THE BEST HORROR MOVIES OF ALL TIME
NUMBER 1!!!
Our movie reviewer (Dork King) James "Bo" Gorceski is a horror movie fanatic...and now he's giving you his list of the best horror movies of all time! We'll be posting a new entry every Saturday during the month of October, so keep checking back to see which movie comes out on top!
This is it folks, your wait is FINALLY over. We've come a long way to the top if you wanna rock n'roll, but we've all struggled on and have made it to this final film. Just prior to this, I've also listed my top 10 films that just couldn't make the cut. Two of them, Dawn of the Dead and Hellraiser were actually both in my original countdown when I wrote this for my school's magazine. But from my time of writing that paper to current, I'd become bearing witness to two other horror films unlike any other and needed to have the world opened up to them, (I also felt it wasn't fair to have two of Romero's films on the countdown) So I ended up putting Dead Alive and Re-Animator in their places. I also unfortunately felt that Hellraiser (as good of a horror film that it was) wasn't as quintessisential and important in the movement in horror as I've felt the other two were. So aside from that other posting of info, let's get to business shall we?
Well, here I promise you the true gritty details: I give you the facts, list the breast counts and how much buckets of blood are gonna come spurting on out at ya. As told in Joe Bob Briggs fashion, I get right to business (after listing a lot of bullshit or useless tidbits of information) but I want you, the little people, to really get the gist of these films the way they were intended. So for god's sake: Join up with Netflix, cause every lil rinky dinky Blockbuster video has capitolized and smothered out the lil mom and pop video rental stores to ever carry any of this stuff ever again. Some of them are rare gems, and some are commercialized. And some yet have so many cuts, versions and even remakes - you'll never really know which ones to get. SO my suggestion to you guys is either be lucky enough to bump into these films on your digital cabel/satelite provider - or just go out and buy these films. Some of them I bought just on a whim or from info I've read from the great sites like www.imdb.com or www.houseofhorrors.com I put out the money for them and never live to regret it.
If you just happen to stumble upon my countdown, you can either read my previous listings OR just read the following messages of the recent reviews that you have missed: 5)Demons (aka Demoni) 4)Evil Dead 3) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original) 2)Night of the Living Dead (1968) and now for the final addition to my countdown.....
1)Halloween
1978, Directed and written by John Carpenter, also written by Debra Hill
HALLOWEEEN you say, Bo? How could Halloween be better than Night of the Living Dead. Well in all honestly, looking at them two different film wise, Night is the superior in style and landmarking achievement - but thinking about the time of the year "Halloween" there is nothing better than to set the mood than John Carpenter's landmarkish "slasher bith giving film" than Halloween. It' sgot pumpkins, a curse, dressing up, nudity, teenagers getting cut up, Jamie Lee running around with no bra on, Donald Pleasance acting crazy - the whole bunch. If my countdown would take place any otoher time of the year, I'm sure the numbers would be swithced at this instant. But, taking in all consideration that the actual holiday of Halloween is but a mere few days away, there's nothing more enjoyable than the slasher Myers chasing Jamie Lee and Dr. Loomis chasing Myers.
Most people would like to consider this film as the beginning of the whole slasher/body count film genre. Others like to consider that Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho would actually be the first slasher film, and other's even consider quite a few of Mario Bava's films such as Blood and Black Lace as being the first kinda body count films. But I for one like to see that John Carpenter took both his love of Psycho (from using the Sam Loomis character to how Myers swings a knife and incorporating the Italian style of horror of the gloved killer {such as in Dario Argento's earlier Giallo films}) and made a mixture of the two that became the slasher genre.
Not too many people realize that John Carpenter's masterpiece was the start of it all that moved us into the slasher/body count genre of the 80's. But he set the stage that Cunningham and crew used over and over again formulaically and systematically time and time again with the Friday the 13th series. Which I am a far bigger Jason fan over a Myers fan, but we gotta give credit where credit is due. With the devolpment of Friday the 13th then came the idea if you had a couple of teenagers, a camera and some woods - you could make a horror film. Then came more supernaturual twists to the slasher genre in the years to come with films like Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser and Chucky. But, if not for the daring escapades that John Carpenter set forth with this film - we'd have nothing of the likes. I feel if not for Halloween, we'd still be seeing films concerned about demonic possession like The Omen, Rosemary's Baby or The Exorcist because they were the biggest sellers of the later 70's. The original golden age monsters that Universal provide us we're dying out with all of the remakes by Hammer Horror, society needed newer - bigger and mroe frightening boogeymen for a more modern day and age.
With the coming of Myers, aside from Norman Bates in Psycho, we now not only are frightened of the killer, but you'll find people rooting on for the bad guy. Ever go to a slasher film in the theatres, more people are happy to see their serial killer hero slashing up their victims and giggling when they die so viciousily. Not often you'll find yourself screaming FOR the bad guy in appreciation instead of fear. And the same went for all of the other slashers that followed, and why there is so much merchandise from t-shirts to action figures that deal with these modern day monsters. It was far and fine time that we had some more monsters that we would appreciate, and it couldn't have been done without the cursed one known as Michael Myers.
Now before I get going with this film, let's talk about all of it's convoluded sequels. I'm not gonna get into the plots of much of them, but try and paint you a picture of their universes. Think of all of the films existining in the great Halloween universe, and certain films withint the series took different roads in it to make them connected. I can think of about 3 seperate timeliens within the series:
A) THe Lauire Strode timeline: This would involve Halloween 1,2, Halloween H:20 and Halloween 8 and probably soon to be 9. This one states that Laurie Strode went into hiding, and would eventually have a boy who "twenty years later" Michael would come for her to kill the blood line yet again. Which he does by part 8 so his purpose should end as well, instead it doesn't and yet they keep making his films
B)Halloween 3: A celtic group that makes masks that will on Halloween create devastation and evil blah blah. In this film, we actually see that the originally Halloween film is a movie withint this universe created by John Carpenter.
C)The Jamie Strode timeline: Occurs in Halloweens 4,5,6 - these films basically state that after Halloween 2 and before 4, the Jamie Lee character ended up having a child but died in a car crash with her then husband. Jamie survived, went up for adoption until Myers found out his blood line continued and he needed to kill his neice. These films wouldn't be antyhing wihtout Donald Pleasance (who was pretty muich tricked into returning for his role when notified that Carpenter would be reutnring). In four and five she's stilll a lil girl being hunted down, but by 6 she is abducted by this weird cult that would force Michale to fuck his neice and create a new evil. So now Myer's is a bitch of the cult, but Tommy (the boy who was babysat in the original film) ends up keeping that baby safe after Jamie is murdered. The cult comes after him and it's chaotic. The producer's cut of this film is awesome if you can find it - otherwise don't and when this film ends - they also end the concept of the creapish cult and by the next sequel return to the Laurie Strode timeline for H20.
The story- On Halloween in 1963, a young boy by the name of Michael Myers is spending a typical Halloween dressed up. He's awaiting for his older sister to probably go out with him for Halloween while she's getting ready. He sees her naked, grabs a huge ass kitchen knife and stabs her to death. There's really no motivation or wondering why hed did it - Michael just pretty much goes catatonic from that point on not talking to anyone just staring off into space.
Being that Michale is only six at the time, he couldn't be trialed as an adult - so he's locked up in Smith's Grove Warren County Sanitarium until he's 18. Dr. Sam Loomis (as played by the legendary Donald Pleasance) is his doctor and tries to get anyting out of him. But Loomis knows of the evil within Michael, he stared into his eyes ...."those black lifeless eyes" So Loomis warns everyone how evil that Meyers is, he needs to be either locked up or continued into a maximum security penitentary on his 18th birthday which is Halloween.
This brings us up to (then) present time, it's just about Halloween in 1978, and Michael is to be transfered to be trialed and for a more maximum security prison for killing his older sister those years ago. Only Loomis knows just how evil that Michael really is (and for those Halloween-philes from reading the comics, Michael murdered Loomis' wife years ago while he was in prison. Know one would ever think Michael did it because he'll just stare at the walls, and through the walls and beyond the walls back to his hometwon of Haddonfield, Illinois where he must extinguish his blood line that he just knows still do exist.
So Loomis and Nurse Marion are on their way to make sure Michael is transered, but he's able to escape. Which causes all of th eother nut jobs to run away but Michael hijacks a car and drives back home. Of course Loomis is pissed and knows where Michael is heading - so he's on the trail back to Haddonfield to head him off at the pass if you will, since in Carpenter's eyes - each one of his films is a Western. Along the way, Loomis is just on his trail and notices a mechanic is murdered and his truck is stolen along with the jumpsuit of the Mechanic. They find the car Michael stole from Smith's Grove and his medical scrubs. Loomis continues on to Haddonfield where Myers is already setting up camp.
Cue in for nerdy lil Laurie Strode
(played by one of the earliest and greatest Scream Queen's Jamie Lee Curtis in one of her earliest roles). Well Laurie and her friends are all getting ready for the Halloween festivities, makign out and talking out boys (typically 70's girls talk) but Laurie is a good girl, and is a lil bashful but then focuses on how she has to babysit that night for some kids. Her friends all want to take advantage that parents won't be home where they can have pre-marriedal sex and do drugs blah blah.
Laurie and her friend Annie are walking from school, occassionaly stalked by a weirdo in a car, which Annie screams "Speed kills!" Lol, the girls later cruise around and smoke some pot where Annie bumps into her dad Sherrif Brackett who is investigating the fact that the local halloween store was broken into and someone just stole a mask and such - pay no heed to foreshadowing folks. The girls go about and continue getting ready for the night to get wasted or babysit or whatever.
In the mean time, Lynda and her boyfriend Bob are off to get laid
and have a few beers as the lights go down in Haddonfield. Myers is ready to strike as Loomis has entered town and meets up with Sherrif Brackett to join their forces to hunt down the killer known as Myers. Of course Brackett is a lil skeptical, but the two men are off to do some damage (the best is seeing the Sherrif's reaction when Loomis whips out his pistol and starts to do some damage) Oh, I have a permit.
Well then comes in the formala that all slasher fans are all too familiar about. If your a teenager having sex or doing drugs you're gonna die. WHich is why I think Myers initially killed his older sister for when she had sex with her boyfriend and would make sensse that procreation to continue his bloodline is why they must die for it. The formula was re-used in the Friday the 13th films buecasue the camp counselors were too busy screwing than her watching lil Jason while he was drowning.
One by one Laurie's friends are dropping off and she can't reach them, murders come and murders go and Sherriff and Loomis are trying to stop all of the madness. Evenutally when Michael comes for Laurie everyone joins forces and Loomis must save the day. Who will survive the night, how many bullets can Michale take, how will the lil babysat children be affected by this night in the years to come - what is to come on Halloween, the night HE came home?
Things to look out for:
A gripping original score by director/composer John Carpenter with his digital creepy synthesizer beat. From this point on a tradiitional theme in all of Carpenter's film that go with all of his films like Big Trouble in Little China, Christine, Assault on Precint 13 and many others
Wire hanger Fu
Knitting Needle Fu
Bleedign eyes from the Myers mask
Willaim Shatner is frightening
Dont' hide in the closet
Unescapable death
Butter stains your clothes
Michael Myers enjoys killing dogs
Don't laugh at Michael in a cheesy blanket costume
Slasher POV in the clown mask
Omininous echoing of breathing in hte Myer's mask
For God's sake, look behind you when he pops up!@
Don't say: "I'll be right back"
Don't have sex unless your married
Don't smoke pot and drive around town when your dad is the Sheriff
Listen to Dr. Loomis when he warns you
Your dead friends and loved ones popping out and dropping all around you
Take notice when someone just randomnly steals a William Shatner mask from your local costume shop.
Memorable quotes:
[referring to a partially eaten dog]
Sheriff Leigh Brackett: A man wouldn't do that.
Dr. Sam Loomis: This isn't a man.
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[after Michael falls off the balcony]
Laurie: Was that the boogeyman?
Dr. Sam Loomis: As a matter of fact... it was!
Dr. Sam Loomis: I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the *devil's* eyes! I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... *evil*!
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Annie Brackett: [Michael Myers's car cruises by the girls walking home from school] Hey, jerk! SPEED KILLS!
[the car screeches to a halt]
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Lynda: Now when we get inside, Annie will distract Lindsey and we go upstairs to the first bedroom on the right. Got it?
Bob: First I rip your clothes off...
Lynda: Don't rip my blouse, it's expensive you idiot!
Bob: Then I rip my clothes off, then I rip Lindsey's clothes off, yeah I think I got it.
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Dr. Terence Wynn: Now, for God's sake, he can't even drive a car!
Dr. Sam Loomis: He was doing very well last night! Maybe someone around here gave him lessons
Sheriff Leigh Brackett: Well, it's going to take a lot more than fancy talk to keep me up all night crawling around these bushes.
Dr. Sam Loomis: I- I- I watched him for fifteen years, sitting in a room, staring at a wall, not seeing the wall, looking past the wall - looking at this night, inhumanly patient, waiting for some secret, silent alarm to trigger him off. Death has come to your little town, Sheriff. Now you can either ignore it, or you can help me to stop it.
Sheriff Leigh Brackett: More fancy talk.
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Dr. Sam Loomis: [pulling his gun after being startled by a crash] You must think me a very sinister doctor... oh, I have a permit.
Sheriff Leigh Brackett: Seems to me you're just plain scared.
Dr. Sam Loomis: Yeah, yeah I am...
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Dr. Sam Loomis: You've got to believe me, Officer, he is coming to Haddonfield... Because I know him - I'm his doctor! You must be ready for him... If you don't, it's your funeral!
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Lynda: [exposing her breasts] See anything you like?
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Dr. Sam Loomis: He came home!
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Dr. Sam Loomis: You've fooled them, haven't you Michael? Well, you haven't fooled me.
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Lindsey Wallace: I'm scared!
Laurie: There's nothing to be scared of, now get changed.
Tommy Doyle: Are you sure?
Laurie: Yes.
Tommy Doyle: How?
Laurie: I killed him...
Tommy Doyle: [shouts] But you can't kill the boogie man!
Worthless tidbits of info:
Even though the film takes place in Haddonfield Illinois (paritally based on co-writer/long time producer of John Carpenter's Debra Hill) all of the license plates have California on them due to the fact this was such a low budgeted film
The film was shot in 22 days, a remarkably fast effort
No one is clearly listed to have played Myers under the mask, legend has it - evne the director John Carpenter wore the mask for a few scenes
In Frankenstein fashion, Myers is referred to as The Shape, a shape of pure ominious and dark evil as only Loomis can refer to as.
Dario Argento had the gloved killer, Carpenter had the masked killer. It was from viewing a lot of Giallo films that Carpenter got some influence to make his film, and can be quoted about Dario's movies as "they don't make any sense, but he shows death so beautifully"
As noted earlier, Carpenter is also a huge fun of Psycho, one of the main characters in that film is Sam Loomis (the boyfriend of Nancy Curtis in the ffilm). Donald Pleasance character is named after him, and the daughter of the main woman murdered in the shower sequence of Psycho, is the very same Jamie Lee Curtis - the main heroine in this film. And also, the young Tommy Doyle's character's anem is from Hitchcock's Rear Window
The Michale Myers mask was actually a William Shatner mask spray painted white.
The film was shot in the spring in California but takes place in the Fall of Illionis. So the crew had to buy paper leaves and color them Autumn colors and reuse the same leaves over and over again for all of the scenes.
The kids are watching The Thing from Another World, Carpenter would eventually remaked that classic in just a few years with The Thing, too bad E.T made a friendly alien concept a lot better than one to reduplicate and kill you.
Michale Myers has no connection to the man to eventually don the Austin Powers syndrome. In fact, he's named after the international distributor who helped out so much for the European success of Carpenter's previous film in Assualt on Precinct 13.
Leigh Brackett from this film is named after the same screenwriter from Howard Hawk's Rio Bravo, the main inspiration to Assualt on Precinct 13
The film was orignally slated to be called the Babysitter Murders
There is a different cut of the film if you can find it - I actually own one for when the film was originally shown on ABC in the late 70's they needed extra scenes to fill up what gore was cut out (and nudity :( ) Certian cuts incorporate the stuff filmed on tv (such as the unmasked Michael staring at Laurie at the end of the film) and all of the original gore.
Final rudnwon of the film
Breasts seen: 2 pairs
Body count 5
Buckets of blood 3 out of 10- The gorey stuff occurs when a friend's corpse pops down or up outta no where
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Ooooh we're getting so close arent' we?
Well, here I promise you the true gritty details: I give you the facts, list the breast counts and how much buckets of blood are gonna come spurting on out at ya. As told in Joe Bob Briggs fashion, I get right to business (after listing a lot of bullshit or useless tidbits of information) but I want you, the little people, to really get the gist of these films the way they were intended. So for god's sake: Join up with Netflix, cause every lil rinky dinky Blockbuster video has capitolized and smothered out the lil mom and pop video rental stores to ever carry any of this stuff ever again. Some of them are rare gems, and some are commercialized. And some yet have so many cuts, versions and even remakes - you'll never really know which ones to get. SO my suggestion to you guys is either be lucky enough to bump into these films on your digital cabel/satelite provider - or just go out and buy these films. Some of them I bought just on a whim or from info I've read from the great sites like www.imdb.com or www.houseofhorrors.com I put out the money for them and never live to regret it.
If you just happen to stumble upon my countdown, you can either read my previous listings OR just read the following messages of the recent reviews that you have missed: 5)Demons (aka Demoni) 4)Evil Dead 3) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original) and now for the next addition to my countdown.....
2) Night Of The Living Dead
1968, Directed and written by George A. Romero, also written by John A. Russo
Being barricaded within a house so that people can't destroy you. This formula has been duplicated over and over again the night that Night started springing up all across the drive in theatres and late night showings of this new type of horror film that practically RE DID the genre and transcended it into what we now call as Modern Day Horror. Much like it re did the genre, you can think of Night as the NEW society taking over the old - yet Romero and Russo do it with zombies. Or more specificially your own loved ones have been turned against you, and your choices are to either kill them so that they don't spread they're almost rabies-esque disease to you - or barricade yourself into safe keeping.
This film is quite low budget, and it's startlign black and white cinematography just make it more frightening from the definition of shapes to the contrast of light and dark - live and dead. Some can possiably consider it one of the earliest independenent feature films (well not mentioning the likes of the old days of let's say American International Pictures) but Romero made his film much like a blown up student film, or in his case a very big commercial, since he was so used to make short advertisments and commercials in Pittsburgh at the time before his big ol' directorial debut in a feature film.
The story-It is believed that a NASA satellite was returning from a visit to Venus and the radiation on the satellite had an effect on the dead. It re-animated corpses to spring back to life and attack the living. Any one that it kills, bites or scratches comes alive (or dead alive, or undead, or walking dead?) and it kills. It kills for food, and they only eat that of the fresh human flesh. Back then they were only known as Ghouls, probably not wanting to confuse the more golden age stylization of a zombie: as someoen transfixed under a Voo Doo state that will do what their master wills them to do. But now their flesh devouring monsters, and the only way to stop them is to kill the brain - and the rest will follow.
Romero's classic has become a staple in pop culture and horror films for close to 40 years now. He created the Zombie genre, and the rules that other film makers like O'Bannon, Anderson, Yuzna, Wright, Snyder and even Boyle along with many, many others have been toying with Romero's ideas for years (and some mentioing of Russo as well). Okay, so the dead are back to life and it creates a small band of survivors to barricade themselves into a small farmhouse through out the night until help or even salvation arrives. To survive the day, they must first make it through - THE NIGHT. mwhwhhahah okay, I'm done with the macabre feel of this thing.
The macabre, the golden age of the Universal monster movies and EC comics were all heavy influences into George A Romero and he plugged it all into this film - not mention all of his other works. There have been books and films that just let alone talk about the camera work and how it terrorfies with light shadow and slow movement alone. It is quite possiably THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT HORROR FILM OF OUR DAY AND AGE. This one comes before Texas, cause TCM couldn't have come about if not for something like Night to pave the way for true in depth horror that kept making folks come back for more and why Night of the Living Dead (along with it's sequels) shall always remain an excellent tradition that plows into mankind's psyche.
So here we have oru small bunch of heroes, slowly becomign out numbered. If the zombies know the living are inside, they're gonna get at them no matter what it takes. We don't get much plot exploitation of WHY they're doing it, and WHY Romero is still expanding on such a premise to this day with his previous installment - Land of the Dead. All we do get from this film is that if you're previousily dead before the satellite landed you're now back from the dead. AND anyone else that dies (whether natural cause or via zombie) they too will be stricken with the so-called virus (or let's say maybe a trauma within their mind,body and psyche that causes them to desire the flesh of the living?)
The film Night of the Living Dead (also known as Night of Anubis or Night of the Flesh Eaters) tries to get everyone within this small lil farmhouse (setting racial,sexual and social differences aside) that they most work together despite greed or claiming who is wrong and who is right in order to survive the film. Everyone tries to work on a plan, whether it's to wait it out or escape. While others are stricken by a moment of irony, or down right they desreved it for being an idiot like Tom (cause he tried to blow a lock off a gas pump with a shot gun) or a self-righteous asshole like Cooper. This film is deliciosily written (much like the taste of the victims in the film) it's lit light a creepy take off of Bride of Frankenstein and it's a stark reality that hits on SO many levels. Whether you think it's the end of the world and God is punishing them through judgement day, a satelite sci-fi theory or just a coincidence of mass hysteria - Night of the Living Dead is what you make of it. Let yourself be terrorfied by this film and get lost in the imagery the ideas of being over run by the unburied dead and having even your own former loved ones strip the meat off your bones and they won't even reconcile your pain.
Of course, as we may have already known how far the Night has gone. It was followed up by the awesome international sequel Dawn of the Dead, and the lesser creepy but sometimes more gorey and thought provoking third part Day of the Dead. Romero fell of the face of the Earth for a while with his hatred of how the film business is run and eventually returned years later to create his fourth installment of the series Land of the Dead. THe film of Night of the Living Dead remake in 1990 was shot entirely in color and pretty much follows the core sample of the original. Except now we have horror makeup/sfx master Tom Savini in the director's chair and Tony Todd (Clive Barker's The Candyman) as the main hero. The remake was scripted by Romero - but doesn't fully capture the original's fright. Yet, watching Tony working his Black-Fu on the zombies is awesome lol. Night of the Living Dead 30th Anniversary was featured by shooting new scenes (which is pretty much an extended opening for someback ground on the first zomibe and perhaps a bit more exploitation on why this is happenign ot the world) and the new beginnig half of the film was directed by original Night co-writer: John A. Russo. But if you want the real deal effect, go for the cheapiest and grittiest copy you can find that has that low budgeted almost documentary like appeal to the film. Don't worry about the whole remastered look - seeing this film in it's worst condition almost makes it more frightening.
Things to look out for:
-Utter Racism
-Trough Fu
-Getting Barbara
-Cooper is an asshole
-Dumb hillbillies blowing locks off of gas pumps with shotguns
-Shooting the wrong guy, (by mistake?)
-Redneck Militia to the rescue
Memorable quotes:
Barbara: They oughta make the day the time changes the first day of summer.
Johnny: What?
Barbara: Well, it's eight o'clock, and it's still light!
Johnny: A lot of good the extra daylight does us. You know, we've still got a three-hour drive back; we're not gonna be home until after midnight.
Newscaster: All law enforcement agencies and the military have been organized to search out and destroy the marauding ghouls. The Survival Command Center at the Pentagon has disclosed that a ghoul can be killed by a shot in the head, or a heavy blow to the skull. Officials are quoted as explaining that since the brain of a ghoul has been activated by the radiation, the plan is kill the brain, and you kill the ghoul.
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Field Reporter: Are they slow-moving, chief?
Sheriff McClelland: Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up.
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Field Reporter: Chief, if I were surrounded by eight or ten of these things, would I stand a chance with them?
Sheriff McClelland: Well, there's no problem. If you have a gun, shoot 'em in the head. That's a sure way to kill 'em. If you don't, get yourself a club or a torch. Beat 'em or burn 'em. They go up pretty easy.
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Johnny: They're coming to get you, Barbara, there's one of them now!
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Sheriff McClelland: All right, Vince, hit him in the head, right between the eyes.
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Ben: Now get the hell down in the cellar. You can be the boss down there, but I'm boss up here!
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Newscaster: Reports, incredible as they may seem, are not the results of mass hysteria.
Harry Cooper: "Mass hysteria?" What do they think, we're imagining all this?
Ben: Shut up!
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[to Harry Cooper after having been locked outside]
Ben: I ought to drag you out there and FEED you to those things!
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Ben: How long have guys you been down there? I could have used some help up here!
Harry Cooper: That's the cellar. It's the safest place.
Ben: You mean you didn't hear the racket I was making up here?
Harry Cooper: How were we supposed to know what was going on? Could have been those things for all we knew!
Ben: That girl was screaming. Surely you know what a girl screaming sounds like. Those things don't make any noise. Anybody would know somebody needed help!
Tom: Look, it's kind of hard to know what's going on from down there.
Harry Cooper: We thought we could hear screams, but for all we knew, that have meant those things were in the house after her.
Ben: And you wouldn't come up here and help?
Tom: Well, if there were more of them...
Harry Cooper: That racket sounded like the place was being ripped apart. How were we supposed to know what was going on?
Ben: Now wait a minute. You just got finished saying you couldn't hear anything down there. Now you say it sounded like the place was being ripped apart. It would be nice if you get your story straight, man.
Harry Cooper: All right, now you tell me! I'm not gonna take that kind of a chance when we've got a safe place! We lock into a safe place, and you're telling us we gotta risk our lives just because somebody might need help, huh?
Ben: Yeah, something like that.
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Harry Cooper: Helen! I have to get that gun!
Helen Cooper: Haven't you had ENOUGH?
Harry Cooper: Look, two people are already dead on account of that guy! Take a look out that window!
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Helen Cooper: We may not enjoy living together, but dying together isn't going to solve anything.
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Newscaster: It has been established that persons who have recently died have been returning to life and committing acts of murder. A widespread investigation of funeral homes, morgues, and hospitals has concluded that the unburied dead have been returning to life and seeking human victims. It's hard for us here to be reporting this to you, but it does seem to be a fact.
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Reverend John Hicks: This is like the flood that happened during Noah's time, or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah! We ARE being punished for our sins! The dead are rising, and Judgment Day is upon us!
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Sheriff McClelland: Good shot! OK, he's dead; let's go get 'im. That's another one for the fire.
Worthless tidbits of info:
In 1999, it was inducted into the National Film Preservation Board and recieved the award of National Film Registry.
Ranked in as Number 93 on the American Film Institutes 100 most frightening horror films. 100 being the bottom of the list, number 1 being Psycho and 2 was Jaws.
As stated earlier, the earlier title of the film was Night of Anubis, Anubis being the Ancient Egyptian God of the Dead.
Romero quickly rewrote the scene that gave Johnny and Barbara that huge dent on the side of their car. They make it look like they crashed into the tree, but the dent on the car door wouldn't have come the way they crashed intot he tree.
Legendary Make Up Master Tom Savini was originally hired to do Night, unfortunately he was called off to duty to serve as a combat photographer in Vietnam. The two were later re-united wehn Tom had his acting debut in Romero's Martin, and was def able to put his make up application skills to use when he made Dawn of the Dead.
Some people tend to consider George Romero also soo innovative for giving a black man the leading role of the film. It ends up create muching underlying racial issues at the time and a controversial ending if you look at it in a certain point of view. But it was in fact that George ended up hiring Duane Jones for the role, soley because he was the best actor in the whole group. ANd thusly beign the best actor, means he got the best role.
Also marks as being the first horror film with an African American as the lead role and pavign the way for many others. And it was also in such a tradition that Romero kept going with it as he did in The Crazies, Dawn of the Dead and even Land of the Dead.
Karl Hardman, who plays the asshole Cooper in the basement - also did the makeup, coproducing, sound effects engineer and even helped create the closing credits.
In true independent film fashion, the sound track was created from copywritten expired material. Sometimes known as also (S-Drop music) it's found a lot in Romero's early films such as The Crazies and parts of Dawn of the Dead that The Goblins didn't create. In fact, you're more than likely to catch this music on some of those old "NFL Greatest Superbowl Moments" television specials. Their music is also found in other films around just years before the release like Killer Shrews and Teenagers From OUter Space.
When originally intended as Night of the Flesh Eaters, the creators thought the killers would be extraterrestial in origin. Bringing the film to be much more cliche at the time as a cheesy sci-fi B movie. A good thing they went for the horror approach and transcended the whole genre instead.
Romero has admitted he was heavily influenced by the film Carnival of Souls. Also many people find that night has many social parallels of Hitchcock's THe Birds.
THe word "zombie" is never used but the creatures are called ghouls. Even in Dawn and Day they are either called things or creatures. It's not until Dennis Hopper mentions them in Land of the Dead as "zombies creep him out."
The Cooper family in the basement, is in real life the The Hardman family consisting of a mother, father and daughter.
It was booked in the movie theatres with a promise: "If Night of the Living Dead scares you to death, we're insured up to 50,000 dollars."
Romero has also stated that above "visual" references came from other films - it was the initial idea that was found in the novel I am Legend by Richard Matheson.
Night is solely responsible for making the "midnight movie" the thing that movie goers wanted to check out for ages now.
In case you haven't noticed, the action packed shoot em up video game series of Resident Evil is directly influenced by the Romero films. When a Resident Evil movie was in the works, they hired Romero to write the script, they didn't like it so they fired him. SO now we have the two beautiful Resident Evil films out there because Capcom didn't like what Romero had for them - faq-u.
Night was such a huge success in Europe, Italian master of horror Dario Argento SOOO wanted a sequel to the film. He approached George and the two helped create the driving force that would eventually become Dawn of the Dead.
On the night that Romero was driving the print to NY to seel the theatrical rights was the day that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
The soundtrack to the 30th Anniversary edition to Night is totally new, it's written by Scott Vladiimir Licina - who also plays the role of the Priest of the new beginning scenes.
Final rudnwon of the film
No breasts
Body count 8
Buckets of blood-5, not too much blood splattering - but this is probably the first time you'd see ghouls chomping on guts and human flesh (even though it's really leftovers from the producer who was really a Butcher).
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3)The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
1974, Directed and written by Tobe Hooper, with story also by Kim Henkel.
OF COURSE I"M NOT GONNA LIST THAT REMAKE! I for one have yet to see the 2003 remake - nor do I ever intend to do so. I remember my first year of teaching, I had tons of lil pre-teen kids bragging how it was the SCARIEST film they'd ever seen. I think that ANYONE that thinks that the re-make was SO frightening would never have ever dreamed of watching the original - nor baring witness to the gritty, hot and grueling presentation that is made in that film from the acting abilities of Marilyn "The Screamer" Burns or those creepy ass sound effects of metal on metal that make you wanna rip your ears right off. Nor will I ever think that Jessica Beil could take on the great Leatherface, nor should I show sympathy to a serial killer who has now claims of having a skin disease and needs flesh masks for himself? FILGERCARB!@
The other thing that I really don't like is that this original film has been remade, redone and reinspired so many times on over. Granted, you can take the base plot of a couple of kids out on the road, get lost and killed and apply that to just about every modern day horror film out there - but you have to look much closer at the entire Texas series. I for one will never have intentions of seeing the remake - why? It's been remade so many times already. Not only, in my humble opinion, is House of a 1,000 Corpses a remake of this film, but I also like to call to mind other films similar to it that are almost pseudo remakes - or heavily influences such as my personal favorite Evil Dead or the more modern and somewhat evern more of a remake to Evild Dead is Cabin Fever. Don't get me wrong - I absolutely LOVE House of a 1,000 (especially Rob Zombie's directing!) Evil Dead and Cabin Fever - but there is a core sample of horror that Tobe Hooper helped create almost 30 years ago - and it's been going strong ever since.
For example, if you wanna be a strictler for continituy in films: don't start with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films. I've found all of them to either just start all other - or not have much continution between them. Except for possiably Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2: It's really not a great film, but Tobe Hooper returns to direct but now we have Dennis Hopper as our main hero who practically has an arsenal of chainsaws at his disposal. We got Danny Elfman doing a song, Tom Savini helping out with makeup and even the great Joe Bob Briggs was in some cut scenes of the film (since Joe Bob is such an AVID lover of the original Texas) Well the story of 2 is that Dennis Hopper is the uncle to Sally and Franklin (who is the kid in the wheelchair in the original Texas) well he's a sheriff and out on a mission to get his revenge. They end the film fairly quickly and Hopper pretty much goes crazy and chopping down everything in the path of the crazies. SO we're pretty much believing that the family of crazies is all dead and done with.
Then we get Texas 3: Leatherface - This plot is very similar to the original, of these kids getting mixed up with the crazies of the cannibal family. Really the only continuation of the police finding bodies from the first 2 Texas films, but now the famiy has all of a sudden re-appeared. Is there like clans of these families or what? Is this just a remake? Are they starting just from scratch?! Ah well, def find the unrated director's cut of this film - it's probably one of the goriest that you can find in the series. OOH and Ken Foree (who plays Peter in Dawn of the Dead y'know - the black guy with the guns?) well now he plays this bad ass survivalist whose pretty much like Leatherface's main nemesis! Plus a chainsaw floats in the water coming after a guy, Viggo Mortensen plays an awesome role of one of the cannibals and Leatherface has a new bad ass shiney saw that says "the saw is family" on the side of the blade.
The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (aka Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation) Most people totally despise this one, and is probably the most evident and clear cut of the remakes goes The co-writer of the original Chainsaw Kim Henkel now comes on as director for this film. SO we got Vilmer (who is played by Matthew McCoughney in one of his earliest roles) and his crazy family of cannibal hillbillies. This film was initially intended as being a TRUE sequel to the orignal Texas film and the characters of Vilmer and W.E. were suppossed to be the Hitchhiker and the Cook from the original - but too many things got in their way to make this film be what it was hoped to be. Not to mention the film claiming that this new family (on top of the last NEW FAMILY that Leatherface met up with from the original) but these are connected with the Illuminati, a group of people who secretly run the wrold without you or I knowing it. Most people are also upset that this Leatherface tends to have a few masks, and also dresses in drag. But if you read further into my review - I can reveal to you that having Leatherface act like this is as true to the origin of Leatherface as possible. I know that this film is also Joe Bob's favorite of the bunch, and if you can take such a hardcare horror fanatic (on top of that a HUGE Texas) fan - this film can def be worth to check out once you know the TRUE story of Leatherface and the crew.
Well, after next generation came about the remake - and I've ranted about that thus far. Not to mention the new prequel titled Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Origin. Why kids were so frightened of the remake is by claiming that it's based on a true story. Lot's of films try to use that phrase but I've come to know Hollywood as utterly full of shit when telling you where truth lies and fantasy begins. Fargo, for example is TOTALLY made up, even though it claims what happened was true, those cooky Coehn brothers just love a good ol sadistic laugh - espeically about a kidnapping that goes horribly wrong. Same goes for The Amityville Horror- Which is a film about a family buying a haunted house. BUT did you really know that what really happened that was horrific was related to the family they bought the house from. Where the man went crazy and killed his family? Well that's true, but the new family coming and running away thought they could make a couple of bucks by telling their story to a writer, making a book - then a movie about the book and then a phenomeon. Want another one? How's about JAWS, a small slither of truth about a shark swimming dangerously close to the NY/NJ area for some reason and attacking a few people.The Blair Witch Project- Like any kids are gonna have their deaths revealed onto tape so that companies can make millions off of them - creative and scary but not true. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is just another fabrication of Hollywood to lure asses into the seats.
The story- What works in the original is this utterly gritty feeling that you get that what your watching is real - the opening line to the film is the narrator pretty much giving you a run down of what happened a year prior to it.
The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But, had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare. The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Not only do you get that creepy feeling from the start of what you're seeing is true - but the way this thing was shot is that it looks almost like old school home movies at the time - or at least a gritty peice of documentary. You get lost in the whole aspect of the film and sometimes you probably forget what you're seeing is just fake - just a story. So a couple of these hippies are off to investigate their grand daddy's place - they pick up a hitchhiker and in one way or another stuck on the back roads of Texas - you stumble upon the farmhouse of the crazy cannibals.
I've personally met people wh are from Texas, and they will surely tell you that they have either met Leatherface himself, heard of their award winning chili or have in some way shape form or another come across the likes of the TCM family. This led me on a mission to uncover the truth for myself: The truth is that there was no cannibal famiily weilding chainsaws to chop up their victims. The story comes from a sick man around the 1920's and 30's called Ed Gein.
Gein was a sick bastard, he was known for his acts of cannibalism, necrophilia, killing 2 women and using the flesh of women to make a suit for himself to essentially become a woman. He was a totally deranged fuck and some may note him as America's first serial killer. He was digging up dead bodies from the nearby graveyard, and making lil trophies and furniture made out of flesh and bones (much like some of the lil things that you see in the farm house of the original TCM) He was arrested and sentenced to death for murdering those 2 women. THe likes of his persona ended up on the cinema as found in Norman Bates of Psycho (as the split personality and wanting to become a woman) Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs (from making a woman suit out of their flesh) And Leatherface - including his whole family (as in their creepish decorations and lovely taste of the flesh) As far as the Chainsaw itself goes- well that comes from Tobe Hooper one day stuck in a Montgomery Ward's during xmas time stuck in the hardware section and thinking of a fun way to utilize chainsaws during the crowded xmas season.
So again - society needs to view TCM not as truth, but a film with a smill slither of truth within it to subdue the concisosness into fright. You're scaring yourselves by thinking it's real. Which is a great marketing ploy, especially for a much younger generation that are just beginning to capitolize on a 30 year old franchise. So tell everyone - tell your friends - it's not true but check out the original film for a fun time and some truly great fright.
Things to look for:
- Beating a bitch with a broom
-Hot Dog nipples
-Listening to her scream
-Photos from the slaughterhouse
-NEVER PICK UP HITCHHIKERS!@
-Time to feed Grandpa
-That weird ass legion on the Hitchhiker's face
-People in wheelchairs are "dead weight" in a horror film
-Creative use of a hammer
-Creative use of a meat hook
-The Hitchhiker's bargaining postures are highly dubious
-The Cook repeatedly poking the girl with a stick while she gags in a burlap sack. HILARIOUS!
-Watching Grandpa bash Sally in the head OVER and OVER again trying to get her blood in the slop bucket.
-Black Maria saving the day by running over the Hitch hiker and throwing a wrench at Leatherface's head.
-After getting hit int he head with a wrench and cutting his leg with his chainsaw, Leatherface still gets up for a air guitar solo-esque with his mighty blade swinging around int he air.
-Franklin is a whiney bitch.
Memorable Lines:
Old Man: Look what your brother did to the door! Ain't got no, no pride in his home!
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Old Man: You damn fool you ruined the door!
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Hitchhiker: [to Sally] And, and I thought YOU was in a hurry!
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Hitchhiker: My family's always been in meat.
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Jerry: That's the last goddamn hitchhiker I ever pick up.
COOK: ..."Ol Grandpa is one of the best killers there ever was..."
Worthless tidbits of info:
-When they're feeding Grandpa through Sally's finger - Gunnar really cut her finger cause he was tired of doing the scene over and over again.
-Originally titled as Headcheese and wasn't changed until just before release.
-The truck in the film that saves the day is written with Black Maria and the truck that runs the college kids almost off the road in Evil Dead is Lazy Mary. Coincidence?
-John Laroquette from Nightcourt, Madhouse and Meatballs 2 does the opening narration to the film.
-The Cook is the only actor to return in TCM 2, but there are some returning cameos from people like Sally and Grandpa as different characters in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
Final Rundown of the film:
Pairs of Boobs seen: 0, but hot dog nipples. Yes, I'm speaking of the fact that Sally is running around like a crazy screaming woman with no bra on and she's got these humongousily round and LONG nipples that are junting and bouncing all about in the woods when Leatherface is chasing her.
Body Count: 5 (it can technically be six cause by the time Sally reaches the mental hospital to tell her story, she practically dies from hysteria.)
Gore factor: 4 out of 10 buckets of blood, not a very gorey film - BUT VERY effective in everything needed to be done. One of those "more frightening when you don't see it kinda things"
4)Evil Dead
1981, Written and Directed by Sam Raimi
Man, to this day I can still remember my first encounter with Evil Dead. To start things off, in my latter days of high school - I'd always heard or at least seen about a lil film called Army of Darkness. My one good buddy Beck at the time had quite an astounding lil film collection as well. I think he somehow musta inspired me to start getting movies, but he pretty much had movies cause he was rich and spoiled - but he also loved them. So through Beck began my love and knowledge about Army of Darkness, but I soon began to know it as Evil Dead Part 3.
I was buying a lot of newer comics at the time, so it was IMPOSSABLE to not get a new comic around that day and age without seeing an ad for Army of Darkness on the back of your book. Not too many people ended up checking out the film in the theatre, but most people were quite lucky enough in the years to come to see it on the Sci-Fi Channel or USA (with variable cuts and edits of course.) SO I watched the film and thought of it as hilarious, and being the strict dork that I was - I HAD TO KNOW about these other films that had this whole Army of Darkness feel to it. Also around this time Darkman and The Hercules series were somewhat big, so identifying the style of this director and demanding more of it was in such need for me. Beck had actually known and seen some of the earlier two films. He gave me the plot of the two but could hardly recollect the original.
I was lucky enough to travel to my local videostore and noticed they had a really beat up copy of Evil Dead 2. I watched it, found it not as hilarious as Army of Darkness - but it was much more gorey. So then I thought, if Ash, the main hero in the series, is trapped in this cabin with Deadites and then eventually gets sucked into Medieval times to begin the Army of Darkness - what the hell happes in the first film? The web was fairly taking it's baby steps so not too many knew of it then. No video stores carried the film for either losing copies, being destoryed or stolen over the years. I began on a quest that plagued my mind to have all of the useless Evil Dead information smushed into my brain for cataloging perhaps only.
Years went by and I ended up renting or borrowing those films numerous times for getting drunk and watching the films as a teenager. In my senior year of school we ended up going on a field trip to Boston. Low and behold in one of the shops - there just HAPPENED to be a newly refurbished Evil Dead videos. I didn't know too too much about them still, but I saw that the film was released with four different box covers through Anchor Bay Entertainment so I figured this was something worth investing with. My collecting was still very small at the time, so I was careful back then about just dumping 20 bucks down the drain for a film I'd only heard rumors about.
Luckily one night, my buddy Mike, Maggie and I decided that we should rent a few movies and chill out. We thought it'd be a great joke to rent some mature porno and put that into the vcr so that Maggie thought it was THE EVIL DEAD horror tape that I ended up renting from my same old video store now that carried the re-release of the cult classic. Well Maggie didn't appreciate Horny Grannies Vol. 9, so we ended up popping in Evil Dead instead. And this is what I ended up seeing.....
The story: A group of kids from Michigan University are deciding to spend a nice lil weekend in the deep woods of Morristown, Tennesse and tye're gonna stay in a nice lil cabin that they got REAL cheap. The kids, Ash, his sister Cheryl, Linda, Scotty and Shelly are all set for a great old time. From drinking moonshine, smoking pot and then snooping around in the cabin to find a few things. Including a old reel to reel tape player, which they play and they discover the owner of this cabin was doing some archeological digs where he discovered The Necronomicon Ex Mortus, roughly translated - The Book of the Dead. The kids are flipping through the book seeing all weird pictures and text, they play the tape and it just so happens that it's the professor translating what he has found in the book.
Whilst translating some Candarian ressurenction passages and demon ressurections - he indirectly awakens a force in the woods. Most commonly known amongst hardcore Evil Dead fans as The Force, not like the one in Star Wars. The force is just an evil invisible entity (also known as Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell running around with the camera taped to 2 x 4's or long poles) that ends up possessign things in the woods and quite a few of the students. Not only have the demons awoken once and ended up destroying the professor (as we later get to learn about in Evil Dead 2) but now the demons have re-awoken and are coming for Ash and the kids.
Now mind you, even though that the Necronomicon is in this film, it is not connected to H.P. Lovecraft or any of his works for that matter. And also this film has nothing to do with the DEAD series as done by Romero, Argento or Russo. This film has got in your face gore, lots of over the top antics and even though at times it might appear as to be no more than a student film - DO NOT KNOCK EVIL DEAD. You can't go into this film with expectations to be doing any nitpicking on the special effects or the fine acting of the THEN acting students at the time. Though Bruce Campbell does an awesome job of being a bad actor: "Oh you bastards, why are you torturing me like this? WHY?!"
So, Candarian demons are awakened, possessed the woods and kids and try to go after the lone survivor until he "joins ussss" Bloods squirts out of every crack and hole in the house, kids are ripped up and the only way to stop the demons is by "bodily dismemberment" it's no fluke why this film is called by fans and the creators at the "ultimate experience in grueling terror" it was Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell's hack at the horror film. They mix their love and blend of slapstick comedy like The Three Stooges, their total and complete admiration for Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre and not to mention throwing in Raimi's trademarked Olds '88.
This film is a DEF MUST see. Every lil film that I have ever worked on, it was mandatory that my friends/actors had to watch this film before they worked with me. It's a total inspiration to all young film makers allike and I personally feel that it helped change the world of horror films. Granted again, the special effects at the time are pretty funny to see nowadays, but this film did something to the market. It was soo gorey that it could be hardly shown anywhere, and if they did - they'd hae to cut so much shit out of it. SO it's very hard to have ever probably seen this film on television (cable, satellite or otherwise) it's a real cult gem that NOT enough people know about - horror or appreaciators of film in general.
The first time I saw it, I don't recall my eyes blinkin gfor the longest time trying to ingest all of the Karo syrup covered eye candy that I could take in. Blood, guts, body parts and demon excretement is flying all throughout this film. It's got some fun lil stop motion clay animated gore within it, and the entire end scene just seems to keep on getting grosser and grosser and progressing with just more oozing guts and bugs.
This film has some things that I'm sure you're never gonna see anywhere else - whether it's done visually with Raimi's style of handling the camera OR how they present themselves with gore and sheenanigans. Like how many times are you going to see a forest try to molest a girl running around in her jammies? A drainage pipe burst blood? Blood coming out of electical outlets? The film's score and the vocalization of all of the Deadites (commonly known as the possessed persons with the Demon as revealed in Army of Darkness)
Oh, and for people with questions of continuity - think of it like this. There is a fine line of continuing the same storyline between Evil Dead 1 and 2. Evil Dead 2 links directly up with Army of Darkness. But due to legality problems, think of Evil Dead 2 as a remake to one with a bigger budget. Evil Dead ends with Ash surviving until dawn and then "THE FORCE" crashing throuhg the cabin and attacking him with Ash's scream as the screen goes to black.
In the beginning of Evil Dead 2, they pretty much redo what goes on in Evil Dead 1, but just with Ash and his girlfriend. So they're able to recap everything that happens from the first one, within about the first half an hour or so, then que when THE FORCE attacks Ash that we saw at the end of Evil Dead 1. After that happens, well pretty much a new story starts to unravel that is truly the marking point of Evil Dead 2 - and thusly hooks up with Army of Darkness. SO basically as the sequels progress, they get funnier and less gorey - for marketable reasons. THe boys saw that no one wanted the first Evil Dead, without doing a lot of censoring to it first. But it did eventually find a home in England, which eventually became the rest as history of keeping the film alive. Not to mention it's success in parts of Asia as well.
Memorable lines:
1)ASH: "You bastards, why are you torturing me like this? WHY?!"
2)SCOTTY: "She's your girlfriend - you take care of her. I'm getting out of here."
3)SCOTTY: "Hehe, I'm gonna break your face."
4)SCOTTY: "PARTY DOWN."
5)LINDA: "We're gonna get you, we're gonna get you. Not another peep, time to go to sleep."
ASH: "SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"
6) CHERYL: "You're not going to leave me here, are you Ash? Heheheh"
7) THE FORCE: "Join usss. Join ussss."
8)PROFESSOR: "I know now that my wife has become host to a Candarian demon. I fear that the only way to stop those possessed by the spirits of the book is through the act of... bodily dismemberment. "
9)CHERYL: "Soon all of you will be like me... And then who will lock you up in a cellar?
10)SHELLY: I don't know what I would have done if I had remained on those hot coals... Burning my pretty flesh.
11)CHERYL: Kill her if you can, loverboy.
12)SCOTTY: Hit it Ash, HIT IT! Argghh."
13)ASH: Now, the sun will be up in an hour or so and we can all get out of here together. You, me, Linda, Shelly. Hmm... Well... not Shelly, she? We'll all be going home together. Wouldn't you like to be going home? I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you? Scott?
14)SHELLY: "WHAT HAPPENED TO HER EYES?!"
Things to look for:
-Bodily dismemberment with axe and chainsaw
-Burying bodies, sticking a cross into the ground and then the ominious thunder and lightning strike.
-Tree rape
-Headless Linda dry humping Ash
-FAKE SHEMPS
-Cheesy super matted shot of the Moon getting ink poured over it
-Claymation Necronomicon wagging it's tongue around
-Saving the day utilizing a cheesy ass necklace charm
-Bitch slapping a demon for being childish and annoying
-Blood running down the screen red
-Shovel Fu
-Bruce Campbell being flailed into bookshelves and pinning himself under one.
-Pencil stabbing
-The longest scream in history as done by Sam Raimi
-Using cigarette smoke to make a room look eeary and ominoius
-Cheesy ass dinner setting followed by Latin speech
-Tires that screech on a dirt road from the magic of the Olds
-Scotty being an asshole and only caring for himself. Always a smart character within a horror film to have.
Worthless tidbits of info:
-The two hicks you see waving at the Michigan kids is the director Sam Raimi and producer Rob Tapert. In fact if you listen closely enough to the Professor's translation on the reel to reel player, you can hear him saying "Rob and Sam are waving on the road" but he just makes it sound like it's Latin.
-Forget dry ice, Rob Tapert just took a lot of puffs on his cigarette to make the cabin look creepy when the kids first enter.
-Some of the most creative camera work ever done. In fact, utilized by the Raimi's friends and partners at the time the Coehn Brothers (directors of films like Raising Arizona, Hudsucker Proxy and The Big Lebowski) who ended up utilizing those roaming and ramming POV camera shots in their early film Raising Arizona. Not to mention some of the boys other best shots, such as Raimi dangling himself upside down on the rafters for a shot of Bruce, or mounting the Olds 88 and their camera on the same angle so that when Bruce came out of the car - it looks like he's walking sideways on the enbankment.
-Cult actor Ted Raimi (younger brother to Sam and Ivan) makes his on screen film debut as Cheryl's hands busting up through the basement floorboards to strangle Ash. Ted would later go on probably best known for his character as Joxer on the Xena televison series OR as Hoffman the assistant at the Daily Bugle in the Spider-Man films. Which, for those of you that don't know Sam Raimi directs the first 3 films in the Spider-Man series.
-As mentioned above, Ted is one of the many to play a FAKE SHEMP in the film. The makers of this film were huge Three Stooges fans, and it's obvious in the early Stooges' shorts that a lot of times Shemp Howard couldn't perform much antics so they just stuck a guy in a Shemp wig to continue along with production. The same was done with Evil Dead, it essentially took them 2 years to make the film, basically they kept running out of money and hadda get more from investors and such. Over time, all of the actors they did hire - had to go on to do other things and projects but Bruce stuck it through. Instead the boys hired friends, family and locals to continue along with production and sticking cheap wigs on them. Which is why you'll see the same demon looking so different thoughout the movie. IN FACT, the cult phrase of FAKE SHEMP is getting bigger and bigger. It can be found in the credits for CABIN FEVER, a very Evil Deadesque film to begin with - and also a great horror film to catch.
-Don't make fun of their special effects. Granted yeah the matte shot of the Moon or the claymation demons or cheesy - but did you know the guys used real glass and real bullets for their shots. To hell with blanks and sugar glass, they just made sure the set was clear in order to do half of the things they needed.
-The connection between Wes Craven and Sam Raimi: Okay this is gonna take a while: Alright, now in the basement of Evil Dead, you'll see a ripped in half poster for Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes. Within Craven's film about cannibalistic nomads, you can find a poster of Steven Spielberg's JAWS, that is also ripped in half. Raimi's interpretation of the scene was that within Hills, there was a nomad basically terrorizing a family and decaptating a little bird. Raimi thought Craven did it to say, "Jaws is pop culture horror/terror, this is REAL terror." So what better way to take an alreayd graphic or gorey horror film like Hills, and say that that is pop culture horror/terror, the Evil Dead is REAL TERROR. And it sure is. In fact, Craven loved the knod so much, he retunred the favor by showing quick clips of Evil Dead on television in his film A Nightmare on Elm Street. (You can find it in the seen before Johnny Depp's character is about to die and he's watching televison on his bed.) THEN Raimi appreciated the knod so much so that when he made Evil Dead 2, he put a Freddy Kruegar glove hanging up in the tool shed (you can see it when they show the silhoette of Ash cutting up Linda's head with the chainsaw)
-The film is utterly a direct knod and worship to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The boys made this film in appreciaton to Tobe Hooper for being so terrorized by his film. Which is why you can find so much chainsaw in the series. Also in the beginning of the film in the cabin, you see a lot of dangling bones and gords which are in tribute to the insane farmhouse belonging to Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre
-The boys initially got funding through family friends, doctors and dentists by initially shooting a short film called Within the Woods. They made it to prove to people that they could scare the hell out of people. It shares a fine line with Evil Dead and tends to use and set up a lot of the same scares (such as the keys stuck in the door) and in this film Bruce gets possessed and comes after his girlfriend.
-Another knod that you know you're watching a Sam Raimi film, is the usage of his favorite car The Oldsmobile Delta '88, even cooler than that is the fact my dad had one! This long yellow bitch magnet can be found in every film Raimi has directed (except for The Quick and The Dead which is an old Western). You'll see it's Ash's primary mode for transportation in all three Evil Dead films, Uncle Ben drives around in it in Spider Man, And any other time you can fit a car into his other films like Darkman, A Simple Plan, THe Gift, For Love of the Game you can be sure to find the old Olds in there.
-This film would have essantially not gone anywhere if not for the quote that Stephen King put on the video box. "The most ferociousily original horror film of the year."
-Raimi wanted Ash to have a timeless style of clothing so that their film wouldn't become so out dated. So he chose a blue button down shirt and moccassins.
-The film took two years to shoot, so you can see Ash getting older through your eyes and even his haricut changes (along with a lot of Karo syrup to slick it down)
-Look for the "Steel City" outlets that pour blood - a straight up refernce to the boys hometown of Michigan.
-The cabin that this was shot in somehow burnt down, all that stands is a fireplace. Most fans try to hunt down for this place is, cause they like to take the bricks to fan conventions so that Bruce Campbell can sign them and he gets freaked out by their dorkiness. Trust me I know, I got Bruce to sign my Evil Dead painting which freaked him out lol. The cabin also actually had no basement, so those shots were shot seperatly in Rob Tapert's family's farmhouse and Raimi's garage. You'd be surprised what you can do with proper scene blocking.
-The tape player they find is the same ones the boys had used for years dubbing sound onto their old 16mm shorts.
-How could you not tell they love the Three Stooges with the eye gauge of death to Scotty
Final rundown of the film:
Pairs of boobs seen: 2
Body count: 4
Gore factor: 10 out of 10 buckets of blood. Holes in the wall spewing blood, bursting drainage pipes of blood, bloody basement puddles, milk spewing demon blood, green dyed cream corn demon guts and one Necronomicon written in blood and bound in human flesh.
5)Demons
1985, written and directed by Lamberto Bava (also written by Franco Ferrini {with story by Dardanno Sacchetti})
Ah yes, I can remember when I was watching Demons for the first time. It was my first true taste of the Italian horror genre, which are most commonly known for their Giallo type films. Giallo is an Italian word that basically comes from yellow, and it's the color of the paper that these sorta cheap pulpy crime stories that were printed out in the 20's and 30's. The Giallo films take the elements of a detective-esqu story and also mixing in the elements of horror or fantasy. Demons has an element of why there is this terror being caused when all of these people are mysteriousily invited for the screening of a film, someone gets possessed and all hell breaks loose.
I don't know if it happens through translation or what, but even John Carpenter can be quoted specifically about Dario Argento's films: "The thing with Dario's films is.....they never make any sense - but he kills people so beautifully." Those of you who DON"T know who Dario Argento is, he is the modern day master of Italian horror. He pretty much took over the reigns for Mario Bava (the father of the Lamberto and director of the film I'm trying to get into) This man takes a blend of the surreal, bright colors, infamous POV shots, and his gloved killer. In fact, John Carpenter saw quite a few of Dario's films and instead of a gloved killer - he created a masked one: Michael Myers in Halloween - and thusly creatign the whole slasher genre - so thank you Italian horror films for all you do for us over here.
Before I can keep on blowing Dario more (whose also done a lot of work with George Romero such as on Dawn of the Dead, the fine people of Troma and not to mention a slew of some of the finest shockers, slockers and gorey pieces of almost beautifully massacred cinema.
Like I said, he took over the before master of the Italian genre Mario Bava. Mario was close friends with Alfred Hitchcock and some could even consider Mario as the Hitchcockini. In fact, between some saying the that Psycho was the first slasher film, then Bava's Blood and Black Lace is the first body count film in color - and the genre exploded ever since then - all thanks to them Italians.
So now lil Bava created a HUGE hit with this film, this third generation Italian film maker had worked with Dario Argento quite a few times so far. Where Bava ended up as an AD and various other tasks for Dario's films. With Demons, Lamberto wrote it and directed with Dario writing it as well and produced the film - this becomes a match made in Heaven - or Hell speaking in horrorific terms. This film has some great special effects, lots of murder and an awesome Heavy metal soundtrack with bands like Billy Idol, Scorpions, Motley Crue and Goblin (aka The Goblins or to eventually become Daemonia) Dario's favorite metal band. Ah yes, I forgot that heavy metal also plays an awesome part in these films. It excites and totally brings up the pace in the film once people start to die on out.
Now, the only downside to the Italian films is that they lack major bits of continuity problems - let's take the "Zombie" films for example. Now Lucio Fulci -another fine Italian master of horror made his best hit would be Zombie (but it's known as Zombie 2 B in Italy) Now the reason for that is going back to Dario Argento. Dario was the producer on George A Romero's Dawn of the Dead. It's really only known as Dawn of teh Dead in the US It's primarily known as Zombie or Zombies (mainly due to my ranting about the zombie title rights found in my countdown for Return of the Living Dead)
So Argento got the foreign producer rights to Dawn of teh Dead, he even made his own cut of the film and it was called Zombie in Europe. Lucio Fulci became the director for the second film called Zombie 2 in Europe, but plain old ZOMBIE in the US. THere is no continuity connection with this film, and actually utilizes mainly voo doo esque connections for causing the dead to rise. But I do enjoy the way the dead rise whom are covered in blankets and sheets, much like the dead found within Romero's Dawn of the Dead in teh basement apartment sequence. None of the zombie films are connected except in name only and just pretty much jump from one typical scenario to the next.
Same goes for the Demons series: Demons 1 I shall cover in the plot further on. Basically people are requested to view a horror film, there is something hidden and evily mysterious about the film. A girl gets scratched and a "zombie like virus" is spread from one person to the next whether from bites, scratch or death. People die like crazy and a few survivors.
Demons 2, Bava returns to write and direct with Argento helping out. This movie doesn't pick up where th elast left off, it'sm ore like a cheap remake. A lot of the same actors are utilized but now in dif roles - and it's pretty much the same premise too. So it's a a lil gir's bday party, she's watching the same film broadcasted now on television. She gets possessed and starts infecting people within her apartment building.
Demons 3:The Church-Now solely Argento is back as a producer and a new directed Michele Soavi comes on board, but now this film is about an ancient church that was built on dead possessed people. In modern times, a lady awakes the dead possessed withces and they start killing and wreaking havoc. Similar in style to the previous two films. There was another film billed as Demons 3 called The Ogre. It was a made for TV horror special that Lamberto Bava did, but releasors just put Demons 3 on it with Bava's name just to draw in a few extra bucks.
Demons 4 (La Setta aka The Devil's Daughter) Michele comes back for this one as does Argento. Even Romero was going to help out with the film after Romero and Argento teamed up to do Two Evil Eyes. Pretty much this film involves Satanists and the comign of Satan's daugher bringing an end to the world -blah blah.
Demons 5 (aka The Devil's Veil aka Black Sabbath '89) Bava is back for this one and some people are curious to think if this is indeed a remake of Lamberto's father's masterpiece, the original Black Sabbath. But the film is just called Black Sabbath in name only, other than that it's primarily the historical background is the same where the heroes end up tripping over a dead withc with a mask on her face. The mask is removed and chaos ensues. Similar to the mask symbolism found within Bava's intiial Demons film.
Demons 6 (aka Edgar Allen Poe's The Black Cat) The Black Cat was actually the third film within Dario's horror trilogy with Suspiria and Inferno. Okay, this film is just about people making a horror film about a witch named Levanna, the withc comes to life and kills people. It maintains the theme of mmedia killing such of like found in the first two films.
Demons 7 (aka Demons '95 aka The Cemetary Man aka Dellamorte Dellamore) Michele Soavi returns a final time, and this one has truly great horror to it. Featuring a borderline love of death and defending proper life. To believe that Rupert Everet, plays the Cemetary Man and he has to basically keep the dead, "dead" and in their graves. This is a horror masterpiece, not only under Soavi's belt, but under Italian b horror movies done well
The story: Now that it's all over said and done with - lemme get on with the plot summary for Demons. Okay, now like I said - randomn people are invited to a special screening of this horror film called 'Demons'. And we keep seeing these weird looking Billy Idol mother fucker with half of a Destro mask just popping up throughout the film. So all of these people get gathered into a small movie theatre that just got renovated.
There is this funny lil statue of a guy riding a motorcycle and wearing a "demonic" looking mask almost similar to the mask the destro guy is wearing at the beginning. The girl wearing the mask gets cut, and a kinda of virus spreads from her and through one friend to the next. Much like in a zombie film, if a person gets cut, scratched or killed they become possessed. They're maniacs foaming at the mouth, clawing and killing people - it's so bad ass, especially with all of the heavy metal blasting in the bg.
What surviros are not demonized yet, they need to barricade themself. Not only that, but there is "Nooooo escappppe" to quote the Goblin song. Brick appear overs where the windows and exits are. Even the projection booth is operated by a timer - no one knows what's going on - except that it's the movies fault. So the people need to escape, some do and some don't. Some other people like these coke fiends sneak in and cause some of the Demons to sneak out and start murdering out into the streets - and the chaotic apolypse keeps a brewing with the Demons.
Memorable lines:
The dubbing is so bad in this movie nothing is truly memorable. But I can tell you just about anything the Pimp says is bad ass in this movie.
PIMP SMASH EVERYTHING, SMASH EVERYTHING, SMASH EVERYTHING!
Things to look for:
Helicopter that drops out from nowhere
Cocaine in a coke can
Getting cocaine out of car seats
hot nipple tantalizing with a razor blade
Foaming at the mouth
Freakish Demon eyes
Demons coming from the shadows looking like C.H.U.D.
Awesome opening Demon transformation
Simulataneous death for art imitating life imitatind death
Guy dangling from his noose
People making out together and dying together for it
Blind guy gets it
THE FUCKING PIMP with the bitching sideburns. Bobby Rhodes shoulda stuck around for the whole film but he unfortunately gets turned. But he does return for the sequel along with his sideburns - but no mroe switchblade.
Demon rebirth through the back
Worthless tidbits of info:
-Look for the horror movie posters also hanging up aroudn the theatre.
-The mask motif that goes throughout the film.
-The guy in the mysterious metal mask is actually the assisstant director of the film.
Final rundown of the film:
Pairs of boobs seen: 1
Body count: 26 (plus lots of carnage out int he streets as West Berlin is destroyed)
Gore factor: 6 out of 10 buckets of blood. Not too BLOODY but gorey in every aspect of the film. Gorey with awesome special effects.