American International Pictures, the legendary exploitation studio run by Roger Corman, is famous not just for the speed of its productions (Little Shop of Horrors -- two days and one night of shooting), or its casts of aging stars and up-and-comers equally desperate for work (The Terror paired Jack Nicholson and Boris Karloff), but for the directors who yelled "Cut!" for the first time while working inside Corman's speed machine. Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante and John Sayles are just a few of the future auteurs who got their start slaving for Corman; Dementia 13 was Francis Ford Coppola's turn.
Working as the location sound recorder on Corman's The Young Racers, Coppola had previously directed nudie cuties like The Bellboy and the Playgirls under a fake name and done some creative editing on some scifi footage purchased overseas by Corman. But Racers was shot in Europe and the penny-pinching Corman, who hated not getting his money's worth, suggested that Coppola -- who had been begging for more work -- stay behind in Ireland. It was 1963 and William Castle had seeded American audiences for stories of mysterious homicidal killers in movies like, well, Homicidal. In Italy, Mario Bava was in production on the Italian version of the slasher film, his giallo called The Girl Who Knew Too Much. But the movie that dragged these films into the mainstream was Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 Psycho, which gave wholesome American audiences a cross-dressing, necrophiliac psychopath they could love.
Coppola pitched Corman his movie the next morning and, after getting the green light (and $20,000), he spent a couple of days writing the script, stole the actors from the now-completed Young Racers and got to work. Shot mostly on location and spiked with sweet underwater footage, Dementia 13 (what does that title even mean?) kicks off with a midnight boat ride that sticks in the mind of any who see it. Fat Jack Haloran hops in his rowboat for a midnight paddle, rockabilly-blaring transistor radio in tow. His wife, Louise (Luana Anders, sporting a peroxide blonde haystack on her head), hops in after him, ranting about his mother's will, which will leave the Haloran fortune to charity. She doesn't stand to inherit a penny, especially not after Jack keels over 30-seconds later with a massive coronary. Louisa hides his body and flies to Ireland to visit his spooky family in their spooky castle. Mom's a freak, one of the sons is a neurotic and the other is a dark, brooding macho man who looks like he can't decide whether he wants to kiss his fiancee or just slap her around. Louisa quickly worms her way into the heart of the family, pretending to have a psychic connection with Kathleen, the dead little sister who drowned in the castle's lake. Next come the axe murders.
How about this for a free movie? On the LadyStalker channel on YouTube, you can watch all of director Dario Argento's 1985 film, Phenomena, in 11, nine-minute segments. (The first portion is below.) Some say the movie starts out slowly, but that's how you build suspense. Things begin to get spooky the moment after you see the girl who's missed her ride.
Phenomena was actress Jennifer Connelly's second movie. The plot surrounds the Connelly character and mysterious killings at the school she's just started to attend in Switzerland. Connelly's character is fairly odd -- a sleepwalker who can (get this) communicate with insects. She's also targeted by a nasty serial killer, who's not what you might expect as far as psychopaths go.
Can Connelly flee the school and make it back home?
YouTube isn't known for the best editing and camera work by users. But there's something about Recagle's camera work during this trip through a wax museum that will get under your skin
The shots of serial killers, zombies, Dracula, Frankenstein and all manner of the undead are spot on great, and the darkness of each room gives an old-time movie black and white tint to the experience.
I especially love that owl, moving around the window about midway through. And the beginning, with that crazed male screaming reminds me of the so-hard-to-watch torture porn in Ellen Page's Hard Candy.
The SciFi Scanner has an excellent video round-up of Academy Award Winners in B-movie trash. Naturally, the list covers science-fiction films, but horror movies have also had their share of Oscar-winning actors in less-than-stellar roles: George C. Scott won Best Actor for Patton, but he also starred in Stephen King's Firestarter. Louise Fletcher will be best known as Nurse Ratchet in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but some of us remember her work in Mama Dracula. Michael Caine is a Jaws-alumnus, co-starring in the fourth movie in the franchise. He was unable to accept his Academy Award for Hannah and Her Sisters because he was in the Carribean filming Jaws: The Revenge.
But SciFi Scanner is right, it's Joan Crawford's TROG that really takes the cake. Check out the trailer for Ms. Crawford's final film here.
Yesterday, Picturehouse Entertainment, the fine people who gave us Pan's Labyrinth, sent over a calendar of upcoming theatrical releases. Most notable on the schedule is the fact that the company's moving the chilling horror vignettes that make up Amusement to a September 12 date. This may upset fans who were looking forward to seeing the film in April. Still, the movie about a "disturbing childhood incident linking the fate of three women terrorized by diabolical ordeals" will probably play better around the Halloween season.
To me, the postponement enhances the anticipation, already heightened by viewing the creepy trailer, which features a leering, clown-faced serial killer who keeps saying, "It's funny, right?" The psychologist who asks the terrified girl, "What's amusing you?" seems downright evil.
Uwe Boll's new film Tunnel Rats isn't what you think it is -- but that's okay, it's not what he thinks it is either. Here's the trailer to prove it. In this original (not adapted from a video game) story, Boll presents the hardships of soldiers in Vietnam forced to fight the enemy in narrow tunnels beneath the jungle. In someone else's hands, this would have been a taut military drama, but Boll is still making horror movies no matter how much Buffalo Springfield he plays in the background.
In this new clip from George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, the director preys on our paranoid fears of law enforcement by making the local sheriff into a raging zombie. But even beyond the zombie sheriff, there's genius in the way the scene, featured on Bloody-Disgusting, is shot.
The sheer panic in the students' breathless voices, the pure, foreboding darkness of the lonely stretch of highway, and the shaky camera combine to create a sense of impending doom. Look closely and you'll see in the students' van an angry nod to our times, a time in which terror rules, and fear of authority, according to Romero, is requisite. Scary? Hell, yes.
Dread Central has gotten the jump on The Rage's Feb. 26 release, with a contest to give away DVDs and stickers, as well as a gross bust I can't imagine putting on my mantle. And Screen Media Films has granted DC an exclusive (definitely rated R) clip of the movie itself.
The Rage is about a scientist's plot gone horribly wrong. When one of his subjects escapes and is eaten by vultures, these birds of prey become infected by whatever it is that makes normally peaceful beings suddenly flip out and kill people. The clip takes us right to the heart of the matter, demonstrating that hindsight is always 20/20 when it comes to one's lack of protective headgear. If you win Dread Central's contest, you'll always have something above your fireplace reminding you to wear a helmet.
You only have to wait two weeks before The Signal hits theaters, but if you're determined to spoil your appetite, we can't stop you. On IGN you'll find a hilarious new clip from the movie to tide you over until February 22nd. Watch as three survivors kick off what has to be the most dismal New Year's Eve party ever -- as they struggle to figure out why the world is going crazy outside. When a guest arrives and shatters the silence, they may want to re-evaluate their plans for the evening...
It's rare that a video game adaptation of a movie works out well. But that is in fact the case with The Spiderwick Chronicles, Sierra Entertainment's thoughtful interpretation of the upcoming movie starring Freddie Highmore and Mary-Louise Parker (the movie hits theaters on February 14). The goblin and faerie-filled game also features some evil monsters and disturbing-looking sprites. When you check out the making-of video, you'll likely agree that the game has done justice to the supernatural beings. The game designers fleshed out the characters enough to make them seem real, not just a collection of bits and bytes. Mulgarath, the giant, shape-shifting goblin, is horrific while Thimbletack is uproariously cute in his angry, cranky, boggart mode.
Both Freddy and Jason got their own TV series in the '80s, but why stop there? Stacie Ponder has her own suggestions, including Make Believe! with Norman Bates.
Yesterday, Picturehouse Entertainment, the fine people who gave us Pan's Labyrinth, sent over a calendar of upcoming theatrical releases. Most notable on the schedule is the fact that the company's moving the chilling horror vignettes that make up 
Uwe Boll's new film Tunnel Rats isn't what you think it is -- but that's okay, it's not what he thinks it is either. Here's the 
In this new clip from George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, the director preys on our paranoid fears of law enforcement by making the local sheriff into a raging zombie. But even beyond the zombie sheriff, there's genius in the way the scene, 
Dread Central has gotten the jump on The Rage's Feb. 26 release, with a 
You only have to wait two weeks before The Signal hits theaters, but if you're determined to spoil your appetite, we can't stop you. On 
It's rare that a video game adaptation of a movie works out well. But that is in fact the case with The Spiderwick Chronicles, Sierra Entertainment's thoughtful interpretation of the upcoming movie starring Freddie Highmore and Mary-Louise Parker (the movie hits theaters on February 14). The goblin and faerie-filled game also features some evil monsters and disturbing-looking sprites. When you 
