Today’s horror scene that I love comes from 1941’s The Wolf Man. Watch as poor Larry Talbot transforms, for the first time, into The Wolf Man! I’ll be the first to admit that, in the past, I’ve been pretty critical of Larry as a character and Lon Chaney, Jr.’s performance in the role. But, in this scene, Chaney does an excellent job of capturing Larry’s helplessness as the curse takes effect for the first time.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
4 Shots From 4 Horror Films
The Horror of Dracula (1958, dir by Terence Fisher, DP: Jack Asher)
Count Dracula (1970, dir by Jess Franco, DP: Manuel Merino and Luciano Trasatti)
Horror Express (1972, dir by Eugenio Martin, DP: Alejandro Ulloa)
The Wicker Man (1973, dir by Robert Hardy. DP: Harry Waxman)
Every year, for one night, former rock star Devon (Richard Grieco) dines at his favorite restaurant. He reserves and pays for every table so that he’ll be the only diner. The staff stays until he leaves. If he leaves early, they leave early. If he leaves late, they leave late. Devon demands that everything in the restaurant remain identical to the last time he ate there. If the restaurant has recently changed anything, it changes back for that one night. Devon always orders the same thing and, despite the fact that he’s alone, he always orders two meals: one for him and the other for his wife if she were still alive. Ever since she died, Devon has been living like a recluse, unable to perform his music or move on.
On the latest night, something unexpected happens. It rains, which it hasn’t done before. A mysterious woman shows up and delivers a cake to Devon. At first, Devon is paranoid, but soon he starts to drop his defenses. He talks to his waitress. He talks to the bartender. The conversation turns to death and the loneliness of being a survivor. Soon, they come up with an idea about how to comfort those who have recently lost a loved one.
The Wonder Bar, which was released earlier today, is an interesting film. It was directed by the film’s star, Richard Grieco, and the first half of the film takes place at the Wonder Bar Steakhouse in Clarksburg, West Virginia. It’s a lovely restaurant, and Grieco frames the scenes with the care of someone who truly seems to love the location. (Judging from this film and Clinton Road, Grieco appears to be a director with a surprisingly good eye for locations and an understanding of why it’s important to set your story in the exact right place.) The scenes at the steakhouse feel very much like a play, with the characters discussing the type of issues that we all think about but rarely discuss. The first half of the film feels very assured and, despite the inherent staginess of the concept, I found myself sincerely interested in both the characters and the location. The second half of the film, which moves the story out of the steakhouse, isn’t quite as strong because it actually deals with how the characters put their thoughts into action and, as we all know, it’s always easier to talk about our thoughts than to act on them. I didn’t completely buy the second half of the film, nor did I necessarily believe that everyone who interacted with Devon and his newfound friends would have quite the same positive reaction to them that they have in the film. That’s about as much as I can say without totally spoiling the plot.
That said, the first half of the film was nicely done and had a quiet power to it. It made me think about how I’ve been reacting to death over the past few years. And, of course, the restaurant was lovely.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!
This week, CHiPs goes country!
Episode 6.14 “Country Action”
(Dir by Charles Bail, originally aired on January 23rd, 1983)
Skip Miller (Tom Engleman) is a cowboy who owns a orangutang. He’s been hired to transport cattle but, after he’s injured in a highway accident, it’s revealed that the people who hired him were actually cattle rustlers! Ponch and Bobby go undercover as cattle buyers. Ponch also takes care of the orangutang, who may not be able to speak and who has terrible dental hygiene but who can identify the men who hired Skip.
How you react to this episode of CHiPs will depend on how much tolerance you have for country music and orangutangs. The orangutang is played by Manis, who also co-starred in Every Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can with Clint Eastwood. Watch as Manis walks around CHP headquarters! Thrill as Manis takes off on a motorcycle! Try not to freak out every time Manis shows off her rotting teeth! As for the country music, there’s a lot of it. Every time Ponch and Bobby go to the local country-western bar, we have to hear at least one song.
Larry Wilcox probably would have been a good fit for this episode. Officer Jon Baker grew up on a ranch and love animals. As it is, Erik Estrada seems to resent having to share screentime with Mavis and Tom Reilly is as spacey as ever. The folks behind the scenes were really running out of ideas.
Once again, Ponch does not mention the fact that his fiancée was recently killed by a drunk driver. You would think he would have flashbacks at every accident scene. Ponch, however, has moved on.
Tonight, on In Search Of…., Leonard Nimoy guides us through an investigation into the lost colony of Roanoke!
So, we all know that the Grinch once tried to steal to Christmas and then his heart grew a few sizes but did you know that apparently, the Grinch also tried to steal Halloween?
Until about 10 or 12 years ago, I did not. I was going through YouTube, searching for horror films that I could share here on the Shattered Lens, and guess what I came across?
A TV special from 1977 entitled Halloween is Grinch Night!
Unlike How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Halloween is Grinch Night apparently never became a holiday classic. Perhaps that’s because Halloween is Grinch Night is not exactly the most heart-warming of holiday specials. Whereas How The Grinch Stole Christmas tells us about how the Grinch learned the true meaning of Christmas, Halloween is Grinch Night gives us a Grinch who has no redeeming features. There is no hope for this Grinch. This Grinch will steal your soul and probably drink your blood. This Grinch is pure Grinchy evil.
This is the Grinch of our nightmares.
Check out Halloween is Grinch Night below and hope the Grinch doesn’t capture you this Halloween….
Gus, what were you thinking!?
1998’s Psycho tells the story of real estate secretary Marion Crane (Anne Heche). Marion is in love with Sam Loomis (Viggo Mortensen), but Sam feels that they can’t get married because he doesn’t have much money and he has to send a monthly alimony payment to his ex-wife. Sam says he doesn’t want Marion to have to spend her married life “licking the stamps.” “I’ll lick the stamps,” Marion replies in a tone that suggests she has no intention of ever licking a stamp.
Marion steals some money from work and goes on the run. While she drives around the Southwest with a blank expression on her face, she thinks about how everyone will react to the theft. She imagines what people are saying about her. She has a scary experience with a highway patrolman (James Remar). She imagines her sister (Julianne Moore) looking for her. Eventually, when it starts to rain, she pulls into an isolated motel for the night and she meets a nervous man named Norman Bates (Vince Vaughn).
Fresh from the success of Good Will Hunting, director Gus Van Sant decided that it was time to pursue a dream project. He remade Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. That in itself was a pretty dumb idea. The first film is one of the few films that almost everyone seems to agree is perfectly made. There was no great need to remake it and, after several sequels, there was probably not great demand for it either. Van Sant also decided that he would remake the film by using the exact same script (with just a few minor updates to reflect changing times) and that he would recreate Hitchcock’s film shot-for-shot.
Now, I know what you may be thinking. If Van Sant used the same script and the exact same shot list from the first film, why did he even bother to remake the movie in the first place? My personal theory is that remaking Psycho was probably something that Van Sant first thought of doing while he was a film student. It’s probably something that he came up with and he carried with him for years. Because no one ever thought it would actually happen, his friends humored him and didn’t tell him what a pointless idea it was. Then Van Sant became a success and, once you’re a success, no one’s going to tell you no. Making an Oscar-friendly box office hit like Good Will Hunting temporarily gave Van Sant the opportunity to do whatever he wanted and what he wanted to do was remake Psycho without changing the script or any of the shots.
Despite all of that, there are a few differences. This version of Psycho is shot in color and is full of tacky wallpaper and garish colors. Marion wears some of the ugliest outfits that I’ve ever seen. Of course, the cast is entirely new. The instantly relatable Janet Leigh is replaced by the dull and androgynous Anne Heche. Viggo Mortensen is equally dull as Sam. Julianne Moore is much more take-charge as Lila but, physically, is in no way believable as being related to Anne Heche. (Vera Miles and Janet Leigh, on the other hand, very much seemed like sisters even if they didn’t share any scenes together.) Martin Balsam’s wiseguy private eye is replaced by William H. Macy’s nerdy detective. The biggest change is that Anthony Perkins has been replaced by a totally miscast Vince Vaughn. Norman Bates is someone who has spent the last ten years of his life isolated from the world, living like a hermit. Vince Vaughn, an actor who I usually like, comes across like he can’t wait to get down to the local bar and order everyone a beer.
You don’t hear much about Gus Van Sant’s Psycho anymore. Everyone pretends like it doesn’t exist and that’s probably for the best. If anything, it’s a reminder that almost every director has at least one bad idea that he’s waiting to spring on the world once he becomes successful enough. For Gus Van Sant, the idea was Psycho.
1986’s The Groundhog’s Day Massacre takes place in Ohio. Someone who is apparently known as Baggyface is obsessed with saws and killing people. He does indeed wear a bag over his face and he goes around with an electrical saw, though I’m not really sure how he keeps it running. Maybe he has a really long extension cord. Despite the danger of Baggyface, a couple still decide to have a nice romantic picnic outside. They eat, they frolic, and they toss around a frisbee. Eventually, Baggyface shows up.
The Groundhog’s Day Massacre is only 26 minutes long. About twenty minutes into the action, the screen is suddenly filled with static and we hear someone off-camera saying, “Technical difficulties.” The static goes on for about three minutes and then we get back to what passes as the action. I have to admit that I actually did smile when the static started and that “technical difficulties” line made me laugh. It’s film nerd humor and, more specifically, it’s horror nerd humor. Any true horror fan has seen countless low-budget films that suffered from at least one technical difficulty. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I can only assume you’re one of those “I love American Horror Story” snobs.) Tossing it into the middle of this film is a reminder that we’re not meant to take any of this seriously.
Shot on video, The Groundhog’s Day Massacre is semi-legendary amongst SOV fans, both because of its “so bad it’s good” reputation and the fact that, for years, it wasn’t easy to find. (It’s on YouTube now.) The title was obviously meant to poke fun at the slasher habit of trying to co-opt popular holidays. The footage is grainy, there’s next to zero dialogue, and three cast members were clearly amateurs. Heavy metal music drones in the background. Watching two people play frisbee is not made any more exciting by playing an 80s hair band.
(One thing that people forget about the early days of the Internet is that people would beg you to check out their “extreme sports” videos and then it would inevitably turn out to be just like twelve minutes of some douchebag with a manbun trying to steer a unicycle while Pantera played in the background. That’s what the frisbee scenes reminded me of.)
The Groundhog’s Day Massacre is not very good, but I imagine the people who made the film would probably agree with me on that. It does have a certain charm that comes from watching it and knowing that, one weekend, four or five people got together and filmed it and now, 40 years later, it can still be viewed on YouTube. The man and the woman who get chased by Baggyface are probably in their 60s now! I wonder if they know people are watching them on YouTube? That said, The Groundhog’s Day Massacre is only 26 minutes long and it really makes you feel every one of those 26 minutes. There were plenty of technical difficulties with The Groundhog’s Day Massacre and I certainly don’t plan on watching it again.
And yet, I’m still glad it was made. I’m glad that it’s still being watched. I’m glad people are still laughing at the moments that they were meant to laugh at. I’m happy for the people who made this movie, wherever they may now be.
This poster, which I got off of Letterboxd, has nothing to do with the movie and I imagine it was probably made years after the film’s initial release. You’ll notice that they corrected the name of the movie. As someone who still cringes at the typos in her 2010n reviews, I understand.
1972’s Sisters begins by introducing us to a likable ad executive named Philip Woode (Lisle Wilson). Woode is the victim of a prank show and, for his trouble, he wins dinner for two at a nice Manhattan restaurant. Daniele Breton (Margot Kidder), the model/actress who set him up for the show, agrees to be his date. They have a lovely night that ends at Daniele’s apartment. In the morning, Daniele explains that it’s not only her birthday but also the birthday of her twin, Dominique. Philip, being a nice guy, goes not only to refill Daniele’s prescription but also to pick up a birthday cake. He then comes back to the apartment and, in true Psycho fashion, is promptly stabbed to death by one of the sisters.
Across the street, journalist Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt) looks out her window just in time to see Philip getting stabbed and then using his own blood to write “help” on the apartment window. Director Brian De Palma makes good use of his trademark split-screen technique. On one side of the screen, we watch Philip dying. On the other side, we explore Grace’s apartment and see that, in the past, she’s written an editorial headlined “Why We Call Them Pigs.” We know that Grace is the only person who has witnessed Philip’s murder, and we also know why the police are not going to be inclined to believe her.
And indeed, by the time the police arrive, Daniele and her creepy ex-husband, Emil (William Finley), have already hidden Philip’s body in a couch. With the police proving to be of no help, Grace hires a private detective named Joseph Larch (Charles Durning) to break into Daniele’s apartment and search for clues. Durning doesn’t have a huge role in Sisters, but he definitely makes an impression as he proceeds to follow that couch across the country. De Palma’s dark sense of humor is evident as the couch eventually ends up in the wilds of Canada, where Durning uses his binoculars to keep an eye on it.
Sisters was an early De Palma film, one that gives him a chance to show off both his ability to generate suspense and the style that would become his trademark. It’s an effective film, one that has a plot that is full of twists but which can still easily be followed by the audience. Indeed, I doubt anyone will be shocked to discover the truth about Daniele and Dominique, but Margot Kidder gives such a good performance and De Palma directs with such confidence that the story still holds your attention. As for Jennifer Salt, she’s playing the type of radical journalist who probably would have identified with the politics of Greetings and Hi, Mom! while ultimately rejecting both films for their casual misogyny. It undoubtedly says something about De Palma’s worldview that, while he obviously sympathized with Grace’s politics, he still ultimately portrayed her as being an ineffectual investigator.
In the end, Grace is as much of a sister to Daniele as Dominique is. They’ve found themselves being manipulated by the same society, and they’ve both been forced to the fringes—Daniele by her past and Grace by her politics. In typical De Palma fashion, this film ends with the audience knowing more than the majority of the characters. We know what happened but, for everyone else, the truth is still hidden in a couch that’s sitting in the middle of nowhere.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Crime Story, which ran on NBC from 1986 to 1988. The entire show can be found on Tubi!
This week, a major player returns! Actually, two major players….
Episode 2.4 “Atomic Fallout”
(Dir by Bill Duke, originally aired on October 27th, 1987)
Two new members of the Task Force, who were assigned to keep an eye on Max Goldman, are discovered dead and burned to a crisp at a landing strip in the desert. At the same time, a scientist who is suspected of being a serial killer disappears from Las Vegas just as Torello is on the verge of arresting him.
Torello immediately assumes that the two things are connected. Unfortunately, the Atomic Energy Commission wants Torello to back off on his investigation of Dr. Gantman (George Bartenieff), the scientist-turned-serial killer. Gantman is working on a special project for the government. Torello and the Task Force head to Mexico to capture him anyway.
Torello isn’t the only Vegas resident in Mexico. Manny Weisbord is visiting Mexican crime boss Jorge Senterro (Ismael “East” Carlo). Two old friends of Manny’s are currently living with Senterro, and I bet you can already guess who they are.
That’s right! LUCA AND PAULI LIVE!
Despite having found themselves on a nuclear testing site at exactly the wrong time, Pauli and Luca survived. Pauli appears to be no worse for the experience. Luca, meanwhile, has only recently had his bandages removed. His back is scarred. Weisbord watches as Luca receives a shot from a very large hypodermic needle held by a chain-smoking doctor. Luca has survived, but he’s changed. He’s no longer content with building a national crime syndicate. Luca tells Manny that he’s planning on going international.
Weisbord is impressed with Luca’s ambition. However, he’s considerably less happy to learn that Luca and Senterro have teamed up to smuggle heroin into the United States. Weisbord has always been opposed to getting involved in the drug trade. Luca used to be opposed as well, but, as he explains it, drugs are where the money is going to be in the future. When Weisbord says that dealing drugs will cause the Justice Department to come after him, Luca says that he’s being protected by the U.S. government. The implication is obvious. The time of honorable crime bosses like Manny Weisbord has come to an end. Luca is the future.
While Luca is talking to Weisbord, Torello and his men are tracking down Dr. Gantman. They find him in a small safehouse, protected by Mexican soldiers. After a gunfight with the soldiers (and one has to wonder how that’s not going to become a diplomatic incident), Torello bursts in on Gantman just as he’s about to murder another woman. Torello guns the scientist down, and whatever information Gantman may have had about what the U.S. government is doing in Mexico dies with him.
In the episode’s final scene, Lt. Col. Milton Dance (Richard Zobel) meets with Luca and Pauli. Luca mentions that he heard about Gantman’s death and asks who was responsible. Dance replies that it was no one that Luca would know. Dance then hands Luca and Pauli their passports so that they can return to the United States.
This episode was a true treat for those of us who are interested in conspiracy theories. Dr. Gantman brought to mind the Nazi rocket scientists who were recruited by the CIA after World War II and who eventually ended up working for NASA. Luca working for the government would be implausible if not for the fact that the CIA and the Mafia actually did work together in the early ’60s to try to assassinate Fidel Castro. This episode was full of atomic imagery. When Luca talked about surviving the nuclear test, there was a quick flashback to a mushroom cloud rising over the desert. Torello and his men enjoy hanging out at a bar decorated with neon signs of mushroom clouds. A picture of a mushroom cloud was prominently displayed in Gantman’s house. This episode was all about atomic-age paranoia.
Best of all, Luca and Pauli are back. The first few episodes of the second season suffered because Torello himself seemed directionless without Luca to pursue. With this episode, we know that Luca is returning. Torello might not know it, but we know it.
And I can’t wait to see what happens!
