This is for the veteran horror fans out there. You know who you are.
Yeah, you know me pretty well by now, and so I’ll admit I probably watched this for Kirstie Alley (who was just entering into that late 30’s sexual peak women supposedly hit around that time).
Despite Kirstie’s demure presence, the real stars of the film were Chainsaw and Dave! Played with geeky zest by Dean Cameron and Gary Riley, respectively, Chainsaw and Dave were perfect mirrors of 1980s teenage horror fans, blindly devoted to gore effects and obsessed with films like THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, which they actually get to watch in class one day.
With effects from an uncredited Rick Baker, Carl Reiner’s SUMMER SCHOOL was a rare mainstream movie that trumpeted horror fans in a comedy forum. The film has been pretty much lost to time in the wake of so many zany comedies over the past 35+ years, but if you want to have some messy fun and revel in 80s horror fanboy shtick, SUMMER SCHOOL is a good place to start your education.
Today, we kick off a whole new feature on UBHB that checks out famous filming sites for many of your favorite horror classics.
A great place to start is the far reaches of the Central California coast. Let’s take a long drive out Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in Marin Co., CA to check out Point Reyes Lighthouse. You horror hounds will know it best as the home of KAB Radio 1340 in Antonio Bay!
No, I unfortunately didn’t run into Adrienne Barbeau, but I did see another kind of beauty. After an extended drive through some quiet, desolate hills and a half-mile or so hike out to the spit, you come face-to-beacon with the famous lighthouse featured in John Carpenter’s THE FOG. Lots of boats, sea birds, and even a whale or two will undoubtedly greet you, as well. The area is billed as the second-foggiest location in North America (Nova Scotia tops that list), so if you’re going to visit, be sure to dress appropriately and be ready for any kind of weather.
Another thing to be mindful of is the 300+ stairs you need to traverse to reach the lighthouse. And true to the warning at the top, these fuckers are “wicked hard”! Seriously, be sure you’re in decent shape before you do this. Thankfully, there are some seating areas along the way to rest, if needed. Going down is a breeze; going up is another story.
I did get to go inside the lighthouse and chat with a guide regarding the history of its beacon. Film fans should know that it’s very tight quarters, and there’s no way you could fart in there, let alone have a radio station.
Another bonus of visiting the area: On your way west toward the lighthouse, you’ll pass the spot where Carpenter’s crew filmed the opening title card for the movie. As you can see from all my pictures, these locations have changed very little from when principal photography took place in Spring, 1979.
Before we head home, here is a short video of the lighthouse–be sure to listen closely towards the end of the clip to hear its signal!
Port Reyes Lighthouse, Marin Co., CA – filming location for John Carpenter’s THE FOG (1980)
This post reminds me that I *still* need to watch ALIEN: ROMULUS. I know, I know! I’ve got a copy of it, but I’ve been too goddamn busy lately to watch it!
Here’s a flashback to James Cameron’s first sequel all those years ago. Actually, it was so long ago, I saw it on Beta! Remember Beta? You know why VHS caught on instead of Beta? It was because porn companies liked the bigger display boxes. Everyone else soon followed suit and the smaller (albeit better) Beta format went by the wayside.
It time to grab your orange safety cones and break out the blood punch, because everyone’s favorite bickering vampire roommates are back!
Season six of WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS premieres tonight on FX with (count ’em–heh, heh, you see what I just did there?) *three* back-to-back new episodes. This season is reportedly the last for the series, so I’m sure we can expect a lot of craziness, bloodletting, and hijinks from Nandor, Laszlo, Nadja, and Colin Robinson…but not you, Guillermo!
And check out this killer cone signed by Nandor himself, Kayvan Novak!
Less than two more weeks till Halloween (“Sil-ver Sham-rock!”) — that means I don’t have much longer to get in extra HALLOWEEN stuff before the big day.
Today’s bit is a little write-up I kept from the original video release of HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS in Spring 1989. I revisit this one from time to time, and still believe it’s one of the strongest entries in the series. That ending is a banger, folks, and people seem to love them openin’ credits, too!
The house used in Tobe Hooper’s 1982 haunted-house classic, POLTERGEIST, was recently put up for sale for the first time in 45 years! Naturally, it sold in a flash and garnered more than $1.2M for its owners.
The best thing about all this is that the new buyer has expressed interest in making the famous Simi Valley, CA residence available to the public as a short-term vacation rental. Think about it–you could spend the night where Carol Anne Freeling got sucked into a TV set! Holy shit!
Head over to the original notice on CoStar.com for more deets, as well as a quick look at what the house looks like these days.
Regardless what you think of the film, I think everyone can agree that the one-sheet for HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH slaps. Slaps hard. Slaps your mother, slaps your father, and especially slaps your annoying bitch of a little sister. This is an iconic image, folks.
However, have you ever seen this?…
This is the original Universal Pictures trade ad artwork for the film created in the first half of 1982. It’s a truly stripped-down concept to say the least, and was obviously crafted before the script had totally coalesced. Having said that, this ad is distinguished by acknowledging the ‘tech’ angle that featured prominently in the film. Seemingly none of the artwork that followed closer to the movie’s release in October 1982 ever again addressed that.
The Quigmans was a weird, slightly subversive comic that sprung from the mind of Buddy Hickerson in the mid-1980s. The one-panel mostly revolved around the misadventures of bizarre, obtuse characters, while others were sight gags with a single punchline. Think of it as a lunkheaded “The Far Side” as reflected in a warped carnival mirror.
Though something like Doug Savage’s “Savage Chickens” is one of the forerunners in horror parodies, Hickerson gives us a plot that Stephen King hadn’t yet exploited when this was published, circa 1987. (I imagine by now he has, though.)
The folks over at Variety tell us that horror’s latest crazy clown secured a meaty $18.3 million dollars this weekend as TERRIFIER 3 opened wide across the US. Art was also responsible for boffo box office over in France, as well, where he snagged 45,000 admissions with only 126 prints. All this was enough to dunk on another clown: JOKER 2: FOLIE A DEUX, which floundered with an 81% second-week drop-off.
Stay tuned for the inevitable TERRIFIER 4 info, folks! Meanwhile, check out the original article over at Variety.com.
Leatherface saved my life…well, not really, but his words helped shine a light into my heart of darkness.
The summer of 2008 was possibly the worst time of my life. I was going through a terrible breakup and hadn’t yet figured out how to move on. When booze, sex, and an unending loop of “The Simpsons” didn’t help, I decided to delve into reading as a possible remedy for my heartache.
One of the things I came across was a treasured old issue of Fangoria that contained a Chas Balun interview with Gunnar Hansen, best known for portraying southern-fried maniac, Leatherface, in Tobe Hooper’s THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974). Released 50 years ago today, it became one of the most influential films in the history of cinema. In the article, Hansen recounts the making of the horror classic, but also notes his efforts in the writing field, including a poetry collection entitled “Bear Dancing on the Hill”. I was fascinated by the notion that the bloke who played Leatherface had written a poetry book. Where was this book? Could it be found?
Yes. Simply put, I went to the source.
After a few back and forth correspondences from his home on the coast of Maine, Gunnar posted to me his long-long-long-out-of-print poetry collection, originally published in 1979. I was gently surprised by the results—it was a chapbook of precise verses, most of which twisted around themes of nature and the realization of solitude. Each quiet entry sported names like “Emily Dickinson” and “Evening Light, May 6”. I was pleased to find my longtime suspicions were correct: “Bear Dancing on the Hill” was proof positive that the man who played Leatherface had more creative aptitude than merely chasing hippies with a smoking chainsaw.
In the years following the release of Hooper’s grimy, mean-as-dirt classic, the Reykjavik-born Hansen focused on projects closer to his heart, branching out with his creative writing skills and even partaking in the field of documentary films.
The horror universe became a little darker when we lost Hansen, aged 68, to pancreatic cancer in November 2015. However, his light brightened my life a bit when I needed it most, and for that I’ll be forever grateful.
Gunnar Hansen—maniac, poet, documentarian, and all-around nice fellow. RIP
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