Movies At Dog Farm Retrospective: "The Beast Within" (1982)

The Beast Within (1982)

     For Halloween 2006 I created a week long series of drive-in double features for my friends and co-workers, seamless programs of shorts, trailers, ads, cartoons, and movies.  The logistics of trying to mount such a program outdoors in October were untenable, but we did a pretty good job creating the vibe indoors.  I had an LED moon on my living room wall, and I created shadow lanterns with popcorn containers and candles to create flickering "stars" on the living room ceiling.  We had a "refreshment stand" set up in the kitchen with hot dogs, boxed candies, sodas, and popcorn.  Each night was themed, and the trailers shown during intermission advertised the movies scheduled for the following night.  The final double feature was Motel Hell (1980) and The Beast Within (1982), both of which I had the good fortune of seeing for the first time at the Skyline Drive-In.  The Beast Within is the epitome of a drive-in creature feature.  It's roots extend all the way back to the likes of I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957), but with more rape, gore, and 1980s style bladder FX (all the rage at the time).  The Beast Within is incoherent, unrefined, and tacky.  It's a movie that simply wouldn't be made today.  Shortcomings notwithstanding, I love it dearly.

Eli and Caroline MacCleary (Ronny Cox and Bibi Besche)

     The Beast Within is the story of young Michael MacCleary (Paul Clemens), the now seventeen year old product of a wedding night rape near the small town of Nioba, Mississippi.  Eli and Caroline MacCleary (Ronny Cox and Bibi Besche) have raised Michael as their own.  They've kept the details of the rape - perpetrated by a humanoid creature of some sort - to themselves in the intervening years. Now young Michael, seemingly normal up to this point, has become gravely ill owing to what his doctor describes as an out of control pituitary gland.  The doctor suggests Michael's illness may be genetic, and so Eli and Caroline return to Nioba to solve the mystery of who - or what - fathered Michael in the hopes of finding some insight into Michael's illness.

Michael MacCleary (Paul Clemens), obviously feeling a little ill

     Several of Nioba's locals behave suspiciously when questioned about the rape, and it becomes clear that they know more than they're sharing about the particulars of Caroline's assailant.  Michael soon shows up in Nioba, as well, and the aforementioned locals begin to die in spectacularly gruesome fashion.  Michael shows himself to be his father's son during a show stopping transformation, then crashes through the wall and into the woods to track down another rape victim and repeat the cycle.  I've left the specifics of Michael's condition deliberately vague, because careening through the Scooby Doo style mystery surrounding Michael's true providence is half the fun.  It's also pretty freakin' vague in the movie, too, though it would seem that Michael is some kind of were-cicada.  Yeah, you read that correctly.

     Truth be told, The Beast Within has its fair share of flaws, not the least of which is the lack of narrative clarity.  Director Philippe Mora claims that United Artists cut several scenes that clarified key narrative points, and I'm inclined to believe that.  Screenwriter Tom Holland later wrote and directed both Fright Night (1985) and Child's Play (1988), as well as having written Psycho II (1983).  He's no hack, so I have to believe that whatever went wrong wasn't at the script level.  On the other hand, Philippe Mora later directed Howling III: The Marsupials (1987), so maybe . . .

The beast comes out

     In fairness, though, Mora does give The Beast Within a nicely grotty southern gothic vibe throughout, and I have to assume he's at least a little responsible for the earnest and mostly pitch perfect performances that serve to elevate the movie above most others of its ilk.  One of the things I appreciate most about The Beast Within is that it's played completely straight, despite its inherently silly B movie creature feature pedigree.  It's refreshing to see a movie like this that doesn't wink at the camera or revel in how clever and meta it is.  There's a place for that, but it's nice to see a sincere attempt to just tell a story occasionally, too.  I think the fact that so many genre movies now are consumed with being self aware parodies is often just a cop out.  Filmmakers try to excuse ineffectual film making by hiding behind the notion that it's o.k. for their movies to be bad as long as they know they're bad.

Michael MacCleary, now obviously feeling a lot worse

     Of course, I've thus far tiptoed around the very best reason to seek out this particular creature feature, and that would be its creature.  More precisely, it would be Michael's transformation into said creature.  The creature itself is a perfectly adequate man in a suit affair, but Michael's final transformation into that creature is an orgy of latex, slime, bubbling bladders and excess.  Masterminded by FX vet Rob Burman, it's one of those glorious, only in the 80s examples of the narrative just coming to a halt so the FX man can show off his wares.  Burman pulls out all the stops, and the results are horror movie gold.  They just don't make 'em like this anymore.

     One final note:  when I was a youngster I purchased a special "magazine" published by Fangoria made up of horror movie postcards.  I distinctly remember that one of the postcards was an image of a black lab with a human arm in his mouth that had been culled from The Beast Within.  I tried unsuccessfully to find any record of this magazine, nor could I find an image of the postcard itself.  If any of my readers remember this or could point me in the right direction, I'd be much obliged.



Posted by Brandon Early

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Best Of The Big Lots Bargain Bin - Paul Bartel's "Private Parts" (1972)

     Being a horror fan is hard work sometimes.  The older I get, the harder it becomes.  We horror fans have voracious appetites, and every movie we add to our "watched" lists makes it that much harder to find the next one.  The pool dwindles.  We end up exploring oddly specific subgenres out of desperation, feeling all the while that there truly is nothing new under the sun.  The law of diminishing returns kicks in - previously unwatched content isn't necessarily good content.  In fact, if a movie is any good it's almost a lock that we've already seen it.  We live for the occasional unheralded gem, the odd little surprise that somehow previously escaped notice.

     When we unearth one of these buried treasures, we're obliged to share with others in our community, other horror junkies jonesing for their next fix.  I'm pretty sure that's how cult movies are born.  I submit for your consideration the late Paul Bartel's feature directorial debut, Private Parts (1972).

     I became a big fan of the Big Lots DVD dump bins a few years ago while enduring some nasty medical problems that left me perpetually broke and frequently homebound.  I'd previously been one of those guys who regularly burned through piles of money on new DVD releases, and I simply didn't have the finances to keep doing that.  Movies from the dump bins were only three dollars a pop, and they satisfied my compulsion to buy new DVDs without breaking the bank. Admittedly, though, my excavations frequently yielded pretty sorry results.  They also often encouraged me to sample titles I might've otherwise passed by, perfectly worthwhile titles that had found their way to the dump bins simply because their availability outstripped consumer demand.

The lovely young Ayn Ruymen as Cheryl Stratton

     I'd never even heard of Private Parts prior to finding it in a dump bin, and that made me wary right off the bat.  Most of the titles I dug from the bins I at least had an awareness of.  This was completely unknown to me.  I'd recently fished out a copy of Paul Bartel's Eating Raoul (1982), probably his most critically lauded work as a director, and I'd been underwhelmed.  It was broad and silly.  Had the pickings not been slim that day, I probably would not have given Private Parts a shot.  After watching it, I was perplexed as to how I'd never heard mention of it before because I was delighted by what I found.

     I should pause here to make clear that Private Parts isn't a game changer.  It's an odd, funky, and morbidly funny exercise in weirdness.  It's at once familiar and unique.  It brings to mind the movies of Frank Henenlotter (Basket Case, Brain Damage) in its casual, good-natured sleaziness.  I suspect it was a hard movie to market, and perhaps that's why it fell through the cracks.

Developing Cheryl in the basement darkroom

     Private Parts tells the story of teenage runaway Cheryl Stratton (Ayn Ruymen) who finds herself homeless in Los Angeles after she quarrels with her roommate.  She winds up in a skid-row hotel run by her peculiar, morally rigid Aunt Martha (Lucille Benson) and populated by an assortment of  loonies.  One odd and reclusive tenant, a photographer named George (John Ventantonio), takes a rather unwholesome interest in Cheryl.  Then the bodies start piling up, and Cheryl soon realizes why Aunt Martha is so uptight, George is so weird, and everyone else is so dead.  To say more of the plot would ruin the fun.

George's "significant other" in an intimate moment

     Private Parts possesses that special "pushing the envelope" vibe peculiar to movies from the 1970s, and it boasts at least one showstopping set piece involving a blow up doll, a syringe, and an unsavory exchange of bodily fluids that's guaranteed to make even jaded horror fans squirm a little.  It's an uncomfortable viewing experience that lingers in the mind.  The movie also paints an especially grotty and lived in picture of L.A. that provides a strong sense of time and place.  Aunt Martha's squalid, creepy old King Edward Hotel is a character itself - a sad, dilapidated affair that still hints at the fabulous showplace it undoubtedly once was.

Lucille Benson as Aunt Martha

     Speaking of characters, Private Parts earns much of its unique atmosphere from a series of nicely detailed and mildly overstated performances, with Lucille Benson's Aunt Martha being an obvious standout.  Benson is one of those wonderfully talented character actresses that you'll recognize instantly but have difficulty placing.   Viewers of a certain age will likely remember her from the short lived 1980s Tom Hanks sitcom Bosom Buddies, wherein she played essentially the same role, albeit with less emphasis on the cracked extremes.  Horror fans will most likely remember her as the dowdy, sandwich making housewife that provides Michael Myers with his first shiny new piece of cutlery at the start of Halloween II (1981).

Laurie Main as the Reverend Moon

     There's also Reverend Moon, the jovial tenant with a thing for refrigerator repairman, played by Laurie Main.  Close your eyes and listen to his voice - he's the narrator from Winnie The Pooh, as well as the story reader on many Disney produced read-along CDs and cassettes.  Watch for a brief appearance by Stanley Livingston, as well, who played Chip Douglas in the long running television sitcom My Three Sons.

     Private Parts is perverse, funny, and atmospheric, and it stands as one of my all-time favorite bargain bin finds.  Be advised, though - you'll want to steer clear of the trailer prior to watching the movie, which is why I haven't provided a link to it here.  Just trust me, this demented little flick is well worth any genre fan's time, and it's truly worthy of a cult following.

                  Up next in the Best Of The Big Lots Bargain Bin series:  Demon Seed (1977)

Posted by Brandon Early

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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986) Is Better Than You Remember

                          "Sex is . . . well, nobody knows.  But the saw . . . the saw is family"
                                                                                       Drayton Sawyer, TCM2

Great poster, great tagline, and a great movie - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986)

The one on one chainsaw duel between Leatherface and Lefty

     I'm an unapologetic Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 fanboy, so be forewarned.  If you're a hater and you think that TCM2 is a sloppy, cacophonous, scare free mess . . . well, you're probably more than just a little bit right.  But it's also a witty, well-paced, blackly comic satire that succeeds admirably in taking the TCM franchise in about the only direction it could have gone without making it a pale rehash of one of the greatest horror movies ever made.

     Director Tobe Hooper realized that trying to top his brilliantly disturbing original with more of the same was a fool's errand.  Instead, he chose to bring the dark humor present in the original - but mostly overlooked - out into the spotlight this time.  After all, Hooper thought he was making a PG rated movie the first time around.  It was based on a violent flight of fancy he had in the hardware department of a crowded store when he was trying to think of a way to get through the crowd and noticed chainsaws for sale.  It was filmed under the working title Headcheese, for Pete's sake.  Not to belittle Hooper's achievement with the original TCM, but he pretty clearly thought he was making something a little different than what we all took to be a nerve-jangling descent into Hell.  In that respect, he failed.

A Sawyer family portrait from TCM2

     If a viewer can get past the fact that the first TCM is scary and that TCM2 isn't, then the sequel is a perfectly logical narrative progression.  I posted an article recently about how the original TCM is a uniquely American horror movie.  TCM2 expands on this notion by having the Sawyer clan chasing the capitalist American dream of a successful business - The Last Round Up Rolling Grill - which Drayton Sawyer (Jim Siedow) says he built into a success by hookin' and crookin'.  The Sawyer family's murderous activities are just a means to an end, a necessary evil perpetrated to grow the family business.  TCM2 is building on thematic concerns presented in the original, and in that regard, it's more of a direct continuation of the first than  the shameful Texas Chainsaw 3D purports to be.

Leatherface and the Hitchhiker on the bridge

     TCM2 also finally delivers all that gore that we only thought we saw in the original, another logical progression.  FX master Tom Savini delivers some of his best work here, with the skinning alive of radio station engineer L.G. (Lou Perry) being a notable highlight.  I always get a little tickled when Lefty (Dennis Hopper) makes a point of turning Leatherface's chainsaw disembowelment toward the camera during the climactic chainsaw battle.  It's almost as if director Hooper is saying, "Here's what you always wanted to see, kids!  Here's your gorey money shot!"  It's effects porn at its finest.  Grandpa's old age make-up is pretty incredible, too, as is the Hitchhiker "costume" Leatherface dons in the opening bridge massacre.  Hell, how about that gloriously over-the-top sawed off head in that same sequence?  I know you giggled with glee the first time you saw that.

Leatherface woos Stretch the only way he knows how

     We also get to see Leatherface (Bill Johnson) hit puberty in TCM2, and the tender love story between Leatherface and Stretch (Caroline Williams) serves as the sequel's funniest running gag.  I love me some Gunnar Hansen, but Bill Johnson's wordless performance as TCM2's love addled Leatherface is an underappreciated triumph of expressive pantomime.  It's a logical progression in the character's arc, and it's the only instance anyone other than Hansen has properly captured the child-like essence of the character. 

Stretch strikes an iconic pose at the conclusion of TCM2

     In fact, the entire cast rises to the occasion admirably.  Jim Siedow and Bill Moseley (Chop-Top) both chew the scenery with gusto, and their persistent squabbling brings the dysfunctional Sawyer family dynamic to life.  Caroline Williams and Dennis Hopper do a fine job garnering audience sympathy, as well - no small feat when competing with such a colorful bunch of bad guys.  Their respective meltdowns - with Hopper "bringin' it all down" and Williams ultimately mimicking Leatherface's iconic chainsaw dance from the original TCM - are wholly convincing.  They also serve notice to the viewer that we all have a little "chainsaw" in us.

The Sawyer family "Breakfast Club" pose

     The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 is by no means the genre defining masterpiece that Tobe Hooper's original was, but it's a helluva lot better than its detractors would have you believe.  I firmly believe that most fans who don't like TCM2 don't like it because it isn't the movie they expected.  If it had been the movie they expected, they undoubtedly wouldn't have liked that, either.  Appreciate TCM2 for the darkly humorous quasi-parody it is.  Don't take it to task for not being a carbon copy of the original.

     It pisses me off that Texas Chainsaw 3D had the audacity to rewrite canon and position itself as the true sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 is, was, and always will be the only true sequel to Hooper's pioneering original.  It's a commendable attempt to expand on the Chainsaw saga while being respectful of its trailblazing predecessor.  It's better than you remember.  Skip the next shitty sequel and watch it again if you don't believe me.

Posted by Brandon Early

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Take Another Little Piece Of My Heart - My Bloody Valentine (1981)

       Fewer than half a dozen times in my entire adult life has Valentine's Day not been miserable for me.  It's a cynical non-holiday formulated to sell greeting cards and torment the lonely.  If you're with someone it's an obligation to try to bludgeon your sweetie with sentiment on a day fraught with expectations.  Do too much and humiliate yourself in the eyes of someone who doesn't care as much.  Do too little and reveal yourself as a callous jerk with no romance in your heart.  Well,  Valentine's Day can kiss my hairy heart-shaped ass.  Thank God for My Bloody Valentine (1981).

     I wasn't always this bitter.  In fact, when I first saw My Bloody Valentine as a fresh-faced 11 year old I fell in love with the iconic look of the pickaxe wielding killer rather than the movie's sour view of Valentine's Day.  My appreciation of that aspect came with adulthood, and it grew with each passing year like the clog that undoubtedly festers in my aortic artery.

Completely badass, right?

     In my youth, though, I always wondered why My Bloody Valentine didn't spawn a franchise like so many of its calendar based brethren.  I now know it was the victim of unfortunate timing, a topic that director George Mihalka elaborates upon nicely in the extra features on the Special Edition disc.  All of the goriest footage was left on the cutting room floor to ensure the movie made its release date without becoming mired in a ratings battle with the MPAA.  Then, of course, the footage was lost - for twenty-eight years.

The version to have - beware the still circulating Paramount release!

     Lionsgate reinstated most of that newly rediscovered gore footage when they released the Special Edition to capitalize on the release of director Patrick Lussier's 2009 3D remake.  The elements for the footage is understandably rougher looking than the rest of the movie, and yet the degradation serves to enhance the authenticity of the gore effects in a pleasingly grindhouse fashion.  Though not all of the lost footage was recovered, director Mihalka says the new cut represents about 85% of what was intended.  I can honestly say I had never been more excited to see the extended cut of a movie, and the footage truly delivers.

A little taste of the gorey goodness reinstated for the My Bloody Valentine Special Edition.

     The theatrical cut that I saw as a child was already a favorite, and the reinstated effects serve to push the movie into the realm of greatness.  I contend that if this version had made it into theaters in 1981 that My Bloody Valentine would have spawned a franchise to rival the long running dominance of the Friday The 13th series.  Slasher movies just don't get any better.

     I was open to Lussier's remake because I saw it primarily as an opportunity for My Bloody Valentine to get a do-over and at last become the success it should have been the first time.  Though successful at the box office, the 2009 remake has yet to produce a sequel.  I'm brokenhearted once again.  At least the remake itself turned out to be a rousingly good  time in 3D.  The only major misstep was letting the miner spend too much time out of the mine.

A custom cover for Lussier's remake.  Break out your anaglyph 3D glasses - it's totally worth it!

     The original made the mine itself a major character, and the dark and claustrophobic mine shafts add immeasurably to the effectiveness of My Bloody Valentine.  All of the underground footage was shot at Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, often as much as 900 feet underground.  The movie benefits greatly from the verisimilitude.

     Often overlooked in discussion of My Bloody Valentine is the well delineated love triangle at the heart of the movie.  The star crossed lovers are more identifiably human than usual for horror movies of this era, and that aspect lends the final reveal of the killer's identity a level of pathos absent from most other slashers.  *Spoiler*  That triangle is still intact at the end of the movie, which makes it even more heartbreaking that there was never a sequel.

For the key to my heart?  You can actually order this here.

     So if you find yourself alone this Valentine's Day, my heart truly goes out to you.  As oxymoronic as it sounds, you're actually not alone because so many of us are alone with you.  Do what I do each and every year, and make a date with My Bloody Valentine.  I hear she's a sure thing . . .

 

Posted by Brandon Early

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Movies At Dog Farm Retrospective: "Friday The 13th Part II" - Best Of The Friday Franchise?

     The original Friday The 13th scared the hell out of me when I saw it as an impressionable ten year old at the now long defunct Harrisonburg Drive-In.  It's funny, now, to imagine that I was ever frightened by a Friday, but I had no idea at the time that a movie could be so . . . graphic.  This was the first hard horror movie I'd ever seen, and make-up ace Tom Savini showed me things in great, gory detail that my innocent young mind had never imagined.  The arrow through Kevin Bacon's neck from beneath the bunk haunted me (dammit, I knew something was under my bed), and Jason emerging from the lake at the end (". . . then he's still there. . ." - echo and fade) worked on my brain like the finest campfire tale.

    The next year was a formative one for me.  Despite how terrified I'd been by the murders at Crystal Lake, I began to cajole my mostly obliging parents to take me to every new slasher movie that opened.  That was a lot of movies - this was the height of the early 80's slasher boom, after all.  I'll always be grateful for having discovered contemporary horror at such a pivotal moment in genre history.  Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the TV ads began running for Friday The 13th Part II.  Oh, happy day!  I never dared dream that the body count would continue.  I'd toughened up in the interceding year, and I was ready to revisit the horror that started it all.  I conned my mother into taking me to the theater on opening weekend.  Lights go down, opening titles blow up, Henry Manfredini's iconic score kicks in, and we're off!

     Friday The 13th Part II always seemed to me to be the scariest of the franchise.  Undoubtedly, the peculiar mix of excitement and dread I carried into the theater with me gave it some added juice, but still . . .  To this day, I expect to find a severed head every time I open the fridge.  It always spooked me that Jason ventured out of the woods to track down and kill the only survivor of Part I, as well.  Think what we now know of Jason.  Premeditation has never really been his strong suit.  Then he takes the boiling tea pot off the burner after killing Alice?  These are the actions of a more deliberate and thoughtful slasher than we came to know later.  Jason had a very specific axe to grind in Part II, and his calculating nature made him a more formidable and frightening threat.  Hell, he'd even run after his victims if the circumstance dictated it. 
                                                                
     I know I'm in the minority on this point, but I always preferred Jason's The Town That Dreaded Sundown look to the now iconic hockey mask, as well.  This looked like the pick-axe toting hillbilly I wouldn't want to meet in the woods at night.  You just know something awful is going on under that potato sack - who wears a sack over his head otherwise? 

      Best of all, though, Jason begins to give us a clear indication of  his own moral imperatives.  He wouldn't kill a guy in a wheelchair, right?  Mark's machete-in-the-face backward wheelchair ride down a lot of stairs, never tipping over until the chilling freeze frame and fade to white, proves otherwise. 
     

       Jason's first two-for-one kill of copulating teens - trimmed to avoid an X rating, and very reminiscent of a murder set piece in Mario Bava's Twitch Of The Death Nerve (1971) - also betrays a very puritanical upbringing.  Seriously, imagine what kind of mother Mrs. Vorhees would have been.  The indication of some kind of inner life for Jason that drives his murderous impulses is way scarier than the hockey masked comic book character that came later.  As slapdash as much of Part II is, it gets a lot right.  Jenny's contemplation in the local bar of Jason's psychological state as dictated by the traumas he's endured humanizes him just enough to make him that much scarier.  Now we know he has an agenda.
                                                                                 

      . . . and speaking of things Part II gets right:  Jenny is easily the very best of the Friday Final Girls.  She's likable, smart, engaging, and entirely capable of handling her own pitchfork.  I remember being very disappointed that Jenny didn't at least make a pre-credit appearance in Part 3.  Then I remember watching the rest of Part 3 and realizing that was only the tip of the disappointment iceberg.  So was Friday The 13th Part II the best of the Friday franchise?  Well, The Final Chapter competes, but I believe Part II takes the prize.  Please discuss . . .

         

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