Hollywood Halloween Costume Calvecade: Part Three

Our October investigation into horror movie themed Halloween costumes that don't immediately come to mind continues with another costume for the ladies that I suspect would prove to be immediately popular, but not because everyone loves the movie it's based on.

Three years after "directing" Poltergeist (sarcastic quotation marks used 'cuz Spielberg totally directed that shit), Tobe Hooper finally returned to the silver screen with his biggest budgeted movie yet. Made for $25,000,000 back when that was a number that meant something, Lifeforce was Cannon Films' attempt to create an epic SF horror franchise. The attempt failed, however, and--following the similarly disastrous Invaders From Mars--Hooper's career never really recovered. Still, as resolutely forgettable as the movie is (I've seen it at least twice now and am in no way prepared to offer up even the most cursory of plot synopses), there is one character in the film who managed to make their mark on horror history and become something of an icon.

I am, of course, talking about:

Space Girl

Unfortunately, society being what it is, propriety prevents me from showing the costume in every detail. Those of you at home or who work in highly liberal office environments can get a better idea by clicking the picture, otherwise consider the enlarged version NSFW. Now, for those you who haven't seen Lifeforce and who might question the legitimacy of such a costume, let me ease your concerns by saying that this is what actress Mathilda May wears throughout the entire film. And her role as Space Girl gives her fifth billing above Patrick Stewart, so she's definitely not a one-scene wonder.

That said, it's hard to say what exactly makes Space Girl such a memorable character. Is it because she's a naked 19 year-old girl or is it because she's a naked 19 year-old Mathilda May--which isn't quite the same thing, because how many 19 year-old girls do you know who look like that? (If your answer is, "At least one," then why are you reading this and not praying to the deity of your choosing?)

Still, I suspect in an age where attractive 20-something women make Halloween memorable by dressing as "sexy" versions of Sesame Street characters, there are more than enough trick or treaters out there to pull this one off. But before we get too giddy, let's check the scores first:

Difficulty to Create: This one depends entirely on the person for whom the outfit is intended. If you're a naturally busty brunette Parisian teenage model it's a 0/10. If you're me 1,000,000,000/10.

Obscurity: Again, doesn't matter. No one is gonna give a hot flying fuck about who you're dressed as.

Fun Factor: 10/10 You are going to be the life of the party, there is not a single doubt about that.

Potential "Sexy" Version: Ha!

Might Be Confused With: Phoebe Cates in Fast Times At Ridgemont High.

Total Score: Impossible to calculate. As a movie themed costume, it's likely not going to register, but as a general costume the right person could easily make their event THE SINGLE GREATEST HALLOWEEN PARTY OF ALL TIME.

From the Bottom to the Top to the Bottom: Part Two in a Series

An amusing exercise in which we pour salt on the wounds of those who temporarily achieved Hollywood glory, but were little prepared to keep it.

Just like Michael J. Pollard, last week’s inaugural victim of Hollywood caprice, George Kennedy is a true character actor. Beyond that though, all comparisons come to an immediate end. If Pollard was odd and quirky, Kennedy was solid and stalwart—a real man with a real face, real hairpiece, and real body.

The same year Pollard was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Bonnie and Clyde, Kennedy won for Cool Hand Luke. In it he played Dragline, a prison tough guy who initially gives Paul Newman’s titular character a hard time, until Luke’s unbreakable spirit inspires his respect and admiration. It was his biggest role in a 10-year career that started when he was hired to be a technical advisor on The Phil Silvers Show (aka Sgt. Bilko), which led to him becoming an extra, which led to his getting the occasional line, which led to bit parts in other TV shows and then eventually movies.

Despite his Oscar, Hollywood was reluctant to elevate him to leading man status. When it did it was in Guns of the Magnificent Seven, the third film in the franchise, and the first to not star any of the original Seven. Notable only for putting him onscreen with his cinematic brother-from-another-mother Joe Don Baker, Guns did little to turn Kennedy into a true star.

The 70s saw him starring in a short-lived, forgotten TV series (Sarge), all four entries in the laughable Airport franchise (making him the series' only consistent character), Earthquake, and another just as short-lived, just as forgotten TV series (The Blue Knight), but it was the 80s where things started getting rough. His B-Movie career actually started promisingly with 1981s Just Before Dawn, perhaps the best slasher film of the period not made by John Carpenter, but the same could not be said for Wacko, Chattanooga Choo-Choo, Bolero or Delta Force. Kennedy’s lowest point, though, came in 1988, courtesy of the same directorial genius who gave us this:

I am, of course, talking about:

 

Unavailable on DVD, Demonwarp is a movie I only saw once on late night TV sometime in the early 90s, yet it has never ceased to haunt my dreams. Directed by Emmett Alston, the film is a bizarre mish-mash of sub-genres, seemingly created by the careless fusion of several unrelated screenplays. It first appears to be a Bigfoot movie, albeit one made to feel like a slasher film (Alston had previously made New Years Evil) before transforming into a cult/alien conspiracy thriller in which a topless screaming Michelle Bauer is sacrificed on an altar to a century old extra-terrestrial/god.

That one scene with Bauer has never left my mind, but it pales in significance to another she appears in earlier in the movie. In it, she and a similarly busty friend (of the blonde variety) are introduced into the film out of nowhere and without context as two tanning enthusiasts who have come to the forest to bask in the sun’s golden rays. To do this requires they unburden themselves of their tops, which they do quickly and efficiently. But, unfortunately, the baring of their breasts attracts the Bigfoot creature who shows his distaste for their exhibitionism by graphically removing the blonde’s head from her body. Bauer screams, is captured by the creature, and then disappears from the narrative until it’s time to sacrifice her on the slab—making this another feature in which she spends more time onscreen naked than otherwise.

Kennedy’s role as the father of one of the moronic teenage characters is negligible and unnecessary, but enough to get his face featured on the poster and top-billed in the credits. It’s the dictionary definition of a paycheque performance.

Fortunately for Kennedy that same year he co-starred in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! a Zucker-Abrams-Zucker movie based on their very short-lived TV show. It and its two sequels brought him back into the limelight and probably remain the films for which he is best known (at least among my generation). When the franchise ended in 1994 he worked as consistently as any actor of retirement age should be expected to. He’s still at it today, at the considerable age of 86.

Chances are Kennedy had no idea he’d have such a tumultuous career 51 years earlier when he was 35 and guest-starring on a TV western called Sugerfoot. It would be the only time he worked with another future Oscar winner, who was a regular on the show for the third of its four seasons. She too would know the highest highs and the lowest lows, but unlike Kennedy, she has never experienced any significant late-career success.

Next Time On

From the Bottom to the Top to the Bottom

Louise Fletcher

Hollywood Halloween Costume Cavalcade: Part Two

Now lest you think the Costume Cavalcade is a "No Girls Allowed!" affair, let me set your mind at ease (or disturb you terribly) with suggestion number 2, which features the most unfairly overlooked horror icon in the slasher cannon.

Just a few days ago I brought up the Sleepaway Camp franchise in reference to Michael J. Pollard, and doing so reminded me that the thing people forget is that Angela, the film's transgendered murderer, isn't the film's most disturbing villain. No, that dishonour goes instead to the insane woman whose need for perfect order directly results in Angela's gender confusion and subsequent inability to stop herself from killing every asshole who crosses her path.

I am, of course, talking about:

Aunt Martha

Loonily portrayed by Desiree Gould, there's no question that Angela's aunt is just as batshit insane as her niece is. Given custody of Angela and her older brother after the tragic death of their father in a boating accident, Martha decides that having two boys, "Just won't do." and subsequently proceeds to raise the youngest of the two as a girl. This alone is disturbing enough, but Gould's performance is so mannered and bizarre that it goes even a level further into layers of insanity that are truly discomfiting to behold. Unfortunately, the film's final reveal of a naked Angela revealing her wanghood to all and sundry has a tendency to make people forget about everything that has preceded it.

But as great and compellingly odd a character as she is, does she have what it takes to make it as this year's Halloween costume of choice? Let's look at the numbers:

Difficulty to Create: 7/10 It all depends on the hat and where the Hell are going to find one that matches?

Obscurity: 7/10 Lots of folks have seen Sleepaway Camp, but the only thing they remember about it is the penis at the end. Only aficionados will recognize you without explanation.

Fun Factor: 7/10 Just watch that video and tell me that acting like that for a night wouldn't be a blast.

Potential "Sexy" Version: NA It's sexy already! (Or is that...just...me....)

Might Be Confused With: Parker Posey in one of the Christopher Guest movies.

Total Score: 4/10 I love Aunt Martha (as a villain, not a human being) and wish I could give her a much higher score, but the combination of obscurity and difficulty forces me to give her an unsatisfactory score of four out of ten.

Hollywood Halloween Costume Calvecade: Part One

Pity the poor movie buff at Halloween. Chances are you’ve been invited to a costume party and you want to showcase your geek bonafides by coming up with a perfect costume based on one of your favourite movies. Most people wouldn’t sweat it and would just throw on their roughest approximation of Indiana Jones, Han Solo, or a Ghostbuster and be done with it. But you’re here reading this, so you’re obviously not most people. You want to be different. To stand out. To be creative and original. But it’s such a fine line to walk. Be too original and you risk obscurity—dressing as a character from a movie no one else at the party has seen or even heard about. There's only so many times you can describe the plot of even your most cherished B-Movie before that shit just gets old.

That's why for the next few weeks I’m going to examine several potential costume choices and evaluate their pros and cons. My hope is that this public service gets people thinking about their Hollywood-inspired costume choices and prevents another tedious Halloween season filled with Freddys, Jasons, Batmans, Jokers, Slave Leias and the like.

Today we’re starting off with a costume whose main benefit is its ease of execution, and whose main disadvantage is that no normal person will know who you are and will likely find it extremely offensive. That said, if your friends are as geeky and odd as you are, it could prove to be a big hit.

From a 1980 movie starring Mrs. Ringo Starr and directed by the man who gave us Savage Streets I give you “Junior” Keller:

For those that have never seen The Unseen “Junior” is the severely disabled result of the incestuous union between Sydney Lassick and Lelia Goldoni, who try to keep him locked up in their basement. Unfortunately, their peace is invaded by a trio of female journalists who become stuck in the abandoned town in which they live. “Junior” decides to have some “fun” “playing” with them, with the result that everyone but Barbara Bach ends up dead.

To say that “Junior” represents a somewhat unfortunate depiction of the mentally and physically handicapped is something of an understatement. Essentially an adult with Down syndrome who’s been kept in a basement all his life, he’s more pathetic and sad than horrific, but that doesn’t stop director Danny Steinmann (who for some reason chose to have his name taken off this picture, but not Friday the 13^th Part V)  from portraying him as an actual movie monster—a creature to be feared rather than pitied. Perhaps the most bizarre thing about the character is that he’s portrayed by (an uncredited) Stephen Furst, who just two years earlier had starred as Flounder in Animal House, the biggest comedy of all time.

Hollywood sure is a bitch, isn’t she?

So let’s get to the costume numbers:

Difficulty to Create: 1/10 Throw on a dirty torn white T-shirt, a bag on your head, dirty white diapers, grab a worn out teddy bear, cover yourself in dirt and learn how to make your best “retard” face and you’re golden.

Obscurity: 8/10 True horror and B-Movie buffs might be able to figure it out, but no one else will have a clue.

Fun Factor: 7/10 Not only are you going to be the most comfortably clad person at the party, but you’ll also enjoy spending the whole night speaking only in unintelligible grunts and moans.

Potential "Sexy" Version (for the ladies): 10/10 Tighter T-shirt, thong "diaper", and it's all good.

Might Be Confused With: Sloth from The Goonies.

Total Score: 4.5/10 As comfortable and easy to throw together as this costume is, there’s no getting around the fact that you’re going to have tell everyone you meet the plot of a 1980 movie they have no interest in ever seeing.

From the Bottom to the Top to the Bottom: Part One in a Series

Hollywood is a fickle mistress. One minute she’s a Brazilian supermodel who goes down on you in the middle of Spago and begs you to have a threesome with her even hotter Australian supermodel best friend, and then the next her lawyers are serving you a restraining order that says if you’re even on the same continent as her, the police are allowed to club you to death in front of your crying children.

And that’s how the pretty people get treated! It’s so much worse for the merely talented, who manage to win the celebrity lottery by being cast in the right role in the right movie at the right time. Oh, man, does Hollywood hate those assholes, especially if they’re unlucky enough to get nominated for an Oscar for their efforts. Sure they’ll give them a movie or two to star in, but once those movies-no-one-asked-for inevitably tank those poor bastards are lucky if their agent can get them an audition for a dog food commercial.

In need of interesting content, I’ve decided to occasionally mock these one-hit wonders by not only pointing them out, but also by singling out the lowest moment of their subsequent careers—the one film that well and truly should have driven them out of the business forever (but probably didn’t).

Tonight’s entry is one of the just plain oddest dudes to ever earn any attention from the Academy. The fact that he was eventually perfectly cast as Mr. Mxyptlk in the dreadful 80s Superboy syndicated TV show pretty much says it all.

I am, of course, talking about:

Michael J. Pollard

A theatre and television actor who specialized in playing beatniks and children (everyone remembers that episode of Star Trek where he played the leader of a group of kids on a planet where going through puberty was fatal—he was 27 at the time), Pollard came to national attention when he was cast as C.W. Moss in Arthur Penn and Warren Beatty’s Bonnie & Clyde (producer/star Warren would get upset if I credited it solely to its director). As Moss, Pollard proved to be a unique and intriguing screen presence, which—combined with the critical and popular success of the film—resulted in a Best Supporting Actor nomination.

Despite being the clearest possible archetype of a “character actor”, Hollywood made a game attempt to allow him to carry some movies. He co-starred with Robert Redford in the period motorcycle drama Little Fauss and Big Halsey and played the title character in the very 70s revisionist western Dirty Little Billy. The failure of the last film, combined with his genuine oddness, quickly halted his trajectory and he pretty much disappeared for most of the 70s (the one decade you’d think would appreciate him the most), only to reappear in many terrible B-Movies and the occasional studio picture during the 80s and 90s. Whether in the hilariously misguided American Gothic, the charming Roxanne or blockbusters like Dick Tracy and Tango & Cash, he always played the same role—the really weird elfin guy.

Looking through his IMDb page there are a lot of low moments to choose from. I’ve already mentioned American Gothic, but it’s more weird than terrible. Fast Food is pretty miserable, but it has post-porn unbelievably hot era Traci Lords in it, so it too must be allowed to pass. I reviewed The Patriot for Flick Attack and thought it was horrible, but I now have no memory whatsoever of Pollard even being in it. Night Visitor is more bland than bad (which actually makes it that much harder to sit through) so that just leaves one clear choice for the lowest moment of Pollard’s post Oscar-nomination career. That’s right, folks:

 

Everyone remembers the original Sleepaway Camp. It’s the slasher classic where the killer turns out to be a twelve year-old girl with an enormous cock (spoiler). Much fewer people remember the two subsequent sequels, and if they do, it’s only because they starred Bruce Springsteen’s sister!

Having set the cinema world aflame with her role as the first Pat Benatar lookalike in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Pamela Springsteen was cast as the now adult version of the original film’s transgendered murderer. Unfortunately this didn’t lead to her achieving iconic horror franchise status, since the filmmakers (the same dude’s responsible for the above-mentioned Fast Food) decided to do something completely different that no one had ever done before and make a slasher movie that made fun of slasher movies! Even better, they did it twice!

Confused folks at the video store might have thought that the existence of Sleepaway Camp III indicated that there was a demand for the story to continue after Sleepaway Camp II, but the reality was that the filmmakers pulled a Salkind (look it up) and shot the two films back to back.

Truthfully it’s hard to tell which of the two are worse. Like all “funny” slasher movies, they are neither funny nor frightening, but Pollard’s only in the third one, so it doesn’t really matter. The sad thing is, he might very well be the best thing in it.

For shame, Sleepaway Camp III.

For shame.

Apparently Pollard’s still alive, but he hasn’t been up to much lately. Rob Zombie cast him in House of 1000 Corpses, which is just the sort of thing you’d expect Rob Zombie to do (he’s such a scamp!). As you probably, guessed Pollard never did take home that Oscar. He lost that year to George Kennedy, who won it for his memorable role in Cool Hand Luke—a great performance in a classic movie!

Next Time On

From the Bottom to the Top to the Bottom Again

 

George Kennedy

The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t -- I is for Italian

I

is for Italian

When people describe the virtues of the Italian culture, subtlety is a word you’ll almost never hear. If any one phrase can be used to sum up their artistic achievements and general philosophy towards life, it would have to be, “Go big or go home.” This is especially true when it comes to their filmmaking.

“But Allan,” I hear some of you whine pitifully, “what about the Italian neo-realists like Rossellini and De Sica? Surely they weren’t extravagant or over the top?”

“Nonsense!” I shout back authoritatively. “For all of their authenticity, Rome, Open City and The Bicycle Thief are also clearly in-your-face diatribes against the fake glamour of traditional cinema. In that way, they are about as subtle as a swift kick to the meatballs.”

This is especially true of Italian B-movie cinema, a world that famously ranges from sword and sandal period tales featuring Hercules and Machiste, to spaghetti westerns to raunchy sex comedies (hopefully starring Edwige Fenech) to gross-out cannibal/zombie movies to noir crime dramas to cheesy sci-fi to the classic giallo thrillers. It’s hard to think of a single genre the Italians haven’t given their own spin on.

Beyond their often-prurient focus on sex and violence, Italian B-movies were notable for the use of M.O.S. sound, the process in which dialogue isn’t recorded on set, but instead added via ADR during post-production. The result is a strangely detached, almost dreamlike quality where the spoken words never quite exactly match the movement of the speaker’s lips—even when spoken in the language used during production.

The history of Italian B-movies is far too vast to sum up in a brief entry such as this, but some notable names to look up would be Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, Luigi Cozzi, Lamberto Bava, Dino Di Laurentiis, Sergio Leone, Carlo Ponti, Ruggero Deodato, Joe D’Amato, Tinto Brass, Umberto Lenzi and the already mentioned Ms. Fenech.

I

is for Italian

and

Italian

is

Incredible

The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t -- H is for Hammer

H

is for Hammer 

By 1955 Britain’s Hammer Film Productions had been around for 21 years and was only barely surviving by rapidly pumping out “quota-quickies”—low budget films of dubious quality that often played to empty theaters in order to meet the government-regulated demand for homegrown cinema.

That all changed that year, when they released the film adaptation of a chilling radio thriller about an obsessive scientist chasing after the rapidly mutating participant of his latest rocket experiment. The Quartmass Experiment quickly became the company’s biggest hit. They immediately followed it with two more sci-fi thrillers (X the Unknown and the sequel to Quartermass), but it was another horror effort that changed their fortunes and turned them in their country’s most famous exporter of B-movie greatness.

With The Curse of Frankenstein Hammer chanced upon a brilliant formula: Take the monsters made famous by Universal studios over 20 years earlier and update them with all of the blood, violence and (most importantly) sex they could hope to get away with. In 1958 that wasn’t much, but it was enough to cause a sensation. Critics were scandalized, while audiences were thrilled.

The resulting box office convinced Hammer to go all in. Adaptations featuring their versions of Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy, the Phantom of the Opera, cavemen, lost worlds, zombies, reptilemen and every kind of murderer they could think of soon followed. These films turned British character actors Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee into marquee stars, while their true appeal lay in the constant supply of European starlets who lent their heaving cleavages to the productions. Ask any Hammer fan to name their favourite and they’re likely to run out of breathe and faint before they get even close to stopping (Madeline Smith, Raquel Welch, Ursulla Andress, Kate O’Mara, Martine Beswick, Caroline Munro, Stephanie Beacham, Ingrid Pitt, Valerie Leon, Yvonne Romain…and that’s just off the top of my head).

If during the sixties these films represented a constant battle between sex and violence, it was clear by the seventies that sex had won. Lesbian themes were introduced into films like The Vampire Lovers, twin playmates were given the title roles in Twins of Evil and naked Nastassja Kinski was the only apparent justification for To the Devil a Daughter. That said, the studio still managed to produce several truly great films, including Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter and the imaginative Stevenson adaptation Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.

Following the failure of To the Devil, the studio finally closed its doors, only to reopen them in the past few years. Unfortunately the resulting films have yet to suggest any reason why fans of the original studio’s output should care.

H

is for Hammer

and

Hammer

is

Hot!

The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t -- G is for Gore

G

is for Gore

Herschell Gordon Lewis was always ahead of the curve. A few years earlier he had teamed up with famous exploitation movie producer David F. Friedman and started grinding out a series of “nudie cuties” (fake “documentaries” of nudist colonies that attempted—mostly unsuccessful—to justify the sight of busty beauties playing nude volleyball as educational), but the market was becoming over-saturated. A new gimmick was needed, all he had to do was figure out what people wanted that they weren’t currently getting.

With Blood Feast, Lewis found his gimmick and movies were never really the same again.

In the past acts of violence were always either shown off screen or depicted as unrealistically as possible (how man western villains died from gunshot wounds that produced no blood or visible wounds?). Lewis changed all that—well, the first part anyway (no one would ever accuse his films of being realistic). Where once filmmakers were content to merely allow audiences to imagine the carnage their characters had wrought, Lewis filmed it all in excruciating, pornographic detail. If Hitchcock’s famous shower scene featured 77 different shots, but not a single one in which the knife penetrated Janet Leigh’s body, then Lewis’ equivalent would have been done in one long take of the knife cutting through flesh, muscle and bone, causing a geyser of blood to splash against the camera lens.

The result was box office magic. Lewis quickly followed his success with a series of gory movies that became more surreal and strange as it went on (to stretch out the running time of The Gruesome Twosome, for example, he inserted shots of two inanimate wig mannequins having a conversation with each other). Strangely, few filmmakers immediately attempted to replicate his success. It turned out that even hardened B-Movie opportunists had limits.

Still, the floodgates had been opened and it was only a matter of time before the inevitable river of blood flowed through them. As the audience for such films grew, master technicians like Tom Savini developed the artistry required to make this violence as true to life as possible. This resulted in an equally inevitable backlash. To this day when people describe horror films as a form of pornography, they are almost always referring to those that emphasize gore over suspense.

G

is for Gore

and

Gore

is

Great

B-Movie Bullsh*t Random List O'Stuff Part 1: Thematically Sound

Here are five B-Movie theme songs that came to mind when I set out to make a list of great B-Movie theme songs.

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B-MOVIE BULLSH*T - Part Eight "Welcome to The Monster Club"

Extremely dated. Extremely entertaining.

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