful night on “Friday Night Videos” was the only time I ever saw “He’s Back” broadcast, the magic of YouTube has made sure it’s no longer a rarity. Indulge yourself now!
On this day back in 1987, Joel Schumacher,’s THE LOST BOYS swooped into theaters to raise some hell.
Though it wasn’t a huge hit, and some critics dismissed it as ‘vampires for the MTV generation’, the film has since been widely reappraised as one of the tightest examples of the slick vampire comeback of the 80s that also featured FRIGHT NIGHT (1985), VAMP (1986), and NEAR DARK (1987).
And no look back at THE LOST BOYS would be complete without mentioning Timmy Cappello. When he popped up in the film, I remember shouting, “Hey, there’s Tina Turner’s saxophonist!” Man, my dude was ripped back in the day.
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