Renting and watching The Baby, back in the early-to-mid 1980s, with absolutely no idea as to what to expect from it was a memorable experience, to be sure.
I picked it up because it was directed by Ted Post, a name I knew from two Clint Eastwood films (Hang 'Em High and Magnum Force), the first sequel to the original Planet of the Apes (Beneath the Planet of the Apes), and an early Chuck Norris flick (Good Guys Wear Black). So I knew the chances of it being good (i.e. competently made) were better than average.
What I most remember about my viewing of The Baby was being utterly gobsmacked by the ending, which, thanks in very large part to Gerald Fried's haunting score, both creeped me out and broke my heart. While I know that opinions on whether or not the ending to the film qualifies as tragic or happy can differ greatly, I lean toward the former and not the latter.
This limited edition release from Caldera includes an informative and insightful audio interview with the late Gerald Fried, who passed in 2023, that sheds some intriguing light on his approach to this rather unique film.
The interviewer describes the score as mono-thematic, in that it is built around a singular theme. Meaning that, rather than create separate themes for both the protagonist and the antagonist(s), Fried created a theme for Baby and would alter it according to the various characters 'distorted definition' (or twisted viewpoint) of Baby when needed.
Although all I truly remembered of the score from my one and only viewing 40+ year ago was from the film's ending, which is Track #19, Pool Games, on this soundtrack release. I am very happy to have added this cult oddity's entire score to my collection.
One of the better, if not one of the very best, cinematic ghost stories, The Changeling is a chilling meditation on grief that also provides something of an emotional catharsis beyond the mere "Boo!"
Whenever tales of hauntings are discussed the matter of why a character stays is broached with the dismissive question of "Why don't they just leave? I would." But that is the wrong question to ask, because the real one is, "What is compelling them to stay."
There is always an element of mystery to a haunting. Who is doing the haunting? Why are they haunting? Questions that are asked in The Changeling's effective advertising.
I do appreciate the trauma fueled emotional link between the character of John Russell (George C. Scott) and the spirit of Joseph. It explains both Russell's need to investigate the haunting, to understand it, and, in the end, try and help Joseph.
I gave April Fool's Day a pass when it attempted to prank any and all who did go and see it during its brief theatrical run. At least I remember it as being a brief run, I might be misremembering it.
The film's title had me thinking there would be a gotcha twist ending involving the kills and, when I did watch the film on home video, I learned my suspicions had been correct in that regard.
Less as a slasher film and more a prank laden and drunken college murder mystery party game homage to Agatha Christie's seminal And Then There Were None, April Fool's Day is, at best, a modest entertainment.
We found Golic in the kitchen, battered and blood-smeared. He was babbling about a dragon. He told us that the dragon did it, the dragon slaughtered his friends and no one could stop it. To the others, he sounded quite crazy. But I knew he was telling the truth.
While sitting and watching Jeopardy one evening, waiting for his wife to return from the store with some ice cream, Howard Milta begins hearing scratching sounds in their bathroom. Which suggests there might be a mouse - or worse, a rat - skittering around the bathtub.
Knowing that is in the best interest of all parties that the intruding rodent be dispatched and disposed of before Violet, Howard's wife, returns with the ice cream. Howard grabs a broom and a dustpan from the kitchen and ventures into the bathroom to perform his manly duty.
But there is nothing in the bathtub. What Howard finds instead is a human finger popping up out of the drain in the sink.
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction - December 1990
The Moving Finger was first published in the December 1990 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and was reprinted in the anthology Nightmares & Dreamscapes, which is where I first read it; some 33 or so years ago. I still have that very same edition sitting in the “Books I have read” section of my collection. [Yes, I do segregate my collection between books that I have read and books that I have yet to read.]
I found The Moving Finger to be one of the more visually memorable stories of that particular anthology and was delighted, when returning to it for this review, that my memory was pretty damn accurate. No doubt thanks in very large part to King’s ability to ground the weird aspects of a story in a tactile reality that feels and reads as both relatable and lived in. King also held back on revealing whether or not the finger actually existed, or if Howard is having some kind hallucinatory mental break with reality.
While the ending does offer a definite answer, its also leaves whatever happens next up to the reader’s imagination. King also wisely refrains from giving any explanation as to what that finger belongs or is connected to…
The most disappointing discovery during my revisit was having to suffer through some questionable and discomforting racial stereotyping. While some of it is addressed within the text, in that Howard notes his wife’s not so subtle racist thoughts and opinions about the Vietnamese owners of the corner deli, she feels that they are sneaky. Yet King himself writes said owner’s dialogue in such heavily accented pidgin prose that it reads as an over the top and insensitive caricature of an accent. Opinion mileage will vary in regards to that, though. But I winced when stumbling upon it while revisiting this otherwise entertaining yarn of the weird.
Even though I do think the story’s central concept and overall approach held up, I also thought the story could have used a tad bit of trimming and tightening. King ofttimes can wander off into the weeds of digressive observations while spinning a yarn, pausing the action to share a "brief" anecdote about a magnet on a fridge or of a memory brought up by song heard on the radio, which can under cut the suspense or narrative drive of the primary story he is telling.
While there are no kitchen magnets or songs on the radio in The Moving Finger, there is a palpable sense of methodic slowness to it. Reading it I kept wondering why this story needed to be forty pages long, but I have no idea as to what could have been trimmed to make it read at a tad faster and snappier pace.
The Moving Finger may not be top tier King, but it is memorable King and the whole concept and how Howard reacted to it still gripped my attention and still kept me wondering… was the finger really there, or not? Even if I already knew the answer.
An adaptation of The Moving Finger served as the final episode of Laurel’s anthology show Monsters, which was their Outer Limits styled follow-up to their more Twilight Zone styled anthology series Tales from the Darkside.
As was the case with Tales from the Darkside, Monsters production budget was bottom-of-the-barrel low and the quality of its episodes could and did vary from pretty damn good to yikes that was terrible. Which is par for the course for any TV anthology series, or any TV series period.
Monsters aired, in the San Francisco Bay Area, on channel 20, which was the home for KOFY, a small local UHF broadcast outfit owned and operated, at that time, by James Gabbert. It had a Saturday night time slot, nestled amongst reruns of Tales from the Darkside, reruns of the original Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, in addition to Freddy’s Nightmares: A Nightmare on Elm Street The Series. KOFY’s Saturday night line-up was awesome.
But this leads to an interesting point of trivia here. Both Monsters and Tales from the Darkside were produced for the syndicated television market and sold without any obligation to air the episodes in a fixed time slot or, and this is more important, in any fixed of order.
So… the order and dates of the episodes broadcast as listed on the IMDB do not align with KOFY’s broadcast schedule. Also, while the IMDB gives an April 26, 1991 airdate for The Moving Finger, I sifted through a good two or so years of TV listings and could not find a single one for The Moving Finger, while just about every other episode of Monsters’ third and final season seemed to have been broadcast. Weird.
I would not see The Moving Finger until I nabbed a bootleg DVD of the complete series at convention some 20 or so years ago. I think it might have been a WonderCon, back when it had its home in San Francisco's Moscone Center.
From the very outset I knew I was in trouble, as the episode’s calliope-style electronic score playing over the opening credits screams “COMEDY EPISODE” and I find almost every single comedic episode of either Tales from the Darkside or Monsters to be painfully unfunny, most times. There are exceptions, of course. But few, very few…
King’s story was adapted by Haskell Barkin, a television writer who toiled, for the most part, writing episodes of 70s era Saturday morning cartoon shows (i.e. Clue Club, Jabberjaw, and The Scooby-Doo Show) as well as some scripts for The Love Boat. The Moving Finger was the third of the three scripts he wrote for Monsters, the other two being Refugee and The Hole. He wrote four scripts for Tales from the Darkside - Pain Killer, an adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s Djinn, No Chaser, All a Clone by the Telephone, and The Impressionist. He also wrote two segments for the 1985 relaunch of The Twilight Zone - Act Break and Tooth and Consequences, as well as the direct to syndication episode (and personal favorite of mine) The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon.
The Moving Finger was directed by Kenny Myers and is one of only two directing credits for him. The other being another third season episode of Monsters, titled Bug House. Myers is best known for his special make-up effects work in films such as Return of the Living Dead, Parts 1 and 2, Star Trek V and VI, Home Alone 2, and many, many more… His special make-up career has been a long and prestigious one.
The episode opens inside of a television set, pulling back and up to reveal Howard (played by the late Tom Noonan) and his wife Violet (played by the late Alice Peyton) sitting and watching a Jeopardy style quiz show. While it was actually Jeopardy in the story, I think securing the rights to use an audio clip would have cost more than the episode itself did. I thought I recognized the voice of the unseen game show host, so I checked the IMDB. It was the voice of character actor Richard B. Shull, who I know best for his roles in the schlocky snake shocker Sssssss, wherein Dirk Benedict gets turned into a snake by Strother Martin, and the short-lived sitcom Holmes and Yo-Yo, which lasted all of thirteen episodes.
Violet decides to go get some ice cream and, after crumpling the beer can he has just finished off, Howard begins hearing scratching sounds. He investigates and discovers the titular Moving Finger poking out of the sink basin drain.
On the plus side of the adaptation equation, The Moving Finger is almost word-for-word King’s story. Although everything that takes place outside of the apartment was cut in its entirety, for budgetary reasons. Also Howard’s struggle over whether or not he is hallucinating the finger, as well as his final, bloody battle with said finger, was whittled down to the most time saving and cost effective bone.
Yet the episode nonetheless manages to retain the shape and content of King’s yarn with zero liberties taken. Which is quite the impressive feat.
But there are downsides, of course. As I said before, the cartoonish music that opens and underplays the entire episode works against it. There scenes that might have played better with a tad more serious leaning underscore. One where the overt comedic aspects grow from it organically.
While Tom Noonan does give a solid and energetic performance throughout, it is also a very uneven one. It looks and feels almost like he was given contradictory directions whilst filming. Act serious. Now act goofy. Now act serious. Now act goofy. Bah, we’ll fix it in the edit.
Even with the story whittled down to its very core elements, it still loses the struggle to effectively fit within the series' half hour format. That means there is no room whatsoever for Howard’s confrontations with the finger to breathe.
Also, you do not get a face full of drain cleaner spray and walk away from it unscathed. That part really needed to go.
Then there’s the ending, which goes ever so slightly past that of its source material, if by only a few seconds and, well, it stumbles badly due to a poor choice of a practical effect coupled with a clumsy rewrite of Howard’s closing observation(s) in the story.
So, despite the obvious hard work by all involved, The Moving Finger ended Monsters with a more of a constricted whimper than an enthusiastic bang. Yet, while it does fall short of qualifying for one of the series worst episodes, it sits well within the below average section of its weaker ones. So it goes.
The Angry Red Planet is a colorful, in more ways than one, science-fiction adventure about the perilous first landing of humanity on the planet Mars. Dangers abound, from a giant man-eating amoeba-jellyfish hybrid to a towering bat-rat-spider creature. The latter being acknowledged by Stephen King as influencing him to put the giant leg of something stepping past a carload of people attempting to escape The Mist.
The second feature is the less colorful, seeing that it is in black and white, but almost as fun Hideous Sun Demon. A Jekyll-Hyde or wolfman type of science-fiction thriller starring Robert Clarke, who also co-wrote and co-directed, about a scientist that turns into a monster whenever exposed to sunlight. Because... radiation.
Oh, and "CINEMAGIC" was just the placement of red cellophane over the camera lens for whenever the explorers were in the surface of Mars.
In the late 80s and early 90s I lived in the Richmond district of San Francisco. At one point I lived in walking distance, about five short blocks, from the Balboa theatre. A theatre that, a decade later, I would see a number of films at. By that time it was where movies nearing the end of their theatrical runs and fast approaching their home video release exit ramp would play as double-bills for one week. This is where older me wishes he could speak with younger me and implore him to get out of that damn apartment and go see more movies at the Balboa theatre.
As far as Phantasm goes, I got the soundtrack for the film in a bundle of soundtracks that my parents gifted me in 1979 or 1980. It was before I saw the movie, but it helped me recognize some of the music that underplayed some of the hosting segments during John Stanley's tenure as host of Creature Features.
They must have come face-to-face with the Alien in the dark passageways. Andrews liked to send the prisoners out into the tunnels to scavenge anything of value. This time, three prisoners went out on a routine foraging mission. But only one returned. Only Golic.
Here is an admission that might bring some heat from certain corners of fandom or the broader internet. I do not care all that much for the film Conan The Barbarian. While it does have its moments and elements that work for me, I also found the sum total of all those moments and elements dour and over serious. This might have to do with the simple fact that, as much as I admire John Milius as a screenwriter, I just do not connect with his work as a director. I also found the original Red Dawn to be a chore of a downer to sit through. Your mileage will vary, of course.
While the film itself might leave me feeling underwhelmed, the same cannot be said for the score for it that was composed and conducted by the late, great Basil Poledouris. It is a pulse pounding, fist pumping work of energy that will make just about anybody that listens to it want to pick up a sword and start swinging.
The film's Main Title, known as Anvil of Crom, is an undisputed masterwork, but I am just as fond of the Bolero-styled track The Kitchen/The Orgy, which is on the second disc of this three CD special edition set released by Intrada.
My last two years of high school (Fall 83 - Spring 85) were spent living overseas, so I missed out on the theatrical release, and any and all spoiler talk from classmates who had seen it, for Sleepaway Camp and went into my first every viewing of the movie blind. This would have been, I think, in the fall of 1985 or the spring of 1986. That is when my best friend and I rented Sleepaway Camp from a local video store and gave it a watch.
For most of its 84 or so minutes of runtime, we found it to be an uninspired and routine slasher movie. One that was interchangeable with the innumerable others that were clogging the horror sections of every single video store during that period in time.
Then came the ending and, well, that final reveal and our reaction to it may have been one for the history books. Damn...
The euphoric jolt delivered by that moment can fuel something of a unicorn hunt for many a fan. Leading to a mistrust of trailers, ads, or reviews that might spoil any or all potential for yet another discovery high. But we all need to remember that these moments find you, that you do not find them. This is what makes them, and why there are, so very special.
I remember Five Million Years to Earth scaring the daylights out of me, back in the day, when it aired on The 3:30 Movie. While I also remember being somewhat impatient for the 'bug monsters' to show up and wreck havoc upon the populace, I was in no way disappointed with what happened in the movie.
That would be the only time I would see what I now know as Quatermass and the Pit, the third Hammer Film feature adaptation of a Nigel Kneale BBC serial. Because, just as was the case with Terence Fisher's monster movie Island of Terror, the damn thing never seemed to air again. At least that is how I remember it.
This is my favorite Quatermass movie/story and the creative impact it had on the filmmakers that I grew up watching is blatant. The one that comes to my mind the quickest is, of course, John Carpenter's 1987 Quatermass homage Prince of Darkness. There was also a noticeable homage to it in the 2006 animated feature Monster House.
I finally found Bishop - or rather part of him - buried in a mound of rusting debris. Back at the infirmary, I was able to connect Bishop's battery pack to the flight recorder. He reported some disturbing news. There had been an Alien with us all the way. On the Sulaco, on the EEV, and now here, on this planet.
If my memory is correct, Lance Henriksen voiced some regret at being roped into doing this particular cameo in the film during an interview with, I think, Fangoria magazine. It was a pretty pointless scene that, had it been excised, would not have impacted the storyline or characterization one bit. Couple that with the hours Henriksen no doubt had to spend in the make-up chair, so he could match with the prosthetic prop pictured above, and, well, is it any wonder as to why he was a tad grumpy about it?
Although there was a failed television pilot titled Omen IV: The Awakening broadcast in 1991, and two media tie-in novel sequels published in the early-to-mid-80s, I consider The Final Conflict to be the official end of The Omen trilogy.
While it falls far short of crafting the ominous dread of the first film, and lacks the ghoulish bombast of the first (and superior) sequel's over-the-top death scenes, The Final Conflict does manage to have some redeeming elements. No pun intended.
First is Sam Neill as the adult Damien Thorn. Although not given much, if anything at all, to work with in the script, Neill nonetheless imbues Damien with such a powerful charismatic presence it makes the squandered opportunity here all the more noticeable and lamentable. Come on Damien, do something!
Second is Jerry Goldsmith's terrific score. It is a powerful and, at times, beautifully bombastic work deserving of award consideration.
And that is about it... really. While they pulled off the Final part of the film's title, any and all expecting, or hoping, for some cataclysmic Conflict will come away disappointed. Even though I can understand, and to a somewhat limited extent even appreciate, leaning toward a quieter and more psychological, perhaps even meditative, approach to the End Times. The creative team assembled here did not pull it off. So it goes.
San Francisco Chronicle TV Week - March 18 - 24, 1990
What makes this NBC mini-series noteworthy is that it was the first production that was allowed to film in the famed Paris Opera House. This will no doubt make it interesting to more than a few Phantom enthusiasts. I might check this version out at some point, but that point is not happening this week.
Murphy was a victim of the Alien, not a freak accident! I'm almost sure of it. What else could cause such a burn mark in solid concrete? It had to be from the acid Aliens spit at their victims just before they attack.
Although I recognize the name Charles Fox, I think his atonal electronic score for the William Castle produced and Jeannot Szwarc directed "killer bug" movie might mark his official entry into my ever growing collection of horror, science fiction, and fantasy centered movie soundtracks.
That a composter renowned for crafting memorable melodies such as the 1972's chart-topper "Killing Me Softly With His Song" and catchy themes for numerous television series, such as Wonder Woman, The Love Boat, and Happy Days, could and would compose something as strange and otherworldly sounding as the music for Bug only serves as another fine example of his sizable and inarguable talent.
The alien soundscape Fox crafted for Bug is a chilling experience in un-easy listening. Relaxing this is not...
Although I had a great deal of cultural awareness of the Witch Mountain movies, the only one I have a solid memory of actually seeing on the big screen was 2009's Race to Witch Mountain. That they got Whitley Strieber to make a cameo in that film was an unexpected and giggle inducing delight.
But my memories of the original films are fragmented and spotty, at best. But the simple fact that this film features Christopher Lee, Bette Davis, and Anthony James as the menacing antagonists, and that it was directed by John Hough, means that I will no doubt revisit it at some point in the future. No idea when, though.
Jeff Bond's liner note describes James Horner's score for Commando as "exchanging the thematic, leitmotif aspect of his symphonic scores for a style that was as single-minded as John Matrix's pursuit of his daughter..."
The core elements of Horner's score for the film are used to great effect in the film's robust and memorable Main Title. Bond lists those elements as "pulsating electronica riffs, crashing Simmons drums, a growl of no-nonsense orchestral menace from low brass, a calypso-like steel drum tune, an undulating, almost breezy saxophone riff and the exotic sound of Japanese shakuhachi flute."
One thing I feel compelled to note, or point out, is that the score's "no-nonsense brass" and "calypso-like steel drum" textures and flourishes sound very much like the brass and steel drum textures and flourishes Horner composed for 1982's 48hrs. Something not at all surprising considering Horner's well known, and self-admitted, habit of reusing his past compositions. That observation is in no way meant to disparage Horner's superlative work here and elsewhere. It was part of his process and good music is good music, period.
The Main Title also contains a brief and gentle melody, played by the orchestra's string instruments, heard during a montage of scenes showing the loving bond between father and daughter. It only appears here and nowhere else in the movie.
What follows the Main Title is some fifty-plus minutes of gnashing and grinding action cues. "Horner's score becomes the musical equivalent of Schwarzenegger's stone face as the movie progresses," Bond observes in his notes. "It is largely unvarying, but it gains power through sheer repetition, reinforcing Matrix's unstoppable determination."
I saw this at the Presidio and it was one of the more memorable junk cinema experiences of 1989 for me.
Just like DeepStar Six, which came out around the same time, Leviathan was yet another underwater monster movie eager to siphon some cash from the growing excitement for James Cameron's undersea adventure movie The Abyss, which was slated for a late summer release that very same year. And, just like DeepStar Six, Leviathan fell short of profit making expectations.
While most of the necessary elements are there for Leviathan to work, it lacks the most vital creative element. The touch of a director who understands and appreciates the material. George P. Cosmatos, of Rambo: First Blood Part II and Cobra fame, seems disinterested in unnerving the audience and, even worse, reluctant to utilize the impressive creature effects that were designed and created for the film. Which is too bad, as this could have been a creature feature worthy of the films that it so obviously trying to emulate (i.e. 1979's Alien and 1982's The Thing).
Andrews announced that prisoner Murphy was killed by a strong rush of air the pulled him into the huge exhaust fan in Ventshaft 17. But I didn't get a chance to investigate - Clemens wouldn't allow it. Clemens did say that he found a burn mark near the site. Could that mean...?
I have yet to see this nudie-cutie, and probably won't, but if I were ever to subject myself to one it would be this one. Because... it features a bunch of familiar and beloved monsters.
My memory of this film is that it seemed to take forever and a day to reach theaters and drive-ins near me. Even then, I failed in seeing it on the big screen. Because, by that time, I read the novelization by Owen West (Dean Koontz), which I had not cared for all that much.
It turns out that Dean Koontiz himself had not cared for it either and had taken some liberties with the script, in regards to backstory and motivation and so on and so forth. This would also be the only novelization that Koontz would ever write.
The film itself is not all that bad, really. Tobe Hooper's oh-so-unique brand of southern fried insanity pulses in just about every frame and, despite some effect moments of outlandish and over-the-top theatrical bombast, this movie really works well in its quieter, creepier moments. Of which there are quite a few.
An Alien can develop very quickly. I've seen chestbursters grow with amazing speed, shedding their skin with each phase of development. After the chestburster phase comes the quadruped phase - the four legged creatures. They always seem to be growing - and eating.
With each new entry in the franchise the gestation, birth, and growth of the 'Alien' (as it is called in this card series) shortened and quickened, because audiences knew what was coming and the filmmakers, or producers, felt it better to speed run through the established lore. More of than not, this was to the detriment of the film over all. So it goes.
I had torn through, and enjoyed, Edward Levy's fast paced source novel, so I walked into a 1983 screening of The Beast Within with some degree of high expectations. I also knew/recognized actor-turned Poe scholar Paul Clemens from his reoccurring role on Quincy, M.E., where he effectively (at least as I recall it) played a young man that suffering from the misunderstand and misrepresented condition known as Tourette's Syndrome. Which just so happened to have captured the attention of both online discourse and, inevitably, outrage from reasons that have nothing to do with the condition and everything to do with the spectacle.
Actor turned screenwriter Tom Holland, who would go on to pen the better than it has any right being Psycho II, as well as writing and directing Fright Night, among others, struggles to craft a coherent and understandable cinematic story from Levy's multi-viewpoint and multi-generation novel. It almost works, and might have worked, if director Philippe Mora had handled the material with a more serious attitude and less tongue in cheek contempt.
Although it falls short of being impactful as a straight horror film, it still has an energetic and atmospheric vibe that will keep the more forgiving viewer(s) entertained and somewhat engaged.
RKO double-bill featuring Boris Karloff headlining another fine offering from producer Val Lewton, Isle of the Dead. Bela Lugosi is the selling point of the second feature, which, despite the blurbs shouting EERIE! and SCAREY!, was actually of comedy featuring the duo of Brown and Carney. A pair of Abbott and Costello wannabes that never quite made it. So it goes.
Isle of the Dead was directed by Mark Robson, who I know best for directing Earthquake (1974). Zombies on Broadway was directed by Gordon Douglas, a journeyman workhorse who would go on to helm the better received, and far more fondly remembered, giant ant feature THEM! (1954).
An Alien grows inside a living organism, then explodes from its chest - a chestburster. If it was gestating inside Newt or Hicks, then this would be the end of the species. But if an Alien somehow got inside someone or something else...
In the theatrical cut the 'something else' is a dog, in the assembly cut I think it might have been a cow. Or maybe it was still the dog. I don't remember...
But, man, they offed a kid and a dog in this movie? No wonder audiences turned on this supposed 'final' entry.
While I think The Stuff might be my favorite Larry Cohen movie, apologies to both Q: The Winged Serpent and It's Alive, it is God Told Me To that gets my vote for his absolute best. Although it is sporting its alternate title of Demon here. This movie is smart, challenging, and abrasively, almost shoddily, off-kilter as only writer-directer-producer Larry Cohen at the very top of his game could be.
A series of mass killing events plagues New York City. Although the perpetrators do not know one another, each and every one share the same calm, cool, and almost serene demeanor during and after their killing spree. They also give the same reason for what made them decide to start killing people... "God told me to."
One can understand why the distributor opted for a title change.
Tony Lo Bianco is the deeply religious cop on the case and what he learns is, well, earth shattering. The calm ambiguity of the film's final line of dialogue and fade out image might sooth one viewer's nerves every bit as much as it will shatter another's.
Yeah, God Told Me To is Cohen at his absolute best, I think.
While I do remember seeing the paperback edition of the novel by Bernard Taylor this film is based on, this is another that I have to see. Might get around to it at some point, but have no idea when that point will occur.
The bodies of Newt and Hicks had to be cremated. I insisted on it. Andrews, Clemens and the others reluctantly went along with my demand. They conducted a makeshift funeral service on the catwalk over the prison's huge furnace. And when the bodies were dumped into it... I lost my composure.
Again, points for so thoroughly committing to Newt and Hicks being dead.
Although there is a great deal to interest me about this fictionalized dramatization of the Ed Gein story, I have yet to see it. Scuttlebutt about the film is that it hews pretty darn close to the facts of the actual case. The same cannot be said of a more recent, and therefore somewhat controversial, one.
Screenwriter and co-director Alan Ormsby, who was coming off of Children Shouldn't Play With Death Things, would go one to have a pretty successful career as a screenwriter. Penning the scripts for Bob Clark's films Dead of Night (also 1974) and Porky's II: The Next Day (1983). In addition to those, he would also write My Bodyguard (1980), the remake of Cat People (1982), and The Substitute (1996).
I know Roberts Blossom, who played the Gein inspired character of Ezra Cobb, best for his brief and quite memorable appearance in John Carpenter's Christine. "And there'll be no bringing her back here, cause I'm sellin' this shit to buy me a condo." Oh, and he was also in some pretentious arthouse flick called Home Alone (1990).
This was also an early project for future special make-up effect legend Tom Savini.
Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty), having gutted a specimen like a fish, demonstrates to Sarah (Lori Cardille) how the reanimated dead's insatiable desire to consume 'living' human flesh looks to be fueled by primitive neurological instinct, rather than by any kind of hunger or nutritional need.
"It's working on instinct. On deep, dark, primordial instinct!"
Although Bryan Senn's comprehensive and excellent resource guide and historical recap "Twice the Thrills! Twice the Chills!" Horror and Science Fiction Double Features, 1955 - 1974 gives a July 7, 1958 release date for this monstrous double bill, it did not open in the San Francisco Bay Area until March 4, 1959.
Both were British film adaptations of BBC serials that cast Forrest Tucker in roles for both films, to help sell the movie to audiences in the United States.
Of the two I have only seen The Crawling Eye, which remains a cherished childhood favorite of mine.
I demanded to see Newt. Medical Officer Clemens led me to the morgue to view her body. He said Newt had drowned in her crytotube when the ship malfunctioned. Her body was intact, but I had to find out for sure exactly how she died. Clemens would have to perform an autopsy on Newt's body.
I was both flabbergasted and, to a point, delighted at just how much Alien 3 rubbed Newt's death in the viewer's face. Performing an on screen autopsy driving home that the kid was truly D-E-A-D dead was a cannonball into the deep end of the dark and dour narrative pool. It just might be my favorite scene in the movie, just because it dared to go there.
While Goldsmith's tense and icy score for Michael Crichton's film adaptation of Robin Cook' best-selling medical thriller Coma may not be one of his most memorable, it does serve as an excellent example of how less can be so much more. Since the first half of the film features no underscore whatsoever.
The liner notes for this Bay Cities Compact Disc note how Goldsmith's "ornate use of harps, bells, and dissonant piano" recalls his famous score for the classic episode of TheTwilight Zone, The Invaders. While other sections feature "dark, somber string passages that give way to explosive percussion effects and distorted violins" that sound "like a dry-run" for ideas Goldsmith would expand upon in his brilliant (and for the most part unused) score for Alien (1979).
Also included on this reissue of the 1978 album are two pieces of period appropriate disco-themed ephemera. One is a disco version of Goldsmith's love theme for the film. The other is Disco Strut, an unrelated chunk of album padding that was composed by Don Peake (The Hills Have Eyes and The People Under the Stairs, more on these scores later).
While I know I saw this on home video the only thing that I remember about it is the weird free association trivia-style game that was played by the protagonist (Jeff Goldblum) and his wife (Christine Lahti). A snippet of which shows up as a post-credit gag.
In an interview with Fangoria, I think, director Brett Leonard shared that Dean Koontz got up and walked out on a private screening of the film when Stephen King was mentioned by one of the characters. Although I had read a prodigious amount of Koontz's work in the late 80s, the source material came out during a fallow period of interest in reading him. So I could not tell how much it did or did not deviate from the novel it claims to be adapted from.
But, considering the deviations made by Leonard for The Lawnmower Man, I think it is a safe bet to say that alterations were made.
Each prisoner at the Weyland-Yutani Prison Facility had a shaved head bearing some kind of prison code. There were only 25 prisoners left on this planet - all men. Apparently, Fiorina 161 was once a 1,000 convict work prison, but now it's a long-forgotten wasteland.
Considering its Old Dark House plot trappings and Gothic Mansion setting, I am bewildered that I gave The Private Eyes a pass on the big screen. We'd gone and seen The Prize Fighter (1979), the movie that Conway and Knotts had made prior to this, and really enjoyed it. I also had a raging crush on Trisha Noble, who had a supporting role, thanks in large part to my loving the short-lived cop show Strike Force, on which Noble was member of the primary cast.
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