Horror Film Review: Tales From The Darkside: The Movie (dir by John Harrison)

Posted on October 18, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1990 and based on a horror-themed television series that was created by the one-and-only George Romero, Tales From The Darkside: The Movie is an anthology film. Usually, I can’t stand anthology films because it seems like the viewer only gets one good story and has to sit through two or three mediocre stories to get to the worthwhile stuff. However, I have to say that I really enjoyed all of the stories featured in Tales From The Darkside: The Movie.

The film opens with a wrap-around story, featuring Timmy (Matthew Lawrence), a young boy who is chained up in a pantry and who a local witch named Betty (Debbie Harry) is planning on cooking for a dinner party. Timmy tries to distract Betty from her kitchen duties by telling her three stories.

The first story features Steve Buscemi as a nerdy college student named Edward Bellingham. On the verge of getting a much-needed scholarship, Edward is framed for theft by two of his classmates (one of whom is played by Julianne Moore) and loses the scholarship. Edward responds by doing what anyone would do. He unrolls an ancient parchment and brings to life a mummy who kills his rivals. A very preppy Christian Slater plays Andy, the smug brother of one of the victims who seeks revenge against Bellingham. In a surprise twist, Bellingham is able to get some vengeance of his own.

The second story features William Hickey as Drogan, an annoying old man who is convinced that he is being stalked by an evil black cat. Drogan hires a hitman (David Johansen) to kill the cat but, as we all know, black cats are far more clever than anyone realizes. The story ends on a notably grisly note because cats rule!

Finally, the third story features James Remar as a struggling artist who, one night, discovers that the stone gargoyle that sits atop of his apartment building is actually alive. After witnessing the gargoyle kill someone, the artist promises never to reveal that the gargoyle exists. “Cross your heart?” the gargoyle asks before flying away. Later, the artist meets a mysterious woman (Rae Dawn Chong) who helps him to become a success on the art scene. However, even after he marries the woman and they start a family, Remar is still haunted by his memories of the gargoyle.

As I said at the start of this review, I’m not a huge fan of anthology films but I really liked Tales From The Darkside: The Movie. All three of the stories are equally good and there’s really not a slow spot to be found. This is a horror anthology that manages to balance scares and laughs without becoming too silly or forgetting that the movie is meant to be a horror story. Steve Buscemi, Christian Slater, and James Remar are stand-outs amongst the cast. Even the wrap-around story had a good ending!

If you’re going to watch an anthology film for Halloween, allow me to recommend Tales From The Darkside: The Movie!

Film Review: Deadly Hero (dir by Ivan Nagy)

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1975, Deadly Hero tells the story of Edward Lacy (Don Murray).

Lacy is an 18-year veteran of the New York Police Department and a proud family man. Lacy is clean-cut, handsome in a blandly pleasant way, and he has a wife and several children. He’s a member of the Knights of Columbus and there are times when he imagines himself pursuing a career in politics. One of the first things that we see Lacy do is introduce an anti-crime mayoral candidate named Reilly (George S. Irving) at a Knights of Columbus rally. Lacy goes out of his way to make sure that he and his family make a good impression but Reilly barely seems to notice him.

Lacy is also a racist who enjoys pulling and using his gun. He was once a detective but a long string of brutality complaints has led to him being demoted back down to being a patrolman. He and his partner (Treat Williams, making his film debut) spend their time patrolling the streets of New York City, getting dirty looks and verbal abuse from the people who they are supposed to be protecting. Much like Travis Bickle in the following year’s Taxi Driver, Lacy obsesses on the crime and the decay that he sees all around him.

Sally (Diahn Williams) lives a life that is a hundred times different from Lacy’s. She’s a cellist and a conductor. She spends her days teaching and her nights conducting at an avant-garde theater. Sally and Lacy have little in common but their lives become intertwined when Sally is attacked and briefly held hostage by a mentally disturbed mugger named Rabbit (James Earl Jones). Responding to a call put in by Sally’s neighbor (Lila Skala), Lacy discovers Rabbit holding a knife to Sally’s throat in the hallway of Sally’s apartment building. At first, Lacy handles the situation calmly and he manages to talk Rabbit into not only releasing Sally but also dropping his knife. However, instead of arresting the now unarmed and docile Rabbit, Lacy shoots and kills him.

Knowing that he’s about to be investigated and that he’s made enemies in the department due to his political activities, Lacy convinces the still-shocked Sally to lie and say that she witnessed Rabbit lunging for Lacy’s gun before Lacy fired. Lacy is proclaimed a hero and soon, Reilly is inviting him to appear at rallies with him. Lacy’s political dreams seem to be coming true but Sally starts to feel guilty about lying. Realizing that Sally is planning on revealing the truth about what happened, Lacy goes to extreme measures to try to keep her quiet.

Deadly Hero is an interesting film, one that is certainly flawed but which ultimately works as a portrait of the authoritarian mindset. Ivan Nagy directs without much visual flair and, especially at the start of the film, he struggles to maintain a consistent pace. For instance, the scene where Rabbit initially menaces Sally seems to go on forever, long beyond whatever was necessary to convince the audience that Rabbit was a dangerous guy. (With the amount of time that Nagy lingers over shots of Sally being menaced by Rabbit, I was not surprised to read that Nagy and Dianh Williams apparently did not get along during filming.) That said, the film’s low budget actually works to its advantage, with the grainy cinematography giving the film a gritty, documentary feel. The film was shot on location in New York City and it’s interesting to watch the actors interact with real New Yorkers. While Lacy is never a sympathetic character, seeing the actual streets of New York does go a long way to explaining why he’s so paranoid. This is one of the many 70s films in which the overriding message seemed to be that New York City was the worst place on the planet.

The film is dominated by Don Murray, who plays Lacy as being a blue-collar fascist who has learned how to hide his anger and his hatred behind a quick smile and an outwardly friendly manner. Feeling confident that everyone will back him up, he has no hesitation about executing an unarmed black man. Even when it becomes obvious that Sally is not going to continue to lie about what happened, Lacy is still arrogant enough to assume that he can charm her into changing her mind. When that doesn’t work, Lacy becomes increasingly unhinged and vindictive. The film’s final ambiguous image suggests that there really is no way to escape the Edward Lacys of the world.

With its portrayal of a violent cop who is convinced that he will be protected by the system, Deadly Hero feels extremely relevant today. Of course, Deadly Hero also suggests that the same system that Lacy is exploiting can be used to take him down, with Lacy eventually being investigated by both Internal Affairs and the District Attorney’s office. The film leaves it ambiguous as to whether or not the rest of the police are as dangerous as Lacy. Is Lacy a product of the system or is he just someone who has figured out how to exploit the system? To its detriment, that’s a question that the film doesn’t answer. Still, much like Harvey Hart’s similarly underappreciated Shoot, Deadly Hero is an always-interesting and occasionally insightful look at the authoritarian mindset.

Music Video Of The Day: Rush Rush by Debbie Harry (1983, directed by ????)

Posted on August 2, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Remember when we used to drive around Liberty City listening to this song?

Even though Rush Rush may be best known to some for its use in Grand Theft Auto III, it was actually first recorded for the soundtrack of Scarface. This was Debbie Harry’s second collaboration with producer Giorgio Moroder. Their first collaboration was Call Me, which shot to number one on the charts. Rush Rush was slightly less popular, peaking at #105 in the U.S.

The video features people watching and reacting to footage of Debbie Harry. Interestingly enough, this video came out around the same time as David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, which featured James Woods doing the same thing.

Enjoy!

Stallone Acts: Cop Land (1997, directed by James Mangold)

Posted on September 3, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

Garrison, New Jersey is a middle class suburb that is known as Cop Land. Under the direction of Lt. Ray Donlan (Harvey Keitel), several NYPD cops have made their home in Garrison, financing their homes with bribes that they received from mob boss Tony Torillo (Tony Sirico). The corrupt cops of Garrison, New Jersey live, work, and play together, secure in the knowledge that they can do whatever they want because Donlan has handpicked the sheriff.

Sheriff Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone) always dreamed of being a New York cop but, as the result of diving into icy waters to save a drowning girl, Freddy is now deaf in one ear. Even though he knows that they are all corrupt, Freddy still idolizes cops like Donlan, especially when Donlan dangles the possibility of pulling a few strings and getting Freddy an NYPD job in front of him. The overweight and quiet Freddy spends most of his time at the local bar, where he’s the subject of constant ribbing from the “real” cops. Among the cops, Freddy’s only real friend appears to be disgraced narcotics detective, Gary Figgis (Ray Liotta).

After Donlan’s nephew, Murray Babitch (Michael Rapaport), kills two African-American teenagers and then fakes his own death to escape prosecution, Internal Affairs Lt. Moe Tilden (Robert De Niro) approaches Freddy and asks for his help in investigating the corrupt cops of Garrison. At first, Freddy refuses but he is soon forced to reconsider.

After he became a star, the idea that Sylvester Stallone was a bad actor because so universally accepted that people forgot that, before he played Rocky and Rambo, Stallone was a busy and respectable character actor. Though his range may have been limited and Stallone went through a period where he seemed to always pick the worst scripts available, Stallone was never as terrible as the critics often claimed. In the 90s, when it became clear that both the Rocky and the Rambo films had temporarily run their course, Stallone attempted to reinvent his image. Demolition Man showed that Stallone could laugh at himself and Cop Land was meant to show that Stallone could act.

For the most part, Stallone succeeded. Though there are a few scenes where the movie does seem to be trying too hard to remind us that Freddy is not a typical action hero, this is still one of Sylvester Stallone’s best performances. Stallone plays Freddy as a tired and beaten-down man who knows that he’s getting one final chance to prove himself. It helps that Stallone’s surrounded by some of the best tough guy actors of the 90s. Freddy’s awkwardness around the “real” cops is mirrored by how strange it initially is to see Stallone acting opposite actors like Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, and Ray Liotta. Cop Land becomes not only about Freddy proving himself as a cop but Stallone proving himself as an actor.

The film itself is sometimes overstuffed. Along with the corruption investigation and the search for Murray Babitch, there’s also a subplot about Freddy’s unrequited love for Liz Randone (Annabella Sciorra) and her husband’s (Peter Berg) affair with Donlan’s wife (Cathy Moriarty). There’s enough plot here for a Scorsese epic and it’s more than Cop Land‘s 108-minute run time can handle. Cop Land is at its best when it concentrates on Freddy and his attempt to prove to himself that he’s something more than everyone else believes. The most effective scenes are the ones where Freddy quietly drinks at the local tavern, listening to Gary shoot his mouth off and stoically dealing with the taunts of the people that he’s supposed to police. By the time that Freddy finally stands up for himself, both you and he have had enough of everyone talking down to him. The film’s climax, in which a deafened Freddy battles the corrupt cops of Garrison, is an action classic.

Though the story centers on Stallone, Cop Land has got a huge ensemble cast. While it’s hard to buy Janeane Garofalo as a rookie deputy, Ray Liotta and Robert Patrick almost steal the film as two very different cops. Interestingly, many members of the cast would go on to appear on The Sopranos. Along with Sirico, Sciorra, Patrick, and Garofalo, keep an eye out for Frank Vincent, Arthur Nascarella, Frank Pelligrino, John Ventimiglia, Garry Pastore, and Edie Falco in small roles.

Cop Land was considered to be a box office disappointment when it was released and Stallone has said that the film’s failure convinced people that he was just an over-the-hill action star and that, for eight years after it was released, he couldn’t get anyone to take his phone calls. At the time, Cop Land‘s mixed critical and box office reception was due to the high expectations for both the film and Stallone’s performance. In hindsight, it’s clear that Cop Land was a flawed but worthy film and that Stallone’s performance remains one of his best.

Music Video of the Day: Pet Sematary by Ramones (1989, dir. Bill Fishman)

Posted on October 3, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

You can hardly tell this was done by the same director who made the video for I Wanna Be Sedated by Ramones.

I Wanna Be Sedated by Ramones (1988)

This song was obviously made for the movie Pet Sematary (1989). It’s the following guy that we have to thank for this song existing:

King is apparently a big fan of the Ramones. According to Wikipedia, King invited them to his home where he proceeded to hand a copy of the book to Dee Dee who went into the basement, and came out an hour later with the lyrics for the song. Impressive. Sure the song would go on to win the Razzie Award for Worst Original Song, but I’m assuming he both read the book and wrote the lyrics in an hour. I find that to be impressive. Still, I can understand why it won that award. All you have to do is play I Wanna Be Sedated back-to-back with this song, and it’s night and day.

The video was shot at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in the New York village of the same name. The band plays on a hydraulic platform instead of sitting at a table while things go on around them.

Those things include Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie, and members of The Dead Boys. I couldn’t find any of them for sure. You’d think Debbie Harry would stand out, but the video quality is so bad. My best guess is that she is the one on the left.

In the end, they’re buried.

Despite the fact that Mary Lambert of music video fame directed the film, as well Pet Sematary 2: Judgement Day, the video was directed by Bill Fishman. He appears to have done around 50-60 music videos total, with the most recent one being in 2014 for The Decemberists. He directed a couple of videos for the Ramones.

Enjoy!

Music Video Of The Day: Atomic by Blondie (1980, directed by David Mallett)

Posted on August 9, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi! Lisa here, filling in for Val, with today’s music video of the day!

Before anyone asks, my selection of this music video has absolutely nothing to do with the current situation between the U.S. and North Korea. To be honest, when I picked this video, I didn’t even know that was going on. The fact that I picked Atomic at a time when everyone is freaking out about nuclear war is just one of those coincidences that helps to keep life interesting!

No, the reason I picked this video was because I’m getting ready to finally watch T2 Trainspotting but, before I watch T2, I have to rewatch the original Trainspotting. Sleeper’s cover of Atomic is prominently featured in Trainspotting and I have to admit that I’ve always liked that chorus of “Your hair is beautiful.” I’ve always loved my hair.

(My boyfriend got excited when I told him I would be featuring this song because apparently, he used to listen to it while running down pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto. And, actually, I can imagine this would be a pretty good driving music.)

Anyway, I did some research to see if I could explain just what exactly this song is actually about. It turns out that the song is actually about nothing. Courtesy of Songfacts, here is Blondie’s lead singer, Debbie Harry, on how Atomic came to be:

“He (Blondie Keyboardist Jimmy Destri) was trying to do something like ‘Heart Of Glass,’ and then somehow or another we gave it the spaghetti western treatment. Before that it was just lying there like a lox. The lyrics, well, a lot of the time I would write while the band were just playing the song and trying to figure it out. I would just be scatting along with them and I would just start going, ‘Ooooooh, your hair is beautiful.'”

While the video takes place in a post-apocalyptic world (and features artist Jean-Michel Basquiat as the man who takes away the horse at the beginning), the song actually has nothing to do with nuclear war. It’s actually not about anything. It’s just a good song!

Enjoy!