Tag Archives: Mary Woronov

October Hacks: Silent Night, Bloody Night (dir by Theodore Gershuny)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Filmed in 1972 and subsequently released in 1974, Silent Night Bloody Night is a real treat, an atmospheric thriller that has a wonderfully complicated plot that will keep you guessing.

Silent Night Bloody Night opens with attorney John Carter (Patrick O’Neal) arriving in a small town on Christmas Eve.  He’s traveling with his assistant and mistress, Ingrid (Astrid Heeren).  He’s been hired by Jeff Butler (James Patterson) to oversee the sell of his grandfather’s home.  When Carter arrives, he finds that the town is run by a group of elderly eccentrics, including the mute Charlie Towman (John Carradine).  Charlie communicates by ringing a bell and he’s the editor of the town newspaper.  Carter convinces the town council to buy the Butler mansion.  Then, Carter and Ingrid go to the mansion, make love, and are promptly brutally hacked to death by an unseen assailant with an axe.  It’s a shocking moment because, up until their death scene, Carter and Ingrid seemed to be our main characters.  Much as with Marion Crane’s shower in Psycho, their murder leaves an absence at the heart of the film.

That night, our new hero, Jeff Butler (James Patterson) comes to the isolated town to check on how the sale is going.  He finds the mansion locked up and no one willing to talk about John Carter.  With the help of local girl Diane (Mary Woronov), Jeff investigates his grandfather’s death and discovers that the town is full of secrets and people who are willing to kill to maintain them.  As we discover through some wonderfully dream-like flashbacks, Jeff’s grandfather died nearly 40 years ago when he was set on fire in his own home.  Those aren’t the only flashbacks to the film.  In an extended sepia-toned flashback, we learn about the previous inhabitants of the house.  They are all played by former Warhol superstars, including Candy Darling, Ondine, Tally Brown, Charlotte Fairchild, Lewis Love, Harvey Cohen, George Trakas, Susan Rothenberg, and Jack Smith.  (Mary Woronov was, herself, a former member of Warhol’s entourage.)

Silent Night Bloody Night has a terrible reputation.  Mary Woronov, who was married to director Theodore Gershuny at the time she made the film, later described it as being “lousy.”  Personally, I think the film’s reputation has more to do with all of the grainy, bad copies of the film that have turned up in various Mill Creek box sets over the years than the quality of the film itself.  (Silent Night Bloody Night is in public domain.)  The film itself is atmospheric, memorably bloody, and — for those who have the patience to deal with the occasional slow spot — effectively creepy.  Mary Woronov is a likable lead and the Warhol superstars definitely make an impression.  The film plays out at its own deliberate pace and, at its best, it duplicates the feeling of a particularly macabre holiday dream.

Director Theodore Gershuny uses the low budget to his advantage and the sepia-toned flashbacks are truly disturbing and haunting.  Ultimately, Silent Night Bloody Night feels like a dream itself and the mystery’s solution is less important than the journey taken to reach it.

The TSL Grindhouse: Nomads (dir by John McTiernan)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1986’s Nomads opens with anthropologist Jean-Charles Pommier being rushed into an emergency room, badly beaten and struggling for his life.  Despite the best efforts of Dr. Eileen Flax (Lesley-Anne Down), Pommier dies in the ER.  Flax is shocked by Pommier’s death and, naturally, she’s upset that she couldn’t save him.  But, at the same time, people die in hospitals.  It happens to the best of doctors.

Except soon, Flax is seeing flashes of the events that led to Pommier’s death.  Pommier has somehow entered her mind and soon, she’s reliving his investigation into the origins of a group of destructive, urban nomads that Pommier witnessed causing havoc throughout Los Angeles.  Pommier often felt like he was the only person who was capable of seeing the nomads and he grew to be tortured by his fear that they were specifically stalking him.  We soon learn that there was reason for that….

Now, based on his name, you’re probably assuming that Pommier is meant to be French.  And he is!  He’s from France, though he considers himself to be a citizen of the world.  He’s traveled everywhere, taking pictures of different cultural rituals across the globe.  However, in Nomads, the very French Jean-Charles Pommier is played by Pierce Brosnan.  Pierce Brosnan is, needless to say, not French.  He’s Irish, even though a lot of people seem to be shocked when they first learn that.  Brosnan normally speaks with an accent that could best be described as a mix of posh London and mid-Atlantic American.  Everything about him screams the UK.  In short, Pierce Brosnan is one of the least convincing French people ever seen on film and he delivers his lines in an accent that sounds like every accent other than the French accent.  Watching this film, I found myself thinking about the Monty Python skit where Terry Jones and Carol Cleveland starred in a French movie.  (“I see you have a cabbage.”  “Oui.”)  Brosnan is not a bad actor and it’s entertaining to watch him overact in Nomads.  But there’s nothing French about him and every time that someone referred to him as being French, it totally took me out of the movie.

Which is a shame because Nomads may be narratively incoherent but it’s got some memorably surreal visuals and it does a good job of generating a properly ominous atmosphere.  Director John McTiernan (who later went on to do Predator, Die Hard, and The Hunt For Red October) makes smart use of slow motion and a handheld camera to keep the audience off-balance.  At its best, Nomads achieves a dream-like intensity that makes up for the fact that the story doesn’t make the least bit of sense.  The nomads themselves are a memorable and creepy.  While Adam Ant plays their leader (and the scene where he smiles as Brosnan attempts to throw him off a building is truly disturbing), the most frightening of the nomads is Mary Woronov as Dancing Mary.  Seriously, after I watched this film, I checked all the locks in the house.  No urban nomads were going to interrupt me in my sleep!

My suggestion to everyone is to do a Nomads/Nomadland double feature.  You’ll never get in another van.

Dick Tracy (1990, directed by Warren Beatty)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The year is 1937 and “Big Boy” Caprice (Al Pacino) and his gang of flamboyant and often disfigured criminals are trying to take over the rackets.  Standing in their way is ace detective Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty), the yellow trench-wearing defender of the law.  Tracy is not only looking to take down Caprice but he and Tess Trueheart (Glenne Headly) are currently the guardians of The Kid (Charlie Korsmo), a young street kid who witnessed one of Caprice’s worst crimes.  Tracy’s investigation leads him through a rogue’s gallery of criminals and also involves Breathless Mahoney (Madonna), who has witnessed many of Caprice’s crimes but who also wants to steal Tracy’s heart from Tess.

Based on the long-running comic strip, Dick Tracy was a labor of love on the part of Warren Beatty.  Not only starring but also directing, Tracy made a film that stayed true to the look and the feel of the original comic strip (the film’s visual palette was limited to just seven colors) while also including an all-star cast the featured Madonna is an attempt to appeal to a younger audience who had probably never even heard of Dick Tracy.  When Dick Tracy was released, the majority of the publicity centered around Madonna’s participation in the film and the fact that she was dating Beatty at the time.  Madonna is actually probably the weakest element of the film.  More of a personality than an actress, Madonna is always Madonna no matter who she is playing and, in a film full of famous actors managing to be convincing as the members of Dick Tracy’s rogue gallery, Madonna feels out of place.  Michelle Pfeiffer would have been the ideal Breathless Mahoney.

It doesn’t matter, though, because the rest of the film is great.  It’s one of the few comic book films of the 90s to really hold up, mostly due to Beatty’s obvious enthusiasm for the material and the performances of everyone in the supporting cast who was not named Madonna.  Al Pacino received an Oscar nomination for playing Big Boy Caprice but equally good are Dustin Hoffman as Mumbles, William Forsythe as Flaptop, R.G. Armstong as Pruneface, and Henry Silva as Influence.  These actors all create memorable characters, even while acting under a ton of very convincing makeup.  I also liked Dick Van Dyke as the corrupt District Attorney.  Beatty knew audience would be shocked to see Van Dyke not playing a hero and both he and Van Dyke play it up for all its worth.  Beatty embraces the comic strip’s campiness while still remaining respectful to its style and the combination of Danny Elfman’s music and Stephen Sondheim’s songs provide just the right score for Dick Tracy’s adventures.  The film can be surprisingly violent at times but the same was often said about the Dick Tracy comic strip.  It wasn’t two-way wrist radios and trips to the Moon.  Dick Tracy also dealt with the most ruthless and bloodthirsty gangsters his city had to offer.

Dick Tracy was considered to be a box office disappointment when it was originally released.  (Again, you have to wonder if Beatty overestimated how many fans Dick Tracy had in 1990.)  But it holds up well and is still more entertaining than several of the more recent comic book movies that have been released.

#MondayMuggers – Why DEATH RACE 2000?

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Every Monday night at 9:00 Central Time, my wife Sierra and I host a “Live Movie Tweet” event on X using the hashtag #MondayMuggers. We rotate movie picks each week, and our tastes are quite different. Tonight, Monday December 2nd, we’re watching DEATH RACE 2000 starring David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone, Simone Griffith, Mary Woronov, Roberta Collins, and Martin Kove.

So why did I pick DEATH RACE 2000, you might ask? It’s pretty simple. I think it will be a fun movie to watch with a group. Unlike most of my choices, which are movies I’ve seen many times, I’ve only seen DEATH RACE 2000 one time before and it’s been awhile. I’m looking forward to seeing it again myself. I like that it’s a B-movie from legendary producer Roger Corman. That’s usually a good thing. I like that it’s directed by Paul Bartel. Bartel’s EATING RAOUL was one of those movies that helped me appreciate black comedy when I was growing up. I really like the cast, especially David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone. And finally, I like that it’s 80 minutes long. In today’s world where every film feels the need to be between 2 and 3 hours, I’ve grown to really appreciate movies clocking in at 90 minutes or less! 

It’s on Amazon Prime and Tubi. Join us if you’d like!

Horror On The Lens: Silent Night, Bloody Night (dir by Theodore Gershuny)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1974 film Silent Night, Bloody Night is an oddity.

On the one hand, it’s pretty much a standard slasher film, complete with a menacing mansion, a horrible secret, a twist ending, and John Carradine playing a mute newspaper editor.

On the other hand, director Ted Gershuny directs like he’s making an underground art film and several of the supporting roles are played by actors who were best known for their association with Andy Warhol.

Personally, I like Silent Night, Bloody Night.  It has a terrible reputation and the film’s star, Mary Woronov, has gone on record calling it a “terrible movie” but I like the surreal touches the Gershuny brought to the material and the sepia-toned flashbacks have a nightmarish intensity to them.  The film makes no logical sense, which actually makes it all the more appealing to me.  As the saying goes, your mileage may vary.

Watch and decide for yourself!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Monsters 1.10 “Pillow Talk”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire show is streaming on Tubi.

Tonight, a bed demands to be fed.

Episode 1.10 “Pillow Talk”

(Dir by David Odell, originally aired on December 24th, 1988)

Miles Magnus (John Diehl) is one of the most successful horror authors in the world, writing best seller after best seller.  All of his books seem to involve a “master” who forces other people to do something terrible.  This episode opens with Miles bringing home his date, Barbara (Ruth de Sosa), and immediately taking her to his bedroom.

Barbara is impressed, especially with the fact that Miles keeps all of his books in his bedroom.  Miles is more interested in pointing out his rather large bed.  Miles tells her that, like Marcel Proust, he does all of his writing in bed.  Barbara’s reaction indicates that she’s not sure exactly who Marcel Proust is.  Despite the fact that Miles is kind of awkward and geeky, it’s not long before Barbara has stripped down to her underwear, rolled around on the bed, and invited Miles to join her.

Then the bed eats her.

Seriously.  The mattress opens up like a mouth and two rather phallic tentacles wrap around Barbara and pull her into the gaping hole.  All that’s left behind are her high heels because, apparently, the bed does not like shoes.

It turns out that Miles has been using the old trick of writing about what you know.  Miles does have a master and it’s his bed.  Of course, the bed itself is possessed by a creature that Miles describes as being the last of “the Great Old Ones.”  So, Miles’s bed is possessed by Cthulhu?

The next night, Miles brings home another woman.  Vicki (Mary Woronov) is a writer herself.  She writes romance novels and she tells Miles that she feels as if they are kindred spirits because her novels also often feature a master/servant relationship.  Miles tries to maneuver Vicki over to the bed but, instead, Vicki finds Miles’s diary and leaves with it.

Vicki later calls Miles and tells him that she hasn’t been able to put down his diary, which she apparently believes to be a rough draft of his newest novel.  She invites him over to her apartment so they can discuss it.  Mostly wanting to get back his diary so his secrets are not revealed, Miles goes over to Vicki’s place.  Vicki says that she thinks they should collaborate on a new novel and more.  After checking to make sure that Vicki’s bed is not alive, Miles agrees.

Ha!  The joke’s on Miles.  Vicki’s bed may not eat people but her refrigerator does!  When Miles gets a beer, he’s dragged into the refrigerator by a familiar set of tentacles and only his shoes are left behind.  Cthulhu really does not like footwear!

This was an enjoyable piece of Lovecraftian-style whimsy, with John Diehl giving an effectively jittery performance and Mary Woronov stealing the entire episode with her more cool and icy turn as the femme fatale, Vicki.  Just as being confined to bed gave Proust the time to perfect his talent, having to feed his bed has made Miles into both a successful author and a mental wreck.  More than just being a show about a bed that eats people, this is also a story about the isolation of being an artist.  In order to keep his talent and inspiration from fading, Miles has to literally destroy every human relationship that he has.  He can blame it on Cthulhu all the he wants but, in the end, Miles is the one who made his bed and must now sleep in it.

Horror On The Lens: Silent Night, Bloody Night (dir by Theodore Gershuny)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1974 film Silent Night, Bloody Night is an oddity.

On the one hand, it’s pretty much a standard slasher film, complete with a menacing mansion, a horrible secret, a twist ending, and John Carradine playing a mute newspaper editor.

On the other hand, director Ted Gershuny directs like he’s making an underground art film and several of the supporting roles are played by actors who were best known for their association with Andy Warhol.

Personally, I like Silent Night, Bloody Night.  It has a terrible reputation and the film’s star, Mary Woronov, has gone on record calling it a “terrible movie” but I like the surreal touches the Gershuny brought to the material and the sepia-toned flashbacks have a nightmarish intensity to them.  The film makes no logical sense, which actually makes it all the more appealing to me.  As the saying goes, your mileage may vary.

Watch and decide for yourself!

October Hacks: Blood Theatre (dir by Rick Sloane)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have watched my share of not-good films but, as I sit here typing this, it’s hard for me to think of anything quite as mind-numbingly bad as 1984’s Blood Theatre.

Blood Theatre is a horror film without scares and a comedy without laughs.  It starts at some point in the past, when a lovelorn movie theater owner (played, as a young man, by David Milbern) has a nervous breakdown upon discovering that the ticket girl doesn’t love him.  So, he stabs her to death and then sets the theater on fire, killing the majority of the patrons inside.  Years later, Mr. Murdock (Rob-Roy Fletcher) decides to increase his chain of Starlite Theaters by purchasing the old theater.  He sends three of his employees over to get the place in shape.  What he doesn’t stop to consider is that the theater owner (now played, as an old man, by Jonathan Blakely) is still haunting the old theater and killing anyone who shows up.  Is the owner a ghost or a human killer?  The film never quite makes up its mind, as sometimes he appears to have control of electricity and time and space and other times, he’s just an old geezer with a knife.

But the motives of the killer really aren’t that important because, oddly enough, he’s not really in the much of the film.  Instead, the majority of the film is a broad comedy about the people working at the theater, none of whom are particularly funny or even likable.  Selena (Joanna Foxx) gets mad when someone fails to pay for their popcorn so, for some reason, she follows them into theater and rips of her bra in front of them.  I’m not really sure how that is supposed to get back at them for not paying for their popcorn but it does lead to a riot in the theater as everyone demands that she sit down so that they can enjoy the movie.  Amazingly, this somehow does not lead to Selena getting fired but instead, she and her friend Darcy (Stephanie Dillard) are transferred to the new theater, much to the irritation of their co-worker, cheerleader Jennifer (Jenny Cunningham).  Jennifer, Selena, and Darcy are all supposed to be in high school but they also all appear to be in their 30s.

Mary Woronov is also in this film.  She’s totally wasted in the role of Murdock’s administrative assistant.  She spends the entire movie answering the phone in the office and rolling her eyes and then making sarcastic comments about the fact that Murdock has gone to a theater owner’s convention but he hasn’t returned yet because he’s been mugged.  For reasons that aren’t really clear, she hates Murdock and she hates everyone that she works with but then again, no one in this movie seems to like anyone else.  Everyone in this movie dislikes everyone else and, as a result, it’s not as if any of the people are particularly pleasant to hang out with.

This is one of those comedies where every joke is repeated ad nauseum, to the point where it becomes impossible to watch the film without wanting to throw something at the screen.  It would help, of course, if the jokes were funny but none of them are.  It would also help if there was a shred of charisma to be found in the cast but, with the exception of Mary Woronov, everyone delivers their lines stiffly and without personality.  Clocking in at 75 minutes but feeling much, much longer, Blood Theatre is one of the most incredibly dull films that I’ve ever seen.  This is the slasher film that answers the question, “Just how bad can these films get?”

Horror Film Review: Night of the Comet (dir by Thom Eberhardt)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1984 film, Night of the Comet, begins with the end.

The end of the world, that is!

When the Earth passes through the tail of a comet, the end result is that the majority of the world’s population is reduced to red dust.  Those who are exposed to the comet but not turned immediately into dust face an even worse fate.  They are transformed into mindless zombies.  Fortunately, 18 year-old Reggie (Catherine Mary Stewart) and her 16 year-old sister, Sam (Kelli Maroney), both managed to avoid getting exposed.  Sam was in a steel shed, hiding from their abusive stepmother.  Reggie was in a theater projection room with her boyfriend.  When Reggie and Sam wake up in the morning to discover that they are two of the few people left alive on the planet, they do what anyone would do.

They go to the mall!

Which is probably the same thing that me and my sisters would have done if we had found ourselves in a similar situation.  That’s one reason why Night of the Comet holds up so well.  It’s one of the few films to be honest about how most people would probably react to the end of the world.  Instead of giving a big dramatic monologue or having a breakdown or getting into a fight about who is to blame and what it all means, Reggie and Sam try to have a little fun.  Of course, they also grab some guns while they’re at the mall.  They’re not stupid.  They know the situation is grim and they need to be prepared.  But still, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t try on all the clothes that they previously would not have been able to afford.  And why shouldn’t they treat the mall as their own personal playground?  They’re young and they’ve survived the end of the world.  They deserve to enjoy themselves.

Of course, just because Reggie and Sam survived, that doesn’t mean the world is a safe place.  Along with the zombies, there’s also a crazed group of former stockboys who now view the mall as being their own personal kingdom.  And then there’s the scientists, who claim that they’re benevolent but who are actually looking for healthy specimens on which they  can experiment.

Night of the Comet is a terrifically fun horror movie, a real treat for anyone who has ever imagined what they would do if they were among the last people on Earth.  Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney, and Robert Beltran (who plays another survivor) brings a lot of energy to their likable roles while Mary Woronov and Geoffrey Lewis are properly menacing as the two main scientists.  The zombies, with their crazed eyes and their decaying faces, are genuinely frightening.  Director Thom Eberhardt wisely doesn’t overuse the zombies.  Indeed, the whole point of the film is that the world is now nearly empty of people, whether they’re zombies or not.  But because the zombies aren’t present all of the time, it makes it easy to forget about them and it also makes all the more frightening when they suddenly show up.

Night of the Comet is an enjoyable mix of horror and comedy, one that holds up well nearly 40 years after it was first released.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Chopping Mall (dir by Jim Wynorski)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This 1986 film tells the story of what happens when one local mall decides that it’s had enough of thievery and vandalism.

First off, automatic locks and shutters are installed.  What that means is that, at a certain hour, anyone who is inside the mall is going to be trapped there until the morning.  Secondly, three robots are used as a security force.  They’re called Protectors and they roll around, looking for thieves and keeping people safe.  Don’t worry about getting mistaken for a thief, of course.  As long as you’ve got a badge, the protector will just say, “Thank you and have a good day.”

It all seems perfect but …. what if the robots malfunction?  What if they ignore the badges and just start killing anyone unlucky enough to be trapped in the mall for the night?  Surely, that could never happen, right?

Of course, it does happen.  Thanks to a freak electrical storm, the Protectors come to life and set out to keep the mall safe from intruders.  First, they kill the technicians that are supposed to keeping a watch over them.  Then, they kill a janitor named Walter Paisley (played, of course, by Dick Miller).  Then, they set off after the six attractive people who were having a sleep-over in one of the stores.

So, what did I learn from Chopping Mall?

Well, I was tempted to say that I learned not to shoplift but actually, no one in the movie gets in trouble for shoplifting.  I guess the main thing I learned is not to walk around the mall in my underwear because that definitely seems to be something that will cause the Protectors to blow up your head.

I also learned that, if you’re tapped in the mall with a bunch of killer robots, the best place to go is the sporting goods store because that store not only has a lot of automatic rifles but also an unlimited supply of ammunition.  Of course, I already learned that from Dawn of the Dead but it’s always good to be reminded….

Anyway, Chopping Mall is a lot of fun.  It’s undeniably dated.  Just the fact that everyone’s life revolves around a mall tells you just how dated it is.  I guess if they made the film now, it would have to take place at an Ikea store or maybe an Amazon warehouse.  But the fact that the film is dated is a part of what makes it so much fun to watch.  Seriously, it’s amazing all of the stuff that apparently used to go on at the local mall in the 80s.

Despite the fact that they have a bad habit of killing people, the Protectors are actually kind of cute.  If nothing else, they’re unfailingly polite.  You have to love the fact that they’ll wish you a nice day even after they’ve killed you.  Surprisingly enough, the humans are just as likable as the Protectors.  For a film about killer robots, Chopping Mall is surprisingly well-acted by a likable cast.  Russell Todd, who was the best-looking man to ever be killed by Jason Voorhees, is in this film and he’s as broodingly handsome here as he was in Friday the 13th Part II.

Chopping Mall is a good mix of humor and thrills and robots and exploding heads and Dick Miller.  This is 80s mall horror at its best!