A LOOK BACK AT A MOVIE THAT, WHILE FUN, DOESN’T QUITE HOLD UP.
Twenty years ago a little movie from reportedly douche bag director, Troy Duffy, hit the scene. For years to come shitty posters have lined the walls of undergrad male’s dormitories, while they all scream about how great this movie was, and how you should see it, because only they have seen it, and they want to introduce you to its amazingness… If you listen to them, and sit down with a brew to watch the movie, you’ll be entertained, sure, but that’s about it. I still don’t get what was so damned special about this movie, and I was TOTALLY caught in the storm of it.
For my research, I’ll look the trailer. Like the majority of you, I only ever saw the
trailer on the DVD copy my mom bought me.
At the time, I thought it was awful.
It shows the whole movie! It
shows the best scenes! It gives nearly
everything away! And to the 16 – 25 year
old crowd this movie is singularly targeted for, this is horrible. To everyone else, thank god the trailer shows
as much as it does, or no one would ever watch it. The movie is a hard sell to the most receptive
crowd, so in my opinion, the trailer does its job. This isn’t some religious propaganda movie,
nor is it insulting religion, we get that.
This movie will have fun violence that is shot differently, we get that
too. The movie has a pretty good sense
of humor, we kinda sorta get that. All in
all if this was a movie coming out today, and I saw this trailer I’d see
it. I’d wait for video, but I’d see it.
I realize I came across really negative on the movie… uh… I
regret nothing.
Imagine a time when comic book movies were not even a genre and the idea that they would dominate the box office would be laughable. Imagine a time when a film based on a comic book was seen to be a huge risk. That time is 1978 and a film was on the horizon that would change American Cinema forever. That film was Superman. At this point the most well known comic book adaptation was the live action Batman starring Adam West. The campy series was the exact opposite of what producers Ilya Salkind, Alexander Salkind and Pierre Spengler wanted to achieve. The development of Superman is the stuff of legend and borderline insane.
Matt is a huge film and TV buff who studied film and moving image production at university. In his spare time he enjoys reading comics and books, the occasional gaming session and writing novels.
Need some alternative holiday films? Matt has got you covered!
As the time of turkeys, trees and tinsel descends, also does the time of cheesy movies about Santa, hyperactive elves and reindeer. Not everyone is a fan of these kinds of films but they’re hard to avoid, so I decided to give you a list of five alternative Christmas movies you can watch this yuletide season.
Matt is a huge film and TV buff who studied film and moving image production at university. In his spare time he enjoys reading comics and books, the occasional gaming session and writing novels.
A look back at 50 years of the walking dead and the legacy they left behind.
OK, so before you bite my head off, I know that zombie films have been around for longer than 50 years. The title of this article refers to the zombies as we know them today which begun with Night of the Living Dead. The “zombies” in Night of the Living Dead are closer in lore to vampires than actual zombies. While zombies are reanimated corpses, they didn’t turn others into zombies by biting them before Romero. In fact, Romero never referred to the monsters in Night of the Living Dead as “zombies”; they called them “Ghouls” in the film. He rarely had characters referred to them as “zombies” in his subsequent films, I can only recall one usage of the word “zombie” and that was in Dawn of the Dead. Anyway, back to the subject at hand.
Matt is a huge film and TV buff who studied film and moving image production at university. In his spare time he enjoys reading comics and books, the occasional gaming session and writing novels.
Looking back on the legacy and influence of Snake Plissken.
Three words. Three small words introduced us to the baddest of all badasses, the man of few words, the one-eyed anti-hero Snake Plissken. My first introduction to the John Carpenter creation was on a television screen in Menorca at the age of 13. Escape From New York was playing on one of the channels in Spanish without any subtitles, making it difficult to understand. What caught and kept my attention was the incredible opening theme music, as well as the gritty and slightly futuristic look. I couldn’t look away.
When we were back in England I asked my parents to get me a copy of the film on VHS. Months later it was my 14th birthday and inside the colourful wrapping paper was a black VHS case with an image that remains iconic in my mind to this day: the giant decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty on the ground and three people being chased by a hoard of men with “John Carpenter’s Escape From New York” plastered on the cover. I jumped for joy and broke open the case immediately and removed the cellophane that covered the tape. I slid the cassette into my video player and I pressed play.
For the next 90 minutes I was transported to the grimy streets of Manhattan Island Maximum Security Penitentiary in the futuristic world of 1997 (bear in mind I saw this in 2001) and introduced to a cast of characters that were quirky, chilling, cool, dangerous and fun. I was totally immersed in the film and when it was over I rewound the tape to the beginning and watched it again. The high-tech police force contrasted against the no-tech prison fascinated me, but the biggest draw for the whole film for me was Plissken himself.
The character of Snake Plissken had gone on to inspire the character of Solid Snake in Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid series, and only upon replaying it did I realize the connection. Let’s face it, Solid Snake is Snake Plisken and the game was basically Escape From New York: The Game. His gruff, gravelly voice is practically an imitation of Plissken’s. Both are forced into taking their assignments, both are captured, both find a tough female and neurotic male ally on the inside, and their only communication with the outside world is through a radio. As if that weren’t enough, both Solid Snake and Snake Plissken sport the iconic eye patch.
But I digress. Escape From New York was not some big-budget blockbuster, instead it was shot on a relatively low budget in St Louis. In fact, there is only one “New York Shot” and even that was actually two different shots edited seamlessly together. This is because they could only afford to shoot for one day in New York.
The shot in question is the tracking shot where Rehme walks into the Liberty Island Security Control room to get the call from air traffic control. The shot pans over into complete blackness, and then with a cut we find ourselves in Los Angeles as the panning shot continues on, showing the helicopters and approaching prisoner transfer bus. It’s a seamless edit that I wouldn’t have even known existed until I watched a documentary about the making of the film.
Throughout Escape, Snake acts as an of angel of death of sorts. Everyone he interacts with inside of the walls of the prison ends up dead, with exception of the President. He’s also pursued by death by way of the countdown on his watch, which promises his own demise. Because of this he has a do-anything attitude to accomplishing his mission, ready to screw anyone over who can help him find the President.
Kurt Russell talks in an interview about the moment he knew that the character of Snake was going to be a hit, they were shooting one night and John Carpenter wanted a shot of him running down the street and turning down an alley. They shot it and as Kurt turned the corner there were four big guys coming around the corner from their side. Because of the eye patch he wore Kurt had gotten into the habit of tilting his head to look at people and as he did that the four big guys backed away saying “Easy, easy, it’s cool.” After coming back out of the alley and back down to where the crew were set up Kurt said to John Carpenter, “I think this character’s gonna work.”
And of course it works. Snake Plissken just oozes a pure sense of “Do not fuck with me” in every scene in the film. He has such a presence on screen. It’s clear to see how Kurt Russell became the huge movie star that he is today off the back of his performance in Escape From New York.
The opening title sequence does an incredible job of setting up the world through voice over, provided by an un-credited Jamie Lee Curtis, and enhanced by Computer Generated Imagery. It is not the only piece of fake CGI that is in the film, for the sequence were Snake enters the prison he is flying a glider that has computer generated images of the cityscape, or so we the audience are led to believe. In actuality the CGI we are looking at is actually a scale model of the city with the corners of the buildings covered in high contrast tape and filmed it under a black light. The realistic models of New York were achieved by laying out a map of the city and scale model buildings made from cardboard and plywood were placed on top, the streets were blacked over with tape to give them a realistic look of a street. For the POV shot of the plane speeding towards New York the effects team painted the studio floor with a high gloss black paint to simulate the water that surrounded Manhattan Island. Future director James Cameron worked on the film, providing some of the matte paintings and working on the effects shots of Air Force One.
The supporting cast are fantastic in their respective roles. Lee Van Cleef plays the role of Hauk – the opposite of Snake. It’s easy to see that if Snake had remained on the side of the law he could have ended up just like Hauk. Hauk is just as fearless as Snake, and their first meeting shows how tough he is when four guards have brought Snake to him and he asks them to leave them alone. Throughout the film he is the only one who really believes that Snake can accomplish his mission, even though he can be seen as an antagonist for Snake he is also his only ally on the outside. This is a recurring theme in the film: snake’s allies are also his enemies. Brain – played by Harry Dean Stanton – double-crosses him multiple times.
The characters are quite well-developed for what is really a B-movie; they all have their own backstories. Donald Pleasence came up with an entire backstory for why the President of the United States is British. None of it was used but it was that sort of work that informed his performance creating a solid character. He also brought some of his own real-life experiences of being a Prisoner of War in his performance, the blonde wig he is wearing when Brain and Maggie break him out was his idea.
Issac Hayes portrayed the Duke of New York with an imposing level of seriousness. When he spoke he spoke with a slow and deliberate manner to make people listen and pay attention to every word he said. There was also some very subtle things that Hayes injected into the role. The Duke has a slight twitch in his right eye which is only seen a few times but it adds a level of depth to the character that not many other B movies would have in their characters. In contrast to the serious Duke of New York there is his right hand man Romero, named after director George A. Romero. Everything about Romero was to the extreme from his general look to his over the top performance, he is the audience’s first glimpse of the occupants of New York and it leaves an impression. His creepy demeanor as he slowly counts down from twenty still makes an impact today. Romero was portrayed by Frank Doubleday who appeared in Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 as the robotic and unfeeling White Warlord who calmly guns down a 12 year old girl. Here he is the opposite, everything is over the top in his performance. Doubleday was given total creative freedom when it came to Romero, the voice and look were all his choices.
Where the story is quite a simple one, what really makes it work is Carpenter’s direction and world building. The creepiness and desolation of New York makes it a character in itself. Carpenter originally wrote the screenplay in 1974 as a response to the Watergate scandal, it was turned down by various studios for amongst other reasons they felt it was too violent. He put it to one side until the success of Halloween allowed him to strike a two-picture deal with Avco Embassy, the other film being The Fog. Carpenter brought in his friend Nick Castle to polish up the script. Castle had played The Shape in Carpenter’s Halloween years earlier. Some of Castle’s changes were to add a sense of humour to the film. He also tweaked the ending that Carpenter felt needed some work.
Where Halloween is probably seen to be John Carpenter’s most successful film, Escape From New York is easily his most ambitious. I recently saw the film in a packed cinema and was once again glued to the screen throughout. The moment Carpenter’s score kicked in a smile came across my face and I was engrossed from start to finish. It’s nice to see that all these years later the film can still keep me engrossed the same as it did all those years ago. If I had the option, I would have tried to get the cinema to restart the movie from the beginning. It’s easy to see why the film and the character of Snake Plissken has become such a cinematic icon, even though the attempt to continue the story of Snake Plissken did not live up to the original’s gritty and grimy tone it didn’t stop the character from being any less iconic.
The only way I can think to wrap this up is by quoting the man himself, “The name’s Plissken!”
Matt is a huge film and TV buff who studied film and moving image production at university. In his spare time he enjoys reading comics and books, the occasional gaming session and writing novels.
Before I jump into the review of the documentary let me preface this thing with a little note about my interest in the subject. I LOVE Star Trek, and Deep Space Nine is my favorite of the series. I even announced this before asking a question at the Deep Space Nine 25th Anniversary talk at Destination Star Trek in Birmingham. It had rich story arcs and character development that just doesn’t exist in any other iteration of the franchise. Recurring characters have way more character development than any of the series regulars from any of the other Star Trek series. But enough about that – let’s jump into the review. I’m going to try to keep this a spoiler-free review, because there are moments in the documentary that need to be seen for the first time spoiler-free.
I was lucky enough to attend the world premiere of What We Left Behind in Birmingham at the NEC on October 20th 2018. Seeing this documentary in a packed auditorium with an audience that included many of the participants of the documentary was truly an amazing experience. The first opening of the documentary really throws you into some of the amazing restorative work they did for the documentary. As awe inspiring as it was seeing a space battle sequence fully restored in glorious HD, it was also slightly bittersweet because I immediately started thinking about how all the HD footage in the documentary will probably end up being the only HD footage of Deep Space Nine that will be released. Anyway, I digress, that may happen a few times so I apologise in advance.
Matt is a huge film and TV buff who studied film and moving image production at university. In his spare time he enjoys reading comics and books, the occasional gaming session and writing novels.
Learning to appreciate movies through the lens of horror fans.
We’re pretty much all here because we’re movie fans. New movies, old movies, big blockbusters, shoestring indies, we love ‘em. In my moviewatching career, I’ve run the gamut from classic movie snob to populist to arthouse elitist to cynical critic and everything in between, but the older I get, the more I find myself espousing what I’ll call a criticism of enthusiasm, for lack of a better term, and the fans I think exemplify enthusiasm the most, almost without question, are horror fans.
I’m not that big a horror fan myself – I have horror films I love, and types of horror films I’m particularly drawn to. But looking in from the outside on horror fans, I kind of envy them their frank enthusiasm. True Horror Fans are a special breed of movie fan, and I believe the relationship they have with their favorite genre has something to teach us about how we can (and should) relate to movies in general. Since I don’t have personal experience with being a horror fan, I took my theory on the road and chatted with some horror fans about the way they see horror films and their love for them. One thing that did come up multiple times is that horror is a unique genre, and these horror superfans relate to it differently than they do to other genres. Some of that seems inherent in horror itself, some of it may be simply because they love it so much (the way that someone else might love musicals or martial arts films and be similarly enthusiastic and forgiving with those genres). If horror fans don’t translate the enjoyment they find in horror into other genres, is there any use in us non-horror fans trying to extrapolate any lessons here? I still think so. The internet seems to thrive on negativity, and I think right now it takes an awful lot of positive enthusiasm to counteract that and remind us why we love watching movies in the first place. Let’s see what wisdom we can extrapolate from horror fans.
1. Horror Fans Are Willing to See Anything
The Ritual (2017) – Jon has seen this one.
Horror films are one of the surest investments in the industry. You can make a low budget film, drop it in the doldrums of February or August, and people will go see it. Horror fans will turn out to see almost anything horror, and they don’t wait for the RT score to come in first. Some new horror thing drops on Netflix? They’ll watch it. I’m pretty sure my horror-fan husband (full disclosure, it’s Jonathan) has seen every horror on Netflix at this point. According to some horror fans I spoke to, this may be in some ways a holdover from growing up getting their horror fix at video stores, where often all you had to go on was the front cover and maybe the back, if you bothered to read it. No Rotten Tomatoes, no reviews, just you and a bunch of VHS tapes to satiate the thirst. One fan suggested that horror is one of the most subjective genres, with different people being affected by different aspects of it, so you can’t necessarily take other people’s opinions at face value – you’ve got to see it for yourself because it just might work for you even if it didn’t for someone else. Hence horror fans always willing to give their favorite genre a chance. And they usually do find something to enjoy!
What we can learn: I don’t know that we need to be willing to see EVERYTHING, but being open-minded is certainly a trait I respect. The main point here is not to let ancillary things necessarily stop us from seeing films – low-budget, high-budget, foreign, famous director, filled with nobodies. The next gem we see could come from anywhere, so let’s check our biases (we all have them) and see if there are any that are stopping us from even experiencing what might be a new favorite.
2. Horror Fans Always Find Something to Enjoy
The Babysitter (2017) – Jon has seen this one too and found at least one thing fun about this.
In talking with a bunch of horror fans, I found a lot of different opinions on what exactly they enjoy the most about horror. Some like the way horror can encapsulate deep-seated fears and refract the human condition in unusual and revelatory ways. Some like gore and clever kills. Some like the transgressive and taboo-breaking nature of horror. Some like the comfort of genre conventions (more on that later) while others like experimentation and seeing things they haven’t seen before. Some generally find characters in horror films colorful and compelling, whether they’re someone to identify with or it’s just fun to see how they’ll get killed. Some just straight-up like being scared and the visceral effect horror has on them physically (“it’s like a total body experience” says Becky). Yet it seems that horror fans have an uncanny ability to find SOMETHING they like out of a horror movie – if the acting is bad, maybe it has some great kills. If the makeup isn’t great, maybe the story is. If the story is lacking, maybe the effects are awesome. And if all else fails, a bad horror film can become a hilarious comedy. Horror seems to be in some way specifically amenable to this, as everyone I spoke to said they do not find the same thing is true with other genres. So can we extrapolate this to films in general? Let’s hold on to that question.
What can we learn: Sometimes I think people go into movies looking for things to criticize, especially on the internet. A scathing review can be a lot of fun to write, it’s true. It can be very satisfying to get off a one-liner zinger on Twitter. But we love movies, and shouldn’t we enjoy the things we love? You can argue not all films deserve it, and that’s likely true, but I’ve actively prioritized finding things to enjoy over the past few years, and it’s improved my outlook on film a lot. Now, some of this is helped by NOT seeing everything and self-selecting carefully. Reaching horror fan-level enlightenment is a process, okay?
3. Horror Fans Appreciate Genre Conventions
Horror films carry some pretty basic genre conventions. A bunch of teens out in the woods? Yeah, they’re all dead, except maybe one. A creepy old house? Yeah, that has ghosts whose spirits usually need to be avenged in some way. The setups may change slightly, the details change, but the stories have a lot in common – some malevolence threatens the characters and most of them are going to die. You’d think this might get boring, but horror fans don’t think so. They understand that genre conventions are a convenient framework that’s both comforting in some ways and provides a lot of room for variation. Some horror fans truly embrace the conventions – says Wayne, one of the horror fans I talked to. “In horror we already know the story, we just came to see how this film does it.” But they all recognize to some degree that genre conventions serve a purpose, a sort of shorthand that lets us get on with this particular iteration faster. And a close corollary in #4:
4. Horror Fans Are Always Looking for Something New
Kristen Connolly and Fran Kanz from Cabin in the Woods (2012).
The counterpoint to appreciation conventions is appreciating the new things that each horror film does within them. It’s counterintuitive, but many creative folks will tell you that constraints yield creativity. When a basic form is already assumed, there’s a LOT of creative ways to explore that form, to test its edges, to subvert it, and sometimes to explode it. Horror films can be exceptional at this, too – remember the teens in the woods? What about when that turns into The Cabin in the Woods, which upends everything about horror tropes while also being very effective within them. Even films that remain more conventional than that, though, find ways to be creative within the constraints of genre, and horror fans are very astute at latching onto those elements, whether it’s an experimental story structure that goes where you don’t expect, character beats that surprise, shocking and transgressive content, or simply some kills executed in a way you haven’t seen before. All genres operate on a basis of variation within convention, but horror fans seem particularly astute at picking up on this and embracing it.
What can we learn: Horror fans excel in appreciating variation within convention. This has been a staple of genre fiction since forever, not just horror, but also action, adventure, western, musical, etc – you can see it now in the current superhero cycle. Genre tells us the general form a work will take, but exactly how each individual work takes those genre elements and creates something new out of them is where the enjoyment lies for genre fans. So as we vacillate between the comfort of the formulaic and excitement of the original, let’s remember that there’s value in both and especially appreciate when filmmakers find the balance between the two.
5. Horror Fans Like to Be Challenged
Martyrs (2008)
Several of the horror fans I spoke with brought up the transgressive/shocking nature of horror, and that they were always looking for something that would go to extremes. This was not necessarily universal, though, and even the ones who did feel this way had limits to what they personally were willing to watch. What does seem like a fair assessment is that horror in general is trying “to make the viewer uncomfortable on some level.” I take this as being challenging – either in the disturbing nature of the content itself, or in the unsavory things it brings to light about human nature, or the visceral shock of jump scares or dread, or the way horror often directly challenges our taboos and sense of decency. Horror fans like to be challenged – and this is where us non-horror fans often jump ship, because we don’t really like to be challenged in this particular way. Of course, the flip side of the coin is the horror fans who find watching horror actually comforting, and these are not mutually exclusive – there is a real way in which projecting our fears onto a fictional world is both cathartic and reassuring.
What can we learn: There are lots of ways films can challenge us, and not all of them are scary or disturbing like horror. Watching subtitled films may be challenging for some of us, or slow cinema, or films in black and white. I mean, I’m challenged sometimes by long fight sequences in superhero films, which I find boring! Some films have challenging ideas or philosophies even if the content is not disturbing. I’ve mentioned prioritizing enjoyment, but that doesn’t mean all films need to be conventionally entertaining – it’s more an attitude of enjoyment on my part I’m after rather than valorizing films that are inherently enjoyable. Films are also literature and works of art, and if art doesn’t challenge us sometimes, then we’ve missed the boat, and if we aren’t at least open to being challenged by film, then we’re missing a great deal of what it has to offer.
6. Horror Fans Aren’t Afraid to Flout Critical Consensus
Becky, another person I talked to for this, says “I don’t care what anyone else thinks, it’s about what I felt,” and this is typical of horror fans. As mentioned above, horror fans recognize that horror is subjective, and what one person thinks about a film can’t be applied to what another person will think. Horror fans know what they like in horror films, they know how to get enjoyment out of even bad films, and they know that there’s no value in kowtowing to anyone else’s opinion. To extrapolate from that, they’re also always ready to go to bat for their favorites, pointing out the things they liked about them even if they’re getting critically trashed. They’re also willing to point out the faults, but I find horror fans tend to be much more positive about critically panned films than negative about critically praised ones.
What can we learn: I’m not about to throw all critics out the window – I think criticism is valuable in a lot of ways. But that hardly means we need to agree with critics all the time, or that our opinions are less valid if they don’t align with critical consensus (whatever that is). Being a mature filmgoer means being secure in your own opinions, feelings, and reactions even if they run contrary to what others think. That doesn’t mean we run roughshod over other people’s thoughts or disregard the expertise of critics; just that we should own our opinions and not feel threatened by others’ opinions.
7. Horror Fans Are Exhaustively Knowledgeable
Jamie Kennedy from Scream 3.
Horror fans watch A LOT of horror. The kind of fans I’m talking about watch good horror, bad horror, cheap horror, well-made horror, schlocky horror, arthouse horror, foreign horror, monster films, gorefests, and everything else. They know their genre backwards and forwards, and they can make comparisons and contrasts and draw connections and influences often over decades worth of horror films. Now, I’ve been interviewing folks who are also fairly knowledgeable about film in general, so I may be stacking the deck a bit, but I’m talking horror superfans here. Some did draw a distinction between cult fans (which I think they would largely consider themselves) and mainstream fans, not in a derogatory way, but to indicate the difference between someone who watches and legitimately enjoys major releases versus folks who are always delving deeper into the rabbit hole.
What can we learn: If we love something, we should know something about it. Pay attention to what makes us love it, learn something about its form and how it’s evolved. Not everyone’s going to be an expert on everything, but film has a short history, and especially those of us who write and talk about in public shouldn’t accept ignorance as the norm.
8. Horror Fans Are Evangelistic Without Being Assholes
Part of being enthusiastic about something is wanting to spread the love and encourage others to watch and enjoy the films they love as well, and horror fans are always happy to talk about horror films, gush about their favorites, and help burgeoning horror fans delve deeper into their favorite genre. But horror fans also recognize that their obsession is a niche one and tend not to be jerks about it – if you say you’re not that into horror films, they’re perfectly willing to let it go, or if you express any interest, try to find avenues of horror you might actually like. As a non horror fan, I’ve appreciated having horror fans in my life who are willing to help me explore horror at my own pace and comfort level, enthusiastically guiding me to greater appreciation but not pushing me or making me feel like a wuss or a loser because I’m not totally into what they’re into.
What can we learn: Spread your joy and don’t be a jerk. Yeah. Basically this. If I learn nothing else from horror fans, I want to learn to emulate their enthusiasm and apply it to the films I’m passionate about, but not be a jerk about it. Film fandom shouldn’t be about gatekeeping or exclusivity or elitism or populism. It should be about truly loving something, being enthusiastic and unabashed about it, being welcoming to other fans no matter where they are on their journey of fandom, and not being condescending or rude to people who don’t share our tastes.
Jandy is especially drawn to classic, off-beat, and foreign film, but loves a good blockbuster action sequence, too. When not watching movies, you’ll probably find her reading books or playing with her kids.
In the right macabre hands, body horror is a crucial tool in the storytellers arsenal for leaving truly lasting impressions on an audience.
It’s Halloween! That magical season birthed in a stew of ancient pagan and synchronized early Christian festivals that really came unto its own once the broiling American melting pot got a hold of it. Endless debates will rage about its true origin, but everyone can concede that it’s meant to celebrate the coming of harvest, to venerate the dead we’ve lost, and to maybe scare away some evil spirits just for good measure. Most folks will dress up, party, and hand out candy, but in those odd years when All Hallow’s Eve falls on a school night, most of us will be happy to celebrate at home in our PJs with a good scary movie (or TV show /“limited series”/Webisode/Twitch feed…whatever the kids are doing these days).
The question that many of us get when our friends and loved ones come to us seeking a recommendation for a celebratory spook is “I like scary things…but is it GORY!?!” which is usually followed by “I just can’t handle the blood and guts.” This is a fair observation given the odd, imperiled nature of the world at the moment, but I feel like it’s often used to relegate body horror to the realms of cheap thrills and D- movie schlockfests. In the right macabre hands, body horror is a crucial tool in the storytellers arsenal for leaving truly lasting impressions on an audience. I see body horror functioning in two distinct ways: Destruction of the Body and Corruption of the Body. Let’s dissect them, shall we?
SPOILER WARNING: This article is literally about the gory details, so be warned…minor spoilers ahead for as wide variety of films from the last 50 years or so.
A look back at the iconic action film and the landscape that it changed.
Let’s take a jump back in time, the year is 1988 and a little known actor, whose biggest role to date was in a comedic television series, the most unlikeliest of action heroes, was about to become just that. That actor’s name was Bruce Willis. The name of the film; Die Hard. To truly understand what makes Die Hard such an iconic film you need to think about the landscape of American action movies at the time of its release.
The biggest action films of the 1980s were vehicles for either Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone about muscle bound heroes who don’t feel any real pain and gun down swarms of disposable baddies without even blinking. Die Hard changed that because it’s main character wasn’t a body builder, he wasn’t a Special Forces trained badass with unlimited bullets and the ability to be shot, stabbed and blown up and then brush themselves off as if they had just walked through a cloud of dust. John McClane was just a New York cop trying to reconcile with his estranged wife on Christmas Eve. This was not an action hero, this was just an ordinary blue collar guy, someone you could share a drink with at a bar. The list of actors who were offered the role of John McClane is extensive, both Schwarzenegger and Stallone turned down the role, amongst many others, by far the strangest was Frank Sinatra who the studio had a contractual obligation to offer the role to. To think we could have ended up with an action film that had a 72 year old Frank Sinatra in the role.
Matt is a huge film and TV buff who studied film and moving image production at university. In his spare time he enjoys reading comics and books, the occasional gaming session and writing novels.
Back when trailers had no rules and totally ruled!
Man I love old trailers. They didn’t have any rules and no one really cared about them. Just show 3-5 min of the movie, have a guy who smoked an entire carton of cigarettes talk the whole time, and tell me the name of the movie. That’s it. My favorite old trailer of all time is Taxi Driver. That thing is just a short 4 min summary of the entire movie, gives away everything from the movie. Halloween is no better, and somehow, SO MUCH BETTER.
