Fonda. Oates. Scratch.

This movie rules. A road trip goes horribly wrong for Warren Oates. Plus, Peter Fonda wears the coolest shades ever! (Okay, so I had a pair just like them. Fonda makes them work.) Race With the Devil may conjure memories of Spielberg’s Duel, but it’s much more dangerous.

Let them call it exploitation.

I call it the good, old-fashioned, double feature.

If Dario Argento directed 200 Motels, you’d have Hausu.

If Martin Scorsese didn’t direct Cape Fear, you’d have…

And don’t forget the comedy short at the beginning!

Tobe Hooper

Portions of this review originally appeared in INsite magazine, November, 2006.

Tobe Hooper really likes Dr. Pepper. Because of this fact, I no longer judge people who drink the stuff, although I still stay away from it. (That goes for any drink with benzoate in its makeup. Look it up on Alternet or Wikipedia.) That’s the power of cinema. My love for Hooper’s work is so great, I am now willing to look past my own social experience with a terrible soft drink, and see that geniuses can be Peppers, too.

Hooper has several new DVD’s out right now. His recent Masters of Horror episode, comes from a story by the great Richard Matheson. Matheson’s prose is responsible for some of the greatest fantastic film and television of the last century. He is perhaps best known for novels like Hell House and I Am Legend, his Twilight Zone episodes and stories-turned-movies like Duel and The Incredible Shrinking Man.

Hooper’s episode, “Dance of the Dead,” is a post-apocalyptic zombie story, starring Robert Englund as master of ceremonies to the ultimate humiliation: reanimated corpses are forced to perform on stage. I feel it’s a perfect example of what every Masters show should have: replay value. I can watch this episode several times. God bless Austin.

My favorite thing about this show, other than Englund’s performance (as over the top as he’s ever been), is Hooper’s use of superimposition. I knew I’d been watching movies for too long when I could tell the trick was done in-camera, rather than on someone’s laptop. Darren Aronofsky had a similar trick in Requiem for a Dream, but Hooper’s more chaotic vision required special cameras that could shoot, backwind, and re-shoot at the camera operator’s discretion. If the end result makes you nervous, Hooper’s done his job.

To be fair, a lot of fans really hate this episode. That’s happened to Hooper’s work plenty of times. Back to that in a moment.

            I don’t ordinarily double-dip on DVD’s. Satisfaction is usually achieved the first time around, particularly if the special features are genuinely special. Pioneer’s old DVD of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was a great product for its time. Before box sets for a single movie were in vogue, Pioneer did a great job of giving rabid Leatherheads exactly what they wanted: a commentary, outtakes, deleted scenes and trailers. Unfortunately, the transfer looked like it was shot through a screen door. Hooper’s masterpiece deserved better.

            Yes. “Masterpiece,” I said. The original Chain Saw is the primary reason I’ll still pick up a movie camera. I don’t need Quentin Tarantino to tell me it’s a better, more important movie than Easy Rider. I knew that in middle school. Maybe I like the film too much. I did a fan commentary for it a few years ago, and got a little coverage in Salon and on NPR. They got a laugh out of it.

The new edition from Dark Sky Films contains all of the extras from the original DVD, plus a beautiful new image and even more extra features, including a second commentary and the “lost” documentary, The Shocking Truth. A new interview piece is scored by Austin’s own Russell Clepper, and it fits the mood beautifully. If you’re one of those poor saps who only knows about Leatherface from New Line’s godawful remake, now’s your chance to get the real thing. (I mean, come on. In the remake, Leatherface isn’t even a cannibal. Maybe he should take up macramé while he’s at it.)

It took nearly fifteen years for the original film to get a sequel (not to mention compound word status for its title tool), but the result was yet another cult classic. No one I knew felt this way about Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 when it was new. Nearly everyone hated this movie. Feeling that too many people failed to see the humor in the original, Hooper dared to make Chainsaw 2 into a barely-veiled parody of the first. James Whale did the same thing with Bride of Frankenstein, and as did Joe Dante with Gremlins 2.

Not your cup of tea? What if I told you that Dennis Hopper runs around in a cowboy hat, with chainsaws strapped to his waist like six-shooters? Plus, you get Bill Moseley as Chop-Top, the Nam vet with a very visible metal plate in his head. He has to scratch it with a coat hanger. Plus, Leatherface falls in love. It’s beautiful.

It’s time we recognize Tobe Hooper’s skill as a director. By “we,” I mean Earth people. Texans have known about it from the jump.

I’m still not drinking Dr. Pepper, though. Unless I can find the new Eaten Alive DVD. Then I’ll drink one.

Masters of Horror, Sci-Fi Boys

Portions of this review originally appeared in INsite magazine, May, 2006.

            There are scenes in The Sci-Fi Boys that resemble a Mr. Show or Kids in the Hall sketch.  It happens when you’re into this kind of thing.  For every Ray Harryhausen monster whose name you remember, every Forry Ackerman catch phrase you can recite by heart, and every main title theme you can hum (and harmonize, because you’re just that great), you become more unintentionally funny.  You become a Giant-Sized X-Men #1-sized nerd.  Brian Posehn has made a career out of it.

            I’m nuts for this stuff.  Like the boys profiled in this documentary, I’ve been into science fiction, fantasy, and especially horror since I could eyeball a screen.  And yeah, they’re all boys.  The only women in this documentary are the black and white ingénues carried off by the monsters.  While fans and creators of contemporary fantastic cinema now come in all shapes and sizes (isn’t one of the Wachowskis becoming a lady, or was that an internet April Fool’s prank?), the absence of women in this documentary is a reminder that guys like Ackerman, Harryhausen, Ray Bradbury and the like are still weird little boys at heart.

            That’s part of the reason why the movie loses its steam.  It’s so wrapped up in nostalgia, it sentimentalizes when it should be having a laugh.  Not that it’s a bad movie.  Seeing these guys (as well as Roger Corman, John Landis, Peter Jackson, Rick Baker and others) talk about their influences and pay tribute to the greats is always fun for me.  Yeah, it’s a Universal disc, so you unfortunately have to sit through clips from junk like Van Helsing and The Mummy remake, but most folks won’t mind.  Truth be told, this would make a decent starter kit for anyone new to genre fandom.

            You could have a worse companion to The Sci-Fi Boys than the first two volumes of Masters of Horror.  Anchor Bay is giving each episode of the Showtime series the dripping-red carpet treatment, with commentaries, behind-the-scenes stuff, DVD-ROM scripts and more.  The first two episodes are John Carpenter’s “Cigarette Burns,” based on a script by some Ain’t It Cool News guys, and Stuart Gordon’s “Dreams in the Witch House,” from a story by H. P. Lovecraft.  Each episode is its own little one-hour film, with its own look and style, a feature that makes this show unique.  Even with anthology shows, most episodes look alike, so it’s nice to see this one give its directors more leeway.

            Stuart Gordon does what he does best with his episode: he’s the only filmmaker to do Lovecraft with a genuine love for the material.  (Carpenter himself came close with In the Mouth of Madness, but that wasn’t an actual Lovecraft story.  If you’ve read this far, you know that already.)  There’s a rat with a human face (good acting there, by the way), a dimensional gateway, a redhead, and some shocking baby abuse.  There’s also the prerequisite Lovecraftian self-doubt and slow, creeping insanity.  And, again, the redhead.

            “Cigarette Burns” is the most hyped of the episodes, probably because of its internet pedigree.  The results are surprisingly good, and probably the best thing John Carpenter’s done in fifteen years.  I say this as a die-hard Carpenter fan, by the way.  The man is made of gold to me.  (I saw Escape From L. A. five times at the McCreless Mall dollar theater.  I have a girlfriend now.)  I’m a fan, but I recognize peaks and valleys when I see them.  “Cigarette Burns” is a peak.  It has an angel and a Dario Argento reference.  No redheads, but this one’s probably still the better of the two.

Samhain, Great Kat, Human League

Portions of this review originally appeared in INsite magazine, December, 2005.

Samhain – Live 1984 Stardust Ballroom

“Hey. They’re towin’ cars over at Alpha Beta, so if you’re parked there, you better move, or… ‘Cause I didn’t park there, so I don’t care. This is an oldie…”

All the murder, all the guts, and all the fun are here…but since it’s from MVD, it’s only 48 minutes and comes with no extras. (Okay, so there is a pretty rad Samhain sticker in there. That may justify the purchase: being the one hard rock guy on your block to have Samhain swag instead of another Misfits skull.)

Just who or what is a Samhain? Watch Halloween II for Donald Pleasence’s take on the subject. To metalheads, Samhain was a major turning point. Having left the Misfits behind, singer and songwriter Glenn Danzig chose to take the horror-rock sound into darker territory. Sahmain’s first album was like the Misfits’ “Earth A. D.,” had the songs been written by Anton LaVey. Samhain also marks the debut of Eerie Von, who would later play bass on Danzig’s first four (and best) solo albums.

This DVD features Samhain’s first LA show. It’s all on video, and rawer than roadkill, but the sound is surprisingly good. The filmmakers had the common sense to use a multi-camera setup, so you’re not stuck with Cliff Em’ All shots the whole time. The results are more professional than the average underground punk or metal video. It’s like a public access show with good sound: the quality is there, but nothing is sacrificed for the sake of slickness. Not that fans of Samhain would care. The historical value outweighs any potential quibbles here.

It’s hard to say which Danzig project I love the most. The Misfits, however overexposed they’ve become in recent years (every teenybopper in America knows that skull from somewhere…), wrote some great songs. Danzig’s solo albums were a welcome diversion into blues-based doom metal. Black Aria, his classical album, was creepy and great for RPG sessions. (There. I’ve admitted it.) Samhain had the best of all worlds: all that had come before, and much of what we’d hear later.

Horror-rock would never be this good again.

 

The Great Kat – Extreme Guitar Shred

The first thing you see when you start this DVD is a quote from Guitar One magazine, calling the Great Kat one of “the top ten fastest shredders of all time.” Just in case you forgot. I didn’t. I remember “Beethoven Mosh” all too well. The Juke Box Network used to play it all the time. (Remember them? You’d call a 1-900 number and pay money to watch music videos. You’d get Slayer’s “War Ensemble” one minute, and Kid Frost’s “La Raza” the next.)

Indeed, the Great Kat can play. She plays “shred guitar” and “shred violin.” She performs all “demonic vocals.” She wears shreddin’, demonic outfits, tortures men who dress like that guy from Candlemass. She wraps herself in the flag and screams “kill, kill, kill,” over footage of WWII, the Holocaust, and 9/11, spliced with bad video footage of her band in camouflage, toting plastic guns.

It’s like someone took everything I love about heavy metal and women-in-prison movies, but still got it wrong. If this were just a piece of camp, I’d giggle a bit, then watch another Gwar movie. With the war stuff, though, it’s beyond tasteless, and not much more.

Still, in proper company, this may be an interesting party video. The next time the Alamo Drafthouse shows This Is Spinal Tap, this would be great fodder for the pre-show.

Why else shouldn’t you buy it? It has the word “extreme” in the title. I’ll only let that slide in wrestling.

 

The Human League – Live at the Dome

Do your best Paul Ruebens, and say it with menace: neeeeeeeeewwwww waaaaaaave! I still like it, if only a little. It’s eighties synth-pop, but more saccharine and less interesting than Devo. It’s still the easiest music in the world to play. Practically anyone could get a synthesizer and make music. I’ve done it.

Still, if you grew up on this stuff, Human League’s silly, slick charms may work on you to this day. To me, they come off as the Smiths, Depeche Mode or Material Issue, but way too upbeat and with awful lyrics. Every song sounds like the Revenge of the Nerds soundtrack, without the cool words.

When I turn this DVD off, I’m going to say I’ve forgotten all about it. Then I’m going to look over at that keyboard, and all that music software, and sigh. Human League has influenced me to make music that makes fun of Human League. Awesome.

Lloyd Kaufman, Bela Lugosi

Lloyd Kaufman’s Make Your Own Damn Movie!

Lloyd Kaufman could very well be the last good, old-fashioned showman in independent film. He’s William Castle, Mel Brooks, and David Koresh all rolled into one. Troma movies have been around for a long time, and Kaufman (along with co-founder Michael Herz) has kept its fire lit for nearly 30 years.

Is he a genius? Yeah, probably. Anyone who can make the Toxic Avenger a household name, spark a cult following that rivals that of any mainstream, pre-fab superstar, get hundreds of beautiful women in his movies for free…you figure it out.

Should filmmakers listen to him? Absolutely. In his own words, Lloyd has been making ten-cent movies for a very long time, without any kind of major studio backing. He’s silly, crude, and completely insane, but he knows what he’s talking about.

First of all, the thing is epic. Five discs covers a lot of ground. What sets this apart from, say, Charles (Full Moon) Band’s overpriced instructional set, is its sheer depth. Financing, budgeting, casting, special effects, editing, marketing, distribution, and potential screw-ups are all covered. Want to know why you don’t give your actors real alcohol on a bar set? Watch the making of Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace, where the film’s star has had more to drink than everyone in Metallica. It isn’t pretty.

The set features some outstanding interviews, with horror superstars George A. Romero, Stuart Gordon, and Herschell Gordon Lewis. There is also advice from Lloyd’s old friends John Badham (Saturday Night Fever), John Avildsen (Rocky), and Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park). Marvel’s Stan Lee and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creator Kevin Eastman talk about making their own damn comic books. And if you’d rather show movies than make them, there are sections on running independent video stores and movie theaters.

Of course, there’s also plenty of Troma madness. Some members of the Troma team go dumpster-diving at CBS headquarters. There’s footage of a drunken idiot defiling a man’s suitcase. Lloyd harasses a little dog with his camcorder. I told you he’s a genius.

The Bela Lugosi Collection

Don’t let the packaging fool you. First of all, it’s a flipper disc, with five movies spread over two sides. Universal can overprice it all they want, but the fact remains that they’re gypping monster fans once again. Flipper discs are the worst. Secondly, there are no extras to be found. This is pretty much a movie-only affair.

The movies, though, are a lot of fun. Four of them are the legendary Lugosi-Karloff team-ups, including the Edgar Allan Poe-inspired classics, The Raven and The Black Cat. Lugosi goes gangster in Black Friday. Weird science abounds in The Invisible Ray. The Karloff-less Murders in the Rue Morgue is still fun, particularly if gorilla suits are your thing.

Truth be told, even though I hate the packaging (two discs would have been better) and the price (two discs would have been worth it), this set is historic. The DVD’s for Dracula, Frankenstein, and others could only tide us over for so long. The movies aren’t flawless, but completists will flip.

The Manson Family

Portions of this review originally appeared in INsite magazine, July, 2005.

            About five years ago, I was haunting DVD news sites, looking for something special.  At that point, my collection consisted of John Carpenter’s Vampires, a borrowed copy of Black Mask, and a few odds and ends.  I needed something new, something underground.

            That’s when I read the name Jim VanBebber.  (Except, back then, “Van Bebber” was two words, but no big deal.)  Here was a guy who loved the drive-in, B-movie scene as much as I did.  He was a fan who, since childhood, had also been making movies.  He also left drunken messages on people’s answering machines.  So, of course, I had to pick up Deadbeat at Dawn, a movie I’ve watched at least fifty times.  It’s apparently out of print, but worth tracking down if you’re into gang war movies like The Warriors or the original Assault on Precinct 13.

On the Deadbeat commentary, VanBebber mentioned something called Charlie’s Family, a project he started in 1989, but was still trying to finish.  In between projects he did some work for Phil Anselmo (of Pantera, Down, and Necrophagia), but Charlie continued to stifle.  Thankfully, MPI (notorious for their release of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer years ago) stepped in, releasing Charlie, now re-titled The Manson Family, under the Dark Sky Films banner.

Roger Ebert gave this movie the worst good review I’ve ever read.  He said it accomplishes what it sets out to do, but that doesn’t mean he wants you to see it.  (You may roll your eyes now.)  As a fan of horror and cult cinema, I do want you to see this movie.  I’m practically begging you to see it.  And make sure it’s the unrated version, with the cool documentary on disc two.

We all know the story.  What sets this apart from Helter Skelter or Troma’s Igor and the Lunatics is VanBebber’s emphasis on the family rather than Charlie.  The movie has a found object, documentary style, meticulously created to look as close to the real thing as possible.  It’s all acting, but it’s spot-on.  The movie has even fooled a few people.  When I watch this for the first time with someone new, they tend to ask if some of the interviews are genuine.

None of it’s real, of course, which makes this movie more fun than it really should be.  We’re talking about real life murders here.  This actually happened.  Is it ethical to turn this into a B-movie?  If you find yourself asking these questions, consider how much Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor in the Manson case, has made off of Helter Skelter.  Think of all the people who tuned in to the miniseries in the 70’s.  While you’re at it, consider every movie that’s been made about Jesse James or Doc Holliday.

VanBebber himself raises the question of whether this kind of thing should become popular entertainment.  But it is popular, and VanBebber makes it entertaining.  He’s grown by leaps and bounds as a filmmaker.  If you like cult movies that try a little harder, this is up your alley.