Body Parts (1991) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - July 28, 1991

Six days prior to the publication of this ad, the infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested. Shocking and lurid details of his heinous crimes were splashed across newspapers, news broadcasts, and tabloids and any and all potential interest in a horror movie titled Body Parts, and the drew inspiration for a novel titled Choice Cuts, evaporated.

Very few, if any, of the general public were the slightest bit interested in the film. If they knew of its existence, that is. I think Paramount Pictures had already yanked the television and radio spots for the film, both out of respect for Dahmer's victims and the not at all unexpected, and easy to understand, complaints from upset viewers.

Body Parts both arrived and departed from the theaters and drive-ins in under a month, tops. I think it might have been available on home video by the end of September, 1991. That is where I saw it.

I remember liking Loek Dikker's odd sounding score, but also thinking the film felt a tad too lean. It felt both perfunctory in its storytelling and character development. Yet there are a few lively moments, including a truly bonkers and logic defying action sequence involving a passenger in one car that gets handcuffed to the driver of another.

It is an entertaining oddball of a movie, and something of a minor cult classic due to that fact, but it is also easy to see the missed opportunity to make something a bit, um, meatier with the concept.
 

Alien 3 (1992) - Trading Card #53

 

Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 27, 1948

As baffling in retrospect as it might seem, star Lou Costello was adamant in NOT wanting to do this film. It took a hefty increase in salary and the hiring of a trusted director to get him on board. Good thing, as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein went on to become on of their most popular, and famous, films.

Come on, they even brought Bela Lugosi back to play Dracula! Although the studio evidently had to be talked into that bit of casting.

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #88

Predator (1987)

 

Alien 3 (1992) - Trading Card #52

Behind the Scenes: Alien Torso 1

This Alien torso, built from fiberglass, plastic, and foam rubber, was used for only one particular part in the movie - the final Lead Works scene. This scene calls for the Alien's head to crack and explode in full view of the audience.
 

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #87

Ghostbusters (1984)

 

The Lost World (1960) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - July 24, 1960

Producer-director Irwin Allen glued some plastic fins onto some live, and no doubt disgruntled, lizards, shot them with macro lens, and christened them DINOSAURS for this loose adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's classic adventure tale.

This might be on par with the colorful and campy television productions (i.e. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space) that made Irwin Allen something of a household name in the sixties, before he became the legendary Master of Disaster in the seventies. I have yet to see it, but my experiences watching reruns of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space, and Allen's lackluster and characterless direction of the both The Swarm and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, do not fill me with hope.
 

Alien 3 (1992) - Trading Card #51

Behind the Scenes: Laser Disc Composite System

A special Laser Disc Composite System was invented for work on Alien 3. The system creates temporary video composites during the shooting of the miniature Alien, allowing crew members to immediately see how the Alien's actions will look on the real background.

Wolfen (1981) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 23, 1981

After having been beaten to the box office punch by Joe Dante's tongue-in-cheek The Howling and John Landis's only ever so slightly more serious An American Werewolf in London, both of which featured jaw dropping transformation sequences. The former designed by Rob Bottin and the latter created by Rick Baker, who won an Academy Award for his efforts on that film. Wolfen suffered unjustly in comparison. Because the titular creatures are just wolves with some minor optical effect overlays giving them a somewhat otherworldly look and feel.

In all honesty, Wolfen kind of looks and feels what a werewolf movie made by Christopher Nolan might look like. Make of that what you will.

Although the film does retain the setting, structure, and concept of Whitley Strieber's bestselling source material. It also creates all new storylines and characters to populate the setting and navigate the twists and turns of the somewhat underdeveloped narrative.

While some may have been disappointed at the lack of a more monstrous looking pack of creatures hunting the almost post-apocalyptic appearing Bronx neighborhood where most of the film was set. The movie worked for me.

I saw it on a double-bill with Escape from New York at the Parkway, in Oakland, and they paired perfectly. I could even envision them taking place in the same universe.
 

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #86

Alien (1979)