Matt hails from North Yorkshire, and presently resides in South Korea where he teaches English. He escaped the Northern Film School in Leeds with a master’s, and is now an award-winning filmmaker and podcaster. In 2020, he wrote and directed the acclaimed sleep death in suburbia short, The Self-Seers.
“Dark” is the operative. A ferocious, unstoppable leviathan of a movie. Its single cello string like a coiled spring—so tautly wound that it whines and quakes. Christopher Nolan knows precisely the vital images to carve, and the zinger lines that needed to pop—from the Joker gang’s brutal, Heat-inspired opening heist, to the bazooka-wielding jester’s explosive subterranean antics, and the kind of heart-stopping, chaotic car chases that both mimic, and ultimately eviscerate Friedkin’s French Connection, you’ll grimace and wince, then cheer and applaud.
Reinventing the Batman’s most-famed archnemesis as a Lynchian, wild man Tom Waits resulted in posthumous Oscar perfection with the late, great Heath Ledger’s giggly, guttural, cross-dressing Joker emerging as the epitome of cinematic comic book villainy, and the cloudy-minded poster boy for the criminally insane. In spite of its superiority, Ledger’s world-burner doesn’t quite nail the unruly rally cry irresponsibility of Joaquin Phoenix’s later portrayal, but edges close—palpably urging us all to introduce a little anarchy, and disturbingly makes a dangerous amount of sense whilst doing it—with the same brand of twisted conviction, and simplistic solve-all snake oil salesman logic that serves inflammatory world leaders. At a glance, this picture (war) paints Joker as a loony, but under a little surface scratch scrutiny, he’s so clear in his chaotic, criminal convictions that he eventually owns the role—in spite of Joaquin and Jack’s best efforts, exhibiting the kind of cocksure arrogance America laps up from its straight-talking politicians. Like other corrupt officials, Joker at least has an answer for the lost boys of America. Political allegory aside—and although tragically premature, I reckon Heath would’ve probably enjoyed bowing out on this menacing note. Although The Dark Knight Rises would have undoubtedly played differently with the Joker breaking out of Arkham Asylum, and returning for more malicious mischief, Nolan somehow unknowingly depicted both the pitch-perfect, macabre exit of the Clown Prince of Crime, and the unfortunate, final curtain call of the admirable actor playing him—with the Joker spinning and twirling; upended madly, and then through Pfister’s rotated lens, now seemingly the right way up, eeking out a closing, uncomfortably insane squawk, before colliding with us; the audience.
Bale wears Bruce Wayne’s suave smirk as comfortably as the silent guardian’s cowl, and British institution, Michael Caine’s Alfred is a consistent joy—it’s a pleasure to watch, and spend time in his dignified company. Gary Oldman isn’t exactly as I’d pictured Gordon, but it’s nevertheless a fine portrayal of the character, and serves as yet another father figure for Bruce’s collection. Freeman and Gyllenhaal support the film’s weighty, yet far-fetched high concept with restrained, grounding performances, and Eckhart elevates and colours the entire picture—stomping his thematic “dent” into the overarching tale of the trilogy as “Two-Face.”
Minor caveats such as the spoiled continuity of Katie Holmes’ Rachel Dawes depiction robs the trilogy of a neat arc, and Batman Begins‘ through line character as we simply can’t just start again and warm to Gyllenhaal right off the bat. It’s one of the trilogy’s most regrettable cock-ups, but I suppose it was unavoidable—though Maggie is undoubtedly the better performer. The gruff, gravelly voice of Bale’s Batman is an acquired taste, and Nicky Katt’s rubbish comic relief commentary improv aside, the movie remains predominantly both humorous and disturbing. I always wondered if there was perhaps a way to excise the section with the two ferries. By the time it arrives, it feels like one set piece too many for a two and a half hour film that could’ve been just a smidge tighter. Having said that, the ferry sequence may be a bridge too far, but it’s arguably necessary to unearth and articulate the plot machinations of the battle for Gotham’s “white knight,” Harvey’s corrupted soul.
The Dark Knight showcases the level of seamlessly-integrated practical stunts and CGI audiences can often only dream of. Here, it thrillingly comes true, with the plummeting Batman crushing the roof of a van, circling the Hong Kong cityscape in elegant flight, flipping the Joker’s truck silently into the air, and the militarily-grounded “Tumbler” Batmobile and its handy interior ejector pod. Add to all this a booming, pulsing Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard shared score that drones and beats in syncopation—a rhythm and rhyme. This pulsating heart of the movie ensures it kicks off with a bang and does not stop until we’re plunged into a quick cut darkness at the film’s watchful protector climax—daisy-chaining every scene together smoothly without ever sacrificing pace, and if it ever did run the risk of losing momentum, the deafening thuds startle and jolt us back to life—each thick, thump to the body reverberates and is felt.
No one will ever get this close again—not even Matt Reeves’ acclaimed 2022 incarnation, with bat-fatigue dulling its Seattley, emo-goth impact. The Dark Knight is anarchic, adult cinema, walking a tightrope; teetering on the precipice of overblown ridiculousness without ever stumbling into the winking, glossy Marvel mire; rattling the tracks of its own implausibility, but miraculously never toppling the train. If Michael Mann read comics, this is what we’d get. In spite of the tale-ending muscularity and might of The Dark Knight Rises, this is Nolan’s caped crusader mic drop; the superhero film to end all superhero films—a total triumph, and worthy of every ounce of praise and credit it has garnered.
The midnight hour is upon us! First, they undress you, then they possess you. It’s time to turn in, or turn on! I may be a total creep for picking it, but this sleazy slot belongs to Fred Olen Ray’s Evil Toons—the dumbest, shortest, sleaziest horror I could exhume from my psyche. My rationale was, you’re probably feeling a bit silly by now—your brain is almost certainly kaput, you’re probably sloshed, cream-crackered, or just plain sick of horror movies. So send the weans to bed, and all sane-minded or sober companions home. The stage is set for Evil Toons—a lowbrow, spoofy send-up of haunted house films with one seemingly original conceit—human-on-drawing commingling. This particular kink went public in the weighty commercial wake of Cool World, Space Jam, and most notably, 1988’s tantalising Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Olen Ray leapt on the bandwagon, and chucked a pervy, animated wolf that’s on screen for a mere one minute and 30 seconds into his campy slasher. And yes, there’s just the one titular “evil toon”—rendering the title itself a bald-faced lie. The composite photography, animation, and rotoscoping isn’t half bad—there’s just barely any of it.
Made for the HBO/Showtime market before the scream queen movie bubble popped with 1995’s Witch Academy, and shot simultaneously with/overlapping Olen Ray’s Spirits from 1990, Evil Toons was purportedly shot in just eight days for $140,000. I thought Night of the Demons was my proud, new trashy discovery, but this takes the cheese biscuit—a spooky, erotic, fantasy horror-comedy with a murderous hell house softcore porno plot. From the director behind Hollywood ChainSaw Hookers, Scream Queen Hot Tub Party, Attack of the 60-Foot Centerfold, Bikini Frankenstein, and Harlots of the Caribbean: Dead Girl’s Chest. I’m uncertain how many of those are “legit” films, and how many are merely softcore porn. Here, Gary Graver’s Halloweeny photography occasionally pops, Sherman Scott’s (actually writer/director Fred Olen Ray’s pseudonym, as he didn’t like seeing his name appear too many times in the credits) dumb as a rock—yet admittedly self-aware screenplay leaves an awful lot to be desired, and Chuck Serino’s music peculiarly seems to play at wrong, inopportune moments. Inexplicably, monotonous score music drones over what would’ve otherwise been fairly effective jump scares. It’s almost as if they rushed this through post-production! Of course, when the tit-mad Olen Ray does miraculously carve out a moment of suspense, the telltale, soon-to-be animated wolf effects shots have decreased in quality to such a massive degree, that the moment is robbed of any real tension or unease—we instantly twig that the monster is about to pop out.
You won’t be shocked to hear there’s nothing particularly clever going on—ever, but Evil Toons does have the retro, clunky charm of a scene from the video game Night Trap, or the gentler aspects of countless slashers of the day. The acting resembles an average episode of Baywatch, and is about as intellectually challenging. It’s about as scary as Scooby Doo, with hokey horror tropes such as exaggerated, hysterical screaming, constant thunderstorms, Mr Hinchlow’s lame jump scare, terminal hickeys, bloody nighties, demonic shape-shifting, ancient incantations, and kissing Beelzebub’s butt. However, it’s acutely genre-referential in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, and self-aware to the point where the gals actually reference it directly. For example, there are pre-Scream, genre-savvy lines like, “It’s a dark, stormy night and we’re four young, attractive girls in a big, spooky house all alone. If we don’t go downstairs one at a time, how will we ever get bumped off without the others knowing about it?” and “How come every time you stay in an old, spooky house it has to lightning and thunder?”
Burt, played by the eternally-welcome Dick Miller (The Terminator, Gremlins)—who, hilariously for some reason, doesn’t know what a contortionist is—arrives in a white van creeper-mobile, resembling something Buffalo Bill might pop to Sofology® in, but chock full of hot, consenting coeds—these sorority chicks are set to score 100 bucks a piece if they can clean the house, stay overnight, and get picked up the next day with a spick and span home ready for the new owners to occupy. Burt calls these lasses “kids,” but if I’m generous, the youngest among them probably looks around 28, and as for the eldest—plucky, maternal cougar, team leader, and Olen Ray squeeze, Suzanne Ager (Inner Sanctum, The Bikini Carwash Company, and Buford’s Beach Bunnies) as Terry, could, in all honesty, pass for mid-to-late 40s—or older, depending on the camera angle and lighting. Of course, you’d never suspect it from the director’s male gazey, caboose-showcasing, reverse angle of her bent over backside as all the ladies’ arced, lined-up rears are boldly pointed skyward whilst retrieving cleaning products from Burt’s van.
All is going well with our motley crew of porno actresses and low-end scream queens until creepy bloke, David Carradine (Kung-Fu, Bound for Glory, Kill Bill) delivers a book with a face on it—a Kandarian warlock’s demon spells from late 17th century England, brought to America by Gideon Fisk in the early 1930s, and the pesky source of all the problems plaguing the house. Another 40-year-old college “kid,” Biff Bullock isn’t the only thing that’s turning up around midnight—expect some hair-raising company, and a bit of soul eating, as it captures fresh souls to go to hell (providing they’re tangy, but not too tart).
Alongside bird-woman, Terry, is the shy, smart girl, and “little miss egghead,” Megan—our bespectacled, sweatpants-adorned, preposterously well-endowed, virginial yet self-admiring redhead lead, played by 1982 Penthouse Pet, Monique Gabrilelle (Emmanuelle 5, Amazon Women on the Moon, Deathstalker II, Silk 2, and maybe most memorably to some, Bachelor Party—yeah, she’s that girl in the bedroom with Tom Hanks). A most diverting game to play during Evil Toons is closely watching Megan’s screams to detect if she’s actually stifling laughter—which is a lot of the time. Oddly, I didn’t mind at all, because it just shows how much of a laugh they’re all having making this daft movie. Gabrielle‘s ponytail even stands erect at one point to illustrate her petrified terror. In a film such as this, why there is no payoff for Megan’s apparent carnal cravings to be a promiscuous, sexually-liberated young woman is anybody’s guess. Perhaps the chaste must live on in horror—but that being said, everyone does anyway in this preposterously-plotted picture.
Adult film actress, Madison Stone is arguably the star—she’s on the video box cover, and makes for an interesting Google if you don’t mind clearing your history afterwards. Madison plays the raven-haired, spandex-clad, Roxanne—a Kathleen Hanna-esque, Pamela Adlon-y, sorta Shannon Doherty-alike, whose klutzy shenanigans—including bizarrely alluring, ditzy yet determined wine bottle opening techniques that inevitably result in upended legs, and whose striptease twerking pulled the football captain, made her a firm favourite—just don’t ask what she’s doing with that butter. The possessed incarnation of Roxanne is incapable of pouncing on and devouring any of her gal pals without first ripping their tops open to expose their chests, before gnawing at their throats—classic deployment of the jugs before jugulars rule. Jan may struggle to eat sandwiches, but still, the early ‘90s feathered hairdo’d blondie, Stacy Nix, is another fave, and is—prepare to go incognito, trivia fans, also a porn actress, subsequently renamed, “Barbara Dare.”
As much as an enlightened, modern gent can get a kick out of the audacious, abundant T and A on display here, I’m not sure I could’ve justified picking Evil Toons without the sheer movie presence of the male supporting cast—namely the aforementioned Dick Miller, and David Carradine. Kill Bill Carradine turns up looking like a cross between a dirty Doc Brown, and the 1990s incarnation of WWF superstar, The Undertaker. In a bit of future Bangkok, fishnet-wearing, bondage in a closet foreshadowing, Carradine—who filmed for perhaps a day or two, but is peppered throughout the entire movie, hangs himself in the opening moments *insert sadomasochistic, auto-erotic asphyxiation joke here.* The ham and cheese-flavoured Carradine plays Gideon Fisk—lurking and loitering aimlessly, clutching pretty much the exact Necronomicon—the smirking, human flesh-bound book from The Evil Dead—if it was sold on Wish.
There’s a commendably meta moment where “that guy” Dick Miller is watching himself lose his cat in 1959’s horror/comedy, A Bucket of Blood—no doubt because it’s public domain, whilst smoking one of his trademark cigars. Before his inexplicably attractive girlfriend—the lingerie-clad scream queen, Michelle Bauer (Café Flesh, Tied & Tickled, Night of the Living Babes, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, and Assault of the Party Nerds Part 2: Heavy Petting Detective—I could go on) cameo helps sell a half-decent sex toy jackhammer gag. I’d watch Dick do almost anything—even read the Transylvania yellow pages, but the scene here, in which he is fellated by a fanged Roxanne, and caterwauls, “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy… oh my Gooood!” hilariously like he’s in a pervy pantomime, really pushed that rule to its limit. I’m lying—it’s probably the best bit, and in my mind, is now way up there with Miller and Schwarzenegger’s gun shop interaction in The Terminator.
Granted, there’s not enough of the Roger Rabbit-style, live action and animation blending, and what does exist is fleeting. Evil Toons lures us in with the (crossed fingers) broken exploitation promise of sexually deviant cartoon characters running wild, and delivers very little of it. Hoodwinked by a title! The somewhat shrewd writer/director, Olen Ray pulled the ol’ bait and switch, substituting toons for titties. The twisted yet tempting potential for sexual liaisons between alluring ladies and raunchy renderings was the uniquely kinky kicker required to pitch and sell the movie, but we only get one such encounter, and it’s actually a frankly unpleasant and violent assault. When it finally arrives, there’s nothing titillating about the scene—we watch aghast, and then it promptly passes.
If anything’s unsettling about any of the films I picked, it’s Evil Toons, as the juxtaposition of childlike animation, abundant female nudity, and toon-rape are all employed amidst an amusingly scored softcore sequence. The monster is essentially just a rubbish Tasmanian devil; a dirty talking, ravenous cartoon wolf. He’s generic, but he’s a killer. Of course, when the perverse pangs of guilt inevitably hit us, we can rest assured, the cast are all in on it—everyone involved in this movie knows exactly what kind of film it is, and presumably, as long as the cheques clear, they’re all A-OK with it. This is neither the most misogynistic, nor exploitative motion picture these women have chosen to endure in their careers. What rescues Evil Toons from unforgivable seediness is, the girls are having as much fun as the audience, which makes it charming, comparatively gentle when compared to -other slasher films, and unadulterated, campy fun with an all’s-well-that-ends-well ending—in which the ghostly Kill Bill declares the demons never existed, and neither did he, before vanishing in a cloak of electric lightning.
Evil Toons is another Evil Dead-adjacent, book of spells come down, and has quickly become the guiltiest of all my guilty horror movie pleasures. It’s the kind of zero effort pleasure you may take from meditation—just zoning out; the kind of film you wish you’d caught on late night telly when you were 12 or 13, and beyond. Can I, in all good faith, recommend it? Yeah, go on then. Evil Toons exists solely as a silly, naughty nudie romp—a delicious, brainless cheesecake, perfect for a midnight unwind—and not once was my brain used! If you’re still uncertain, what are you chickens waiting for? Just heed these wise words, “Remember, in times of trouble, let your conscience be your guide.”
Right. It’s unquestionably time to put the brood to bed, and anyone squeamish, or overly concerned about nudity can step out now, too. From Kevin Tenney, director of Witchboard, comes, “a slasher film with no slasher.” Don’t scoff any razorblade apples, whatever you do, because we’re entering the closet belonging to our acid-head mother for a movie I wasn’t familiar with until researching this saga—1988’s Night of the Demons. This film had its original title of Halloween Party blocked by the Michael Myers Halloween franchise overlord—Syrian-American movie mogul, Moustapha Akkad, who threatened a spoilsport lawsuit for infringing on his beloved cash cow.
This one is set on Hallowe’en night, so that’s a promising start. The opening shot of Night of the Demons is rock ‘n’ roll blaring from a teenagers’ car somewhere in the suburbs, with a pumpkin stuck on their roof, and a fat bloke half-arsedly dressed as a pig, calling his female friend a bitch and yelling, “Happy Halloween… asshole!” at a curmudgeonly pensioner. That paints a pretty accurate picture of what will follow. The adolescents sack off their lame-o high school dance in favor of bohemian misfit, Angela’s gothic gathering at Hull House—a now abandoned crematorium by the cemetery where the funeral parlor owners just happened to go full maniac at Hallowe’en years before. As the teen bozos party into the night, Angela’s sexy séance transforms the snarky dudes, and dudesses into hideous demonic creatures of the night, who begin to kill and devour one another.
As her crude, wisecracking little brother, Billy would put it—nice gal Alice in Wonderland with the “bodacious boobies” or “big cha-chas,” Judy is our prudent female lead. In addition to this “pretty little piece,” the malleable-mouthed, lipstick boob artist and doll faced, Suzanne is played with saucy relish by an arse-out Linnea Quigley (Nightmare Sisters, Savage Streets, the aerobic spoof, Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout, Assault of the Party Nerds 2: The Heavy Petting Detective, Girls Gone Dead) who—Meet Me Halfway bonus edition—is introduced to us properly bent over, perusing Tide detergents with a full screen upskirt of her pink-pantied posterior. Which is how she spends the majority of the movie, actually—flashing anything and everything, front and back, in a frilly pink dress—distracting convenience store employees whilst Angela robs booze and snacks.
Linnea quite confidently owns this role, yet in spite of Night of the Demons only being 3 years later, she doesn’t hit the mindbogglingly bewitching physical heights of the equally nudie, Return of the Living Dead. A stand out gross out moment for her is when future Quigley beau and special-effects dude, Steve Johnson’s effects (Ghostbusters, Fright Night, Dead Heat, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master) aid her inexplicably, but quite seamlessly with a Cronenbergian body horror technique, as Suzanne stuffs her lipstick inside an invisible nipple cavity.
Night of the Demons feels kind of porno-sleazy; a bit naughty, and the gore is legitimately repulsive at times. It revolves around perversion, and screwy characters who just want to fool around. They talk about cute boys, and the bros are awful to the chicks, with a plethora of insults and awful behavior—especially the fat, John Belushi-aping, pig-man slob, Stooge—whose abusive language eventually meets its match with Angela‘s tongue-gobbling, feminist revenge. But even the so-called nice guys like Jay, whose jock head is turned at the slightest attractive female presence, leaps at the chance to ditch his date, Judy.
Then there’s the pirate, Alvin Alexis as the not so jolly Rodger—with his (almost) perpetually, glum expression—breaking new ground as perhaps the first African American slasher secondary to live through to the completion of a horror film (don’t check that, it’s likely spurious). Although, I did discover a few comments from people of colour appreciating that Rodger made it to the end—albeit as the result of cowardly, sensible decisions and logical, rational choices, bordering on scaredy-cat tactics—such as spending a chunk of the film hiding in a car. Rodger really represents the audience here as he’s arguably one of the only likable characters.
Night of the Demons racks up the nudity, and the fake-out jump scares with a multitude of boos, woo-hoos, and ooga-boogas. There’s skulls and sarcasm, wrong turns, low-lying mist, pratfalls and pranks, candelabras, strategically placed pumpkins, and characters in costume—Max and Frannie as a doctor and, I assume, his patient, brewskis, dirt bags hiding in coffins, doors slamming of their own volition, broken down cars, and broken mirrors—speaking of which, the Pat Benatar Best Shot Award goes to the bit that cleverly captures and neatly frames our entire ensemble, if you will, in the shattered shards of glass, framing everyone perfectly. Technically speaking, it’s a marvellous composition. Along with the Beetlejuice-esque finger-candles gag, and wild contra-zooms, Evil Dead fans will instantly clock the demon force POV—although clearly a rip-off, it’s homaged stylishly with shameless bravado. Night of the Demons‘ dynamic, mobile camera feels firmly in the vein of Raimi—as is the spurting eye-gouge, and over the top, Kewpie doll makeup, which is seemingly pinched from Linda in the 1981 original.
This pick comes with caveats—the score is cacophonous and a bit maddening with its naff, intermittent keyboard stings—honestly, there’s a fraction too much snarling and gurgling in dimly lit hallways, but perfectly executed camera moves like the 90° rotation during the mortuary make out between Judy and Jay, the 360° Angela and Stooge smooch, plus the harsh barbed wire wall climb, which is cringily visceral, and in contrast to the bloody theatrics of what has come before, actually gets under your skin. The motion control, double exposure-showcasing title sequence is also certainly a visual highlight, but it’s unquestionably Angela’s provocatively-possessed, cheeky full moon-flashing, “Stigmata Martyr” spinning and twirling fireside waltz that really takes the cake. Her Cleo Rocos-esque, bendy grind n’ crawl, and strobed strut in fingerless gloves—arched almost supernaturally in black lingerie, marks Night of the Demons‘ second exposed derrière, and much like movies such as Vamp, or From Dusk Till Dawn, it’s a strategically-placed, seductive segue, which serves to transition audiences into the gory second half of the picture.
Once upon a time, I had this UK horror/fantasy film magazine—kind of like Fangoria, but not. The name escapes me, but it featured a run down of the practical effects work in Hocus Pocus—the guy’s mouth sewn shut, and Army of Darkness, with its various Deadite designs, Evil Ash, etc. I’ll have been no older than 10, and those images seared into my brain and stayed with me. I didn’t see Army until a “bootleg version” inexplicably titled, Bruce Campbell vs. Army of Darkness, wrapped in phony brown paper bag DVD packaging, arrived on region 1 US DVD circa the early noughties. As a Brit, I didn’t grow up watching Raimi’s beloved Three Stooges. In fact, I’ve still never seen anything in full, but as a child of the ’80s, I did religiously absorb Blackadder, The Young Ones, and Bottom, which all helped prepare me for its slapstick elements. Speaking of the genius, Rik Mayall, there’s a hilarious Drop Dead Fred-esque face-stretching incident in Army when Ash picks the wrong Necronomicon.
Love is blind, and I love Army of Darkness. For all its faults and flaws, inconsistencies, and glaring mistakes, it’s a joke that I am happily in on. Is horror/fantasy Allhalloween appropriate? For me, unequivocally yes. Although it has crones, thunder and lightning storms, and howling at the moon, I was still slightly concerned whether a magic spells, swords and sorcery story would be the ideal tonal fit for Hallowe’en, but it really plays. Army of Darkness—the ultimate experience in medieval horror—what is essentially Evil Dead III, aka The Medieval Dead is my daft as a brush, skeleton-packed, off-the-wall faux-epic pick to keep you cackling after 8pm.
The year is 1300 A.D. and our ol’ mate—the long tormented (mostly by Sam Raimi) sap stranded in, or out of time, Ash—after being sucked through a mind-bending vortex along with Sam’s trusty Oldsmobile at the climax of the previous picture, finds himself a shackled, pilloried, and whipped prisoner. After impressing the primates with his twelve gauge Remington “boomstick” from the sporting goods department of S-Mart, the peasants begin to hail “he who has come from the sky,” laying on a harem of wenches who feed him grapes as he scoffs chicken legs like he’s Henry VIII. However, the foolishness and spinelessness of Ash means disaster is always just around the corner.
Evil Dead II is a cinematic bible to me, and I completely adore KNB’s (Kurtzmann, Nicotero, and Berger) practical puppetry, make up, and Army of Darkness Deadites, especially as they were working 24/7 on a measly $800 a week for this non-union shoot. How folks can say these effects aren’t masterly is beyond me. Army is incredibly cinematic—whether it be the forest of bendy rubber trees, Introvision front-projection composites, force perspective miniatures, matte paintings, the “she-bitch,” or the flying Green Goblin Deadite attacks. 86 minutes really flies by.
Earmuffs, “Ringers,” but the final flurry castle raid is arguably better than the battle for Helm’s Deep, and for my money, any Game of Thrones episode. Does The Two Towers have a squadron of talking crossbow skeletons? Nope. Does GoT have a ginger-bearded, bony bagpipe band with a femur flute soloist? Don’t think so. I easily get battle fatigue during these kinds of lengthy clashes, but the theatrical cut of Army pitches it just about right. Elements of a personal fave, 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves also leapt out, including throwing the ladder down, Ash cutting the rope and flying up the castle side, and impaling an attacking witch with a spear using her own momentum to skewer her.
Campbell continuously moans that Army should be a PG as opposed to an R, but having said that, censorship when done right isn’t simply the arbitrary exclusions of sex, violence, and cussin’—it’s about eliminating potential mimicry. Yes, this is a film that features loquacious skellingtons and a spurting blood geyser, but a man also skillets his face off a hot stove, and pours boiling hot water down his throat, which (crucially, as far as censors are concerned) doesn’t burn him—and perhaps most egregiously, the movie features a quite disturbing, gropey sexual assault of Sheila in the presence of the newly resurrected, exhumed, skeletal Army of the Dead.
Bruce Campbell antagonist and director of Army of Darkness, Sam Raimi, can be witnessed wearing a French beret, barking theatrical directions into a megaphone like a certifiable Cecil B DeMille. Raimi allegedly briefed youthful cinematographer, Bill Pope (Darkman, The Matrix, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Baby Driver) on his ways of working prior to hiring him, saying words to the effect of, “So, buddy. I’m gonna tell you exactly where to put the camera, how high to put the camera, what lens to put on the camera, where I want the camera to move to, how fast, and what speed.” When Pope agreed to those terms, Raimi conceded, “Actually, I have no idea about lenses, or light, or any of that stuff. I was just testing you to see if I could push you around.”
There’s something mechanical, almost clockwork about Raimi and Pope’s palpable, creative cinematography here—the nonstop intricate ballet between the camera operator, and Bruce, with the precision of the moves contrarily retaining a handmade feel. It’s brilliantly shot and lit, and without doubt, one of the most visually inventive films I’ve ever seen. The classic “force” POV splitting tree trunks in half in its wake, the swaying camerawork eliciting feelings of queasiness and vertigo, and that incredible tracking shot with all the characters turning camera left, and ending on Bruce, as everyone eyes Ash is a real sight for sore bones. Traditional film grammar aside, this is a movie that expresses itself using every kind of shot you could possibly imagine, but it’s also fluent in cinematic punctuation—the communicative way moments are emphasised and underlined. Raimi’s kinetic skills always shine though, no matter how absurd it gets.
Whether he’s in a Hitchcockian shirt and tie, smoking endless cigarettes, calling everyone “buddy,” tormenting Bruce by making him flap his arms and squawk like a chicken, or run around with his foot nailed to the floor, Raimi abuses his directorial authority in the most mischievous of ways. Some directors acquire positions of power to get laid—Raimi just wanted to chuck dummy skeletons at Bruce from off camera. He has an uncanny knack for filling his frames meticulously and unsparingly—creating, at times, an overwhelmingly detailed sensory experience. Take the fantastically immersive nature of Army‘s Skywalker Sound mix. Raimi’s crash zooms are accentuated by the clanking of cast iron hits during Ash’s gearing up. I adore the Army of the Dead’s ADR ad libs—it’s all so dense, and when the skeletons start chattering away, that’s some of my most treasured stuff. The film editing credit, “R.O.C. Sandstorm” was actually a Sam Raimi pseudonym, as after the his previous picture, Darkman was recut by Universal against his wishes, he had to boldly, and covertly tinker with the movie a mere 48 hours before release. Sam resolutely did not want history to repeat, so opted to infiltrate his own edit room undercover with support from long-time collaborator, Robert Tapert.
Personally, I could watch exploding skeletons all day long. Alas, Dino De Laurentiis would disagree. “Let’s have two skeletons blowing up instead of five,” De Laurentiis would dictate, as a method of slashing Army‘s run time down. Sam’s half of the movie—the bits he edited, ended up quite lengthy and less disciplined—some may argue, overindulgent. Raimi allegedly said to his editor, “Dino is old, and he won’t remember his notes, so you don’t have to follow them.” Then Dino would become enraged because he did remember, and after making specific requests, there were still five exploding skeletons instead of two. The “I slept too long!” ending with Joseph LoDuca’s enormous, booming score (Danny Elfman’s involvement was limited to a single “The March of the Dead” cue) was legitimately disturbing back in the day. In spite of Army being an overtly daft film—same with Evil Dead II, which I saw aged 15 or so, and was horrified by Ted Raimi’s sweet Henrietta, then found myself suddenly laughing along with my school mates, Rob and Phil, and then secretly scared again. It was, and still is, the perfect balancing act of humour and horror. Army teeters more on the precipice of silliness, and occasionally stumbles and plummets over the edge, but in the interest of sheer Hallowe’en spirit—enjoyment and laughter as well as terror, it fits the brief.
This alternate, Planet of the Apes-esque conclusion from the longer cut definitely has its tragic merits, but I much prefer the action-packed, upbeat, heroic, S-Mart-set, hideous horror hag ending from the truncated theatrical—sans the former’s spliced back in, lower quality scenes. It’s (I believe) canonical in terms of what followed, although I’m not proficient. The Evil Dead films are very much a closed loop trilogy to me. As Gali often says, the series has “grown arms and legs.” The 86-minute theatrical also boasts the, “Come get some,” and “Hail to the king, baby,” zingers that 1996’s Duke Nukem 3-D so shamelessly stole, as well as Robbie Hart’s jilting fiancée from The Wedding Singer (in the Van Halen T-shirt), making out with Bruce. Mournfully, the edit room floor eradication of Charles Napier as Ash’s boss is, I’m sure, one of cinema’s greatest tragedies.
Army of Darkness is a complete oddity in the sense that Universal, and De Laurentiis forked $11 million in the first place to produce a picture with a deliberately dislikable and contemptible coward as their lead protagonist. Army is, in a way, the pinnacle of the Evil Dead series in respect to the character of Ash, but it’s not as representative, harsh, or as darkly visceral and frightening as Evil Dead II. Bruce Campbell is Buster Keaton in Dead By Dawn—plate smashing and body flipping, but here he’s Elvis Presley. Campbell is comedically adept, physically fit—in peak condition, and dare I say devilishly handsome—to the degree that we are forced to ponder why he wasn’t a bigger commercial star.
Having said that, in the longer bootleg cut, the contentious slapstick windmill segment is twice as long as the theatrical, and feels thrice as long. Although a tad long-winded and annoyingly broad—and featuring the obnoxiously goofy mini-Ashes, it’s essentially another nifty Bruce Campbell one-man show. His solo second act here is admittedly hard to swallow at times, as the more compelling and comical moments revolve around Ash interacting with the medieval folk. Let’s just be grateful the fabled deleted sequence, in which Ash gets caught up in a can-can line of dancing skeletons was vetoed, as that may have represented the crossing of a tonal line in the sand. Although, I still don’t think I’d hate it.
Of course, Campbell is not entirely alone here. There’s the striking Embeth Davidtz (Schindler’s List), with her truly creepy pallid transformation into Evil Sheila, “Chop Top” Bill Mosley (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects), a bafflingly brief Bridget Fonda cameo (she loved the first two movies), as our third different Linda, and loyal brotherly stalwart, Ted Raimi pops up in count ‘em, four roles—Cowardly Warrior, Supportive Villager, S-Mart Clerk, and Brave Fighter.
Mixed and middling reviews, meshed with a strange marketing ploy to sell the film as if it were somehow detached from the beloved Evil Dead series, as opposed to the essential, climactic third part of a trilogy, sent Army hurtling into the cult classic category like a catapulted skull. Those primates, Siskel and Ebert—like stuffy grandparents were never willing or able to understand Army of Darkness, and that suits me just fine, cos who’d want to glance around and see those two critics’ corner squares at your happenin’ Hallowe’en gathering? Miserable bags of bones.
With the kind of inane nattering that would be more at home at a bus stop than on a film criticism TV chat show, America’s dumbest critical duo barely scratched the surface of anything they reviewed on At the Movies, and Raimi’s sequel was no exception. Their primitive intellects wouldn’t understand alloys and compositions, and things with molecular structures, slapstick coughing skeletons, botched incantations, or flying Deadites. In Gene Siskel’s unsurprisingly smug, joyless, sarcastic, condescending faux-analysis, he whinged that Army of Darkness didn’t have the wit of Back to the Future. Only a soulless, movie-misunderstander such as Siskel would view this highly humorous, film-literate homage as “a rip-off of Ray Harryhausen’s (Jason and the Argonauts) stop motion skeletons,” and cruelly remark that, “They’re more compelling than any of the humans in the film.” I mean, what is wrong with this geezer? At least Roger Ebert praised the film’s effects, and felt Raimi was making The Naked Gun of horror by spoofing medieval warfare films—which isn’t quite on the money, but not a million miles from the truth. He also stuck up for Bruce by saying Campbell does exactly what the role calls for.
Grab your Handbook for the Recently Deceased—it’s Tim Burton’s batshit comedy/horror, Beetlejuice. Tonally, this is perfection for most Hallowe’en hang-outs—pretty much nailing the seasonal scares of lighter fare such as The Addams Family features, but neatly negating their softness with an edgier, more off-kilter vibe. Beetlejuice has been on the periphery of my Hallowe’en party picks for years, but this particular mini-marathon set the necessary standard, spirit, and represented the specific eighties/nineties era I was looking to delve into, and chain together complimentary movies.
I feel as if I’ve had the necessary, rigorous training in the quirky, nonsensical humour of Burton all my life—from Pee-wee Herman to his Batman films. Here, charming newlyweds, Adam and Barbara Maitland, take an unfortunate tumble off a bridge in their car and perish, but in lieu of a peaceful, endless slumber, they find themselves negotiating a bureaucratic afterlife full of peculiar waiting rooms and paperwork—where even in death, poor souls are subject to arbitrary, administrative red-tape. Making matters worse for the previously happy couple, a pretentious family of oddball artists move in, and disrespectfully begin to rejig the Maitlands’ previously happy home. Seemingly only the madcap, loony antics of the smutty and salacious “bio-exorcist,” Betelgeuse can shoo the invasive tenants. I often consider the film’s smart satire. Its attractive theme of the villainous business-minded, versus the kind and thoughtful creatives speaks to me—as does the deader-inside-than-the-actually-deceased living ignoring the valuable, innate qualities of the strange and unusual to their own detriment.
It’s an all star affair. Geena Davis—just two years after Cronenberg’s The Fly, is in lovely form, and in light of the recent Alec Baldwin fiasco, my viewing was coloured slightly darker, but I still love their endearing relationship as the tragically drowned Maitlands. I mean, wouldn’t it be a right laugh—although in death, to assume scary guises, and frighten folks with your better half? I appreciate how maternal Geena is to Winona here as Lydia, and the shot of her unsettling, mournful crumbling as the aged Barbara in her wedding gown has never left me in all these years. There’s an overt romanticism here too, as recognised and honoured by prolific alt-country troubadour, Ryan Adams—once upon a time beau of serial-dater, Winona circa his Heartbreaker/Gold heyday, who wrote a song entitled, “This House is Not for Sale,” about the events and characters in the film. “My whole life is a dark room; one big, dark room,” oozes goth princess, Winona Ryder—just 15 when filming in ‘87, and 17 on the film’s release in ‘88, lookin’ like something between Edgar Allan Poe’s daughter, Robert Smith, and precious Mr Echo, Ian McCulloch, or perhaps one of the Jesus and Mary Chain.
The possibly insane (certainly insanely talented) Home Alone mum and Christopher Guest improv regular, Catherine O’Hara’s vibrant visage—paprika hair, scarlet lips, and coruscating blue eyes, pops throughout. Dick Cavett and Robert Goulet each have brief executive producer cameos. Problematic performer number two—after the doom-laden Baldwin, is the pedo-principal from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, who pops up periodically to harsh our mellow.
That brings us to the oddity that is Michael Keaton. Cruising Dante’s air-conditioned “Inferno Room” full of hookers, we’re ceremoniously introduced to the most eligible bachelor since Valentino; the cockroach-eating pervert, Betelgeuse—I can only assume this original spelling caused a ruckus in the marketing department as no one could pronounce it. I could see Keaton doing a full stand-up show as Betelgeuse, but it would more than likely go sideways like a Bobcat Goldthwait special where you quickly get sick of the shtick. In my youth, I found the anticipatory mystique surrounding the character of Betelgeuse fascinating. I recall waiting to see him, and relished all of his disgusting appearances. I vividly remember the moment where he honks himself and hollers, “Nice fucking model!” as it was always cut for television.
Only a visionary could imagine the otherworldly quirks of Harry Belafonte tunes working so well here. Beginning with his “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” accompaniment to the table possession, and eternally sealed by the levitating Lydia dancing—now inseparably and iconically accompanied by Belafonte’s “Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora).” These calypso tunes are shrewdly scattered throughout, much like Cat Stevens was in Harold and Maude. Speaking of Hal Ashby’s peculiar and profound picture, the deathly appearances of the Maitlands even echo Harold’s faux suicides, revealing what was, I’m sure, an influence on Burton.
Where else could you possibly witness an attractive, suicidal, green Miss Argentina receptionist, a charred (literally smoking) Marlboro red shaky man, a run over flat guy, a little preacher with an alien head, skeleton office workers, a shrunken headed chap, a blue lady with separate legs and torso, a three fingered typist, a dumb dead football player, and a very dumb dead football player?
The crackers dénouement is lifted tenfold by Danny Elfman’s grandiose, raucous score—elevating the kooky picture on more occasions than I could count. The way that opening tableau tracking shot seamlessly and mysteriously merges into the giant tarantula trick miniature is an example of the meticulous skill and dexterous design at hand—from finger candles, to mirror gags, and levitation rigs—even the way Catherine O’Hara’s sculptures mirror and match Winona Ryder’s fringe feels intentional. In retrospect, although the shoddy rear projection of the sandworm segments plays kitschy in 2023, it’s somehow softened by the charm of the crude, yet appealing handmade stop motion animation.
Beetlejuice Drinking Game
Now, please join hands, and enjoy (responsibly) this doom and gloom Beetlejuice drinkalong. Simply sup thine pint, or bevoir of choice when…
Goth angst is expressed—predominantly by Lydia
Somebody says, “Betelgeuse”
Calypso music plays
A Sandworm appears
The Handbook for the Recently Deceased is seen, or consulted
Afterworld admin—the bureaucratic red-tape of the hereafter is negotiated
Street Trash aka Horror in Bowery Street screams post-Vietnam, pre-Giuliani, Reagan-ruled ‘80s NYC with its toxic-wasted, radioactive neon, vibrantly vandalised milieu, and dirty depictions of nefarious blown-up hobos. It’s a chaotic and frantic stink bomb of a picture, and as its adroitly articulated tone-setting imagery seeps into our eyeballs, we feel precisely as it intends us to feel—like a bum jumping in the back of a garbage truck, or a geezer ripping a fart in a thieving tramp’s face. I would also submit that only in Street Trash will you witness such a carefully deployed insert of a flabby, running man’s gut.
When a liquor store owner roots out a crate full of Viper—a 60-year-old poison booze once wisely pulled from the market, capitalism dictates he can probs get a buck a bottle—where’s the harm in that, eh? This endeavour inexplicably results in dissolving, disintegrating, and exploding vagrants—giving a whole new meaning to rotgut whisky. Filmed on location in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and based on an original 1984 short also directed by Jim Muro aka Jimmy Muro Jr aka J. Michael Muro, its freakish screen credits include: Drunken Wench, Melted Businessman, Bitchy Businesswoman, Exploding Derelict, Dismembered Derelict, Wheelchair Derelict, Receptive Whore in Van, Whore on Telephone, Other Whores in Van, Smoking Derelict, Viet Cong Vampires, Sundry Junkyard Bums, Perverted Rottweiler, and Fire Escape Cat.
There is, of course, the guilt of demonising the disenfranchised to get over, and then there’s the hurdle of holding down your lunch, but once you do that—if you can, it could be argued that Street Trash is a cognizant art film. Are we witnessing the bravery of a movie that dares to scream at an audience who can’t deal with reality? Is the goop merely Muro’s paint splashed upon a New York City junkyard canvas of rusty fire escapes and corroded old cars? Is Street Trash sharp, socio-political satire with something to say? Is it the dirt and grime; the melty, jelly napalmed, cannibalistic, hungover horrors of war, viewed through the prism of a downtrodden American trash-class—the bastard sons and disregarded daughters of an abusive nation? However, every time my mind made a leap to detect or decipher said socio-political satire, I was either too dumb, too British, or giving Street Trash far too much credit. It’s also possible, of course, that the film is nothing but a deeply insensitive exploitation of wartime PTSD, the U.S. underclass, or just a nasty piece of work.
Confidently provocative, queasy on the eye, and akin to a sleazier—and more depraved, junkyard John Waters, Street Trash is a lurid, effervescent, repugnant, rancid rainbow bumspoitation slime-fest—and much like the pulpy mess it often depicts, it’s sadly an unformed mass of matter as opposed to an artful brushstroke—or even a Jackson Pollock-esque pebble-dash splatter, but it’s also simultaneously too dumb to really be upsetting; too despicable to be fun or really funny. I filed it as a misguided sendup with nothing at all to say, but plenty of content to shallowly offend, which is a shame because all it really would’ve taken is an afternoon of considering what this piece could possibly mean during the writing stages, and yet evidently no one bothered—no one had the forethought or good sense to do just that, which is what divides it from the truly great satirical horrors such as Romero’s Dawn, or the skewering social commentary of a cutting-edge Cronenberg. The scariest quality of Street Trash—though it’s not really supposed to be scary, is that it had the ghastly potential to drag us anywhere at any point. I felt that literally anything could happen at any given moment, and that so rarely occurs in cinema in this day and age.
The influence of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead is so prevalent it cannot even be measured. As with other, at a glance trashy, cheap, chuckaway, gross-out flicks, there’s a strong case for the photography—see Braindead aka Dead Alive—they’re often inventively shot and lit, and David Sperling’s mobile camera is no exception. His keen eye frames bright yellow buildings, and clear blue sky backdrops. I love the opening tracking shot, which bought a lot of time with me cinematographically. I responded to the yellow on black title credit font. I was struck by the one sheet art, the multicoloured gunk, technicolor blood and guts, and the audacious attempt at non-intellectual body horror—how the sheer schlockiness of this stuff plays if you don’t happen to have the intellect of a David Cronenberg. Having said that, these bodily explosions unequivocally put Scanners to shame. It’s Troma-esque, but with—at the very least, a smidgen more technical ability and prowess.
The frankly insane sight of a homeless man being dissolved into a toilet covered in acrylic paint, with his severed hand still clutching the chain—his face now a blue liquid ooze in the bowl, will likely never leave me, and isn’t that what cinema—particularly horror cinema, is all about? Even the offy owner that looks like ELO’s Jeff Lynn melts horribly with red and orange sludge dripping down his trouser legs, and grotesquely attempts in vain to crawl off down the street. Winette, Bronson’s junkyard bit of skirt, perishes with leaking, multicoloured boobs before splashing herself across a rusty vehicle as part of a vague Vietnam recollection. The brash character of Bronson is a fully bonkers, Section 8 Nam vet, and self-designated king of the derelicts, who pulls the neighbourhood nomads’ strings—lording over them as an unhinged, abusive, roundhouse kicking, human femur bone-handled knife-wielding psychopath, and murderous puppet master.
Like scratching an itch you didn’t know you had, there’s something mesmerising, and pornographically compelling about colourful exploding people. A key case in point being Street Trash’s twisted answer to Violet Beauregard from Wonka—a bloke blowing up like a blueberry, popping like an infected zit, and spraying himself up a wall. Or take Wizzy—clawing open his own torso to reveal purple gore—a liquefying Freddy Krueger face, and then detonating like a dodgy bath bomb against the graffiti’d wall like a yucky Banksy—as if a big bag of Skittles had all melted together atop a strangely edible-looking ice cream cake. Not to forget the movie’s toxic, yellow crud dripping from stairwells, erupting toes, a cop whose special finishing move is to piss, or hurl on people, the gas canister decapitation, bum fights, a repugnant syphilitic perv, and an upskirt of death denoument ensuring Street Trash is sleazy to its bitter end.
The further Street Trash strays from the toxic booze and melting winos, the less I humoured it. The more depraved it became—and it is honestly filled with every despicable act that could possibly be imagined—I was turned off. It’s the cinematic equivalent of puking in an alley, or finding a muerto moggie in the rubbish. Having heeded this warning, if you are indeed compelled to see a man get his cock cut off, then have the dismembered member hoofed like a field goal, and lobbed across a scrap yard, a drunk gal taken back to a smoky salvage yard hovel only to be dragged away to an unknown fate by a ghoulish gaggle of animalistic and monstrous vagrant voyeurs, or perhaps most egregiously, a played for laughs, off-screen necrophiliac rape—all are on offer here. I’m relieved to say, comedically-scored sex attacks are not my cup of tea. Yes, it has been said that everything in life can be considered darkly humorous until it happens to us, but it’s a comic tightrope these filmmakers are not deft enough to negotiate—with dialogue resembling improv chatter from a bad dream, Street Trash plays as misjudged, and left a lingering bad taste.
How do we even begin to discuss, or write about our favourite films? Is Jaws the greatest ever? I can’t say—it’s so subjective. But it’s my favourite. I know that much. It’s perhaps impossible to express my deep-seated adoration for it, but let’s try. Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (once level-pegging) has, as of this year, been relegated to second place in my rankings, as although it’s technically superior in many ways to Jaws—the cinematography, labyrinthine depths of the tale, its applicability—it still doesn’t provide the primal buzz; the effervescent emotion, and sheer joy of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic.
As a naive lad, I was daft enough to rate the films in the Jaws series according to the demise of the shark. Air tank canister explosion vs power line chomping vs incineration vs skewered by the broken bow of Ellen Brody’s ship. I couldn’t quite detect why people viewed Jaws: The Revenge as a poor entry, and rewatched Jaws 2 endlessly for its shark electrocution denouement. I was, however, always cine-savvy enough to know that Jaws 3 was absolute shite. I’ve perhaps seen it just one and a half times in my entire life. Not even my Innerspace hero, Tuck (Dennis Quaid) Pendleton could salvage, or get me even remotely interested in that abomination. But the first is, simply put, everything I look for in a film. I revisit it once a year on average, sometimes more, and it flaws me every single time. I laugh, cry, always cheer at the end of the incendiary third act, and if it’s ever on telly, I must watch it to its beach-side conclusion.
Back in 2007, I was gearing-up to make the final, major production for my MA filmmaking degree. I was set to write and direct Sycamores—a vaguely amusing, but ultimately too cluttered, grandiose and ambitious, wannabe Wes Anderson (but British), Garden State-y, Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude/Being There meets unintentional Preston Sturges story-steal (Hail the Conquering Hero) short film, that sadly fell apart when my producer (the only producer in my year, I might add) requested “changes.” So, I went back to the drawing board, and back home to Catterick Village—initially to sulk, and curse the film school, and then to regroup, rebuild, and rewrite something from scratch. I remember thinking, I’m 25 years old, and if this is the last film I ever make—it very nearly was, until recently (13 years later), when I wrapped The Self-Seers—what do I want it to be? What story do I want to tell, and what films and filmmakers do I want to draw influence from? The answer was undoubtedly Steven Spielberg and Jaws.
So, I dipped into a book I’d had since a few Christmases before—The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories by Christopher Booker, and the very first chapter was entitled, “Overcoming the Monster.” It sounded so enduring, made total sense to me, and the stories and films Booker referenced were among my all-time favourites. I combined this revelation with a hunt through my old primary school work from the late ’80s and early ’90s, seeking inspiration from my earliest attempts to write stories. Serendipitously, I stumbled upon an X-Files rip-off and my monster in one fell swoop—a large, predatory wildcat, akin to the legendary Beast of Bodmin Moor, et al. The Wilds was born—a 15-minute short, shot on Super 16 (with an Arriflex SRII), about a farmer, whose community is plagued—and son is eventually slain by—a black panther-like creature, roaming the Yorkshire Dales, and must vengefully venture out alone to hunt and kill it. I sought the council of my best friend, Sam Hollis, who generously co-wrote the screenplay with me, and we got a green light from Leeds Metropolitan University to produce it together. Fans of The Rewind Movie Podcast should note, I choppered in The Northern Film School’s A-team of Gali (1st AD), Devlin (camera assistant), and friend of the show Joe Mac (gaffer), to aid the production.
The Wilds is basically Jaws, but where I grew up. Chief Brody is now a farmer, a kid dies, the ending is an homage to/pinched from the “Smile, you son of a bitch” closer, with our protagonist firing round after round, in a hail of gunfire, towards an oncoming monster dashing directly towards him. There’s a slow-motion climax, before our hero returns home triumphant, albeit with unshakable trauma from the tragedy that befell the town, and his family, forever in his mind. It’s all there, and honestly, most of that was unconsciously stolen. Being forced to select what could be the last crack you ever take at filmmaking was enlightening, as it unveiled what perhaps always was, and now certainly remains my favourite film.
I used to think Steven Spielberg made all the films. Spielberg, Frank Marshall, and Kathleen Kennedy, to be more exact, as their names were present on just about every opening credit sequence I absorbed as a kid. Amblin’s films were ubiquitous to say the least. With a batch of shorts from 1959-’68, Spielberg directed telly episodes of Night Gallery, Marcus Welby, M.D., and Columbo, before blowing the doors off with the hypnotically captivating TV movie, Duel, in 1971.
I tried to articulate this exact sentiment when it came to John McTiernan, and specifically his films, Predator and Die Hard—to me, Spielberg is always trustworthy, thoughtful, and considerate in terms of the audience, and these traits are what elevate him above other capable but unexceptional filmmakers. He’s completely concerned with either providing, or hiding information—from how his images are seen and interpreted, to precisely when the music plays. He’s in control, and we’re in his safe, steady hands—viewers can’t relax otherwise.
The genesis of several key scenes from Jaws was particularly revealing. Spielberg was understandably skeptical before signing on to direct, but liked the third act of the book so much, that he wrote a whole draft of the screenplay himself. He scripted the nighttime scene on the pier with Charlie and his buddy, and their holiday roast bait, where the jetty is dragged out to sea by the shark—that was all from Spielberg’s initial pass. We see it suddenly stop, and then terrifyingly turn—along with our stomachs. Again, it’s a skillful cinematic technique, and one of many Spielberg employed to show the shark without showing the shark.
I found it interesting that Spielberg chose to write and direct Close Encounters of the Third Kind next in 1977. I think he’s underrated as a writer—he’d already penned his short films, and cooked up the stories for The Sugarland Express in 1974 (which directly preceded Jaws), and following that, Poltergeist, and The Goonies, not to mention his A.I. Artificial Intelligence screenplay, and sole writing credit on his new film, The Fabelmans. Spielberg can undoubtedly write, but he intriguingly opts not to. He favours the vintage image of the Hollywood director, in the vein of his heroes—as overseer, as orchestrator—chipping in whenever he sees fit.
Could Jaws have been one notch better? A scripted, but never shot, suspense-horror death scene points to… perhaps. When reminded of this fabled would-be Jaws moment, I close my eyes and picture a gem that got away, featuring a harbormaster watching his TV, and in the background, we see the masts of the ships swaying outside—something is beneath, knocking them back and forth. One mast would lean, then another, and the next. We picture something travelling beneath the keels, but it remains unseen—much like with the barrels, it’s another shrewd method of illustrating the presence of the great white visually, without actually seeing the recalcitrant “great white turd” that was Bruce the shark (sorry, old friend)—instead, Spielberg merely suggests the presence of the creature. Of course, the harbormaster wanders onto the dock and leans down, towards the water, to clean out his coffee pot, and the shark takes him. That all sounds so Spielberg, and I wish it was part of the film. But maybe we should be careful what we wish for—with a film already at its two-hour maximum-satisfaction running time, and delicately balanced like a perfect meal, to be equally satisfying and nutritious, without leaving you feeling bloated, perhaps one extra ingredient could tip the scale, and sour an otherwise excellent dish.
Spielberg once famously said that without the now iconic score, Jaws would only be half as successful. Johnny Williams’ seesaw strings and swiftly plucked notes add up to a large percentage of why Jaws soars. Seemingly subconsciously stolen from the third movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 7,” the deceptively simple theme has earned its longevity, universality, and never ending applicability. Listening to the score in isolation is really rewarding—the diversity of the cues does make me frustrated that many people’s memories of Jaws are reduced purely to those dual-noted dur-durs—although, the effective simplicity of it is equally admirable, for its articulation of an unerring primal pursuit, and the pitch-perfect personification of an unstoppable force of nature that is the carcharodon carcharias.
The “Shark Cage Fugue” is prettier than it ever needed to be. There’s an underwater majesty to something like “Ben Gardner’s Boat.” The “Montage” cue of the “summer ginks” arriving, is overtly playful and betrays the inescapable element of fun present throughout the film. One of my favourites, “Father and Son,” has hints of Raiders of the Lost Ark—another firm fave in terms of my all-time best scores. It’s a lovely piece, which delicately underlines and gently elevates an already beautiful scene between the Chief and Sean, during their mimicry dinner. “Out to Sea” blends beauty with foreboding, and underscores the suspenseful sequence of Quint getting a bite on his soon-to-be-snapped piano wire—the, “Marlin or a stingray” bit, and also has adventure elements, swiftly introducing character themes to follow, and crucially, the very end’s paddling away part. It’s textbook storytelling through music, and I can’t think of a time it’s ever been done better.
Jaws is never afraid to be joyous and jubilant in its execution—it’s in the music, it’s in the performances, but the score is what ultimately lifts it, distills that energy, and exhibits such gleaming pride in being a movie that is unashamedly entertaining for viewers. That’s cinema—score and image colliding to make something incredible, unforgettable, and greater than the sum of its parts. It’s an intricate, detailed symphony from Williams. As celebrated and revered as the score is today, I still think it’s underrated and gets somewhat overlooked—the depth, melody, and tonal shifts, are reduced to the simplistic one-note dread of the key motif—that often becomes the takeaway.
The piece that hits me like a ton of bricks, every time, is the sublime “Man Against Beast.” It has everything, and features—towards the end of the cue, my number one, favourite score moment in Jaws, when Hooper ties the barrel on, just in the nick of time, then exclaims, “Free another barrel! I’m comin’ around again!” as the music explodes into a pirate’s adventure time crescendo. The Chief is smiling, Hoop’s smiling—who says shark fishing has to be depressing? There’s a terrific shot of the Chief here, as they’re running down the yellow barrel, and they’re grinning ear-to-ear. Williams called it, “A moment of fanfare—of triumph.” These musical motifs, where the score just erupts, are his favourite moments, and I wholeheartedly agree. People once divided by their differences, petty quarrels and disputes; characters firmly at odds with one another, are suddenly united in their quest to hunt and kill this beast. That’s the stuff that underpins it all—the quest.
“Between Attacks” pinches Quint’s, “Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies” sea shanty. “Blown to Bits” is an orgasm of sound, as Sir George Martin would say, and “End Titles” is a perfect, all’s ok with the world relaxant, gently accompanying the Chief and Hooper landing intact on Amity’s sandy beach.
Spielberg once said, “Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best,” and I feel like it’s often a race to the finish line—to harness that simple idea, do it first, before anyone else, and do it better than they ever could—to set a standard; a precedent. When you have that brilliant idea, and execute it perfectly—that’s hard to beat, and I’m absolutely fervently against any remakes or sequels of Jaws, whether they involve Spielberg, or not. They just mustn’t. In fact, I believe any attempts to regurgitate and spew out the remnants of what once made Jaws great, would act in direct opposition with the contemporary audience’s taste—it would only serve to tarnish the original.
For me, the only way a sequel would ever have been even mildly acceptable, is if Jaws 2 was a prequel—the Indianapolis story, and it was directed by Spielberg himself in his late ’70s heyday, in place of say, 1941. But not now. Please, not now. Jaws couldn’t be remade, re-imagined, or sequelised, because the audience‘s attitude towards sharks has changed so vehemently, that they’d likely invoke toxic masculinity and undue violence towards animals in the early script meetings, and “cancel” Quint, Hooper, and Brody for their harpooning antics.
It’s dangerous aboard the Orca, and ultimately feels like a blunt test of masculinity. I know I’d struggle, as, like Brody—I’d like to imagine I’d have determination and grit when it mattered, but it would be a completely foreign experience. I’d be pulling the wrong lines, and standing in the wrong place—getting trapped against the boat when the rope gets tight. I’d be that guy, because I know nothing about fishing. I know nothing about hunting. I’m, quite unusually for me, in total admiration of these three as hunters. Instead of resenting them for killing this, to quote Hooper, “Beautiful” creature, I’m fully on board with the fact that this “monster” must be destroyed. I don’t think that could ever be the angle today. There would be vocal, shark fishing protesters with placards reading, “Justice for Bruce,” and “Quint Had It Comin’.”
Spielberg pitches the vilification of the shark just right, and that’s precisely the problem. Not once do we feel for the great white—not once. We want it dead. We want it blown to smithereens. It’s a killer; a ruthless, horror character, and it must be stopped. I agree, there are moral implications in demonising sharks, and I’m positive the expertly-crafted fear created by Jaws has sadly perpetuated the ongoing cruelty, and it’s shameful that people can be so stupid—but it’s a horror film; it’s fiction.
Among what I call, The HorrOscars, Jaws rests in good company, alongside The Exorcist, The Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense, Black Swan, and Get Out, as the only “horror films” ever to be nominated for Best Picture. Although, it’s absolutely criminal that Spielberg didn’t get a nod. Absolute, categorical proof the Academy is a weird, arbitrary, political farce.
I maintain it’s a blind alley to judge a director on how expertly they can play a single note, and maintain that note throughout the running time—a true judge of a filmmaker is as a composer; as an artist, who can play our emotions as notes. In Jaws, one second we’re fearful, the next we’re belly-laughing, then we’re smiling to ourselves, recalling memories from our own lives, perhaps rolling a single tear, then we’re on tenterhooks once again, and it takes such delight in its cinematic manipulation.
I truly believe that certain films are blessed. Not by a divine hand—that would, among other things, insultingly detract from, and cheapen the very real skill and devotion of the cast and crew. Whether it’s luck—when opportunity and preparedness meet, or simply fortunate timing, sometimes a shooting star will align. I’m not religious, but some movies live and breathe, and some don’t—in fact, most don’t. There’s something lurking within Jaws, something beneath, that elevates it.
Re-watching Jaws is as pleasurable as spending time with an old friend—a mate who says all the same stuff, but neverdisappoints us, never lets us down, and always makes us laugh. It’s a film that sits patiently on my shelf, and when I need it, it’s there—waiting for me. I watched it for—I’m estimating, the 50th time, on my own recently, and when the Chief blows up the shark, I was clapping and crying like an idiot—like a blubbering fool. To paraphrase Trent in Swingers, maybe it’s because I had my own things going on, but I caught myself in a ridiculous, teary moment and I just didn’t care. I wasn’t embarrassed—I was so happy. It’s everything I want in a film. It’s so daft—a bloke blew up a shark, and I’m sobbing. I don’t know what to do with that information, or how I can explain it—it’s simply a magical movie.
Rarely, but sometimes, the best-selling band is the best. Occasionally, the biggest hit is also the best song. Sometimes the highest-grossing film is also the most accomplished and well-made. These things can align—and it happened with Jaws. The images directly relate to the human condition—our deepest fears are manifested on screen, and the film is constructed in such a way that it gives us exactly what we want—a safe nightmare. It delivers in the most satisfying way imaginable, with no life jacket required.
1980’s Roger Corman creature feature and New World Picture, Monster aka Humanoids from the Deep boasts an illustrious crew including Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator) as a lowly production assistant, renowned film editor and Dead Heat helmer, Mark Goldblatt (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Armageddon), and the late, great Oscar-winning James Horner (Titanic, Aliens) on musical duties. “Ruck Crew It Is” awards go to Rob Bottin (The Howling, The Thing), who created and designed the Humanoids—everyone has to start somewhere, eh? Also, Rowdy (Road House) Herrington was an electrician, and Steve Johnson (Ghostbusters) assisted with makeup and special effects. The picture is credited to director, Barbara Peeters—who by the sounds of it was executing things all too sensibly by choosing to keep the movie’s seaweedy sex attacks vague and shadowy, before being usurped by an uncredited Jimmy Murakami (Battle Beyond the Stars), who allegedly, at the request of Corman, favoured bonus T&A and a more explicitly depicted, sexploitative subplot, with second unit director, James Sbardellati (Deathstalker) also swooping in late to drizzle some extra sleazy sauce. If the version of Humanoids you have acquired shows the film’s on-screen title as Monster, then bully for you—it’s the complete and uncut European version.
If you’re as dense as me, you may be pondering what the fuck a cannery is, so I’ll save you the hassle of Googling it. A cannery is a factory where food is canned. I imagine you feel as stupid as I did, right? I think the general gist here is that these folks have been greedily slipping DNA-5 into the water to accelerate the growth of salmon, in order to rescue the commercial viability of their community—but it backfires by imposing gargantuan growth spurts on the fishies, and inadvertently creates rapey Humanoid monsters that cause absolute havoc. Now they want to mate with human women to extend their evolution! I’m slightly ashamed to say it, but I was in after hearing that synopsis.
The cast is hardly star-studded, but the soon-to-be killed on the set of John Landis’ Twilight Zone: The Movie, Kurt Vonnegut lookalike Vic Morrow pops up as Hank Slattery. I’ve got a real soft spot for Doug McClure as I watched him a lot as a lad in the cheapo dino submarine schlockbuster, The Land That Time Forgot—a film I know roughly every frame of, and that fuelled just about every Action Force (or G.I. Joe for any American friends) vs any old rubber dinosaurs I’d acquired from car boot sales, resulting in playtime scaling issues somehow worse than the film’s. Here, it’s difficult to tell if McClure is genuinely bamboozled, or playing it bewildered. Nevertheless, he’s hilariously watchable in a hammy performance—whether he’s discovering slime on a dog house, or trying some peculiar flirting. In Humanoids, he plays Jim Hill—the trigger-happy, king of the body warmers, flowery cowboy shirts, and stilted delivery. Poor McClure can’t even beckon someone over without doing it in a noticeably strange fashion. One minute he’s terrified and emotionally destroyed at the sight of a plethora of horribly murdered doggies, then in the very next scene, he’s grinning, or participating in perhaps the worst choreographed car park punch-up ever filmed.
I suppose they’re branded “Humanoids” as they really are just blokes in suits. It’s everything Alien thankfully wasn’t. These phony fish-men slice you open with their claws for a laugh, or if you have the misfortune of being an attractive female, do you from behind in the mucky sand. These fuckers also like to hide on the roof of your jeep, and smash your windscreen when you’re least expecting it. Fortunately, one can dispatch them with a few rifle blasts, a harpoon skewering, or failing that, try some drain cleaner or stab them with any knife from around the house. Perhaps the most memorable sequence in Monster is when the big-brained, barnacled Humanoids—sporting laughable, elephantine craniums, start smashing through the wooden boardwalk, attacking ladies, and slaughtering gents. It’s a budget massacre featuring loads of clawed-faced gore, with the Humanoids using their silly long arms to pull a fella’s head off, tear off limbs, and spray blood all over the pier—butchering DJs and bothering jiggling, tiara-adorned beauty queens. The creature on a merry-go-round alone may be worth tuning in for.
Monster’s naughty bits typically comprise of hot chicks frolicking, making out topless in the backs of trucks, and a ton of babes in underwear or out of their bikinis—stunning blondes conveniently draped in sheer nighties and sleepwear lingerie, an underwater ass-grab, and a shameless close-up bikini bottom bum-run. Another egregious sexual assault unfurls when an anthropomorphised ventriloquist dummy, its equally dumb owner, and surprise surprise—a lass with big knockers, get their tent ripped open by one of the sex-starved creatures, and the fully nude fleeing gal gets crudely violated amongst the seaweed.
Just as in Jaws, the filmmakers opt to utilise what seem like the real inhabitants of the town setting as extras, but here they can barely speak, let alone act. It’s tricky to tell what anyone is garbling on about most of the time—of course, it doesn’t matter at all. I lost count how many times they ripped off Spielberg’s shark spectacular—from Horner’s wannabe Williams score full of familiar tinges, also bonus Bernard Herrman-esque Psycho sting steals, and the thievery doesn’t end there—McLure’s Hill is a poor man’s Chief Brody, and the leggy, biologist photographer who knows more than she’s letting on—Corman-castigator, Ann Turkel (who later boycotted Humanoids over its superfluous nudity and exploitative nature) as Dr. Susan Drake, is a borderline Matt Hooper. There are nods and winks throughout—from tying off stern cleats, to lingering underwater POVs. They kill a nipper almost immediately, and then a hound too for good measure. Monster even features the most irresponsible use of gasoline on a boat since Jaws 2 where that daft woman cooks herself in her own petrol. The 75th Annual Noyo Salmon Festival is essentially Jaws’ Fourth of July, and the geezer giving the barracks speech does his best mayoral Murray Hamilton impression. A fisherman struggling to reel in a catch looks a lot like Quint with his piano wire, too—especially as the compositions are identical. They don’t even try to disguise it.
Humanoids shallowly showcases some old-fashioned American racism directed at the local Native American guy, but if you’re still on the fence, there’s a cool cutaway of an owl that rivals the raccoon witness from Wild Things, and it features the first—and perhaps only, dirty dishes jump scare in the entirety of cinema, which must count for something. It’s a film with far too many mid shots and nondescript coverage, resulting in quite inept storytelling and a lack of character differentiation. Once you’ve seen a few bubbly, underwater tussles and killin’s, you start wondering where the movie could possibly be going—thankfully, it’s incredibly short so c’est la vie. It certainly lacks the Joe Dante factor of Piranha, and the prestige of Jaws, but one merit of Monster is that it’s arguably bonkers enough in its performances and presentation to keep viewers—particularly altered ones, interested for a fairly breezy 80 minutes. As a caveat, the sordid plot may sound alright on paper, but it’s so klutzy, and very rarely has any kind of impact. As polished as the Shout Factory restoration may be, Humanoids is still largely amateurish and clunky in both its photography and execution. You get a free visor though if you watch this one.
It’s always easy in retrospect to play post-structuralist, but for context, Star Wars is considered a crowd-rallying, post-Watergate and Vietnam War phoenix from the flames. It truly was a period of civil war in the USA, with gritty, cynical pictures mirroring the upset country’s social and political anxieties. Enter George Walton Lucas Jr., hot on the tail of ’60s-set, teen rock & roll, American as a hamburger stand, cruisin’ street racer comedy-drama, American Graffiti, which went on to bank $100 million worldwide, the black-bearded wonderboy set his bespectacled sights solely on his passion project—a galactic fairy tale in the vein of The Odyssey, Beowulf, and the legend of King Arthur, which sought to distil these archetypal works down into universal motifs. Morality tale, traditional ritualistic coming-of-age story, call it what you will—Star Wars draws on the common connections between myths, and the threads that tie disparate cultures together.
20th Century Fox’s main man, Alan Ladd, Jr. jumped at the chance to invest—not primarily in the project itself, but in the genius of Lucas. George had little to no commercial desires, but the hyper-driven filmmaker was fueled by a fervent need to retain control of his own source material, and allow no one to interfere. “It’s fun to make films for young people, and it’s a chance to make an impression on them,” Lucas once said, revealing his enduring, pure of heart motive, which shines through even today. What began as another 1930s-style space opera, taking cues from Robin Hood, Treasure Island, and most notably, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, developed beyond measure when Lucas properly knuckled down and devoured the writings of Joseph Campbell (Occidental Mythology—The Masks of God, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The Flight of the Wild Gander) to inject a sense of mythology and philosophy which deepened and enriched what could otherwise have been just another sci-fi schlocker. Star Wars fished from the shared pool of mythic archetypes including the idealistic, identifiable youth thrust into an adventure—Luke Skywalker née Starkiller, the swashbuckling scoundrel—Han, the damsel in distress—Leia, the wise old man—Ben, and the (arguably) comedic characters—R2 and Threepio. Later, Campbell was even brought in to check George’s work, and was quoted as saying, the best student he ever had was Lucas. George maintains most of the success of Star Wars stemmed from the sound psychological underpinning, and that people always react the same way to these stories, and likely always will.
I was mysteriously denied the joys of Star Wars as a boy—it somehow evaded me entirely. My village was a barren wasteland in terms of the ways of The Force. None of my mates—not even the slightly older kids or their big brothers had video copies, and being born in ’82—sandwiched between Empire and Jedi, by the time I reached the perfect age to actually be interested in the film and its sequels, it had sadly vanished from my sight and my grasp. I can only assume that the UK television rights were revoked in order to build expectations, and replenish a public desire to see the movies again in their upcoming remastered incarnations—or basterdisations. Therefore, I have a peculiar relationship with the original trilogy. They were films that were always out of reach, and when I finally did experience them, I was once again denied the original editions. Instead, they were all tainted with nineties CGI; reduced to reimaginings and suffered from retroactive tinkering that ultimately damaged them.
I did eventually see Star Wars at the pictures on its 1997 rerelease, aged 14, with my entire family in tow due to a massive Special Edition publicity push. Regrettably, it had been digitally tweaked—presumably to tidy up and add a uniformity to the originals to help them fall in line and suit the imminent prequel trilogy. At my secondary school, we all ate our body weight in Walkers crisps to get hold of the Star Wars “Tazos,” or “Pogs” as we called them—once again proving my stupidity has no bounds as I’m still not sure what they were actually for, and yet scoffed bags of Salt & Vinegar French Fries to amass a collection of daft, ultimately worthless discs. The first time I experienced The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi was on the subsequent triple VHS Special Edition. I saw Greedo shoot first, and witnessed a sarlacc tongue—I didn’t have the pleasure of hearing the “Yub Nub” song until decades later, and instead sat through Evar Orbus and His Galactic Jizz-Wailers’ (I know) and their dreadful, digitally-altered vocalist, Sy Snootles’s rendition of “Jedi Rocks”—it just doesn’t bear thinking about. I was robbed. If the originals are true beauties, then the Special Editions and beyond are once attractive people, now disastrously made over with ill-judged and unnecessary plastic surgery. I still have vivid memories of Lucas explaining away his redundant alterations, like the bit in Empire where you can accidentally see the background matte shot through the solid exterior cage of the X-wing as it circles the AT-AT.
The film itself is iconic from the off—the booming, cacophonous, vintage Fox logo, the sweet sight of the old frog-green Lucasfilm title, the simple, fairy tale beauty of, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” that drum roll; that fanfare, and then the explosion of John Williams’ knockout score accompanying that instantly recognisable starlit yellow text crawl. George’s directorial decisions as far as coverage are pretty basic at times, and I do feel like he simplified many things on the day for the sake of just getting it done, which sometimes happily results in very clear, precise storytelling. Tatooine’s duel sun dreaminess, and the longings of Luke is an understated visual highlight, but plotwise there’s entirely too much dull, droid dialogue with Anthony Daniels’ intolerable C-3PO—a persnickety, gold robot, and R2-D2 fussing around and dawdling in the desert for far too long. By the time we reach Mos Eisley, though, the movie really starts to swing, and for 1977 anyway, the action is just about explosive and fast-paced enough.
There are caveats. It’s packed with crap comic relief—the main offender being Threepio—a bitchy, backstabbing, bitter, contrary character, whose every grating line is an infuriating self-pity party. The effects aren’t quite dialed in just yet—although I’m sure they were knockout in ’77. That never-ending, overhead Star Destroyer miniature must’ve felt like a cinematic crushing of the cranium, especially in theaters with those colorful laser blasts and rumbling sounds. Here, at least juxtaposed with Empire, a seriously lame meteor shower lets the side down, as do the dated dog fights albeit with wicked, screeching TIE fighters, and some of the cantina characters just look like extras with Hallowe’en masks on. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I spotted Greedo milling about moments after getting murdered—it may have been just another Rodian bloke that looked exactly like him, wearing literally all of his exact same clothes, but I doubt it. In addition, there is at least one seriously dodgy speeder shot where, as an easy fix, Vaseline was crudely smeared under the vehicle to make it appear as if it’s hovering.
We’re introduced to handsome smuggler, Han Solo and his copilot and walking carpet, “Chewie” the Wookiee, the regal, dignified Alec Guinness as Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Hammer man Peter Cushing as the hilariously named Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin. During the trash compactor sequence, Han gets very handsy and a bit grabby with a wet and nipply Leia Organa. As George Lucas once famously told Carrie Fisher, “There’s no underwear in space.” It gets dark at times—not Empire dark, but “Her Highnessness” is at the very least threatened with a big needle, the poor wee Jawas get roasted alive, and Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru are also flame-grilled and turned into smoking skeletons by Imperial Stormtroopers. Luke’s references to the Death Star trench being “Just like Beggar’s Canyon back home,” and tales of “bull’s-eyeing womp rats in his T-16” inform us his whole life was preparing him for this moment. I can only imagine the riotous cheering in cinemas when the music swells, and Solo returns to Skywalker’s side in the Millennium Falcon to keep the TIE fighters off him so he can score his victorious shot and cripple the Imperial space station. Star Wars closes with a charming medal ceremony, beautifully-scored yet again by MVP, John Williams. It must be said, it’s my least favourite film of the trio—but all these years later, Star Wars still surrounds, penetrates, and binds us. Lucas, for all his flaws, was without doubt a visionary, and a true artist for seeing his work through, against all odds, and in the face of doubt from his closest filmmaking peers.
The bonus, end credits “Ruck Crew It Is” award goes to future Demme DP, Tak Fujimoto for his second unit photography. Also, please give it up for an unsung hero of the original trilogy, Ralph McQuarrie for his prescient concept art.
Concept art by Ralph McQuarrie
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
As relayed in Kevin Smith’s Clerks, it’s the central, darkest chapter. “Empire had the better ending. I mean, Luke gets his hand cut off, finds out Vader’s his father, Han gets frozen and taken away by Boba Fett. It ends on such a down note. I mean, that’s what life is, a series of down endings.” Agree or disagree, it’s undoubtedly an ominous cliff-hanger, filled with trepidation and uncertainty. Lucas worked on his bulky story treatment for The Star Wars for about a year, so not wanting to excise any crucial material, he made the decision to produce approximately the first act of his entire piece. Star Wars is essentially just that—Empire and Jedi would cover the rest. The Empire screenplay was penned by “the Queen of Space Opera,” Leigh Brackett—although she died before it was made, and Lawrence Kasdan—writer of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and writer/director of Body Heat the following year. Amid the usual jargon, Empire has its moments—the heart and humour of the, “I love you/I know” exchange is absent in the other episodes, although the reverse callback in Jedi is quite sweet. Focussing on a tight-knit circle of friends, all looking out for one another to aid the grand cause of defeating the evil Empire.
With so much at stake here, Darth Vader retains tremendous presence—perhaps more than ever, as the Emperor is yet to steal his diabolical thunder. From a still propulsive and resonant story by George Lucas, veteran helmer, Irvin Kershner (Eyes of Laura Mars) was tapped to direct—neatly, once upon a time, Kershner taught one of the seminars Lucas attended at USC, and whilst critiquing his early shorts was struck by the originality of the young man’s vision. How apt that the teacher becomes the student—although, based upon the bounding leap forward that is The Empire Strikes Back, I’d argue Kersh could teach Lucas a thing or two about the craft of directing, as he tends to skillfully move the camera when required to employ an additional emotional punch. The horizontal, vertical, and diagonal screen wipe transitions open and close like cinematic curtains, and the stellar sound design and score help with the heavy lifting.
Empire features one of the two finest lightsaber duels in the trilogy—arguably the best in terms of staging, however I personally prefer the brute force slam downs and reversal of power at the climax of Jedi, with Luke downing Vader and getting some severed hand payback. The action scenes far outweigh the original, and although Return of the Jedi gets a really bad rap, Empire also plays like a toy advert at times, whether it wants to or not—admittedly not quite to the degree of Jedi, but it’s certainly noticeable with the AT-AT Imperial Walkers, droids, the wampa, the tauntauns, X-wings, Boba Fett‘s memorable ship, and even that oval, woodlouse-shaped craft the Rebels use, all flooding back in the form of plastic action figures, vehicles, and playsets.
These movies were released three years apart, in ’77, ’80, and ’83 respectively, which allowed for natural, physical growth—aiding the visual development of characters—Luke especially, by cleverly having him scratched up by the wampa to explain away the scarred face Mark Hamill had acquired in a serious car crash. The chemistry—and at this point, borderline incestual, ancient Greek love triangle of the Luke, Leia, and Han dynamic showcases some enjoyable, sizzling sexual tension between Ford and Fisher as the scruffy-lookin’ nerf herder, and Her Highness, Princess Leia, but it never extends beyond a quickly broken up snog, and instead manifests itself as sulking, or reprimanding a Wookiee. Leia has more to do in Empire, and does so with a sense of self and authority. There are myriad bounty hunters—the crocodilian chap with the yellow trousers, and more obviously, Boba Fett, who at this point, still holds the frame with all the mystique and coolness that made him so intriguing, and a firm fan favorite in the first place. There are bizarre cameos abound, with Admiral headteacher Bronson from Grange Hill, General Donovan from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Fawlty Towers’ General Waldorf salad popping up periodically throughout.
There’s something to be said for separating the droids from the others. The clunky levity is diluted, their screen time is reduced—as is the tedium of the back-and-forth cross-cutting of the original. For me, this alone elevates Empire over Star Wars, as I truly appreciate the fact that the intolerable C-3PO is treated horribly throughout—he’s ignored, abused, maligned, pushed to one side, threatened verbally, met with sarcasm, completely dismissed, switched off, left silent and limp in a chair, dissed by Lando and fellow droids alike, and then gets carted around on Chewbacca’s back before being shot to bits and chucked onto a junk pile—where Star Wars‘ silly comic relief characters typically belong. It’s the closest he comes to death, and unfortunately it’s not quite close enough. We will sadly have to endure him for one more picture.
The original cockeyed Emperor looks rubbish, and has no gravitas or continuity with Jedi, so for once is an alteration that I can completely understand Lucas making. Generally speaking, if you can find the unaltered versions, you’ll probably notice that George Lucas has unintentionally made the modest eighties opticals seem both charming and welcome. A few hokey explosion plumes here and there are to be expected, and embraced at this point. The stop motion is a relief to see after the frankly mad and arbitrary additions made to the 1997 versions. Now, the rubbish severing of the wampa’s arm is acceptable, as is the jittery tauntaun keeling over. There are exceptions, however, as in three or four instances, the proximity and perspectives—like the quickness of the AT-AT approaching Luke—allegedly about to crush him, doesn’t quite work, but this may be due more to second unit, or effects department limitations rather than Kershner’s staging.
Shout-out to Phil Tippett’s animation, Norman Reynolds’ key production design, and another unsung hero, Ben Burtt, for his inventive and fascinating foley and sound design. As the kids say, “The Imperial March” cue is a banger. Another John Williams, MVP moment is when Luke’s X-wing starfighter is levitated from a Dagobah swamp by Yoda. I could’ve easily lived my whole life without witnessing a CGI Yoda brandish a lightsaber and do a backflip. To me, Empire beautifully carves out the entirety of Yoda’s arc—technically Jedi is the completion, with him taking his eternal nap and all, but here, Muppet-maestro, Sesame Street stalwart, and The Dark Crystal and Little Shop of Horrors honcho, Frank Oz performs as Yoda so satisfyingly, switching from a giggly, slapstick, rubber-faced sausage thief, to an all-knowing Jedi Master at the drop of Luke’s torch. The wee green fella goes from whacking R2 with his walking stick to dropping profundities—so much so, I believe somewhere within the Dagobah sequence lies the meaning of life.
Obviously, there’s Yoda’s sharp and forever quotable, “Do, or do not. There is no try,” but also, the ordeal of the hero and the inmost cave, as Joseph Campbell refers to them, each clearly unfurl here. A mystical energy known as “The Force,” represents the spiritual—the interconnection of all things. The power of meditation, tuning in, and tapping into that elusive concept—even as a heathen unbeliever like myself, is painted as possible. Anyone can understand and relate to the fact that once we start down a dark path, forever can it dominate our destiny. The simplistic credo of not giving in to hate is a powerful and everlasting message, and one I think we need to hear and be reminded of repeatedly. Defeating self-doubt, overcoming inner demons and our greatest fears, facing our past, unlearning what we have learned, responsibly claiming our destiny, embracing our shadow selves and accepting what we are capable of and may potentially become, so that we are fully prepared, and can knowledgeably fight against it—all the while excepting the possibility of it occurring should we stray too far from our purest path. The loaded image of Luke in the Vader mask, cracked open like a bad egg, is so symbiotically strong. It is in these scenes that the message, potency, power, and heart of Star Wars lies. They somehow play vague and earnest without coming off as preachy. If we don’t believe in something, we will fail. The broad applicability of this sentiment encourages us to transcend our potentially dark destinies. These are life lessons I’m forever relearning, and still attempt to abide by—and with every rewatch of the saga—this episode in particular, I’m reminded to strive to be a stronger, more enlightened individual.
Return of the Jedi (1983)
“All Jedi had was a bunch of Muppets,” Dante Hicks bemoaned. Perhaps, but who doesn’t like The Muppet Show? Besides, the puppets are tangible, and very welcome compared to anything these jokers knocked up on a computer a few years later. I never understood why geeks griped about the cuteness of Ewoks when the original movie’s Jawas were also dinky and adorable in their own peculiar way—and actually pretty similar in both their vocalisations and behavior. Moreover, lest we forget, these cuddly critters were fully prepared to roast Han on that spit, and cook up a pot of Solo gumbo. There is something daft about an entire Empire brought to its knees by small, furry creatures armed with sticks and stones, but there’s also something satisfying from a storytelling perspective about placing an object or duty so vitally important in the hands of an ostensibly insignificant someone such as an R2-D2, a Wicket the Ewok, or a (forgive me for mixing trilogies here) Frodo Baggins, who, in spite of their humble statuses were entrusted, and had the potential to, against all odds, undo evils and positively alter the course of events—to allow good to triumph over seemingly insurmountable wickedness.
My only fleeting recollection of seeing any of the Star Wars films on telly as a kid was one afternoon when the Stormtrooper speeder bike pursuit—hurtling through the trees on the forest moon of Endor from Return of the Jedi played out. I must’ve been busy with something or other as I just glanced at the telly momentarily whilst dashing through my living room, but when Star Wars fever resurfaced in ’97 and I received the video trilogy boxed set for Crimbo, Jedi was the first film I impatiently pushed into our VHS player. The opening alone might just tip it into the best of the bunch, with the entire gang uniting to spring Han from his frozen carbonite prison. From Jabba’s gross gathering with the funky Max Rebo band kicking out the jams, Jabba bopping about dancing, to the green slave girl getting gobbled up in the scary lair of the rancor, to the sacrificial pit of the sarlacc, and the objectification of a skinny Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia, flashing some side bum flesh in that cheeky gold bikini, and single-handedly kickstarting innumerable male fantasies—to be fair, she actually has a lot of autonomy and plenty to do in this episode.
It’s some of the finest, and slickest action the trilogy has to offer, with what is essentially a toothy anus taking responsibility for the shittiest death of perhaps the coolest character when it comes to Boba Fett—he’s dead in my book. It’s the only film of the three that features our entire band of heroes, Lando is a good guy and actually acts unselfishly, Admiral “It’s a trap!” Ackbar does his thing, the female genitalia-faced chuckler, Nien Nunb has a laugh or three, and it’s the sole picture that showcases the Emperor in his final, menacing, cackling, pantomime villain form. There are new characters galore! The slobbering, green pig guards that everybody’s friend had as a toy but no one remembered actually buying themselves, the creepy, theatrical, Merrick-headed, “De wanna wanga. I will tak-oo to Jabba now” crony, Bib Fortuna—who my ol’ mate Dave Smith always misquoted as “Jabba wanker,” and now I can’t unhear it, the Capricorny, three-eyed goat head dude, that freaky, fat frog-dog barking at the door, the vile gangster, Jabba the Hutt smoking that green hookah shit—I think we all know what that’s supposed to be, and his dug-in, parasitic, rodenty, Fraggle Rock-alike, Salacious Crumb finding everything hilarious until he gets zapped. As a side note, if you keep your eyes peeled, the fella taking Han away looks a bit like Rick James.
I didn’t have many Star Wars figures, and as most of the ones I did own came into my possession via car boot sales, some were in less than tip-top shape. I recall reaching down and picking up what I thought was my Darth Vader’s missing leg, but it was in fact a big black slug. I believe I inexplicably had the action figure of the fat, tearful, rancor wrangler. What a strange, emotive inclusion to see a vilified creature treated as a pet. There’s another heartfelt moment akin to this later in Jedi where an Ewok discovers its mate has perished and doesn’t leave its side—it just mourns. Back to the rancor scene, and scaling issues aside—especially the hokey Twiglet in gob, rear projection shot, Harmy’s version is the best I’ve ever seen it. Yes, it’s still very obviously a miniature, but it plays far better than my 1997 VHS ever did.
The direction by Richard Marquand (Jagged Edge) is zesty and taut, with clever cross-cutting between Vader, Luke, and the Emperor, and the unfolding events on Endor with the deflector shield drama. In terms of strong imagery, there’s the touching unveiling of Vader, and one of my faves, the crackling, fizzing collision of red and green lightsabers right before the giddy, excited eyes of the Emperor. On a lighter note, the now famously applicable GIF of Han processing the information that Luke and Leia are in fact twins raised a belly laugh. Peculiarly, Return of the Jedi—formerly, for a while at least, Revenge of the Jedi, features Darth Vader’s most impressive introduction. Perhaps his myth had built to such a degree that any old intro wouldn’t cut it. The only way the Vader heel–face turn works at the climax of the picture is if they introduce a baddie beyond all measure, and that’s where the legitimately scary—particularly as a youngling, wrinkly, electric Emperor comes in. This closing chapter satisfyingly completes established arcs. Here, Vader’s good guy twist is complete—and to make it all that more commendable, it’s entirely in Jedi as Vader is still pure evil at the beginning of the film.
There are more gigantic, elaborate sets, and the costumes and art direction have improved beyond measure. The spacecraft, and detail of the miniatures is far superior, although several effects shots are directly replicated from earlier entries—the tractor beam pulling Vader’s ship into the Death Star, the colossal Star Destroyer passing overhead, also Luke and Leia’s Tarzan swing from the first film is echoed. As with many sequels, notably Evil Dead II, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, it’s a lot of the same stuff, but done better. I mean, the entire Death Star II plot, which may spell certain doom for the small band of Rebels struggling to restore freedom to the galaxy? Again? All that aside, the intergalactic dogfights are fantastic, and by far the strongest of the three movies. The key to Jedi is the humanity of its drama. We’ve seen the Rebel Alliance blow up a Death Star before—admittedly the effects are a heap better six years later, but what really makes a difference is the Vader/Luke father/son story, and the redemptive arc of Star Wars‘ arch villain.
A tight screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas lays out a clear plot after the initial attention-grabbing, action set pieces. Luke’s promised return to the Dagobah System, the completion of his training resting upon his inevitable confrontation with Vader, Yoda’s death, and the vital, expositional conversation with Obi-Wan regarding Anakin Skywalker, all set the ball rolling nicely, and economically. The chips are on the table, the chess pieces are all in place, and it’s time to just let the inevitable unfold. Everything’s a bit slicker. We all know the universe at this point. The audience knows who’s who, they know what’s at stake, and it’s just two hours and eleven minutes of watching that happen in a satisfying and fun way. If you don’t roll a tear at the end when Anakin (Sebastian Shaw underlined) returns as a kindly Force ghost alongside Yoda and Ben, and have a little “Yub Nub” singsong in Ewokese during the celebrations, then your heart is truly dead. “Luka-luka-lookah, luka-luka-lookah!” Bonus end credits “Ruck Crew It Is” awards go to both assistant cameraman, David Fincher, and also effects cameraman and PTA cinematographer to be, Robert Elswitt.
Beaming a massive cheers to Petr “Harmy” Harmáček and his 2011 “Despecialized Edition” project for eliminating naughty George’s retroactive tinkering, allowing me to recreate the initial seventies and eighties theatrical experiences as best as I could from the comfort of home, in a high enough quality to recognize and appreciate the dazzling visual and sonic effects of the original versions, and bask in what I can only describe as their warm analogue effects, as opposed to the steely coldness of nineties CGI. With that, I wish you a very happy annual Star Wars Day, and May the 4th be with you, always.
Michele Soavi—Argento protégé, Fulci collaborator, and director of Cemetery Man, clearly enjoyed himself orchestrating 1987’s Aquarius, aka Deliria, aka Bloody Bird, aka Stage Fright—a diverting, self-aware prance about, packed with dressing room dread and backstage blood.
A soundstage massacre ensues when absconded criminal nutbar, Irving Wallace skedaddles from his cuckoo’s nest, inhabits the persona of a demented murderer, and infiltrates an already tense rehearsal of a play about the Night Owl—a knife, chainsaw, workshop tool, pickaxe-wielding serial killer, who preposterously carts around an enormous, cumbersome owl-head, balancing it precariously on his noggin, yet somehow manages to retain a keen peripheral vision, whilst staging his own theatrical corpse gallery—replete with softly falling feathers, fake snow, and an added musical medley for full dramatic effect.
The terror-stricken cast and crew must negotiate elevated walkways, crank levers and pulleys hidden amongst the backdrops and shadows of the theatre, and shine spotlights down from the reverberating rafters, which all render the set-pieces pretty effective, and milk the somewhat novel milieu as a fairly original slasher film setting, especially once the phone lines get cut, the power is shut off, and our disparate band of survivors are locked in like SPAM® in a can—all the while, a torrential downpour tumbles down outside. I was amused every time Soavi cut away to the rubbish lookout cops—supposedly on guard, but they were mostly just eating spinach, I think. Still, the night blows rainy, and the nocturnal suspense builds.
It all makes for a fun, escapist, camp as you like ‘80s stalk and slash. Soavi’s impressive staging, blocking, and commanding use of camera all add an urgency to the proceedings. The art design, cinematography, and cutting successfully mesh, are quite immersive—and as silly as the movie gets, it doesn’t compromise on the obligatory, grisly killin’s. A particularly nasty drill-kill gives way to a clever moment where real claret drips onto fake blood as the film’s lines blur between reality and theatricality. Another inventive, Scream 2-esque moment struck me, in which the play’s reels of audio are set running by the wannabe bird-of-prey, resulting in a cacophonous quest to find the loon with the disorienting diegetic score blaring.
Scarious Artists 