And Now the Screaming Starts!

I found it humorously ironic that while Kristy was in labor with Eli our Tivo recorded a movie titled And Now the Screaming Starts!

I finally got around to watching it. The film was released in 1973. It stars both Peter Cushing and Patrick Magee. Magee is one of those underrated actors of yesteryear I love to see in the cast of old films. I was also initially excited to see that this was an Amicus film. One of my favorite Patrick Magee performances was in Amicus's Tales from the Crypt (1972). In that film he had deliciously creepy role as a vengeful blind man. This time around, both Magee and Cushing aren't given a lot to work with. Magee is in the first half of the film and is gone shortly after Cushing's character arrives in the second half.

And Now the Screaming Starts! isn't great but it is entertaining. The movie (which is set in the 19th Century) tells the tale of a young married couple suffering from an old curse placed on the groom's family. The Bride and the family's servants find themselves being assaulted by a spectral severed hand and an eyeless phantom with a bloody stump at the end of one arm. Some of the FX is pretty remarkable for the time period, and the remaining FX is charmingly cheap and cheesy. The makeup on the ghost was well done, but unfortunately the actor in the role kept his wrist on the stump arm flopped down while his arm is pointed up. Since the hand was supposed to be cut off below the wrist, apparently the ghost must have had an extra joint in his arm.

If the thought of ghostly severed hands, over-flowing bodices and screaming servants meeting unfortunate ends appeals to you, AMC will be airing the movie again in early May.

Repo!: The Genetic Opera

Last week saw the DVD release of the film Repo! The Genetic Opera. The film has been getting lots of buzz on horror message boards and is supposedly well on its way to cult status. Last Friday I was out clubbing and the DJ was silently projecting the movie on a wall along the dance-floor while playing other music. What I saw was very visually interesting, so I decided to check out the film for myself.

I watched it this week and apparently I was better off watching the movie without its own sound. It was far far better as just a visual as other peoples' music was played over it. Repo! is a rock opera with the stress being on opera rather than on rock. The entire film is sung with no regular dialogue. Often the varying singing styles and lyrics crash against each other during the scenes. The music is weak and even at its best moments reaches only mediocre levels.

The casting for the film is interesting and surreal. Seeing Paul (Goodfellas) Sorvino, Bill (The Devil's Rejects) Moseley, Nivek Ogre (of the band Skinny Puppy), Anthony (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Stewart Head, Alexa (Spy Kids) Vega and Paris (Isn't her 15 minutes up yet?) Hilton singing together. Add in that all of them are dressed like models for Hot Topic and the amount of blood and gore used in the movie and you have a pretty weird spectacle. It is pretty sad when there is an excellent vocalist like Anthony Stewart Head in the cast and even his songs are lackluster at best.

My friend John Dedeke described the visual look of the film as being a cross between Moulin Rouge and Blade Runner. This is pretty accurate. I'd say that there is a dash of Tim Burton, The Crow and Interview with a Vampire in the look as well. Overall, the art and set design (and some of the costume and makeup as well) are the only real success in the movie. This should be no surprise since the film comes from Twisted Pictures. This is the company that gave us the silly, increasingly incomprehensible and dull Saw movies. These are people who have consistently shown strength in their style and weakness in plot.

One of the other things that bothered me while watching the movie was its use of comic panels to tell flashbacks and other aspects of the story. The comic panels were slick-looking but repeatedly told stories that were told all over again through song and performances by live actors immediately following the comics. It is pointlessly redundant and leads to a continuously boring feeling of deja vu.

I've been hearing comparisons between Repo! The Genetic Opera and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I just don't see Repo developing the following that Rocky has. Rocky at least had some catchy songs. If any recent musical stands a chance of developing a Rocky Horror-type following it will be Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Dr. Horrible had to have had a far lower budget than Repo, yet it is far more watchable (and listenable).

If you want to watch a musical with some blood, check out Snuffed! The Musical. It's only 8 minutes in length, has me in a bit part as the forgotten Baldwin brother, and despite being created completely in under 48 hours with no budget and a cast that mostly hasn't been musically trained (and didn't even know they were making a musical until hours before filming began)... it manages to have more memorable songs than Repo! The Genetic Opera.

Free to Be... You and Me (1974)

As a child in the 1970s this children's anthology movie was shown to me at school assemblies on at least two occasions. Certain segments stuck with me though I could never recall the name of the movie. Back in 2004, I was describing the scenes I remembered from the movie while talking with a friend who is passionate about old school AV films. He told me the title was Free to be... You and Me. I looked it up online, found it on DVD and immediately purchased a copy. It was surreal to see the film again after so many years. I also found it strange that I'd been listening to a sound byte from the movie for years without realizing it; an audio sample had been used on Too Much Joy's album Son of Sam I Am (one of my favorite albums of all time).

Free to Be... You and Me started out originally as an album and book a couple years prior to it becoming a made for TV special. It was the brainchild of actress Marlo Thomas, who wanted to create something that would go against the gender stereotypes she witnessed in most children's fiction.

The TV movie has a number of other celebrities involved; Mel Brooks and Alan Alda in particular are featured heavily along with Marlo Thomas. Other celebrities who make appearances include a teen-aged Michael Jackson, Dionne Warwick, Rosie Grier, Harry Belafonte, Kris Kristofferson and Carol Channing. I have a hard time not smiling when a young Michael Jackson sings a song in which he asks if he'll be "big and strong" when he grows up. It is also difficult not to laugh out loud seeing football player Rosie Grier singing song about crying while decked out in his 70s attire. It looks like he could use his shirt collar as a hang glider. However, the film makes some solid points about gender stereotyping and the message is still valid even if the look is comically dated.

While originally purchased for myself, the DVD has become one of Kyra's. She was watching it again this morning which made me think about it. The movie is full of songs, stories, animation, puppetry and live action performances. Even 34 years later, Marlo Thomas's creation continues to entertain my own daughter. She's watched it many more times at the age of three than I did throughout my childhood. Then again, she's also seen The Wizard of Oz many many more times than I did growing up too. DVD is awesome, but it does make some films seem less special due to their availability no longer being limited.

Someone uploaded the entire Free to Be... You and Me movie to YouTube in chunks. If this blog has made you curious, it is possible to watch the entire thing online for free. The opening of the film (with its haunting carousel music) can be seen here. You can select the next segment by searching through the scrolling menu on the right side of the screen.

Thank you, Marlo Thomas, for making it safe for me to play with dolls and cry.

Movie Review - Brutal Massacre: A Comedy

Brutal Massacre: A Comedy is a mockumentary (seems like about 30% of films these days are. Heck, even I've directed one and had a bit part in another) that Fangoria Magazine describes as "A Spinal Tap for horror filmmakers.” A fair and accurate description in my estimation having now seen it.

Brutal Massacre stars An American Werewolf in London's David Naughton as Harry Penderecki, a horror movie director who, while achieving a fan following for his B-movies, has found himself on the outs with the Hollywood movie-machine. The mockumentary follows Penderecki on his quest to make his comeback film, titled "Brutal Massacre." His struggles bring to mind Terry Gilliam's disastrous experience attempting to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote back in 2000. Along the way, Penderecki and his crew face FX failures, injuries, inhospitable living conditions, lack of pay, a sewage mishap, near death experiences, death itself, disloyal actors and police arrest.

The opening moments of the film show Harry Penderecki making an appearance at a Fangoria Weekend of Horrors convention. The scene raised my warning flags and I began to worry about the quality of the movie and whether I actually wanted to sit through it. Luckily, I hung in there and gave it a shot. Even more luckily, I was rewarded with an entertaining and funny film in return for my patience.

The movie has a number of horror genre celebrities besides David Naughton either appearing as themselves or playing fictional characters. I'm not going to bother listing them. It has become an entirely over-used ploy in genre films. These days, I spend more time playing Where's Waldo with the horror icons of yesteryear in these movies that I can't get into the atmosphere of the film. However, in a comedy about horror filmmaking, these roles and cameos have some charm.

Brutal Massacre also comedy veterans Brian O'Halloran and Gerry Bednob in prominent roles as the fictional production's Production Assistant and Director of Photography, respectively. I half expected Kevin Smith to show up for a cameo after seeing those two in the movie. Both Brian and Gerry play well off of Naughton and the scenes with them interacting are some of my favorite in the movie. Ken Foree manages to earn laughs while still portraying a character I couldn't help but feel sorry for.

However, the standout comedy performance in the film is old Leatherface himself, Gunnar Hansen. After seeing him as the beer-swilling, potty-mouthed, lecherous, disgruntled Vietnam veteran, Krenshaw, I want to see him get more comedy roles. He looks like he was having fun making the film and in turn makes watching his performance fun as well.

Brutal Massacre is rated R, though I think it leans more toward a PG-13. It isn't something I'll be watching with my kids anytime soon, so it will remain a treat for those scant hours I have to watch my grownup movies.

Precocious Kyra moment while writing this blog entry: Kyra asked me to open up Word on our other PC so that she could write an article about Sam Patch, the early 19th century daredevil who jumped to his doom in the Genesee River Gorge in Rochester, NY. We were there last month when I was taking photos for an article I wrote about the incident for Dark Destinations. She has quite the memory.