Chiiiiiilllllller!

Even though the tone of the promos overreaches for camp, we couldn’t be more thrilled that local NYC station WPIX – known as the WB Network to everyone born after 1985 – has decided to resurrect the Chiller horror show on Saturday, Oct.25th, from 8-9:30. And Tarantula will be the featured flick. Along with WABC’s 4:30 movie, Chiller helped shape this youngster’s love for horror, exposing these eyes to the most obscure fright features imaginable. The early shows in the 60s were hosted by Zacherle (who is returning for the special) but it was the host-less permutation in the late 70s and early 80s that I fell in love with, with the famous five fingered claymation hand rising from a puddle of blood to place the letters at the beginning and drag them back down to hell at the film’s end.



I was probably part of the last generation to grow up with this type of show, a delicate local commodity that couldn’t withstand the twin onslaught of both cable television and home video. I wish they’d done something like this sooner, but I can’t complain about the timing.

Many thanks to DVD

Ave Satani!

And the award for worst packaging of 2008 goes to…

The Omen Collection! At standard definition DVD prices, I may not have thought to complain, but considering that Fox is charging $130 list for this Bluray item, I feel embiggend to bitch.

All looks well enough from the outside, but from the moment you pick up this 4-disc set the near total lack of weight is disconcerting. After opening and pulling out the inner sleeve, we’re treated not to the usual reinforced cardboard superstructure with a clear plastic lining to protect the back of the discs, but to a magazine-insert thin, quad-folded sheet with nothing but a wafer thin plastic nub to hold the disc in place. Those unfortunate enough to have purchased Universal’s HD-DVD set of Battlestar Galactica will remember these well, and may not take some solace that they no longer own the most irresponsibly packaged high-def disc set.

And if you order online, consider yourself lucky if the set arrives undamaged, as this array of newspaper thin paperboard is no match for traditional USPS or UPS handling techniques. And before owners of Fox’s previous DVD Omen set worry about double-dipping, know that the unwanted, unloved, made for TV sequel, Omen IV has been exorcized from the set. In its place we have the equally beloved Omen remake (which Fox seems to want us to call The Omen 666) from 2006, with Liev Schreiber trying to keep a straight face long enough to cash his check, and memorable only for giving Giovanni Lombardo Radice (AKA John Morghen from Cannibal Apocalypse and City of the Living Dead) a featured role.

In all seriousness, what counts are the quality of the transfers, and once we’ll speak to that once we’ve had the chance to examine them more closely. At first glance, the original Omen seems to have a few new extras including a new commentary track, but the two sequels seem to be HD upgrades of the previous DVD editions. Good for Fox for dipping into its back catalog for some Halloween HD treats, but crummy packaging at an outrageously inflated price pleases no one but Conal Cochran.

R.I.P., Henri Pachard

I feel awful that it took 10 days for me to get this news. Apparently the adult movie biz isn’t quite as mainstream as it seems.

The adult film world lost one of its most original voices on September 27 when director Ron Sullivan (who worked under the pseudonym Henri Pachard) passed away after a long battle with cancer. His name will mean nothing to those unfamiliar with the XXX film world, but anyone with even a passing interest will likely hold Sullivan in high esteem. His 300+ long resume as a director shows the adult industry full range of extremes, from the soul-killing, fetish fragmented output of more recent years, to some of the most critically acclaimed, shot-on-film productions of the late 70s and early 80s.

Though Sullivan began his directorial career in the late 60s by generating product for the NYC grindhouse palaces of the ‘deuce, but it was the release of Babylon Pink in 1979 that really launched his career. Released at the height of the “porno chic” era, Babylon Pink consisted of vignettes centered on the fantasies of the female characters; the concept itself wasn’t new, but the stories never felt as though they were born in the brain of a cigar-gnawing capo kicking back in his chair, trying to think of what gets broads hot. While no one would accuse Sullivan of being a feminist, the women in his films (particularly his earlier ones) were allowed to express the limits of their sexuality without judgment, whether this meant dominating their partner, or being dominated themselves. Sullivan was one of a handful of adult industry filmmakers who could showcase the submissive side of feminine sexuality without making you want to call the police.

Sullivan was also one of the few directors working in the 80s and 90s whose films you could actually laugh with instead of at. The Devil in Miss Jones part II (1982) turned out to be the classic that people assume the first film to be – until they actually see it – a handsomely produced, smart, and at times, laugh out loud picture. The scenes in Hell where Jack Wrangler as Lucifer and Robert Bolla (a professional actor whose sideline in porn became a career) as his advocate are genuinely hysterical, as they watch the spirit of Justine Jones move through the bodies of various women on Earth, including a high class prostitute (Jacqueline Lorians, looking better than ever), an Army recruit (Joanna Storm), and even a nun (Samantha Fox). The film, like most of his early work, is also beautifully photographed (it was likely made with legit Hollywood talent moonlighting on the crew) showcasing the heights that the industry could reach when time and budget allowed. It’s also important to mention that the casts of these ‘golden age’ films featured performers with professional training and stage experience; in the second half of his career, Sullivan would be denied these levels of money and talent and titles like Obey me, Bitch began to appear more frequently. But part of what made Sullivan special was the care and energy that went into even the cheapest shot-on-video feature. He loved seeing how far he could push the boundaries of acceptability, and probably no other director has used a toilet as the centerpiece of a sex scene more often and with more humor.

Ron Sullivan was a giant in an industry that isn’t known for cultivating talent behind the camera, and he will be sorely missed. The Adult Video News website has a much more in depth write-up here, and I’ll include a ‘top of the head’ list of some of his more memorable titles below.

American Garter (1993)
Hothouse Rose 1 & 2 (1991)
The Nicole Stanton Story 1 & 2 (1988)
Babylon Pink 2 (1987)
The Brat (1986)
Great Sexpectations (1984)
Maid in Manhattan (1984)
Sexcapades (1983)
Outlaw Ladies (1982)
The Budding of Brie (1980)
October Silk (1980)
Babylon Pink (1979)

'Tis the Season

And I hear that Silver Shamrock stock is way up! Smart money says that it'll peak in November...

1925 - 2008

"They spent their own dough to get here, and they came here to see us! All right, let's show 'em what we got, guys! Get out there on the ice and let 'em know you're there. Get that fuckin' stick in their side. Let 'em know you're there! Get that lumber in his teeth. Let 'em know you're there!"

Newman's Own

Though Cool Hand Luke (1967) falls outside the classically defined borders of “horror”, the Scribe was unexpectedly moved while re-watching the picture on Warner’s new Blu-Ray disc. I had unfairly placed Luke in that same lock box as The Graduate and Bonnie & Clyde; films whose iconography and subtext are forever mired in overt late-60s symbolism, dooming them to over-analyzation in college film study courses until the end of time.

I had always considered it a creature of pure symbolism –technique rather than human drama (chalk & cheese they may be, but I still prefer the Southern-fried prison gang scenes in The Longest Yard any day). And though the Christ symbolism is still a bit over-baked (even the famous magazine shot that Luke sends back to the prison gets ripped in the shape of a crucifix) and the use of busy-work earth moving amongst prisoners had been better exploited by Sidney Lumet a few years earlier in The Hill, director Stuart Rosenberg’s remarkable first feature has aged pretty damn well. It’s kind of incredible that he had never made a feature film prior to this; successfully jumping from the 1.33x1 ratio of television (where he had worked for most of the decade) to the 2.40 Panavision frame is no easy feat, particularly when you’ve got an enormous supporting cast that is present in the frame for most of the running time and almost never seeming “posed”. And what a cast – the film is a veritable watering hole for talented young actors, many fresh from the Actor’s Studio and getting their first real exposure. George Kennedy has a ball as the boisterous lug Dragline and won the Supporting Actor Oscar for his trouble, but look closely for Wayne Rodgers, Luke Askew, JD Cannon, Clifton James, Anthony Zerbe, Harry Dean Stanton, Ralph Waite, and even Dennis Hopper in what must have been a humiliatingly small role (but one that he was lucky to get considering the wreckage of burned bridges that lay behind him in Hollywood at the time).

It also nicely continues the Warner Bros prison film tradition that stretches back to the early 1930s, when a bullpen of talent that included Bogart, Cagney, and Muni helped the studio muscle their way to the top of the “social consciousness” picture heap. In the early 30s the studio cagely exploited a depression-era mistrust of authority, particularly in the form of law enforcement or politicians. Many average citizens cheered the exploits of Bonnie & Clyde and John Dillinger because they robbed banks – a perfect symbol of a system that many believed had betrayed the average working man – and casting a charismatic actor like James Cagney as near psychopath Tom Powers in White Heat (‘31) allowed Warner to have their cake (who doesn’t like watching Cagney roughing people up?) and eat it, too (with a chilling ‘crime doesn’t pay’ ending). Newman’s Luke is no psycho – it’s rather unlikely that he would have been sent up for hard labor as punishment for the crime we see him committing in the film’s opening moments – but he has roots that stretch back to Paul Muni’s James Allen from I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (‘32) only with 60’s existential individualism usurping 30’s social outrage. The enforcement of the Hayes code in 1935 meant the end of the anti-hero in Hollywood for many years, but Cool Hand Luke helped Warner Bros to get back in touch with its roots.

Another nice surprise in re-watching Luke was catching the emotional punch that had eluded me on earlier viewings. I always took Luke for a cipher; a walking metaphor for the death of the individual without much of a backstory. But, in one of the film’s key scenes, Luke's mother, Arletta (the great Jo Van Fleet) comes to visit; the ensuing scene is an absolute beauty, giving us a perfect picture of Luke’s restless life through a few minutes of casual conversation. She remains prone in a truck bed throughout their meeting, and it’s clear that she’s come to see her troubled child one last time. With so many famous lines (Strother Martin’s delivery of the classic “…failure to communicate” line made him one of the most popular characters in Hollywood) and scenes (50 eggs, car wash, road tarring, et al) this quiet moment can too easily slip under people’s radar, but it shows what a fine screen actor Paul Newman could be when he wasn’t tempted by any of his more overripe ‘smile & wink’ gestures; an affliction that nearly derails an otherwise fine picture like Harper (’66) several times. But watch Newman in the scene immediately after hearing of Arletta’s death in a telegram; he picks up the banjo that she had given him during her visit and walks over to a bunk and begins to sing “Plastic Jesus” to himself. It may be Newman’s finest moment on film, showcasing a subtlety too seldom found in the first half of his career.

Conrad Hall’s beautiful, high-contrast cinematography and Rosenberg’s assured composition were nearly a hopeless cause when viewed in cropped form on television or VHS, but the new Blu-Ray disc finally gives people the chance to see the fine detail that had been lost even in its previous standard-def DVD incarnation. Unlike several older catalog titles being overhauled for high-def disc, Luke hasn’t been victimized by over use of digital noise reduction – a process applied by studios to hammer out film grain (much of which was present from the moment light was first exposed to the celluloid) and give older films an image more recognizable to audiences raised on Michael Bay. When applied with restraint, as with Columbia’s The Professionals, the results are stunning, with vibrant colors and rich detail within each frame. When too much is applied, as with Fox’s Patton, the results are digital-clean, but human figures take on a waxy appearance, resulting in a cruely ironic loss of fine detail. Thankfully, Luke resides in the former camp, with a nicely warm, film-like appearance that reflects the look intended by Rosenberg and Hall. A better evocation of the warm summer sun on 35mm film is difficult to find. Also included are a reasonably informative commentary track by Newman biographer Eric Lax, a 30min documentary featuring many of the supporting cast (including Kennedy, Antonio, James, and Zerbe) which finally addresses how Lalo Schifrin's music for the road tarring sequence wound up as the Eyewitness News theme, and the original theatrical trailer.

Sunglasses of the Week, 2nd Edition

Peter Graves, possibly from an episode of Mission: Impossible.