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

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!

A dreamy, demanding puzzle only for the most dedicated. 

Before you decipher the nightmarish, time-jumping ENYS MEN, you’d have no idea why I have pangs of guilt calling it a historical horror film. To do so seems almost like a spoiler.

The world’s first Cornish folk horror film, ENYS MEN – meaning ‘stone island’ and pronounced “Ennis Main”– is shot in 16mm and stained with a fitting 1970s patina by director Mark Jenkin. It seems predictable at first glance, almost coma-inducing in its monotony. A middle-aged woman, known only as The Volunteer, slavishly chronicles a small clutch of flowers native to a remote island off the English coast. Days of solitude go by, the flowers remain the same, and she neatly logs the stupefying lack of details in her journal. Holy shit, if they keep this up, then I’m off for another Guinness and a piss!

But wait, don’t unzip just yet! One day, the flowers start to change. That’s when ENYS MEN, too, begins to bend and bloom into something much more chilling, lush, and complex. Who is The Volunteer? What the hell is the significance of the standing stone that looms on the hilltop? More characters than you would expect–some real, some specters–float in and out, barely tethered by time or circumstance. Jenkin makes us work for our answers, continually blurring reality while bringing perceived fantasies into sharp, alarming focus. 

If you’re looking for mainstream thrills that offer simple solutions, a wise Englishman once said, “Get knotted, you rotter!” However, for fans of more cerebral genre offerings like CUBE or Alex Garland’s ANNIHILATION, there’s a small island with a big puzzle waiting for you.

#historicalhorror #enysmen #markjenkin #folkhorror #cornwall #england #cube #annihiliation #alexgarland

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!

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

#horrorhonorroll #gunnarhansen #thetexaschainsawmassacre #leatherface #tobehooper #fangoria #chasbalun #beardancingonthehill #poetry #reykjavik #iceland #pancreaticcancer

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!

A dark, icy evening in late 1983 was the perfect time for such a cold and calculating film.

Sure, JAWS was my first horror experience in the theater, but I was a toddler and fell asleep. (I did this two years later at STAR WARS, too!) By default, THE DEAD ZONE gets the honor for my first moviegoing experience to see a horror film. 

There was little triplex cinema on the main drag in Johnstown, PA in the early 1980s. I remember it being wonderfully creepy and barren in the winter months after the adjacent department store had closed for the day. Even all those years ago, the place had already seemed forgotten, existing in the margins of reality just like most all the best movie memories. 

My dad, who never seemed interested in horror films, was suddenly jazzed to see the latest adaptation of a Stephen King bestseller. The previous novel-to-screen offering from King, CUJO, had mauled its way to a modest $20 million payday a few months earlier, but THE DEAD ZONE was a whole other breed–an outlier in King’s oeuvre even back then, serving as a quiet accompaniment to the likes of the horror meister’s amped-up classics such as “The Shining” and “Carrie”. 

I had just recently gotten interested in horror films, and so the name David Cronenberg had flashed before me a few times in magazines and such, mostly in conjunction with his earlier film, the prescient and criminally underrated VIDEODROME (1983). So, as my dad’s Fiat slid down the hill to the parking lot fronting that shadowy, unassuming theater, I didn’t really know much about what to expect. 

Teacher Johnny Smith (played by Christopher Walken at his most Christopher Walken-like perfection) is the victim of a snowy car crash, awakening from a five-year coma only to have the blessing/curse of second sight. It’s not bad enough his girlfriend has moved on without him as he lay comatose in that hospital bed, but now, with the touch of his hand, he’s able to divinate a person’s future, and sometimes these visions are downright horrifying. The worst is when he shakes the hand of up-and-coming politician Greg Stillson (the always-intense Martin Sheen). Images of the future president Stillson ordering a nuclear strike shakes Smith to his core, until he decides the only way to avert this terrible fate is to assassinate him.

This is a thinking man’s terror, rife with moral dilemmas and political intrigues that are just as relevant now as when King first proposed them in 1979. I could say that THE DEAD ZONE is a horror film for people who don’t like horror films, but the same could be said for the film’s director, David Cronenberg. For a filmmaker who rose to fame by almost single-handedly establishing the ‘body horror’ subgenre that has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years, this is a curiously astute work for folks who would typically shy away from Cronenberg’s aggressively grotesque style. 

Well…except for that scissors scene. Trust me, you’ll know it when you see it.

#letsallgotothelobbytogetourselvessomemeat #thedeadzone #davidcronenberg #stephenking #christopherwalken #martinsheen #cujo #carrie #theshining #videodrome #johnstown #pennsylvania #jaws #starwars #bodyhorror

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!

Meeting a genre pioneer ain’t easy, especially when you have no idea what he looks like.

With many of his films seeming to be a whacky crash-up of monster movies and black-comedy slapstick, it’s fitting the New Jersey-born Joe Dante started out with working for Roger Corman at New World Pictures. Even some of the director’s earliest works such as PIRANHA (1978) and THE HOWLING (1981) align perfectly with Corman’s zesty, low-budget take on drive-in perfection. 

Turning some tidy profits by the early 1980s, Dante earned enough box office clout to garner notice from Warner Bros. First, he gave a ghastly new spin to “It’s A Good Life” for TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983) before the studio offered him the plum chance to finally command a bigger budget. The result was GREMLINS (1984), an out-of-the-box summer blockbuster that made everyone (even yours truly) suddenly decide they needed a mogwai in their lives–and yes, I still have mine.

I know a lot of younger people won’t get this, but there was a time when we as moviegoers had no idea what directors looked like. You’d read articles in newspapers or magazines about an exciting new genre film but never once catch a glimpse of anyone outside the principal actors. Keeping that in mind, you can understand my surprise when I met Joe Dante by accident. 

Let me explain. 

In the late 80’s, I was a gawky teen attending my first horror convention. It was like Disneyland for disenfranchised nerds so, naturally, I was in my element and totally in awe of everything. One of the first stops I made was at a table that was reserved for Gary Brandner, author of “The Howling”. Having seen the film, I thought Brandner would be a neat person to meet. Soon after, a man sat down at the table and, with not a single other nerd in sight, I was able to easily stroll up and ask for an autograph. He was very kind and asked my name before jotting for me “To Dylan from Joe Dante” before drawing a quick and surprisingly accurate mogwai beside which he added, “ + Gizmo”. My mouth dropped open when I realized the switcheroo. Not only was this instead the director of THE HOWLING, but also the first time I had ever seen him. 

And with that, Joe Dante inadvertently became the first movie director I ever met. Not a bad start, eh? 

#horrorhonorrole #joedante #garybrandner #gremlins #thehowling #piranha #rogercorman #newjersey #newworldpictures #warnerbros 

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!

It’s derivative as hell, but the needle on my Creepy Sleaze-o-Meter just broke off!

After my parents got divorced, my family moved into government housing. I’ve seen it in recent years, and the area has become a snakepit–grassless playgrounds, weedy shrubbery, and a palpable sense of danger and crime now surrounds the area. However, way back in the early 1980s, it was new, clean, and, most importantly, hopeful for those living under the poverty line.

One of the greatest things about living there was that we had HBO for the first year or so. Our previous apartment had sported a slightly-illegal Showtime hook-up (bonus!), but this was the first time we’d partaken in the American ritual that was Home Box Office. 

I was a new horror hound at the time, and even back then it was tough to scare me. However, a fateful late night in the autumn of 1983 offered up one of the first showings of AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION, and it’s arguably the most scared I’ve ever been watching a horror film. 

Backpedaling from the original, director Damiano Damiani instead opts for the ‘prequel’ route. Using Hans Holzer’s 1979 book “Murder in Amityville” as a template, the sequel attempts to show us why the house got so jacked up to begin with, and let me tell ya, it’s a doozy of a story. In a nutshell, a combative Italian-American family (is that redundant?) moves into the ominous Long Island house with the quarter-moon windows, only to see its oldest son slowly succumb to demonic possession. He screws his sister and then cusses her out for good measure, hears murderous commands from the devil on his Sony Walkman, and starts a series of physical metamorphoses that really, really look like they got lifted directly from earlier films like THE BEAST WITHIN and…hmm, THE EXORCIST (surprise!). All that ain’t nothin’, though, as the film climaxes with the kid mowing down his father, mother, and three younger siblings at close range with a rifle. Fucking hell!!! 

One wonders what co-writer Tommy Lee Wallace was trying to say here. Sure, the frequent John Carpenter collaborator and director of such hotly-debated horror entries as HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH and the 1990 television adaptation of Stephen King’s IT is no stranger to horror craziness. Having said that, AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION, with its depictions of spousal and child abuse, blasphemy, incest, and graphic violence, was totally off the hook for an early 1980s offering from a major studio. The even more amazing thing? The original cut of the film was supposed to include a more explicit incest scene, as well as a separate anal rape sequence that was eliminated only after test audiences reportedly flipped out. *blink, blink* All y’all motherfuckers need Jesus! 

Ultimately, a spate of tepid reviews, competing genre titles, and reigning box office juggernauts from the summer of 1982 staved off any chances for the movie to make a serious dent in the marketplace. Much like John Carpenter’s THE THING, which was released and immediately floundered just three months earlier, AMITYVILLE II was probably just too much for audiences back in the day. 

In the end, though, I couldn’t care less about Leonard Maltin’s “BOMB” rating. I love this chaotic sleazefest as much now as I did when I was traumatized by it at age nine. It will forever stand tall as the most entertaining–and most daring!–Amityville film of them all. 

#unclean&unseen #amityvilleIIthepossession #damianodamiani #tommyleewallace #halloweeniiiseasonofthewitch #it #johncarpenter #thething #thebeastwithin #theexorcist #incest #hansholzer #murderinamityville #leonardmaltin