After dealing with a lot of fuckery over at CBS in the closing years of THE TWILIGHT ZONE’s run, a burnt-out Rod Serling gave the network one more chance (with the short-lived western series, THE LONER) before he jumped over to NBC for his next endeavor. 

Though NIGHT GALLERY never consistently reached the heights of Serling’s previous classic, it nevertheless provided a few thought-provoking chills during its three-season run. No better example is the segment “Class of ‘99”, found in the second episode of season two.

At his hammy, piercing best, Vincent Price plays a college professor about to give his graduating class their final exam. Unfortunately for his pupils, it turns out to be an oral exam. Soon, Price is dispensing stringent queries randomly to the sea of nervous faces in front of him, sniping and reloading as he moves from one student to another. When one undergraduate is unable to rattle off the precise answer Price’s professor is looking for, we witness a haughty wrath that can only be mustered by educators who’ve gotten to where they are through a routine abuse of trust and power.

However, the Behavior Science portion of the exam is where things truly start to get crazy. Here, the professor goads students into acting out the narrowest of human prejudices. The wealthy are snobbish, the poor uneducated and without distinction. The Blacks are pushy and inferior to Caucasians, who are illogical and bigoted. However, it’s to be understood that Asians are the lowest rung on society’s ladder, a distrustful enemy worthy of death. 

The reasons we find for all of this are horrifying, even more so because of how prescient they seem to be in the 21st century, when the divide between races and classes traverses borderlines, political parties, and even families. If you think all this sounds edgy now, imagine what prime time audiences were thinking in 1971 when this segment originally aired. Serling was never one to shy away from the darker tendencies of mankind, but in just ten jarring minutes “Class of ‘99” undeniably cements its place as the most important episode of NIGHT GALLERY.

#smallscreenscreams #nightgallery #classof99 #thetwilightzone #rodserling #vincentprice #cbs #nbc #theloner #prejudice

I have conflicting emotions about Roman Polanski’s low-pitched, character-driven adaptation of Ira Levin’s genre bestseller, ROSEMARY’S BABY. One thing no self-respecting movie fan can deny is the film’s impact on the next decade of horror cinema. The original ‘satanic panic’ all started here folks, paving the way from everything from blockbusters such as THE EXORCIST (1973) and THE OMEN (1976), as well as veritable deluge of lesser genre efforts such as RACE WITH THE DEVIL (1975) and TO THE DEVIL…A DAUGHTER (1976).

Horror’s green motif for Old Scratch, whether it was Regan MacNeil’s pea-green vomit in THE EXORCIST or the emerald goop in the glass canister highlighting John Carpenter’s PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987), possibly came from this very poster. It’s a striking jade-tinged image of a baby carriage perched precariously on a jagged precipice while a shorn Mia Farrow softly blends with the backing sky. Not often does a movie’s poster so fittingly telegraph the danger awaiting its audience. This is a masterpiece in simplicity, folks, and there isn’t much better praise than that.

#onesheetwonders #rosemarysbaby #romanpolanski #iralevin #miafarrow #theexorcist #theomen #racewiththedevil #tothedeviladaughter #princeofdarkness #johncarpenter #satanicpanic

Director Tom Holland (CHILD’S PLAY, THE BEAST WITHIN) took a swipe at adapting a Stephen King story with the release of THINNER, which was originally published in 1984 under King’s ‘Richard Bachman’ pseudonym. Here’s one of the film’s original newspaper ads from the greater NYC area dated October 24th, 1996.

#fearflashbacks #thinner #tomholland #stephenking #richardbachman #childsplay #thebeastwithin

Listen up, all you Sawyer family fans! Anchor Bay Entertainment is soon looking to release a new documentary highlighting the life of Leatherface actor, Gunnar Hansen. DINNER WITH LEATHERFACE will drop on February 25th, and you can already pre-order the blu-ray at Amazon.

The documentary will feature interviews with fellow CHAIN SAW alumni, along with a number of Hansen’s friends and industry partners to give a more well-rounded look at the man behind the mask.

For more info, as well as a neat trailer, head over to the original article courtesy of the fine folks at Bloody Disgusting.

#horrorhappenings #dinnerwithleatherface #gunnarhansen #thetexaschainsawmassacre #anchorbayentertainment #documentary

Originally rumored to be castoffs from the short-lived ABC series “Darkroom” that were deemed too violent for television, Universal Pictures actually cobbled together NIGHTMARES during the early 80s horror boom to serve as a TV pilot for a new series. Typical of many anthologies, it’s a hit-and-miss affair, but there are some fun scares to be had while checking out pre-fame screen appearances from the likes of Emilio Estevez and Lance Henriksen.

This was something I kept from an L.A.-area showing, circa 1987.

This is a cute little comic from the strip “Inside Out”, circa 1986.

#killermemes&comics #northpoltergeist #poltergeist #insideout

Those crazy bastards at Fangoria come through again! This time we get a nice poster of an unmasked Jason Voorhees from his face off with Tina Shepard in FRIDAY THE 13th PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD.

Taken from Fangoria Poster Magazine #3 (1988).

#onesheetwonders #fridaythe13thpartviithenewblood #jasonvoorhees #tinashepard #fangoria

Like Prince once sang: “If de-elevator tries 2 bring u down…go crazy – punch a higher floor!”

Some films defy classification. You can’t really say THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW is just a musical or that RUBBER is merely a horror-comedy. This is where THE LIFT comes in. What was promoted as a straight up horror film, sporting a banger of a tagline begging “Take the stairs, take the stairs…for God’s sake, TAKE THE STAIRS!”, quickly melts into a squishy, malleable sludge of black comedy and snarky commentary on the encroaching computer age, including an early example of 21st-century machine learning.  

When a high-rise elevator starts to maim and kill innocent and not-so-innocent businessmen alike, blue-collar technician and family man, Felix, is hired to poke around to find the reason for it. The answer is not what anyone is expecting: the elevator is actually alive, driven by an organic brain center that is slowly allowing it to become a sentient being.

After directing some music videos by rock outfit Golden Earring, including a famous clip for the band’s 1982 classic, “Twilight Zone”, filmmaker Dick Maas offered up THE LIFT as his feature debut. The film walks a tightrope of straight-faced parody, and given its rather famous reception on video when it hit U.S. shores in 1985, I’m surprised we were never given a sequel to THE LIFT’s techno nuttiness. Both audiences and critics seemed baffled but intrigued by Maas’ unique, low-key approach, allowing him to continue to blur genre lines with his well-received action/slasher/crime drama AMSTERDAMNED (1988). 

Ultimately, THE LIFT joined the ranks of such low-budget offerings such as THE PREY (1980), THE FOREST (1982), and THE FINAL TERROR (1983) as an oddball, VHS-era standalone that proved a memorable video campaign was worth way more in nostalgia dollars than a memorable movie. Nevertheless, it certainly deserves some credit for daring to be different in the face of an overstuffed horror marketplace. 

#unclean&unseen #thelift #delift #dickmaas #goldenearring #twilightzone #blackcomedy #machinelearning #amsterdamned #rubber #therockyhorrorpictureshow #thefinalterror #theforest #theprey

Here’s a full-page advert from July 8, 1988–the very day Universal Pictures unleashed Don Coscarelli’s PHANTASM II to cinemas!

#fearflashbacks #phantasmII #doncoscarelli #tallman #silversphere #universalpictures

I’m traipsing around the Carolinas the next two weeks helping my mother get ready to move. Rather than leave a blank space until I return, I’m going to offer up a few choice entries from UBHB’s first six months, some of which you newer readers may have missed. Enjoy, and I’ll be back at the end of the month with all-new tasty horror morsels!

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!

#unclean&unseen #studentbodies #slashermovies #horrorcomedy #satire #halloween #fridaythe13th #scarymovie