Demon Theory
Page 37
i The original preceded the Shirley Jackson novel by one year.
† Or, as in the 1986 slasher-esque Cassandra, not necessarily what will happen, but maybe what is happening.
† Sometimes referred to as “redshirts,” red being the color ensigns wore in the original series.
† Released six years before Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-UpA—the other big “photographer” movie. Tagline: “Antonioni’s camera never flinches. At love without meaning. At murder without guilt.”
A Permanently lampooned by Mike Myers’i Austin Powers.
i No known relation to Michael Myers. (see note 12)
† Included with the reels in 1960 was Hitchcock’s “The Care and Handling of Psycho,” a “filmed press book” which directed theater managers how to exhibit and police the screening of Psycho (e.g., no one allowed in after the movie’s started); the letter/trailer the audiences got from Hitchcock instructed them to arrive on time, not mind standing in line,A and, most important, not give away the ending,B which was perhaps Hitchcock’s jibe at Les DiaboliquesC (1955), which, legend has it, he only missed acquiring by minutes.
‡ In William Castle’s 1961 send-up of Psycho, Homicidal (“The story of a psychotic killer!”), both Warren and Emily are played by (the character) Jean Arless, who’s in turn played by Joan Marshall. Except for the dubbing, the teeth, and the wig, this is a surprise. Of note is that Homicidal, perhaps in response to Hitchcock’s “locking the audience in the theatre,” offered the audience a “fright break,” so they could get their money back if they thought they couldn’t handle what was about to happen on-screen. This fright break was indicated by a ticking clock in place of the movie, supplemented by the sound of a beating heart.
A According to the critics, this trailer—the audience seeing themselves as anxious sardines/willing lemmings—marks the exact moment when the movies stopped being a casual pasttime and started being an event, an experience, the kind that, like a roller-coaster ride or Disneyland,i you don’t mind standing in line for.
B Forty-five years later, to prevent “spoiling” the end of Hide & Seek,ii 20th Century Fox would ship all but the final reel to theaters (the final reels—each numbered—were hand-delivered at the last moment).
C Henri Georges-Clouzot’siii Les Diaboliques ends with this envoy to the audience: “Don’t be diabolical yourself. Don’t spoil the ending for your friends by telling them what you’ve just seen. On their behalf—Thank you.”iv
i Where Rutger Hauer says he’s from in The Hitcher, which, at 1986, comes exactly fifteen years after Spielberg’s debut, Duel, and fifteen years before Joy Ride (a.k.a. Highway Horror), which was itself mirrored that year by the vampire-horror/road-movie The Forsaken, then taken back to the basics a couple of years later by The Highwaymen, which is itself the title of a 1990 country song§ about successive reincarnations …
ii Twenty-nine years after the Psycho-derivated Schizo (controversial tagline: “When the left hand doesn’t know who the right hand is killing!”) and thirteen after the Peeping Tom remake, Raising Cain (“When Jenny cheated on her husband, he didn’t just leave … he split”).
iii The first of the French directors to be dubbed the “French Hitchcock” (Claude Chabrol would be second), a dubious honor, taking into account their mutual enmity over Les Diaboliques.
iv One of the taglines for Peeping Tomε (same year as Psycho) would be: “Don’t dare tell the ending to anyone—you’ll be blamed for nightmares!”
§ First done in 1977 by Jimmy Webb, of “MacArthur Park” and The Last Unicorn fame.
ε In similar fashion, or, perhaps, due course, a frantic line from Peeping Tom, “It’s just a film, isn’t it? Just a film …?” would be recycled four years later for William Castle and Robert Bloch’s Strait Jacket, as “Just keep saying to yourself it’s only a movie … it’s only a movie … it’s only a—” then again eight years after that, for Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left: “Keep telling yourself it’s only a movie … it’s only a movie … it’s only a movie” (it would be lifted yet again for the 1982 rerelease of the 1978 Straight Jacket [as Dark Sanity]).
† Not to mention the new medical term these accidents introduced: the “ATV leg break,” i.e., a break that first pulls the bone apart, then lets it snap back together over muscle and nerve tissue, usually resulting in permanent damage.
‡ A decision since made law, though of course private sales are still legal.
† A character who seems to share a lot with Heinrich Hoffmann’s StruwwelpeterA cycle of cautionary tales (1844 and on). Example, from “The Song of Conrad”:
Don’t suck your thumb while I’m away.
The great tall tailor always comes
To little boys who suck their thumbs;
And ere they dream what he’s about,
He takes his great sharp scissors out,
And cuts their thumbs clean off—and then,
You know, they never grow again.
Mamma had scarcely turned her back,
The thumb was in, Alack! Alack!
The door flew open, in he ran,
The great, long, red-legged scissor-man.
‡ Which perhaps has the same relationship to 1982’s The Slayer (“This time your nightmare is real”) that 1984’s Dreamscape has with it (or, specifically, with the third Nightmare, “The Dream Warriors”).
†† A term often reserved for his debut as well, The Last House on the LeftB (1972—somewhat modeled on Ingmar Bergman’s 1960 The Virgin Spring, except Bergman sets his story in fourteenth-century SwedenC), which would itself influence 1978’s I Spit on Your Grave (a.k.a. Day of the Woman, I Hate Your Guts, and The Rape and Revenge of Jennifer Hill), itself not to be confused with the 1959 J’Irai Cracher sur vos Tombes (literal translation: I Will Spit on Your Grave).
‡‡ Not to be confused with Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), originally titled with Phantasm’s eventual premise/reveal: “Grave Robbers from Outer Space.”
A Hoffmann’s illustrations of the title character often give him fingernails so overgrown that he appears to be wearing “knife gloves.”
B Four alternate titles,i for various releases and stages of production: Krug and Company, Night of Vengeance, Grim Company, and Sex Crime of the Century. Originally released by Hallmark.
C A century Craven would return to for inspiration for his 1977 The Hills Have Eyes, based on Scotland’s legendary (14th century) cannibal clan led by Sawney Bean,ii and starring horror-maiden Dee Wallace-Stone (aside from her iconic role in E.T. [1982], she’s also graced the original Stepford Wives [1975], The Howling, Cujo [1983], The Frighteners [1996], and, more recently, Boo! [2005], the teen version of Session 9iii [2001]).
i One of the few movies to have significantly more alternate and working titles (i.e., thirteen) would be Last House on the Left’s eventual sequel, released a year before Last House on the Left debuted.
ii First published version of the Sawney Bean legend: 1843. Latest update: Evil Breed: The Legend of Samhain (2003), starring Jenna Jameson. First found by Craven in: The Encyclopedia of Murder and Mayhem (pre-1977, presumably; the book doesn’t seem to existiv). There’s also been a song, “The Ballad of Sawney Bean,” which ends with They’ve hung them high in Edinburgh toon An likewise a their kin An the wind blaws cauld on a their banes / An tae hell they a hae gaen.
iii see n 63††
iv In similar fashion, the central “book” of Urban Legend (1998), The Encyclopedia of Urban Legends, was published by ABC-Clio three years after being included in the movie.
† Sigmund Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle was first published in 1920.
† Which of course plays on the fear of “wrong” children Village of the DamnedA planted in 1960,B a fear David Cronenberg would play on as well, with The Brood (1979).
‡ He called his Suspiria (1977) “A Fairy Tale for Adults.”
A John Carpenter’s version was released in 1995. Many consider it his most unsettling movie.
Which is saying something.
B Unless The Bad Seed (The Good Son [1993], essentially) gets that credit, in 1956.
† Roman Polanski’s answer to this in Knife in the Water (1962, and not be confused with Lamberto Bava’s 1983 A Blade in the Dark) was to, instead of panning away, keep the camera steady and have the kissing couple lower themselves out of the shot, leaving us with a sail that just undulates and undulates …
† a.k.a., “contra-zoom,” or, more figuratively, “trombone-shot” (i.e., the viewer is essentially on the slide of the trombone, looking into the bell), and not to be confused with 2000’s manga-adaptation Uzumaki (a.k.a. Spiral, Vortex), though the “dizzying” effect is of course similar.
‡ Or, more accurately, his second-unit cameraman Irmin Roberts, zooming in and tracking out at a frenetic, uncredited pace.
† One of whom was played early on by Bill Laimbeer, presumably because of his height.
† Not to be confused with No Be Bo Sco in New Jersey—the camp where Friday the 13th was shot.
‡ In Spanish, “tonto” of course means “crazy” or “stupid.”
† Not to be confused with 1995’s A Pyromaniac’s Love Story, though of course it is one.
† Aside from using coffee to save marriages, Virginia Christine would also provide some of the voices for 1979’s Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo.
† Jack Palance, Terence Stamp, Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Dermot Mulroney, and even an uncredited Tom Cruise.
† While whether “true” pterodactyls or pteranodons had feathers for heat control or flight (or both) is up for argument, the archeological record does indicate that both their immediate ancestors and descendents did, anyway.
† Bela Lugosi’s White Zombie debuted in 1932, one year after Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein and one year before Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong.
‡ Twelve years later, at a dressing table in Showgirls, Gina Gershon would say the exact same thing in the exact same “undead” way to Elizabeth Berkley.
† Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Collected Best III (Checker Book Publishing Group), for which Barker was the series consultant, not a writer.
‡ From his short novel The Hellbound Heart (as both opposed to and in homage of Edgar Allan Poe’s 1843 “The Telltale Heart”).
† Irwin Yablan’s original title for Halloweeni suggests this same set-up as well: “The Babysitter Murders.”ii
‡ A feature-length “extension” of Walton’s twenty-two minute short “The Sitter.” Not to be confused with A Stranger Is Watching (1982) or When the Dark Man Calls (1995), either.
i Originally intended to be something of a holiday-themed “sequel” to Black Christmas, Halloween of course, under Carpenter’s direction—and with Moustapha Akkad’s money—quickly became a standalone. Further muddying the waters, however, is the legend that Black Christmas writer–director Bob Clark had actually penned a sequel to Black Christmas, just a year after shooting Black Christmas.§ The title for it is supposed to have been Halloween …
ii Tagline for When a Stranger Calls: “Every babysitter’s nightmare comes real … ”
§ i.e., about the same time Yablan and Akkad and (Debra) Hill and Carpenter’s The Babysitter Murders was already in preproduction …
† Or Mitchum’s own (tattooed) role seven years before (1955), as the “slasher” of Night of the Hunter.A
A Fifteen years after Carson McCullers’s novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and a couple of generations before either Kiss’s “Lonely is the Hunter” or Def Leppard’s “Die Hard the Hunter.”
A Not to be confused with Freddy Krueger (see n 63), though she did write Scream 3 (2000) and The Ring (2002).
† Fourteen years after Spellbinder and three years before Ehren Kruger’sA The Skeleton Key, each of which it shares an ending with.
† “The beautiful people … are discovering what the business end of a pair of hedgeclippers really means.”
‡ Who, according to convention,A should have had no chance.
A i.e., he’s male.i
i And non-Caucasian.§
§ And does drugs.a
a And has sex.
† Itself not to be confused with the William F. Wu short story “And Then There Were Some,” from the Star Wars Short Series installment Star Wars: Tales from Jabba’s Palace (Spectra, 1995).
‡ This is the version Raymond Chandler read, which prompted him to pronounce the central problem inherent to the mystery genre: “To get the surprise, you have to fake the character.”
† Not counting The Magnificent Seven (1960).
† Not to be confused with Twisted Brain, a.k.a. Horror High (1974), or with Slaughter High (1986, a.k.a. April Fool’s Day), itself not to be confused with the April Fool’s DayA released earlier that year.B
‡ Another thing Return to Horror High gave us, twelve years before The Blair Witch Project: “They all died. But the film survived.”C
A Which supposedly had a whole third act that got cut by the producers, meaning that, like the Nag Hammadi scrolls used as kindling, the Popul Vuh codices burned on purpose, Aristotle’s lost book on laughter, and the legendary alternate ending for Casablanca, this is another treasure that’s probably been lost to the ages.
B i.e., in the lull between Sleepaway Camp installmentsi (1983, 1988), the first of which, along with April Fool’s Day, has the only horror-ending that continually catches audiences by surprise. (see n 60‡ for more The Crying Game fun)
C And, seven years before Return to Horror High, the tagline for Cannibal Holocaust: “In 1979, four documentary filmmakers disappeared in the jungles of South America whilst shooting a film about cannibalism. Months later, their footage was found.”
i Capitalizing on the campfire “stalk & slash” formula popularized by Friday the 13th in the summer§ of 1980.ε Though other exploitations of this formula are too numerous to list, of note is Don’t Go into the Woods (1982), which includes a closing song that makes the whole movie worth it▽, and, sixteen years later, Troma’s Decampitated, which includes one of the all-time best opening sequences, right up there with the opening sequence of Broken Lizard’s Club Dread (2004—the year of Dead & Breakfast and Shaun of the Dead, as well).
§ Specifically, May 1980, the same month Maniac was first shown, at the Cannes Film Festival.
ε€ i.e., nine years after Mario Bava’s very influential Bay of Blood (a.k.a. Bloodbath, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Last House on the Left II [see n 63i], etc.), often called the first real slasher, which introduced that vital element of clothes-shedding teenage campers.a,b
▽ Sample: “Don’t go out in the woods tonight / you probably will be thrilled Don’t go out in the woods tonight you probably will be killed.”
b As opposed to the clothes-shedding adult campers of 1972’s Deliverance.
a The other vital element—the continually escalating “shocking manner of death”—had already been introduced, both by Bava himself and by Herschell Gordon Lewis, whose The Gore Gore Girls¢ (a.k.a. Blood Orgy$) was released in America the same year as Bay of Blood.
¢ Seven years after Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (starring Tura Satana), but also involving strippers and murder. Not to be confused with the “twice the gore” approach (i.e., eighty gallons of movie blood being used for a single scene) of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive (1992) or the exuberantly low-budget Bad Taste (1987), which, though it would seem to owe a bit of its inventiveness to The Toxic Avenger (1985), started shooting four years before Toxic Avenger was released.
$ And in keeping with the the over-the-top “bloodfeast” pioneered by André de Lorde and Max Maurey’s Theater of the Grand Guignol.♥
♥ Debuted exactly eighty-seven years before Friday the 13th IV: The Final Chapter—i.e., April 13, 1897.
† Not to be confused with the similar (Belgian) serial-killer mockumentary Man Bites Dog (1992), or with The Last Horror Film (1982) or The Last Broadcast (1998, one
year before The Blair Witch Project)—or even with Blood Diner (1987), which The Last Horror Movie starts out pretending to be.
†Purists, of course, give the title to Jamie Lee Curtis’s mother, Janet Leigh (for Psycho), though, even in the age of silent movies, there was an acknowledged “scream queen”: Laura La Plante (1904–1996). The two movies that earned her that title were The Cat and the Canary (1927), which many consider the grandfather of all “scary house” movies, and The Last Warning (1929), which involves a series of hauntings. Her first “talkie,” however—Scandal (1929)—as it didn’t involve the supernatural, also didn’t really involve her trademark vocal abilities.
†Quite possibly the “Jim” of 1978’s “Werewolves of London,” if Warren Zevon was in fact using his best Bones voice to deliver the gruff aside “He’ll rip your lungs out, Jim”A; as he (Zevon) claims to have written the song “fueled by a little too much vodka” too, of course anything’s possible—even that he was tuned in to Star Trek November 17, 1966 (the first part of “Menagerie”), when Bones does claim that Kirk’s been at least stabbed in the lung (by an Andorian).
‡One leg of the reality-is-a-construct triple feature of 1999, the other two being The Thirteenth FloorB and eXistenZ, all of them heralded of course by Dark City the year before.
A However, Zevon could have just as well had this The Hills Have Eyes–line still lodged in his mind from the year before: “I’ll rip his lungs out, Papa.”
B Which has nothing to do with the 1988 film of the same name.
† “The story of a boy, a girl, and a galaxy.”
†Originally conceived as THX 1138 4EB, the title is simply the letters associated with what was George Lucas’s phone number then (849-1138), though, when you pair Robert Duvall’s THX 1138–character with his “mate” Maggie McOmie’s LUH 3417, you get a lispy “sex and love” (which fits with these two chemically restrained sexual beings rediscovering desire, The IslandA–style).
A From 2005, with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. Evidently not based on Philip K. Dick’s paranoid body of work, either.
†As neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield found out in the fifties, passing a weak electric current through the right temporal lobe produced out-of-body experiences: divine music, hyperreal visualizations, auditory hallucinations or “voices,” etc.—the basic ingredients of a spiritual experience. Thus one of the typical characteristics of people with right temporal lobe epilepsy is an extreme and unshakable religiosity, which is of course founded in their mystical visions.