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First, a little something from the left side of the aisle...
From the scratch-mixing of Nixon in the opening to the WrestleMania style battle between Reagan and Konstantin Chenenko (I almost forget who he was -- he only served as Soviet chief for 13 months), this video virtually screams "Hey! I'm from the 1980s!"
Not, however, as much as this one does. From the right side of the aisle...
That bad parachute special effect? That "computer" lettering? Sammy's "hard rocker's juice panel"? That yellow jumpsuit? Good god, that yellow jumpsuit? This might be the most ridiculous video ever made, and believe me, that's a category with some stiff competition. Best of all, I think the Samster is serious! USA! USA!
So, in advance, I'd like to apologize for sentences like "A tangible, visible news event that let us remember Jan. 28, 1986 more clearly than the days surrounding it" and "... I (and, by extension, my generation), never had a national tragedy I could call my own." I promise I'll never write anything so agonizingly voice-of-my-generation-ish again.
And now that that's out of the way, here it is, straight from the last days of the 1980s...
Seeing history develop from a Wall
My friend Eric, who graduated last year with degrees in history and political science, now lives in Virginia near a sizable Navy base. Upon hearing about the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, he put some luggage in his car and is now waiting for the first sign of troop movements as his signal to leave his primary-target residence and head back to Ohio.
This man, who in college specialized in post-World War II European developments, is genuinely frightened that the Wall's demolition will lead to a reunited German and eventually, nuclear war.
I don't agree with Eric, but his fear illustrates a point. We are witnessing history. Since 1961, our world has been based on a balance of Eastern and Western power, and that balance had no greater symbol than the ominous Wall dividing one of the more famous cities on the planet.
Of course, it wasn't symbolic of the guards or mine fields that killed 191 people who tried to escape to the West between 1961 and last week. The Wall was very real, and its threat was not to be taken as a metaphor for the Cold War.
It's precisely because the Wall was so real and so tangible that its demolition has fascinated the world. The Wall coming down doesn't mean Germany is reuniting, though some experts claim it may. So, the balance of power still holds, and German is still two countries. A number of political moves by both Eastern and Western powers have probably had as great an effect on bringing the hemispheres closer together as the demolition of the Berlin Wall. The fact that it is a wall -- something we can see being scaled and painted and danced on and torn down -- makes it memorable.
While I understand the loss that occurred when Kennedy was shot in 1963, I have a hard time actually identifying with it. A child of the post-Watergate world, I have a natural suspicion of the president that leads me to wonder more about JFK's liaisons in the Lincoln Room than the magic of Camelot. So, while it may sound like a strange thing to complain about, I (and, by extension, my generation), never had a national tragedy I could call my own. Our parents can reminisce about what they were doing when they heard Kennedy was shot, but we have nothing comparable.
Not until Jan. 28, 1986, when I returned to Dunbar Hall and head Dan Rather's voice echoing from each room. My first thought was that Reagan had again been shot, but then I saw the now-familiar footage of a rocket blast followed by a spiral puff of smoke against a gorgeous blue sky.
As we watched the Challenger explode again and again, we discovered that we finally had our Kennedy assassination. A tangible, visible news event that let us remember Jan. 28, 1986 more clearly than the days surrounding it.
I had the same feeling last Thursday when I heard the Wall was coming down.
I'm not saying the events of the Wall will affect the American public like the Kennedy assassination, or even the Challenger explosion. Bad news seems to carry a power good news never does. What I am saying is that we are witnesses to history. The superpowers may grow closer or tensions may increase. Germany may remain two countries or reunite and become the powerhouse on a continent of tourist nations. Eric's fears may even be realized, and the end of the Berlin Wall could lead to the end of the world.
Just remember one thing: You were there when it all started.
Pfeifer is the Stater managing editor.
And, just to prove I was your typical cynical Gen-X college student back then, here's a flyer for a party we threw at our house two weeks after this column ran. I won't both explaining all the pointless in-jokes, but I'm sure you'll notice the timely and tasteful theme we assigned the soiree...
And to be honest, I think we stole the title from an reference in the first issue of AMERICAN FLAGG. Now Howard Chaykin, there's a guy who knows how to combine humor and politics!
What follows is a column I wrote for my college paper, the imaginatively named Daily Kent Stater, sometime in the fall of 1989. I can't find a date on the clipping, but judging by the fact that I didn't mention it, I'm guessing this was before the Berlin Wall actually came down. At any rate, it offers a glimpse of what life was like back then, in the final days of the Cold War. Like everyone else in my generation, I'd grown up with the Soviet Union as the great enemy of America, the yang to our yin, the Lex Luthor to our Superman. It's weird, but re-reading this piece made me oddly nostalgic for those days, where the big bad was really, really big and we both had a vested interested in keeping a lid on the crazy stuff. Nowadays, who knows?
Anyway, here it is. I didn't correct any spelling or punctuation errors, because I'm sure future historians will want the original version for their archives. And if you don't get some of the references -- like Pravda, ruble or Bret Maverick -- then be grateful you live in the era of Wikipedia, tovarich.
(Oh, and if you think I was sick of hearing the word "maverick" back in the Yeltsin days, imagine how sick of was of hearing it this year in reference to a certain governor from a state that was our last line of defense against Mother Russia?)
Red Square is the cool place to be, comrade
It used to be that for interesting news, the place not to go was that dull, battleship-gray monolith of a country, the Soviet Union. Oh, the arms race was always good for a few inches of story on a slow news day but overall, Mother Russia was known as the place where people drank vodka, ate borschtt (whatever that was) and a series of old, crabby leaders with bushy eyebrows watched parades with lots of tanks and missiles.
Well, needless to say, things have changed. The other side of the globe is fun to watch now that the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are experiencing political reform on a scale not seen since the days of Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, not John).
For the first time I can remember, the Reds, the Commies, the denizens of the Evil Empire -- are actually seen as the good guys. All it took was Gorbachev saying "Alright, we screwed up. It doesn't work. People like owning things."
And how about this Boris Yeltsin? He comes to America and immediately Pravda accuses him of drunken revelry. I don't know which is nicer -- the idea that a member of the Supreme Soviet could actually be suspected of fun (after all, all those Politburo types look pretty dull, but now, who knows...) or Pravda becoming a scandal sheet like our beloved National Enquirer. Of course, if Gorbachev tries to get Pravda into that lucrative check-out lane distribution, he'll really learn something about the power of labor unions.
I just wish every time (and I mean EVERY time) Yeltsin appeared in a news story, the word "maverick" wasn't right there along with him. In the decadent, television-saturated United States, there's a considerable risk of people thinking the guy's name is Boris Maverick, and that he's the brother of Bret and Bart. Say, now there's a show for that post-Roseanne time slot ... "Comrade Cowboy -- riding the REALLY wide open space of Russia."
Yep, tovarich, big changes are afoot behind the (increasingly rusty) Iron Curtain. A few decades ago, "heavy metal" in the Soviet Union meant Stalin's big tanks on another purge-and-destroy mission, but today it means Bon Jovi and his pals playing to unprecedented crowds of rock-starved Soviet kids and Russian headbangers Gorky Park thanking Mikhail Gorbachev for making their debut album possible. The fact that Gorky Park has avoided the clich of covering "Back in the U.S.S.R" can only be taken as a good sign.
As final proof that the land of borscht and vodka is the hep place to be these days, I offer this bit of news from the latest issue of Newsweek: A calendar featuring nude women walking through Moscow has been given the red stamp of approval and will sell for $20 of the ruble equivalent thereof.
While we in the West debate funing for controversial art and argue the fine line of obscenity and government cash, our fellow Superpower is concentrating on cheesecake photography and (this is the crucial part, global-economics wise) charging a lot of money for it. Love it or hate it, you've got to admit the Sovs are embracing capitalism in a very American way. Now if they'd only take back that damn Yakov Smirnoff.
Pfeifer is the Stater managing editor.
Up next: The column from a week after the Wall went down.
Sadly.
And, if that leaves you with the urge to see the genuine article, why not check out this musical bit from the THUNDERBIRDS movie* featuring Cliff Richards and The Shadows?
* No, not that live-action monstrosity from 2004. I'm talking about the genuine article -- THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO, which hit theaters back in 1966.
The song itself doesn't kick in until just past the four-minute mark, but even before then, "Minnie" is plenty strange. Betty's dad changes form, and there's that great little moment when the lipstick print on her handkerchief sings back at her. (Plus, Koko the clown has a cameo!)
And then, when Cab himself shows up -- yowza! I don't know whose idea it was to make him a ghostly walrus, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences needs to fire up the time machine and give that man an Oscar toot sweet. Best of all, that rotoscoped Mr. Calloway is only the beginning -- you also get skeletons, ghosts, those singing reflections of Bimbo in the well, a triple electric chair execution and kittens who suck the life from their mother.
By the grand finale, the cartoon just goes crazy, with ghostly apparitions flying out at the viewer (including one with singing tonsils!) and driving poor Betty back to her folks' place. It's jazzy, it's jaunty and yes, it's even a bit spooky. Forget all those toothless Halloween specials and show this one to your kids this year. Believe me, they'll thank you for it.
But the centerpiece of the 1979 Price Guide was "Good Lord! Choke...Gasp...It's EC!," a history of the EC Comics line by E.B. Boatner. It stretched from the early days of Max Gaines up through the final, Code-approved death-spasms of the company, covering the science fiction books, Kurtzman's war comics, the crime and suspense titles and, of course, MAD. But what really got me was the section on the horror titles -- specifically, the discussion of and these panels reprinted from THE HAUNT OF FEAR issue 19 ...
Yes, it's the infamous Al Feldstein/Jack Davis ending to "Foul Play!," the story where a baseball team seeks revenge on a murderous opponent by luring him to a ballpark late one night and then taking him apart and playing ball with his body. It's a story I've written about before, and one so notorious that the good Dr. Wertham reprinted these exact panels in his own book (they're the first images in the picture section, in fact).
Now, looking at them after decades of reading comic books and seeing plenty of horrific images that were much worse, I can appreciate them as being so wildly-over-the-top that they're actually pretty funny, an especially gruesome example of the sort of jet-black humor EC Comics excelled at. I can appreciate Davis' exquisite linework and even enjoy the nostalgic vibe of that distinctive EC Leroy lettering.
But back in 1979, huddled in a chair somewhere, absorbing all that ancient, ominous comic book history in one great rush, those panels -- reprinted in black and white, and damned small on the page -- really struck a nerve. I couldn't stop thinking about them for days, and wondered what sort of twisted mind could conceive of such a thing. Now, of course, I know exactly what sort of mind concieves of such a thing -- the best sort of mind. It's not easy to explode a cultural time bomb twenty-six years later and from hundreds of miles away, but Feldstein and Davis did it, sending an innocent Midwestern kid on a lifelong pursuit of twisted four-color thrills and other oddball pop culture.
And, since they're both still alive, in the extremely unlikely event that they're reading this blog, I'd like to take this opportunity to say "thank you" to Misters Feldstein and Davis. Thank you, gentlemen, thank you for going above and beyond (and below and beneath) the call of duty just to warp my young, impressionable mind.
In all honestly, I don't think I can ever repay you.
But, as it turns out, the Crowes are a couple of sadistic bastards...
This wasn't just random sadism, either. It was all designed to turn the campers into a bunch of awful kids who would trip a kid with a cane or (gasp!) push a bunch of baby birds out of a nest...
Freddy, who must've had the evil gene to begin with, took to the nastiness like a nasty duck takes to nasty water. For some reason -- maybe because, even as a kid, I was a collector geek -- I remember being specifically upset that Freddy would swipe some kid's stamp collection. (Who takes their stamps to a summer camp, anyway?)
Eventually, for reasons I can't remember, Freddy comes to his sense and tries to escape. Those Crowes chase him, naturally, but he accidentally (well, maybe) causes and avalanche and, yes, kills them.
But at the story's end, when Freddy brings his parents back to the scene of the crimes, he discovers the camp has been abandoned and torched...
Sure, it all looks pretty goofy decades later, but I maintain that there's still something unnerving at the core of this story. Maybe it's because it's all happening to a kid, maybe it's that scene with the "eye for an eye," or maybe it's the same reason I found Rob Zombie's THE DEVIL'S REJECTS so disturbingly effective.
See, I never thought the gory or violent scenes in that film were what really made it stand apart from the pack. For me, the most memorable scene in the movie was when the Firefly family has the innocent folks in the hotel room and they force the women to hit each other. It's not bloody at all, but it's so believable and so realistically nasty that the big scene of gore that follows actually comes as a relief. I mean, you can say "well, that's never going to happen," and you're right. But what goes on in that hotel room -- or what happens with those mean kids in "Camp Fear" -- that's all too down-to-earth. And that's what makes it so danged creepy.
Coming tomorrow: How scary can a baseball game be?
And here's the inside, with that same scene after a very young yours truly worked his magic...
Apparently this was one of 24 "titles," though it's the only one I've got, and the only one I remember having. The copyright date is 1970, but I would've only been 3 then, so they must've stuck around on shelves a year or two longer at least. Has anyone else ever heard of these things?
Really , it's amazing how this trailer not only gets every bit of early '80s horror movies right, but actually improves on them. It's funny, sure, but it's also damned creepy. The awkward camerawork, the dim lighting, the POV shots, the unsettling narration and the way even a Thanksgiving parade in broad daylight somehow looks, well, wrong -- it all adds up to a trailer for a movie I'd really like to see, especially if I were a horror fan back in, say, 1982.
Of course, Roth goes a bit far to be strictly accurate -- there wouldn't be any actual nudity in a movie trailer (back in the days before red band) and some of that gore wouldn't make the cut, either. But, Roth being Roth, we can be thankful he was at least mostly restrained here, and the trailer is better for it.
I've heard Roth is working on a full-length version of THANKSGIVING, but if you ask me, this is a big mistake. What works in a two-minute trailer wouldn't necessarily work in a feature film, and I'm guessing sitting through THANKSGIVING would lose its laughs and thrills about 15 or 20 minutes in. Hell, if I want to watch a silly, creepy slasher movie with a holiday theme, I'll just rent MY BLOODY VALENTINE. Or SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGT. Or MOTHER'S DAY. Or HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME. Or HALLOWEEN II. Or, well, you get the idea.
I remember eyeing the ENCYCLOPEDIA in the campus bookstore during my first days at Kent State in the fall of 1985. I'd seen plenty of movies by then, including some pretty off-the-wall stuff, but I'd never even heard of most of the movies in that thick little book. PLEASE DON'T EAT MY MOTHER? INVASION OF THE BLOOD FARMERS? MOVIE STAR AMERICAN STYLE OR LSD I HATE YOU!? What were these titles? Weldon had to be making them up, right? I mean, no one would actually make these movies -- or, for that matter, watch them.
Well, of course they were real, and in the years since I finally screwed up my nerve and plunked down the $16.95 for the book, I've spent considerable time and effort trying to see as many of these movies as possible. (Though MOVIE STAR AMERICAN STYLE, sadly, is apparently a lost film, just like LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT and the original cut of AMBERSONS.)
The great thing about the ENCYCLOPEDIA -- maybe the single greatest thing -- is that despite its inclusion in this Halloween-themed roundup, it's not a book about horror movies. It's a book about all sorts of movies, from no-budget obscurities to major blockbusters. It's all-inclusive -- if there's a strange movie you love (and if it was released before 1983), odds are, it's in here somewhere.
(Incidentally, Weldon's write-up of STARS WARS is hilariously dismissive. He refers to Chewbacca as "an upright dog" and calls Alec Guinness' character "Ben Kenoby." I think I was actually slightly offended by this as a teenage STAR WARS nerd, but now I see the beauty of Weldon's sloppiness -- any book that devotes more space to the STAR WARS ripoff STAR CRASH is clearly aiming at a different target than more mainstream movie guides.)
By using the term "psychotronic" instead of "horror," "cult" or something else, Weldon was able to include virtually any kind of movie. As he says in the intro...
Psychotronic films range from sincere social commentary to degrading trash. They concern teenagers, rock 'n' roll, juvenile delinquents, monsters, aliens, killers, spies, detectives, bikers, communists, drugs, natural catastrophes, atomic bombs, the prehistoric past, and the projected future. They star ex-models, ex-sports stars, would-be Marilyns, future Presidents (and First Ladies), dead rock stars and has beens of all types.
Weldon's book includes movies of all these stripes and many more, and just browsing through its pages was like taking a master-level course in offbeat cinema. And remember, this was in 1985, in the early days of home video. In that (wonderful, beautiful, magical) pre-Blockbuster era, there were plenty of mom and pop stores who made their bread-and-butter renting obscure stuff like DR. BUTCHER M.D. or THE HUMAN DUPLICATORS (and, admittedly, porn), but I never would've known these movies existed without Weldon's book prying open my eyes and shoving them in front of my face.
Thanks to his oddly simple yet oddly infectious descriptions and the well-chosen illustrations, you couldn't help but want to watch those films after spending a few minutes with the ENCYCLOPEDIA. The fact that finding many of these movies back then was damn near impossible just meant more time curled up with the book itself.
Nowadays, I've got dozens of cult movie books on my shelf, including Weldon's own sequel, the even-bigger PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO GUIDE, and my DVD shelves are full of movies mentioned in the ENCYCLOPEDIA, including films I thought I'd never see, like MR. FREEDOM and LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET (about which Weldon notoriously asked "Have you ever heard anyone even admit that they saw it?") But having those movies doesn't make the ENCYCLOPEDIA less valuable, it just makes it seem more impressive.
Somehow, Weldon was able to write about obscure movies that would still be worth seeing 25 years later, and he was able to write about them in a way that would make a film fan -- aka, yours truly -- want to see them more than just about anything else.
Oddly enough, I remember being a bit hesitant about buying THE PSYCHOTRONIC ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM back in 1985. It's not that it didn't seem interesting -- hell, I looked at it every time I stopped by the bookstore -- but as if somehow, I knew once I bought this book, there would be no going back.
I'm happy to say I was right. There wasn't. And that's why it's one of the greatest books I've ever owned.
Dario Argento gets us started with the three-disc SUSPIRIA from Anchor Bay (including the original soundtrack by Goblin), followed by another "collector's edition," CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, with an optional version that cuts out the animal killing scenes (classy!). Then we've got the three Coffin Joe discs from the coffin shaped boxed set (though I tossed the cheap-o coffin years ago). The DVDs, however, still contain those creepy little comic books they came packaged with.
Next up is the metal box TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE set Dark Sky films released in 2006, followed by the disturbing double feature of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and the much harder-to-find (trust me on this) LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET. Then there's Larry Cohen's great oddball New York monster epic Q: THE WINGED SERPENT and two twisted classics from Synapse, STREET TRASH and THRILLER: A CRUEL PICTURE. (The STREET TRASH disc is worth the price for the making-of doc alone, which is much longer than the actual movie.)
After that, we switch gears and toss in a few DVDs from Something Weird: SCARE THEIR PANTS OFF and SATAN'S BED (featuring, believe it or not, an early appearance by Yoko Ono), DAY OF THE NIGHTMARE and SCREAM OF THE BUTTERFLY, DOCTOR OF DOOM and WRESTLING WOMEN VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY (highly, highly recommended) and finally, trashmeister Andy Milligan's THE GHASTLY ONES and SEEDS OF SIN.
The collection (or, at least, this portion of it) concludes with Jack Hill's black comedy SPIDER BABY, BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA (worth having just for the appearance by Jerry Lewis clone Sammy Petrillo), the excellent '70s horror doc THE AMERICAN NIGHTMARE, the Japanese Saturday afternoon favorite DESTROY ALL MONSTERS and the wacked-out Japanese/U.S. co-production, THE MANSTER. Lurking above these discs are some less-sleazy selections: 28 DAYS LATER and the Criterion MONSTERS AND MADMEN collection.
And, if you noticed that this shelf is actually the exact same shelf as the one we saw on the previous day, congratulations. You know what else? King Kong was a model, and Godzilla is just a guy in a suit.
Coming tomorrow: If only there was a book that had listings for all these movies...
Warner Bros.' top-notch Val Lewton collection leads things off, followed by the Martin Scorsese "presented" documentary, VAL LEWTON: THE MAN IN THE SHADOWS. Next up, continuing the Lewton theme, is CURSE OF THE DEMON (aka NIGHT OF THE DEMON), which was directed by Lewton's top guy, Jacques Tourneur.
Then we've got Tod Browning's FREAKS, the Turner Classics Lon Chaney collection, the already-referenced-in-this-series NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, Warner Bros. LEGENDS OF HORROR collection (with MAD LOVE, DOCTOR X, THE DEVIL DOLL and others), and the FRANKENSTEIN trilogy: the original, the BRIDE, and ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET...
Next up is that swell version of GOJIRA (aka GODZILLA) that came out a year or so ago, followed by the WOLF MAN and CREATURE OF THE BLACK LAGOON sets. Then there's THE BELA LUGOSI COLLECTION (with one of my all-time favorites, THE BLACK CAT), and the unsung BAT WHISPERS, with both versions of the film -- including one in widescreen. Last but not least "collectors" edition of KING KONG, complete with a replica of the original program and that swanky tin box.
And finally, stretched out luxuriously across the top, are the Criterion editions of HAXAN, THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER and CARNIVAL OF SOULS (which includes educational films by directer Herk Harvey.) Under them, for no good reason, is the MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA disc that should by all reason be next to GOJIRA. Sue me.
Coming tomorrow: The classic horror shelf's sleazy cousin.
The fact that every tagline on that poster is a a killer isn't hurt by the fact that almost none of them are accurate. The house itself isn't anything scary, unless you're talking about the early '70s decorating scheme (zing!). I'm not sure if that whole bit about "the very center of hell" is supposed to imply some sort of supernatural element, but this movie is strictly human evil. And yes, Mari did live in the last house on the left, but as for the "the worst is yet to come" line, as I recall, even the killers seems taken aback by the savagery of the murder, and when she's dead, they pretty much leave her alone.
The best line of all, though, is that last one, and whether it's original to this movie or not, it's justifiably become a classic. "To avoid fainting keep repeating, it's only a movie...only a movie...only a movie..." is actually better than anything in the movie itself. In fact, I liked it so much, I stole it for a CATWOMAN story arc a couple of years ago...
So that's the original. When I heard this was slated for the remake process, I'll admit I was surprised. The only reason the original is still talked about is that it's so vile. It's not especially scary or suspenseful, but it does take you places few other movies are willing to go. And those places, I figured, are not the sort of destinations you find in a big-budget, major-studio movie.
And I was right.
THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT remake of 2009 changes the story significantly. Oh, the basic elements are there -- murderous criminals, pot-smoking teens, surprisingly violent parents -- but they've been tellingly rearranged. Now the criminals (led by Garrett Dillahunt of DEADWOOD, who was born to play a nasty SOB) take the girls hostage because they're desperate prisoners on the lam. Now one of the girls survives to make it back to her parents' lake house (not, significantly, their actual home), and now the parents' brutal violence can be excused as necessary to protect themselves and their daughter instead of being just a bitter bit of ugly (though arguably justified) revenge.
Not a bad movie, but it lacks the sheer intensity of will that its predecessor. It needs to be nastier, crazier and more over-the-top. And so, needless to say, does its poster...
Here's the original poster...
Now this, my friends, this is how you sell a horror movie. You have a terrible looking man wearing what appears to be a human face trying to start a chainsaw as a screaming girl hangs helpless in the background. You have one of the all-time great come-on lines with "Who will survive and" ... and here's the killer ... "what will be left of them?" And you've got that title, which has become such a part of pop culture you forget how devilishly clever it really is. "Texas" implies scary, out-of-the-way Southern horrors. "Chainsaw" tells you what the weapon of choice will be. And "Massacre" lets you know that there are going to be several victims. Even the word "The" hints that this is some legendary, one-of-a-kind event, something you should have heard about -- unless people just aren't talking.
With all that, you don't even need the two bonus taglines, "America's most bizarre and brutal crimes" and "What happened is true. Now the motion picture that's just as real." For one thing, it's obviously not a true story (though it, like PSYCHO, was inspired by the crimes of Wisconsin's Ed Gein), though horror movies have a long tradition of implying they're "based on actual events." But, in the ad line's defense, I would agree that TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE feels uncomfortably real. Like some critic whose name I can't remember said, it's like they gave the camera to the people and had them film their own crimes.
One more design point about this poster: For such a dark movie, the poster is surprisingly bright -- and all the more effective for it. All those elements -- the "what will be left of them" line, the illustration and the title (in bright, lurid red) -- explode out of that white space. You can see -- and read -- this poster from a mile away.
Unfortunately, you can't say the same for the remake poster...
Now this, this is just dull. It's one thing to coast on a movie's reputation and assume the audience knows at least the rough story of what they're getting, but it's something else to just stick a murky close-up of Leatherface (looking unusually soulful) on a black background, put the title in tasteful white type and stick a standard "Inspired by a true story" tagline at the bottom.
All this tells me is that (a) someone has made a slick, big-budget remake of a horror classic, and (b) it has none of the wit, originality or balls of the original. And, having seen both versions of CHAINSAW, I can say that impression is accurate. There's nothing particularly wrong with the remake, but there's also no reason for it to exist (except, of course, to make money). The original CHAINSAW is a bracing, brutal experience even decades after its release. This one is too slick, to polished and too damn calculated to be anything more than a reminder to watch Hooper's version.
Coming tomorrow: LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT
