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!
This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.
Today, we take a look at a very important year: 1978.
6 Shots from 6 Horror Films: 1978
Halloween (1978, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cudney)
Dawn of the Dead (1978, dir by George Romero, DP: Michael Gornick)
Piranha (1978, dir by Joe Dante, DP: Jamie Anderson)
Martin (1978, dir by George Romero, DP: Michael Gornick)
Blue Sunshine (1978, dir by Jeff Lieberman, DP: Don Knight)
From the beginning of the pulp era to the modern day, horror has always been a popular genre. And with horror comes the vampires! Vampires were a popular subject for both the writers and the readers of the pulps. Much blood was spilt between the covers. Here are just a few of the vampires of the pulps:
by Paul Lehman
by John Newton Howitt
by Rafael DeSoto
by Sebastia Boada
by Sebastia Boada
By CC Senf
by H. William Reusswig
by Margaret Brundage
by Robert Bonfils
by Robert Maguire
by Rudolph Belarski
Unknown Artist
It’s not really October until a vampire comes tapping at your window, asking to be invited in.
When this Boy Meets World Boy Meets World Wandering down this road, that we call life Is what we’re doin’ It’s good to know I have friends that will always Stand by me When this Boy Meets World
I imagine that I should probably apologize to Rider Strong for starting this review by quoting the theme song from the final few seasons of Boy Meets World. I’m sure that when Strong agreed to star in the original Cabin Fever, he was hoping that the playing Paul would take him far away from his best-known role of Shawn Hunter. But I have to admit that whenever I think of CabinFever (which, admittedly, is not often) I always think of it as being Boy Meets Flesh Eating Virus.
CabinFever tells the story of a group of stupid college students, including Rider Strong, who decide to spend Spring Break at a remote cabin in the woods. They’ve got weed, beer, and plans for a wild, sex-fueled weekend. Unfortunately, the majority of them also end up with a flesh-eating virus. It turns out the virus has been infecting people and animals all around the cabin. People are going crazy as their flesh decays and peels off of their bones. It’s a messy virus. With the police struggling to contain the spread, a group of locals have decided that it’s up to them to kill off anyone who is infected.
One member of the group grabs the beer and runs off so that he can spend the weekend drunk and in isolation, The other members of the group are stranded in the cabin and the surrounding woods. Bodies are falling apart and dogs are eating their owners. It’s Boy Meets Pandemic.
This was Eli Roth’s directorial debut and he didn’t hold back on the gore. While we really don’t know much about the college students in the cabin (beyond the fact that they’re all dumbasses and one of them is played by Rider Strong), we learn everything that you could possibly want to know about what that flesh-eating virus does to its victims. The film might as well be called “Nom nom nom,” because it’s all about eating flesh. Roth is also shameless about paying homage (or ripping off, depending on how much you like Roth) to the horror films that influenced him. Night of the Living Dead comes to mind, especially the ending.
(Personally, I like the fact that, with his first film, Eli Roth declared himself to be a lover of horror. CabinFever was released in 2002, long before the current mainstream horror boom. Eli Roth was openly celebrating horror at a time when many critics were still writing it off.)
Cabin Fever is a hit-or-miss affair, with the emphasis on miss. The virus is scary because it’s so nasty but the characters themselves are so boring that most viewers won’t care when they get infected. I did like Giuseppe Andrews’s performance as a weird deputy but otherwise, no one is the cast makes much of an impression until after they’ve lost their skin. They’re walking down this road that we call life …. and now they’re dead.
Viewed today, of course, it’s hard not to compare the flesh-eating virus to COVID or Monkeypox or whatever the latest disease is. If Cabin Fever were made today, the gun-toting locals would have been the heroes and the college students would have been the villains for daring to try to leave the cabin. Yesterday’s villains and today’s heroes and vice versa. For many, walking down this road that we call life has never felt more uncertain, even without a flesh-eating virus to worry about.
Today’s movie is Ed Wood’s sequel to Bride of the Monsters. In Night of the Ghouls, con man Dr. Alcula (Kenne Duncan) moves into Bela Lugosi’s old mansion and pretends to talk to the dead. What Alcula doesn’t realize is that the house is actually haunted (by Tor Johnson’s Lobo, among others) and real ghosts don’t appreciate pretend ghosts.
What can you say about a film like of Night of the Ghouls? It’s an Ed Wood film, with all that suggests. However, how can you resist a film that starts with Criswell sitting up in his coffin and providing commentary?
The role of Dr. Alcula was originally written for Bela Lugosi. After Lugosi’s death, veteran actor and longtime Wood friend Kenne Duncan got the role instead. Also of note, Wood appears twice in this film. Not only does his picture appear on a wanted poster in the police station but Wood also plays one of the ghouls.
When Iron Maiden released this song, they knew that their fans would try to find out who Benjamin Breeg was so they created a website about Breeg. According to the site, Breeg was a painter of disturbing images who later found work in a cemetery and then as a paranormal investigator. He disappeared in 1978. Of course, this was all fictional. There was no Benjamin Breeg. The “Breeg” painting that was displayed on the site was actually a painting of Eddie, the band’s mascot.
The video features footage of Iron Maiden performing mixed in with a montage of early band pictures.
On tonight’s episode of Ghost Story, Lynn Loring plays Janet. Janet has inherited her mother’s house. (Her mother died in a mental hospital.) Janet is determined to fix up the house and her cousins (Rip Torn and Geraldine Page) are more than happy to help! Or are they?
This is a pretty good episode, largely due to the fact that Rip Torn and Geraldine Page play the cousins. Torn and Page were married at the time and they both appear to be having a blast playing their odd roles. This episode reminds me a bit of Jess Franco’s A Virgin Among The Living Dead. It originally aired on December 8th, 1972.
In this 1967 film from venerable B-movie director Larry Buchanan, a psychic con artist uses hypnosis to bring back into existence a prehistoric, humanoid amphibian.
Wait?
What?
Okay, so the story doesn’t make much sense. In fact, I would be lying if I said that I fully understood the film, despite the fact that I sat through all 88 minutes of it on Saturday night. Basically, Dr. Basso (Les Tremayne) is a hypnotist and an occult historian. He’s bitter about the fact that the world doesn’t appreciate him or take him seriously, despite the fact that he spends almost the entire film wearing a tuxedo and he has a head of silver hair that would have made even the great Criswell jealous. So, Basso decides that the best way to prove his powers would be start predicting when people are going to die. And the way he does that is by hypnotizing his assistant, Doreena (Pat Delaney).
Somehow, hypnotizing Doreena causes this prehistoric humanoid monster thing to rise out of the nearby lake so that it can kill whoever Dr. Basso wants dead. It’s interesting that Dr. Basso could figure out how to bring an extinct creature back to life but he could come up with a less destructive way to prove his powers. This is just my opinion but it seems like he could have just displayed the prehistoric monster and that would have proven his powers far more effectively than committing murders. Dr. Basso’s plan is needlessly complicated. Neither Dr. Basso nor the film ever seem to consider what would happen if he was asked to prove his powers while performing somewhere that wasn’t conveniently located near a lake. If Dr. Basso ever plays Vegas, he’s in trouble.
Anyway, it falls of Lt. Blake (Roger Ready) and Captain Dell (Aron Kincaid) to figure out how to stop Dr. Basso. Captain Dell is not just an expert on the occult but he’s also an Air Force psychiatrist, so he goes through the entire movie wearing his uniform. Dell being in the Air Force doesn’t really figure into the plot otherwise. He could just as easily be in private practice. One gets the feeling that he was made an Air Force captain just because someone had the uniform and it looked good on Aron Kincaid.
Creature of Destruction is a fairly confusing film. Unfortunately, it’s also a rather boring film. Larry Buchanan was a prolific director but he was never a particularly good one. Some directors knew how to take advantage of a low budget and less than compelling actors. Unfortunately, Buchanan really wasn’t one of them. Still, the lake scenery is nice and it’s kind of fun to watch the monster waddle across the screen. As well, there are two musical interludes that come out of nowhere but which are amusing in a late 60s beach movie sort of way. So, the film has that going for it. Otherwise, not even hypnosis will help you get through Creature of Destruction.
Six college students decide to stick it to the man by avoiding pricey dorm living and instead squatting in an abandoned hospital. That makes sense because we all know that college is too damn expensive and that student housing is rip-off. The students may have made a mistake picking the hospital, though. Guess what? That hospital was abandoned for a reason! Years ago, a “shrieking” murderer killed all of the doctors and the nurses. Some say the murderer was a crazed patient while others say it was a monster summoned by Satanists. No sooner has mathematics major Clark (Tanya Dempey) moved into the hospital than everyone starts to hear the sound of shrieks coming from the basement. Not only is there someone else already living in the basement but, somehow, the Shrieker has also been summoned! Once people start dying, the suspicion is directed at Clark because she’s the newest resident. But Clark thinks that, thanks to her skill with numbers and computers, she’s figured out who is actually responsible and how the Shrieker selects its victims. She may have even figured out how to defeat the Shrieker but will she be able to get anyone to listen to her?
From Charles Band’s Full Moon Entertainment, this is one of those low-budget direct-to-video horror films that used to show up on late night Cinemax. Unfortunately, it’s pretty tame, with none of the gore or anything else that we typically associate with Full Moon Entertainment. The Shrieker itself looks good but it’s never around for long and too many of its attacks are just filmed as a sudden close-up of the Shrieker’s face. The characters are all obnoxious but most of them die so it’s not a problem. Alison Cuffe plays the role of the token communist with a lot of relish but it’s hard not to wonder what Linnea Quigley could have done with that role. That would have been something to shriek about.
You are trapped in a maze. You’re not sure why you are walking through this maze or why it is so difficult to find a way out. At the start of the maze, a man named John Everyman offers to help you out but if he doesn’t think you’re being properly appreciative, he’ll leave you to figure it out on your own.
Try to make your way through the maze without getting lost. I’ve played this game a few times. It’s not easy. It’s even a little creepy. Stop and relax on a park bench but don’t fall asleep. Climb a tree and discover a homey place to rest but watch out for the rain and the lightning. Then there’s the graveyard. Three of the graves are filled. The fourth is waiting for you. Find some rocks. Break the security cameras and the LED signs that flash messages at you. It’ll make you feel better but it won’t get you out of the maze. At one point, you’re even given the chance to accept that the game is over. Will you accept or will you keep searching?
You May Not Escape! was designed using Inform and it’s a throwback to the classic text adventures that I used to play when I was a kid. Even the puzzle feels like a throwback. Can you navigate a maze? How many times to Scott Adams go back to that well? But You May Not Escape! is much more difficult and rewarding than the old games that it resmebles. This game requires some thinking. It requires some imagination. It requires that the player pay attention to what they’re reading. The game is well-written and I appreciated all the little details that made the maze so memorable. I especially liked the LED tickers the spelled out messages that were either menacing or encouraging, depending on how you read them. You May Not Escape! is challenging but rewarding.
Through the Shattered Lens 