Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Music Video of the Day: And She Was by Talking Heads (1984, directed by Jim Blashfield)

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What And She Was is about depends on which member of the Talking Heads you ask.

In an interview with WCNX, drummer Chris Frantz interpreted the song literally, explaining that “It’s a story about a woman who has the power to levitate above the ground and to check out all her neighbors from a kind of bird’s eye view. And the guy who’s writing the song is in love with her and he kinda wishes she would just be more normal and, like, come on back down to the ground, but she doesn’t. She goes floating over the backyard and past the buildings and the schools and stuff and is absolutely superior to him in every way.”

David Byrne, on the other hand, said that it was a song about a “blissed-out hippie chick” that he knew in Baltimore who once told him about an acid trip that she had while lying in a field next to a Yoo-hoo chocolate soda factory.  Byrne explained, “Flying out of her body, etc etc. It seemed like such a tacky kind of transcendence… but it was real! A new kind of religion being born out of heaps of rusted cars and fast food joints. And this girl was flying above it all, but in it too.”

As for the video, it was created by experimental filmmaker, Jim Blashfield.  Blashfield previously pioneered collage-animation style with his short film, Suspicious Circumstances.  The members of Talking Heads were fans of the film and asked Blashfield to create a similar video for their song.  Blashfield, who cited Terry Gilliam as being his number one influence, went on to direct similar videos for Peter Gabriel, Michael Jackson, Tears For Fears, and Weird Al Yankovic.

Hinzman’s Revenge: FleshEater (1988, directed by Bill Hinzman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

It’s Halloween in rural Pennsylvania.  It is a time for hayrides, trick or treating, and flesh eating.  A farmer comes across a box underneath a tree stump.  The box has a seal that says it shouldn’t be opened so, of course, the farmer opens it.  Out pops a member of the undead (Bill Hinzman) who tears the farmer’s throat out and, before you can say Night of the Living Dead, starts an entire zombie outbreak.  Soon, the entire town is under siege as the zombies eat farmers, teenagers, and children alike.  The only thing more dangerous than the zombies is the posse that’s been put together to take them down.  You might survive the night but, in the morning, just try not to get shot by mistake.

Bill Hinzman might not be a familiar name but every horror fan knows his face.  He played the graveyard zombie in the original Night of the Living Dead, the one who killed Johnny and then chased after Barbara.  He ws he zombie who started it all.  Hinzman not only stars in but he also wrote and directed FleshEater, which is basically an extra bloody remake of Romero’s better-known film.  Hinzman even got the some of the same actors who played the members of the posse in Night of the Living Dead to play essentially the same roles in FleshEater.  Hinzman made for a good zombie but, unfortunately, he was not as good a director as Romero.  While there’s more than enough gore and nudity to keep the film’s target audience happy, FleshEater never comes close to duplicating Night of the Living Dead‘s nightmarish intensity.  With most of the victims consisting of shallow teenagers and dumb rednecks, you’ll be on the side of the zombies for the entire movie.

All In A Day’s Work: The Carpenter (1988, directed by Daving Wellington)

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Alice Jarett (Lynne Adams) has problems.

She’s recovering her latest nervous breakdown and her husband, Martin (Pierre Lenoir) is having an affair with one of his students.  Martin and Alice have just moved into a new house that was never actually completed and the construction crew that they’ve hired is made up of lazy nogoodniks who all have mullets.  Alice’s only relief is the carpenter (Wings Hauser) who materializes in the house every midnight and who, unlike the construction crew, carefully and lovingly works on the house while talking about the value of doing a good day’s work.

Even though she comes to believe that the carpenter might be the ghost of a murderer, Alice still falls in love with him and he seems to fall for her too.   Want to get on the carpenter’s bad side?  Just try to hurt Alice or the house.   When a member of the construction crew attempts to rape Alice, the carpenter chops off the rapist’s arm with a radial saw.  When two other construction workers break into the house, the carpenter kills them too.  In fact, the carpenter kills a lot of people and what gives this movie a new wrinkle is that Alice seems to be okay with a lot of those murders.  Is the carpenter real, dead, or a product of Alice’s fragile mental state?  No one knows but the carpenter himself.

The Carpenter is all about Wings Hauser, who was practically the patron saint of straight-to-video exploitation films in the late 80s and early 90s.  The movies tries to keep us guessing as to whether the carpenter is a real person or a ghost but all that matters is that he’s Wings Hauser, giving one of his most crazed performances.  Wings Hauser could make any otherwise bad movie watchable and that’s the case with The Carpenter.

Mary Whitehouse’s Worst Nightmare: 8 Frightening Serials From Doctor Who’s Classic Era

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“Tea time brutality for tots.”

That was the term that a woman named Mary Whitehouse used to describe Doctor Who in 1975.  Mary was the founder of the National Viewers and Listeners Association and, in her crusade to return Britain to decency, she often leveled her harshest criticism at Doctor Who, a show that she regularly claimed was too scary for television.

Did she have a point?  Of course not.  Even children who were scared of the Daleks when they were nine or ten eventually grew up to realize that all you had to do to escape those mutant bastards was run up a staircase.  Still, Doctor Who did occasionally have its memorable horror moments.

Here are eight frightening episodes from Doctor Who‘s classic era:

  1. State of Decay (4 episodes, 1980)

Everyone remembers this classic from the Tom Baker years.  The TARDIS materializes on a planet where the villagers live under the shadow of a dark tower.  Ruled over by three cruel lords, Zargo, Camilla, and Aukon, the villagers are forced to regularly sacrifice their young to appease their rulers.  The Doctor, Romana, K-9, and Adric investigate and discover that Zargo, Camilla, and Aukon are vampires!  After being defeated by the Time Lords, the vampires retreated into E-Space, where they found a new planet to rule.  Of course, that little tosser Adric wants to become a vampire.  Why Romana and the Doctor didn’t leave Adric behind on the vampire planet, I’ll never understand.

2. Horror of Fang Rock (4 episodes, 1977)

This underrated serial is also from the Tom Baker era.  The Doctor and Leela land on the Island of Fang Rock, just off the coast of England, in the early 20th century.   The inhabitants of an isolated lighthouse are being killed, one-by-one, by an alien known as a Rutan.  This episode is full of gothic atmosphere and, despite the Doctor’s best efforts, almost everyone dies.

3. The Talons of Weng-Chiang (6 episodes, 1977)

Of all the Tom Baker episodes, this is my personal favorite.  The Doctor and Leela find themselves in Victorian-era London, where they investigate a murder and discover that they are not the only time traveler in London.  When most people talk about this serial, they focus on the terrible giant rat and the wonderful supporting characters of Jago and Lightfoot.  What I always remember is the Peking Homunuculus, a psycho killer who looks like a puppet and squeals like a pig!

4. The Deadly Assassin (4 episode, 1976)

One final Tom Baker episode.  The Deadly Assassin is unique in that it features the Doctor with no companions.  When the Doctor travels to Gallifrey, he discovers that The Master (played by Peter Pratt) is still alive and determined to destroy the Time Lords.  Having used all of his regenerations, The Master is now not only at his most evil but also horribly disfigured and decaying, a sight to give nightmares to any impressionable viewer!

5/6. Kinda (4 episodes, 1982) and Snakedance (4 episodes, 1983)

Peter Davison was an underrated Doctor and never was he better than in Kinda and its sequel, Snakedance.  In both of these episodes, The Doctor must deal with the efforts of the Mara to possess his companion, Tegan.  Both of these episodes were more creepy than scary but, thanks to the performances of Peter Davison and Janet Fielding, they were effective nonetheless.

7. Spearhead From Space (4 episodes, 1970)

Jon Pertwee made his debut as the Third Doctor in this serial.  The Doctor is exiled to Earth just in time to deal with an invasion by the Nestenes.  Serving as the Nestenes’s invasion force are the Autons, life-size plastic dummies that come to life at inopportune times.  With their stiff movements and expressionless faces, the Autons were regularly cited as one of the Doctor’s creepiest enemies.

8. The Daemons (5 episodes, 1971)

The Third Doctor vs. The Devil!  The Master as a vicar!  A killer statue!  Not even the Brigadier’s order of “Chap with wings!  Six round rapid!” could lighten up the atmosphere of this Jon Pertwee classic.

The Doctor and friends

Friends With Benefits: Demon Wind (1990, directed by Charles Phillip Moore)

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Stupid Cory (Eric Larson) has a surprisingly large number of friends and, one weekend, he drags them all out to a burned-out farmhouse.  It used to belong to Cory’s grandparents and Cory hopes to learn why they died.  As soon as they all arrive, a thick fog rolls in and, quicker than you can say Evil Dead, the farmhouse is under siege by monsters that are definitely not Deadites and all of Cory’s friends turn into demons who spits up pancake batter whenever they die.  it turns out that the demons travel on the wind and there’s nothing this demon wind can’t do.

That’s Demon Wind, which is one of the more forgettable straight-to-video horror films to come out of the 90s.  It has a cult following because it was released with one of those 3-D covers that led to a lot of people renting it but the movie itself is a drag with bad acting, bad dialogue, and not enough gore or nudity to really qualify as even a guilty pleasure.  I did like that Cory’s friends were all given one weird personality quirk to help us keep them apart.  There’s a jock with a brainwashed girlfriend and a nerd and two karate guys who dress up like magicians and do magic tricks.  I also liked that even the nerd could get a hot girlfriend.  Though that happens all the time today, that was a bold move for 1990!  When Cory starts to run low on friends, more of them drive up from out of nowhere.  Those are some loyal friends!  Too bad Cory gets everyone killed for no good reason.

Keep an eye out for Lou Diamond Phillips, who was married to the film’s assistant director and who has a cameo as one of the demons.

Cold Terror: Dead of Winter (1987, directed by Arthur Penn)

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Katie (Mary Steenburgen) is a struggling actress with an out-of-work husband (William Russ) and a deadbeat brother (Mark Malone).  Desperately in need of money, Kate goes to an open audition and is immediately hired by Mr. Murray (Roddy McDowall), who explains that Katie will have to meet with one of the film’s investors, the wheelchair-bound Dr. Lewis (Jan Rubes).  In the middle of a raging snowstorm, they go to Dr. Lewis’s home and, once they’ve arrived, Katie discovers that she is meant to replace an actress who looked exactly like her but who Dr. Lewis claims had a nervous breakdown.  She’s told that she must stay the night so she can meet the director in the morning and when she tries to call her husband to let him know where she is, the line is dead.  (For those born after 1996, the line being dead was the 80s equivalent of not being able to get a signal.)  Dr. Lewis says it must be due to the storm but he promises to have Mr. Murray take her into town in the morning.  Of course, the next morning, the car doesn’t start and it becomes clear that Dr. Lewis is not planning on ever letting Katie leave his home.

Dead of Winter is a throw-back to the type of gothic, damsel-in-distress films that actresses like Nina Foch, Ingrid Bergman, and Linda Darnell used to make back in the 1940s and 50s.  If you can accept that anyone could ever be as naive as Katie, it’s not that bad of a thriller.  Director Arthur Penn fills his movie with homages to Hitchcock and the scene where a drugged Katie wakes up to discover that she’s missing a finger is an effectively nasty shock.  By the end of the movie, Mary Steenburgen has played three different characters and she does a good job as all three of them.  Jan Rubes makes Dr. Lewis’s too obviously evil but Roddy McDowall is great as the polite but psychotic Mr. Murray.  When Mr. Murray sees that Katie has tried to escape by climbing out a window, he yells, “Oh dear!” and only Roddy McDowall could have pulled that off.

Dead of Winter was Arthur Penn’s second-to-last theatrical film.  After making films like Bonnie and Clyde, Little Big Man, and Alice’s Restaurant, Penn’s career went into decline as the American film industry became increasingly centered around blockbusters and Penn’s cerebral approach fell out of favor.  After Dead of Winter, Penn would direct Penn & Teller Get Killed before returning to his roots as a television director.  Penn ended his long and distinguished career as an executive producer on Law & Order.

Weekly Trailer Round-Up: Bohemian Rhapsody, Vox Lux, Bird Box

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The upcoming Freddy Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, did not have an easy path to completion.  After spending an eternity in Development Hell as the producers tried to find an actor who could bring Mercury to life, the movie finally went into production with Bryan Singer directing.  After Singer was fired, Dexter Fletcher was brought in to complete the film.  Early reviews have not been positive but everyone seems to agree that Rami Malek nails the lead role.  Bohemian Rhapsody will be released on November 2nd and its final trailer leads off this week’s trailer round-up.

If Bohemian Rhapsody has not sated your appetite for films about flamboyant pop stars, Vox Lux, which stars Natalie Portman, will be released on December 7th.

In Bird Box, a family has to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.  The twist is that they have to do it without being able to see anything.  Bird Box will be released on December 21st.

Finally, a new trailer for How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World has been released and it promises a trip to a world that will blow your mind and excite your imagination.  How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World will be unleashed on February 22nd.

Vampire Party: An American Vampire Story (1997, directed by Luis Esteban)

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When his parents leave to spend the summer in Europe, Frankie (Trevor Lissauer) has the entire mansion to himself.  Frankie wants to spend the time getting closer to his girlfriend, Dee Dee (Daisy Torme), but his best friend Bogie (Danny Hitt) says that it’s time to “party hearty!”  (That’s right.  Someone in a film made after 1991 says that it’s time to party hearty.)  Bogie thinks that the best way to party would be to invite Moondoggie (Johnny Venocur) and his gang (which includes Carmen Elecrta) to hang out at the house.  But then it turns out that Moondoggie is a vampire and once he’s invited in, he refuses to leave!  Even worse, Dee Dee dumps Frankie for Moondoggie!  Luckily, there is one man on the beach who can help Frankie out of his predicament.  They call him the Big Kahuna, he wears a Hawaiian shirt and he’s played by Adam West.

This is really, really dumb but at least it’s got Adam West saying lines like, “Stop that sucking!” and “Holy wipe out!”  The movie is supposed to be a throwback to the old Frankie and Annette beach party movies from the 60s, just with vampires.  (Moondoggie’s real named is Count Erich Von Zipper.)  What the movie didn’t take into account is that there was already a perfectly good Beach Party movie with vampires and it was called The Lost Boys.  Don’t be fooled by that PG-13 rating or the way that Carmen Electra is posing on the poster.  An American Vampire Story is a tame and bloodless vampire story.  The cast is game but most of the jokes fail to land like they should and ultimately, only Adam West keeps the anemic tale alive.

Death From Above: Beaks: The Movie (1987, directed by Rene Cardona, Jr.)

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The birds are pissed off.  A hang glider gets pecked to death while flying through the sky.   A chicken farmer is devoured. A professional hunter loses an eye to a bird and then has to use the remaining one to watch as the birds savagely attack his granddaughter’s birthday party.  A family on vacation is forced to run for cover as their attacked by pigeons and doves.  From South America to Spain to Puerto Rico, the birds are organizing and they are attacking.  Can journalist Vanessa (Michelle Johnson) and her cameraman Peter (Christopher Atkins) figure out why the birds are attacking or are they destined to become the latest victims of the avian terror?

This may sound like the Hitchcock film but Beaks was directed by Mexico’s Rene Cardona, Jr. and that makes all the difference.  Following in the footsteps of his father, Cardona was the king of Mexican B-movies.  There was no idea strange enough or plot stupid enough that Rene Cardona, Jr. couldn’t take it and turn it into a really bad movie.  Even by his standards, Beaks is bad as pigeons and doves are tossed at screaming actors.  Why are the birds attacking?  Caronda shows us a polluted lake as if to say, “Any questions?”  In the end, the birds attack until they suddenly don’t anymore but don’t get too cocky because there are other animals out there that are looking mighty disgruntled.

For some reason, in the late 80s and early 90s, Christopher Atkins had a very busy career in bad movies.  Seeing the Atkins name in the cast was usually a good sign that it was time to change the channel.  In Beaks, he gets the best line when he says, “These birds know what they’re doing!”  The film’s second best line goes to another actor, Gabriele Tinti, who says, “Fucking bird, flapping everywhere.”

If Hitchcock made The Birds with less skill but more gore and gratuitous nudity, the end result would still be better than Beaks.

All That Vampire Jive: Old Dracula (1975, directed by Clive Donner)

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Count Dracula (David Niven) is old and lost in the swinging seventies.  He has been reduced to opening up his castle to tourists and Playboy Bunny photoshoots. When his manservant drains the blood from the bunnies, Dracula discovers that one of them has the same blood type as his comatose wife, Vampira.  Dracua decides to use the blood to finally revive his wife but, when he does so, Vampira turns into a black woman played by Theresa Graves.  (Graves is best remembered for playing the title character on Get Christie Love.)  Vampira keeps calling Dracula a “jive turkey” while Dracula heads to London to try to collect more blood cells.

The idea of David Niven playing a comedic Dracula seems like a no-brainer but Old Dracula is one of those films that is so dated and unintentionally racist that you worry you’re going to go to Hell just for watching it.  It seems like the film was trying to satirize race relations in the same way that Godfrey Cambridge and Melvin Van Peebles did in Watermelon Man but most of the jokes fall flat.  The film also tries to mine humor out of Dracula, with his old world manners, trying to survive in the modern world but, again, there’s not much here beyond the idea of Dracula being old.  The concept is far funnier than the execution.  While Theresa Graves is a lively presence, David Niven often seems to be tired and weary.  I can only guess he really needed the money because Niven’s heart does not seem to be in the film and even his famous natural wit is muted in most of his scenes.  Niven does get a few decent one-liners but otherwise, Old Dracula is a painful relic.

Old Dracula is often mistakenly referred to as being a rip-off of Young Frankenstein.  Old Dracula was actually made a year before Young Frankenstein but it sat on the shelf for two years before American International Pictures finally decided to release it.  The title of the film was originally Vampira but AIP changed it to capitalize on the success of Mel Brooks’s far more successful film.