Check these new DVD releases out for a gloriously gory Halloween night
“You think this is a fuckin’ costume? This is a way of life!”
Ah Return of the Living Dead . You scared the hell out of me as a child convinced that zombies were pacing outside my room waiting to eat my brains. I don’t worry about that happening anymore (as much as I used to) but Return planted the idea in my head. Watching it now one is more aware of director Dan O’Bannon’s success at creating a gross-out comedy an anomaly in the pantheon of nihilistic ’80s horror flicks.
By the time Return came out in 1984 the zombie flick wasn’t that popular anymore — big name killers like Jason Voorhees and satanic gore fests were raking in the cash. As O’Bannon (who wrote the screenplay for Alien ) says in the commentary he didn’t want to step on George Romero’s toes by veering into more socially conscious territory with his zombies instead opting for EC Comics-inspired humour.
Return opens with Freddy (Thom Mathews) and Frank (James Karen) working late at a medical supply store. Hidden in the basement is a canister filled with a noxious mix of toxic gas and sludge. The two accidentally open the canister releasing the deadly gas into the atmosphere. Rain starts to fall and the gas seeps into the ground of a local cemetery bringing the dead back to life. Mayhem ensues.
Return is still hilarious but it manages to sneak in some political subtext and plenty of gore. And of course there are the zombies the coolest being Tarman a skeletal creature dripping rotting flesh from its bones. The disc features two commentaries and three featurettes including one contained on the previous DVD release featuring an interview with O’Bannon in all his wacky bow tie-wearing glory. (BE)
SECRET OF THE OOZE
Finally! Fans have waited for years to get From Beyond (1986) on DVD. And not only the film but the fabled director’s cut thought doomed to obscurity. Director Stuart Gordon figured for years that the extra film (excised to meet an R rating) was lost or destroyed. But in one of those serendipitous Hollywood accidents a couple of archivists found the footage and asked Stuart to re-cut his original.
From Beyond was Gordon’s second foray into H.P. Lovecraft territory after the classic Re-Animator and it brings back two of Re-Animator’s stars Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton. It’s a delirious gore fest full of the same Lovecraftian paranoia monster mythology and fear of science that Gordon would explore further in his other films. From Beyond opens with Crawford (Combs) and Dr. Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel) testing out their new invention the Resonator a machine that opens the human mind to the sixth sense. But the two aren’t prepared for what comes through from the other side….
Short taut and disgusting — From Beyond is everything a good horror flick should be elevated with Gordon’s obvious love and skill with the genre and amplified with his unique take on the flesh echoing Cronenberg.
The commentary is good although the “making of” segments are perfunctory compared to the epic extras contained on the Re-Animator release earlier this year. (To say nothing of the bare bones Bride of Re-Animator disc!) (BE)
TEXAS TERRORS
The Masters of Horror series has featured some of its famed directors’ best work in years and no wonder — with a small budget and full creative control they’re free to make whatever sick creations come to mind. So far the second season has had some fantastic entries (Stuart Gordon’s The Black Cat Dario Argento’s Pelts ). Tobe Hooper’s The Damned Thing is the latest.
Based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce Damned features Sean Patrick Flanery as the sheriff of a small Texas town haunted by childhood memories of his father murdering his mother. He remembers his dad muttering something about “the damned thing” before he went bonkers and when local citizens start to self-mutilate and attack themselves he knows “the thing” is back.
Who is best at showing nasty things going on in backwoods Texas? Well it used to be Hooper whose classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre drew part of its power from the sparse oddity that is rural Texas. It’s good to see Hooper drawing back on those roots for Damned and it’s one of his best efforts in years. It also features one of the most shockingly violent scenes in recent memory. Let’s say it involves a hammer. Yikes.
Extras include two making-of featurettes and commentary. (BE)
MASTERS OF HORROR: SEASON ONE
Ever since the TV dial fractured from three standard networks to an epic sea of specialty cable stations audiences have been thrilled by those programs that have been able to push boundaries. Sex and the City gave us frank and funny dirty talk. The Sopranos delivered foul language and a brutal body count. Recently horror fans that revel in episodic splatter anthologies like Tales From the Crypt have been tuning in to Masters of Horror .
For the uninitiated the Vancouver-shot Masters of Horror enlists the help of some of the horror genre’s all-time great directors as well as some modern upstarts to put their spin on hour-long installments. Alongside folks like John Carpenter John Landis and Tobe Hooper you have Italian legend Dario Argento Japanese shock master Takeshi Miike and many others known for their ghoulish work. Working from adapted screenplays with the help of Oscar-winning makeup artist Howard Berger Masters of Horror is an old-school tribute to the golden age of horror cinema.
The show has already completed it’s second season but just in time for Halloween season one has been complied in a collector’s box set with all unlucky 13 episodes and bonus features that rival the body counts in sheer number. Sitting down to watch this batch of blood soaked mini-features may be a B-movie fan’s wet dream but it doesn’t take long to notice a few motifs that are more disturbing than the gore.
Sure the C-list actors and D-list performances sometimes leave something to be desired but that isn’t the most offensive part of these proceedings. It’s the portrayal of women. Granted the horror genre has never been the safest place for ladies but in the wake of flicks like Scream female cast members have not only been given more of a fighting chance they have been portrayed as humans rather than props.
In Masters of Horror however nearly every episode seems intent on simply objectifying women. Here the female roles are populated by no-name ingénues who are cast for their bodies rather than their acting prowess. They play whores junkies demons sex addicts and in some cases all of the above. If they aren’t topless by the 20-minute mark they are completely naked and almost none of them survive.
Compared to the new wave of sci-fi and horror heroines that have been in vogue lately these characters seem to have been pulled from an outdated time capsule. This has a lot to do with the masters of horror themselves. Most of them came into their own during the late ’70s and early ’80s when horror movies were relegated to the fringes of cinema and you could get away with these kinds of portrayals. And to be fair treatment of women was questionable in most genre filmmaking of the time. Take a look at some of the vintage westerns Clint Eastwood made before his Oscar run and you will see some rather unbecoming behaviour. Still if an old dog like Clint can learn new tricks why can’t the Masters of Horror ?
Some horror fans bemoan the lack of an old-school esthetic in modern splatter flicks which is why such films as Behind the Mask and Hatchet are earning top marks from fans of the genre. Still if we can update the camera work and special effects it begs the question why not update the psychology?
Admittedly picking on a genre that is known for universally violently unacceptable social behaviour for its treatment of one section of the population may seem hypocritical. Conversely an equal-opportunity approach might simply promote mean spirited misanthropy to run rampant. Each viewer’s response will no doubt be different. In the case of Masters of Horror it’s hard to take the campy gore in good stride when the delivery is so mean-spirited. (JL)
