The folks over at JoBlo have dropped the sad news that actor Erich Anderson, best known to horror fans as Rob Dyer in FRIDAY THE 13th – THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984), has passed away after a battle with cancer. In addition to his film work, Anderson racked up a multitude of high-profile television and genre credits, including “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, “The X-Files”, and “The Outer Limits”. RIP, Mr. Anderson.
Sure, it’s a mess, but when it comes to slasher satire, “Student Bodies” got there first.
In the fall of 1986, my one school chum held his stomach as he chuckled his way up to my locker. “Did you see STUDENT BODIES on TV last night?”
Unexpectedly, this ended up being a question I would ask many people in the following years. Plagued by production problems, bad box office returns, and tepid critical assessment, STUDENT BODIES nevertheless holds the distinction of being the first slasher film satire.
Long before the SCARY MOVIE franchise would finally hit financial paydirt with the same material, STUDENT BODIES shot onto the marketplace admirably fast in the wake of the horror boom brought on by HALLOWEEN (1978) and FRIDAY THE 13th (1980). That may have been one of its problems–it was already lampooning a trashy cinematic trend that hadn’t even worn itself out yet.
The Breather, a killer in rubber galoshes and Playtex kitchen gloves, is on the loose at Lamab High School. His body count, which is actually tallied on-screen during each kill, includes dispatching people via such unlikely weapons as Hefty bags and paper clips. Trapped in the middle of all this is Toby Badger, a sexually-repressed girl surrounded by a bunch of predictably quirky characters. Since the virginal Toby could never be the killer, any of the school’s denizens–from the soft-headed principal to the militaristic shop teacher or the double-jointed spaz of a janitor–could be the real murderer.
Nearly a half century on, the film’s intentions may seem flimsy and transparent to most, but the film emerges victorious for one reason: it’s unendingly quotable. You’ll never look at rubber chickens, horsehead bookends, or broken KFC drumsticks the same way again.
Both ahead of its time and wildly uneven, STUDENT BODIES reminds us there was once a time when the horror genre hadn’t yet been dismantled. It also teaches us that dead men tell no tales…but they fart!
Why does everything have to be a ‘universe’ these days?
The fine folk at Bloody Disgusting tell us that, after shit-canning the beloved F13 game and putting the forthcoming “Crystal Lake” series on ice, the powers that be are setting us up for…the JASON UNIVERSE. Whee.
Note to Victor Miller AND Sean S. Cunningham: F13 fans just want a new movie. Not a lot to ask after almost 20 years. Okay, we’d preferably like Amy Steel or Adrienne King in it. That is all.
For now, you can read about the latest steaming pile of rhetoric here.
The story of how Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” taught me my very first lessons in horror, art, and outsmarting my parents.
Yeah, I know, I know. It seems like I’m being a totally predictable prick debuting my horror soundtracks section with THE EXORCIST, but it’s not really for the reason you’d think.
You see, when I was little, I was obsessed with a record my parents had indifferently inherited somehow. I played it so often that they actually tried to hide it from me. Unfortunately for them, I soon found the place where it was stashed–behind my sister’s standing wardrobe–and their torment continued.
This infamous single I cherished was the edit of Mike Oldfield’s 1973 masterpiece, “Tubular Bells”. It immediately rocketed to fame late that year when its opening suite was used as the theme to William Friedkin’s blood-and-thunder horror benchmark, THE EXORCIST. Oldfield’s expansive opus, which included everything from the titular percussion to synthesized, nightmarish mock-ups that sounded of feral animals, was only one of two reasons I loved the record.
The second was the label.
I had never seen anything like it before. The image–a pair of siamese twins seated before a gnarled tree and flanked by the tail of a horrific komodo dragon-type monster–provided me with some of my very first questions regarding the realms of horror and art. The tree, the komodo, the twins–why were they together, and what did it mean?
I never did find out. But I did learn years later that the drugs in the 70’s had been really, really good. I also discovered the artwork had been designed by Roger Dean, who’d gained international fame after creating the innovative landscapes adorning all those early album covers of the English prog-rock group Yes.
Oldfield was never able to step out of the very long shadow of “Tubular Bells”, and its dark, looping jingle will forever be spot-welded to the misadventures of Regan MacNeil. However, it provided him the springboard to an astonishing 50-year career that spanned popular music, gaming, and even the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in 2012.
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