October Hacks: Popcorn (dir by Mark Herrier and Alan Ormsby)

Posted on October 29, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1991 film, Popcorn, tells the story of what happens when an experimental film goes wrong.

In the late 60s, a freaked-out hippie named Lanyard Gates directed a short film called Possessor. Possessor featured footage of him apparently preparing to sacrifice a woman on an altar. Gates declined to film a third act conclusion to the film. Instead, he murdered his family on stage and in front of a terrified audience. The resulting panic caused a fire to break out, killing almost everyone at the Dreamland Theater. As a result, Possessor has become a legendary film, one that is believed lost. Of course, it’s not lost, as a group of film students and their professor find out over the course of Popcorn.

Years later, one of those film students, an aspiring screenwriter named Maggie (Jill Schoelen), has been having disturbing nightmares about being caught in a fire and being pursued by a madman. When she sees Possessor, she realizes that much of the imagery in her dreams comes from the film. When Maggie attempts to talk to her mother about all of this, Suzanne (Dee Wallace) denies knowing anything about Possessor or Lanyard Gates but it’s not hard to tell that she’s lying.

Still, Maggie does have other things to worry about. Her school’s film department has been hit by budget cuts and neither she nor her classmates will be able to make their student films unless they raise some money. One of the students, Toby (Tom Villard), suggests holding a fundraiser at the Dreamland Theater, where they could show old movies and even recreate some of the old gimmicks that were used to promote those movies. Professor Davis (Tony Roberts) thinks that is a great idea! Why, he could even control the giant, remote-controlled bug that was used to promote Mosquito!

Filmed in Jamaica (and featuring a somewhat random performance by a reggae band), Popcorn was originally offered to director Bob Clark. However, Clark didn’t want to return to the horror genre so, instead, it was Clark’s frequent collaborator, Alan Ormsby, who was hired to direct the film. Reportedly, Ormsby was replaced a few weeks into filming by Mark Herrier, with the assumption being that the producers felt that Ormsby was spending too much time on filming the three fake movies that are screened during the fund raiser. Those films are Mosquito, The Attack of the Electrified Man, and a dubbed Japanese film called The Stench. In the film’s credits, Ormsby is credited with directing the three fake film while Mark Herrier is credited with directing the “modern” scenes.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the three fake film are actually the best thing about Popcorn. If Alan Ormsby was taking a lot of time to shoot the fake films, it obviously paid off because all three of them perfectly capture the feel of the era when they were supposedly shot and all of them are filled with the type of details that only a true fan of old horror movies would think to include. Mosquito is a giant bug film that feels as if it could have come straight from 1957. The Amazing Electrified Man feels like one of the films that poor Lon Chaney Jr. would have found himself starring in after leaving Universal. And The Stench is the perfect import — slow-moving, a bit pompous, and terribly dubbed.

As for the rest of Popcorn, it’s a well-made slasher film. Mark Herrier did a good job directing the “modern” scenes, with a scene in which the killer’s face seems to literally melt after he kisses one of his victims being a definite creepy highlight. The kills are reasonably creative and, in one case involving electrocution, rather disturbing. Jill Schoelen is a likable heroine, Derek Rydall is cute as her hapless boyfriend, and Tom Villard’s uninhibited performance gives the film a much-needed jolt of energy. Though the old films may be the highlight of Popcorn, the “modern” scenes hold up as well.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (dir by Bob Clark)

Posted on October 29, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The title of this 1972 film is definitely a case of truth in advertising.

Children definitely should not play with dead things! I don’t care how mature they are or how lenient of a parent you’re trying to be. When you see your child playing with a dead thing, it is on you to step forward and say, “Child, leave that dead thing alone unless you want to forever burn in Hell.” I know that type of language might be traumatic for some children but you’ll be glad you did it. You know who played with dead things when he was a child? Jeffrey Dahmer! And look how that turned out. He got a miniseries made about him and became an internet meme.

Now, it should be pointed out that they’re aren’t any children to be found in Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. The children of the title are actually a group of wannabe actors who are led by a pretentious douchebag named Alan (played by the film’s writer, Alan Ormsby). With his mustache and his long hair and his hip clothes and his vocabulary of psychobabble and buzzwords, Alan considers himself to be quite the chic 70s gentleman. He refers the other actors as being his “children,” and they let him get away with it. Personally, I would be kind of insulted but whatever.

One night, Alan and his theatrical troupe ride a boat off to an island that is sitting off the coast of Miami. The island is reputed to be haunted and Alan tells the actors several rather gruesome stories about things that have supposedly happened to the inhabitants of the island. According to Alan, the island is used as a cemetery for criminals who were so vile that no one wanted to collect their bodies.

Why are the actors on the island? Along with leading his theatrical troupe, Alan considers himself to be a bit of a warlock. He wants to perform a ceremony at midnight and he expects his actors to help him out. If they don’t help, they’ll lose their jobs. If they do help, they’ll probably lose their lives. Alan and his actors dig up the body of a man named Orville (played by the wonderfully named Seth Sklarey). The ceremony that Alan performs at midnight fails to bring Orville back to life but it does cause the dead who were left in their graves to rise from the Earth as zombies. The zombies are not happy that their island has been invaded and they’re especially not happy about Alan digging up Orville.

Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things is a mix of comedy and horror, with Alan’s pretentious foolishness dominating the first half of the film while the second features the zombies laying siege to a cottage. It starts out slow but, once the zombies come to life, the film achieves a surreal grandeur. For an obviously low-budget film, the zombie makeup is surprisingly effective and the zombies themselves are so relentless and determined in their pursuit of the living that they help Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things survive the inevitable comparisons to Night of the Living Dead. The film’s final scene, which plays out in near silence, has an undeniable horrific power to it.

Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things was the third film to be directed by Bob Clark. He also directed films like Deathdream, Black Christmas, Murder By Decree, and the infamous (and very financially successful) Porky’s. Of course, his most beloved film is the one that we’ll all be watching in a little less than two months, A Christmas Story.

October True Crime: Deranged (dir by Jeff Gillen and Alan Ormsby)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1974, Deranged tells the story of Ezra Cobb (Roberts Blossom).

In the 1950s, Ezra is a shy and withdrawn farmer who lives in Wisconsin with his elderly mother (Cosette Lee). Ezra’s mother has raised Ezra to view all other women as being evil and to view sex as being sinful. The end result is that the middle-aged Ezra is absolutely devoted to his mother but he also has no idea what to do with himself after she dies and is buried in the nearby cemetery. After a year of being alone in the farm house, Ezra starts to hear voices telling him to dig up his mother. Ezra does so but, disappointed to see how much her body has decayed over the past few months, he decides that he should start digging up fresher bodies so that he can “rebuild” his mother.

Eeeek!

Yes, it’s a creepy story and it’s all the more creepy for being true. Ezra Cobb is based on Ed Gein, the farmer, grave robber, and serial killer whose actions not only shocked the town of Plainfield but which also inspired Robert Bloch to create the character of Norman Bates. Psycho was based on Ed Gein’s crimes. So was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with the bone-strewn home and Leatherface’s habit of wearing other people’s faces lifted directly from some of the more sordid details of what was found at Gein’s home. By the time the police discovered what had been happening at the farm, Ed Gein had moved on from grave robbing to committing murders. It’s known that Ed Gein killed at least three people. It’s suspected that he was responsible for more. Interestingly enough, Ed Gein was described as being very friendly and helpful after he was captured. He spent the rest of his life in various mental hospitals, where he was described as being a model patient.

A low-budget Canadian production, Deranged plays out in a documentary fashion, featuring enough gore that the film was actually banned in some countries. That said, as bloody as certain scenes are, there’s a strong strain of dark humor running through Deranged. As played by character actor Roberts Blossom, the dazed but always polite Ezra never makes much of an attempt to hide his activities. When Ezra’s friend, Harlan (Robert Warner), reads aloud an article about a missing barmaid, Ezra replies that the barmaid is over at his place. Harlan has a good laugh at the idea and Ezra responds with a somewhat shy smile. No one in town suspects Ezra, largely because he doesn’t hunt and he always seem to be so quiet and mild-mannered. Even when Ezra points a rifle at a store clerk, she laughs and asks, “What are you doing, Ez?” and, given that Ezra looks so harmless, it’s easy to understand why. Ezra? Why, he wouldn’t hurt a fly! Interestingly enough, everyone around Ezra is far more openly violent and misogynistic than Ezra. Harlan brags about his ability as a hunter. A man in a bar makes misogynistic comments about the bar maid who has become Ezra’s latest obsession. Though Ezra is the one who acts on his impulses, the film suggests that Ezra isn’t that different from the other men in town.

In a rare starring role, Roberts Blossom gives a strong performance as Ezra, playing him as someone who is so far divorced from reality that he actually seems to be genuinely offended when one of his victims tries to escape from the barn. Blossom plays Ezra as someone who alternates between being a violent madman and someone who has an almost childlike need for approval.

Ed Gein was one of the first serial killers to become national news and Deranged acknowledges this by featuring a newsman (Leslie Carlson) who not only serves as the film’s narrator but who also occasionally shows up in Gein’s farmhouse, speaking directly to the camera and explaining what was going on in Gein’s life at the time. It’s actually an effective technique, one that acknowledges the media obsession with the crimes of men like Ed Gein. That obsession, of course, led to movies, including Deranged. In many ways, Deranged’s use of the newsman is prophetic. It predicted a future in which the media would play their part into turning serial killers into almost mythological figures, sneaking their way through the more shadowy parts of American history.

Deranged is an effective film. For a long time, it was also believed to be a lost film. After the film’s 1974 run, all prints of the film disappeared. Fortunately, in the mid-90s, a copy was found in Florida and both the film and Roberts Blossoms’s performances got the reevaluation and appreciation that they deserved.

The TSL’s Daily Horror Grindhouse: Deathdream (dir by Bob Clark)

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1974 film Deathdream opens with American soldier Andy Brooks (played by Richard Backus) on patrol in Vietnam. When he’s suddenly shot by an unseen sniper, he hears his mother’s voice calling out to him, telling him that he promised to come home. With the voice filling his head, Andy closes his eyes.

Sometime later, back in America, Andy’s family has been informed that Andy was killed in action. His father (John Marley, who you might recognize as the man who played Jack Woltz in The Godfather) and his younger sister (Anya Ormsby) have managed to accept the fact that Andy is dead but his mother (Lynn Carlin) remains in denial. Oddly enough, his mother is apparently proven to be correct in her doubts when Andy suddenly shows up at the front door.

The family (and, eventually, the entire community) welcomes Andy home but it quickly becomes apparent that Andy has returned as a far different person than when he left. Now pasty and emotionless, Andy spends most of his day sitting around listlessly. It’s only at night that Andy seems to have any energy and he spends those hours wandering around town and hanging out in the local cemetery.

It quickly becomes apparent to his father that Andy is no longer quite human. However, his devoted mother continues to insist that nothing is wrong with Andy and, once it becomes apparent just what exactly Andy is doing in order to survive, she becomes just as fanatical about protecting him as his father is about destroying him.

Not surprisingly, Deathdream is more than just a zombie film. When Andy suddenly shows up on his family’s doorstep, he’s more than just a decaying monster. He’s also a metaphor for the unease that viewers in the 70s would have felt about the state of American society. (Of course, in many ways, contemporary viewers share that same unease.) Andy goes off to war and it literally robs him of his humanity. I would also argue that, in its way, Deathdream serves as a satire of the type of complacent society that sends young people off to fight for their lives and then expects them to come back exactly the same as they were before they left. No matter how strange Andy’s behavior becomes, the people around him are willing to either ignore it or make excuses for it. Andy’s mother emerges as a stand-in for everyone who willfully refuses to acknowledge the human consequences of war.

Deathdream is one of those wonderful horror films that deserves to be better known than it is. Deathdream was an early credit for the legendary effects artist Tom Savini and, while the film itself is not especially gory, Savini’s work can definitely be seen in the scenes where Backus’s body slowly decays. Screenwriter Alan Ormsby and director Bob Clark (who later went on to direct the far different A Christmas Story) perfectly creates and maintains a deceptively low-key atmosphere of perpetual unease while the cast elevates the entire film. Backus makes for an all-too plausible ghoul and Marley is great as a man struggling to understand what his son has become. The film is totally stolen, however, by Lynn Carlin who is both poignant and frightening as Andy’s devoted mother.

If you haven’t discovered Deathdream yet, this Halloween is the perfect season to do so.

Here’s the Teaser For Fifty Shades Darker

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Why is there already a teaser for a film that’s not even supposed to come out until February of 2017? I have no clue. Judging from how little is actually in this teaser, I’m assuming that this little scene was filmed during the shooting of 50 Shades of Grey, just in case there was demand for a sequel.

Personally, I think they should call this movie Fifty Shades Darker: Return To The Puckered Love Cave but that might just be me.

(By the way, I’d be remiss if I didn’t quote director/writer Alan Ormsby’s response when he saw the above quote on my Facebook page: “PUCKERED LOVE CAVE! Hey, I have a title for my next horror film!”)

Anyway, here’s the teaser for 50 Shades Darker: