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The Last Man on Earth

Posted in Horror Showcase, Updates with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 24, 2011 by splatterpictures

Awhile I ago I was writing about the zombie genre through the last hundred years or so in film, when I got to Night of the Living Dead, I explained that Romero’s inspiration for the Ghouls that devoured the flesh of the living was derived from Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend. A lot of you will be familiar with the 2007 film starring Will Smith.

When I am Legend was about to hit theatres, they were saying that it was based off of the novel of the same name, and some people went as far as to mention that the 1971 film The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston was also an attempt to adapt the novel.

But before all of that, before Will Smith and Charlton Heston and before Romero would reshape the entire concept of what a zombie was; there was the 1964 film called The Last Man on Earth that starred the great Vincent Price.

I came across this movie completely by accident. A few years ago I had bought one of those giant movie pack box sets. You know the ones? Like fifty classic horror films all in one package (all public domain films). I was shuffling through the titles after I got home and that title in particular intrigued me enough that it was the first movie I watched out of the set.

About halfway through my young ignorant mind made me say “wow this is just like I am Legend, I wonder if this is some first attempt at the movie?” well it obviously is and even though I have never read the book by Matheson, I have seen all three of the interpretations of the book on film and this one is easily my favourite.

Like I said the movie was released in 1964 (a short ten years after Matheson wrote the book) it was actually partially written by Matheson aswell but he didn’t like it and decided not to get credited on it.

The movie starts with showing Dr. Robert Morgan’s (Price) daily routine. He wakes, he checks his home’s security, Mirrors and garlic, he eats even though he finds the process boring and only a means of survival, he runs down everything he has to do, remove bodies from his property and take them to a giant pit to be burned, he needs gas and more garlic, he makes stakes and then goes hunting. That’s right it’s another vampire flick and I swear I don’t mean for them to come up as often as they do. A good portion of his day also consists of going door to door in his city killing as many vampires as he can.

There are a series of flashbacks that start to explain what happened. Three years ago, a strange plague coming out of Europe started to sweep the world. It’s an air born virus and it threatens to reach the United States. Dr. Morgan is optimistic, and has a staunch scientific mind that refuses to believe in the concept of a universal disease that could wipe out everyone. He and his friend Ben Cortman work at the Mercer Institute of Chemical research and are one of the many global facilities trying to find a cure.

Cortman is more inclined to believe that there might be no hope and that the rumours of some of the dead coming back to life are coming back as vampires; showcasing all of their weaknesses and desires and that the government is trying to cover up knowing the truth.

Soon the plague starts affecting Morgan’s own family, his young daughter (Christi Courtland) loses her sight and blindly paws at the air. I think it was supposed to be tragic but it comes off as pretty funny in my opinion. His wife (Emma Danieli) succumbs soon after and is the first person Morgan sees comes back to life and he is forced to kill her.

The ghouls that return are pretty different from any interpretation I’ve seen. They are zombie-like, with barely any intelligence or strength. Morgan lives in a basic two story house and they can’t seem to break in at all. His friend Ben (now a vampire-ghoul-thing) constantly calls his name and tries to pathetically get through the door.

The film hinges on Price’s performance. Morgan is a broken man, who does nothing but survive, he watches old home movies, and just breaks down into a hysterical fits of laughter that soon turns to tears as he remembers the life that will never be. He doesn’t even have any characters to interact with until towards the end of the movie he first finds a dog, that he befriends (this was what tipped it off to me that it was similar to I Am Legend) sadly he realizes that the pooch is infected and has to take ole yeller out back…if you know what I mean.

Later things get interesting when he meets a woman named Ruth Collins (Franca Bettoia) she exhibits some signs of vampirism but is somehow able to keep command of her mind.

It’s revealed that while a majority of the vampires are nearly mindless ghouls, there does exist another kind who are intelligent and are attempting to rebuild their society. This is where the message of the film seems to come into play. Morgan is the last man on earth and now is the one person who is unlike the rest of society and therefore the true monster.

In the Omega Man and I Am Legend the films end with a glimmer of hope. One that might suggest that mankind will make a comeback, but not this one. Last Man on Earth ends telling us that the age of mankind is over. The final moments of the film are just fantastic and overall this is worth a watch. Like I said its public domain and can be found just about anywhere.

See yah next time and thanks for reading!

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Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Posted in Horror Showcase, Ode to the Unsung Slasher, Updates with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 11, 2011 by splatterpictures

The weirdest thing in the world to me is breaking down a film. I mean don’t get me wrong, I do it all the time, but for the most part I take what I see for what I get. I never took any sort of film studies course I just kinda watch things and “notice stuff”.

When you watch enough of anything you find all kinds of trends, whether it’s in a television series, or a certain author’s work. It’s especially noticeable when you start looking at entire genres of film.

I think it’s safe to say that when it comes to horror, people have parodied it, mocked it, paid homage, and downright insulted it. A lot of times people feel they are being clever but dumb it down a lot(Like Wes Craven’s scream series) Other times it’s just a quick buck piggy banking on stuff that’s already popular (Scary movie series). I really never had much time for those types of films. I always thought that Scream was just lame. Although, with four movies behind it, maybe I’m the one with the problem.

This brings me to our latest and greatest Splatterpictures; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. The flick dropped in 2006 and was directed by Scott Glosserman. It was written by him aswell and distributed through Anchor Bay (I swear they should put me on their pay role with how often I seem to be talking about them).

The movie is shot like a documentary in a world (I did the epic movie guy voice thing in my head) where the slashers of film are real. They set this up pretty well, referencing Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street.

The film crew is apparently following around a new slasher wanting to make a name for himself; Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel). How they got the idea to do this isn’t really clear and neither is what they think this will all lead to. They go through Leslie’s set up to his “big night” the start of his Legacy. He tells them his story of how he is supposedly the returned spirit of a boy killed by the townspeople. He takes them to his “house” where this will all go down and proceeds to walk them through his “plan”. Honestly what follows is probably the most dead on and hilarious break down of a horror movie I’ve ever seen. It pays homage to horror in a way that is really fun to watch. They talk about everything. The selection of their victims and why, sure Scream did that but think of Scream like cole’s notes compared to Behind the Mask.

A lot of things they mentioned had great moments of “oh yeah I noticed that” Like why they always let some couple have sex before killing them. Why they hide the bodies until the last moment. How about why the phones never work, or the lights go out? Or maybe why weapons always seem to break or killers never seem to stay dead? One moment in particular had me laughing is when Leslie is discussing how much cardio he has to do to give the illusion that he is walking, while everyone else is running away.

There is also a beauty to his plan, and it also shows a more subtle side of the killer that nobody really gets to see. There are moments where Leslie’s true nature peeks through in bursts of anger or when he goes on long obsessive rants about the legacy he is trying to create with his “survivor girl” and how everything he does is for her I really felt like I was sitting through a film class when they start getting into the phallic imagery of a killers weapon and what it means for said survivor girl to use it against the killer.

This movie is first and foremost a comedy and it’s a pretty damn good one. The nice thing is that while I always felt movies like scream were poking fun at horror for the general audience; Behind the Mask seems to have been made for true fans. In the same sort of way that the Comic Series Hack/Slash is for horror fans in that it doesn’t take you through all the obvious references. Sure they talk about the big killers that we are all familiar with but it also goes deeper making direct references or illusions to lesser known horror films or obscure uses of minor things from major films.

During the early parts of the movie, the film crew join Leslie as he visits an old friend and mentor who was a masked killer aswell (now retired). He talks about how “In the old days” it was all about getting in, killing everybody and getting out without anybody ever knowing. That is pretty much the entire plot of Black Christmas (arguably the first slasher film). There are a lot of subtle sight gags, like the “Stay awake” pills from Nightmare, or the Red Rabbit Inn from Halloween.

They also have some great Cameos by Kane Hodder as a guy living in the Elm Street House (he played Jason in Friday the 13th). Of course, the big Cameo is Robert Englund as Doctor Halloran who Leslie refers to as his “Ahab” basically a person who has made it his personal goal to track down and stop his evil. In other words a character type made famous in Halloween with Doctor Lumis.

By far the most amazing Cameo is by Zelda Rubenstein (she played the famous role of the medium in Poltergeist) she delivers her usual creepy speech to perfection.

You’d think that after people start dying the film crew would grow a conscious and try to Stop Leslie’s plan and want to save the teenagers and they do, but it becomes obvious that this was all accounted for. It has a great ending with all the clichés and overall I highly recommend checking this out.

My one complaint is kind of a big one though. I don’t know if it was the DVD that I had and another version exist but there was nothing in the way of gore. The deaths aren’t all that great, some are pretty good but they all cut away before anything is shown, or even worse they happen off camera with just audio. Now, why would they go to all the trouble of carefully crafting references, getting horror icons for cameos and making this movie if they weren’t going to put some gore in it? I have no idea. Like I said maybe it was just the version I had and there is a directors cut out there somewhere.

It’s made even worse by the fact that a lot of casual viewers probably wouldn’t be half as entertained as I was with all the references and jokes. So that leaves more serious fans with a great slasher movie but without a lot of good or memorable kills.

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Charles Band Spotlight (Part 3: Dolls)

Posted in Horror Showcase, Updates with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 29, 2011 by splatterpictures

I’ve heard complaints about Charles Band and Fullmoon about how a lot of his stuff has a heavy emphasis on killer dolls, puppets, toys or whatever. Charles Band has admitted himself he’s always had a fascination with that concept.

My personal opinion is that if something is done well, I don’t mind seeing it again and again. I can tell you this much when it comes to dolls.

When I was a kid, staying at my grandparents house they had this doll. It was about a meter tall and it always just sat on this stool facing out from the television. During the day, when the lights were on, it was just a doll to me, not freaky at all but at night, it was the scariest fucking thing I’d ever seen. Its doll-face was cracked and held together by bandages. Its hands were these tiny shriveled brown messes that looked like a mummified corpse. I swear to god, that thing would look at me sometimes. Just look straight at me. I always thought one day for sure it was going to come to life and kill me.

So why am I telling you all of this? Well because our third and final spotlight on mister band is going to be his movie, titled simply; Dolls.

Dolls was released in 1987 and was produced by Charles Band and his Empire Pictures company. Band had nothing to do with the directing however. That was done by Stuart Gordon (a horror legend in his own right) It was a precursor to the Puppetmaster franchise and interestingly enough, it’s a hell of a lot better.

The film starts off with a family taking some non-specific vacation in England. It seems the father David (Ian Patrick Williams) has divorced his wife and remarried Rosemary (Carolyn Purdy-Gordan). A fun fact is that both these actors would be in another film together, albeit in smaller roles in “The Re-animator”.

David has a daughter Judy (Carrie Lorraine) Who has a big imagination and seems to piss off her father and step-mother to no end. The opening scene itself is equal parts hilarious and “what-the-fuck”. After their car gets stuck in the mud, they notice an eerie old mansion nearby. As if some kind of paint by numbers horror scenario they start to walk through the storm towards the house. For –no- reason whatsoever the step-mother turns to Judy and tells her to leave her teddy-bear in the car. When Judy tries to explain that the toy is her best friend, the mother just takes it out of the little girl’s hands and throws it in the bushes. What a bitch! The best part comes when for no reason the teddy is now a giant. It then attacks and kills Judy’s Father and step-mother. Judy says “Oh teddy what have you done now” And the bear, covered in blood just gives a shrug. I was dying of laughter. This whole sequence was just in Judy’s head however, it cuts back to reality and they enter the house where they are introduced to its owners.

An elderly couple live in the mansion are Gabriel and Hilary Hartwickle, (Guy Rolfe and Hilary Mason respectively) Rolfe would later be cast several times and Andre Tulon, in many of the Puppetmaster sequels. It seems Gabriel is a toy-maker who specializes in one of a kind dolls, their entire house is filled with them on every shelf. Most are the really creepy kind with the big cheeks and dead eyes.

Out of the absolute blue three more characters show up, two British punk rocker chicks (one of whom seems to be channeling early 80’s Madonna.) and a big guy named Ralph. As if totally expecting these new people to come, the Hartwickles invite everyone to stay the night. Of course it doesn’t take long for things to start to get creepy as guests start to vanish and nobody will believe young Judy that it’s the dolls.

This movie is part horror and part comedy. It’s not as goofy as Ghoulies but it also doesn’t take itself as seriously as Puppetmaster. The person who really steals the show is the guy who plays Ralph, (Stephen Lee) he’s a lovable nice-guy who never outgrew the heart of a child. He has a big of imagination, like Judy and while reluctant at first, he is quickly to believe Judy to help her investigate the Toys. Honestly his scenes where he interacts with Judy and the Dolls are the highlight of the film, he really seems to be channeling his Lou Costello in a lot of his lines. The whole time I was watching this I couldn’t ignore the fact that a lot of the comedy was similar to that of the old Abbot and Costello meet the Mummy/Dracula/ Frankenstein etc.. films.

The Dolls themselves are great. The combination of animatronics, stop motion and camera tricks really make those things effective. I think I have a natural leaning to be somewhat creeped out by dolls in the first-place but with all of the Charles Band productions I’ve watched, this was the first time where I was actually freaked out by the dolls. The death scenes are pretty brutal all things considered. A lot of the toys are just savage and attack in large packs.

Now, my biggest complaint about this movie is probably the ending. People who read my blog know that I hate to ruin endings or important plot points while talking about these movies. So, I really don’t want to say much other than, it was really hard to swallow. How the characters could simply buy the story that was fed to them by the elderly couple is just…well like I said it just made no sense.

That being said, I highly recommend this movie, in that if you are going to watch any of the three from my Charles Band Spotlight, watch Dolls. It’s the perfect mix of horror and comedy, plus it’s only an hour and seventeen minutes long, so you can’t really go wrong. It’s available on Netflix for those who have it.

Well that’s it for the Charles Band Spotlight. I hope you guys had fun reading about some of these productions. I said at the start of this that at splatterpictures, we love Charles Band, the reason why we do is because the guy has made his career out of horror.

So many other directors, actors and producers get their start out in the horror industry because they are fast, cheap, and profitable for the most part. People take risks on newcomers, when it isn’t a 100 million dollar franchise. So in that sense, a lot of people use horror as a stepping stone.

Charles Band, just makes horror, dumb, cheap and ridiculous horror. For that mister Band I thank you!

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Charles Band Spotlight (Part 2: Ghoulies)

Posted in Horror Showcase, Updates with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on July 22, 2011 by splatterpictures

Welcome back to our look at Charles Band productions. Last time we checked out his most famous works, which was the Puppet Master franchise. Next up we have a film that I actually had no idea his name was even on. This time we’re hitting up Ghoulies.

When I’m talking about iconic box art, I think a lot of people can remember Ghoulies. In fact I remember this movie kind of came back for me when I was trying to remember the name of it. My friend and I were standing there trying with all out might to remember what the name of the movie with “the little monsters coming out of the toilet on the cover”

I definitely remember this movie from when I was a kid in the video store. I just wish that the box art wasn’t the best thing about this it. Before we go into the movie, let’s talk about that cover. So we have a Ghoulie coming out of a toilet? I always wondered what that was supposed to imply. The story goes that, they just sent the image to the studio as a joke, but it tested so well that they actually filmed a scene in the movie with it after the fact. Oddly though, in the picture that Ghoulie is wearing a t-shirt and suspenders. He’s actually naked in the movie so…yeah weird.

Ghoulies was released by MGM on good old fashioned analog in 1985. It was supposed to be directed by Charles Band himself but that “honour” went to Luca Bercovici.Band kept the producing credit by way of Empire Pictures, which he was a part of before Full Moon. It achieved moderate success on the home video front. It’s a horror-comedy and for a movie that came out before Puppet Master, it really showcased Bands “leanings” I guess you could say. He always seems to have, the idea of a big mansion with a bunch of hapless people in it. Add a bunch of little guys that are adorable while being deadly and you have the basic premise.

I really wish I could give you a real idea about what goes on in this movie, but it’s so absolutely all over the place it’s kinda hard. The entire movie jumps from scene to scene and situation to situation. Even with all of the strange decisions about editing, it’s not a complex plot by any means.

Basically Jonathan and his girlfriend Rebecca move into a big old mansion that belonged to Jonathan’s parents. The idea is that they’ll fix up the house while going to college. It doesn’t take long until Jonathan discovers old books about black magic and satanic rituals. He becomes compelled to perform these rituals by some unknown dark force.

They throw a party and for some reason decide that a good time killer would be holding a summoning of some kind. Like that would honestly be suggested at a party with a bunch of college kids. “Hey guys, who wants to summon demons?” They didn’t strike me as the D&D crowd. They do the ritual but nothing happens right away; of course though they managed to summon one of the Ghoulies that looks like a rat on steroids.

Jonathan starts to act stranger and stranger, the scene where Rebecca finds out he has been moonlighting as a Satanist is hilarious. Picture this guy in the basement in a fancy robe with a fucking trident that looks like it was made by a high school theatre class. He’s there just screaming his lungs out and boom, his girlfriend walks in with a well placed “What are you doing?” He just stands there looking totally shocked like she just caught him jerking off to some messed up porn. Worse! She caught you roleplaying!

The acting in this movie is cheesy as all hell. It’s not the worst I’ve ever seen but it’s pretty bad. Dialogue is so stiff and completely random. Attempts at humour are pretty awkward. It’s even worse when they are trying to be dramatic. One scene, Rebecca is trying to run away from Jonathan who is pretty far gone at this point, she falls down the stairs and while she is falling she screams “Why Jonathan why!?” Needless to say the parts that are supposed to be serious will get the best laughs.

I know what you’re thinking, this post is half over and you haven’t said anything about the “Ghoulies” yet. You know what this movie is actually about? Well welcome to my world. The Ghoulies don’t actually show up to do anything until about halfway.

The Ghoulies seem to be summoned to do the bidding of whoever is calling them. In that way they’re loyal to Jonathan. They look ridiculous, even by 80’s creature standards. They’re clearly just fancy hand puppets, sprayed with water to make them look slimy or something. Some scenes are decent with them, but most of the time all I kept thinking of was how they are like Jim Henson’s nightmare.

Oh I forgot, the Ghoulies aren’t the only things that get summoned, there is also two midget servants named Gizzel and Greedigut. They seem to be just more powerful servants, who have knowledge of magic.

The mysterious dark force drives Jonathan to perform one big ritual, and it all becomes clear who was really pulling his strings and who truly commands the Ghoulies.

The “deaths” if you could call them that, all come at the very end and in quick succession of eachother. I put deaths in quotations because…fuck it I’m spoiling something. For some reason, they all are alive again at the end of the movie. They get chewed up and attacked by the Ghoulies and other things. Then they all writher and snake their way to the basement like zombies; then at the very end they all run out of the house together, no injuries whatsoever. I seriously don’t get it.

When I was young this movie was great, but I think that it really is an example about how some things just don’t age well as you get older. The special effects are bad, the creatures are pretty bad and whatever plot there is, isn’t exactly inspired. Even by horror movie standards. That being said, Ghoulies spawned a bunch of sequels and pretty good cult following. I should point out that this movie is fucking Shakespeare compares to Ghoulies III: Ghoulies go to College.

Stay tuned, we’re gonna take a look at one More Charles Band Production before we close the toy box on this one.

Thanks for Reading!

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