Halloween Horror Watch #15: Twilight Zone: The Movie

Twilight Zone: The Movie -- John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, George Miller



What we've got here is a murderer's row of late-'70s to '80s movie directors. I mentioned my love of Joe Dante before, but in 1983, all of these director's were aces. John Landis had a bunch of great comedies and one of the best werewolf movies ever under his belt. George Miller already made Mad Max and The Road Warrior. Even Spielberg was working just on the cusp of his turn to mindless fluff and sentimental drivel, though his segment, Kick the Can, is just that and is easily the worst of the bunch (and features a magical negro to boot!).

John Landis' short is mired in the tragedy that left his star, Vic Morrow, and two little girls dead. I'd developed a great appreciation of Landis' work by the time I learned of this incident and still find it hard to rationalize my love of many of his films with his irresponsibility and dickish behavior in the aftermath (of course, Steven Spielberg was also a producer of Twilight Zone and should also be held accountable, at least for the hiring of the two girls against California law). It's hard not to watch the segment and think about the history.

George Miller tackles Nightmare at 20,000 Feet with John Lithgow in the William Shatner role. It's about on par with the television episode with some amped up camera work. The greatest improvement is that of the gremlin on the wing. The gremlin in the show looks like some fuzzy bear-man:

Whereas the movie is much creepier*:

There's also a really cool, quick image of Lithgow's eyes bulging out of his head. Fun stuff.

My favorite segment, obviously, is Joe Dante's. He is unleashed in It's a Good Life. The material is familiar, but he makes it his own and turning in a live-action cartoon. Kevin McCarthy and Dick Miller appear, there are amazing sets and puppets, and an insanely creepy sickly girl with no mouth. If one were to distill Joe Dante into a 20ish minute review, one could simply show this. It's awesome.

There's also a cute, if overlong, prologue with Dan Ackroyd and Albert Brook (the must have been given leeway to riff) that has a payoff at the end of 20,000 Feet.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Richard Matheson wrote or had a hand in writing most of these segments because he is the best. Also, score by Jerry Goldsmith (both men worked on the original series)!

*There's something weird going on with the formatting of these pictures.

Halloween Horror Watch #5: Duel and Tales of Terror

Duel -- Steven Spielberg



The first of the horror watch that I've already seen. I watched it with a group of friends and it's just as enjoyable as I remember. Man, Steven Spielberg was pretty great until about 1982 when I assume he was replaced by his non-union Mexican equivalent. Duel is loaded with interesting shots moving around speeding cars (or attached to speeding cars) and that make great use of screen space. I'm deeply impressed that this movie took only 12 or 13 days to shoot.

I'm a total mark for Duel anyway. Car chases are about my favorite thing in movies. The only other element that comes close is if a moving train features prominently in the plot. Duel is one long car chase with the added element that the pursuer is more interested in cat-and-mouse games than actually catching our hero (why our hero didn't just return home after an hour of this, I'll never know).

The other reason I'm a mark is because Richard Matheson wrote the screenplay (and short story) and he's the tops. Aces all the way. It's amazing that Duel is able to maintain suspense and what little story there is for over an hour and that's a tribute to Matheson's inventiveness in building the story to a point where it doesn't even seem like the truck driver can be human. He's too omniscient. Our hero probably would have been pursued even if he had turned around.

Great movie, all around.

Tales of Terror -- Roger Corman



I had an unintentional Richard Matheson double feature. Once all of my friends left and Andrea went to bed (she actually watched most of the first tale with me), I threw this on as I won't get to watch a movie tomorrow. Talk about marks. Aside from Matheson adapting Poe tales, Roger Corman directs (during the era where Corman did his best work) and it stars Vincent Price AND Peter Lorre. There's no way I'm going to dislike this movie.

The pacing of the segments is a little slow, but that's par for the course with the Corman Poe adaptations. They burn slowly building to frenzied finales. I'm a big fan of that because I like taking in the sets and costumes and watching actors I love act before they are let loose during the climax. One thing I've learned the more I watch Vincent Price, the man was nuanced. More and more I hate that he's known as a parody of himself instead of the great actor (who yes, is in some schlock, but he always looks like he's having fun and giving the material his all) that he is. I don't know when this happened, but I blame cartoons from the '90s. Peter Lorre has the best role, that of a cuckolded drunk. He's incredibly funny throughout but never more so than in the wine tasting scene with Price.

Vincent Price stars in all three tales and does some mood-setting narration between. I was only familiar with one of the Poe stories, The Black Cat. I'm happy with the format as it gives us several more Corman-Price-Poe  adaptations that a feature would have supplied. Good night for movies watching.

Jaws

For the first time ever, I saw a 35mm print of Jaws in a theater. It was awesome. It's one thing the see the shark on a TV screen, even a large one, but it's another to see it swim across the screen and actually be bigger than the car in which you drove to the theater. I'm unclear on how many times I've seen the movie, both in its edited, TV form and on DVD, but I assure you it's plenty. It says a lot about the film that even though I've seen it so much, it held my interest until it ended at 2:30 AM even though by all rights I should have been passed out asleep due to a baby that consistently wakes up between 7:30 and 9:00 AM. There's not much else to say critically about the movie, so I'm just going to pass on some observations.

-- Even though the Fourth of July revelers swim fairly close to the shore, the shark POV shots and incredibly deep. I don't know many people whose idea of beach leisure is treading water. Hell, when I'm in the ocean, I don't even like going out where I can't stand with my head above the water, let alone treading water fifteen feet above the ocean floor.

-- I can't imagine directing a movie with so many extras. It seems absolutely daunting. There's also several longer takes that require loads of background action from extras and cast and it's all pretty convincing. Consider me impressed.

-- Some of the people I was watching Jaws with mocked Quint's boat as being impractical for their purposes, but compared to everyone else who went shark hunting, Quint's bost is easily the one I would choose.

-- I'm a bit unclear as how Ben Gardner was killed by the shark. There was a breach in the hull of his boat, but he was still in the boat (albeit dead) when Matt Hooper found him. Did the shark come aboard, stab him, and throw him below deck?

-- Mrs. Kintner is easily the most annoying grieving mother I've ever seen in film.

-- I love that the movie has the gumption to kill both a child and a dog. It really raises the stakes.

-- Also that adults are so willing to plow over little kids and the elderly in order to save themselves.

-- "I saw one [a shark] eat a rocking chair once." That line stimulates my imagination in the best ways.

-- Best line reading:


-- The dolly-zoom is pretty overused, but you might get me to admit that Spielberg pulls off the best one ever (yes, even better than Vertigo).


-- Another great shot is the conversation on the ferry. Here's the end of the scene: