Here’s something amusing to get your Monday started off right.
If I’m remembering correctly, this is a review of William Lustig’s grindhouse classic, MANIAC, taken from People Magazine back in early 1981. We’re going back over 40 years here, so forgive me if I’m wrong.
The poor reviewer who was saddled with this assignment didn’t seem to find the entertainment value in scalping people and then letting your mannequins take first crack at modeling them. Oh well, you can’t win ’em all. As Alan Thicke once sang, “It takes different strokes to move the world, yes it does”.
Suspenseful and intense, DEAD CALM is Australia’s buried treasure just waiting to be found.
It’s an age-old story: entertaining and well-constructed films that flounder at the box office. Even horror’s great directors couldn’t escape this phenomenon in the 80s. Carpenter’s THE THING was indeed too much of a good thing for audiences. Cronenberg’s prescient VIDEODROME might still be ahead of its time. The walls of Tobe Hooper’s THE FUNHOUSE fell in on itself in the face of stiff competition, and even Argento’s razor-sharp classic, TENEBRAE, couldn’t get asses in the seats. They were flops one and all in their day before finding their audience in later years.
Though it was a highwater mark for 1980s Australian filmmaking, DEAD CALM is still awaiting its renaissance.
Later making bank with the Tom Clancy adaptations PATRIOT GAMES and CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, director Phillip Noyce opts to open his story with a stark, near-wordless exposition. We’re witness to a shattering car accident that takes the life of John and Rae Ingram’s young son. Afterward, they set sail on the open sea, taking refuge in the vast isolation of the Great Barrier Reef in an effort to finally heal from the tragedy.
Everything seems placid, even hopeful, until a desperate man named Hughie shows up in a rowboat begging for help. His friends have died of food poisoning on a nearby pleasure craft and, in the wake of their recent trauma, the Ingrams are at first reluctant to believe or investigate his story. Eventually John checks out the dilapidated craft, only to find all of Hughie’s friends have been hideously murdered, not poisoned. This jumpstarts a nail-biting and artfully-balanced game of cat-and-mouse that finds Rae using all her cunning to survive the loony and devilishly persuasive Hughie while her husband fights to stay alive on the madman’s ship, a floating blood-stained murder scene bloated with corpses and slowly beginning to take on water.
Few films of its era are able to sustain suspense better than DEAD CALM, and there are numerous people to credit for its success. Noyce and editor Richard Francis-Bruce keep both settings hopping as Graeme Revell’s score huffs and puffs in the background. Sam Neill and Nicole Kidman (in one of her first major roles) breathe humanity and tenacity alike into their roles as the Ingrams, while a pre-TITANIC Billy Zane chews the scenery admirably as Hughie. The smart, kinetic screenplay was written by Terry Hayes and adapted from the novel of the same name by Charles Williams, who took inspiration from the Bluebelle, a Florida-based ketch that was the site of multiple murder in the early 1960s.
Another of the film’s most interesting footnotes is that it was slated to be made 25 years earlier by none other than Orson Welles. The project, initially entitled THE DEEP and similarly adapted from Williams’ novel, unfortunately fell during the CITIZEN KANE auteur’s lean 60s era, which found him continually plagued by hubris and bad business decisions as he became an aging, fading star.
Though Noyce’s project fared better than Welles’, its box office receipts were underwhelming on both sides of the Pacific–it barely made back its AU$10 million budget at home while only eking out a US tally just shy of $8 million. Though critics have been historically fond of the film, and in recent years The New York Times even tagged it on their best 1,000 films list, DEAD CALM still floats out there on the horizon as a treasure waiting to be found by international terror film fans.
Ah, the dog days of summer in the 80s always remind me of sprinklers, camping, box fans, tight suntanned bods, and of course…ELM STREET 2!
My stepsister and I must have watched this about 500 times during the summer of 1986. I remember her saying years later that she still can’t watch it because over our Freddy overindulgence back in the day. I guess you *can* have too much of a good thing.
Yes, it’s probably the least essential entry from the first three Freddy flicks, but it’s full of you-gotta-see-it-to-believe-it moments. The exploding bird. The bare-assed gym teacher getting towel-whipped. The Limahl poster. That “Touch Me All Night Long” dance. They’re all here–just as tacky and wonderful as you remember them.
This is a full-page Media Home Entertainment advert I saved from that memorable summer trumpeting Freddy’s home video return.
And remember, you may have the body, baby, but Krueger’s got the brains.
Let’s face it–Romero and King are slumming it here, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had.
There are always plenty of things to be thankful for in life. A loving family, robust health, a loyal pet, and a good job all qualify.
But let’s get stupid about this, shall we?
Forget about the usual blessings you rattle off every Thanksgiving as your turkey and stuffing are getting cold. Let’s talk about the little joys in life that are the real reasons you get you out of bed every morning. A Starbucks frappuccino? A blowjob? Marlboro 100s? And don’t tell me you wake-and-bakers don’t know what I’m talking about.
When I was in junior high, one of my reasons for getting out of bed was the Boulevard Cinema. It was a disgusting grindhouse theater on Topanga Canyon Boulevard that showed two movies for 99 cents. 99 cents! You could scrounge up that admission price just by kicking quarters out of the cigarette machines at the nearby mall.
There seemed to be three things these kinds of theaters weren’t known for. First and foremost was cleanliness–I’m assuming it was just one step above the porn theater just down the block. If you stood in place too long, your feet would literally stick to the floor, and the less said about the men’s room, the better. Second on this shit list was security. On some days, kids outnumbered adults during the showing of R-rated films. Third, the place wasn’t exactly concerned with variety.
This is where CREEPSHOW 2 comes in. They must have paired this fucking movie with at least four other things during the summer of 1987. Just when you thought it was gone, up it would pop again, sometimes hilariously paired with some incongruent, PG-rated family film. For this reason, CREEPSHOW 2 still holds the distinction of being the movie I’ve seen the most times in a theater.
Director George Romero and first-time screenwriter Stephen King struck a small but lucrative vein of gold with the original CREEPSHOW (1982), a candy-colored pastiche of old EC horror comics. It was a surprise box office success that brought five gory tales to the table while doubling-down on the giggles, to boot.
Though its first sequel is lacking a lot of the tongue-in-cheek laughs (and, quite frankly, short changes its audience with only three stories this time around), there’s still a lot of fun to be had. Sure, the tales are flimsier in CREEPSHOW 2, but the absence of giddy laughs gives it the space to play out as more of a straight horror anthology. No better evidence of this is its middle offering, “The Raft”, in which things get sticky for four college kids squaring off against an oil slick from hell as it slithers around the surface of a remote lake. The story’s terror comes from its simplicity, and King makes the right call by remaining faithful to his own source material. Before you know it, this unknown blob is drowning and disintegrating people right and left until the story’s only survivor is left to try and make it back to shore.
In hindsight, I can now appreciate seeing CREEPSHOW 2 about four more times than I needed to at the Boulevard Cinema all those years ago. Tacky, crappy, and just this side of dangerous, it turned out to be the perfect horror rollercoaster to experience in a grimy, pitch-dark grindhouse theater.
Here’s a simple one-page advert for THE KINDRED, which debuted in theaters back in January 1987.
Though I’ve always been a bigger fan of their earlier film, THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1982), this offering from directors Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter is one worth seeking out for those of you who like your horror films with a side of sci-fi tentacles.
Though it disappeared for a while due to legal issues, THE KINDRED has been back on the market again thanks to Synapse Films. In recent years, they released it as an impressive three-disc steelbook, which features a rare, unrated version of the film!
#fearflashbacks #thekindred stephencarpenter jeffreyobrow #thedormthatdrippedblood #synapse films #unratedversion #steelbook #scifi
With heavy heart, I have to relay the passing of actress Shelley Duvall, who died Thursday at her home in Texas from complications from diabetes. She had just turned 75 years old.
Duvall made an indelible mark on horror history in the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of Stephen King’s bestseller, THE SHINING, but also enjoyed similar success in both large and small-screen projects from noted directors. Her early career was highlighted by such classics as Robert Altman’s NASHVILLE (1975) and Woody Allen’s comedy landmark ANNIE HALL (1977). Though some critics balked at her casting in THE SHINING, she was a perfect fit as Olive Oyl in Altman’s POPEYE (1980).
Duvall’s later career saw her turn to television production, supervising critically-acclaimed programming for kids such as the popular FAERIE TALE THEATRE, as well as the Emmy Award-nominated TALL TALES & LEGENDS and SHELLEY DUVALL’S BEDTIME STORIES.
Though her horror output was limited after THE SHINING, she was responsible for producing the short-lived NIGHTMARE CLASSICS, and just recently returned to acting in the 2023 thriller THE FOREST HILLS.
Rest in peace, Shelley. The Overlook will leave a light on for you.
“But it’s not really Jason, so we don’t like this one!” Yeah, whatever.
Look, I know it’s not a great film, but Demon and his enchiladas alone are worth the price of admission. See it again, preferably drunk or stoned. Maybe both.
Remembered mostly for one landmark film, Tobe Hooper still became one of the most emulated directors in the history of motion pictures.
I’m a sucker for numbers, statistics, and the like. I have a spreadsheet of over 800 horror films I’ve given one-line reviews. On a regular basis, it informs me of titles worthy of a re-watch and, just as importantly, keeps me from re-watching those odious pieces of cinematic shit I never want to see ever again.
For curiosity’s sake, this list is forever being sorted, cross-referenced, and ‘rejiggered’ (technical term!). I can see just how many horror films were out in 1981, which year had the most sequels, or the average number of titles I see each year.
During a recent slice and dice of this spreadsheet, I looked at a list I had compiled of my top 40 favorite horror films of all time. Like the rest of the list, I’m constantly bumping worthy items up the ranking while sadly demoting things that no longer have the sparkle they once did. In the midst of a recent shuffle, I noticed only one horror director had three entries on my top 40 list.
Willard Tobe Hooper was born and raised in Texas, attending UT Austin before venturing into the world of teaching. He later started making documentaries and threw together his first feature, EGGSHELLS, an otherworldly take on the late 60s counterculture, for less than $50,000. Though the micro-budgeted feature didn’t exactly make waves, it was tinged with a subversive commentary on political and societal mores that would bleed (and how!) into Hooper next film, THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE.
Though Hooper’s career courted controversy at almost every turn–from the did-he-or-didn’t-he-direct POLTERGEIST debate to the floundering multi-picture deal with Cannon Films that signaled the downturn of his career–nothing he made afterward ever had the impact of CHAIN SAW.
Christ, there’s nothing I can say about the film that hasn’t already been debated for the past 50 years. The movie has become not only a horror landmark, but a cultural touchstone. For fuck’s sake, they sell stuffed Leatherface dollsin Walmart these days! If that isn’t an indication of influence, I don’t know what is. Almost every film Rob Zombie has ever made has been a tribute to Hooper’s classic, and he ain’t the only one. Stanley Kubrick went on record as a fan of the film, and directors as diverse as Wes Craven and Ridley Scott have cited its influence.
As a teenager, I met Hooper very quickly in the late 1980s. He was being mobbed by a crowd of fans I was part of, and his demeanor emanated an air of jarring discomfort, possibly even terror. Even then at my young age, I had heard the rumors of the usually mild-mannered Hooper having a nervous breakdown a few years earlier. As I watched him sign autographs as fast as humanly possible while trying to keep his composure, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Sure, he was a wealthy, respected, and talented filmmaker, but Tobe Hooper seemed to be a victim of expectation, and THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE set the bar incredibly high for him for the rest of his life. Nothing could compete. It was a shooting star that burned Hooper every time he tried to let go of it and move on to something different.
In the end, though, Hooper should be remembered for more than THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. The sleazy authenticity of THE FUNHOUSE is one of the director’s unsung gems, and whether he or Spielberg had their hand on the throttle of POLTERGEIST is ultimately a moot point, as there’s no denying the cigar-chomping Hooper had significant influence on the film. His leaner later years at least produced some interesting small-screen entertainment. This included episodes of TALES FROM THE CRYPT and MASTERS OF HORROR, but, most importantly, his lone foray into music videos yielded a mini-masterpiece: Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself”. Go check it again and see if you can spot Leatherface’s sledgehammer in it!
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