Just a reminder that Slaughter High is coming to DVD in April from Lionsgate in Uncut form (but probably without those black bars that many genre fans worship). What better primer is there than this awesome vintage (did I just say 80’s is vintage now? I am so old) Vestron Video trailer! Thanks to ‘VestronDan’.
A notch above most Young Adult thrillers thanks to its author’s dryly humorous tone, Deadly Detention is a playful riff on school-set slasher movies that whistles along swiftly and keeps up the suspense to the end.
Think back to the 1985 John Hughes movie The Breakfast Club and, if you’re anything like me, you’ll remember a lot of teenage bonding and not nearly enough severed heads. Writer Eric Weiner rectifies the problem by putting six high school students into evening detention and ensuring that staying popular isn’t their main concern – but staying alive.
There’s Glen, the nice-but-dim star athlete of Harrison High, who’s wound up staying late after being caught in a steamy make-out session with senior year bitch, Jaclyn – also in detention. Then there’s chunky nice girl Jill, still carrying the pack of cigarettes that got her into trouble, and equally geeky Owen, who’s landed a late shift thanks to a below-par term paper. Perpetual troublemaker Mike rounds out the group, while straight-A scholar Fran is a surprise addition, having been accused of stealing another girl’s wallet.
“Chill out, guys. I have detention all the time. It’s not so bad,” Mike reassures the gang, but they haven’t counted on being supervised by the school’s strictest teacher, Mr Crowley. And what Crowley has in mind isn’t quiet study but hard graft, scrubbing the classroom clean while he retires to the staff room for an hour. But 5.15 comes and goes. Along with 6.15. And soon the school is dark, the parking lot deserted, and no one else seems to be around. Until the deadly threats start spewing out of the loudspeaker system, that is, and the students realize they’re locked in the school with the windows barred, the phone lines cut, and a maniac out for blood…
Several 80s slashers utilized high school settings as the backdrop for their killings, with Fatal Games and Cutting Class making particularly good use of the sneaking-back-in-at-night conceit. Prom Night and The Slumber Party Massacre both have great after-school sequences, in which usually jam-packed hallways turn sinister once the crowds have deserted, but Deadly Detention is the only slasher tale to my knowledge to explicitly use detention as a reason to isolate its victims. And very effective it is too, meaning that most of the characters don’t even really know each other before ending up fighting for their lives, and allowing plenty of scope for character development as each explains the problems that led to their punishment, as well as their hopes for the future if they ever make it out alive.
Pacing isn’t a problem since, even though it’s the usual halfway-mark before the action kicks in, Weiner sends the group scurrying through every part of the school building, penning shock scenes that range from the basketball court to the library with an aplomb that screams “make this movie!”. Indeed, later films have used elements already given a thorough workout here, from the climax of Scream with its heroine unable to trust any of her former friends, to Horror 101, which lifts almost the entire set-up but does manage to come up with a nice twist of its own.
Published in 1994, the fashions described in Deadly Detention are very early-90s, but these only add to its charm. Because that’s what the book has in spades: good, honest likeability that keeps you hooked all the way to a pleasing pay-off. Well worth staying after school for.
Charles Winecoff’s biography on the late, great slasher icon Anthony Perkins reveals the actor was much more complex, more troubled, and sometimes more crazed than any of the characters he portrayed. Now, out of respect to Perkins, I’m not going into all of the lurid details of his private life, but I will mention his drug use when it is relevant to his genre films.
When Anthony Perkins first arrived in Hollywood he dated Vampira and was groomed by the studios to be the next James Dean after Dean’s death. That didn’t work so studio bosses tried to make Perkins into an Elvis clone, a dual threat teen idol singer and actor. After Psycho made Perkins into a screen icon, the actor fled to Europe to escape Hollywood type casting. Despite working with legends like Orson Wells and Ingrid Bergman, Perkins could never duplicate his Psycho success and his film career began to flounder. The time in Europe stripped away Perkins’ boy-next-door charm which left his acting stiff and robotic.
Psycho II was Perkins big return to glory but he almost didn’t get the role because he demanded one million dollars to reprise Norman Bates. Universal was ready to give the part to Christopher Walken (!) so Perkins backed away from his high price tag. Another interesting bit of casting news revealed in Split Image is producers wanted Jamie Lee Curtis (double !) to play Marion Crane’s niece but Perkins and director Richard Franklin fought for Meg Tilly. During filming, however, Perkins would insult Tilly and tried to have her fired.
The sad truth about Perkins’ performances in Psycho II, Crimes of Passion, Psycho III, and Edge of Sanity is they were inspired by the drugs he ingested before takes. All of those nervous ticks and facials twitches were caused by either speed or amyl nitrate. Other times Perkins smoked pot and took LSD. While the drugs may have given his performance a dangerous edge, they also retarded his decision making abilities which severely damaged his directing skills. Psycho III and Lucky Stiff both suffered because Perkins was getting bombed out of his skull before he stepped on set to shoot a scene.
After he was diagnosed with AIDS in the early 1990’s, Perkins agreed to any part he could get his hands on in an attempt to leave his family financially stable after his death. For The Destroyer (a.k.a. The Shadow of Death) Perkins replaced Roddy McDowall on short notice, took an immediate dislike to costar Clayton Rohner, and ranted about Rohner’s poor acting performance to anyone that would listen. A Demon in My View and In the Deep Woods were the last films Perkins made before the illness left him bedridden and unable to breath. He had agreed to several other projects (a remake of the Mummy being the highest profile job) but died shortly after agreeing to appear in them.
Charles Winecoff’s Split Image: The Life of Anthony Perkins is an amazing read. This sometimes sad, sometimes funny, but often shocking account of Anthony Perkins life reveals more than you ever wanted to know about the first slasher star. Slasher fans will enjoy the stories concerning the making of Psycho and Perkins other slasher films. Interested fans shouldn’t have too much trouble tracking down a copy as a tenth anniversary expanded edition was published back in 2006. The new chapters deal with the death of Berry Perkins, Anthony’s widow, who was murdered by terrorist on 911.
Blood and Lace (1971)
Proto-Slashers: Looking at the flicks that paved the way for Halloween and the heyday of slashers.
“Lurid”. What a great word. It promises the taboo and the gruesome. And it’s the perfect word to describe “Blood and Lace”, the 1971 picture from AIP. In fact, the sleaze factor is a key element in this sick little flick’s success.
Not to be confused with Mario Bava’s “Blood and Black Lace”, “Blood and Lace” follows almost-21-year-old Ellie Masters (Melody Patterson from TV’s “F-Troop”), as she’s placed in an orphanage after the murder of her mother, the town tramp (It’s fun to watch as more and more male cast member reveal their trysts with the deceased). Unfortunately, the childrens’ home is run by the sadistic Mrs. Deere, played by Gloria Grahame (“It’s a Wonderful Life”, “The Bad and the Beautiful”) who routinely tortures her non-compliant charges and has them killed when they attempt to run away. In order to make sure she continues to receive cash from the county for the dead kids, Mrs. Deere freezes their bodies, only taking them out of the walk-in when the inspector comes to count heads.
Adding immeasurably to the sleaze level is a couple of great character actors. Len Lesser, known to millions of sitcom fans as Uncle Leo from “Seinfeld”, is on hand as Mrs. Deere’s drunken assistant who’s also an ace with a meat cleaver, and Vic Tayback, Mel from TV’s “Alice”, is an overly involved detective who wants to make sure that no harm befalls Ellie. Add to that a hammer-wielding psycho with a burned face who is lurking around the orphanage, and you’ve got yourself a prime example of an exploitation flick from the genre’s Golden Age.
Do any research about “Blood and Lace” and four key references continually pop up. The first is the quote attributed to Michael Weldon in his invaluable “Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film”, wherein he calls the flick “One of the sickest PG-rated films ever made…” A second point of interest is the casting of an incredibly young Dennis Christopher (“Fade to Black”, “Breaking Away”) as one of the orphans. Thirdly, you’ll find claims that the crispy-faced psycho is a forerunner of Freddy Krueger, but in my estimation, that’s pushing it. The fourth, and most directly slasher-related note is that the opening scene seems to have influenced the beginning of John Carpenter “Halloween” where Michael spies on his sister and her boyfriend, eventually killing the former. In “Blood and Lace” we enter a house from the killer’s POV, through the kitchen where we pull open a drawer and remove a murder weapon (in this case, a hammer). We enter a bedroom, and a murder is committed from the killer’s POV. From there, the two movies spin off into wildly different territory, but it’s interesting to see this connection. Carpenter’s movie is by far the better work, but inspiration has to come from somewhere, non?
“Blood and Lace” was another of those late shows I caught while I was a kid in the 70’s, it’s plot holes and iffy ethics sticking in my head like its images of hammer-smashed faces, severed limbs and frozen kids. The attractive Patterson makes an affable and engaging heroine, who’s all the more interesting for not always being the nicest kid on the (ice) block. You really get the sense that her character is at the mercy of fate, or at least Mrs. Deere and the always-leering adult male cast members. As Mrs. Deere, Graham is a terrific and creepy case study in quiet insanity.
The only feature directed by Philip S. Gilbert, “Blood and Lace” is a fun and twisted horror flick with a link to one of the pillars of the slasher genre. It’s also a movie that is criminally neglected and currently unavailable on DVD, though it’s a prime candidate for MGM’s Midnight Movie series, as they hold the rights for AIP’s output. I was lucky enough to revisit this flick via a descent grey market DVD-R from one of several companies offering this disc. “Blood and Lace” holds a few more sick surprises than what I’ve revealed here, and if you’ve ever had the urge to see what “The Brady Bunch” would look like if Carol went nuts and kept Mike’s corpse in a walk-in freezer while taking her frustrations out on the kids and Sam the butcher got handy with a hammer, this lurid little flick’s for you!
Christian Sellers is back with more reviews posted on our MySpace and a neat article on a real-life slasher: Ed Gein. The following titles are reviewed, so check ’em out!
Friday The 13th Part 2, Twitch Of The Death Nerve, The Burning, A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Boogeyman, Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday, Friday The 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan, Halloween 2, Just Before Dawn, Terror Train, Pieces, Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3, My Bloody Valentine, Maniac Cop, Urban Legend, April Fools Day, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.
Code Red continue to rescue retro horror flicks from oblivion for future digital consumption. Latest on their slate is Zombie Nightmare (1986) which, despite the fantastic New World artwork is more a revenge pic. Read on for the skinny:
CODE RED recorded an audio commentary & filmed on-camera interviews with John Fasano and Frank Dietz for our upcoming release of ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE, the movie that started the Thor/Fasano craze that is sweeping horror fandom. Thor could not attend the commentary in person, but he joined us via telephone and his comments were recorded at his Canadian studio, making this a joint discussion track for Thor/Fasano/Dietz. The commentary, moderated by THE JITTERS writer Jeff McKay, will be fun and informative to all the horror fans out there who loved or hated the film. This Adam West/Tia Carrere horror film is also beloved by most Mystery Science Theatre fans as one of the craziest movies ever featured on the show! Code Red is planning a late 2009 release and are also planning to HiDef the film with the original camera negatives! Keep checking in for more details!! Same CODE RED time, same CODE RED label!!
Source: Code Red DVD
If you haven’t added us as a friend on the Retro Slashers MySpace yet, please do. Check out a whole slew of new reviews over there courtesy of Christian Sellers. There are currently 17 Reviews over there. Take a guess based on the images below!
Were you always a fan of horror movies growing up and how did you first develop an interest in special effects?
“Always. I loved watching the old Universal Monster Movies on television and enjoy all the new hammer films when I was growing up in Oklahoma.”
How did you become involved with Just Before Dawn and were you hesitant about working on what could have become just another slasher?
“At that time in my career I was eager to take any work I could get. I was referred by Joe Blasco, went for the interview and got the job. It was 1980 and I had been in Hollywood for only two years. I jumped into the job with both feet and did the best job I could.”
What was your initial thoughts when you first read the script and what kind of directions were you given from the director?
“A Deliverance type, backwoods slasher film. The director wanted to make the arm down the throat scene pretty graphic, gave me the parameters and he let me ride with it.”
The movie seemed more in the vein of Deliverance and The Hills Have Eyes than the likes of Friday the 13th, was this a conscious decision of the filmmakers and how did you approach your FX in a way that made them differ from the standard stalk and slash movies of the era?
“More in the vein of the first two films. They didn’t put as much gore into this film.”
What was your favourite effect in the movie and why?
“The arm down the throat gag. I’d never accomplished anything like that at that time and it was really great working out the logistics of the effect.”
How did you achieve this effect and were you pleased with the result?
“It was achieved in two stages. The first was with an appliance applied to the actor’s face which the actress could fit her fist/arm down into. The second was with a fake arm, attached to the actress, with the hand cut off. This was inserted into the actor’s mouth when the camera was rolling. I remember this well because we didn’t get to shoot it in Oregon during principal photography and production had to fly the actor and myself to New York in September of 1980 to shoot the insert shots. This is when I went to meet Dick Smith at his then Larchmont, New York home on my day off.”
Just Before Dawn differed from many slashers in that the killers are not superhuman and do not come back at the end for one last Carrie-style jump. Do you think that the killers being more human added to the fear, as apposed to an unstoppable killer like JasonVoorhees?
“Absolutely. There’s something about the primal fear of what human beings are capable of doing to each other.”
Looking back almost thirty years later, are you proud of your work and how well do you feel Just Before Dawn has aged?
“Very proud. I think it’s held it’s own in that genre of films.”
INTERVIEW: Christian Sellers
“Little fishies in a brook, Papa’s hanged you on a hook”
Do we agree that “Psycho” is the grandfather of slasher flicks, and that “Halloween” is the film that jump-started the craze during its heyday? If so, that means there was a solid 18 year gap between Hitchcock’s and Carpenter’s flicks, but it doesn’t mean that there weren’t lots of embryonic slashers slicing their way across North America’s drive-in screens during that time. One of these bloody beauties was Francis Ford Coppola’s first feature film as a solo director, “Dementia 13″.
The story goes that Coppola convinced producer Roger Corman to give him a few thousand dollars to shoot a film using cast members and the Irish setting from “The Young Riders”, the film they had been shooting for AIP. Though Coppola’s role on the racing pic was that of a sound technician and not director, Corman agreed as long as Coppola would create a “Psycho” knock-off that used the number 13 in its title; this isn’t so weird considering that AIP was infamous for creating its movie posters first, then making films based on the posters! Following Corman’s stipulations, Coppola quickly hammered out a screenpaly, and the shooting of “Dementia 13″ was underway. Rumour has it, though, that Jack Hill, the director of terrific genre flicks like “Spider Baby”and “Switchblade Sisters”, was called in after production to shoot additional scenes.
So what premise did the 20-something Coppola deliver?
Hiding the fact that her husabnd has recently died, Louise (Luana Anders) visits her in-laws in Ireland, intent on ensuring her place in the Haloran family inheritance. There she finds that Lady Haloran (Eithne Dunne) and her brothers-in-law, Billy (Bart Patton) and Richard (William Campbell), are haunted by the drowning death of Kathleen, the youngest of the Haloran children, years earlier. Louise starts scheming, but soon an axe murder is hacking through the Haloran family and its associates. It’s up to family doctor Justin Caleb (Patrick Magee) and Richard’s fiancée Kane (Mary Mitchel) to find out just who’s so handy with that axe.
Though the plot of “Dementia 13″ is full of holes, the movie itself is loaded with atmosphere and memorable scenes: the rowboat ride, Louise’s night swim, Lady Haloran’s visit to Kathleen’s playhouse, the groundskeeper’s fox hunt, among others. And let’s face it, slasher flicks are all about suspense and “big scenes”, those moments that either feature gory FX or unforgettable sequences. For a movie released in 1963, “Dementia 13″ is surprisingly graphic, though by 80’s slasher standards, it’s fairly mild. I first caught “D-13″ on the late show when I was about 8 years old way back in the 70’s (my first slasher flick), and it scared the hell out of me. Watching it today, the shocks still have impact, it’s a fun, eerie watch, and a definite link in the chain from Hitchcock to Carpenter. “Dementia 13″ is widely available on a number of budget-priced DVD releases, and it’s a must see for anyone interested in the evolution of the slasher flick.
A is for AGAIN? Platinum Dunes’ remake of Friday the 13th opens worldwide this week, and producer Brad Fuller is already hoping there’ll be a sequel, according to ShockTillYouDrop.com.
B is for BLOGS. Stay up-to-date with the latest F13th news with the Friday the 13th Blog and Scab’s Friday the 13th & Horror Blog.
C is for CRAZY RALPH, of whom no mention is made on the cast list of the new remake, suggesting the character won’t be resurrected. The original gloomy caretaker was played by Austrian-born actor Walk Gorney, who died in 2004 aged 91.
D is for DEREK MEARS. Previous horror credits for the stuntman/actor behind Jason’s latest incarnation include playing Chameleon in The Hills Have Eyes II, a werewolf in Wes Craven’s Cursed, and the Devil in John Carpenter’s Masters of Horror episode, Pro-Life.
E is for EXTENDED CUT. According to remake producer Andrew Form, interviewed at Fangoria.com, “there were a couple of story points cut out of the movie that will appear in the extended version [on DVD] and maybe a little bit more violence and nudity. There’s one story point, a big thing that happens in the extended cut, that doesn’t occur in the [theatrical] movie.”
F is for FREDDY VS. JASON, the only previous screenwriting credit of Friday the 13th remake writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift.
G is for GORE, without which no Friday film would be complete. The latest instalment is set to feature death by machete, screwdriver, arrow, poker, bear trap and campfire, amongst other methods.
H is for HARRY MANFREDINI, who scored the original Friday the 13thand voices the classic “Ki ki ki, ma ma ma” musical sting. His other sinister scores include The Hills Have Eyes Part II, Swamp Thing, Cameron’s Closet, DeepStar Six and all four House movies.
I is for “IN MEMORIAM”, Benevolent Street’s excellent profile of 12 actors connected with the F13th series who are no longer with us.
J is for JARED PEDALECKI, star of the new remake, who likes cheeseburgers, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, The Great Gatsby, Good Will Hunting, Our Lady Peace, dogs, and wearing hoodies.
K is for KILLS, of which Jason has notched up an impressive 146, prior to his latest outing.
L is for LAKE. The real-life Camp Crystal Lake, where the original Friday the 13th was shot, is actually Camp Nobebosco, located at 11 Sand Pond Road, Blairstown, New Jersey. The new movie was filmed entirely in Texas.
M is for MRS. JASON VOORHIES… Well, who did you think made Jason’s packed lunch in the mornings? And check out that natty purse.
N is for NANA VISITOR, perhaps best-known as Major Kira in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, who takes over from Betsy Palmer to play Pamela Voorhies, Jason’s murderous mother, in the remake.
O is for OPENING WEEKEND. This year’s Friday the 13th will be the fifth in the series to have an actual Friday the 13th release. Previous entries that took advantage of the date were parts 3, 4, 7 and 9.
P is for PARASKAVEDEKATRIAPHOBIA, the medical name for the fear of Friday the 13th, which is unpronounceable but scores highly in Scrabble.
Q is for QUINT, the roving reporter from Ain’t It Cool News, who writes of the remake: “end of the day it’s a fun Jason flick and one that pays enough homage to not warrant pitchforks and torches. They essentially cram the first 3 movies into one, but it works for the purposes of this story.”
R is for ROLE-REVERSAL. Back in 1980, Paramount released Friday the 13th in America, with Warner distributing the film abroad. This year’s remake will be handled by Warner (as New Line) in the US, with Paramount taking charge around the rest of the world.
S is for SPOILERS courtesy of the British Board of Film Classification, whose consumer advice for the upcoming Friday warns: “In one scene, a woman tied up in a sleeping bag is hung upside down over a campfire so that her head starts burning before the rest of her catches fire. While she screams and burns in the background, a man in the foreground is screaming because his foot is caught in a large iron trap with clawed jaws which dig deep into the increasingly bloody wound before the killer plunges a machete into the man’s head.”
T is for TRAILER, which can be viewed at Yahoo! Movies.
U is for ÜBER-JASON, the masked killer’s futuristic incarnation featured in Jason X, who features nanotechnology-enhanced metallic skin.
V is for a surprisingly nasty and funny VIRAL VIDEO promo for the new remake, featuring an ill-fated camper at Crystal Lake and a chance to scare your friends.
W is for WILLA FORD. The young actress who stars as Chelsea in the upcoming remake is previously best known for portraying tragic model Anna Nicole Smith in the 2007 biopic Anna Nicole (which was, coincidentally, also scored by Harry Manfredini).
X is for X CERTIFICATE, the rating awarded by the BBFC when the original Friday the 13th was submitted for classification on 8 May 1980. The MPAA gave the film an R rating.
Y is for YOUTHFUL APPEARANCES. Previous F13th films gave early roles to Kevin Bacon (part 1), Crispin Glover, Corey Feldman (both part 4) and Kelly Hu (part 8).
Z is for ZOOMING. The recent Blu-Ray and DVD releases of Friday the 13th feature a reframed and zoomed-in image – at least in the US. It’s not known whether or not the new region 2 versions will be similarly altered.