I’m going to ask the obvious question here. What the Hell is a beast creature and how is it different from a regular beast or a regular creature? It’s hard to tell from the poster but I think it’s going to take more than a pitchfork to hold back these things, whatever they are.
This is from 1985. The identity of the artist is unknown. If you are the artist or know who the artist was, leave a comment and let us know!
Tonight’s episode of Friday the 13th: The Series is the finale of the first season. When the spirit of Uncle Lewis (R.G. Armstrong) attempts to re-enter the world of the living, it leads to Micki and Ryan reliving some of their worst memories.
The episode originally aired on July 25th, 1988.
A former boxer and phone sex addict (played by real-life boxer Gary Stretch) is picking up women in Los Angeles, taking them to cheap motels, and beating them to death. Detective Matt Dickson (Michael Madsen, with blonde hair) is a burned out homicide cop who finds himself investigating the murders. It doesn’t take Dickson long to figure out that the killer is using the names of former boxing champs when he checks into the motels. He also figures out that the boxer has phone sex before and after the killing. That’s a lot but it’s not enough to solve the case. To do that, he’ll have to team up with a journalist (played by Lisa Bonet) who has personal reasons for wanting to take down the killer.
Back in the 90s, the main reason that I watched Dead Connection was because I had a hopeless crush on Parker Posey and she was listed as being one of the stars of the film. Parker does appear early on in the film and is just as funny and appealing in her small role as she was in bigger parts in other movies. Unfortunately, Parker gets killed pretty early on in the movie. That traumatized me the first time I saw the movie.
After Parker dies, the main reason to watch the movie is to see what Michael Madsen can do with his clichéd role. It turns out that Madsen can do a lot, even though there’s nothing unusual about the character on paper. Madsen just had the right look and the right style of acting for neo-noirs like this one. Even in a movie like this one, Madsen makes the whispering and the arched eyebrow seem cool and natural. Judging from her performance here, Lisa Bonet should have been a bigger star too. Just as with Madsen, there’s nothing unusual about her role but she still plays it with a lot of conviction.
The main problem with Dead Connection is that it reveals the identity of the killer in the first few minutes and it’s hard to believe that it would take the police a particularly long time to track him down. The minute it was learned that he was using the names of boxers to check into motels, that should have been the end of it for him. Instead, the movie dithers around for a good 90 minutes before finally ending on a predictable note. Despite the script’s flaws, Dead Connection is competently directed by Nigel Dick, who was also responsible for several music videos in the 80s and the 90s. Perhaps that explains why Tears for Fears’s Curt Smith has a tiny role as a desk clerk.
In the U.S., the film was released under the title Dead Connection, playing up the phone sex angle. In Europe, the focus was instead put on the killer’s boxing career and the film was called Final Combination, which made it sound like it was a movie about safecrackers. Neither title is really great but I prefer Dead Connection.
The time is the near future. Earth has been invaded by the Hive. The sky is full of monsters. The surface is uninhabitable. You spend your days in an underground bunker, communicating with other survivors via the screen of your computer. Your user name is Blaze. Your friend, who you have never met in person, goes by the name of Topaz. One day, Topaz asks you if you remember what it was like to kiss. The two of you fantasize about the world that once was while trying to maintain a human connection in an inhumane world. What you don’t know is that the Hive is listening in as well, analyzing the conversation and trying to understand what makes humans tick.
There’s a lot more to this game than just sexting at the end of the world. (And the conversation between you and Topaz never gets that explicit so, if that’s what you’re looking for, you’re out of luck.) Instead, the game tells a story about how, even at the worst of times, people need to connect in order to survive. The conversation that you have with Topaz is about more than just getting off. It’s about surviving the bad times by remembering the good. Even though things are bad outside of your bunker, you and Topaz are capable of connecting. The Hive are not. All three of the characters come to life in this well-written, IF game. It’s a simple story that will leave you with a lot to think about.
Today’s scene that I love comes from Jeff Lieberman’s 1978 film, Blue Sunshine.
If you haven’t seen the film, Blue Sunshine is the nickname for the acid that a group of characters dropped while in college during the 60s. Unfortunately, ten years later, all of them are losing their hair, suffering from extreme migraines, and turning into psycho killers. It’s the worst acid flashback of all time!
This is a pretty good film, one that uses the horror genre as a way to explore the contrast between the idealism of college and the realities of the real world. It’s also, as you can see in the scene below, quite suspenseful and more than a little frightening.
4 Shots From 4 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!
Yesterday was the birthday of the great director, Jeff Lieberman, who was responsible for some the best and most unusual horror thrillers of the 70s and the 80s! Today, TSL honors this talented filmmaker with….
4 Shots From 4 Jeff Lieberman Films
Squirm (1976, dir by Jeff Lieberman, DP: Joseph Mangine)
Blue Sunshine (1978, dir by Jeff Lieberman, DP: Don Knight)
Just Before Dawn (1981, dir by Jeff Lieberman, DP: Joel King and Dean King)
Remote Control (1988, dir by Jeff Lieberman, DP: Tim Suhrstedt)
For today’s public domain horror film, I present to you 1959’s Attack of the Giant Leeches. This 60-minute film is a classic Drive-in film. While it has its slow spots, it also features an iconic performance from Yvette Vickers, who is like one of my favorites of the strong, confident, unapologetically sexy women who dominated the old B-movies. (Plus, she was only 5’3 and it’s not easy being brave when you’re having to look up at everyone. Trust me, I know.) This short little film is steamier than Louisiana in August and is full of bayou atmosphere.
I have to admit that I’m kinda freaked out by the scenes of people floating underwater in this film. And leeches … agck! Don’t even get me started on leeches. Especially giant leeches…
Artist Unknown
This is from 1972. In English, the title translates as “Dracula Against Frankenstein.”
On tonight’s episode of Friday the 13th: The Series, Ryan discovers that his own father has been using a cursed pipe to get ahead in business!
This episode originally aired on July 16th, 1988. Ryan’s father is well-played by Michael Constantine, a familiar character actor (he was the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding) who passed away on August 31st of this year.
In the 2013 film, Dead in Tombstone, Danny Trejo plays Guerrero De La Cruz, an old west outlaw who is loyal to his family, who has no problem robbing banks, but who also is not a fan of unnecessary bloodshed. Even though the film opens with Guerrero and his gang gunning down a posse of men, that’s just because they were saving the life of Red (Anthony Michael Hall), who just happens to be Guerrero’s half-brother. No sooner than you can say, “In what world could Danny Trejo and Anthony Michael Hall possibly be related?,” Red is asking Guerrero to help him pull off a daring robbery.
Guerrero helps Red because Guerrero is all about family. Unfortunately, Red is all about money and, not wanting to share the loot after the robbery, he promptly guns Guerrero down. Not only does Red shoot Guerrero but he insists that each member of the gang shoot him as well, implicating all of them in the crime.
Guerrero dies and promptly goes to Hell, where he’s met by Lucifer (Mickey Rourke). Guerrero doesn’t want to go to to Hell. He wants to get revenge. He offers to send a lot more souls down to Hell if Lucifer gives him a chance to return to the world of the living so that he can kill Red and the former members of his gang. Amused, Lucifer agrees but with a condition: Guerrero only has 24 hours to kill all six of his killers and Guerrero has to do all of the killing himself. He can’t hire someone else to do it or ask anyone for help. Guerrero agrees.
Unfortunately, as Guerrero soon discovers, he’s not the only one who wants Red dead. He’s going to have to move quickly if he’s going to kill all the members of the gang before Calathea (Dina Meyer), the wife of a sheriff killed by Red, gets a chance to do it herself!
Dead In Tombstone is one of those films that sounds a lot more interesting than it is. The concept behind the film is actually a pretty neat one and I like the idea of Guerrero actually having competition. This isn’t one of those westerns where everyone patiently waits their turn to go after the bad guys. The entire world wants these guys dead! Plus, who wouldn’t be excited about the idea of watching Danny Trejo and Mickey Rouke act opposite each other? With his weathered features and stoic demeanor, Danny Trejo is the perfect choice to play an outlaw and, for that matter, Rourke’s gravelly whisper and permanent smirk are put to good use in the role of the Devil. And while Anthony Michael Hall might seem like an odd choice to play Danny Trejo’s half-brother, he’s still properly villainous and loathsome in the role of Red.
And yet, the overall film itself is a bit uneven. The film looks good (especially for a straight-to-video project) but it never really seems to develop any sort of narrative momentum and there’s more than a few slow spots. At times, the film seems to be unsure of just how seiously it wants to take itself and, as a result, the story exists in a kind of limbo between being a straight western with supernatural elements and send-up of the whole genre. The end result is pretty uneven but the dream combination of Rourke and Trejo still makes it worth watching.
Through the Shattered Lens 