Tag Archives: Jeff Lieberman

6 Shots From 6 Horror Films: 1978

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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)

The Grapes of Death (1978, dir by Jean Rollin)

Scenes That I Love: The Blue Sunshine Kicks In

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 Jeff Lieberman Films

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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)

Horror Film Review: Squirm (dir by Jeff Lieberman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Worms are creepy and you don’t want to get them in your hair.

I think that, more than anything, explains the continuing appeal of this lightly satirical Southern shocker from 1976.  The film’s plot is a simple one, as the plots of the best horror films often are.  There’s a storm.  The power lines over Fly Creek, Georgia get knocked down.  The power line lands in the mud and soon, you’ve got thousands of electrified worms crawling all over the place.  These worms are angry and noisy and they like to eat people’s faces and take control of their bodies.  Of course, since the power lines are all down, you’re can/t exactly call for help and even worse, you’re thrown into darkness once the sun goes down.  Squirm gets at some very basic fears.

Squirm has a welcome sense of humor, as any film about killer worms should.  It’s obvious that Lieberman knew that the audience would be demanding that the worms get revenge on at least a few fisherman and those scenes are tossed in there.  The film’s nominal hero is Mick (Don Scardino), a visitor from New York City, and he’s so out-of-place in rural Georgia that it becomes funny watching him try to do simple things like order food or have a simple conversation.  Even when he tries to warn people about the worms, you can tell they’re thinking, “He might be right but do I want to listen to a yankee?”  As we say down here in Texas, you can always spot the yankee because they’re the ones sweating profusely and talking about killer worms.  The scenes of Mick trying to order something at the local diner reminded me of the great “We don’t got no goddamn trout” scene from Hell or High Water.

Mick is in Georgia to visit his girlfriend, Geri (Patricia Pearcy).  Almost everyone who Mick meets seems like they could have come out of an overheated first draft of a Tennessee Williams play.  Once the worm attack starts in earnest, Geri’s mother sinks into a state of denial that would have impressed Blanche DuBois.  Meanwhile, Squirm has its own wannaba Stanley Kowalski in the form of Roger (R.A. Dow), who obviously can’t understand why Geri would want a boyfriend from New York when she could have him.  Roger is a creep but he’s a familiar creep.  Anyone who has ever lived in the country will immediately recognize Roger and know everything that they need to know about him.

That said, the worms are the real stars of Squirm and they certainly do manage to get everywhere.  On the one hand, it’s funny to see the worms emerging from a shower head but, on the other hand, it’s actually really terrifying because, when you’re standing naked in a shower, the last thing you want is to get about a thousand worms dumped on your head.  Seriously, that would freak me out even more than threat of getting killed by Norman Bates’s mother.  The film is also full of close-ups of the worms and, to be honest, worms are really freaky to look at.  The opening and closing of that little mouth is like pure nightmare fuel.

Squirm is a classic of Southern horror.  You’ll never look at a worm the same way again.

 

Shattered Politics #42: Blue Sunshine (dir by Jeff Lieberman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(I wrote an earlier version of this review for HorrorCritic.Com.)

Blue_Sunshine_(film)

Occasionally, on twitter, I would take part in the Drive-In Mob live tweet session.  Every Thursday night, a group of exploitation, grindhouse, and horror film fans gog together and watched the same film and, via twitter, provided their own running commentary track.  It was always terrific fun and a good opportunity to discover some films that you might have otherwise missed.  It was through the Drive-In Mob that I first discovered a low-budget cult classic from 1978, Blue Sunshine.

Blue Sunshine (directed by the underrated horror director Jeff Lieberman) opens in the late 1970s.  Across California, people are suddenly going bald and turning psychotic.  At a party, singer Frannie Scott (played by Richard Crystal) has a nervous breakdown when another reveler playfully pulls off his wig and reveals Frannie to be hairless.  Frannie responds by tossing half of the guests into the fireplace and then running out into the night.  He’s pursued by his best friend Jerry Zipkin (played by future director Zalman King) but when Frannie is accidentally killed while running away, Jerry finds himself accused of being a murderer.  Even as the police pursue him, Jerry starts his own investigation.  He quickly discovers that there’s an epidemic of bald people suddenly murdering those closest to them.  The one thing that these people have in common: they all attended Stanford University in the late 1960s and they all used a powerful form of LSD known as “blue sunshine.”  Now, ten years later, they’re all having the worst flashback imaginable.

And, perhaps most dangerously, the campus drug dealer, spoiled rich kid Edward Fleming (Mark Goddard), is on the verge of being elected to the U.S. Congress.  Not only it is possible that Edward may have taken the acid himself but Edward and his campaign manager have their own reasons to try to make sure that Jerry never reveals the truth behind Blue Sunshine.

Blue Sunshine is probably one of the best of the old grindhouse films, a film that embraces the conventions of both the horror and the political thriller genres while, at the same time, neatly subverting our expectations.  Director Jeff Lieberman emphasizes atmosphere over easy shocks and the film’s cast does a pretty good job of making us wonder who is normal and who has dropped the blue sunshine.  Wisely, Lieberman doesn’t resort to giving us any easy villains in this film.  Much like the best horror films, the monsters in Blue Sunshine are as much victims as victimizers.  I especially sympathized by one poor woman who was driven to rip off her wig by the sound of two particularly obnoxious children chanting, “We want Dr. Pepper!” over and over again.  Seriously, that’s enough to drive anyone crazy.

Blue Sunshine is one of those wonderfully odd little cult films that makes me thankful that I own a DVD player.  First released in 1978, Blue Sunshine mixes psychological horror with political conspiracy and the end result is an unusually intelligent B-movie that remains relevant even when seen today.  Blue Sunshine was originally released on DVD by Synapse Entertainment and it has since been re-released by the New Video Group.  I own the Synapse edition, which features a very entertaining director’s commentary with Jeff Lieberman as well as a bonus CD of the film’s haunting and atmospheric score.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJAAZZiFQ1Y

Back to School #12: The Ringer (dir by Jeff Lieberman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you’re a teen who lives in North Texas, then today was your first day back to school.  In honor of this event, I’ve been doing a special series of Back to School reviews: 76 reviews in 8 days, all dealing with either high school or being a teenager.  Today, we continue this series by taking a look at The Ringer, a clever 1972 film about drugs, music, and nose rings!

Over the course of 20 minutes, The Ringer tells several different stories.  A girl shoots up heroin and then reacts with disturbing passivity as blood starts to run down her arm in close-up.  A group of ad execs discuss the best way to convince teenagers to buy “ringers,” huge nose rings that will let people know what they believe in.  (While the whole idea behind the ringers is a play on the idea of people being “led by the nose,” it also accurately predicted future fashion and how many educational films can you say that about?)  A group of music executives discuss the best way to market a new band, agreeing that the best strategy would be to make it appear as if the band isn’t being sold while it actually is.  (One of them suggests that they shouldn’t have chairs at any of the band’s shows, in order to make the band seem unpretentious and seriously, we all know that would totally work…)  And finally, there’s the group of drug dealers who strategize about the best way to sell pills to teenagers…

Now, I have to admit that I have a weakness for old educational films but that’s largely because they tend to be so silly.  The Ringer is unique in that it’s actually a very clever and well-done film that deftly uses satire (as opposed to the heavy-handed messaging that we usually tend to associate with educational films) to make its point.  As opposed to many other anti-drug films of the period, The Ringer doesn’t spend any time telling horror stories about what people may or may not do while under the influence but instead, it ridicules and attacks those that get rich off of other people’s addictions.

The Ringer is also interesting because it was the directorial debut of filmmaker Jeff Lieberman, who brought a similar mix of satire and drama to such classic films as Blue Sunshine, Squirm, and Just Before Dawn!  If you keep an eye out, you can spot him playing one of the drug dealers!