While self-righteous vice cop Al Wheeler (Billy Dee Williams) patrols the streets with the fury of an Old Testament prophet, men flock to seedy bars to watch women like Loretta (Melanie Griffith) dance and strip. Mobsters like Carmine (Rossano Brazzi) control the streets while club owners like Mike (Michael V. Gazzo) and Frank (Joe Santos) try to do business and make enough money to keep things open. Bookers like Nicky Parzeno (Jack Scalia) and Lou Goldstein (Jan Murray) compete to see who can place their girls in the most clubs. Nicky’s best friend and business partner, Matt Rossi (Tom Berenger), is haunted by his violent past as a boxer and his failed relationship with the drug-addicted Loretta.
Meanwhile, a nameless man (John Foster) practices nude tai chai in his warehouse apartment and writes feverishly in his journals. At night, he stalks the streets with a blade in his hand. He targets strippers, attacking them as they try to get home from the club. Honey (Ola Ray) is attacked on a subway platform. Loretta’s girlfriend, Leila (Rae Dawn Chong), is attacked on the streets. Obsessed with Loretta’s safety, Matt struggles with his own inner demons as he prepares for a final confrontation with the killer….
1985’s Fear City is another one of director Abel Ferrara’s heavily stylized fever dreams. In typical Ferrara fashion, the plot is so sordid that one might be tempted to think that the film is meant to be a self-parody and the dialogue mixes profane insults with bizarrely philosophical asides. As played by Billy Dee Williams, Al Wheeler is not just a cop who wants to clean up New York and Times Square. Instead, he’s a seething soldier to traditional morality and one who is so intense that it’s something of a shock that he doesn’t just walk around New York shooting people for jaywalking. Meanwhile, Tom Berenger’s Matt is a hulking brute who is haunted by the time he killed a man in the ring. He knows what he’s capable of and it scares him but, in order to save Loretta and his business, he’s going to have to become that deadly boxer once again. “I hate Matt Rossi because he’s arrogant,” Al Wheeler says through gritted teeth. Meanwhile, Matt deals with his own issues by trashing his office and then leaving the mess for someone else to clean up. I’m not sure what that was supposed to accomplish but it’s apparently something that Matt just has to do.
Abel Ferrara directed this film five years before King of New York and, in some ways, Fear City feels like a dry run for King of New York. Both films are highly stylized and both present New York as being a neon-lit Hell where the rich and the poor come together in mutual self-loathing and where the criminals often have more of a code of honor than the cops who are trying to stop them. Of course, King of New York had Christopher Walken’s magnetic performance as Frank White holding the film and its many storylines together. Fear City doesn’t really have that. Billy Dee Williams, Tom Berenger, Jack Scalia, and Melanie Griffith all give strong performance but none of their characters are really quite compelling or grounded enough to keep the film from spinning off into delirious excess.
In other words, Fear City is a mess but it’s one of those over-the-top, shamelessly sordid messes that you really can’t look away from. There’s enough philosophical dialogue to confirm that, as with King of New York, Ferrara was shooting at something more than just a typical exploitation film. Unlike King of New York, Ferrara doesn’t quite succeed in saying anything particularly deep about the human condition in Fear City. But that’s okay. It’s an entertainingly sordid film.
Charles Bronson is Leo Kessler, a veteran detective who’s seen it all and has grown sick of a system of justice that he thinks favors criminals over their victims. When girls start getting murdered, he immediately suspects the arrogant Warren Stacy, played by Gene Davis in the best role of his career. When Kessler and his partner Paul McCann (Andrew Stevens) start putting the pressure on Stacy, the killer responds by going after Kessler’s daughter Laurie (Lisa Eilbacher). Needless to say, our hero will do anything to stop the madman, ANYTHING!
10 TO MIDNIGHT is a special movie in my house because it’s my wife’s favorite Charles Bronson film, even when she didn’t have any overall appreciation for Bronson as an actor. Luckily for her, she had me to introduce her to the rest of the iconic actor’s voluminous catalog of movies. I saw 10 TO MIDNIGHT myself when I was pretty young, probably 13 or so. I remember being scared that first night after I watched the movie when I was trying to go to sleep. My wife and I watched it today on my old VHS tape that I’ve owned going back to the late 1980’s.
There are several elements that elevate 10 TO MIDNIGHT above the average cop / slasher thrillers of the 1980’s. First, it’s Charles Bronson in the lead role. Bronson has such a strong presence on screen that his presence alone elevates almost any material. He looks great in the film, and the role gives him some good opportunities, as both a mentor to the young cop, and even more importantly, as a dad who wants to do better for his daughter. It’s a solid role that seems to fit Bronson like a glove. Second, we know from the very beginning of the movie that Warren Stacy is in fact the killer. We also know that the law seems to be working in his favor. And because of that, we’re on Kessler’s side as he goes to extreme lengths to stop his reign of terror. Finally, the script and director J. Lee Thompson go all in on the sex and violence. Examples include Stacy killing his often naked victims while he himself is in the nude. There is much talk in the film about items of a sexual nature and Stacy even has a sexual release device that almost has to be seen to be believed. It definitely adds a decadent and voyeuristic feel to the proceedings. And I haven’t even mentioned yet that it has one of the very best endings of any Bronson film, second only to THE MECHANIC, in my humble opinion.
I highly recommend 10 TO MIDNIGHT!
For a more detailed review of 10 TO MIDNIGHT, check out Lisa’s review from a couple of years back below:
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 January 27th, we’re watching FEAR CITY starring Tom Berenger, Billy Dee Williams, Jack Scalia and Melanie Griffith.
So why did I pick FEAR CITY, you might ask?
I’m a huge fan of Tom Berenger. SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME (1987 with Mimi Rogers), SHOOT TO KILL (1988 with Sidney Poitier), MAJOR LEAGUE (1989 with Charlie Sheen), and LAST OF THE DOGMEN (1995 with Barbara Hershey) are some of my very favorite films. He’s an outstanding actor and screen presence. Tom Berenger is one of those actors who I always enjoy seeing on screen.
FEAR CITY is directed by Abel Ferrara. Abel Ferrara is one of those directors who makes movies about the very worst in society. His films MS. 45 (1981), KING OF NEW YORK (1990), and BAD LIEUTENANT (1992) are all movies that intrigued me greatly as I was trying to discover who I was growing up in the 80’s and early 90’s.
The sleaze is off the charts in FEAR CITY, with so many big-time stars, and set in New York City of the 1980’s. From everything I’ve read, this a time capsule of a place that no longer exists. If I ever make it to New York City, I’ll be greeted with a place that’s designed more like Disney World. I think it’s interesting to see the city as presented here!
I also think it will be interesting to see what it’s like to experience a movie like FEAR CITY as part of a group. I discovered this film as a teenager in the 80’s. I remember being a little embarrassed as I watched the film, especially with its large serving of nudity (from big stars) and graphic violence. I’ve watched films in groups with the most extreme graphic violence imaginable and no one batted an eye. I’m looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
So join us tonight to for #MondayMuggers and watch FEAR CITY! It’s on Amazon Prime.
The 1983 film, 10 to Midnight, opens with LAPD detective Leo Kessler (played by legendary tough guy Charles Bronson) sitting at his desk in a police station. He’s typing up a report and taking his time about it. A reporter who is in search of a story starts to bother Leo.
“Jerry,” Leo tells him, “I’m not a nice person. I’m a mean, selfish son-of-a-bitch. I know you want a story but I want a killer and what I want comes first.”
It’s a classic opening, even if Leo isn’t being totally honest. Yes, he can be a little bit selfish but he’s really not as mean as he pretends to be. He may not know how to talk to his daughter Laurie (Lisa Eilbacher) but he is also very protective of her and he wants to be a better father than he’s been in the past. He may roll his eyes when he discovers that Detective Paul McAnn (Andrew Stevens) is the son of a sociology professor but he still tries to act as a mentor to his younger partner. Leo may complain that the criminal justice system “protects those maggots like they’re an endangered species” but that’s just because he’s seen some truly disturbing things during his time on the force and, let’s face it, Leo has a point. When one of Laurie’s friends is murdered, Leo is convinced that Warren Stacy (Gene Davis) is the murderer and he’s determined to do whatever he has to do to get Warren off the streets. “All those girls,” Leo snarls when he sees Warren, his tone letting us know that his mission to stop Warren is about more than just doing his job.
Warren Stacy is handsome, athletic, and he has good taste in movies. (He’s especially a fan of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Just don’t try to trick him by saying Steve McQueen played the Sundance Kid.) Warren is also a total creep, the type of guy who complains that a murder victim “wasn’t a good person,” because she trashed him in her diary. When Leo takes a look around Warren’s apartment, he finds not only porn but also a penis pump. (“It’s for jacking off!” Leo yells at Warren, enunciating the line as only Charles Bronson could.) Warren is also a murderer but he’s a clever murderer, the type who sets himself up with an alibi by acting obnoxiously in a movie theater. Warren strips nude before killing his victims, in order to make sure that he doesn’t leave behind any evidence. (This film was made in the days before DNA testing.)
Leo knows that Warren is guilty but, as both his gruff-but-fair captain (Wilford Brimley, naturally) and the D.A. (Robert F. Lyons) point out, he has no way to prove it. When Warren starts to stalk Laurie and her friends (including Kelly Preston), Leo decides that he has no choice but to frame Warren. But when Warren’s amoral attorney, Dave Dante (Geoffrey Lewis, giving a wonderfully sleazy performance), threatens to call McAnn to the stand, McAnn has to decide whether to tell the truth or to join Leo in framing a guilty man.
10 to Midnight is a violent, vulgar, and undoubtedly exploitive film, one that features a ham-fisted message about how the justice system is more concerned with protecting the rights of the accused as opposed to lives of the innocent. And yet, in its gloriously pulpy way, this is also one of Bronson’s best films. It’s certainly my personal favorite of the films that he made for Cannon.
Director J. Lee Thompson and Charles Bronson were frequent collaborators and Thompson obviously knew how to get the best out of the notoriously reserved actor. Bronson was not known for his tremendous range but he still gives one of his strongest performances in 10 to Midnight, playing Leo as being not just a determined cop but also as an aging man who is confused by the way the world is changing around him. Stopping Warren isn’t just about justice. It’s also about fighting back against the the type of world that would create a Warren Stacy and then allow him to remain on the streets in the first place. Interestingly, though Leo doesn’t hesitate when it comes to framing Warren, he is also sympathetic to McAnn’s objections. Unlike other Bronson characters, Leo doesn’t hold a grudge when his partner questions his methods. Instead, he simply know that McAnn hasn’t spent enough time in the real world to understand what’s at stake. McAnn hasn’t given into cynicism. He hasn’t decided that the best way to deal with his job is to be a “mean son of a bitch.” Bronson and Andrew Stevens, who had worked together in the past, have a believable dynamic. McAnn looks up to Leo but is also conflicted by his actions. Leo may be annoyed by McAnn’s reluctance but he also respects him for trying to be an honest cop. Their partnership feels real in a way that sets 10 to Midnight apart from so many other films about an older cop having to deal with an idealistic partner.
One of the most interesting things about the film is Leo’s relationship with his daughter, Laurie. Over the course of the film, Leo and Laurie go from barely speaking to bonding over liquor and their shared regrets about the state of the justice system. When McAnn first meets Laurie, she’s offended when McAnn suggests that she takes after her father. But, as the film progresses, she comes to realize that she and Leo have much in common. (To be honest, I related quite a bit to Laurie, especially as I’ve recently come to better appreciate how much of my own independent nature was inherited from my father.) Lisa Eilbacher and Charles Bronson are believable as father-and-daughter and they play off of each other well. The scenes between Laurie and Leo give 10 to Midnight a bit more depth than one might otherwise expect from a Bronson Cannon film. Leo isn’t just trying to protect his daughter and her roommates from a serial killer. He’s also trying to be the father who he wishes he had been when she was younger. He’s trying to make up for lost time, even as he also tries to keep Warren Stacy away from his family.
As played by Gene Davis, Warren Stacy is one of the most loathsome cinematic villains of all time. Warren’s crimes are disturbing enough. (Indeed, the surreal sight of a naked and blood-covered Warren Stacy stalking through a dark apartment is pure nightmare fuel.) What makes Warren particularly frightening is that we’ve all had to deal with a Warren Stacy at some point in our life. He’s the sarcastic and easily offended incel who thought he was entitled to a phone number or a date or perhaps even more. As I rewatched this movie last night, I wondered how many Warrens I had met in my life. How many potential serial killers have any of us unknowingly had to deal with? Warren tries to strut through life, smirking and going out of his way to let everyone know that he knows more than they do but the minute that Leo turns the table on him, Warren starts whining about he’s being treated unfairly. During his final, disturbing rampage, Warren yells that his victims aren’t being honest with him, blaming them for his actions. The film deserves a lot of credit for not turning Warren into some sort of diabolical and erudite supervillain. He’s not Hannibal Lecter. Instead, like all real-life serial killers, he’s a loser who is looking for power over those to whom he feels inferior and for revenge on a world that he feels owes him something. He’s a realistic monster and that makes him all the more frightening and the film all the more powerful. Warren is the type of killer who, even as I sit here typing this, could be walking down anyone’s street. He’s such a complete monster that it’s undeniably cathartic whenever Leo goes after him.
How delusional is Warren Stacy? He’s delusional enough to actually taunt Charles Bronson! At one point, Warren informs Leo that he can’t be punished for being sick. Warren announces that, when he’s arrested, he might go away for a while but he’ll be back and there’s nothing Leo can do about it. (The suggestion, of course, is that Warren will be back because he committed his crimes in California and all the judges were appointed by a bunch of bleeding heart governors. Warren may not say that out loud but we all know that is the film’s subtext. Some people may agree with the film, some people may disagree. Myself, I’m against the death penalty because I think it’s a prime example of government overreach but I still cheered the first time that I heard Clint Eastwood say, “Well, I’m all torn up about his rights,” in Dirty Harry.) How does Leo react to Warren’s taunts? I can’t spoil the film’s best moment but I can tell you that 10 to Midnight features one of Bronson’s greatest (and, after what we’ve just seen Warren do, most emotionally satisfying) one-lines.
The title has nothing to do with anything that happens in the film. In typical Cannon fashion, the film’s producers came up with a snappy title (and 10 to Midnight is a good one) and then slapped it onto a script that was previously called Bloody Sunday. Fortunately, as long as Bronson is doing what he does best, it doesn’t matter if the title makes sense. And make no mistake. 10 to Midnight is Bronson at his best.
Shooting Heroin takes place in a small town in Pennsylvania, a once close-knit community that is dying a painful death.
As the film opens, we meet several people who have lost loved ones to the Opioid Epidemic. Hazel (Sherilyn Fenn) speaks at a school assembly about how both of her sons overdosed within hours of each other and the only response she gets is a few students snickering at her. Adam (Alan Powell) loses his sister to heroin and has to take her baby into his home. Sitting in a bar, prison guard and local hunter Edward (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) demands to know why the police aren’t doing more to lock up the dealers. The town’s sole lawman, Jerry (Garry Pastore), can only explain that he is only one person and that he can only arrest someone if he has proof that they’re actually dealing drugs. Suspicions and gossip aren’t enough.
After a night of heavy drinking and heavier emotions, Adam comes up with the idea of a voluntary drug taskforce. He recruits Edward and Hazel and, after Jerry reluctantly deputizes them, the three of them set out to battle the drug dealers their own way. (“By any means necessary,” as Edward puts it.) Of course, all three of them have their own thoughts on how to best deal with the issue. Hazel puts up crudely painted but well-intentioned signs, asking teenagers if they truly want to break their mother’s heart. Edward stops every car that’s heading into town and does a search. (Yes, it’s highly unconstitutional.) As for Adam, he wants revenge against the man who he believes was his sister’s dealer. And if that means setting a house on fire and picking up a rifle to go hunting, that’s what Adam’s going to do.
Now, from that plot description, you might think that Shooting Heroin is a run-of-the-mill revenge flick but it’s not. It definitely has its pulpy elements but, for the most part, Shooting Heroin is an intelligently written and well-directed look at how the Opioid Epidemic is ravaging communities across America. The film approaches the subject with the type of empathy that, far too often, is missing from films like this. There are no easy villains, the film tells us, and there are also no perfect heroes. Adam, Edward, and Hazel all have their own approaches, each with their own set of strengths and flaws but the ultimate message of the film is that nothing is going to get better until we stop attacking and demonizing one another. That’s an important message and one that, unfortunately, doesn’t get broadcast as much as it should. Far too often, the war on drugs is a war on those members of the community who are at their most vulnerable.
The film is full of familiar faces, with Sherilyn Fenn giving the strongest and most poignant performance as Hazel. There’s something very touching about the combination of Hazel’s determination to get through to teenagers and her total cluelessness about the best way to actually do so. For all of her grief and anger, Hazel remains innocent enough to believe that telling a drug addict that they’re breaking their mother’s heart is the ultimate solution to the crisis. When she joins the task force, she hands out adrenaline shots so that addicts can be revived. When she confronts of a pharmacy worker who has filled an obviously faked prescription, Hazel speaks with the anger of someone who has seen the damage done to her community. When she’s handed a gun, she says that she’s not going to carry anything that can kill. Hazel, like so many people, is just trying to do her best in a unwinnable situation and it’s sometimes both heartbreaking and inspiring to watch her.
Shooting Heroin brings empathy to its look at the Opioid Epidemic, which is something that has been lacking in far too many other examinations of the what’s currently happening in America. What’s happening in middle America is, for many in the political and media establishment, an inconvenient truth. During the Obama years, the Opioid Epidemic was ignored because acknowledging it would have meant acknowledging the failure of Obama’s economic policies. During the Trump years, the victims of the Opioid Epidemic were dismissed by a media and a political class who insisted on viewing every issue through the prism of red state vs. blue state. One can only guess how these ravaged communities will fare during the Biden years, though there’s little reason to be optimistic that a 78 year-old career politician is going to do anything differently from his predecessors. Shooting Heroin is a film about what’s happening today and it’s a film that will leave you thinking about the future.
“Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this post in no way endorses a belief that this statement was anymore necessary than the one at the beginning of this music video.”
The reason it was there is because Michael Jackson was a Jehovah’s Witness at the time. That’s just one of the many many many things you can find out about this music video on Wikipedia alone.
I guess I can add one thing to this that you have dig around a bit to put together. I’m sure there have been some made since Thriller, but just in case you didn’t know, or remember how huge this music video was, it was popular enough to get its’ own porno spoof. It is called Driller: A Sexual Thriller (1984).
Driller (1984, dir. Joyce James)
They even spoofed Jackson’s opening statement.
Driller (1984, dir. Joyce James)
Because when I see this,…
I totally want to see it have sex.
Driller (1984, dir. Joyce James)
The mask in Thriller is much better.
What I love best about this is that John Landis kind of predicted this would happen a couple of years prior when he made An American Werewolf In London (1981). Landis likes to stick references into his movies to a fictional film called See You Next Wednesday. Thriller is no exception. As Jackson gets up to leave the theater, you can hear someone onscreen say “See You Next Wednesday.” Of course An American Werewolf In London also had that bit, but it was a porno in that movie.
An American Werewolf In London (1981, dir. John Landis)
There’s even the scene where David is sitting in a porno theater watching the fictional “See You Next Wednesday” movie while talking to Griffin Dunne’s character who is looking like the undead in Thriller at that point.
An American Werewolf In London (1981, dir. John Landis)
The only other thing I noticed is that if you drop the ‘s’ in “Peters”, then you have a director that got his start making horror movies.
Sadly, just like Down Under by Men At Work and It’s Tricky by RUN-DMC, this music video ended up in litigation. Both John Landis and Ola Ray sued Michael Jackson over royalties. I’m glad none of that kept the music video off of YouTube as it seems to with so many others.
What better way to end another month of horror here at Through the Shattered Lens than with a showing a the greatest music video ever made (not even a contest or a question). No matter what one’s personal opinion of Michael Jackson as a person there’s no denying the genius talent the man had and this video just speaks to the horror fan even if one was not into his music.
It has a werewolf (though here it’s a werecat), 50’s horror trope of the girl in distress, zombies, John Landis directing, Vincent Price with one of the best spoken word performance in a music video…and did I say zombies courtesy of make-up FX guru Rick Baker.
A music video that was more a short film plus horror musical, Thriller would become a cultural phenomenon that spread across the globe. It didn’t matter whether one lived in the US or the furthest corner of Mongolia. Everyone saw and enjoyed this music video. Even it’s detractors could only nitpick flaws from the final product.
Oh yeah, it has ZOMBIES!
Hope everyone had a great, happy and safe Halloween!
Thriller
It’s close to midnight, and something evil’s lurkin’ in the dark Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart You try to scream, but terror takes the sound before you make it You start to freeze, as horror looks you right between the eyes You’re paralyzed
‘Cause it’s a thriller, thriller night And no one’s gonna save you from the beast about to strike You know it’s thriller, thriller night You’re fighting for your life inside a, killer, thriller tonight, yeah
You hear the door slam, and realize there’s nowhere left to run You feel the cold hand, and wonder if you’ll ever see the sun You close your eyes, and hope that this is just imagination Girl, but all the while, you hear a creature creepin’ up behind You’re outta time
‘Cause it’s a thriller, thriller night There ain’t no second chance against the thing with the forty eyes, girl (Thriller, thriller night) You’re fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight
Night creatures call and the dead start to walk in their masquerade There’s no escaping the jaws of the alien this time (They’re open wide) This is the end of your life
They’re out to get you, there’s demons closing in on every side (boom!) They will possess you, unless you change that number on your dial Now is the time, for you and I to cuddle close together, yeah All through the night, I’ll save you from the terror on the screen I’ll make you see
That it’s a thriller, thriller night ‘Cause I can thrill you more than any ghoul would ever dare try (Thriller, thriller night) So let me hold you tight and share a killer, diller, chiller thriller here tonight
‘Cause it’s a thriller, thriller night Girl, I can thrill you more than any ghoul would ever dare try (Thriller, thriller night) So let me hold you tight and share a (Killer, thriller)
I’m gonna thrill you tonight
(Vincent Price voiceover)
“Darkness falls across the land The midnight hour is close at hand Creatures crawl in search of blood To terrorize your neighborhood And whosoever shall be found Without the soul for getting down Must stand and face the hounds of hell And rot inside a corpse’s shell”
I’m gonna thrill you tonight (Thriller, thriller) I’m gonna thrill you tonight (Middle of the night, thriller) I’m gonna thrill you tonight Ooh, babe, I’m gonna thrill you tonight Middle of the night, babe
(Vincent Price voiceover)
“The foulest stench is in the air The funk of forty-thousand years And grizzly ghouls from every tomb Are closing in to seal your doom And though you fight to stay alive Your body starts to shiver For no mere mortal can resist The evil of the thriller”
Through the Shattered Lens 