Review: 'Dead Funny: The Humor of American Horror'

Serious horror fans may argue that humor undercuts terror, but the two emotions come from similar places. A laugh and a shriek are both spontaneous reactions often brought on by a surprise and/or a stimulus often (but not always) specifically designed to elicit such a reaction. Horror and humor can enhance each other when dealt out piggyback style. Think of how the hideous Deadites generate wails of horror when they fly up from the fruit cellar in Evil Dead II but then immediately cause wails of laughter when they start behaving more like Moe and Curly. Think of how a humorously foul-mouthed conversation amongst starship crew members suddenly turns terrifying when the titular Alien bursts through one of their chests. 

Review: 'The Monster Collection' Blu-ray

There have been a lot of documentaries about the special effects whizzes who gave birth to the creatures that populate Star Wars, Alien, An American Werewolf in London, Jurassic Park, and other monster movies. The point of most is to simply celebrate the work of Fangoria cover boys such as Rick Baker, Dennis Muren, Greg Nicotero, Steve Johnson, Chris Walas, and Phil Tippett. Gilles Penso and Alexandre Poncet's 2015 doc The Frankenstein Complex has a bit more of a point than that, though it takes some time to reveal itself. 

Initially, the film carries along like most others of its sort, introducing you to its cast of behind-the-scenes stars and showing new and vintage footage of how they work their magic whether illustrating, sculpting maquettes and puppets, fashioning costumes, stop-motion animating, or building animatronics. When the story reaches the mid-eighties and James Cameron's The Abyss, we meet the antagonist that really Frankensteins this film to life: CGI. Former SFX superstars such as Stan Winston and Phil Tippett soon find their practical work blending with computer generated effects that tend to steal their thunder even though Tippett's ethereal fiber-optics in The Abyss and Winston's ingenious devices in Terminator 2 and astounding full-size animatronic T. Rex in Jurassic Park are easily as impressive as those films' computer-generated innovations. Winston responded by immediately adapting to the changing scene. Tippett fell into depression. As is always the case with the monsters these men made, the cool designs are what draw in viewers, but it is the human, emotional element that makes The Frankenstein Complex more profoundly engaging.

Penso and Poncet clearly recognized this and zoomed further in on Tippet's struggle when they made Phil Tippett: Mad Dreams and Monsters in 2019. The film goes deeper into the filmmaker's work on the Star Wars trilogy, Dragonslayer, Robocop, and Starship Troopers than The Frankenstein Complex does while also spotlighting more of Tippett's personal depth than that earlier film did. He also had dark times as a young loner and as a filmmaker out to sea after the end of the original Star Wars trilogy. He experienced brighter times when he met his future-wife Jules Roman, who would run Tippett's own special effects studio. Mad Dreams and Monsters shows that Tippett did bounce back and adapt in a CG world and continued to work throughout the twenty-first century on major films such as the Twilight movies while also pursuing a more inscrutably personal vision with his Mad God shorts series. 

Dopplegänger Releasing is now bundling The Frankenstein Complex and Phil Tippett: Mad Dreams and Monsters into a deluxe package titled The Monster Collection. The bonus material alone will keep you busy for the better part of a day. There's an hour long documentary about the making of The Frankenstein Complex and a supplemental piece for Mad Dreams and Monsters that is actually longer than the feature. It shows Tippett and friends working on the holographic chess game for The Force Awakens, tours his collection of tauntauns, dinosaurs, and robocops, and plenty more. There are also even closer looks at his creature collection, additional interviews and conversations, audio commentaries, bonus interviews, galleries, and best of all, a selection of Tippett's short films. The Monster Collection is nothing less than a crash course in the art of practical special effects and a subtle yet righteous plea for the preservation of that art.

Review: 'Phases of the Moon: A Cultural History of the Werewolf Film'

The premise of Craig Ian Mann's new book Phases of the Moon: A Cultural History of the Werewolf Film is that compared to studies of, say, vampire or zombie pictures, there has been relatively little analysis of werewolf films and the ones that do exist tend to oversimplify them as "beast within" metaphors.  He then pores over more than a century of werewolf pictures from 1913's inaugural lycanthropy flick The Werewolf through 2015's Howl to explain how filmmakers have used werewolves to do everything from expressing anti-Native American (The Werewolf) and anti-Japanese (Werewolf of London) bigotry to using them as symbols for Germany's transformation into a fascist state (The Wolf Man), how partisanship is tearing America apart (Werewolves on Wheels), the dangers of sex (Curse of the Werewolf), the conflict between rationalism and superstition (An American Werewolf in London), the evils of Regan/Bush-era conservatism (Silver Bullet; My Mother Is a Werewolf), etc. 

Oddly, Mann uses a great deal of quotes from other writers who support his interpretations, implying that previous discussions of werewolf films have not been quite as reductive as he suggests. After all, merely saying that any werewolf film is about "the beast within" would be like saying that every mad scientist film is about "science gone mad." It is such a limited and obvious conclusion that it doesn't deserve to be acknowledged.

While I think Mann overreaches with his central premise, he still wrote a thought-provoking analysis of the werewolf picture, exposing the creature's versatility in films of great and little quality and from all social, political, and cultural points of view. He even discusses some non-werewolf transformation films, such as Cat People, The Wasp Woman, and yes, The Beast Within.

Review: 'An American Werewolf in London' Blu-ray

By the early eighties, the werewolf genre had essentially been dead since Lon Chaney Jr. last wore the fur. There was AIP’s I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Hammer’s Curse of the Werewolf, and Paul Naschy’s low-budget wolf cycle, but not much else happening in the way of lycanthropes. The time must have been right for things that bark and scratch in 1981, though, because that year saw a small new wave of werewolf pictures.

Without a doubt, John Landis’s An American Werewolf in London stands out in a pack that also included the more bluntly satirical The Howling and the self-serious Wolfen. Landis’s vengefully imaginative script, inventive direction, freewheeling sense of humor, and geeky awareness of monster movies past made for a film that almost seemed too much of a tonal hybrid to call horror, yet as funny as it often is, An American Werewolf in London is a true horror movie. It’s just an audaciously original one. And with its killer cast (David Naughton, Griffin Dunne, and Jenny Agutter’s magnetic likability ramps up the emotional impact when bad things happen to them), a neat moon-centric pop soundtrack, and Rick Baker’s groundbreaking special effects (still the very best werewolf effects on film as far as I’m concerned), I contend that An American Werewolf in London is not just the best werewolf movie but also the best movie of the 1980s.

366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 62

The Date: December 1

The Movie: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

What Is It?: Griffin Dunne and David Naughton are backpacking in England. Dunne gets eaten by a werewolf; turns into a slowly decomposing ghost. Naughton only gets bitten, fools around with Jenny Agutter, listens to Creedence, dreams about the Muppets, and stars in cinema’s most spectacular werewolf transformation scene. Clearly, he’s ahead.

Why Today?: On this day in 1885, Dr. Pepper is first served in Waco, Texas.

Review: 'I Lost It at the Video Store: A filmmaker’s Oral History of a Vanishing Era'

Everything about film seems to be shrinking these days. I’m not just talking about the minuscule screens on tiny gadgets that people use as substitutes for theaters. I’m also referring to the way people get those films. They visit itunes, click a few pictures, and a minute later they’re streaming the latest Marvel comics movie or whatever. Seeing a movie was not always so instantaneous. If you missed it during its theatrical run, you had to wait as much as a year for it to come out on video. Then you had to leave your home to visit the local mildew-stinking video store to find out if it was available yet. Maybe the movie was out on video, but it wasn’t necessarily available because some other joker had already rented it. So you had to wait until demand died down to the point you could pay your two bucks, get it home, and shove it in the VCR.

This probably all sounds like a pain in the ass to those who did not grow up in the video store age, and it probably was, but it was all we had (well, maybe not all we had…there were also premium cable and pay-per-view channels). It was also something to do on a Friday night or Saturday afternoon. Sometimes it was more about the activity than the movie: get a few friends together and spend an hour pacing up and down the rows of garish yet empty video boxes until you just give up and grab whatever is closest at hand. I wonder how many hours I wasted doing that between 1984 and 2004. It was such a big part of my life that there’s no wonder why it makes me nostalgic.

I’m not the only one. Former editor of Premiere magazine, Tom Roston is another guy who misses those mildewy days, and he pays tribute to them by gathering a couple dozen filmmakers to gab about the video store era in his new book I Lost It at the Video Store: A filmmaker’s Oral History of a Vanishing Era. I’m glad Roston went the oral history route, because the tone of his introduction is too academic to capture the sleazy joys of visiting video stores. Fortunately, former video store employees Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith lead Roston’s roster of commentators, and they keep the discussion funny and fanatical even though the book is largely about the business side of video. We learn how the stores came to be and how they bred a new generation of filmmakers. There is an entire chapter on Reservoir Dogs and how it could have easily become a direct-to-video release. There is less about the vanished communal experience of video browsing, which was such a huge part of the era. But maybe that’s not the best way to make use of film professionals, at least not when there are only 150 pages of large text to get their recollections down. However, we do get some fascinating tidbits distinct to the era, like Smith’s adventures in the porn closet of his store or how Morgan Spurlock would watch the guy’s head exploding in Scanners or the werewolf’s snout growing in An American Werewolf in London frame-by-frame. My friends and I did the same thing with those “subliminal” images of a demon’s face in The Exorcist. Do people still do that type of thing on their iPhones or was it particular to that bygone age of crappy pan-and-scan VHS tapes? Either way it made me nostalgic, and I Lost It at the Video Store is nothing if not nostalgic and elegiac. 

I Was a Late-Generation Monster Kid

My room would be fuzzed with that vague purple that comes right before the sunrise. I’d be exhausted, because it was 6 AM and little kids need their rest, and because I’d been toiling away in school all week long, probably learning to print or gluing elbow macaroni to paper plates or whatever else it is you do in school when you’re five or six. I don’t remember how old I was exactly, because I can’t find any information about when “Groovie Goolies” aired at 6:30 AM (or was it 6:00 AM?) on Saturday Mornings in the late-seventies/early eighties, but man, do I remember that sickly feeling of trying to fight myself awake every Saturday morning so I could creep downstairs to the still-dark den to take in those cornball Burbank-by-way-of-Transylvania jokes and groove along to those bubble gum pop songs as sugary as the Frankenberry cereal I’d scarf after the closing credits.

No Tricks! Just Ten Treat Performances in Classic Horror Movies!

A good horror movie can be a grueling experience. All of that hacking, cracking, and killing can really wear you down if there isn’t some relief. Fortunately smart filmmakers know this to be true and tuck moments of levity, and even sheer delight, into their films to give us viewers a well-earned break. Often this pleasure may come directly from a single character played by a most singular actor or actress. I think of these as “treat” performances. These performances deliver waves of delight amidst the horror, whether the character is a beacon of sweetness in a sea of bitterness or is simply a lot of fun to watch despite being really, really evil.

Still not sure what I mean? Well, then kick off your hobnail boots and peruse the following Ten Treat Performances in Classic Horror Movies!

(spoilers ahead)

1. Dwight Frye as Renfield in Dracula (1931)

Although there are few more iconic monster movies than Dracula, it often gets slammed for being slow-moving and talky, more drawing-room mystery than blood-curdling horror. The first twenty minutes of Tod Browning’s film are generally absolved from these charges because watching Bela Lugosi menace Dwight Frye in the sumptuously Gothic Transylvanian setting is unadulterated joy and what a lot of critics want the whole film to be. After the wacky duo jump on a ship to London, Dracula becomes less sinister and more formulaic. Nevertheless, it continues to be terrific—no matter what those blowhard critics say—because every second spent in the presence of Dwight Frye is a treat. Don’t get me wrong. I adore my time with Drac too. Seeing Bela portray Dracula is a lot like getting to Santa Claus in the flesh, being that Bela is such an icon of Halloween and Santa is such an icon of that other major national holiday. But it is Dwight who truly delights. The craziest character in the film is the one to whom we can most relate as he exudes all the desire, hatred, regret, pity, humor, and terror his mostly wooden cast-mates lack.

2. Bela Lugosi as Ygor in Son of Frankenstein (1939)

Review: 'Michael Jackson: The Making of “Thriller”: 4 Days/1983'

Calling The Beatles pop’s all-time greatest band, Jimi Hendrix its all-time greatest guitarist, or “Thriller” its all-time greatest video isn’t terribly original. There’s still a reason such opinions are so persistent and pervasive: they’re true. “Thriller” may not be the greatest song—it’s not even the greatest song on Thriller—but a great video is equal parts striking music, visuals, and performance. “Thriller” married a singer/performer at his peak powers with visual artists John Landis and Rick Baker who’d just made the best horror film of the eighties, An American Werewolf in London. “Thriller” was a sheer “lightning in a bottle” moment.

We can’t get a super accurate representation of Michael Jackson’s gifts in Douglas Kirland’s new book Michael Jackson: The Making of “Thriller”: 4 Days/1983 since a book can’t move (though the moving-MJ hologram on the front cover is as close as it gets). The incredible visuals of Landis, and particularly, Baker are on full display though. The centerpiece of the book pores over the painstaking processes of Baker’s application of the iconic cat-man and zombie makeups. Yet it’s the small moments that really thrill: the nostalgia-defining shot of the eighties’ biggest star playing a Donkey Kong arcade game, Landis drinking a Tab and showing his star how to be a scary monster, and some shots of Jackson in cat makeup without his contact lenses that provide a peek at the man behind the monster. Most arresting of all is a sequence devoted to the removal of the zombie makeup. It looks really, really painful. Then in the final shot of the sequence, Jackson looks like he has simply shaken off the pain. His is the face of a true pro.

The introduction by journalist Nancy Griffin, who wrote a far more extensive and revealing piece on the video-shoot for Vanity Fair in 2010, and her interview with on-set photographer Kirkland are nice, but a video with such a complex production and far-reaching history could have used more text. However, Griffin and Kirkland are determined to keep the focus on the photos and can’t be blamed for allowing such unforgettable images to howl for themselves.

Farewell, Rik Mayall

I'm saddened to report that the People's Poet has passed at 56. Rik Mayall, best known as Rick of "The Young Ones", died today. Aside from his iconic work in film and TV, which also included the great "Black Adder" and a small role in the very best horror film of the eighties, An American Werewolf in London, Mayall wrote an absolutely hilarious book called Bigger than Hitler, Better than Christ that you simply must read. Details of his sudden and tragic death have yet to be determined. 

For now, a couple of great Rik and Rick moments: 

Rick's first encounter with a tampon (featuring young Jennifer Saunders!):


Rick, Neil, and Vyvyan Sings My Generation:
 

Psychobabble's 200 Essential Horror Movies: The Complete List

Click the blue links to see detailed reviews of all 150 films decade by decade.

The 1920s

1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
2. Genuine (1920)

3. The Golem (1920)

4. The Phantom Carriage (1921)

5. Nosferatu (1922)

6. Häxan (1922)

7. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

8. The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

9. Faust (1926)

10. The Cat and the Canary (1927)

11. The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)

The 1930s

12. Dracula (1931)

13. Frankenstein (1931)

14. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Review: 'Horror Films of the 1980s'

John Kenneth Muir took an ambitious chomp out of horror history with Horror Films of the 1980s. His 2007 book surveys more than 325 films released during the Reagan/Bush years, tying almost every one into the broader context of that scary, conservative era. Overall, Muir’s reviews are intelligent, well written, and historically astute, which makes it hard to take him to task for some of his opinions. This guy is very forgiving and very, very fast and loose with his four star ratings, which may please horror devotees who get annoyed with critics who crap on their favorite films. For the most part, he does make strong arguments for his opinions. While I would never rank Night of the Comet as a better movie than An American Werewolf in London, Muir analyzes both films clearly enough that I understand why he does.

 Yet there is the occasional disconnect between his star ratings and his analyses. His four-star write-up of Fatal Attraction briefly prefaces the film as “brilliant” before launching into an extended finger-wagging session aimed at its “shameful” and “despicable” agenda. We get no sense of what is allegedly “brilliant” about this movie aside from its ability to manipulate the audience, which may make for a brilliant con man but not necessarily a brilliant film. Perhaps Muir based his star ratings on his uncritical enjoyment of the films while saving his more impartial insights for the reviews. It’s a little confusing though.

There are some strange entry choices too— this is certainly the first time I’ve ever seen the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple studied as a horror film—but when you’ve read enough about horror, you come to realize how subjective its definition can be. Like any critical collection, Horror Films of the 1980s is ultimately subjective despite instances like the Fatal Attraction entry discussed above, but Muir balances that nicely by including other perspectives of these films. Each entry is introduced with a selection of period review excerpts and new ones written by his fellow critics and horror fanatics. The juxtapositions can be really fascinating, as when an assortment of terrible and glowing reviews lead into the entry on The Shining. Today it’s easy to forget that this classic—and its creator, Stanley Kubrick—were not always universally revered. It’s also easy to forget that Reagan— that pioneer of contemporary extreme conservatism— swelled the federal government, the number of American’s living in poverty, and the national debt, as Muir reminds us. Often, Horror Films of the 1980s is just as valuable as a history lesson as it is an appraisal of horror movies, and it’s praiseworthy for that reason too. In fact, it might be a good book to buy for kids who can’t stomach cracking that social studies text.

Review: John Landis's 'Monsters in the Movies'

John Landis made terrific monster movies such as An American Werewolf in London and Innocent Blood by not taking the genre very seriously. However, Monsters in the Movies: 100 Years of Cinematic Nightmares proves he is nothing less than awestruck by monster movies. You will be too as you peruse the spectacular array of photos he collects in this new coffee table book.

The filmmaker divides the book into the various familiar categories to provide brief overviews of vampires, werewolves, mummies, space monsters, and the rest before inundating readers with the photos that are its reason for existing. A fabulous double-page, behind-the-scenes shot of the Metaluna Mutant from This Island Earth. A creepily eroticized picture of little Linda Blair in her demon makeup that says as much about the subtext of The Exorcist as any extended analysis. An ultra-rare image from the 1863 photomontage “Henry Robin and the Specter.” From the classics to the cheap-o exploiters, the most ancient relics to the most recent CGI pot boilers. Some 1,000 films are represented in this gorgeous, gorgeous book.

Landis’s text initially seems disappointing. His opening chapters on vampires and werewolves are primers that will reveal nothing to faithful horror hounds and lack the cheeky, sometimes curmudgeonly, irreverence that has made him such a welcome talking head in horror documentaries. But he quickly loosens up to crack wise about the Resident Evil movies (“You could take random scenes from each of these films and cut them together and I don’t think anyone would notice”), the unseen genitals in Zemeckis’s Beowulf, and other flicks that don’t quite rise to his standards.

Landis’s writing gets even more intriguing when he allows his personal politics to come into play, as when discussing the conservative nature of mad scientist films and the need to suspend his own atheism to appreciate The Exorcist. Best of all are his interviews with Christopher Lee, Joe Dante, David Cronenberg, Sam Raimi, Guillermo Del Toro, Ray Harryhausen, Rick Baker, and John Carpenter. Because he’s on chummy terms with these various actors and filmmakers, the conversations are casual and provocative. He gives Cronenberg a hilariously hard time regarding the unintended reactionary nature of his films. Someone needs to give Landis his own talk show!

Psychobabble’s 200 Essential Horror Movies Part 7: The 1980s

In this feature, Psychobabble creeps through 100 years of horror cinema to assemble a highly personal list of the genre’s 200 most monstrous works, decade by decade.

(Updated in September 2021)

122. The Shining (1980- dir. Stanley Kubrick)