Meathook Cinema Hall of Fame- Scanners (1981)

I first remember hearing about the film Scanners when home video first appeared on the scene here in the UK. A lot of the businesses with a selection of rentable videos in the early days weren’t exclusively video shops. There was a shop near my school called Clockmakers (which is weird as it was a liquor shop. Just kidding) which had started with a selection of 50 or so videos. They had free copies of a catalogue for a company called Guild Home Video. I took a copy when I was in the shop with my Mum when she collected me for lunch one day. I took it to school with me and pored over the horror section more than any other section (huge red flag) and it was here that I saw the garish, lurid and utterly brilliant artwork for the Scanners VHS.

When I got to see the Scanners video artwork up close it was a revelation. The man on the front cover looked like his veins were going to burst and the head of the man on the back had just exploded. Where had this film been all my life? If there ever was a point in my life where my parents had cause to worry about me, it was now. But as they wanted to see the horror movies I had just started to watch on VHS, they didn’t relent. ‘You want us to rent Scanners for you? It’s an X certificate? No problemo!’ And so that’s how I got to see the film- with the rest of my family. And we all loved it!

I could go through the minutiae of the plot but instead, I’ll just recite the one-line story outline that someone has handily contributed to IMDB-

‘A scientist trains a man with an advanced telepathic ability called “scanning”, to stop a dangerous Scanner with extraordinary psychic powers from waging war against non-scanners.’

Thank you, nameless IMDB contributor.

Scanners feels like the apex of Cronenberg’s run of low-budget horror movies. That’s certainly not to denigrate classics such as Shivers, Rabid and The Brood but Scanners feels like Cronenberg was making the ultimate Cronenberg movie at the end of the first phase of his feature-length filmography. It feels lean with absolutely no filler. It also feels as if all of the elements we had come to expect at that point from his films have been turned up to 11. These included such ingredients as the most Cronenbergian character names to date (Darryl Revol, Arno Crostic and Kim Obrist are some of my favourite character names from ANY film), the special effects (if horror fans thought the sight of Samantha Eggar revealing all in The Brood couldn’t be topped, they were in for a shock. Scanners contains possibly the most notorious special effect ever created. Dick Smith created the exploding head and he really excelled himself. For my money, this special effect is the greatest in a film I’ve ever seen) and the sinister institutions where dark things happen. All are amplified for Scanners and it works wonderfully.

I love the character of Benjamin Pierce, the artist who keeps himself sane through his art. And what art it is. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen characters conversing inside a giant papier-mache head. Cult film fans will know Robert Silverman who plays Pearce from the classic films Prom Night and Jason X.

Scanners also features one of the best baddies in film history- Darryl Revok, brilliantly played by Michael Ironside. Whether it’s the head exploding scene, the footage of him in the psychiatric hospital in which he describes why he’s drilled a hole in his head or the finale, he is fantastic! It really is one of the great performances and one of the best I’ve ever seen.

Howard Shore’s music score is also a huge part of why Scanners is so special. Right from the offset, the music is brimming with urgency and drama. Other tracks on the soundtrack are made up of sinister-sounding computer-generated bleeps and beeps. It’s perfect for Scanners.

And then there’s the ending. Wanna see a scanner take on another scanner?! Of course you do! And it’s as brilliant, gory and disgusting as you think it’s going to be. It even gets metaphysical with flames appearing out of palms. It’s fantastic.

Scanners also upped the ante when it came to other horror films. John Carpenter realised that his film The Fog didn’t work as it wasn’t brutal enough. Producer Debra Hill said that it was because of Scanners.

Scanners opened at number 1 in the US Box Office for the week it opened. It is also now part of The Criterion Collection. It’s a film I never tire of and a film I have seen many, many times. This doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime soon.

Review- Quatermass and the Pit (1967)

Whilst excavating for a new Underground station in London, a mysterious artefact is unearthed. Bernard Quatermass is brought in to examine it and identify its origins. What was thought to be an unexploded bomb from World War 2 is, in fact, an alien craft containing insect-like residents of Mars.

I love any film that gets apocalyptic very quickly. After a slowww build-up, we suddenly get the characters and indeed, the whole of London going to hell in a handcart. I kept thinking, ‘See what you’ve done now and just for one more station on the Jubilee Line!’

I also love how this seemingly quite conservative film suddenly becomes all trippy and far out with the discovery of the artefact. Suddenly we have kaleidoscopic visuals and giant locusts. This was way before The Exorcist 2: The Heretic.

This film is beautifully photographed and directed with panache. There’s a fantastic build-up of tension and sometimes the film skirts into the terrain of the truly insane (check out what the ‘strange vibrations’ the artefact gives off does to the characters who are subject to them. Their RADA training was used to great effect for these scenes).

Quatermass and the Pit was written by the brilliant Nigel Kneale who, at one point, wrote the first draft of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. John Carpenter is a big fan of Quatermass and adapted the name when he wrote the screenplay for his film Prince of Darkness.

Fun fact- Andrew Keir who plays Quatermass is the father of the fabulous Julie T Wallace of Life and Loves of a She-Devil fame.

Quatermass and the Pit ran with the Christopher Lee film Circus of Fear after its original release in cinemas.

3.5 stars out of 4

Has Anyone Else Dreamt About Halloween 3: Season of the Witch Or Is Just Me?!

I hate the cunts who say, ‘I had the strangest dream last night!’ and then proceed to bore everyone to death with their remembrances.

Well, I really did have the strangest (and most brilliant) dream last night. I dreamt that I saw a trailer for a prequel to Halloween 3: Season of the Witch.

This got me thinking- why hasn’t a Halloween 3 prequel been made? It could cover the life of Conal Cochran up until the point he became the demented toymaker that we all know and love-

his strict and twisted religious childhood in Ireland which was steeped in paganism and ‘hills running red’.
Cochran’s arrival in his adopted home of the USA
Cochran’s choosing the joke toy industry as the perfect avenue to kill all of the children of his new adopted country
a comedic interlude in which the Stonehenge stone is transported to Santa Mira (not shown in detail and just glossed over just like in the original film because I hate it when horror prequels try to over-explain characters’ origins and motivations)

And if you’re wondering who could play Cochran in the prequel, what about Colin Farrell? There could even be a Tom Atkins cameo thrown in for good measure.

C’mon Hollywood, stop snoozing on the job. Get this film made.

Halloween3Masks — Where the prequel ends…

31 Days of Halloween- Day 10- The Entity (1982)

Carla Moran is violently raped by a seemingly invisible force. She tried to tell the people around her about what has happened but finds only resistance as her family and friends don’t believe her as she didn’t see who assaulted her especially when she says that her house was locked up when it happened and the assailant seemingly vanished into thin air.

Frank De Felitta’s bestselling book based on a true story (the case of Doris Bither) translates very well to the big screen with Barbara Hershey cast as Carla doing a phenomenal job in invoking the terror of a woman going through something very real but undertaken by someone or something very unreal. Apparently, Bette Midler, Sally Field, Jane Fonda and Jill Clayburgh were all offered the role but declined.

Sidney J. Furie’s film stands alone as a one-off film of a one-off case that most people will have thought of as too much of a tall story to be true.

EntityQuadPoster — The quad poster for The Entity

Carla not being believed can also be seen as an allegory of something that far too many women (and men) go through when they find the courage and strength to report a rape or sexual assault- that their horror isn’t over yet as they try to seek justice whilst being met with an unfeeling and cruel judicial system that views their account with scepticism and disbelief. If it actually makes it to a court of law they will be made to relive their trauma. Those opposing them will try to disprove and belittle the magnitude of what they’ve been through. Or they will try to convince a jury that it didn’t happen at all.

The film all too harrowingly shows the full horror of what Carla goes through when she is raped and does a great job of showing the trail of very disturbing signs when the spirit or entity is approaching (objects shaking, a certain odour that permeates the surroundings Moran is in, a very sudden drop in temperature). Hershey’s performance, just like the film in general, never slides into TV movie melodramatics or sensationalism.

There needs to be a special mention to Charles Bernstein’s insistent, pulsating and truly shocking score that is perfect for the movie and its subject matter. There are also echoes of the music he would write three years later for a new film called A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Also, the special effects for the scenes in which Moran is molested by the invisible force are very effective indeed. For one sequence a body cast of Hershey was made that was manipulated by currents of air to make it look like the invisible entity was touching her. It succeeds eerily well. Stan Winston supervised the practical effects.

The effects also come into their own when Carla meets professionals who actually believe her story and work in the field of parapsychology. But to tell you more about this would make me tiptoe into spoiler territory…

When the film opened it was met with protests from those who thought that such a film was exploiting such a serious topic as rape. Hershey actually defended this claim and voiced that herself and the filmmakers had actually worked hard not to make the film exploitative and to display the true horror of sexual assault and rape.

EntityAlienDoubleBill — The film was shown with another 20th Century Fox movie in the UK, Alien.

All in all a terrifying film that still feels underrated and excluded from serious writings regarding 80’s horror.

Grade- A-

31 Days of Halloween- Day 4- Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

Following a very messy suicide involving a shotgun (there’s a cameo by Ruby Wax who stars as a secretary), the American Ambassador to Britain position is now made vacant. It’s then filled by one Damian Thorn, businessman, politician and Son of the Devil. This was the job once held by his father, y’know, the one played by Gregory Peck in the first film.

The daggers that can kill Thorn are then found after The Thorn Museum’s remains are excavated after the building was destroyed by fire at the end of the previous film. Scientists then find that the Son of God is due to be born. We see this happen as Damian tosses and turns in bed, waking up in a cold sweat.

Thorn learns of this second coming and aims to kill all children born within the appropriate time frame. Meanwhile, a group of hardcore Christians seize hold of the daggers and aim to kill Thorn once and for all whilst also finding the new Son of God.

John Waters said in his book Crackpot that some of his favourite movies were the final instalments in movie franchises before their demise. He names several with this film being one of them as he calls it ‘the most ludicrous of all The Omens’. Is he right?

Yes, he is. Omen III: The Final Conflict is ludicrous but it’s also a very satisfying rollercoaster ride of a film. It combines the classiness of the original with the slasher movie nastiness of the first sequel and comes up with something that is very gory but also with a subtle undercurrent of black humour.

I loved the attempts to kill Thorn that were so inept that I felt like I was watching an ’80s horror version of The Ladykillers.

Sam Neill is perfectly cast as the adult Thorn. In fact, there are no missteps with the casting whatsoever.

The idea of the murder of loads of children reminded me of the bleak ending of another third film in a popular horror franchise, that of Halloween III: Season of the Witch. But whilst H3 still holds up for all of the right reasons (great acting, direction, cinematography and soundtrack to name but a few pluses), Omen III demands that the audience holds down the ‘suspend disbelief’ button in their minds.

The Omen III may be ludicrous but Waters still named it as an example of a film that is still noteworthy and still great fun. And he’s not wrong.

Grade- B-

Review- Children of the Corn (1984)

I first saw Children of the Corn when it was first shown on UK TV in the mid 80’s. The following day it would appear that most of my school friends had seen the movie too as we all recalled the events of the film in grisly and lurid detail.

On watching the film again recently I can say that it holds up very well indeed. The plot involves two characters called Vicky and Burt taking a roadtrip and happening upon a small Nebraska town called Gatlin. A major red flag goes up when the couple notice that on approaching the town the radio now only plays content that appears to be Baptist ‘fire and brimstone’ style sermons.

What Burt and Vicky don’t know is that three years earlier the town’s adultfolk had been slaughtered on the wishes of 13 year old Isaac who has set up his own religious sect with ‘He Who Walks Behind The Rows’ as their god, the rows being the huge cornfield which is central to Gatlin. A failed harvest had prompted the uprising with Isaac asserting that his new god needs human sacrifices to be appeased and so that there are bountiful harvests as a result. Young child Job wasn’t involved as his father didn’t like Isaac and so wasn’t allowed to go to a gathering organised by Isaac for all of the town’s children. Job’s sister Sarah also wasn’t there as she was severely ill with a fever. She is shown to have some kind of psychic powers and depicts what she sees from the future in the pictures she draws.

Things go from bad to worse for the adult couple who have now stumbled across the town which has been run by Isaac and his henchman deputy Malachi for three years now. When they hear about the adult trespassers they demand for them to be captured and then sacrificed to their cornrows deity. Poor Burt and Vicky. They discover Job and his sister who assist them in not becoming human sacrifices.

This film has a great premise which is based on a short story by Master of Horror Stephen King. The film also taps into one of the last taboos especially in film which is that of the killer child. And here we have scores of them. The milleu of the religious sect and the small details connected to this like the children being made to change their names to more biblical monikers also adds to the utterly sinister tone of the film. It also shows what can go wrong when a setback or downturn of fortunes can be taken as an opportunity by a charismatic person with sinister motives to come to prominence and give the downtrodden and disillusioned someone to believe in even though he/she is up to no good.

The opening scene takes place in a diner in which the children present (after being given the nod by Isaac) poison and violently slaughter the adults in attendance. I remember being utterly shocked by this scene in particular when I first saw the film and I can reliably report that it’s hasn’t lost any of it’s power to shock decades later.

But this isn’t the only sequence which has the power not just to shock but also to worm it’s way inside your head. The sequence in which Vicky is placed on a cross with it then being hoisted up, the shot showing the weapons hanging from the hands of the children as they descent on a house which has one of the couple in it and the gruesome scene in the church as we see what happens to the children who come of age are such examples.

The casting of the movie is also excellent with Sarah Hamilton as Vicky and Peter Horton as Burt. But the attention to detail regarding the casting of the children is just as impressive. The casting of the freakishly sinister Isaac and his horrifyingly hillbilly deputy Malachi are inspired. In fact, it seems they cast every child with unconventional and unique looks.

Another great quality that the film possesses is whether He Who Walks Behind The Rows is actually a real supernatural force or just completely fabricated by Isaac.

There are also some 80’s visual effects in the film which are still extremely pleasing to the eye and have aged very well indeed.

In fact the same can be said about the whole film. In lesser hands, this could have aged terribly and been forgotten about. Instead we get a film where thought and innovation were used to fully bring to life King’s great plot idea and which still has it’s own rabid fanbase. However the film still doesn’t get enough praise or recognition when films are talked about which were adapted from King’s novels. This is a real shame. Maybe this will change.

***and a half out of *****

31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 26- Diary of the Dead (2009)

George A Romero’s 2009 zombie flick and a concept that involves the found footage of a film student assembled into a movie by one of the film’s other characters. All of the movie is shot on camcorders and other similar devices available at the time commercially.

This found footage chronicles a group of film studies students who are travelling home across country. They witness firsthand and record the apparent dead coming back to life as zombies.

The film gets the balance right between narrative for the casual film viewer, gore for the purist horror fans and metaphor/soul searching content for the serious cineaste (there are plenty of issues raised about what the truth actually is, the suppression of the truth by the mainstream media, the truth being conveyed by bloggers and those not working in the corporate media. The idea of what the truth is is also relevant regarding filmmaking in general as the ‘truth’ you are seeing is in fact the truth of the person who has shot the footage and also the person who has edited it).

The film never lags and feels like a fresh perspective on the zombie genre and Romero’s Living Dead series in general. The characters are interesting with the audience fully engaging with them and wanting to see what will happen to them. Most importantly, they’re not irritating.

But for the horror fans there are also new and innovative kills concerning how to kill a zombie. The scene involving a pickaxe being used whereby a freshly bitten human kills both himself and the zombie who has just taken a chunk out of him at the same time has to be seen to be believed.

We even get Romero’s take on if zombies should run or not after the Dawn remake and the undead’s speed and athleticism therein. A character says that zombies would never run as their ankles would break as (duh) they’re dead. And he’s right.

***and a half out of *****

31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 22- The Ambulance (1990)

A young cartoonist Josh chats up a young woman named Cheryl in the street (the board at Gillette must be despairing at this) but when she collapses she is then taken to a nearby hospital in an ambulance which has been called for her. When Josh tries to track her down there appears to be no trace of her being taken to any hospital in an ambulance. Josh then learns that the same fate happened to Cheryl’s roommate. Something fishy is going on. Does it have anything to do with that specific ambulance?

With such a great premise I was expecting a cross between Coma and Maniac Cop. But, alas instead this is more like a TV movie that feels very slight and somewhat hollow.

I was also expecting more as this was directed by the great Larry Cohen and whilst there are some great directorial flourishes and some great dialogue which Cohen also wrote (all of the supporting characters in Cohen’s films have the best in quirky left-field comebacks), they don’t save this movie.

A wasted premise and a shame.

** out of *****

31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 19- Dawn of the Dead (2004)

A remake of the much loved and revered masterpiece Dawn of the Dead was always going to be sneered at by fans and film scholars alike when the project was announced.

I actually saw the film on it’s release when I was visiting Glasgow and was expecting to roll my eyes constantly whilst saying ‘Psst!’ under my breath a few hundred times (but not too loudly…) during the film’s running time. I was pleasantly surprised though. Whilst it was no worthy competition for Romero’s original film in terms of it’s coveted place in horror history, it was far from mediocre. In fact, it was really rather good!

The opening scenes show central character Ana finish a long shift as a nurse at her local hospital and return home. The next day a little girl from her neighbourhood comes into her house and shows that all it not well. She has changed into a zombie and fatally attacks her partner, ripping out a chunk of his neck with her teeth. Very quickly, he then springs back to life and also in a zombiefied state like the girl who attacked him.

Ana gets to her car and we then see that the very fabric of society has broken down almost completely. People are either dead and running around as zombies and trying to kill others, or they are still human but have either gone completely crazy (witness Ana’s neighbour armed with a gun) or are in ‘survival of the fittest’ mode with no regard for anyone else around them (someone attempts to hijack Ana’s car by trying to jump into it).

After running off the road, Ana crosses paths with cop Kenneth who, with other characters (one of them pregnant!), goes to the neighbouring mall for refuge.

The mall is where the majority of the rest of the movie takes place just like the original. There’s even a nod to the first film with a sign for a shop called Gaylen Ross. The theme of a crisis bringing out the best and worst in a person’s character is explored well here with the security guards who are already in the shopping centre having marked it as their territory and only letting the new arrivals take refuge if they surrender their weapons and adhere to their rules and laws. This is very Lord of the Flies.

The next day even more characters are interjected into the narrative by way of a delivery truck and we now have our cast in place for the rest of the film. And this is one of the major strengths for the remake and that is that the characters are so brilliantly sketched and well rounded. There is a fantastic diversity and range within the characters with some changing by the time of the film’s conclusion so that our expectations are constantly being challenged and contradicted with seemingly vile people redeeming themselves and vice versa.

The film also perceptively displays human relationships at work. On first arrival most of the characters rub along pretty well. But being in a confined space together soon causes divisions and differences to develop and flare up. The film soon becomes something akin to events in a season of Big Brother but with, obviously, more at stake.

As well as great characterisation we also get great make up and effects. The special effects for the film were actually by the company owned by Heather Langenkamp aka Nancy Thompson from the Nightmare on Elm Street films! She should be very proud with the results as they are fabulous.

Scott Reiniger, Ken Foree and Tom Savini from the original all get cameos well as the Gaylen Ross reference/homage.

The zombies in this film move a lot faster than their blue-skinned counterparts from the original which massively divided fans with Romero himself saying that he didn’t like this aspect. I personally think it doesn’t really bother me as it’s something new just like the film itself. There’s also a new rule regarding the dead turning into zombies with there being a set time of a few seconds before the dead arise again. I thought this was also an interesting new aspect of this remake/reimagining.

There is also some great humour in the movie also. Witness the ‘Celebrity Squares’ game that Kenneth plays with his gun shop buddy who is trapped on the roof of his business nearby. This also blossoms into a great moment of camaraderie and dare I say bromance between the two characters. Again, this echoes the same kind of relationship that Scott and Peter had in the original. I thought that it was great that this was reproduced in the remake.

I have to say though that on watching this film again for this review after seeing it on it’s original release brought diminishing returns this time around. It was almost like when you know what to expect with this remake half of the fun has gone.

This remake will never come close to the original film. But on first viewing it was interesting, innovative and had some artistic merit. It’s also a great rollercoaster ride that didn’t make me roll my eyes once.

***and a half out of *****

31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 18- Children of the Damned (1964)

A sequel to Village of the Damned which is less a continuation of the plot and instead like a film containing characters who possess the same powers as the children in the original but under different circumstances.

Whereas the original took part in a countryside idyll, the action within this film is based in London. A gifted child called Paul is studied and observed by the relevant governmental authorities. Other almost supernaturally gifted children are also discovered and brought to the city so that UNESCO researchers can witness them at work. They are brought from places as varied as China, Russia and Nigeria.

These gifted children then abscond from each of their respective embassies that they are staying in and take refuge in an abandoned church. It’s here that the authorities and the army find them and have to decide whether to try to coax the children out or destroy them if they pose a threat to humanity. It’s here that a tense standoff encroaches.

This film as opposed to the original is firmly on the side of the children who we see as persecuted and in need of human support. The original depicted them as inhuman, devoid of emotion and empathy and very much as villains in a horror film. Children of the Damned elicits sympathy and compassion for the children who are shown as unjustly discriminated against, ostracised and treated as freaks in many ways. Having high levels of intelligence and other powers such as telekinesis are gifts but also hindrances. Witness the speech Paul’s mother shrieks at him that she should have destroyed him before she took him in her arms for the first time.

I made the mistake of reading the reviews for this film before I actually watched it. The few examples I could find were derogatory and very unflattering. They were also wrong, in my humble opinion. Children of the Damned may not be as good as the original film it is a sequel to but is still a vivid, well written, engaging film that is well worth a view. The shots of 60’s London are beautiful. A special mention to Ian Hendry (Repulsion) who heads a stellar cast.

***and a half out of *****

meathookcinema.com

Tag: Horror Film

Meathook Cinema Hall of Fame- Scanners (1981)

Review- Quatermass and the Pit (1967)

Has Anyone Else Dreamt About Halloween 3: Season of the Witch Or Is Just Me?!

31 Days of Halloween- Day 10- The Entity (1982)

31 Days of Halloween- Day 4- Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

Review- Children of the Corn (1984)

31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 26- Diary of the Dead (2009)

31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 22- The Ambulance (1990)

31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 19- Dawn of the Dead (2004)

31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 18- Children of the Damned (1964)