The back of the box for “Someone’s Watching Me!” proclaims the film to be “the ‘lost’ John Carpenter suspense classic,” which is a fair description, in that it’s never before been available on either VHS or DVD until now, but what it fails to mention is that it’s actually a TV movie…not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that it feels like a TV movie…or, at the very least, it looks like one. Still, I thought maybe it was just me until I looked up the history of the film and discovered its origins. Apparently, it aired on NBC in November of 1978…and since “Halloween” had opened only a month before and done boffo box office, wow, talk about your major coups! I mean, Carpenter had already directed two other theatrical features prior to “Halloween” (“Dark Star” and “Assault on Precinct 13”), so it’s not like he’d come out of nowhere, but, still, it’s like…well, imagine if NBC had debuted a TV movie directed by Steven Spielberg the month after “Jaws” had been released, and you kind of get the idea…sort of.
Lauren Hutton plays Leigh Michaels, a single and attractive TV news director who moves to Los Angeles for a new start. She gets herself an apartment, finds herself a job at a local station, and even finds a potential new beau named Paul Winkless (played by David Birney), so everything’s looking hunky-dory…until, that is, she finds herself on the receiving end of a stalker’s affections. He’s all up in her business. He’s got a telescope to watch her from afar, he’s bugged her apartment so he can hear every word she says, and he’s got her phone number, so he’s calling her at all hours of the day and night, just to keep her on edge. Thankfully, Paul’s got her back, and her supportive co-worker, Sophie (Adrienne Barbeau), agrees to assist her in fighting back…but will they succeed before things turn deadly?
Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.
Though early in his career, it’s clear that Carpenter already had a flair for suspense. There’s a moment early in the film, not long after Leigh has moved into her apartment, when we get an unexpected glimpse of her stalker rushing out of the apartment that’ll give you the chills, and the POV shots used on various occasions prove extremely effective as well. The film’s climax, much of which takes place on the balcony of Leigh’s apartment, is mostly successful, though the limits of what could be shown on network television in the late ’70s result in a conclusion that’s not as chilling as it might otherwise have been. Still, it’s aided immensely by the work of composer Harry Sukman, whose Hitchcock-inspired sounds do well at upping the tension (and also served as a trial run for the work he would do the following year on “Salem’s Lot”).
In closing, since “Someone’s Watching Me!” was a TV movie and there’s no trailer available for it, I’ll instead offer up the video for Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me,” mostly because that’s what I typed just about every goddamned time I wanted to type the actual title of this movie.
Believe it or not, until today, I’d never seen a Stuart Gordon film.
I’m not sure how I managed to make it this long without seeing any of his works, especially given how much praise has been heaped on “Re-Animator” over the years, but, actually, I’m less embarrassed by not having seen that film as I am by the fact that I have Gordon’s film adaptation of the David Mamet play, “Edmond,” sitting right on my DVD shelf and have never managed to put it into the player. I stand chagrined.
Oh, well, as long as I’m just standing around being chagrined, I might as well discuss “From Beyond,” Gordon’s 1986 adaptation of another H.P. Lovecraft short story (“Re-Animator” was based on one as well), was pretty damned good. And creepy. And downright disturbing at times. I’ve never read the original Lovecraft tale, but I’m led to understand that Gordon’s film – written by the same trio who wrote “Re-Animator”: Gordon, William Norris, and Dennis Paoli – essentially adapts the story for the first part of the film, then continues along its own path for the remainder. Whatever the case, it’s fascinating. And complicated. And almost impossible to really wrap your head around. But still fascinating.
Dr. Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel) and Dr. Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs) are a pair of scientists with really awesome last names who are trying to stimulate the human pineal gland and bring forth the so-called “sixth sense” abilities inherent in every person; as part of their experiments, they’ve built a machine called The Resonator. When The Resonator is turned on, it causes the pineal drives of everyone in its vicinity to go hog wild, which results in them being able to see into a parallel dimension which is apparently inhabited by creatures which resemble eels and jellyfish; unfortunately, it works both ways, and as soon as the scientists make a move, the creatures attack. Tillinghast gets bitten on the cheek, and Pretorious…well, he kind of loses his head. (Later, after the police have come to the scene, we see the headless chalk outline, which can’t help but stir laughter.) Freaking out, Tillinghast destroys the machine and narrowly escapes from Pretorious’s house, where they’ve been doing the experiments, but no-one believes poor Tillinghast when he tries to explain what’s happened, and he’s arrested and put in an insane asylum. Dr. Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton) is fascinated by Tillinghast’s claims, and she takes him back to the house – along with police escort Buford ‘Bubba’ Brownlee (Ken Foree) – in order to determine the truth of the situation. She manages to get the machine working again, but the result is that Pretorious re-appears, having been possessed by the creatures from the other dimension, and wants the others to join him.
The film is a unique mish-mosh of scientific mumbo-jumbo, special effects, gore, sexuality, and humor, and it’s enthralling. And, hey, the sexuality isn’t even forced: turns out that when the pineal gland is in overdrive (and you know when it is, because you can see their foreheads pulsating), the scientists find that their libidos are pumping away as well, which results in Dr. McMichaels putting on a black leather dominatrix outfit at one point. Good times. The creature special effects are right up there with John Carpenter’s “The Thing” for truly mind-bending transformations, and there’s at least one gory moment which will have you squirming in your seat.
It’s a shame there’s never been a “From Beyond 2,” given how much territory is left unexplored with this concept, but, then, maybe that’s why this film works as well as it does: because it’s over before it’s outstayed its welcome.
“Ask and ye shall receive,” sayeth the good book, and after today, I certainly can’t argue.
Yesterday, I ended my review of “Buried Alive” by hoping that I’d be able to find something…anything…better to watch for today’s Scare of the Day. Lo and behold, this afternoon’s mail call brought just such an item: a copy of “The Paul Lynde Halloween Special,” courtesy of the fine folks at S’More Entertainment, and, people, this thing is awesome.
The show opens with Paul Lynde dressed in a Santa outfit, because…ho, ho, HO!…he’s gotten the holiday wrong! The gag continues with Lynde vanishing long enough to put on a full-body Easter Bunny costume, then reappearing to sing a verse of “My Funny Valentine” (which, thankfully, does not involve him wearing Cupid’s traditional attire). Eventually, however, his housekeeper, played by legendary Maxwell House spokeswoman Margaret Hamilton, buys him a clue; he wishes viewers everywhere a happy Halloween – adding, “Whoopie!” – and it’s off to the opening credits, where you won’t find a more definitively ‘70s list of guest stars without breaking out an episode of “The Love Boat.” Making appearances are…well, let’s not give away the whole game in the first inning.
Given that Halloween is a decidedly child-friendly holiday, it’s no surprise that Lynde only hesitates for about half a second before launching into a lyrically-tweaked version of “Kids,” his signature number from the Broadway musical, “Bye Bye Birdie.” While belting out the song, which includes hip new lines like, “There’s too much Alice Cooper / Not enough Alice Faye,” Lynde is being chased around by dancing young’uns; although they all team up for a chorus line of Rockettes-styled kicks toward the end, the conclusion finds Lynde tied up and thrown in a trash can, with the lid put on by none other than…Donnie and Marie! (They both flash their pearly whites at the camera and give the “OK” sign.)
From there, it’s off to the premise that keeps the rest of the show going. Lynde and Hamilton are off to visit her sister, but when they arrive, Lynde discovers that her sister is none other than Witchie-Poo (Billie Burke), and that his beloved housekeeper of the last 15 years is actually The Wicked Witch of the West. (For trivia buffs, it turns out that this particular appearance is officially the only time Hamilton deigned to put on the whole outfit, makeup and all, onscreen at any point after filming “The Wizard of Oz.”) Turns out that they’d like Lynde’s help in softening the image of witches, and they’re willing to offer him three wishes in return. He’s skeptical at first, which allows for guest appearances by Billy Barty and Betty White, but, eventually, he realizes that they’re serious about their offer.
So what’s his first wish…? He, uh, wants to be a trucker.
One magic wand wave later, and, God help us, Lynde is transformed into Big Red, a.k.a. the Rhinestone Trucker, so called because his driving outfit is a rhinestone-encrusted jumpsuit. (The front of the outfit is open clear down to the middle of his chest, revealing way more tufts of hair than anyone needed to see.) The CB radio jokes fly fast and furious for a few moments before settling into a storyline where we discover that Big Red and another trucker – played by Tim Conway – are both engaged to the same girl. If the CB jokes don’t nail down with some precision as to when this special was made, the actress who plays the girl does: it’s Roz Kelly, a.k.a. the long-legged, leather-clad Pinky Tuscadero on “Happy Days.” I mean, really, how long was the window where she was enough of a “name” to warrant a reference in the opening credits of a special like this one…? It can’t have been more than a year or two, tops. Anyway, the sketch ends up turning into a square-dance-styled number where Lynde, Conway, and Kelly sing and strut around a stage that’s dominated by two 18-wheelers. There’s a reason why they don’t make ‘em like this anymore, but, even so, you won’t be able to take your eyes off the screen.
Next up, it’s KISS! The performance of “Detroit Rock City” is clearly lip-synched, but, fuck it, who cares? It’s the classic foursome in all their glory, so it hardly matters. From there, Lynde wishes himself into the life of a rich sheik that kidnaps a woman – played by Florence Henderson – and tries to woo her to become his bride, in the process sneaking in jokes with punchlines involving “Laverne & Shirley” and “Baretta” (gee, y’think this originally aired on ABC?). Upon his return to the witches’ homestead, they made a request to go to “a real Hollywood disco,” and, shockingly, Lynde says he can make that happen. After a quick raiding of Liza Minnelli’s closet for just the right satin-encrusted jacket, Lynde takes the ladies to a haunted discothèque where…what luck!…Florence Henderson just happens to be performing a disco-fied version of “That Old Black Magic.”
AWESOME.
Perhaps sensing that viewers would be a little too riled up after Henderson’s number, the producers decided to bring the mood down a little. Cut to Peter Criss sitting at a piano in full make-up, offering a heartfelt rendition of “Beth.” Eventually, Criss’s bandmates emerge from the shadows and flank him, and after the song ends, Lynde and Hamilton join them to trade one-liners for a few minutes. (Lynde: “I can take one look at you four and tell you how you got your name and how you got your act: you had a fight, and your mothers told you to kiss and make-up!”) Soon, however, it’s time for Lynde to make his last wish, and he’s so smitten with the foursome that all he wants is for KISS to play another song! Say, guys, how about “King of the Nighttime World”? Done and done.
The show comes to its grand finale with the return of Roz Kelly, as she and Lynde duet on a god-awful song called “Disco Baby,” and all of the guest stars dance around the stage as Lynde hollers out, “I like that funky stuff!” Oh, wait, did I say all of the guest stars? Not true. Donnie and Marie never re-appear again (not too much of a surprise, since they weren’t mentioned in the credits to begin with), and the guys from KISS wisely ensconce themselves in the balcony, only looking down to frown at the shenanigans going on below. Paul Lynde closes by addressing the camera directly and offering his thanks to all the viewers, adding, “I hope that we were a howling success.”
Oh, yeah, I was howling all right…with laughter. As an artifact of the ’70s variety era, this is right up there with “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.” It’s a must-see.
From a cabin in the woods to a cabin in the desert: yes, that’s just the kind of scary-movie variety we offer you here at Premium Hollywood, folks.
“Buried Alive” is an offering from Dimension Films’ new horror imprint, Dimension Extreme. The film is directed by Robert Kurtzman, who also helmed “Wishmaster,” but he’s far better known for his work as a special effects and makeup artist; given how boring much of this particular entry in his filmography tends to be, he’d perhaps be wise to keep his day job.
The basic plot of the film involves a bunch of college kids who head out to what’s referred to as a “remote desert cabin” but which looks like it was just furnished by a professional decorator about a week before they arrived. The reason for the trip revolves around Zane (Terence Jay) wanting to find out more about his great-grandfather and, more specifically, what happened to all the gold he was supposed to have had. Zane grabs his best bud, Danny (Steve Sandvoss), his cousin Rene (Leah Rachel), and the two pledges from her sorority, both of whom are wearing tight, skimpy animal costumes – one’s a dog, the other’s a cow – as part of their initiation ritual. Also on the trip is the geeky, Moe-haircut-sporting Phil, who, had this film been made 25 years ago, would’ve been played by Eddie Deezen; he’s got a speech tic which causes him to repeat things constantly, and it gets old really quickly, but the others have to put up with him because Phil’s the guy who does all the research and reveals that Zane’s grandfather may have buried his first wife alive in order to steal her family’s gold.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that there are quite a few bare breasts and nekkid asses in the film, given that the characters are actually described on the back of the box as “lustful college friends.” Zane’s constantly flirting with his cousin, but that doesn’t stop him from having a quickie with the blonde pledge, who’s so stereotypically blonde that she’s convinced that the stuffed rabbit with antlers that she comes across– it’s a jackalope, if you aren’t familiar with the breed – is alive. (“You know, there’s a rabbit over there you can walk right up to and pet…and it stands so still!”) Danny is also trolling for poontang, but given that his idea of a pick-up line is “I feel like I could fuck a buffalo,” the only reason to suspect that he’s ever going to get lucky is that his only real competition is Phil.
Oh, sorry, did I slip into discussing the non-horror elements of “Buried Alive” too much? Well, that’s to be expected, given how often the film makes the wrongheaded decision to focus on conversations between the brain-dead teenagers over the ghost of Zane’s great-grandmother, who haunts the family cabin. Poor Phil gets split down the middle with an axe when he goes outside to see if he can get a signal on his cell phone, and the others end up leaving him out there by himself for, like, eight hours…or maybe it just felt like eight hours. When you’re forced to listen to God-awful lines like, “There’s a strange feel to this place, like we’re being watched,” time all but stands still, especially when the film is structured so that it’s scary moment, ten minutes of boredom, scary moment, ten minutes of boredom, rinse, repeat.
In a roster of virtual unknowns, Tobin Bell is the “big name” of the cast, best known for playing Jigsaw in the “Saw” films. He plays Lester, a grumpy and slightly crazy taxidermist who serves as caretaker for the cabin, and it may not surprise you that Bell proves to be the best part of the movie. Lester’s the kind of guy who loves to bitch about city slickers and their fancy book learnin’, but he also likes sneaking up on dumb-ass teenagers and scaring the shit out of them, so he’s got that in his favor. Too bad he’s only in the movie for maybe ten minutes, total.
I hear from David Medsker that Dimension Extreme’s other recent DVD release, “Black Sheep,” is a great flick to sit back, get drunk, and laugh at….and, coincidentally enough, so’s “Buried Alive.” Unfortunately, in the case of “Buried Alive,” I don’t think it was supposed to be funny. Based on the name of the imprint, however, it was, however, supposed to be extreme….but the nudity isn’t that significant, the scares aren’t that scary, and the gore ain’t that gory.
God, I hope I can find something…anything…better than this to watch tomorrow.
Sadly, I could find no trailer for “Buried Alive” on YouTube, so you’ll have to settle for the heavy metal band Venom performing a song entitled “Buried Alive.”
Today, I decided to finally try and get a jump on my Scare of the Day and not wait until the last possible second to write it. You may or may not have noticed a trend in recent days for my postings to show up about as close to the end of the day as one could possibly cut it…we’re talking in the 11 PM area…and, frankly, I’m getting tired of staying up so damned late. I went over to the big honking pile of horror DVDs that I’ve still got to choose from, and I started flipping through the options available to me, trying to figure out what the scare du jour would be. As I glanced at the descriptions on the backs of the various boxes, I noticed just how many of these flicks involve a cabin in the woods. I know it’s a staple of the horror genre for people to go out to an isolated shanty for fun and relaxation but instead meet with an untimely death, but it’s getting a little played out lately.
In the case of “Blood Trails,” I’m pleased to reveal that, although the main characters do indeed head off for a romantic escape to the mountains, the cabin where they’re staying barely comes into play. No, their problems kick in when they decide to hit the bike trails.
The back-cover blurb describes the plot of the film thusly: “Feeling guilty for having had a drunken one-night stand with a stranger, Anne proposes a romantic escape to the mountains with her boyfriend, Michael. The fresh air and scene beauty do wonders for the couple as they sail down the bike trails of the exotic mountain range…until the stranger from that night appears…killing Michael and beginning his deadly pursuit of Anne!” (Don’t blame me for the spoiler about Michael getting killed off; it’s right there on the back of the box for everyone to see, so go yell at whoever writes the text for Lionsgate’s DVD releases.)
The biking aspect of the film particularly caught my eye, if only because I can’t think of any occasion where biking has had any real part in a horror film, and it’s used to great effect on a couple of occasions. The most consistent usage occurs during Anne’s attempts to escape from her pursuer; watching her speeding down the bike trails is visually captivating, with the camera following both her tortured expression and her frantic pedaling. There’s another big bike moment, however, and I could be wrong, but I just have this feeling that someone came up with the idea for this moment first, then proceeded to write an entire film around it.
So what’s the moment…?
Okay, I haven’t been doing this a lot in my Scare of the Day write-ups, but I’m doing it today: I’m calling a spoiler alert. If you don’t want to know about the moment in question, then…well, I guess we’ll see you tomorrow.
