Re-Animator

Re-Animator (1985) is an all-time classic horror/comedy/zombie/gore/mad scientist/cult film based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft concerning a brilliant and obsessive young doctor named Herbert West (Jeffery Combs) who has perfected a serum that brings the dead back to life.  He is a medical student at a school in New England where he finds assistance from his classmate Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) and opposition is met from Dean Alan Halsey (who is also the father of Dan's girlfriend, Megan [Barbara Crampton]) and the menacing Dr. Hill (David Gale).

I'm fairly sure I don't really need to sell anybody on Re-Animator.  If you're into horror films at all, you've most likely seen it, and if not, you've at least heard of it and quite possibly plan on watching it.  If that's the case, what are you waiting for?  Get to it.

It has this:

this:

this:

this thing here:

this:

some of this:

one of these:

this too:

a little of this:

these guys here:

this:

and this:

That pretty much covers the basics.  Any questions?

Director Stuart Gordon was operating The Organic Theater Company in Chicago, Illinois, when he decided to try his hand at making a movie.  Gordon wanted to do something with the Frankenstein myth, but a friend turned him on to the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, specifically the short story "Herbert West-Reanimator."  Once this concept was decided on, Gordon started to develop the project as a possible half-hour long anthology TV series, but none of the networks were interested in half hour shows (they preferred hour long), nor were they interested in anything horror themed.

Gordon was then introduced to first time producer Brian Yuzna, who had some personal money to spend at the time, as well as the means to raise more funds.  More importantly, Yuzna was a fan of horror films and was an enthusiastic producer.  Dropping the idea to make it an anthology series, they focused on making a feature length movie instead.  The final screenplay is credited to Dennis Paoli, William J. Norris (who was involved more with the TV series proposal), and Stuart Gordon himself, and it makes many deviations from the source story, such as modernizing the setting and adding the characters of Dan, Megan, and Dr. Hill.

Shot in 3 weeks in Los Angeles, Re-Animator would feature a great cast that was more than willing to get gooey and gross with the fantastic special effects work.  The effects were completely practical (all done on set), utilizing gallons of fake blood and animal guts.  The most complicated effects work was done with the severed, re-animated head of Dr. Hill, which was accomplished by using a combination of 7 different techniques to sustain the macabre illusion.  The simplest effect, that of the glowing re-animate serum, would also end up becoming one of the more iconic images from the film.  The sickly, green goo was made from the same solution found most commonly in glow-sticks and its use in Re-Animator was the first time it was seen on screen in a motion picture.

The film is energetically in-your-face and over the top, bringing black, gallows humor in combination with the graphic special effects.  The entire scene with Herbert and Dan chasing Rufus the cat in the basement is both tension filled and a laugh riot.  It's perfectly punctuated by Herbert pulling a "gotcha" on Dan after he hurls the cat at the wall.   The balance of horror and humor in the Re-Animator is comparable to that of other horror/comedies such as House (1986), Evil Dead 2 (1987) and Peter Jackson's Bad Taste (1987) and Dead Alive (1992).

Released in October of 1985, Re-Animator would be met by an enthusiastic public and would even win the critics award at the Cannes film festival that year.  The film would do good financial business and would garner positive reviews from critics Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael.  This feat is even more impressive as the film wasn't submitted to the MPAA and was released 'unrated,' which severely limited how and where the film could be marketed.  The film would later find new life (so to speak) on the home video market where it would cultivate its cult following.

Stuart Gordon would go on to sign a three picture deal with executive producer Charles Band and Empire Pictures, moving to Rome to direct From Beyond (1986, another Lovecraft production), Dolls (1987), and Robot Jox (1989).  He would work again with the same cast and crew on multiple projects.  In recent years, Gordon has returned to directing productions on the stage; his last film was the based-on-a-horrible-true-story Stuck (2007).  One of Stuart Gordon's most interesting film credits (given the rest of his body of work) is a story credit (along with Brian Yuzna) for the family adventure film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989).

Brian Yuzna would produce Stuart Gordon's next two movies and would start directing films himself with the amazing special effects spectacle Society (1989).  He would also direct both Re-Animator sequels, the enthusiastically weird Bride of Re-Animator (1989) and the not so good Beyond Re-Animator (2003).  Brian Yuzna would reteam with Stuart Gordon in 2001, producing his adaptation of Lovecraft's Dagon.

1985 was a busy year for zombie movies, also seeing the release of George Romero's Day of the Dead and Dan O'Bannon's Return of the Living Dead.  Both of those films would see greater financial success, but Re-Animator is a much more entertaining and enjoyable film when compared to the rather bleak (but admittedly still entertaining) Day of the Dead or the rather stupid ROTLD (for my money, I've always preferred Part III (1993) of that series, which happens to be directed by Brian Yuzna).

"Mr. West, I suggest you get yourself a pen!"

Jeffrey Combs gained genre icon status with his portrayal of Herbert West, giving him this detached sense of superiority and brashness.  Combs has a great, intelligent snideness about him, playing complicated weirdos with the seemingly greatest of ease.   He would reprise his role as Herbert West in the two Re-Animator sequels, as well as work with Stuart Gordon another 7 times.  He was also in Peter Jackson's ghost-fest The Frighteners (1996) as the beyond troubled Milton Dammers.

David Gale plays a great villain and has a classic screen presence about him, a more gothic look, like he belongs in a Frankenstein film or something, which might actually be why his casting is so apt.  A subplot was cut out of the finished film depicting Dr. Hill as having hypnotic powers, unnecessarily explaining his control over the zombies later in the film.  David Gale would reprise his role as Dr. Hill in the sequel, Bride of Re-Animator, apparently in spite of his character's condition at the end of the first film.  His promising film career would be cut short by his untimely death in 1991.

Barbara Crampton was very brave to be in this film, considering what her character has to go through later in the movie.  She's really great in the role as Megan, giving her sincerity and confidence, and not just playing her as a terrified, helpless girl (although she does have a great scream).  Her scenes with Bruce Abbott really ground the film and give it a sense of normalcy amongst all the chaos and these weird, eccentric characters.  Kudos to Abbott for playing an excellent everyman and really holding the movie together.

The art direction was done by the great Robert A. Burns (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Mausoleum) and I'd like to think it was his choice to hang up that big Talking Heads poster on the wall behind Dan's bed during all the love making scenes.

The writer of the film Dennis Paoli would also write Gordon's From Beyond, The Pit and the Pendulum (1991), Castle Freak (1995), and both of his Masters of Horror entries.  He would also pen Brian Yuzna's dental horror/Corbin Bernsen showcase The Dentist (1996) and its 1998 sequel.  At his day job, Paoli is a professor of gothic literature at Hunter College in New York City.

The iconic theme song by Richard Band (Charlie Band's brother) borrows motifs from Bernard Herrmann's score for Psycho (1960), which has caused him to be accused of being a hack and/or a plagiarist (by some).  I think by borrowing from a film score as famous as Psycho it gives the music a playfulness that alerts the audience that, yes, you are watching a horror film, and yes it's okay to laugh and have fun.  The opening animated credits add to this feeling, as if you are getting ready to watch some sort of demented cartoon.

The cinematographer Mac Ahlberg was an Empire Pictures vet, also shooting the low budgeted (but entertaining) Ghoulies, Trancers (both 1985), and Eliminators (1986).  He helped educate Gordon on the craft of filmmaking during the production of Re-Animator, sometimes through gentle arguments and heated disagreements.  They apparently forged a strong working relationship, as they'd work together on another five films.

Ahlberg is quoted as saying that David Bowie has told him that Re-Animator is his favorite movie.

If that's not an endorsement, I don't know what is.

Death Race 2000

Death Race 2000 (1975) is one of my all-time favorite exploitation pictures and it is one of the quintessential Roger Corman productions.  It was made on the cheap, went on to be a financial success, and has since become a cult classic.  It's full of camp, political satire, black humor, high octane automobiles, bloody special effects, action, stunts, nudity, and a cavalcade of recognizable actors.  Loosely based on a short story called 'The Racer' written by Ib Melchior, Death Race 2000 is a graphic, action packed, goofy, live-action cartoon.  It's like an insane combination of Mad Max, The Gumball Rally, and Looney Tunes.

Death Race 2000 takes place in the futuristic year of 2000, after a world financial collapse has turned the USA into the dystopian United Provinces of America, a military/religion/media based dictatorship ran by the smarmy Mr. President.  To calm and entertain the masses, the government started a new national sporting event, the annual Transcontinental Road Race, which is a crazy vehicular cross country race where the drivers are awarded points for hit and run murders.

The drivers (along with their navigators) each have their own gimmick.  There's rough and tumble cowgirl Calamity Jane (Mary Woronov), gladiatorial Nero the Hero (Martin Kove), female Nazi Mathilda the Hun (Roberta Collins), Italian mobster-type Machine Gun Joe Viturbo (Sylvester Stallone), and the favorite to win the race, by both the fans and the government, Frankenstein (David Carradine), the only previous two-time winner of the Death Race.

Frankenstein wears an all black outfit, is said to be scarred up and stitched together, and has a mythical-hero status amongst the fans.  He's depicted as a champion and survivor.  This is, of course, all bullshit, as his new navigator Annie Smith (Simone Griffeth) finds out first hand.  Annie though, has her own secrets.  She's part of a resistance force, led by the patriotic Thomasina Paine (yes, great-granddaughter of Thomas Paine) that has taken it upon themselves to disrupt, sabotage, and stop the Transcontinental Road Race in an effort to restore American freedom and democracy to the people (or something like that; their plan and intended results are never made quite clear).

This is a violent film, very bloody at times, but usually done in a comical way.  People are sometimes gouged in the crotch with car mounted knives (it's funny, I swear) or get ran over when they peak out of manhole covers.  Calamity Jane (with her bull designed car) has a showdown with a bullfighter.  There's even a bomb disguised as a baby.  This bloody mayhem is always accompanied by a gleeful sense of playfulness, with the occasional cartoon sound effect or sight gag, such as when one driver speeds their car off a cliff, fooled by a fake tunnel (à la Wily E. Coyote) or later, when the rather useful "hand grenade" is deployed.

The excessive (and cartoony) violence depicted in Death Race 2000 only further underlines its satire and critique on American obsession with mayhem as entertainment.  These satirical elements are personified by the shrill and pandering media, consisting of the fake (but aptly named) Grace Pander (Joyce Jameson, who is "a dear friend of mine"), Howard Cosell-soundalike Harold, and the annoyingly upbeat Junior Bruce (The Real Don Steele).  These three bozos gleefully comment on all the carnage and action during the race (as filtered through the government) and sound like a combination of sportscasters and info-tainment news reporters.  In addition, they broadcast the xenophobic messages of the government (the French are blamed for the attacks against the racers) to help distract the public from domestic issues and further public devotion to their reality television programming.  (Any of this sounding vaguely familiar?)

Since we are talking about a Roger Corman production, it should go without saying that the movie is, on occasion, cheap looking.  There's an obvious matte painting (see above) depicting the future world that is far from convincing and a few of the sets look questionable, while some costumes appear ill-fitting.  The race cars themselves look like they could fall apart at any moment, which was true, as they were mostly made from remodeled Volkswagens overlaid with fiberglass bodies.  Each vehicle had its own design that matched the driver, like Machine Gun Joe with his tommy-gun mounted car, or Calamity Jane with her car that resembles a bull (the horns come in handy).  The cheapness of things only adds to the overall charm, giving the movie that "only-in-the-1970s" feel.  Given the limitations of the production and what, on paper, might seem like a movie that shouldn't work, Death Race 2000 plays amazingly well, with a fast pace, wicked sense of humor, and a seriousness that rarely falters in the face of ridiculousness.  It's a movie that hits on all cylinders, never failing to entertain.

The absurdist elements and humor in the film can be attributed to director Paul Bartel, who also has a small cameo as a doctor.  He has a strange, fey humor and brings a deadpan seriousness to all of the outlandishness of the story.  Bartel also directed the bizarre horror film Private Parts (1972) and the well reviewed Eating Raoul (1982), in which he starred along with Mary Woronov.  He has a very distinct manner (and beard) and can also be seen in Piranha (1978), European Vacation (1985), and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990).

Bartel had assistance from his second unit crew (led by writer Charles B. Griffith) in shooting some of the driving and action sequences, and Roger Corman wanted there to be more blood, so he brought in Lewis Teague (future director of Alligator [1980], Cujo [1983], and Cat's Eye [1985]) to shoot some additional gore and bloody insert shots of people getting killed by the cars.  Team effort guys, the Corman way!

Cinematographer Tak Fujimoto would start his career with Terrence Malick's beautiful Badlands (1973) and then follow that with a stint working on mostly B-movies, before hitting a stride with 80s classics Pretty in Pink, Something Wild, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (all 1986), and mainstream favorites that include The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Philadelphia (1993), and The Sixth Sense (1999).

The screenplay was written by Charles B. Griffith and Robert Thom.  Griffith has a long list of Corman collaborations, including Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), A Bucket of Blood (1959), Little Shop of Horrors (1960), and The Wild Angels (1966), while Thom's only other significant credited work is a non-Corman production, the psychological incest-revenge film, The Witch Who Came from the Sea (1976).

Sly Stallone plays a good Italian tough guy and eats up his villainous role.  He's really fun and is given some of the best lines ("I got two words to say to that: BULL-SHIT!").  The year after Death Race 2000, Stallone would get (justifiably) great reviews for writing and starring in Rocky, setting the stage for his subsequent success and stardom.

This was David Carradine's first movie role after leaving the TV series Kung-Fu, and he plays it cool as the smooth and smart-assed Frankenstein.  He displays a mysterious smugness that accentuates his sex appeal, maybe best described after he removes his mask and asks, "What did you expect?  Another pretty face?"  Carradine refused to wear leather (he was very much a hippie) and his costume was made out of a stretchy, leather-like fabric.  David Carradine would go on to face-off against a giant flying lizard in Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), Chuck Norris in Lone Wolf McQuade (1983), and with Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2 (2003/04).

Mary Woronov was a product of the Andy Warhol factory and is a cult favorite actress.  She bites into her role as Calamity Jane, giving her a loud, snarky orneriness.  Woronov would go on to star in Eating Raoul, Night of the Comet (1984), TerrorVision (1986), and House of the Devil (2009).

Roberta Collins starred alongside Pam Grier in the women-in-prison films The Big Doll House and Women in Cages (both 1971), as well as Jonathan Demme's take on the genre/directorial debut, Caged Heat (1974).  She was also in Matt Cimber's The Witch Who Came from the Sea and Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive (1977).

Martin Kove is best known as the evil leader of the Cobra Kai dojo in The Karate Kid movies, but horror fans also know him as one of the dopey cops in Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left (1973).  His navigator, Cleopatra, is played by Leslie McRay, who is recognizable to fans of MST3k as the titular star of The Girl in Gold Boots (1968).

The overly eager announcer Junior Bruce was played by popular and local LA disc jockey The Real Don Steele, who was in a few other Roger Corman productions, including Grand Theft Auto (1977) and Rock and Roll High School (1979).  He is also featured (voice only) as radio disc jockey Rockin' Ricky Rialto in 1984's Gremlins.

Death Race 2000 was remade in 2008 (simply titled Death Race).  The remake has spawned two direct-to-DVD sequels and I've not seen any of these (supposedly horrid) movies, so I can't say anything about them.  I know the remake stars Jason Statham and they ditch the hit-and-run aspect of the story, which sounds shitty and like it defeats the purpose...so ......stick with the original, real deal and accept no substitutes.

Remember:  Women are worth 10+ points in all categories.  Teens rack-up 40 points and toddlers (under 12) are worth a big 70.  And anybody over the age of 75 is worth a whopping 100 points.

*note: Lots of squealing tires in this movie.  None of them on dirt.

Pieces

"You don't have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre!"

Pieces (1982) is an incredibly fun and extremely trashy film, soaked in gore and teaming with sleaze.  It's the very definition of a crowd pleaser and I absolutely love it.  Sure, it doesn't make sense half the time, it has awkward overdubbing and weird dialogue, but when it rips and roars, it never fails to entertain.

Hailing from Spain, Pieces was made to cash in on the American slasher craze of the 1980s, but owes a lot of its style and mystery elements to the Italian giallo films of the 60s and 70s, which in turn themselves were part of the inspiration for their American slasher cousins.  Pieces, I guess then, would be the strange ouroboros of slasher films.  (I considered going into deeper detail and explanation on slasher and giallo films for those that aren't familiar, but I'm feeling lazy, so just go HERE and HERE for more information.  We'll meet back up here later).

Pieces opens in Boston, 1942, as a young boy named Timmy is alone in his room playing with an erotic puzzle.  When his mother finds him, she go ballistic, smacking him, smashing his mirror, and yelling for him to "go get a bag for all this trash."  Instead, Timmy comes back with an axe and proceeds to smash her skull in.  He then grabs a saw and cuts her head off.  Timmy is seriously disturbed, but he knows to play the "some big guy did it" game when the police and a concerned family friend show up.

Flash-forward 40 years later and a deranged psycho is slicing up co-eds with a chainsaw on a college campus.  The lead detectives on the case, Lt. Bracken (Christopher George) and Sgt. Holden (Frank Braña), have their work cut out for them, as almost everybody seems to be a suspect, and bodies keep piling up all over campus (minus a few parts).

They decide to bring in a young policewoman (and former tennis pro), Mary Riggs (Lynda Day George), to go undercover on campus, posing as (naturally) the new tennis instructor.  There are plenty of suspects and red herrings alike, including brutish groundsman Willard (Paul L. Smith), fey and wormy Professor Brown (Jack Taylor), the fastidious Dean (Edmund Purdom), and Kendall (Ian Sera), a student at the school who is also quite the ladies man.

Ladies and gentlemen...your suspects!

Most of the time things happen and it's not made very clear why.  After the 1942 opening, we get a comical scene of a girl named Ginnie riding her skateboard down the city street, oblivious to the pair of movers carrying a giant mirror right in front of her on the sidewalk.  She smashes into the mirror, but in the very next scene she is totally okay.  She's hanging out, laying in the grass and studying, before the killer shows up and cuts her head off with a chainsaw (complete with a perfect gush of blood from the neck). Apparently, the mirror smashing is the event that incites the killer's rampage and he kills Ginnie some days after the incident, but the way the scenes are cut together it is almost impossible to interpret that any time has elapsed between them.  Pieces main plan of attack on viewers seems to be a dual effort to both confuse and shock.

The most (in)famous WTF-scene in Pieces is later in the movie, when tennis prolicewoman Mary is out walking around by herself at night and is suddenly attacked by a Bruce Lee impersonator (actual Bruce Lee impersonator, Bruce Le) doing all these kung fu moves on her.  It's of course a misunderstanding, as Kendall shows up on his motorbike, explaining "it's my kung-fu professor.  What's the story, Chow?"  Chow's response is both amazing and confusing:  "I am out jogging and next thing I know, I am on ground.  ...Something I eat, bad chop suey.  So long!"

That is but one example of the weird dialogue exchanged in this film.  One sultry student is heard bragging to her classmates, "the most beautiful thing in the world is smoking pot and fucking on a waterbed...at the same time."  Lt. Bracken has a detailed theory that "the killer is either someone on or near the campus," while Sgt. Holden makes this attempt at a hard boiled analogy: "We're just out buying clothes without labels and trying them on for size."

The most memorable and best line delivered in the movie is actually a single word screamed three times by Mary in a moment of ultimate frustration, after discovering yet another of the killer's victims.  I'll just let Mrs. Lynda Day George speak her mind:

The original Spanish language title of the film is Mil Gritos Tiene la Noche (translates as "One Thousand Cries has the Night"), which, while being a cool title, doesn't really describe the film very well.  As is, Pieces definitely lives up to its name and reputation and it's easy to allow the film's technical issues to be forgiven, as the pace and sheer intensity of the film never let up and doesn't give you time to consider some of the absurdities (how did he get that chainsaw on the elevator unnoticed?).

The stalking and chase scenes are fairly well done, with excellent cat-and-mouse pacing.  The stalking that leads to the murder on the waterbed is one of the best in the movie, taking some obvious visual cues from the Italian giallos, such as the high contrast and colored lighting and by using slo-mo.  Also, the violence is more operatic in this scene than, say, in the elevator or bathroom stall murders, which, while shockingly violent and gory, don't approach any sort of aesthetic artfulness in their execution.

The killer's outfit is also very giallo inspired, with black gloves, long trench coat, and a brimmed hat that obscures the face.  It's quite the stylish look, one that invokes mystery and menace, and can be directly traced to back to the killers in Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace (1964) and Dario Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) and Deep Red (1975).

The special effects are rather accomplished, especially for a low budget film.  All the stops were pulled and seemingly no ounce of blood was spared.  In the previously mentioned bathroom stall murder, a pig carcass was used for a closeup shot of the saw tearing through flesh.  It's remarkably effective.  The violence in this film has been accused of being misogynist, but there isn't any underlying hatefulness going on in any of the murder scenes, just over the top excess.  The lack of hateful feeling is what keeps Pieces an enjoyable viewing experience.

The moody synth score adds a lot to the enjoyment of Pieces as well.  It was included for the US and Italian release of the film and was performed by Carlo Maria Cordio, who also scored Aenigma (1987), Touch of Death (1988), Sonny Boy (1989), and cult-classic Troll 2 (1990).  The original score (which is available on the Grindhouse Releasing DVD) was taken from the Italian CAM (Creazoni Artistiche Musicali) music library (credited to Librado Pastor).  Comparatively, it is a fairly boring score, with a repetitious piano melody.  It's a good thing they switched it up for the international release.  (There's also this disco gem used during a very '80s aerobics scene).

Pretty much everyone who worked behind the camera on Pieces would work with director Juan Piquer Simón on many of his other (lesser) films, which include The Fabulous Journey to the Center of the Earth (1977), Mystery on Monster Island (1980), Slugs: The Movie (1988), The Rift (1990), and Cthulhu Mansion (1992).  His 1983 movie, The Pod People, would be featured in a classic Season 3 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

One of the writers of the film, Joe D'Amato (going under the alias John W. Shadow), was a prolific Italian filmmaker who directed 200 films, many of those explotiation-stlyle pornography (soft and hardcore).  His non-porno credits include Beyond the Darkness (1979) and Anthropophagous (1980).

Christopher George is a B-movie icon, with his deadpan manner and macho attitude.  He would star in William Girdler's Grizzly (1976) and Day of the Animals (1977), Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead (1980), as well as The Exterminator (1980), Graduation Day (1981), Enter the Ninja (1981), and Mortuary (1983), which would be his last film.  He would die of a heart attack (complicated by his smoking habit) shortly after completing that film.  Interesting fact: his niece is Wheel of Fortune hostess Vanna White.

Lynda Day George was married to Christopher George for 14 years.  She would star alongside him in Day of the Animals and Mortuary (amongst others) and would also star in the possession film Beyond Evil (1980) with John Saxon.  She also had an extensive career in television, most notably as Lisa Casey on Mission: Impossible.  In Pieces, her character of Mary Riggs is supposed to be a modern multi-talented woman, but Lynda Day George isn't very convincing as a policewoman, and she's even less convincing as a tennis player (there's one very stiff and awkward scene where she plays a round of tennis, the actress playing her opponent not knowing how to play either).

Edmund Purdom was a classically trained actor who never broke through in Hollywood, so he moved to Italy in the 1960s and started a long career in television, voice dubbing work, and in B-movies.  He would star in such films as Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks (1974), Ator, the Fighting Eagle (1982, directed by Pieces writer, Joe D'Amato), 2019: After the Fall of New York (1983), and the Santa-slasher, Don't Open Till Christmas (1984), which would also be his sole directorial credit.

The big and burly Paul L. Smith is best known as portraying Bluto in Robert Altman's Popeye (1980), but he's also been in genre fare like Dune (1984), Crimewave and Red Sonja (both 1985), Haunted Honeymoon (1986), Gor (1987), and Sonny Boy (1989).  There's an extensive and entertaining interview with him on the previosuly mentioned DVD release, where he talks about everything from Otto Preminger and the Six-Days War in Israel to David Lynch and Dom DeLuise.  In Pieces, it seems he is constantly making this face:

Like a lot of directors, Juan Piquer Simón had his repertoire of actors (i.e. buddies that would be in his movies) that he would regularly use.  Frank Braña was his DeNiro; they collaborated on a total of 9 films.  Jack Taylor worked with Simón a couple times and has an dense filmography that extends from Jess Franco (Eugenie [1970], Female Vampire [1974]) to Roman Polanski (The Ninth Gate [1999]).  Ian Sera doesn't have much of a filmography outside of his films with Simón and if he's known at all today, he's known as either the-guy-who-gets-the-raw-deal-at-the-end-of-Pieces or the "It stinks!" guy from The Pod People.

Speaking of the ending to Pieces, it is something that can only be described as bat-shit crazy.  It's a jawdropper that comes completely out of left-field and has to be seen to be believed.  It will grab you.

Final Thought:  "Pieces.  It's exactly what you think it is!"  So see it already.

Mausoleum

If you spend enough time digging through old horror films, mining for cinema gold, you'll eventually get to this piece of dusty old cobblestone.  Celebrating its 30th year of release, Mausoleum (1983) is a supernatural demonic possession horror flick, and while not necessarily a "good" movie, it does have its moments.

The story starts with young Susan at her mother's funeral.  She's with her Aunt Cora who can't seem to comfort Susan, and she eventually takes off running into the cemetery.  There, she's drawn to an old spooky mausoleum, and inside she has an encounter with a hooded figure.  Randomly, a vagrant stumbles in and upon locking eyes with the hooded one, runs outside screaming and holding his head before his skull partially explodes.  Back inside, Susan's eyes glow green and the hooded figure is revealed to have claw-like hands...

Flash-forward: after years of being under the care of her therapist Dr. Simon Andrews (Norman Burton), Susan is a well adjusted 30 year old woman (played by ex-Playboy bunny, Bobbie Bresee) and heiress to the family fortune, living with her lawyer husband Oliver (Marjoe Gortner) in their mansion-like house.  Unfortunately, it seems the women in her family suffer from a very particular curse, one that makes them susceptible to demonic possession.  Her encounter with the demon years ago finally starts to manifest itself, as Susan starts acting strange, gets a case of the glowing-green eyes, and becomes a lusty kill monster.

First, she blows up a guy's car (with him in it) outside of a nightclub.  He was being a jerk inside, and Susan stares at his car intensely until her eyes glow and a fire starts inside the car.  Oliver tries to help, but is useless, a pattern he keeps for most of the movie.  Next, Susan seduces Ben, the leering gardner, but not before we get a pleasant montage of what Ben's work day is like (chopping stumps, mowing the lawn, taking a break, etc).  She then invites him to accompany her to the garage for some sex and afterwards she gets all demonic and stabs him with a hand-rake.  Later, when Oliver comes home she has sex with him too.  (The lustiness of this demon reminds me of Abby (1974), another possession flick).

Continuing her kill spree, Susan attacks her visiting Aunt Cora by levitating her off the ground and telekinetically ripping her flesh and chest open.  It's kind of a cool scene, but unfortunately you can totally see the mechanism that was used to suspend the actress in the air.

Oliver senses that something is different with Susan, but all of these incidents go unnoticed.  Their housemaid Elsie (LaWanda Page) might be the only sensible person in the movie, as she first notices that "there's some strange shit going on in this house."  After catching a glimpse of Susan's foggy and creepy bedroom, she hightails it out of there, quipping "No more grievin', I'm leavin'!"  

During a visit with Dr. Simon, Susan goes under hypnosis, where the demon reveals itself to him, claiming to be named Gomez.  Susan remembers none of this and Simon lets her leave to go about her day, thinking that this "demon possession" is just some sort of repression that has manifested itself somehow.  It's only later that, after conferring with colleagues (and after Susan kills a few more people) that he comes to believe in the curse that has befallen Susan, and does he comes up with a method (using a crown of thorns) to stop the demon and (hopefully) save her life.

Mausoleum is without a doubt a subpar movie, but it is not without its charms.  Its disjointed narrative and odd dialogue add a certain delirium to the story.  Maybe if the film was poorly overdubbed it might have helped?  (It certainly wouldn't have hurt Bresee's performance).  At times it feels like an American version of a Euro-horror film, but one lacking in any direction or style.  The lighting has a lot of strong contrast and colors (reds and greens), bringing to mind the films of Dario Argento and Mario Bava (and making you wish you were watching one of those instead).

Susan's demonic possession manifests itself in different stages.  First it's just green eyes, then claw hands and nasty face, then towards the end she turns full demon.  The make-up effects for the full demon are more than noteworthy, especially for the monster breasts (I don't mean size, I mean they are little snapping monster mouth demons on her chest, and yes, it's as crazy looking as it sounds), which seem to be this movie's calling card.  Overall, the effects are pretty good and gruesome, without a doubt the best thing in the movie.

Make-up and special effects maestro John Carl Buechler would provide the magic for Stuart Gordon's From Beyond (1986) and Dolls (1987), Renny Harlin's Prison and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master (both 1988), as well as Eliminators (1986), TerrorVision (1986), Halloween 4: Return of Michael Myers (1988), and Carnosaur (1993).  He would also direct and do special effects for Troll (1986) and Friday the 13th VII: The New Blood (1988).  He also did uncredited work on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), on the animatronic melting head effect that freaked me out as a kid.

This is Bobbie Bresee's first feature film, and she isn't very convincing as either a possessed woman (see above) or a rich, affluent housewife.  Her stilted line readings just fill the time between nude scenes.  Her "talents" can also be seen in Ghoulies (1985) and Surf Nazis Must Die (1987).

LaWanda Page is best known as Aunt Esther Anderson on television's Sanford & Son and its subsequent spinoffs.  Her portrayal of Elsie the housemaid is obviously for comic relief, but she lands somewhere between clichéd and racial stereotype.  Norman Burton would have a long and varied career in Hollywood as a supporting player and he gives probably the most credible performance in Mausoleum.  Most interestingly (and iconically) he's credited as playing the "Hunt Leader" in the sci-fi classic Planet of the Apes (1968).  He's also appeared in movies I've seen, like Bloodsport and Dead Space (both 1988), and movies I plan on seeing, like Simon, King of the Witches (1971), The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975), and Fade to Black (1980).

Marjoe Gortner is an interesting guy.  He started life as the "youngest ordained minister" (at 4 years old) and became a "miracle child," traveling the country and preaching the gospel to people at revivals and whatnot.  Later he became disillusioned with the preaching business and would start a career in music and in acting.  He would star in Earthquake (1974), Food of the Gods (1976), and Starcrash (1978), and is the subject of a great documentary called Marjoe (1972).  In Mausoleum, his natural charisma seems to be stifled by the the awful script, although he does seem to have fun during the sex scenes.

Death Hug

Uninspired director Michael Dugan has two other films to his credit, a family film called Super Seal (1976) and teen sex comedy Raging Hormones (1999).  One of the writers of Mausoleum (Robert Barich) was also the cinematographer.  He would go on to a career in neither.

Composer Jamie Mendoza-Nava would have a long career in genre films, working with filmmakers like John Hayes (Dream No Evil [1970], Garden of the Dead [1972], Grave of the Vampire [1972]) and Charles B. Pierce (Legend of Boggy Creek [1972], Town that Dreaded Sundown [1976], The Evictors [1979]).

It's not often I'll talk about the art direction, but Robert A. Burns gets special mention always, as he's the guy responsible for scattering bones around the sets on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977).  He would also art direct other classics like Tourist Trap (1979) The Howling (1981), and Re-Animator (1985), as well as lesser classics like Disco Godfather (1979), Full Moon High (1981), Blood Song (1982), and Microwave Massacre (1983).  His work on Mausoleum goes a long way in setting the mood in the creepy titular location, as well as in Susan's bedroom, with her macabre display of victims.  Also, by all accounts and based on the interviews I've seen, Robert Burns was a great guy.  RIP, buddy.

Final Thought:  Mausoleum is at times a fairly stupid movie.  For example, Susan's maiden name is Nomed, which is a stupid last name, until you realize that in reverse it says "Demon," which makes it a really fucking stupid last name.  (It's like naming a town full of goblins "Nilbog.")  Despite that and other stupidness, there's still some moderate fun to be had at the Mausoleum.  (results may vary)

The Carrier

Sometimes you find weird, obscure movies.  Othertimes, they find you.  How I came across The Carrier (1988), I don't quite remember.  Somewhere on my internet travels I found the name of the film, maybe a brief description, and that was enough to warrant me tracking it down and watching it, which by the time I did, I had forgotten what and why I had wanted to watch it to begin with.  I really had no idea what I was in for.  This is a strange movie, one that got increasingly bizarre as it went on, journeying from outcast drama, monster movie, and plague film, all the way to cat wrangling-apocalyptic showdown.  Like I said, it's a weird one, but it's worth checking out.

The story takes place in the idyllic and isolated little town of SleepyRock, where a young loner named Jake (Gregory Fortescue) lives in a shack on the outskirts of town and is not well liked by most of the townsfolk.  It seems that they all believe that Jake's responsible for the house fire that killed his own parents, some years ago.  One stormy night, after returning back to his hovel, Jake is attacked by a huge hairy beast, something that the locals casually refer to as "The Black Thing."  It's in this split second that the movie suddenly becomes a "monster attacks" story, as Jake is lightly mauled and clawed across his chest, but just as quickly as it all happens, Jake shoots the creature and it melts into a puddle of goo outside his home.

Even stranger than all that is the disease that the monster infects Jake with.  It seems that Jake's touch has become lethal to any living thing, and to make matters worse, anything he touches becomes infected and deadly to the touch.  We discover this in the most amazing/absurd way.  Jake gives this old man a stack of books, throwing them into a bag.  Later when the old man goes to look at them, he picks up a copy of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and it melts to his hand before it starts dissolving the rest of his arm!  He runs out into the street, screaming, and some local guys cut his arm off with a hatchet to save his life.

Of course, the town goes berserk, almost into an immediate panic.  It doesn't help that the storm has knocked the bridge out, isolating the community.  The local doctor, Anthony King (Steve Dixon), starts testing the infectious material.  First he puts a baby chick on the book.  It melts.  So he starts rubbing baby chicks on things in town, like mailboxes, doors, telephone poles, and marking anything that melts a baby chick with the color red.

The doctor also instructs everyone in town to not make direct contact with one another and to cover themselves as best as possible, with coats, gloves, blankets, and especially plastic.  In fact, he recommends that they all put plastic over their heads, something that I think might be rare for a doctor to do.

Some townspeople don't heed the warning too well; one guy is melted while sitting down in an outhouse, which is kinda funny.  Not so funny is when a girl is raped by her boyfriend in the woods, but she touches an infected tree during the assault, killing herself and her attacker.  It's pretty shocking, and later some people find their pile of smoking clothes and one guy says, "stupid kids," which I think might be a comment on attitudes at the time towards date rape.  Possibly.  Maybe...?

The town eventually splits into two factions, one a religious group called the Joneses and the other, the Barmen, who are more like biker trash.  The Joneses wear mostly cloths and clear plastics, while the Barmen wear black trash-bags and leather.  You can at least tell the groups apart, but individuals within the groups are obscured by bags and masks over their heads.  The Joneses set up an encampment within their farmhouse, while the Barmen set up in an old barn.

The movie then turns into a little post-apocalyptic/survivalist battle between these two groups over the control of cats.  Yeah, that's right. . .cats.  There seems to an overabundance of strays in the area, and the two groups have run out of baby chicks, so logically they decide that cats are what they need to try to stay safe and protected.  They all go out and hunt cats, trapping them in boxes and whatnot, but these kitties have become hot commodities, and the two groups come to blows over them, even shedding blood.

Where does our gimpy hero Jake fit into all this?  Well he overhears some of the Barmen talking about how some of the townspeople are actually responsible for his parents death, and how they convinced Jake that he did it.  So Jake convinces the Barmen to attack the Joneses for their own protection, while he also warns the Joneses that an attack is coming (shades of Yojimbo).  In a scene that is played completely serious, the Barmen gather outside the fence surrounding the Joneses' compound, weapons in their hands (many of them infected objects), and the leader of the Barmen demands that they give up all of their cats, saying that they choose between "Cats or death?!!"  It's ridiculous, but played completely straight faced, a pattern the entire movie follows.

Following an epic battle, with lots of casualties, the townspeople show cooler heads and meet to discuss what to do next.  Doctor King wants to sneak Jake out of the town (he doesn't want them to kill Jake, but I'm not sure why he wants to send this mysterious disease and it's carrier out into the world at large) so he lies to everybody and announces that the carrier was killed in the battle and that everyone is safe. Of course, this doesn't go quite as planned, as Jake's secret is discovered by one of the youngest townspeople, and he must try to make his escape with the enraged citizens right behind him.  Will he escape?  Will the town be destroyed?  How will it all end?  Will Jake turn into another "Black Thing?"  (I can answer that last one:  no).

"Touch the wall, Jake!"

As is evident from what is written above, this is a really weird movie that seems to not quite know how off-kilter it is.  The dialogue is full of oddities, like "Go out and get me cats!" and "Touch the wall, Jake," and it's all delivered with an absurd seriousness.  The townspeople look like generic Road Warrior rejects, and the plot most resembles George Romero's The Crazies (1973), as written and directed by a totally deranged person.  It's not a total Z-grade production, and in fact, it looks fairly competently made, despite the community production "hey-gang-lets-put-on-a-show" type of feel.  It was shot in Manchester, Michigan by first time writer/director Nathan J. White.  This would be the only credit in his filmography, which is a shame, as I think the film definitely shows potential, especially for a low-budget, regional filmmaker.

The film is a period piece, apparently, as the movie is bookended by some flimsy narration, which states this story took place "25 years ago," which in relation to '88 means that this story takes place in 1963.  There's not much that makes it specific to the period (except maybe Jake's James-Dean-Rebel without-a-Cause shirt), but there's also nothing that really gives it away as being the 1980s.  So, good job, I guess?

The special effects vary in quality, like "The Black Thing," which is just a guy in a weird gorilla suit, but a few sequences do shine, specifically the initial attack by the deadly Dr. Seuss book, and another when a woman is killed by her full length mirror, the shards of glass melting into her skin.  Also, some guy gets an infected bible to the face, which was cool.  There's a few melty looking bodies in the film, but generally when people die from infected objects there's just a bunch of smoke and they die off-screen, leaving behind a puddle of clothes.

Our sulking hero, Jake

The acting lands somewhere between "okay" and "mediocre."  Gregory Fortescue (as Jake) isn't exactly a thespian, he says angsty things to himself like, "I can't go near anyone without ruining everything," and later on when he slowly discovers that he is in fact the carrier, he lets out an epic, "NOT ME!!!"  Despite his questionable decision making as Dr. King, the best actor in the movie (and the only one with additional screen credits) is Steve Dixon, who sort of says/yells all of his dialogue in a Samuel L. Jackson kind of way.

Along with its absurdities and general oddness, there's a conflicting and definite mean streak running through the film, as featured in the sexual assault scene, as well as with the deaths of multiple children, baby chicks, and cats.  It's all done with such non-chalantness that it seems that the filmmakers didn't know that these things were taboo.  It's either really ballsy or it shows a certain naivety.

Despite it's low-budget shoddiness, the film and the filmmakers where obviously trying to imbue their film with some subtext.  There's lots of religious symbolism going on between the warring groups of townsfolk and during the climatic ending.  The disease itself seems to be an allegory for AIDS and the fear that spread in the late 80s surrounding the way the disease is communicable and what it means for those that are carriers of the disease.  It's not the most subtle of subtexts, but it's definitely present.

The Carrier shares some film-crew-connections to the films of Sam Raimi, a fellow native of Michigan.  The matte painter (Bob Kayganich), stop motion animator (Larry Larson), and post-production sound guy (Ron Ayers) all worked on Evil Dead II (1987), but the most significant behind the scenes credits would belong to composer Joseph LoDuca and cinematographer Peter Deming.

Joseph LoDuca would compose the scores for Raimi's The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness (1992), and would continue working on Raimi-produced television shows, such as Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, Young Hercules (with a young Ryan Gosling), and Cleopatra 2525.  In addition, he has also worked on more recent TV hits like Leverage and Spartacus: Gods of the Arena and War of the Damned.

Cinematographer Peter Deming has the most impressive filmography of anybody that worked on The Carrier.   He would cut his teeth shooting horror films like Evil Dead II, The Carrier, and Scarecrows (1988), before heading into an extremely varied career.  He would work on comedies (House Party [1990], Drop Dead Fred [1991], Son in Law [1993], Austin Powers [1997], Goldmember [2002]), with Oscar winners (My Cousin Vinny [1992], I heart Huckabees [2004], The Jacket [2005]), David Lynch (Lost Highway [1997] and Mulholland Dr. [2001]), Wes Craven (Scream 2, 3, and 4 [1997/2000/2011], Music of the Heart [1999]), and one of the better domestic horror films of recent times, The Cabin in the Woods (2011).  Peter Deming would re-team with Sam Raimi on his return to the horror genre, Drag Me to Hell (2009), as well as on Raimi's most recent film (which, coincidentally, opens this weekend), Disney's OZ: The Great and Powerful.

Final Thought:  The Carrier is a strange, weird little film that seems to be undeserving of its obscurity, and it would be perfect for your next movie night gathering or church lock-in or whatever.  Check it out.