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Proto-Slashers #12 – Blood Feast (1963)

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Looking at the flicks that paved the way for Halloween and the heyday of slasher movies.

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“Blood Feast is like a Walt Whitman poem – it’s no good, but it’s the first of its type”.
– Blood Feast director Hershell Gordon Lewis

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Blood Feast is a joy. The world’s first splatter film delivers the goods and manages to have a sense of humour while seeming campy at the same time.

The story goes that HG Lewis and producer David Freidman were looking for something new in the exploitation market. Their previously successful nudies like The Adventures of Lucky Pierre and Boin-n-g couldn’t compete with the more explicit content being featured in the sex films being produced in the mid-60’s. So where could they turn? Horror was the answer. Why not up the gore quotient and see how it plays?

And so Blood Feast, the story of an insane Egyptian caterer who wants to revive his blood goddess through human sacrifice, was born. Former Playboy model Connie Mason stars as Suzette, a student of Egyptology.

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She’s dating Pete (William Kerwin), a detective who’s trying to figure out who’s hacking the female populace of Florida to bits. As Suzette’s birthday approaches, her mother arranges a surprise Egyptian feast through the catering services of the insane and devout Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold). Ramp up the blood and put on your goggles.

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The plot doesn’t matter. What matters is a series of set pieces that are grisly yet unconvincing. The fact that they’re not exactly state of the art effects make them all the more entertaining. Adding to the enjoyment are some truly terrible performances (you can sometimes see actors reading their lines from awkwardly placed notes), and intentionally funny dialogue. The highlights are many… the deep red gore scenes, Mal Arnold’s over-the-top performance, Connie Mason’s complete lack of acting ability, the wonky soundtrack, the wacko dialogue, the faulty logic of the police department, the shoot-it-and-run filmmaking technique, the continuity errors. But these are all pluses in my book. Blood Feast is 67 minutes of entertainment. Watch it with a group of friends and I guarantee you’ll come up with your own favourite moments and quotes you’ll be boring each other with for weeks. I love Tony’s breakdown scene after his girlfriend has had her brain stolen. I love Trudy’s death speech and the music cue that signals her death; it sounds more like a fart than a death rattle. I love that it takes the cops so long to figure out that the mispronounced E-tar is actually the goddess Ishtar, even though one of them has just heard a lecture about her. I love the name of the book Ramses writes, “Ancient Weird Religious Rites”. I love the newspaper headline that screams: “LEGS CUT OFF”. I love… Well, you get the point. There’s plenty to love in Blood Feast country.

I met HG Lewis at a convention about 20 years ago. I asked him where Connie Mason was at that time, and his reply both surprised and delighted me. He said, “She probably crawled back under the rock she came out from under.” Amazing.

Go see Blood Feast if you haven’t already. Love it or hate it, it’s an absolute must for anyone who calls him/herself a horror fan.

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Private Parts (1973)

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ppartsCheryl (Ayn Ruymen), on the run after stealing her roomate’s cash, hides out at the King Edward Hotel run by her creepy Aunt Martha (Lucille Benson).  Other tenants include a kinky priest (Laurie Main) and George (John Ventantonio), a sinister photographer with a nasty addiction to blow-up dolls.  At night Cheryl hears mysterious noises coming from the empty room next to hers and later finds erotic presents left in her room by an unseen admirer.   Cheryl gets pulled deeper and deeper into a sensual game of cat and mouse never realizing some grown up games can be deadly.

 Private Parts is an obscure little proto-slasher that only could’ve  been made during the wild 70s when film censorship was at its lowest ebb.  Philip Kearney and Les Rendelstein’s script seems to be inspired by Psycho and Gothic mysteries.  The story of a young girl finding love and mystery while staying at a relatives hotel might’ve seemed rather ordinary if handled by a lesser director.  Thankfully, director Paul Bartel, the twisted genius behind the dark comedy classic Eating Raoul, throws in plenty of perversions and fetishes to make Private Parts a truly unique viewing experience.  Bartel centers the entire film around Cheryl’s exploration of the King Edward and the exploration of her growing sexuality.  In this way Bartel makes the viewer, not the unseen lover, into the real voyeur. 

The cast of Private Parts features a few familiar faces.  Lucille Benson is best known to slasher fans as Mrs. Elrod, the old lady making a sandwich for her husband in Halloween II.  Laurie Main was the host of the Winnie the Pooh show on the Disney Channel back in the early 80s.  Somehow I doubt he put this performance on his resume when he went to work for Mickey Mouse.  Stanely Livingston, one of the sons on My Three Sons, has a small part as a date for Cheryl but he provides clues to the “What happened to Alice” subplot that fuels some of the mystery surrounding the King Edward Hotel.  John Ventantonio seems to have vanished from Hollywood after portraying George, which is a shame considering the feverish performance he gives as the tortured photographer.

Ultimately, the strength of the film rests on the shoulders of Ayn Ruymen’s performance as Cheryl.  If the viewer doesn’t care about Cheryl the character then none of the other trappings matter.  Ruynen is totally believable as a teenage girl trying to grow up way to fast even though the actress was in her 20s when this was filmed.  The role allows Ruymen to show many facets; head-strong teenager, frightened young girl, juvenile delinquent, love sick youth, and sensual temptress.

Private Parts seems to have influenced several slashers from the golden age of the genre despite its obscurity.  Some of its story elements, especially the surprise twist at the end,  can be found in Funeral Home, Unhinged, and the first Sleepaway Camp.  The gory decapitation scene seems to have had a major effect on the career of Tom Savini.  After the victim’s head hits the floor there is a quick shot of the real actor’s hands twitching before the body drops to the floor.  If you’ve ever seen Friday the 13th or Eyes of a Stranger (just to name a few of Savini’s cinematic be-headings), then you know he loves showing the hands having spasms after the decapitation.  When Private Parts was released theatrically it bombed and quickly slipped into obscurity.  It deserves to be rediscovered, especially by fans who enjoy seeing early attempts at slasher films.  Paul Bartel’s directing, the strong performances by the lead actors, and a sleaze level cranked up to eleven makes Private Parts a very unique little proto-slasher

DVD Review: Don’t Answer The Phone DVD (1980)

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Here we go again, another gem that’s been lambasted by critics armchair and professional alike: BCI Eclipse have dug up Robert Hammer’s 1980 sleaze-o-rama Don’t Answer The Phone and given it an uncut release. I do like my slashers but serial killers employing strangulation instead of the good ol’ butcher’s knife struck me as too dull in the past – this flick was a shock to that system. An all-too-human killer played by Nicholas Worth saunters around in an army-camo jacket doing women in with stockings. In between, he taunts a psychologist over call-in radio with a creepy Mexican voice. His victims aren’t all airheads we cheer on to die nor carefully developed characters we earnestly want to live, they’re mostly real seeming women who had the bad fortune to be targeted, and get terrorized and killed in most uncinematic ways. The Killer, with his sweaty balding head leering over them, is a complete psychotic that operates by his own indecipherable world logic. Police procedural breaks up the time spent with the killer, but I wanted to wash myself after watching this. Sadly, real life is the sequel to Don’t Answer The Phone – because there are slimeball nutjobs like this one out there in everyday life.

Audio/Visual:
The 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen is suitably cleaned up but thankfully the late 70’s hasn’t been digitally scrubbed out – this is a gritty flick that relies on its street-level charm/repulsion (take your pick). I’m not sure such high-pitched anguished female screams would need to be in more elaborate multi-channel encoding then the mono sound on offer, so no problems there.

Supplements:
A featurette, Digital Roadshow’s Answering The Phone is directed by Bruce Holecheck and interviews the man behind the serial killer, actor [and now the late] Nicholas Worth. He’s a kind man who chooses his words carefully, so everything he has to say is interesting or important. The Audio Commentary by writer/producer/director Robert Hammer & moderator Shane M. Dallmann covers the whole spectrum of the film’s origin-to-release. Hammer offers free flowing info for Dallmann who prods with a scholarly voice.

Two Easter Eggs are present – on the special features page highlight Off on the commentary option then press Up. The icon will disappear – so then press Right to reveal a red camera icon that opens up more Nicholas Worth footage of the man discussing his other movie roles. The other is footage found after the film when the audio commentary track is on and is best described as commentary on the commentary! Also, an introduction to the film by Hammer & Dallmann autoplays with the film but isn’t advertised on the packaging, so could well be considered an egg itself. Rounding out the disc are the customary lesser extras like the Still Gallery of on-set snaps which runs in montage and trailers for the film and lurid brethren The Hearse, Blood Mania and Roberta (Snuff) Findlay’s Prime Evil.

Graphics:
The classic white text and red phone artwork is reproduced for the cover with subtle enhancements, and comes in a nice plastic-embossed cardboard slipcase. Menu animation featuring bloody razorwire doesn’t overwhelm like others tend to do (and keep us waiting forever until we can pick an option!).

DVD Review: Cheerleader Camp (1987)

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Movie:
Liberal nudity, blood drenched murder shots and a menagerie of quirky characters contribute to this 1987 parcel of fun. It’s what made Cheerleader Camp the Cinemax staple that primarily exposed it to its many praisers. But the standout element is the central character of Alison Wentworth (Betsy Russell). Alison is not only frigid but self absorbed, evoking not sympathy but satisfaction at the terrors she faces throughout. Save for, perhaps, the implications of the final twist, which manages to brew a sense of unease in the viewer’s stomach.

Audio/Visual:
Anchor Bay, as per usual, have implemented a first rate restoration, due in part to acquisition of the original negative. In conjunction with the letterbox framing, it reveals up to now unseen or unnoticed detail, such as an atmospheric set design and the vibrant colors of the girls’ camp uniforms, important when you’re staring at their chests for so long. Also, some off-putting close-ups from the old VHS are now visible in their correct framing/composition. Sound is clear enough in Dolby Mono – let’s agree off the bat that the sound of older films like this don’t benefit from being pulled apart and re-assembled into artificial sounding Dolby 5.1 tracks. The spooky nightmare laughs are all that assault the speakers, and all that need to.

Supplements:
There’s a simple way to divide a bare bones from a special edition: whether a disc has an audio commentary or not. If it does, and especially for Anchor Bay, it means the participants can usually provide materials for other extras. That’s what we have here. Director John Quinn and producer Jeff Prettyman lend their voiceovers, detailing everything you’d want to know about the flick. The information contained leads the listener to a newfound respect for many of the cast, especially Lief Garret (Brett) and Lucinda Dickey (Cory). I gotta grumble though, at the creators insistence that a whole bunch of dallies they had access to (with slight variations/extensions of scenes) weren’t worth including on the disc.

Three trailers seem almost identical but provide a subtle look at the evolution of the film’s marketing. An easter egg reveals a fourth: a promotional trailer composed of rough cut timecoded footage. An alternate title sequence is included under the original title, which is what everyone outside of the USA will be well accustomed to already.

On to the Still Gallery. Quinn contributes a stack of clear on-set photos that give visual insight to the production, but the gravy is a fabulously garish airbrushed foreign cover art – depicting an image that in no way matches any scene in the film. Ah, those were the days.

Leading slasher journalist Adam Rockoff has penned the liner notes for an included booklet (brief at two pages, but not loaded with photo padding) which thankfully doesn’t come off as too repetitious in spite of the commentary (as a few in the past have been prone to). The text ends with a paragraph on the fabled sequel – an ideal lead-in to our own extensive investigation that we’ve carried out over the years here at Retro Slashers.

Graphics:
AB have thankfully used the original artwork on the cover, altered only to include the principle actors’ names up top. The cheerleading skeleton is probably what most first remember about the film – that and mistaking it for Return to Horror High. The menu screens by Crest National’s facilities are of usual top quality – always a perfect mood setter for the film ahead in an age when menu screens look like glorified video games.

Happy Hell Night (1992) Review

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Happy Hell Night missed the slasher frenzy by almost a decade but it’s still a pretty good attempt at a straightforward horror movie. As legend has it, twenty-five years ago seven students were slaughtered by a seemingly unstoppable force named Malius (Charles Cragin). The survivors – a student (played by a very young Sam Rockwell) and a priest (Irfan Mensur) forged ahead to a new life while Malius remained locked up at the local loony bin, eating nothing but bugs and sitting in a musty, old cell. Now it’s the present day and Blood-Soaked U is celebrating Hell Night. Strangely there’s only two initiates, one being Sonny (Franke John Hughes), a motorcycle riding rebel whose brother, Eric (the very handsome Nick Gregory), is the president of the fraternity. Oh yeah, and Sonny is doing the naked pretzel with Eric’s girlfriend, Liz (Laura Carney). So when fellow frat brother, Bara (Ted Clark), who runs a campus television show, comes up with the daring idea to sneak into the nut house and snap a picture of Malius, Eric is only too happy to send his deceitful brother on his way. Unfortunately, things go awry and Malius escapes with only one thing on his mind: murder.

happyhellnight41This Canadian/Russian co-production wisely took a more serious approach to an already worn out premise. Although the small budget, choppy editing and time lapses are sadly apparent (two of the actors have totally different hair styles by the second half of the film) Happy Hell Night manages to maintain a sinister atmosphere. Some of the carnage is pretty top notch too. Armed with a trusty pickaxe, Malius does some major damaged to a few of the more indiscreet students.

Happy Hell Night has several strong points. The two male leads are excellent in their prospective roles and the love triangle actually supports the great, downbeat ending. Now when was the last time a subplot came into play in a slasher flick? That’s like, sooo 1982! Both Nick Gregory and Franke John Hughes have gone on to fairly successful careers. In fact, this film is brimming with now familiar faces including Jorja Fox and the above referenced Rockwell. Darrin McGavin also shows up to help get the bloodshed flowing but puts in a rather cardboard performance. It’s easy to see that he was slumming it, but he barely even manages to look alive in his few scenes. Cragin makes an awesomely malevolent Malius. His black eyes and old man/baby face are haunting. Cragin only made a few films, but he truly looks like he was made to scare the pants off an unsuspecting audience.

happyhellnight6Ted Clark gives the film a breath of brevity as well. As Bara, he’s an annoying brat with a bad mullet, but he’s given the best lines in the movie and does not disappoint in their delivery. It’s worth the price of a rental just to hear lines like “They get the bitches and I get the riches,” “You got the willies or what,” and “While you were out fucking the dog…” A decade later, Clark would become one of the backwoods hillbillies in another underrated gem, Wrong Turn. Director and co-writer Brian Owens didn’t find much fame after Happy Hell Night, though he did go on to pen the dismal Brainscan, and it’s unfortunate since although it’s not perfect, this movie is overflowing with flickers of talent. The image of the squirming Jesus statue looks like it came right out of a fever dream. If only Owens been given a bigger budget and a better time frame, who knows what this film might have become. Give it a shot, you could do a lot worse.

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DVD Review: Halloween II (2009) Unrated Director’s Cut

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hiidcThis is the version of Halloween II that should’ve been released in theaters.  Rob Zombie’s director’s cut of Halloween II is out now with fleshed out story lines, more face time for Michael Myers, and a nihilistic ending much better than the pitiful one haunting the theatrical version.  Two years after her last encounter with Michael Myers (Tyler Mane), Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) is an emotionally crippled pill head quickly sliding into madness.  Her relationship with Annie (Danielle Harris)  is more explosive than nitro and the two former friends frequently engage in bitter arguments.  Michael Myers, believed dead even though his body is missing, roams the countryside living off garbage and dog meat until the voices in his head tell him it’s time to go back home to reunited his family with a glorious bloodbath.

Rob Zombie’s commentary reveals the production/filming of Halloween II was one giant cluster fuck of mistakes, studio tampering, sudden cuts in budget and  shooting days, bad weather, and an insane race to finish the film before the August theatrical release.  Zombie also explains plot points that confused fans, making clear Debra Myers (Sheri Moon Zombie) is just a hallucination produced by Michael’s diseased mind, not a real ghost.  Some of the anecdotes about the actors and locations are pretty humorous, especially the one about residents in Georgia calling 911 when they saw the fake signs for Haddonfield’s most famous strip club.  Considering all of the behind-the-scenes drama involved it’s amazing Zombie managed to finish and release the film on time.

The deleted/alternate scenes special feature shows a mask-less Michael killing the stripper, Big Lou, and a delivery driver.  A deleted scene involving one of Laurie’s hallucinations shows Michael hanging a girl from a tree in front of a playground full of children.  It’s a disturbing scene that should’ve been left in the final version.  Danielle Harris fans will enjoy her additional scenes including an encounter with a comic book geek trying to seduce her with promises of tickets to a comic con.

Other special features include audition footage, make-up test footage, blooper reel, a music video of Captain Clegg and the Night Creatures, and all of Uncle Seymour Coffins’ stand up routine at the Halloween party.  There are plenty of previews for other Sony releases but none for Halloween II.  The blooper reel footage is entertaining but short.  Uncle Seymour’s bit is really just the ramblings of a sad drunk too wasted to know it’s time to get off the stage.  At least there are plenty of strippers on stage to distract the viewer from the bad jokes. 

If you hated the theatrical version I doubt there is much here to change your mind about Zombie’s handling of the franchise.  I know all of those fans angry over Laurie’s sudden evil turn in the theatrical version will hate to learn she is pretty much bat shit crazy at the beginning of this version.  Both versions of the film suffer some of the same weaknesses.  Malcolm McDowell’s Loomis is still an unlikable prick and that damn white horse is still a stupid plot point that should’ve been deleted.  Overall, though, the director’s cut of Halloween II is a much better film than the theatrical version.  If you loved, liked, or thought the theatrical version had some promise, then you should really enjoy the director’s cut.

DVD Review: Intruder (1989) Unrated Director’s Cut

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Movie:
A night shift for the clerks and shelvers at a suburban supermarket is going to be their last. Not just because it’s soon closing for good, but because someone is using the Deli tools to butcher the crew. “Half Off” indeed. Scott Spiegel’s Intruder is an underrated slasher due to the infamous mangling it received by Paramount for it’s original 1989 release. But now it’s here Uncut, and can be judged in it’s true context. What makes the movie stand out from the pack are inventive camera angles, likable characters and a littering of details that ring true for retail clerks.

Audio/Visual:
As is the norm with many Band releases, the transfer is Full Frame. It appears to not be Pan & Scan, which is a good thing, but Open Matte. The reason I suspect that is because there is too much vertical room above character’s heads. This ruins Spiegel’s deliciously framed shots, but at least you’re getting all of the horizontal. It’s a double edged sword. Black levels are too light, but instead of whining about that I fiddled with my contrast bright levels on the ol’ TV until I found a happy medium. The source of the print is unknown, but the quality places it firmly under a film remastering, but firmly above VHS. The sound is crisp and clear enough to satisfy. No background hiss at all, thankfully.

Supplements:
None, which would usually preclude covering it (we are special edition focused where our DVD reviews are concerned) but it is an important DVD release nonetheless. It took over fifteen years to get the film released uncut in an official, readily purchasable form, so I’m keeping that in mind to keep my thoughts grounded here. Sure, I think the movie needs another release down the line with a widescreen transfer and extras featuring the co-operation of Spiegel and the Raimis (those Evil Dead S.E.’s are gold) but for now, it does the job of getting the film out there in a way it was meant to be seen – uncut. It should be noted that there is a trailer included, but it’s a modern-cut and gives away the identity of the killer. Steer clear or you’ll be struck like a deer.

Graphics:
The green artwork and slanted logo implemented for the menu screens is more in tune with the Evil Dead films if anything – and seeing as how this movie shares many principle cast and crew from those flicks I can see why it was chosen. The cover art is nice and stark, sure to reach out to eyes on the store shelves. The only thing that bugs me is the crudely photoshopped Bruce Campbell from Army of Darkness into an Intruder shot on the back cover. Campbell is in the film all of one minute at the end (he doesn’t even get a close-up) and I’m fine with his name being on the front of the DVD to attract sales, because this is a movie the diehard Evil Dead fanboys will want for their collections anyway, but that fake image crosses the marketing line.

Offerings (1989) Review

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1989 was full of uncertainty. Like George Michael’s sexuality for instance, and this oddball black comedy slasher.
Offerings was a regional horror movie shot in Oklahoma and is a total rip-off of Halloween. However, it also likens itself to Rob Zombie’s remake by giving the killer a motive. It’s also a little bit like Prom Night, Slumber Party Massacre, He Knows You’re Alone (already considered a Halloween rip-off by many), I, Madman (which also came out in 89) and almost any other slasher you might have caught in the 80s. It’s obvious that writer/director Christopher Reynolds was an avid fan of these films, combining many of the best elements of each one. However, Offerings is still quite the mixed bag.

offerings3Little John Radley leads a horrible life. Struck mute after his father takes off, he’s stuck with his angry mother who loves to taunt the kid at every turn. In fact, he’s kind of the taunting toy in his small town. It seems no one but pretty little Gretchen likes him. The neighborhood kids lure him to a well and then “accidentally” cause him to fall inside it. Flash forward ten years, and John, who now has some creepy facial scars, is living mostly sedated in a mental hospital. Not only did he fall down that well, but he ended up eating his mother. Talk about pent up aggression! Anyway, the new nurse on duty gets kacked and John escapes, heading back to his old town and to Gretchen. Apparently in his unspoken gratitude and undying love, John has decided to kill the kids who goaded him into the well and remove parts of their body and give them to Gretchen as gifts. Hot on John’s heels are the fatty-boom-balatty sheriff and this Dr. Loomis type who is a college professor.

The weird thing about Offerings is that although it’s a blatant rip-off of Halloween all the way down to the score, it’s also a little unique in the way it plays things out. Unfortunately, as is the case with many regionally shot indies, it’s just not particularly engaging.offerings2

The other weird thing about this movie is the copious amounts of black humor, especially in the death scenes. I first saw this movie in the early 90s and remember finding Offerings to be the kind of film where the low budget works in its favor and not against it. A few years later, I picked it up again, out of curiosity and thought the opposite. Upon this last viewing, I fell somewhere in the middle. The humor – like the vice grip scene or the parents eating cake at 3 am in matching robes – are surprisingly well played out, but the overall absurdity falls flat against the rest of the film. That’s too bad, because Offerings had a chance to, uh, offer something fresh to the already tired genre.

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Future-Kill (1985) Review

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It’s the near future and young adults are divided into two factions: the ‘Frats’, the privileged college upperclass, and the poverty-stricken ‘Mutants’, a society of punk protestors. We start out with each group separately but in mirrored situations – a pack of ‘bad’ frat members are in trouble for repeated pranks on a ‘good’ frat, while on the punks’ side of the city, ironically-named peaceful leader Eddie Pain scolds nuclear-scarred metal-armoured Splatter for actions that make his name not at all ironic. It’s when the troublemaking frat boys are sent out to kidnap a Mutant for a party prank that the two groups collide, and Splatter seizes the opportunity to murder Eddie, which defaults himself to leader status, and pin it all on the fratboys, which results in a chase movie with slasher overtones where escape seems impossible.

Ronald W. Moore (who also co-wrote with Kathleen M. Hagan) shot this as Splatter around the midpoint of the 80’s, perhaps the best time to make a genre film. Advertising played up the Texas Chainsaw Massacre connection of having Ed Neal and Marilyn Burns in the same film again, but the links are stronger. This was shot in Austin, Texas, and a TCM poster can even be seen in a shop window in one scene. Yet Future-Kill doesn’t emulate the famous other, in fact it goes out of its way to be a 180 degree counterpoint. Instead of a rural setting and retarded killer wielding second-hand-hardware, we have the inner city, and a calculating, technologically superior killer.

After playing the Hitchhiker, it’s good to see Ed Neal (who also wore a producer’s hat on this) bumped up to lead villain status. I personally find Splatter a more textured badguy then Leatherface. I was entranced by the number of technogadgets housed in Splatter’s armour, which reveal themselves as the film progresses, usually in methods of murder. Except one time after being humiliated by a hooker, when Splatter gets all low-tech on the girl and we’re treated to death by corrugated iron. Marilyn Burns looks pretty rough in the character of Dorothy Grim, a past-her-prime punk (and Splatter’s missus) who’s a far cry from sweet Sally Hardesty.

And that’s what this movie is about: polarized opposites. It’s set up as a frat comedy in the Animal House vein only to turn upside down into a serious violent film at the end of the first act. Anyone who tuned in blind on cable would have had one hell of a surprise at this point. The story also illustrates a massive ecological and cultural divide in future society, which in the 80’s we seemed to be moving towards (with the decades’ emphasis on material goods). Yes, behind the gore and exploitation framework this is a ‘message’ movie, I generally don’t care if that’s implied subtly or waved with a giant waving sign, all that matters is that saying something with the film was important to the creators.

Almost every reviewer loves to point out that the poster art is far better then the film. I tell you, they must think they’re geniuses for each coming up with that tired zinger. Let’s examine: would they prefer films to have cover art somehow psychically tailored to their specific like or dislike of a film? Terrific covers are what got us video store generation horror fans to pick up movies like this of unknown quality that we otherwise wouldn’t consider. There’s also the fact that it was designed by Alien’s HR Giger (after initial shooting, reportedly) which immediately sets his art a high bar not even a multimillion dollar budget could eclipse (See: Species). So comments like that are real cheap shots. To play devil’s advocate, HR’s art, drowned in silver is a slight misleading, pointing toward a more sci-fi tone. Giger did also design an alternative piece which skews completely the other way, into horror imagery. I prefer our Australian version of the art, which only adds some blue and red hues to provide a more balanced cover accurate representational of the film’s interior.

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Future-Kill (which I grew up thinking was called Future Hill due to the title font) gives me such a rush every viewing. My favourite supporting player is Tom (Barton Faulks from the also excellent Edge of the Axe). He took the transition from carefree jokester to adrenelised killer in two easy steps (1. face being about to die, 2. strike first). Credit also goes to the black hole urban cityscape of decayed brick, rusted iron and sparse neon that backdrops the blood, sweat and fears. The musical score by Robert Renfrow (Interview) is a downbeat but hopeful synth track. Let’s also pay due to some hilariously filthy lines like “I’d rather suck off a ballbag”, “you worthless shit-cunt”, “let’s score some gash” and “tonight’s feature: the worm in the cage… in 3D”.

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