Will is a member of the Television Critics Association and has written for Decider.com, the Onion A.V. Club, The Dissolve, Indiewire, Rhino.com, TV Week Magazine, The Virginian-Pilot, Popdose.com, and EW.com along with writing for Bullz-Eye.com and Premium Hollywood.
Movies based on Stephen King novels and short stories are a dime a dozen, but it’s pretty well documented that King’s track record for his adaptation has never been spectacular, and it’s only gotten worse in the years since he’s starting embracing television. After watching “Sometimes They Come Back,” however, one wonders why he opted to make it a TV move rather than a theatrical release; it’s actually one of the better films to have been based on one of his works.
Tim Matheson plays Jim Norman, an idealistic young teacher who returns to his hometown after a several-year absence – now with a wife (Brooke Adams) and son (Robert Hy Gorman) in tow – in order to teach at the local high school. The reason for his departure is an ominous one: his older brother was stabbed to death by a group of local hooligans, who promptly got their just desserts by having their car be hit by an oncoming train while they were still inside. Now, he’s back in town, but being older and wiser doesn’t mean isn’t still haunted by the events of his past…and we do mean that literally.
The second he’s back in town, Jim begins to find himself flashing back to the day of his brother Wayne’s death, and it only get worse when it turns out that the ghosts of the punks who killed Wayne have found their way back to town and into his classroom. They’re “up from Milford,” as they put it, and to make room for themselves in the class, they have to kill other students; unfortunately, no-one seems to see their death car, as it were, except for the victims and, naturally, Jim himself. It’s a horrifying situation for Jim, and it gets worse as the local law enforcement begin to suspect him in the deaths of his students; eventually, he realizes that the only way out of the situation is to confront the demons head on.
“Sometimes They Come Back” is an enjoyable flick that keeps the suspense level pretty high throughout, but it’s also the kind of film that’s best appreciated when one turns their mind off and simply accepts the premise. Otherwise, you’ll be asking questions about the consistency of the ghost’s rules…like, say, why they can be seen when they’re in the classroom but not when they’re tooling down the highway in their muscle car. Just don’t worry about it; just be creeped out.
But, y’know, honestly, I’m not entirely sure why “Sometimes They Come Back” has suddenly gotten a reissue; it might look better than it did in its previous release, but it certainly doesn’t have anything in the way of special features. Still, if you’re a King fan and this one’s flown under your radar for all these years, you might as well enjoy a version that looks pristine. Just stay away from the two sequels, which have precious little to do with either the original film or, indeed, anything King has ever written.
This feels like a complete cheat of a Scare of the Day, but yesterday was a long damned day, and, frankly, I went for the shortest thing in my pile that was even remotely appropriate to the concept: a screener of the new Starz documentary, “Bloodsucking Cinema,” which – shocker! – offers up an hour-long history of the vampire as portrayed in motion pictures. (Given the title, I’m sure you in no way saw the subject matter coming.)
Unfortunately, the first reaction that the documentary is likely to inspire is the realization that there have been a lot…a LOT…of not-great vampire movies in recent years. It’s all but a universal truth that flicks like 1922’s “Nosferatu the Vampire,” with its uber-creepy performance from Max Schreck as the title character, and Tod Browning’s 1931 version of “Dracula,” which proved to be the defining moment of Bela Lugosi’s career (not to mention the albatross around his neck for the majority of his life), are all-time vampire classics. Unfortunately, it’s not like any of the principals from those movies are still among the living to discuss their experiences…but, hey, Uwe Boll and Kristanna Loken are chomping at the bit to chat about “BloodRayne”! Same with Len Weisman and the “Underworld” flicks, Stephen Sommers and “Van Helsing,” and Stuart Townsend and “Queen of the Damned.”
Not exactly on the same level, is it?
On the flip side of the coin, though, the conversations with Cheech Marin reminded me that it’s been too long since I last saw “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn,” and the interview segments with John Carpenter and John Landis and the clips from their respective vampire films – “Vampires” and “Innocent Blood” – made me think that I should give those flicks another chance, that maybe they’re better than I remember them. (In particular, the moments I saw of James Woods’ performance in “Vampires” during the special made me wonder why the film doesn’t stand out for me; he seemed to be having a ball, and yet I can’t for the life of me recall a thing about the flick, even though I know I’ve seen it.) I’m still not convinced, however, that watching Francis Ford Coppola’s “Dracula” again from start to finish wouldn’t leaving me feeling like a week had gone by, but, dammit, I was almost tricked into thinking otherwise. It was also nice to see Joel Schumacher reminiscing about “The Lost Boys,” though seeing Corey Haim only served to remind me how awful “The Two Coreys” was, and as a comic geek, I took great enjoyment in seeing an on-screen interview with Marv Wolfman, co-creator of “Blade.” (Oh, yeah, and writer / director David Goyer shows up to discuss those films as well.)
To give credit where credit is due, however, “Bloodsucking Cinema” does offer a bigger-picture view of the vampire film, even if its talking heads tend to represent sub-par examples of the genre. It does indeed stretch all the way back to “Nosferatu,” then moves forward, stopping long enough to speak of Lugosi, Christopher Lee’s portrayal of Dracula in the Hammer Studios films, the underrated Mexican vampire films which served to inspire “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn,” and even offers brief mentions of comedies like “Once Bitten” and Mel Brooks’ “Dracula: Dead and Loving It.” The differences in the vampire mythos from film to film are compared and contrasted, and by the end of the special, things have gotten downright philosophical, with Carpenter musing about how he would deal with the curse of eternal life.
“Bloodsucking Cinema” actually premiered on Friday night, but it’s being re-run on Halloween night at 9:00 PM EST. I know, it’s hard to accept that anything involving clips from “BloodRayne” is worth seeing, but this is worth catching. It’s certainly not all-inclusive (what, no “Blacula”?), but given the financial limitations inherent in cross-studio clip borrowing, they do they best they can, and the results are quite enjoyable.
Good evening, and welcome to the sixth and final entry in an ongoing series within “Scare of the Day.”
Wait, let me guess: you didn’t even know I was doing an ongoing series, did you?
Well, there’s no reason you should, really, unless you’re really observant and noticed a recurring logo within the artwork of the last several films I’ve tackled, but Warner Brothers recently released a six-disc box set of horror films entitled The Twisted Terror Collection, and today’s the last of the bunch. It’s a strange mish-mosh of selections, with no seeming rhyme or reason aside from the fact that they’re all horror flicks, but if you like horror flicks, it’s a pretty good deal: individually, they hover in the $13 range, but you can get all six for under $38.
So, anyway, tonight’s the night when we finally get to the sixth and final film with the set. We’re worked our way through “Deadly Friend,” “From Beyond The Grave,” “Eyes of a Stranger,” “Dr. Giggles,” and “Someone’s Watching Me” (see what I mean about how disparate they are), and, now, it’s time to get to the flick that I intentionally kept ‘til last, just so I’d have something to look forward to: “The Hand,” starring Michael Caine and written and directed by Oliver Stone.
If you’re anything like my fellow contributor David Medsker, this is the point where you say, with legitimate shock, “Oliver Stone did ‘The Hand’?” Yes, he did. And in case you think I’m trying to pull a surprise ending on you, yes, it’s the Oliver Stone, the same one who directed “J.F.K.,” “The Doors,” “Talk Radio,” “Platoon,” blah blah blah. But at this point, he had a decidedly shorter resume, having only directed one previous film (1974’s “Seizure”), but he had written an Academy Award-winning screenplay (“Midnight Express”), which was apparently enough to get him the gig on “The Hand.”
Based on The Lizard’s Tail, the novel by Marc Brandell, “The Hand” stars Caine as comic strip writer and artist Jon Lansdale. He’s doing pretty well on the business end of things, but his personal life is another story; he’s got a cute little daughter (Mara Hobel, who soon scored cult film immortality by playing Christina Crawford in “Mommie Dearest”), but his relationship with his wife is strained at best, and…well, hell, you don’t give a good God-damn about his marital woes, do you? Of course not. You just want to know about the disembodied hand that goes around strangling people, which is just as it should be. I mean, I saw this movie when I was 12 years old, the reason I remember it so vividly ain’t because of the back-and-forth dialogue between husband and wife; it’s because you don’t forget the sight of a hand scuttling across the ground like a freaking spider!
On the whole, “The Hand” isn’t nearly as scary as my memories would’ve had me believe, mostly because I’ve seen a lot of movies in the interim. Back then, I was so focused on the hand that I couldn’t fully appreciate back the fun of Michael Caine’s bug-eyed performance in the film, which he gradually takes so delightfully over the top that, by the end, you’re more likely to be cackling than shivering.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some scares here, though. In fact, we’re only about six minutes into the proceedings when we get our first jump-out-of-your-seat moment, courtesy of a cat leaping and yowling into a shot…but it’s more than just a cheap scare. Stone’s already set the scene and shown us that the cat’s there; the big reason it proves so shocking is less to do with the feline and more to do with the fact that, only moments earlier, Lansdale has been cutting wood with an axe…which means that the audience, who already knows that he’s destined to lose a hand at some point, find itself wondering, “Is this how it happens? With an axe…?” Well, no, actually, it isn’t. But since we’re already distracted by the mere possibility, we forget about the cat in the scene, and, voila, a simple scare becomes more profound than it otherwise might have been. (The cat ends up shocking us again later, resulting in my wife jumping, then grumbling, “Stupid goddamned cat.” I immediately seconded her emotion.)
When Lansdale finally does lose his hand…well, I can’t speak as to how medically accurate it is, with the ungodly amounts of blood spurting everywhere, but it certainly feels like there’s more blood than is actually necessary. Then again, his hand has just been completely ripped from his arm at the wrist, so maybe that’s just me wanting to believe that it should’ve been less bloody. However you feel about the gore, though, one thing that’s undeniable is that the choreography of that scene is the definitive moment within “The Hand” that’ll make you go, “Yep, even back then, Oliver Stone was already a hell of a director.”
With the loss of a hand, specifically his drawing hand, Lansdale’s life as a cartoonist is effectively ended, and his marriage is already hanging by a thread, so it’s no wonder that he begins a descent into depression…but is it a descent into madness as well? He begins to dream that his hand, which was MIA after the car accident which severed it, is still out there somewhere…and crawling towards him. (There’s a very fun scene when Lansdale goes to search the field where the hand should’ve landed and we’re treated to camera work which effectively provides us with a “hand’s-eye view.”) As the film progresses, we’re left uncertain as to whether he’s been dreaming or not…and if you haven’t actually seen it, this is definitely one that I won’t spoil for you.
The score by James Horner is suitably creepy, but there’s something very amusing about the scene where a slightly-crazed Caine is cruising down the road whilst cranking Blondie’s “Union City Blue” on the car stereo. (Don’t tell me Stone wasn’t aware of the lyric, “Power, passion plays a double hand.”) It’s also worth noting that “The Hand” is the only selection within the Twisted Terror Collection to feature audio commentary; Stone himself sits down and discusses the experience of making the movie and, as with most of his commentary tracks, it’s almost as entertaining as the film itself, in particular because he admits outright that he hasn’t seen it in years…not unlike myself.
“The Hand” is an enjoyable blend of drama and horror, with the occasional bit of humor to lighten the mood; it might not be as scary as I’d remembered it, but thanks to the team of Caine and Stone, it proves entertaining nonetheless.
And if the word “Skidoo” doesn’t immediately conjure visions of Jackie Gleason on an acid trip and Groucho Marx as God, then clearly you haven’t been reading Premium Hollywood enough, since we’ve talked about it here and here.
Ultimately, though, the man responsible for bringing it to my attention in the first place was Mark Evanier, the proprietor of the aforementioned NewsFromMe.com…and I’d love to tell you that the student has surpassed the teacher and that I’m more excited about this rare TV screening of the film than he is, but, then, I’m not the one who sat down and took the time to create a banner in order to advertise it to as many people on the ‘net as possible (and, he promises, there will be more banners forthcoming).
Victory: Evanier. I applaud you, sir.
UPDATE, 9:11 PM: In retrospect, perhaps I was too hasty in making my concession speech. It just occurred to me that perhaps I might be able to find another clip of “Skidoo” on Google Video to embed in this posting, so I did a search for the words “Skidoo” and “Gleason,” and I found…the entire movie! Of course, you probably won’t want to sit in front of your computer for the full 94-minute run time of the film, but at the very least, you can watch enough to decide if it’s worth your precious TiVo time to record it.
FURTHER UPDATE, 6:48 AM The Next Day: Never mind. Truman definitely beat Dewey. I came back this morning and found that the link I’d posted was dead. My guess: the Preminger estate got wind of it. Whatever the reason, you’ll now have to make do with the first nine and a half minutes of the film…well, for however long it takes it to get yanked, too, anyway:
In celebration of “Scrubs” returning to NBC for its seventh and final season, here’s a look at the brief but entertaining few moments I was able to spend on a teleconference with star Zach Braff and Bill Lawrence. The guys spent an hour and a half on the line, answering one question after another from reporters from hither and yon, and I was lucky enough to be the second person to get on the phone with them, but to give you an idea of how many people were on the call, by the time I got my second shot at the mike, we were at the hour and a half mark. In fact, I was the very last question of the event…but we’ll get to that in a moment.
FIRST TIME AROUND –
Bullz-Eye: Bill, what’s the status of Aloma Wright (Nurse Laverne Roberts) on the show? I know the rumor had gone around for awhile that she would be coming back and playing Laverne’s alcoholic sister, but now I’ve heard…
Bill Lawrence: Well here’s the scoop, man, and you can totally help me out with that because, you know, I have a feeling that I’m going to get a lot crap from our fan base. But, uh…so I wanted to get this story out, which is basically when I killed Aloma last year, I would never take work away from a, you know, an actress that we consider part of the family. We thought last year would be the last season. So when I killed Laverne, it was because we basically said, “Hey, what’s a good dramatic arc for the end of the year, since we’re kind’ve ending up the show?” And once we got there, we had already written the stuff, but we had been told by our studios that the show would continue for another year. So I promised her that she would come back. I don’t want people to get mad at me. She returns as a nurse named Shirley; she looks slightly different, but she still looks like the same actress. But the only thing we’re doing is that only Zach’s character thinks the two of them look alike.
Zach Braff: I wanted them…there was talk – and we haven’t done this yet – that she would be a Coquettish atheist.
BL: And then there’s a lot of talk, too, that because she’s a new character, some of the writers think that we should kill her yet again…but, this time, nobody cares.
ZB: Yeah. “Did you hear Shirley got run over by a car?”
BL: It was, “She got hit by a bus. Oh, hey, do they have any donuts?”
BE: (Laughs)
BL: So she will be back, and I apologize to people. And, hopefully, they will let it go, and she will be back as a…you know, I figured “Bewitched” had two different guys play her husband, so I can have someone as a joke come back as a different character.
BE: Zach, is there any side of J.D. that hasn’t been explored in the show yet that you’d like to see explored in the final season?
ZB: I…that’s a good question. I feel like there’s…I mean, seven years worth of sides of J.D.. I don’t know. I think we…I like it when we explore his love of Donald Faison (Turk). I think we can always have more of that.
BL: Also, the…Zach’s already doing it, even though he’s not saying it, which is that I think that this show…the ending of this show will be unsatisfying for people if they don’t feel like his character has finally grown up, you know? And, you know, one of the things that’s tough about being lucky enough to go on this long is that you can only do the young kind of man child who hasn’t matured yet for so long before Zach’s coming to me and being, like, “Bill, I’m…you know, my character is 30 years old now. I think he might not wear cartoon t-shirts or jammies to bed.” And, so, we’re trying to make him a little more mature.
BE: Thanks.
After Braff and Lawrence had been answering questions for an hour straight…including several from Jewish publications, which amused Braff to no end… the conference moderator – that would be the lovely Carol Janson – came on the line and asked the operator how many questions were left in queue. When it was confirmed that a mere seven questions remained, Ms. Janson asked the guys if they were willing to answer the final seven questions…and, God bless ‘em, they were game.
