Amoeba Music

Most genre fans seem to cite the original Creepshow as the definitive and best horror anthology film ever made, but I’ve always had more of a soft spot and appreciation for its sequel Creepshow 2. The first Creepshow was the brainchild of famed horror author Stephen King (Carrie, Christine, Cujo, The Shining, It, The Dead Zone) and legendary horror director George A. Romero, the creator of Night Of The Living Dead and in essence the father of the movie version of the modern “zombie.” Their idea was to put together a live action anthology film which collected five unique horrific tales ala the old EC comics of the 1950s which featured Tales From The Crypt, The Vault Of Horror and The Haunt Of Fear. (Side-note: EC comics were also the creators of MAD magazine!) The segments drew in an all star cast including names such as Ed Harris, Leslie Nielson, Adrienne Barbeau and even King himself. While considered a sleeper hit at the box office upon its release, it would take five years before the sequel came to fruition.

For Creepshow 2, King provided the stories and Romero penned the script, but this time he vacated the director’s chair for Michael Gornick, Romero’s long-time cinematographer. Also, whereas the first film featured five separate segments and clocked in at 120 minutes, the sequel keeps a lean pace of three stories (plus an animated wrap around) all within 90 minutes. Famed FX artist Tom Savini (also a long-time Romero collaborator) portrays the live action version of “The Creep” during the prologue segment. Without further ado, here’s a break down of the three fiendish tales!

Growing up, Frank Henenlotter was always one of my filmmaking heroes and it’s not just because he made the cult classic films Basket Case and Brain Damage. It was mainly because, like me, he was originally from Long Island, New York. In fact, I recall my best friend’s mother worked with Frank’s brother at the same police precinct and for whatever strange reason, this made my friends and I feel like he was the first director that we were two steps away from rather than someone we’d imagined being in the far away land of Hollywood. It proved to us you can make movies in New York and be someone from Long Island to make them too.

So it’s funny how Frankenhooker, which would end up being my favorite of his films, was actually the last one I discovered. How I managed to go years without seeing it is completely beyond me, especially with the now legendary Bill Murray quote right on the front of the box stating “If you only see one movie this year it should be Frankenhooker.” Also, despite it’s location being set in New Jersey (in actuality, it’s Valley Stream), it’s arguably the most “Long Island” movie I’ve ever seen, at least in terms of reminding me what it was like growing up there in the late '80s/early '90s. For all of the above reasons I hold a special place in my heart for Frankenhooker.

God Bless America is a satirical masterpiece, plain and simple, and it’s not surprising if you look at the trajectory of Bobcat Goldthwait’s films as a writer/director. The former stand-up comedian and star of the Police Academy sequels kicked off his filmmaking career with the often misunderstood and underrated 1991 comedy Shakes The Clown, in which he also starred, but it was his two follow-ups, Sleeping Dogs Lie and World’s Greatest Dad, that solidified him as the master of the black comedy. Those two films represent some of the darkest and most uncomfortable cinematic farces you’re bound to ever see and while he had plenty to say through the characters of those previous movies, God Bless America feels like his most personal rant on the wrongs of our current celebrity obsessed society. All the things he’d probably vent about in a modern stand-up routine are all neatly plugged into his latest feature-length film making this arguably his most personal movie to date.

Joel Murray (reuniting with Bobcat for the first time since his 1986 big-screen debut One Crazy Summer) plays Frank, a genuinely decent person who gets frustrated easily by the stupidity that constantly surrounds him. Take his completely oblivious and inconsiderate neighbors who through paper-thin walls stay up super late to loudly discuss the most asinine subjects while their unattended newborn baby cries in the background nonstop. Between the noise and his migraines, Frank can never get a good night’s sleep. So most evenings he’s plopped on his couch flipping through the channels to catch commercials for “pig fart” ringtones and power drink advertisements in between episodes of reality shows like Tuff Gurlz where one girl throws a used tampon at another girl. (No doubt, an MTV show.) But hey, that’s nothing compared to the news reports he combs through depicting kids doing violent things and then posting them on YouTube, or the angry religious fanatics protesting some social ill of the week.

Troma Entertainment has been churning out what can be considered the epitome of “cult” films for over 30 years and has proudly stood tall as the purveyors of independent cinema. But most of their output in those 30 years might be looked upon as lowest common denominator material. To be blunt, the majority of their movies feature some of the most outlandish gags and stories being executed in the poorest of taste with the sole purpose of offending just about anyone and everyone that watches them. Then again, therein lies the charm of a typical Troma film. No other movie among their catalog matches the greatness of The Toxic Avenger, Lloyd Kaufman’s most famous creation which at least manages to be offensive and entertaining.

No one could’ve predicted back in 1984 that this little low-budget indie gore-fest would go on to spawn three sequels, comic books, a television cartoon titled the Toxic Crusaders and a slew of related toys and merchandise. After all, could the world’s first superhero from New Jersey who was born of toxic waste really become that huge of an icon? Low and behold, for better or worse, he has! And that’s part of the fun in revisiting the film now which so perfectly captures the sleaziness of New Jersey/New York of the early '80s.

Spider-Man 2 is not only one of the best sequels ever made, it’s easily one of the best superhero movies ever made. And while the first Spider-Man most definitely felt like a Sam Raimi film, this one is 100 percent the filmmaker we’ve come to know and love over the years through films such as the Evil Dead trilogy to Darkman and A Simple Plan. It’s not surprising that his influence is more recognizable in the sequel looking back now in retrospect. The first Spider-Man was a major gamble for everyone involved. For Marvel, for the studio (Sony in this case), hell, even for the toy companies which I’m convinced are the reason the Green Goblin looks the way he does rather than looking like his comic book counterpart in appearance. But the gamble paid off and director Raimi delivered in spades, satisfying not only all the interested parties involved in the first movie’s investments, but savvy comic book fans and worldwide movie-goers alike. So, with the mega-success of the first Spider-Man, it feels like they pretty much left him alone to make the sequel exactly how he wanted to make it.

And the opening alone is impressive and unique. We’re re-told the plot and events of the first Spider-Man during the opening credit montage through a series of amazing drawings by comic artist legend Alex Ross, backed by Danny Elfman’s returning score. Once we’re brought up to speed, we pick up about two years after the events of the last movie and are thrown right into the hectic life of Peter Parker (Tobey McGuire), who is scootering along the busy streets of Manhattan trying to deliver pizzas and avoid being distracted by the multiple billboards featuring the now semi-famous model and his former high school crush, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). It’s the frantic nature of the scene done in trademark Raimi style that shows us what a day in the life of Peter Parker is really like. He’s got 15 minutes to make it across town to deliver a dozen pizzas or else he loses his job. On the way, he encounters every obstacle from New York City traffic to kids playing in the street, in which he makes a quick change into Spider-Man to save them from being mowed down by a speeding truck, to a stoner on the balcony of his posh Manhattan apartment trying to snag a piece of pizza from one of the pies Spidey left there momentarily to make his save. (The stoner dude is a welcome cameo by Evil Dead 2 co-writer Scott Spiegel!)

It’s been nearly 10 years since the Halloween Returns To Haddonfield 25th anniversary convention celebrating the release of John Carpenter’s now legendary film took place in Pasadena, California, and I’m sure at the time the organizers couldn’t have possibly predicted that the event would be the impetus for the documentary Halloween: 25 Years Or Terror, nor that that documentary would kick start and pave the way for similar retrospective films on the making-of horror franchise classics. Feature length retrospective documentaries were not anything new at the time of Halloween: 25 Years Of Terror’s release. Filmmaker Laurent Bouzereau was already producing some of the best making-of docs for DVD and Laserdisc releases of famous titles such as Jaws and Psycho; but the Halloween doc was the first to offer a feature length retrospective packaged completely on its own as the disc’s main feature with hours of bonus materials for the die-hard Halloween fans to soak up afterwards. Because of its success, we got a string of other horror documentary releases such as His Name Was Jason, The Psycho Legacy, Never Sleep Again and even More Brains!, a documentary focusing primarily on the first Return Of The Living Dead film! But it’s fascinating to go back and revisit where this particular sub-genre all began, which was with Halloween: 25 Years Of Terror.

While the doc chronicles all the Halloween movies including its sequels in sequential order, it kicks off with the original and sets-up what was going on in the horror genre that led up to it; films like Night Of The Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and most importantly Black Christmas which paved the way for a film like Halloween to exist. A young filmmaker named John Carpenter was tapped by a pair of producers to direct a feature with the premise of “the Babysitter murders” and it was to be set on Halloween, a holiday that not only everyone could identify with since we all recognize it, but also one that hadn’t yet been fully exploited as the title of a movie. Paired with his writing and producing partner Debra Hill, Carpenter agreed to tackle the project as long as he had complete creative control and could have his name above the title. While Debra takes credit for writing the dialogue pertaining primarily to the teenage girls' conversations, she gives credit to John for creating Michael Myers and all the dialogue setting him up as evil incarnate. No one involved could’ve possibly predicted that Halloween would become the most successful and lucrative independent film ever made, maintaining that title for decades up until the release of The Blair Witch Project which came along and snatched the crown.

I have a confession to make. Spider-Man is the one movie I’ve seen in theaters more than any other in my life. I’m fairly certain that I caught it eight times in its original theatrical run and the first four times I saw it were all within the first 24 hours of its release. Before you declare me insane, let me explain.

Growing up, Spider-Man was my absolute favorite superhero. Never have I identified with a character as much as I did with Peter Parker; a shy, timid, smart, humble and good-hearted person who always seemed to get the short end of the stick. Then finally he’s granted this incredible power which he immediately takes for granted and that results in something terrible happening to someone near and dear to him. In other words, I learned a lot about morality and the differences between right and wrong from reading Spider-Man. All I ever wished for was a Spider-Man movie. Not surprising, there were in fact several previous attempts previous to bring Marvel’s most famous superhero to the silver screen. At one point, James Cameron, hot off of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and The Abyss, was on track to write and direct a Spider-Man movie, but with an inflating budget and a few radical changes to the source material, that version never materialized. Not too long before that, Canon Films was planning a film with Tobe Hooper at the helm (!), even going as far as creating a sales poster to help secure the financing. That version apparently would’ve sent the wallcrawler on a grand adventure in space, but alas, it never happened and that’s probably for the best.

It’s fairly fascinating to read the opening title crawl at the beginning of The Running Man and learn what the state of the world is like in the not-too-distant future. Here’s a portion of it: “By 2017 the world economy has collapsed. Food, natural resources, and oil are in short supply. A police state, divided into paramilitary zones, rules with an iron hand. Television is controlled by the state and a sadistic game show called The Running Man has become the most popular program in history. All art, music, and communications are censored.” Sheesh, for something that’s supposed to happen in about 5 years, it’s not too far off!

We are then introduced to the film’s star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who plays Ben Richards, a good police officer on a routine helicopter patrol hovering over the streets of Bakersfield where dozens of civilians are in search of food and shelter. He’s ordered by his superiors to open fire on the unarmed crowd and when he refuses, he’s knocked out by his crew and framed for the murder of hundreds of innocents and nicknamed by the press “the Butcher of Bakersfield.” 18 months have passed with Ben incarcerated and after meticulous planning, he teams up with two fellow inmates, Laughlin (Yaphet Kotto) and Weiss (Marvin McIntyre), and makes a daring daylight jailbreak. Ben doesn’t seem to care about clearing his name or Weiss’s plans to meet up with the underground resistance, who plan to take control of the satellite feed that’s been broadcasting propaganda television for years to show the world the truth about what’s been going on with our government. Instead Ben just wants to hook up with his brother and escape out of the States.