“Why are you doing this to us?” pleads Liv Tyler to the three masked killers that have been terrorising her throughout the night. “Because you were home,” comes the rather heartless response. And this pretty much sums up The Strangers, the debut of writer/director Bryan Bertino. Continue reading
This has been hailed as the “first” production photo from the set of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010), and just like with FRIDAY THE 13th (2009) they chose the most exciting shot to show off – the producers hanging by a cop car. Platinum Dunes, you’re under arrest for lame publicity!
Retro Slashers sentences you to 2 years of taking notes from Rob Zombie, who at least knows how to keep interest going with a steady stream of (some hot, some not) uploads.
Source: Platinum Dunes Blog
One’s appreciation of the VHS format and to a lesser extent, slashers – is truly tested when you have to physically carry one third your body weight in them across state lines. Let me lay this shit right out – I dig DVD. I dig what it’s done for bringing retro slashers into the impressionable minds of a new generation as well as stroking the nostalgia erection of 80’s refugees like myself. But at the end of the day, to me it’s all about the movie and just the movie, not the format. It’s the opposite for most of the public out there – I got to know this well during many years as a video clerk through the transition of VHS to DVD. These days, having set my sail from the industry, every store I walk into has the exact same fucking DVD library because the comparatively limited range of DVDs available has resulted in no choice whatsoever except for “what’s on DVD and what’s not”. Gone are the 20+ years of cultivated richly varied video libraries attuned to the store owner and the local scene’s tastes. All dumped because the public has been duped into thinking everything is on DVD or soon will be.
Seven years on, and only about 20% of my video collection is officially on the digital format. So when I heard one of the very last remaining local stores to carry any real sort of video collection was selling every single tape title off its shelves to make way for its you-know-whats, I hadda get my arse there, stat. Of course, considering my rural location now, “local” is back in a city, five hours away. I saw my duty and didn’t bat an eyelid. The following weekend, I rode a train down there packed between a kid kicking the back of my seat, and a teenage girl sitting in front of me talking about beer and STD’s on her mobile phone the entire trip – this did tend to drain me a bit.
But damnit, when I walked into that store and saw thousands of dusty plastic hardshells, I was instantly energized with the power of five Fulci’s. I had known they were charging $3.50 a pop and I had plans to talk them down to $2 a pop because I’d be buying well above the average disposable dumbass buying DIRTY DANCING on video for a lark and you just know the majority of tapes are gonna sit unsold – you’d almost have to give ’em away these days. But I saw they had 3 for $6, bringing it down to $2 each – but I talked them down anyway and walked away with a cool 50 tapes for $75 – that’s a buck fifty each! It sure wasn’t easy, with the greasy manager constantly pressuring me to hurry up and choose because it was going to take time to take ’em off the system one by one. The joke was on him, because in his haste he miscounted and I ended up with a freebie. But the 2 hours I made him wait were a glorious 2 hours indeed, as I not only filled up on every retro slasher I could find (well, ‘cept for that KILLER PARTY with a too-sunfaded cover), I had the luxury in bulk to pick up titles I simply had a vague interest in watching across the whole spectrum of genres.
Now, you don’t just walk away with 50 videos – you pack ’em into boxes and bags and taxi outta there. Which is what I did until I could get my hands on a gigantic luggage bag. And it was the Transformers of luggage bags – filling it with the multicolored spectrum of plastic cases (even an additional 15 or so I picked up from other stores and friends while on my sojourn), every time I felt space was running short, I’d find a new zippered compartment with a cavernous chasm inside. And to top it off, wham! Wheels and a pullout handle popped out. So getting this home. Involved hopping a bus with this behemoth (plus a backpack full of that clothing and Crystal Lake Memories… hardcover, eurghh! Plus some metal albums, whose edges bend too damn easily), then that 5 hour train home followed by a lengthy walk dragging my stash.
By the time I got home the bag simply exploded, unleashing my VHS treasure onto my carpet. I now have 65 additions to my collection, many of those titles not on DVD. Many I simply got to watch on a whim. Many I simply got for the garish airbrushed covers. It was a hard trek, but I’m happy with the results, completely. Most times the journey is half the fun.
The Code Red produced Media Blasters/Shriek Show releases SCREAM and RIOT ON 42ND STREET are going through an unspecified release date change – according to Production Supervisor Richard York, who says the “originally announced release dates are now null” and “to the best of my knowledge, these titles will come out at a later date but those dates have yet to be set by sales and management.”
Source: Horror Digital
Picture this – you are a wannabe screenwriter and your first effort somehow lands on the desk of one of your favourite directors. That’s what happened for budding scribes Jim Agnew and Sean Keller when their thriller Giallo attracted the attention of Italian auteur Dario Argento, the famed creator of such renowned classics as L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo (aka The Bird With the Crystal Plumage), Profondo rosso (Deep Red) and Tenebrae. Continue reading
With such a glut of slasher movies released in the early eighties in the wake of Friday the 13th‘s unexpected success it seems that money-hungry studios and producers have an endless supply of material to work from. Continue reading
Wow. Rob Zombie has been promoting HALLOWEEN 2 more then making it, seemingly. Can be a good thing, can be a bad thing. But we’ve recently noticed that anytime genre fans don’t like something specific coming out of his camp, he renounces it. Continue reading
Code Red bring forth forgotten retro horror! In THE STRANGENESS (1985), a group of explorers surveying an abandoned goldmine are trapped in a cave in, and find themselves at the mercy of a slimy, mysterious creature. Continue reading
Vinny Durand (Joe Spinell) is a taxi driver with an unhealthy obsession (is there any other kind?) for actress Jana Bates (Caroline Munro). He wants her for a movie he’s making. Of course, like a pre-cursor to 70% of horror fans you meet on the internet, he has no actual plan in place to make his film a reality – he is just more interested in receiving validation from people in the industry, even if he doesn’t realize that himself. Where is his funding? His crew? His call sheet for Bates? In Durand’s fantasy world, all he needs to make his film a reality is a vaseline-smeared camera to aim at his actress. It’d be easy to blame (like in real life) his family for propping him up with that B.S. “all you need is passion to make things happen” mentality, but then you see his mother is the realist of the two, constantly worrying/berating him for his crystal clear nuttiness.
Spinell is either the greatest method actor ever, or the most emotive person ever. Like in MANIAC, his constant whimperings relay a sort of audience see-saw of pity/disgust for the fellow. The character, I mean. I hope. The late Spinell was an interesting guy, an actor with as much textures to his personality as in his pockmarked cheeks.
The other larger-than-life character in the film is… The Cannes Film Festival. Shooting footage of the festival boosts its production value greatly. It’s a blast to slo-mo the DVD during these scenes to catch glimpses of early pre-release artwork for various films.
Intended to cash-in on the success of the Spinell/Munro teaming on MANIAC, THE LAST HORROR FILM is more hardlinked to that earlier film then most realize. Spinell plays a similar mama’s-boy character. The New Yawkness of both flicks. And the fact this was retitled MANIAC 2: LOVE TO KILL in foreign markets. But whereas MANIAC is the slicker, more impacting of the two, THE LAST HORROR FILM has the more interesting conclusion, offering up a slasher-centric twist I didn’t see coming because I had the framework of MANIAC stuck in my mind.
This DVD is billed as THE UNCUT SPECIAL EDITION. “Uncut” is a general term that could take into account, or not, several factors. These include how different countries get different censorings, how the ratings board makes cuts, how sometimes the distributor makes their own cuts at home video format level on purpose or by accident, and then there are times when the term is applied purely for marketing purposes. So, subjective term that “Uncut” is, I was happy to see it ring true in my case. I had no idea how butchered the Australian VHS of THE LAST HORROR FILM was until I saw Troma’s DVD. There’s some pretty heavy gore present, primarily in an aftermath shot, but for this fellah it was a revelation.
Onto the Special Features: There’s the usual assortment of not-directly-relevant Tromatic offerings, which retro slasher fans tend to skip ever since being burned on that GRADUATION DAY DVD. But Troma have come a long way since then in the way they put their DVDs together, and THE LAST HORROR FILM is truly befitting of the Tromapiece Collection banner this and other titles are being released under.
The centerpiece of the fun is My Best Maniac: An afternoon with Spinell’s best friend, Luke Walter. It’s a sobering account of Spinell’s association with THE LAST HORROR FILM and life in general. It breaks the fourth wall at one point, an instance I wasn’t a fan of but realize it was needed to accurately portray the man and the myth. There’s also an Audio Commentary by Walter, moderated by Evan Husney which I must admit, I’ve only combed 1/3rd of so far – my preference is to rip feature length ACs to CD and listen to them on my long and frequent road rides. An Interview with Maniac director William Lustig – now we’re cooking with gas (or whatever you cook with, I’m a microwave guy). Additional information from the MANIAC director further solidifies the linkage between the two films and illuminates more Spinell and BTS background detail. The Introduction by Lloyd Kaufman perhaps is strangely apt, unintentionally drawing parallels between the manic veneers of Lloyd and Spinell. Rounding out the package are the Original theatrical trailer and TV spots which are boilerplate extras, but essential archival materials.
It’s hard to call this a Special Feature as I’d gladly have paid for it on its own disc – Buddy Giovinazzo’s short rarely-seen short, MR. ROBBIE, a.k.a. MANIAC 2, starring Spinell is a holy grail to slasher fans which was once easily accessed until the MANIAC Laserdisc and later DVD it was on went out of print for the longest time. Now it’s back in mass production and also on Troma’s COMBAT SHOCK disc for good measure (due to that film being directed by Buddy G), so this footage isn’t going to vanish anytime soon. I only have the Elite Laserdisc for reference, but the copy included here seems longer and more raw, head/tail scratch reels included. This promotional effort reimagines Spinell as a TV Clown who wreaks vengeance upon the parents of abused children. The only seeming link with the original MANIAC is that, well, Spinell is his usual huffing, sweaty, intense self in the footage. And that is all the sequel would have needed to work – Spinell himself. A pivotal point the inevitable remake of MANIAC will lose on before it even begins.
The Friday the 13th remake was probably the most hyped horror movie of the year, with websites and magazines whetting fans’ appetites for the twelve months that led up to its recent release. Continue reading
