Eaten Alive (1976)

 

Director: Tobe Hooper

Screenplay: Kim Henkel, Alvin L. Fast and Mardi Rustam

Cast: Neville Brand as Judd; Mel Ferrer as Harvey Wood; Carolyn Jones as Miss Hattie; Marilyn Burns as Faye; William Finley as Roy; Stuart Whitman as Sheriff Martin; Roberta Collins as Clara; Kyle Richards as Angie; Robert Englund as Buck; Crystin Sinclaire as Libby Wood; Janus Blythe as Lynette

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

As with many Tobe Hooper films, there is an unhinged air to Eaten Alive, and it's weird and legitimately scary electronic score from the get-go, over a shoot of the moon at the beginning, is Wayne Bell and Tobe Hooper himself composing instant nightmare fuel. It is a very simple story, and honestly, there is not much to Eaten Alive plot wise in general barring a set-up: Neville Brand is Judd, a man out of his mind running a hotel, with an alligator in the nearby water he claims is from the Egyptian Nile. The narrative is supposedly inspired by a real case - of bar-owner Joe Ball, who lived in the small Texan town of Elemendorf in the Thirties, and was convicted of murder and said to have disposed more women then presumed with the help of all the alligators he kept, something which has been challenged as being exaggerated over time from his more simpler crimes of murder¹. For Judd here, any woman (and frankly any man or child) is not safe from him killing them or letting the pet reptile after them. Even family dogs are not safe.

As a Video Nasty, the extremity is entirely felt in the evil intensity in Hooper's films, as much likely the reason it ended up on the list as the problem was when The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) became an enemy of the British censors. Artificially bright coloured lights cover the few locations, an artificial fetid Texas of cat houses and rundown hotels, entirely at night and shot on stages, which presents an unnatural reality to the production. Almost everyone here too is unhinged and wandered out of an entirely different world as well, where your bordello mistress (including her old age makeup) is a strange caricature in suit slacks and shirt, including a money tending cap, to William Finley (Phantom of the Paradise (1974)) and Robert Englund (the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise) adding to the weird aura.

A lot of the film is disturbed in general, the same manic energy of the original Chain Saw Massacre (and some fo the 1986 sequel) felt here. The setting and the character of Judd in the little we get is as vivid as the Leatherface family - that he has a caged monkey, the plot points about his wooden leg (and losing it to the pet), even a Nazi flag in the background in one scene, scarred and marked like an acquired from being a soldier and getting hold of it in combat. Without a lot of dialogue and drama to work with here, as a horror film, these details add to the production, but there is already from the get-go a sense most of the cast in unhinged. Before Judd is chasing a young girl under his hotel's foundations with a giant scythe, she is likely traumatised by her family's complete lack of stability, a returning Marilyn Burns from Chain Saw and William Finley having a scene, after the dog is eaten, which is just as disturbing for how he acts out a mental breakdown between parents. That there is stability, with an adult daughter and a father trying to find her sister, adds the sense of ordinary reality in its brief snippets as a contrast but how thin the veneer is. The bar is still full of guys like Buck (Englund), a stud whose bravado is with being a trouble starter, and even if he is harmless, he just has to drive his girlfriend of the night down the right country road and find himself in Judd's nightmare hotel.

The fact the crocodile is cheesy, a giant floating prop, is not going to detract from how alarmingly effective the rest of the film is. It has, as a result, a more visceral sense of peril even if not that violent, able to work around its slighter plot between legitimately disturbing aspects (such as Burns, again put through the wringer, being tied to a bed for a large portion of the film) against an absurd tone close to a very sick sense of humour. Credibly, Hooper would channel this into later films when the eighties came about, and whilst Crocodile (2000) tragically felt more of a sedate TV movie in tone, when it nodded to this film briefly it was still a nice wink at one of Hooper's underrated films.  

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1) Eaten Alive: the bizarre true story behind Tobe Hooper's alligator horror movie, written by Rebecca Hawkes for The Telegraph, published May 4th 2015.

The Funhouse (1981)

 

Director: Tobe Hooper

Screenplay: Larry Block

Cast: Elizabeth Berridge as Amy Harper; Cooper Huckabee as Buzz; Largo Woodruff as Liz Duncan; Miles Chapin as Richie; Kevin Conway as Freak Show Barker / Strip Show Barker / Conrad Straker (The Funhouse Barker); Wayne Doba as Gunther Twibunt (The Monster); Sylvia Miles as Madame Zena; William Finley as Marco the Magnificent

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

When you're stoned, Charles Manson is a terrific guy.

Tobe Hooper plus Universal Pictures equals a Video Nasty, and this is a higher budget and prestige title among the Nasties, normally independent productions or non-American studio films, and evidence that no one was particularly safe. In the case of The Funhouse, far from the nastiest of the slasher movies from this era entirely, I entirely suspect the infamy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) filters through this, the film which Tobe Hooper as a director immediately gained a reputation and notoriety for. (There is also another theory that this was mistaken for The Last House on Dead End Street (1977), which was titled The Fun House on British VHS¹, a film which for another day has to be seen to be believed as well as being legitimately gruesome in content). This presents an important part of Tobe Hooper's career, as it was the one made after Salem's Lot (1979), Hooper's seminal and (large scale) TV mini-series/film, his first steps into mainstream filmmaking. This as a result is a change of pace, with Hooper clearly interested with the carnival setting itself, enticed by the chance to film at a real one, an east coast production shot in Miami, Florida in reality¹, and with real rides and numerous extras onscreen to bring out the atmosphere.

I have a bias for carnival/circus films, so naturally I like The Funhouse even without factoring in it being a solid slow burn horror film, where even marginalized titles like Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), which people thought stole the 25th Best Picture Oscar from High Noon (1952), is a favourite for depicting historically this fascinating area of popular entertainment. Carnivals and circuses I realise are very different things, but they form a connection in my mind, as travelling entertainments which feel marginalised in the modern world, of spectacle and the reality of them, alongside the graft and in the case of carnivals, the ways they exist entirely on selling spectacle whilst even only providing the illusion. With their own worlds of aesthetic and figures that have to travel in the shows, they are all enticing, and in terms of the carnival by itself, The Funhouse is the same even if it plays to the stereotypes of them being places of the marginalised and the dangerous. Carnivals, more so than circuses, have had a legacy in cinema which is not just the infamous Tod Browning film Freaks (1932), but even film noir in Nightmare Alley, the 1947 and 2021 versions, of places ran by outsiders and with their own rules. Their posters displaying the now politically incorrect freak shows to their faded colours on the rides have a palpable energy to them which The Funhouse fully succeeds in bringing in.

Opening with a fake out twist combining Psycho (1960) and Halloween (1978) in one, if with the creepiness of a little brother inappropriately terrorising his older sister in the shower, we are also already seeing the time when slashers were prolific for this one to be commissioned, and could also nod to their lineage. The set up is simple. Four people - our female lead Amy (Elizabeth Berridge), on a date with her boyfriend Buzz (Cooper Huckabee), with their male and female friend - are at a carnival haunted with rumours of two kids killed there in another town. The film is methodical, where a large portion of the film is entirely feeding off the mood of the location, a world that makes the film compelling to witness if of another age. No carnival would be allowed to be like this one nowadays - we could probably get the exotic sexy dancing tent for an adult show, but the idea of an erotic female strip show near the rides kids are on reveals the layers of this culture from the past. The same goes to the carnival freak show, where alongside the prop things in jars here involves real animals born with physical deformities brought into the film, sad cows you wish to pet, with twin heads melding together or missing part of their face, immortalised onscreen. Even details you may miss add to this world, such as the fact one of the leads, actor Kevin Conway, is playing all three of the carnival barkers, not just the fun house's who is a central figure, adding layers in whether they are separate people or related.

As a slasher, it barely qualifies due to this lengthy set-up, where the terror comes in very late as, deciding to stay in the funhouse overnight, this ill-advised decision leads to the central quartet to witness a murder. This is not a bad thing as, alongside the fact it allows William Finley to cameo as a drunk Dracula magician, it gives the film so much more emphasis on the characters within pure pulp, not a lot of deaths transpiring for the genre but a lot more atmosphere produced as a result, drawing the viewer in to engage. Sometimes the style and presentation is enough, and being able to soak in a natural fairground environment for a large portion was worth it in sacrifice of the tropes of the slasher genre expected from the time. It helps this is the best funhouse you wish did exist; even if Humpty Dumpty is inexplicably there in the foreground at one point next to stereotypical cannibalistic tribesmen, the production design is exceptional when the film is mostly confined to this location in the finale, a vivid place especially with the creepy but exceptionally made animatronics, made by people who specialised in this in real life. Helping as well is that this is Hooper's first film in widescreen, the unrelenting and unnerving energy he had in his films before transitioning into a new style for him, with the cinematographer for Walter Hill's The Warriors (1979), Andrew Laszlo, and production designer Mort Rabinowitz in tow to give this ill-reputed Video Nasty a credible style.

The intensity of Hooper's films before, when the chaos starts, is still here, and it is apt that by the end, this wonderland of lights and rides ends with traumatised figures of various ages, even if the body count would be considered pitiful for many. How this managed to get on the Video Nasties list is curious, as speculated in the first half, but I am glad with hindsight it did, as this underappreciated film in its director's filmography, about to enter a period of vibrant and even weird films in the eighties, was allowed to grab attention even among the more notorious movies form the list.

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1) Slashback! Something Not Quite Human is Waiting in THE FUNHOUSE (1981), written by Gregory Burkart for Blumhouse.com, published on February 16th 2016 and preserved on web.archive.org.

Spontaneous Combustion (1990)

 

Director: Tobe Hooper

Screenplay: Tobe Hooper and Howard Goldberg

Cast: Brad Dourif as Sam; Cynthia Bain as Lisa Wilcox; Jon Cypher as Dr. Marsh; William Prince as Lew Orlander; Melinda Dillon as Nina; Dey Young as Rachel; Tegan West as Springer; Michael Keys Hall as Dr. Cagney

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #225

 

I am a Tobe Hooper apologist. For many, Hooper made The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and then everything after baring Poltergeist (1982) is ignored. For me, not only did he start earlier with an experimental hippie comedy named Eggshells (1969), thus undermining the notion he came from nowhere, but that alongside The Texas Chain Saw Massacre there is a string of great and fascinating films onwards. About the end of his three picture deal with Cannon Films was when things wander into questionable paths. I like The Mangler (1995), but as a strange film born from a tale of a demonically possessed industrial clothing press, and by Crocodile (2000) you get a film there which feels like something is lost least for that production.

Even Crocodile has emotional attachment for me, simply as the last film I saw with my older brother before he moved to Australia, but it is still a proto-Asylum Picture production with a lack of spark, feeling the sense any could have helmed it. Other films in the period beforehand however are far more interesting. The Mangler is a misfire, but a gloriously weird one. Spontaneous Combustion, the subject of today's review, has always stood out but it has the stranger aspect that one of its most vocal fans is Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the acclaimed Japanese filmmaker who has worked in a variety of genres in cinema and is critically acclaimed. Amongst that acclaim is that he has also left a lasting mark in horror cinema between Cure (1997) and Pulse (2001). Kurosawa has described his interest in this later Hooper film alongside Lifeforce (1985), one of the more infamous films in Hooper's career as a highly ambition science fiction horror tale from Cannon Films which is divisive¹. To think that the alien mood Spontaneous Combustion has influenced Cure is something to be amazed by.

Why I love Hooper is that, whilst his work can vary in content, he still belongs in a group of directors with a clear author's flourish on his movies, that everyone creeps with the sense of the deranged. Most of his films are mad and crazed, heightened to the point that barring a few quiet moments they feel like his creations. Even Poltergeist has this maniacal air when trees and clowns terrorise a suburbia family, which is why I waver on the notion of Steven Spielberg being its secret director. Hooper's career is full of heightened figures and moments to emphasis this - the late Gunnar Hansen running around in slapped on makeup and a chainsaw, a coked up Dennis Hooper welding two, carnival freak shows of two-headed sheep, Bill Mosley as a steel head plated Vietnam vet shouting about "Narmland" - that it even infects a sombre film in his filmography like Salem's Lot (1978) with James Mason, films like the later gaining a fascinating contrast as well for their tonal differences.

Spontaneous Combustion starts off very different, a cold and very sombre piece, catching a viewer off-guard with its atmospheric dark synth music contrasted to jets of real flame being projected over a black screen between nuke green opening credits. In the fifties, a man and a woman are test subjects for surviving a nuke being dropped within a bomb shelter, through a test anti-radiation vaccine, only for the officials behind it to be mystified when they have conceived a child whilst there. The parents in a freak incident burn to death due to spontaneous human combustion, a curious real life phenomenon of people randomly being set on fire from the inside of their bodies, leaving their newborn son as an orphan who grows up as Brad Dourif. Dourif is the best thing in the film, bringing a level of gravitas to the point it is sad that he started in films like One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest (1975) only to become marginalised. He takes this film so seriously that when the film does slowly morph into the frenzy of Hooper's other work, he reins it in.

Dourif to his horror continually finds out people he has rage or arguments with suddenly die of spontaneous combustion, not a long time after seeing a hole burst out of his forearm spitting fire and his girlfriend hiding knowledge behind his back becoming aware that something is amiss.  The coolness of the tone makes the film atmospherically at ill ease at first, coldness just about the entire the terrain of David Cronenberg and a touch of a conspiracy thriller. The fact the film is looking back to fifties anxieties of nuclear power, by way of just leaving the eighties when that fear resurfaced, cannot be ignored. Born on August 6th, the day the a-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, his conception is in the middle of 1955 in Nevada and a bomb testing sight. The ultimate nuclear family, the film has enough budget to credibly parody old fifties newsreels, with his parents Brian and Peggy the ultimate fifties icons of the American pie family without becoming too tongue-in-check and missing the satrical point. Set during a time in the then-modern day where there is a modern nuclear power plant being built in the setting, the Trinidad Beach nuclear power plant, and people like Dourif's lead wearing anti-nuclear black armbands, the film is not profound in its message, but evoking the period's concerns is still strongly felt throughout.

Halfway through Hooper's film follows a suspension of disbelief that is similar to Italian genre movie logic, taking fifties atomic man film and updating for the excess of the late eighties. Due to the aspects of nuclear energy and an anti-radiation vaccine given to his parents, Dourif can set people on fire from the inside with his mind and spurts miniature volcanoes of flame which destroy his body. All around him a conspiracy plays out with people wanting to dispose of him and neon green fluid in needles like reanimating fluid being welded around, slowly becoming more pulpy and energised with an intensity the more physically damaged Dourif is, his acting making sure a film which dissipates in its seriousness still works the further it goes along. The film's drift to being more absurd is not a bad thing in hindsight, especially as Hooper by this point mad far more openly humorous films and was not above intentional silliness. You do not have a cameo with legendary cult director John Landis, name recognition in horror circles where he plays a character who is set alight as a bonfire, without knowing the tonal shift that results.

Everything is excessive as was the case of Hooper's career in his best films. Not only do you have dark synth music, but a Latin singing choir straight out of The Omen (1976) blasting away, which may be ridiculous in context but for myself actually adding a sobering sense of seriousness even to a film which eventually becomes more of a b-movie in its tone. (Whilst not a recognisable name, the composer Graeme Revell is a journeyman who, if you saw mainstream films and television between the nineties to the modern day, you the reader have likely encountered at some point without realising it). Huge portions are lit in bright neon or artificial lighting to the point even a phone is built to radiate neon pink from a transparent case, all disarming and, even if closer to ­Hooper's visual excesses of the era, still presents an alarming tone which raises the film's qualities. More so as in high sight, the film if it has any problems is entirely with the swiftness, and resulting messy nature, to how quickly it tidies up its conclusion. It feels rushed, and suffering from its low budget when it needed more time to breathe. The mood and the attitude Hooper brings to the table is Spontaneous Combustion's greatest success alongside key collaborators within the film. Seeing the film, and scenes such as Dourif  in the middle of a checker board tiled corridor, stark neon blue lighting and permanently with smoke coming from wounds in his body, this film whilst note a key work to immediately see from the director is still striking enough to be worthy of his filmography. The Kiyoshi Kurosawa connection also emphasises now the film as worthy for historical recognition as, alongside being an entertaining if flawed b-movie, I can now see the same attitudes in look and mood Kurosawa took as influence to make even greater films, as meaningful badge of honour to any film to have.

 

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1) Perfectly summing his interest, which I will link to HERE, is an article of Kurosawa creating double bills around his own filmography.

Masters of Horror Season 2 Part 6

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The Washingtonians (2007)

Director: Peter Medak

Screenplay: Richard Chizmar and Johnathon Schaech

Based on a short story by Bentley Little

Cast: Julia Tortolano as Amy Franks; Venus Terzo as Pam Franks; Johnathon Schaech as Mike Franks; Myron Natwick as Samuel Madison III; Esme Lambert as Nancy Arnold; Abraham Jedidiah as Jared Barkish

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) #28

[Spoiler Alert?]

Peter Medak qualifies for the Masters of Horror directorial chair because of The Changeling (1980), a taut and slow burn Canadian production which is underrated, a haunted house story which works as a drama and as a chilling supernatural story which uses subtlety for its impact. (I presume not for Species II (1998), the only other horror feature in his career which I saw at a young age, to be honest, alongside Species (1995) for the titillation it promised, only for schlock and H.R. Giger creature designs instead). Medak in general has one of those fascinating filmographies I would like to see more of. Hungarian born, his career includes extensive work in the British film industry during the late sixties and seventies with recognisable movies. I'm thinking in particular of The Ruling Class (1972), an epic two-and-a-half hour long satire where Peter O'Toole plays New Age Jesus much to the horror of stuffy British upper class society, a farce which has been said to including anything from musical numbers to Nigel Green as The High Voltage Messiah. One of those careers that, whilst The Changeling is one of the best horror films of its era, is worth exploring in its own right in other genres.

Sadly I can't say The Washingtonians was great despite that introduction. It's premise is utterly silly but could've made an interesting farce - imagining whether the founder of the United States of America, George Washington, was a cannibal. It's a heavy handed idea but one with potential, that the history one hold as idealised is likely to soften the real historical events, even completely go against them for the sake of myth, "printing the legend" to quote The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Particularly with individuals like Abraham Lincoln, an idealised hero who represents his country's people centuries later contrasts the more complicated version who actually lived. However I'd argue, even though it's been ten years or more since I saw the episode, that The Simpsons episode (guest starring Donald Sunderland) about the founder of Springfield  actually being an arsehole and Lisa Simpson having to deal with this issue was a far more interesting depiction of this issue.

The Washingtonians instead is pretty obvious. A lot of the problems with these lesser episodes of Season 2 are the bland families you're meant to sympathise with in the leads, presuming that a mere happy family is enough to connect to when, in reality, they should have more to them than merely an innocent kid in potential peril and their parents being generically wholesome. Said family are pitted against creepy older locals in a small town who are clearly weird in their first scene, behaving so at the start during a funeral. It's kind of obvious they're in on something from the start, and there's an absurdity unused of lunatics in powdered wigs and wooden teeth trying to get into a house and threatening to eat the occupants inside. A lot feels missing as  result A whole level of satire that could've been crammed into less than fifty five minutes. A twist from the original short story that isn't used for a dated joke from the period the episode was made, which misses out another satirical spike.  A whole level that could've happened, thinking about it mid-viewing, if there was a plot twist that George Washington was actually innocent and the Washingtonians had based their flesh eating cult on a fringe delusion. That Ravenous (1999) is a more rewarding take on pioneer era American cannibalism when this was an episode that's not got a lot to say about.

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The Damned Thing (2006)

Director: Tobe Hooper

Screenplay: Richard Christian Matheson

Based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce

Cast: Sean Patrick Flanery as Sheriff Kevin Reddle; Marisa Coughlan as Dina; Brendan Fletcher as Deputy Strauss; Alex Ferris as Mikey Reddle; Brent Stait as John Reddle; Georgia Craig as Jodi Reddle; Ted Raimi as Father Tulli

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) #29

[Major spoiler warnings]

The attempt with The Damned Thing was admirable. But I don't know what to say about Tobe Hooper's second contribution to the Masters of Horror series. The most noticeable thing is that it drastically alters an Ambrose Bierce's story and turns it into a curious mix between an environmental story and an apocalypse narrative. Sheriff Kevin Reddle (Sean Patrick Flanery), the central character, suffered trauma when his father on his birthday suddenly snapped for no explainable reason, killing his wife and trying to kill Kevin as a child before he was ripped to shreds by an invisible force. This force is a curse on the men in the family, one when it goes after the males over generations brings an evil influence on everyone surrounding them, local communities turned towards irrational insanity and violence, both self harm and aggression to others, that leads to destruction and mass death.

While its subtle in back-story, the "damned thing" accidentally woken up by oil drilling and a force which has hexed the generations of people in one family, it's vague without reward. There's too many pieces missing that could've added a greater impact to the material. Especially when the monster is revealed as a CGI oil slick creature, there's a sense of too many plot points being unfocused and lacking, a misbegotten narrative as a result which should've been feature length. It also feels pointless for this to have even adapted the Bierce story as whilst that tale has enough material of interest in itself, an invisible creature and the fall out of a death its caused, it feels utterly pointless to have kept this potentially evolved predator in this episode when it's trying to be more of a literal evil from the Earth.

I cannot argue that Hooper, an older man at this time, showed so much energy with his frenzied production style here, the violent editing and intensity much more controlled and effective here than in his season one episode Dance of the Dead (2005).  There's an aggressive mood which suits a director whose famous work always had a sense of the mad and dangerous to it, heightened still here after three decades of it before. Particularly as it means Ted Raimi, he of permanent cameos in his brothers films for me, plays a priest who eventually starts howling like a madman, I can appreciate the energy.The issue is that the plot is a jumble which doesn't gel, something I have to wonder is the fault of screenwriter Richard Christian Matheson, as he also wrote Dance of the Dead which was also failed in this area. The Damned Thing because of this is a disappointment. 

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Masters of Horror Season 1 Part 5

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Jenifer (2005)

Director: Dario Argento

Screenplay: Steven Weber

Based on a comic book story Jenifer by written by Bruce Jones and illustrated by Berni Wrightson

Cast: Steven Weber as Frank Spivey; Carrie Anne Fleming as Jenifer; Brenda James as Ruby Spivey; Harris Allan as Pete Spivey; Beau Starr as Chief Charlie; Laurie Brunetti as Spacey

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) #12

Amongst the growing list of disappointing entries by favourite directors in this series, Dario Argento's Jenifer can be added to them. This is neither with a sense of pain other fans of Argento's either as my relationship to his work, past Opera (1987) to be technically accurate, is more complicated than others who merely look down on it all mostly. I'd argue Sleepless (2001), flaws and virtues alike, was a great later gem and I'm not in a minority with that thankfully¹. For that period in general, the nineties is the one hazy area of Argento's career I need to view but after Sleepless I'll admit it's not been a great run. Not completely painful to sit through but with lows like Mother of Tears (2007) I couldn't delude myself in viewing as good.

There's still brief snippets of the old Argento though in these later films, like the ending of Giallo (2009), which in amidst the bad (like Adrien Brody in Giallo also) makes it a far more difficult job evaluating what's happened to the quality control of Argento's filmography. Personally the strain of resources available to Argento as a genre filmmaker is the real issue, which ties back into his episode of Masters of Horror if one forgives a tangent for the paragraph. Horror is in a scenario, since the 2000s, where it's in a golden age for many but there's none of the vibrant industry in other places where one would think it could be capitalised on. Older directors in this series (Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter) were edged out of the market at this point and for Argento it was likely a even bigger mountain to climb as (arguably) the last Italian genre filmmaker of the golden age of the industry still churning films out. Not all of them were considered "great", but the iconic and memorable names from the late fifties-early nineties run of Italian genre filmmaking have mostly left or are gone. Others died as the industry also died (Lucio Fulci), retired (Sergio Martino), had to leave or go to television directing other genres (Michele Soavi), or ended careers shooting super low budget films elsewhere until their deaths (Bruno Mattei in the Philippines). Argento, one of the best of them all, is the last of them too. He's also not someone helped by the resources he's stuck with, the screenplays he's stuck with for later work nor the lower budgets and increasing use of materials like CGI. A TV production like Masters of Horror sadly doesn't help either.

I have never read the original comic tale Jenifer originates from, though it does have a considerable reputation, enough to have been included in 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die next to legendary titles, something whatever you think of such books is still of considerable interest here for a medium like horror comics. The story as adapted to screen here - another glum policeman for the series - Frank Spivey (Steve Weber) rescues a woman from being killed in the woods only to find she's both deformed severely in the face and a simple minded, cannibalistic entity he becomes obsessive over - doesn't come off well with an immediate problem in the gender depiction. Inherently what should be a fascinating tale of male obsession over women, where one figure still yields a powerful sensuality in spite of drastic birth defects, just evokes the misogynistic phrase involving the words "paper bag". The script doesn't help, lead actor Weber not a good penman as he has male characters say "subtle" dialogue about how beautiful Jenifer is below the neck, the result of which is just the start of how crass the story is instead of showings the innate meanings you could draw from between the lines. 

The problems have nothing to do with actress Carrie Anne Fleming as Jenifer mind. In fact, under heavy makeup baring one dream sequence where she's seen without it, Fleming as an actress I've never seen in any other production does a commendable job, the one little slither of saving grace to an otherwise bland episode by doing something far more rewarding than anyone else onscreen. Playing it as a adult child who doesn't understand the difference between animal or human (even child) as baring when jealously is involved, she does a commendable job of playing a savant who yet welds an knowing, wanting sense of sensuality that proceeds to scramble Spivey's mind. In the best circumstance, a story like this rather than evoking the unfortunate misogynistic ideas I mentioned a paragraph before should've been about the problems underlining the male heterosexual libido, evoking not only ancient myths of female-monster hybrids that complicated men's notions of female beauty, but more modern retellings of this issue such as Junji Ito's pitch perfect take for manga Tomie (1987-2000) where men are easily bended towards amorality against a figure entirely supernatural, to which Fleming is playing her role as. Unfortunately, as much as I view Dario Argento as one of the best horror/mystery directors of all time, he's clearly here not a director meant for small scale character drama especially when it's not presenting him anything to work with baring Fleming herself.

What plays off as a psycho-sexual drama, where an original act of kindness by the protagonist becomes a strangely beautiful love affair, should be something worth so much more fascinating and transgressive beyond merely nasty gore. Even when Jenifer commits atrocious acts, Spivey gladly buries the evidence and flees with her, which could've lead to a rewarding narrative even if it deviated away from the original text. But the wrong person is at the helm. It's also clear the script is not good enough, just for how obvious and crass it is before as much of the blame is on Argento as well. How else does one explain how the immediate reaction to first meeting Jenifer leading to Spivey's emotional state being depicted with an unfortunate choice of moment in the episode, a change of behaviour mid-coitus with his wife later that night in the bedroom which comes off as silly as it is eyebrow raising. As much of this is Argento too in terms of the lack of carefulness to this material felt onscreen.

The utter lack of any of Argento's style is also felt. Even Dracula 3D (2012) has more of his touch in comparison, which is a truly damning comment to say. Only having Claudio Simonetti, a regular collaborator, evokes any of the old magic even if the score's far from memorable. The production style of Masters of Horror feels alien for a director as visual obsessed as Argento, but further enforced as well near the end of this series is that, again, when the story's not up to snuff there's going to be problems, even if its adaptation a stone cold classic from another medium.

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Dance of the Dead (2005)

Director: Tobe Hooper

Screenplay: Richard Christian Matheson

Based on a short story by Richard Matheson

Cast: Margot Berner as Marie; Marilyn Norry as Kate; Sharon Heath as Gerri; Jessica Lowndes as Peggy; Robert Englund as the MC; Ryan McDonald as Boxx; Jonathan Tucker as Jak; Don MacKay as Steven           

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) #13

Dance of the Dead, set in a post apocalyptic world where chemical warfare's ravaged the American infrastructure, attempts its hardest to stand out amongst the pack. To do so, it's the most mid 2000s of the entire season in appearance and style but it was a nice try. Shaky camera. Quick editing. Beige, grey and washed out colours. Faux Goth and alt culture at the bar where the title event happens, where people are half naked, bound in leather or thrashing about to the house metal band whilst Robert Englund's the MC for Hell in his snake-like manner and constant potty mouth. Consider Tobe Hooper was in his early sixties at the time of this production, it at least warmed my heart briefly that the director I'll defend more than others was just as wild and unhinged as he was throughout the rest of his career. I'll openly admit to being an apologist, but Hooper's career is much more rewarding than initially thought of after Poltergeist (1982) throughout the eighties. Its only from Crocodile (2000) onwards, the film where any of his trademark manic energy and style was sold out, that the films are more difficult to defend from what I've seen, where even The Mangler (1995) beforehand still had a glorious derangement to it in spite of its silliness. In the beginning it looks like Dance of the Dead will be the same with an added advantage of trying to stand out from the other episodes.

As a story however Dance of the Dead is bad. A tedious drama of a young woman  growing up in post-apocalypse America going with the wrong crowd against her mother's wishes, a drama which doesn't work due to the lack of interest in any of the characters. The plot revolves entirely around its titular event which is obvious from the beginning and leads to clichés of chemical experimentation and exploitation of human life at the club. Even the title event is nothing of particular interest, leading to nothing but actors writhing about on a stage. The other problem, more crucial is that it relies on an emotional hook about the protagonist's older sister throughout the narrative. This is a problem as, baring flashbacks to a birthday party where she's a child, not as an adult, one is not provided with the connective tissue as an adult character one needs for her absence to effect one, thus leaving her as a disconnected non-entity. By its end Dance of the Dead is one of the more difficult episodes of Masters of Horror to write a lot about because it has little to actual write about in detail. Nothing particularly stands out as actually of interest, not even Englund in a very sleazy role, because there's no meat to the material as an actual story. The result after the initial rush of its tone is an immense disappointment for me.

From https://vareverta.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/dance.jpg

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(1) - If only more people could see it nowadays though. An abrupt legal issue meant Arrow Video in the UK didn't just let the license go out of print, but were forced to pull copies off Amazon etc. Whatever the reason, sadly it means it's more difficult for newcomers to the director to see the film in a decent release. Bolstered by his more creative scenes of the 2000s, Max von Sydow in the best performance in any Argento film, and a killer soundtrack from the form of Goblin who reunited for that production, Sleepless has a lot to admire.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

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Director: Tobe Hooper

Screenplay: L. M. Kit Carson

Cast: Dennis Hopper (as Lt. Boude "Lefty" Enright); Caroline Williams (as DJ Vanita "Stretch" Brock); Jim Siedow (as Drayton); Bill Johnson (as Leatherface); Bill Moseley (as Chop Top); Lou Perryman (as L.G.)

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #85

Twelve years later and Tobe Hooper would return to the film that cemented his reputation in horror cinema with a sequel. Attempting to repeat the first Chainsaw film would've been nigh on impossible to complete successfully. Thankfully, despite its negative critical reception originally, the sequel became a personal favourite of mine for what it did drastically different to step out of its prequel's shadow. As much as the first film is the masterpiece, number two is the one I love for what, contestable with Lifeforce (1985), is the peak of Hooper's more manic and hysterical filmmaking. Now the Leatherface clan, cannibalistic sociopaths, are running a successful dining business, only to have to worry about their slaughtering of two yuppies having been recorded live on air during a radio show hosted by Stretch (Caroline Williams), and the uncle of one of their previous victims Lt. "Lefty" (Dennis Hopper) gunning after them as a man as deranged as them once they've reawakened their presence in public again. The result is as eighties as possible - the rough, grimy independent scored by atonal drones is now a colourful Cannon Releasing picture score by cult bands like Oingo Boingo and The Cramps - but the same grotesque tone of the first film is still there, only more weirder. The first was impossible to top in terms of its unrelenting, decaying tone, but the tone Hooper adopted from The Funhouse (1981) onwards, added carnivalesque tone with the grubbiness of before, perfectly suits what the first sequel needed to do to differentiate itself.

Whilst the first was an audiovisual hell of rotting props, the sequel's madness is more exaggerated and openly, gleefully twisted thanks to Tom Savini's more openly visceral practical effect and a cast (Bill Moseley and Hopper especially) that's willing to chew the scenery, Caroline Williams the sole sane figure in the midst of the madness around her with the exception of Lou Perryman as a great good ol' boy and potential love interest L.G. Even the set locations seem as heightened and alive as the characters, the radio station a richly coloured and cluttered environment, whilst the finale set in an abandoned war museum that includes attritions about the Alamo is one of the most unique sets for an eighties horror movie you'll find, skeletons in various bizarre positions to catch out of the corner of your eyes and a junkyard of lighting sources, bones and horrible yet strangely humorous trinkets to cast your gaze over. In the middle of all this, Dennis Hooper at his most heightened behind Frank Booth in Blue Velvet (also 1986), a religious minded cop obsessed with vengeance, and Bill Moseley nailing his debut, and cementing his cult status at the same time, with Chop Top, a twin of the Hitchhiker which cross-pollinates a hippie and a Vietnam war veteran into one of the strangest characters in American horror film history, caked on grey makeup and metal skull piece, the kind of character that in any other film would've been excruciating in his maniac behavour, from molesting corpses to crying out for the Leatherface family to build 'Nam Land, but is utterly compelling to watch instead. (Especially when compared to examples trying to replicate Moseley's work in later Chainsaw sequels) Add to this Jim Siedow returning as the Cook, having some of the funniest and political satirical lines, and what could've been utterly overbearing in tone is perversely playful.  

Especially as someone who's taste in horror comedy can vary, this one manages to find the right balance, something that need to include the presence of screenwriter L. M. Kit Carson, a man who two years earlier wrote the script for Wim Wender's Paris, Texas; whilst the story had to be boiled down further due to the low budget the production was given, it's noticeable how more inspired and full of memorable dialogue the script is, even when it comes to moments of exposition, and honestly even next to the first film, this is the film in the series where the quality of the writing, even in a b-movie horror film, really has a significant effect on its virtues. The result of this is that this greater sense of humour, well written, makes the material even more disgusting at points. This is still a film, whilst funny to reflect on, where someone's face is removed with an electronic carver you'd used to cut turkey, a lurid nastiness that's perversely funny common in a lot of Hooper's films and, unlike the first where I just found it intense and nightmarish throughout, has more space here to skewer your reactions to the carnage involved. 

Now fed on Reaganomic politics and the era of yuppie culture, it's a vastly different film from the first but for the better, allowing for me as a fan of the pair to have two films that don't conflict together, able to exist in the same universe but within the span of one being a seventies film and the other an eighties film, the former a rough and nasty film to reflect its period, the later reflecting the horror comedies of the eighties which still caused one to feel icky and weird, the former a nasty and real looking film of events that could take place in backwater USA, the later whilst feeling authentically Texan even as someone who hasn't set foot there whilst being intentionally broad, Chop-Top all the worst qualities of the previous eras politics made into a cartoon and no one paying broad mind to the clear lack of sanitary measures to the Leatherface family's award winning chilli, especially when Siedow can convince someone a tooth is actually a piece of shell. The politics are merely a slither to the second film for me personally, a background influence that's still as important and a virtue but not overpowering, like with the first film, with this being a piece of carnivalesque American grotesquery first. A large part of the film's success is that, knowing of its troubled production history (the budget slashed down to badly, the negative reaction from the producers about the film being a comedy horror story than a remake of the first film), it's maddened tone feels natural and uncompromised. Even before the final act where the film becomes it's most intense, the experience is as frenzied as you could get already as a living breathing fantasy. 

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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

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Director: Tobe Hooper

Screenplay: Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel

Cast: Marilyn Burns (as Sally); Allen Danziger (as Jerry); Paul A. Partain (as Franklin); William Vail (as Kirk); Teri McMinn (as Pam); Edwin Neal (as the Hitchhiker); Jim Siedow (as the Cook); Gunnar Hansen (as Leatherface); John Dugan (as the Grandfather)

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #83

How do I even cover The Texas Chain Saw Massacre when countless professional writers and documentary filmmakers have done so many times? Honestly the only way is realising, now seeing this film 4K resolution in the golden age of preservation, how this cleaned up sheen doesn't hide but reveal how grimy and disgusting the film is. Growing up at the time the whole fiasco of this film being unavailable in the UK had gone when James Ferman of the BBFC was, and able to buy this film for the first time on DVD in a Tescos supermarket (?!), I came to it less as the forbidden fruit of horror as older British horror fans did but as the controversial statesman of American seventies horror that shredded ones nerves, a film I actually dissected in college Film Studies classes but still found greasy and nasty even after combing over it for my amateurism first attempts of critical evaluation. It's a film that only when you're watching it again rather than going by face value, as five unwitting young adults break down in their van in Texas and encounter a family of cannibals, how from the start to the end it's a dirt ridden, festering film in tone. Yes the title and iconic poster suit the film inside but sitting through Chain Saw for the first time in years I also can put them to the actual movie and its own virtues. When many canonical horror films are put up to iconic status, actually watching them again brings forth a reality check when you realise how provocative and still dangerous in tone ones like Chain Saw still are, especially with the 2013 sequel in 3D being a neutered Hollywood creation and a second prequel existing but yet to be released.

Were it not for Marilyn Burn's white bell bottoms and some of the floral shirts, this film would exist in a timeless reality of desolate dirt roads and petrol stations barely open. It's routed in the political and social issues of the time it was made, but like most of these Southern set, southern made American exploitation films (at least the most evocative), they're one step away from the Southern Gothic, are submerged within it. For all the realism and harshness of the film's editing and atonal score by Tobe Hooper and Wayne Bell, it's also filled with melancholic, almost half asleep country music and the Leatherface family can't help but evoke something Flannery O'Conner could create if she was more extreme, barely functioning but with strangely idyllic family values. Working class, hard working Americans, with respect for their grandparents and their wisdom, as the mummified Grandpa sits centre at the dining table, Leatherface the improvised matriarch and younger brother who keeps the home clean of random unwanted guests, a living room of bone furniture without a brain rotting TV and a pet chicken swinging in a cage, details which thankfully would keep being added and played with in the first few sequels so that, whether you liked the films or not, the Leatherface family would still be used to skewer idyllic family structures continually.

And the film's revolting in tone, a revulsion that for certain people, who are wired a certain way like myself and honour these horror movies, which is repulsive and strain our eyes and yet, from a distance, attract us with their rundown, decayed allured. The Franklin house the protagonists get to itself is full of giant balls of Daddy Long Legs and rotten animal print wallpaper, a grim sense of abandonment before you get to the Leatherface home full of art director Robert A. Burns' ritualistic and magnificent abominations of bone and flesh. Notoriously the set the film worked in was hellish - rotting props, actors like Gunner Hansen stuck with only one costume, makeup artist Dorothy J. Pearl accidentally stabbing herself with a needle of formaldehyde whilst preparing real dead animals for background objects - all of which you can feel and even smell from the screen. That it's aesthetics that of an abattoir, imagining Frederick Wiseman's documentary Meat (1976) in its visceral and down-to-earth nature as the film's tone without ever going into an actual slaughterhouse, just adds to the repulsion even if I'm someone comfortable still with eating meat.

A lot of also why the film still retains is power is also why Tobe Hooper is still an underappreciated director. It's impossible for me to view Chain Saw as a comedy as others can for how unrelenting it is, too intense and like having nails pulled off, but the tone of unpredictability and manic energy, between being twisted and then hilariously weird, is still there and the key thing that keeps it all together, weaving all the other virtues (the naturalist, scorched cinematography, Burns' and everyone elses' performance etc) around it. Sadly Hooper got dismissed for having made little of interest until his later films - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II (1986), Lifeforce (1985), The Funhouse (1981) - got reappraisals, and even now it doesn't get talked about enough how all his films at least to the nineties have an incredible, frantic nature to them rare to his contemporaries, the equivalent of someone in a straight-jacket bouncing off the rubber walls in how chaotic the tone of the films feel, a rare virtue when even the most offensive, violent horror film like now feels "safe" because of its measured, flat atmosphere.

Thankfully with the 1986 sequel this same tone, injected with more brazen humour, was resurrected creating a personal favourite of mine alongside the original prequel, although the obvious concern with this franchise after the first film, like with Halloween (1978) onwards, is whether any of the same intentions are to be found in later sequels having confirmed the first Chain Saw is a stone cold, canonical masterpiece of the horror genre.

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Lifeforce (1985)

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Director: Tobe Hooper

Screenplay: Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby (with Michael Armstrong & Olaf Pooley)

Cast: Steve Railsback, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, Mathilda May, Aubrey Morris

Length: 116 mins

Synopsis: A US-UK co-mission into space to investigate the passing Hailey's Comet, on the space shuttle Churchill, encounters an alien spaceship, bringing back on board three humanoids housed in crystal cases. They turn out to be space vampires, the beautiful female of the three (Mathilda May) awaking and escaping from a British space facility. It is up to Col. Colin Caine (Peter Firth) and the only surviving member of the Churchill Col. Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback), the later connected psychically to the female vampire, to prevent them at least decimating London.

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I'm a Tobe Hooper fan. This means not only liking The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Poltergeist (1982) and Salem's Lot (1979), but willing to put up defences to other films or even admitting to liking them. The common conception is that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre happened and after that everything went downhill, which is what a Hooper fan like myself will strongly disagree with. For starters, not only was there a film before as his debut Eggshells (1969), but there are a strong number of films, already mentioned, that stand out in his career. I won't disagree with the fact that, honestly, he suffered over the decades but I will defend a film like Spontaneous Combustion (1990), and even a film as bad as Crocodile (2000) is strangely watchable and certainly couldn't dismiss the quality of an older work like Eaten Alive (1977).

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The three film deal with Cannon Films should've be the best moment in Tobe Hooper's career, when Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus gave him carte blanche for three movies, but I feel it's the moment where his career would be drastically affected from then on. Unfortunately while an exceptional sequel that gets better the more I watch it,  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) didn't do well because people were excepting the same as the first film and its graphic gore would've severely limited its potential audience. I've yet to see Invaders From Mars (1986) and the original fifties film, but Hooper's remake didn't succeed either. Finally there's Lifeforce, the most expensive Cannon Films production and not a box office success either. It was a film with a hellish production history including going over budget and having a shorter US theatrical cut said to be incomprehensible. Viewing this film for the first time, in its longer International cut, it had been built up with a reputation good and bad of a bizarre folly.

From http://postmodernbarney.com/images08/lifeforce.jpg

The result is a b-movie sci-fi flick, literally a sexed up Quatermass, set in contemporary Britain including very notorious amounts of nudity from Mathilda May and gore. The b-movie is capable of rich material, but the stereotype is that of a movie which is lean in the content around the plot, minimal in anything barring the essentials like thrills, and hopefully has charm, charisma and maybe excellent technical virtues. Lifeforce is definitely one of those sort of films, not a philosophical work though analogies can be suggested. "Pulp" is apt, and as well as updating films like The Day That Stood Still (1951) into a lurid interpretation, it also possesses undeniably opulent production design and special effects. If there's a potential issue with this film's story, it's not the danger of incomprehensibility but when it confuses its sense of scale. A large middle portion of its length is the hunt for the female vampire but, to limit the spoilers immensely, this becomes a red herring and, rather than an Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), it becomes an elaborate disaster film in the ending.

From http://www.containsmoderateperil.com/wp-content
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Technical Details:

If Lifeforce shows off anything, its pride as a British film viewer at the work of countless special effect and production designers, though when you have people who worked on the likes of James Bond films to Star Wars, that's not a surprise. Adding to this is optical effects from the best of the USA, hired during the protracted production shoot, adding a further and peculiar air to Lifeforce. A great deal of why Lifeforce is able to work is because of this production design, filling out and adding character to the story. When the astronauts of space shuttle Churchill enter the alien spaceship, its actors are in accurate spacesuits floating on wires, travelling through a complex full scale set with bat humanoid husks dangling in mid-air in an environment designed by someone with a fixation on anatomy diagrams. When the vampires take action, sucking the literal life-force rather than blood physical substances, you get into a zombie subplot where animatronic dread husks that still look great today try to suck the life-force from a bystander in a vicious continuous cycle like a chain letter.

When the film becomes more of an end of the world scenario, it becomes more of a standard zombie breakout with a lot more exploding double decker buses. But there is still a consistency in production even if the film has skipped through various forms of sci-fi. The biggest advantage to this, not just the incredible craft and hard work, is that they add further personality rather than merely completing scenes left. In this case the spectacle not only stands out whether one feels Lifeforce has any worth or not, but despite the confusion it does keep a consistent tone for the film. It's a very physical narrative. Alongside a lot of nudity and explicit sexuality, there's also a level of the corporal and kink that you don't see a lot in other science fiction the production emphasises. It's apt the alien spaceship looks like a H.R. Gigar designed dildo with an umbrella at the end. The crystal cases the space vampires sleep in are as sleek and alluring as the figures sleeping in them. The optical for the sucked out life-force adds a great deal of colour and the ethereal to the content, and even something as gruesome as a vampire reforming from a victim's blood has a sensuality and a surrealness not just from the actress involving in the scene.

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The cast adds gravitas that also helps immensely. While Steve Railsback is good for a shell shocked lead, and Mathilda May shows bravery in willing to walk around sets completely naked, the real weight, not just a bias of mine for fellow countrymen, is from the British character actors. The decision to set the film in Britain stands out, a different tone in the British stiff upper lip and quirks adding to the content, Hooper's desire to make a "70mm Hammer" movie paying off. I admit to being very cold many times to my country's genre output but I could never dismiss the quality of the acting. Aubrey Morris as Sir Percy Heseltine who tags along being unnerved by what he witnesses. Frank Finlay as the main scientist trying to find a preventative cause against the vampires. Patrick Stewart in a memorable role in one of the oddest scenes which included his first onscreen kiss, the least expected you could have in cinema. While Steve Railsback has a significant role as a person haunted in his dreams by an alluring female vampire, its Peter Firth whose the lead, the tough no-nonsense SAS officer who yet, because of the actor, does show moments of horror and disbelief even if he gets the job done. As much as one would wish for the alternative version of this film with Klaus Kinski in Frank Finlay's role, credibility to the film is mostly from the cast, able to make the more absurd plot narration and dialogue have tangibility to it.

From http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6v6zr6Lsh1rae5vno1_1280.jpg

Abstract Spectrum: Psychotronic; Pulp

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

One of the best aspects of Tobe Hooper's films is their delirious tones. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is as much iconic from its soundtrack and pace as well as for Leatherface, while the sequel's change to comedy managed to amplify the content further. Films that would've been muted in tone depending on who directed them have a manic tone that is his trademark. The Funhouse (1981) ramping up its tone by its end, Eaten Alive with sets and bold coloured lighting Hooper was forced with when on-location shooting was impossible, even a film like The Mangler (1995) with its expressionist tone and Robert Englund's maniacal performance. This is why I've never believed in the theory Steven Spielberg directed Poltergeist, because while moments do show the fact he helped in the production, the intensity of certain scenes is far from Spielberg even at his most ghoulish. Lifeforce in hindsight to this should be as heightened in tone, especially with its reputation and what the narrative is about.

From http://www.rotaryaction.com/images/lifeforce1.jpg

It's disappointing to say, for its virtues, Lifeforce is one of the least delirious films in his CV despite its reputation. It's likely the US cut cemented that reputation, the film very much a straightforward sci-fi narrative. Hooper usually has a heightened, exaggerated tone to his work that's not present here. The Quatermass reference is apt because, while the plot ideas are elaborate and the ending is fitting a Cannon Films production, the film is methodically paced and avoids very off-kilter ideas. Moments undoubtedly show Hooper's trademark, such as the exorcism of Patrick Stewart, but for most of the film's length it's pulp updated for a more mature audience.

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Personal Opinion:

But that doesn't stop me from enjoying the film. It's a romp that, despite its production history and tonal shifts, never deteriorates in structure. Any sense of real disappointment is more in my preference in lesser known films like The Funhouse. The strength of the production, one of the few times where I see it as a huge virtue, unlike where even an Indiana Jones film can leave me cold, really helped protect Lifeforce from the problems that were taking place in plotting. And I can't help, relishing flag waving for once, but feel pride that this was definitely a British production as well as an American one.