This past August, I got to see Alice Cooper perform live in concert (on a triple bill with classic rockers Deep Purple and Edgar Winter!). The Coop’s Grand Giugnol antics, complete with a ten-foot Frankenstein, a murderous danse macabre with a ballerina, the famous guillotine routine, loads of pyro, and the incredible shredding of guitar goddess Nita Strauss, stole the show. Alice has always been the most theatrical of rockers, and the man’s still got it!
In 1975, Alice released his first solo LP without his longtime backing band, “Welcome to My Nightmare”, featuring Cooper classics like “Cold Ethyl”, “Black Widow”, “Only Women Bleed”, and the title track. A videotaped TV special was made to coincide with the album, and horror icon Vincent Price was brought in to play ‘The Curator of The Nightmare’ (Price did narration for ‘Black Widow’ on the record, predating Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”). If you’ve got…
Take, for example, Shallow Creek Cult, yet another micro-budget offering in the “found footage” sub-genre released in 2013 (although I’ve seen its actual production date listed as being 2012 and even 2009, so don’t ask me what’s up with that) that was filmed in BF Louisiana by a would-be writer/director/star who bills himself as “King Jeff.” Our guy Jeff — or our guy King, take your pick — is in good company in the pseudonym department given that the dude who plays his brother goes by the handle of “Gorio,” but beyond that, anything resembling actual originality is pretty hard to come by here : we’re told that the footage we’re about to see is property of the “Shallow Creek Police Department,” we open with snippet-length interviews of local residents talking about the supposed “cult” that operates in the area, and then…
I’m not really a horror person. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I started digging into the genre. I only got to Christine (1983) a couple of days ago. I sought it out simple to write about this music video. Up till then, all I knew about it was that it had a killer car and that there is an episode of Quantum Leap where Sam Beckett gives Stephen King the idea for it.
Quantum Leap S3:E5 – The Boogieman
Quantum Leap S3:E5 – The Boogieman
Quantum Leap S3:E5 – The Boogieman
Quantum Leap S3:E5 – The Boogieman
Quantum Leap S3:E5 – The Boogieman
Quantum Leap S3:E5 – The Boogieman
Quantum Leap S3:E5 – The Boogieman
The episode title is The Boogieman and there is a little tie-in with Halloween I want to mention that is within Christine. If you remember, Christine takes place in 1978 between September and December.
Christine (1983, dir. John Carpenter)
It means that within the Carpenter universe, the events of Halloween I & II happened while Christine was going on.
Getting to the video, I knew that Carpenter did movie scores. But I didn’t know that he’s gone into music, complete with a music video for his theme to Christine. It’s pretty cool.
It of course starts off with the “Show me” scene.
Christine (1983, dir. John Carpenter)
I’d like to think that this is Carpenter acknowledging that his movie really didn’t start until the hour mark. The film clocks in at about 110 minutes.
Carpenter himself drives the car, and soon comes across a broken down yellow car called The Thing with a woman waiting next to it.
That is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Let me explain.
Obviously it is referencing Carpenter’s film The Thing (1982). That’s a given. Now let me remind you of the ending of Christine.
The ending of Christine happens in a building within a junkyard. The guy who has become obsessed with Christine is behind the wheel. His two friends have a bulldozer that they intend to stop Christine with.
Christine (1983, dir. John Carpenter)
They end up doing just that.
Christine (1983, dir. John Carpenter)
It was no coincidence that a bulldozer destroyed Christine. Remember Killdozer from 1974?
Killdozer (1974, dir. Jerry London)
In that film, a bulldozer is given life by a rock that falls from space, and it proceeds to go on a rampage. Christine is effectively stopped by Killdozer.
It goes further than that though. In Killdozer, they realize near the end of the film that they can’t destroy the machine. They say that they have to destroy “the thing”. They do it via electrocution. They lure it on to some material that they electrify to destroy “the thing” inside the bulldozer, thus stopping Killdozer.
Killdozer (1974, dir. Jerry London)
That is the same ending as The Thing From Another World (1951). They electrocute The Thing in that as well.
The Thing From Another World (1951, dir. Christian Nyby & Howard Hawks)
That movie is what Carpenter remade as The Thing.
By having that car be there in a music video for Christine with “The Thing” written on the side and having it be painted yellow, ties Christine, The Thing, Killdozer, and The Thing From Another World together. Perfect!
You might recall that this electrocution thing came up in It Follows (2014) as the pool scene.
The rest of the video has Christine chasing after a woman played by Rita Volk from the TV show Faking It. In the grand tradition of films like Christine and Killdozer, she continues to run right in the path of the car even though nothing is preventing her from getting out of the way.
Carpenter stops the car, and opens the door for her. I’m not sure why he is dressed like that. I’m sure it’s also a reference to something. I just don’t know what.
Then they drive off.
There is a big list of credits on the YouTube page. Some of the people involved with this video worked on Carpenter’s feature films. I’ll list them at the end.
If you want to see some behind-the-scenes stuff, then hopefully that video is still below.
Enjoy!
Director: John Carpenter
Producer: Sandy King
Production Manager: Justin Moritt
1st Asst. Director: Tony Adler
Director of Photography: Eduardo Fierro
Production Designer: David Redier-Linsk
Editor: Patrick McMahon
Optical effects: Scott Gregory
Location Manager: Jennifer Dunne
Stunt Co-ordinator/Driver of Christine: Jeff Imada
Stylist: Sophie Gransard-Davies
Hair Stylist: Christian Marc
Make-up Artist: Samuel Paul
Storm King Special Projects Coordinator: Ross Sauriol
Office co-ordinator: Sean Sobczak
Post-Productions Services: Warner Bros.
Christine courtesy of Bill Gibson
VW Thing car courtesy of DC Motors of Anaheim Hills, CA
Christine Girl wardrobe courtesy of Joe’s Jeans.
Starring: Rita Volk and John Carpenter
So here’s an interesting one : more or less a one-man production helmed by writer/director/cinematographer/editor/star Josh Criss, 2012’s Leaving D.C. is the working definition of a “bare-bones” production. Lower than low-budget, lower than micro-budget, we’ve straight-up landed in “no-budget” territory here, a truly homemade effort shot on a now-outdated camcorder by a guy with only a rudimentary working knowledge of what he was doing — but bound and determined, for whatever reason, to make himself a movie anyway. And he took it all the way to Amazon Prime. Not bad for what probably was a few days’ work, am I right?
Here’s the most impressive part about the entire enterprise, though : it’s actually pretty good. And not just by “vanity project” standards, but by any standards.
Criss plays Mark Klein, a guy who’s gotten fed up with the big-city rat race in our nation’s capitol (hence the title) and…
The Twilight Zone wasn’t the only televised horror anthology show to air in the late 50s and early 60s! There was also a show called One Step Beyond, which ran for three seasons. It was hosted by a man named John Newland and each episode was supposedly based on an event that may have actually occurred … an event that defied rational explanation!
The episode features one of the icons of horror cinema, the one and only Christopher Lee! Lee plays a German soldier who, during World War I, enlists a local psychic to discover whether or not his lover is being faithful to him. When he discovers that she isn’t, he uses the psychic’s powers to get revenge. Afterward, when he wants to confess to his crime, he runs into a problem. No one believes him because he was over 800 miles away when the crime occurred.
To be honest, the main reason to watch this episode is to see Christopher Lee but isn’t that reason enough? Lee was one of the great gentlemen of horror and his performance in this episode helps to show why.
Before I say anything else about 1974’s The House on Skull Mountain, I just want to say how much I love the film’s poster. Seriously, that poster is everything that you could hope for from an exploitation film print ad. Everything about it, from the lightning to the giant skull to the mansion to the unfortunate person plunging to her doom is pure perfection. I especially like the question at the bottom of the poster: “Which of these five will come down alive?”
And, to be honest, it’s actually a fairly honest poster. The majority of the film really does take place in a house on a mountain that has features that look like a skull. Of course, the skull in the movie is not quite as prominent as the one in the poster. The house actually does look a lot like the one on the poster. There’s also a lot of lightning in the movie. It’s the same basic lightning stock footage that has appeared in almost every film ever produced by Roger Corman. In The House on Skull Mountain, it’s used as a transitional device. “Is that scene over?” you might find yourself wondering. Well, don’t worry. The lightning stock footage will let you know.
One reason that I’m focusing on the poster is because the film itself is kind of anemic. In the movie, the house on top of Skull Mountains belongs to Pauline Christophe, a direct descendant of the first king of Haiti. Upon her death, Pauline’s four great granchildren are invited to hear the reading of her will. None of the four have ever met Pauline or each other. Phillippe (Mike Evans) is an alcoholic who says stuff like, “Baby, what’s the scene?” Harriet (Xernona Clayton) is fragile and nervous and it certainly doesn’t help her nerves when she briefly sees a hooded skeleton sitting a few rows in front of her on her flight to Atlanta. Lorena (Janee Michelle) drives too fast but is otherwise responsible and mature. And then there’s Dr. Andrew Cunningham (Victor French), who shows up late and turns out to be white.
“You’re the wrong color!” Phillippe snaps at him.
Andrew shrugs and says that he’ll explain it all later. He does eventually tell a story about being abandoned on the front steps of an orphanage but the dialogue is so awkwardly-written and delivered that I’m not sure if he is being serious or if he is poking fun at Phillippe’s shock.
Because Andrew showed up late, the four of them have to stay in the house for a week until Pauline’s lawyer returns to read the will. Keeping them company is the butler, Thomas (Jean Durand), and Loutte (Ella Woods) the maid.
And that’s not all! It also appears that there is a robed skeleton wandering around the house as well! Add to that, the relatives start having visions. One falls down an elevator shaft. Another has a heart attack after someone stabs doll with a pin. Could all of this have something to do with the fact that Pauline and her servants were all dedicated practitioners of voodoo?
Sad to say but the House on Skull Mountain is pretty dull. The film does provide a brief history lesson concerning how Haiti was the only nation to be formed as a result of a slave rebellion and how the real-life Henri Christophe went from being a slave to a king but the film doesn’t really do much with the information. It’s tempting to look for some sort of subtext in the film’s plot but it’s really just not there. Much like Andrew being the only white member of a historically important black family, the history of Haiti and the actual origins of Haitian voodoo are elements that are brought up and then quickly abandoned. There is one good and lengthy voodoo ceremony but otherwise, the whole film is almost all filler. When it’s not showing us the same lighting stock footage, it’s showing us Andrew and Lorena wandering around Atlanta.
Before I start, if you haven’t watched the first two Bunnyman movies, do yourself a favor and go watch them now…don’t worry about reading this review…just go down that rabbit hole now, I’ll be here when you get back.
(For those of you that are impatient, Bunnyman trilogy is about a man who dresses like a Bunny and likes to hunt Easter eggs…(FFS…watch the damn movies!!)
Let’s talk about the technical stuff while everybody catches up!
Writer-director: Carl Lindbergh,
Starring:
Diana Prince (Puppet Master: Axis Termination),
Debby Gerber (“Glee”)
Marshal Hilton (The Bunnyman Massacre)
Now on to the VENGEANCE! and I mean let the fur fly!
Preview:
The man known as Bunnyman returns home to find his family running a haunted house attraction. The family welcomes him home, but soon realizes you cannot domesticate a wild animal. Death and mayhem ensue as the family turns on one another to fulfill their bloodlust…
Review:
If you haven’t already guessed, I am a huge fan of the Bunnyman movies. And when I got this screener I couldn’t watch fast enough. In this final chapter, all …umm Rabbies break lose and vengeance is regained! And I mean regained with a VENGEANCE!
Would I recommend this movie?
Nothing will stop you from watching the final chapter. Watch it as soon as you can escape your bloody burrow…or I will be gunning for your rabbit skin!
Bunnyman: Vengeance will be available on VOD thru Uncorked Entertainment on October 20,2017….
Following the death of her husband, Susan Gordon (Karen Black) relocates to Los Angeles with her teenage daughter, Megan (Rainbow Harvest). An angry goth girl who always wears black and bears a superficial resemblance to Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice, Megan struggles to fit in at her new school and quickly attracts the unwanted attention of the school’s main mean girl, Charlene Kane (Charlie Spradling). Fortunately, Megan has an old and haunted mirror in her room that can not only bring her rotting father back to life but which Megan can also use to kill all of her tormentors.
Of the many rip-offs of Carrie, Mirror Mirror is one of the best and I am surprised that it is not better known. The plot, with a teenage girl using paranormal powers to get revenge on all of the bullies at her school, may be familiar but Mirror Mirror is better executed than most of the other films of its ilk. The script is full of snappy dialogue and, despite the low budget, the special effects are effectively grisly. There’s a scene that does for garbage disposals what Jaws did for the water. One thing that sets Mirror Mirror apart from similar films is that Megan is sometimes not a very sympathetic character. Unlike Carrie, who was scared of her powers and only used them once she was pushed over the edge, Megan is initially very enthusiastic about using the mirror to get revenge for every slight, real and perceived.
The cast also does a good job, with Karen Black giving one of her least restrained performances. Keep an eye out for Yvonne DeCarlo playing a realtor and William Sanderson as Susan’s strange new boyfriend. The best performance comes from Rainbow Harvest, a talented actress who appeared in a handful of movies in the 80s and 90s and then appears to have vanished from the face of the Earth. Believe it or not, Rainbow Harvest was her real name.
Ex-carnival and sideshow performer Tod Browning had combined his love for the macabre and carny life in films before in two silent films with the great Lon Chaney Sr (THE UNHOLY THREE, THE UNKNOWN), but with FREAKS Browning took things to a whole new level. The cast is populated with genuine “abnormalities of nature”, legless and armless wonders, bearded ladies and skeletal men, a crawling human torso and microcephalic pinheads, parading across the screen to shock and frighten the audience. Yet it’s not the “freaks” that are the monsters in this movie, but two specimens of human physical perfection, their healthy bodies hosting malice and murder.
The film opens with a sideshow barker drawing a crowd to a horror hidden in a box, victim of what happens when you dishonor the code of the freaks – “offend one and you offend them all”. A flashback introduces us to the members of this dark carnival…
Following the death of her husband, Susan Gordon (Karen Black) relocates to Los Angeles with her teenage daughter, Megan (Rainbow Harvest). An angry goth girl who always wears black and bears a superficial resemblance to Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice, Megan struggles to fit in at her new school and quickly attracts the unwanted attention of the school’s main mean girl, Charlene Kane (Charlie Spradling). Fortunately, Megan has an old and haunted mirror in her room that can not only bring her rotting father back to life but which Megan can also use to kill all of her tormentors.
Through the Shattered Lens 