ATLiH: Trilogy Of Terror: Part 1.... The Acting Dead!

ALL THE LOSERS IN HOLLYWOOD...

One night, sitting in Residuals Bar in Studio City (where the DRAGONHEART script was conceived) and drinking a Guiness, I was telling one of the stories that usually end up on this blog - a story about some poor misguided person in the film biz, and one of my friends said: “Where do you find these people?” I replied, “I bet I know all the losers in Hollywood”.... and they said that should be the title of my autobiography (or this blog). But instead, this blog ened up being called SEX IN A SUBMARINE due to a crazy script note I got from HBO on CRASH DIVE, and ALL THE LOSERS IN HOLLYWOOD was a title without a story... until now.

When looking for regular features for the blog, I thought it would be fun to tell a bunch of those stories of the oddballs I’ve met in the almost 30 years I’ve been in this business. I’m changing all of the names to protect the very very guilty (and avoid meeting lawyers) but the stories you are about to read are true... well, mostly true.

THE ACTING DEAD.

Ready for some really scary stuff?

This is a fable, even though the stories are true and the names have been changed to protect... well they aren’t exactly innocent, are they? A fable is when a story has a larger meaning, but I’m going to let you figure out that meaning on your own and take away any lessons you want. Our little fable concerns four people who set out to make horror movies. Horror films are hot these days...

We’ll begin our tour of this gallery of gore with the actor. You don’t know his name, but you know his face. He’s mostly a TV actor, but he’s done a bunch of movies, too. If the movie is about a prosecutor, he plays the defense attorney’s 2nd chair. If the story is about a defense attorney, he plays the #2 prosecutor - the sounding board guy. He also plays corporate VPs and the detective in a buddy cop movie who isn’t one of the buddies and FBI Agents. Oh, and I’ve seen him play a gangster before - but he’s kind of too clean cut for that. Basically, he’s *one* step down from the important characters in the film - a guy who gets two dozen lines in the whole film. That makes him a character actor - but one who is almost always working. Problem is, he’d like to be a star. Wait, that’s not the fable part - it’s not about hubris.

So, several years ago he started making his own movies, starring himself (of course). He’d gather together some other character actor friends and make a serious drama... but the films have no story at all. They are like a collection of really great scenes. You haven’t seen any of these movies, because none have ever found distribution. One actually played out of competition at Sundance one year (probably because of all the names in the cast) but no distrib picked it up. You need more than just some good TV names in your film, the disrib needs to make money from the film... and these films don’t even have a *story*. They are “actor porn”.

For instance, one is about four guys in their 40s who play golf together every Tuesday morning. The film isn’t about the relationship between the four guys (though there was a little of that), most of the film is about each one of the guys in some big dramatic scene. The scenes aren’t thematic - it’s not about 4 guys and their love lives, or 4 guys dealing with growing older, or 4 guys learning to accept (or not) how their lives turned out. That would be some form of story. No, the film was just a collection of great scenes with these 4 guys... and, of course, my character actor acquaintance getting twice as many scenes as everyone else. Only fair - it was his money. One character may have a big blow up with his wife. Another character might have a great big dramatic scene with his boss. And there was a scene where a character has a melt-down at a fast food place. None of the scenes were connected in any way - except these 4 guys played golf together every Tuesday morning.

After I saw the film, I thought it was like one of those books they sell at Sam French, 25 GREAT SCENES FOR ACTORS, shot with the same 4 actors and a couple of scenes where they golf together.

Because I know this guy, I’ve tried to give him a little advice about story... all of which he’s argued with or completely ignored. “It’s all about the truth of the dramatic moment, not some contrived story”. Okay... Every time I do my class in Los Angeles, his name is on the comp list... and he never shows. But after the third film he has funded out of pocket wasn’t picked up by *any* distrib for *any* medium (not DVD, not TV, nothing)... and his wife was about to divorce him, he decided to make a horror film (because they’re hot right now, and he can make some quick cash and save his marriage).

So he asks me for a little advice. I *give him* some Blue Books and the Horror CD and advise him to watch 5 to 10 horror movies and *study them* - figure out how and why they work. Then apply that information to his script. Kind of my basic advice.

So he makes his film... Whenever I bump into him, I ask him about it... and he tells me it’s great. The best horror film ever made. That’s good, because his wife files for divorce. He also missed pilot season for the first time ever. In other words - everything is now riding on this horror film. Now *that’s* a dramatic situation!

There’s this strange and illogical phenomena where the more important something is to a person, the more important it should be to everyone else in the world. If it is important for you to sell your next script, your next script is the best work you’ve ever done. It has to be, because if it’s just your average script, you’re screwed. This makes no sense at all - the script is the script and it doesn’t get better or worse depending on how much you need a sale. But this is often the way we think. So the more that was riding on my friend’s film, the better that film became. Had to be great, or he was screwed. In reality, it’s just creating and believing your own BS. Jim’s a good actor - and he convinced himself that he made a great film.

He rents a screening room on Sunset, to show the film to distribs. And he’s managed to get all of the major players to show up. He rounds up some folks to fill all of the empty seats in the screening room - a “warm body” audience to laugh and scream. Because I’m not an actor the distribs might recognize, I get to fill a seat. See - I’m good for something! This will be the first time I’ve seen one of his films on the big screen... and without the words “For Screening Purposes Only” not fading in and out at the bottom of the screen. I take my seat, he does a little speech to the distribs, the light dim, and...

We get off to an okay start - a maniac escapes from a mental institution, grabs an ax, steals a car. He doesn’t kill anyone, yet, but it’s early. Then we get some hot teen actors going on vacation at a cabin in the woods... then Jim playing the Town Sheriff (he’s still trying to ride this film to stardom) who warns the kids about the escaped maniac. Then we get about 20 minutes of completely unrelated big dramatic scenes with the kids (plus two, count ‘em, two, with the overly educated Town Sheriff chewing scenery like crazy.) (Dude, you won the audition, take it easy!) None of these scenes are about the maniac. A handful of the distribs sneak out during these 20 minutes.

About 30 minutes in, one of the teens is *discovered* dead on the back deck of the cabin. Killed by an ax. There’s blood and a lot of it... but we didn’t see the character killed or chased or anything. The guy’s just dead. Some FX guy has done great job of creating gore - but it just sits there.

This leads to maybe another 20 minutes where the teens have big dramatic discussions... but they seem more interested in chewing scenery than being afraid of some maniac with an ax (or that one of their friends is chopped up on the back deck). All but one of the distribs sneaks out during these 20 minutes. To tell you the truth, I want to sneak out, too. And I almost do. But what am I going to tell Jim the next time I bump into him? So I stick it out.

Another kid is found murdered with an ax. We never see the kid killed, we just see him dead. No stalk, no slash... just a body. This, of course, leads to about 20 minutes of big dramatic scenes about the nature of life and responsibility and all kinds of other things that start a little laughter in the screening room.

It’s difficult not to laugh when people are wasting time with these big dramatic scenes while some maniac with an ax is killing them one by one offscreen. Why don’t they *do something*? Why don’t they shut up and try to stop the maniac? Or at least run for their lives? The last distrib sneaks out sometime during these scenes. Now the screening room is nothing but shills. The screening room is being rented by the hour, and maybe Jim can get a partial refund if he stops the movie right now... but he keeps the projectors running. Like some maniac with a movie, he traps us in that screening room and forces us to watch the whole film.

“Stop me before I screen again!”

And it doesn’t get better. Another teen is found dead, which leads to another 20 minutes of big dramatic scenes. Not only are the dramatic scenes kind of funny given the situation, they also make the film boring. It’s all talking heads. And because the big dramatic scenes often have little or nothing to do with maniacs and axes, it’s almost as if the scenes are at war with the story... and the scenes are winning. There is no stalk, no slash in the entire stalk & slash movie. No suspense. No dread. No violence. The closest we get to anything even resembling a horror film is the dead people who are discovered *after* the action. The best gore money can buy.

Of course, the film ends with a 30 second battle between the leading lady and the maniac with the ax - no chase, no struggle, she just kills the sucker - the end.

Afterwards Jim says there’s a celebration at the Standard Hotel (rooftop) bar - he’s buying the drinks. If he’s buying drinks, I’m going next door. I want to be paid for my time. He compares the film to *Oscar Winner* SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, and I mention that SILENCE wasn’t just Hopkins and Foster having endless conversations. “Yes! My film is better than that because I minimized all of the chase bullshit and focused on the drama.” My only response was to agree with that.

Jim thinks the distribs will begin calling in the next few days. They don’t. A couple of months ago, he calls me to ask if he can sleep on my sofa for a while. SAG has screwed up on some residual checks and he’s broke. All of his money was tied up in the movie... and his divorce pretty much wiped him out. I really want to tell him that he should have just listened to me and made a real horror movie, instead of some actor’s showcase. But instead I tell him this isn’t a good time for me, and suggest another mutual acquaintance who would hate me, now... except SAG got Jim his residual check before he was evicted, and he just landed a recurring role on a new TV show. For a couple of weeks I was sure he would end up sleeping on my sofa. I’m too nice to say no to people who are really in trouble... but part of me wants to start a serious discussion about personal responsibility that will drag on for 20 minutes until someone finds me hacked to death on the patio.

The next segment of our Trilogy Of Terror deals with a director I know who decided to make a horror movie... because horror is a hot genre right now. And that screenwriter who hired the PR firm, who decided to write and direct a horror film... because horror is a hot genre right now. Stay tuned... the really scary stuff is yet to come!

- Bill

Trailer Tuesday: PIT AND THE PENDULUM

THE PIT & THE PENDULUM (1961)

Starring: Vincent Price, Barbara Steele, John Kerr, Luana Anders, Antony Carbone.
Written by: Richard Matheson
Directed by: Roger Corman
Produced by: Roger Corman and James H. Nicholson (American International Pictures)

This is my favorite of all the Corman Poe movies, and that may be because it was the first one that I saw back when I was a kid, or it may just be that the story kicks ass. It is scary as hell, and manages to get under yours skin. One of the other great things about it is that it is presented almost as a murder mystery, complete with a locked door puzzle and a skeptical detective who doesn’t believe in ghosts... well, until he has no other choice. And Price gets to really show his acting chops - his slow descent into madness is Oscar calibre stuff. All of that is before we even get to the pit and the pendulum part of the story!

Like USHER, Roger Corman shot this in 15 days in color Cinemascope and designed as a stand alone feature which would not be double billed. Budget once again was under $200,000, which was much much lower than a studio film, and was very successful at the box office... PIT AND THE PENDULUM doing even better than USHER had before it. These films are still great, lush, spooky films... made on a low budget but you wouldn’t know it by looking at them. PIT features some great period costumes (they may look a little silly with their puffy trousers, but authentic) and with each new film in this series they accumulated more props and set pieces - so each film has better production value than the last. PIT looks beautiful - the sets are amazing and the lighting and cinematography seem even better than USHER. This gave these films so much production value that AIP could say they cost $1 million and most people believed them. A ticket buyer who saw this film in a cinema thought it looked like a big studio film!

These Corman Poe films were shot on sets rented from studios and look like crazy fever dreams. Corman said, “One of my theories was that these stories were created out of the unconscious mind of Poe, and the unconscious mind never really sees reality, so until THE TOMB OF LIGEIA. we never showed the real world. In PIT, John Kerr arrived in a carriage against an ocean background, which I felt was more representative of the unconscious.” Plus, when you are shooting in Los Angeles the Pacific Ocean is free production value. PIT AND THE PENDULUM has all kinds of shocks and scares and builds suspense and dread... and has a great performance by Price that takes him through all kinds of emotions. One of the interesting Corman techniques is the color tinted flashbacks, which predate the same technique used by Soderbergh... but Corman does some great work here - changing the blue tint to red and twisting the image . This film is a nightmare before we get to the title device. The film opens with a strange psychedelic title sequence that really sets the mood of insanity.



Spain... a few decades after the Spanish Inquisition. A horse drawn coach drops off Barnard (John Kerr) on the road, it doesn’t go all the way to the castle... he has to walk. The castle is on a cliff over the ocean. Barnard walks through the fog surrounding it and knocks on the door, asks to see Don Medina. The Servant tries to get rid of him, but Catherine Medina (Luana Anders) allows Barnard in when he says he is Elizabeth’s brother... His sister Elizabeth was married to Don Nicholas Medina, he came as soon as he heard that she passed away. He would like to visit his wife’s grave... Catherine tells him she is in the family crypt... below... please follow me.

A locked gate leads to descending stairs. Cobwebs. Shadows. A *loud* mechanical noise is a jump moment. Another gate, another stairway going down, deeper and deeper. Barnard gets ahead of Catherine - following the machine noise to a doorway. Catherine warns him not to open the doors... as Barnard reaches for the door handle - WHAM! - the doors open in front of him and Don Nicholas Medina (Vincent Price) stands before him. “Who are you?!” Catherine introduces him, and Medina softens - the brother of his departed wife. He locks the giant door behind him and they continue down to her crypt.

Medina tells Barnard that his sister died of a lingering disease of the blood, which was diagnosed by Dr. Leon... his personal physician. They get to the crypt - the coffin is behind a bricked in wall with a plaque bearing Elizabeth’s name. Barnard is still suspicious of his sister’s cause of death, and when Medina asks if he will stay the night, Barnard answers, “That and more” - he wants to investigate the cause of his sister’s death.

Upstairs, Barnard asks if a painting on the wall is Don Medina - “That is my father, Sebastian Medina. The other is my uncle Bartolome.” Medina asks Barnard to come with him and they go up to Elizabeth’s bedroom - untouched since her death. As he shows Barnard all of the luxurious furnishings of the room... a woman’s shadow appears ghost-like behind the curtained partition... moving towards them! When it comes in to the light it is... the Maid Maria. After the scare, Medina tells Barnard that he is *still* in love with his sister, and shows him a painting of her (a nice way for the audience to know what she looked like). She sang like an angel and played the harpsichord every night after dinner (a plant which will pay off later). Medina breaks down in tears and Barnard leaves him in Elizabeth’s bedroom.

Dinner: Barnard and Catherine do some mild flirting when there is a knock at the door. Dr. Leon (Antony Carbone) who is introduced to Barnard, and they all have a glass of wine. Barnard gives Dr. Leon the third degree about his sister’s death. Dr. Leon mentions just living in this castle as one of the factors. What? “Your sister’s death was caused by failure of the heart, sir, due to a terrible shock. Literally, she died of fright.” What? “Show me where it happened!” Medina says they were wrong not to be totally honest with Barnard, they must show him where his sister died... and they open that gate and climb throse stairs into the depths below the castle, to that locked door that Medina popped out of when we first met him. Beyond that door is...

A torture chamber. His father Sebastian’s torture chamber from the Spanish Inquisition days. “I shall not dwell upon the history of this blasphemous chamber, suffice it that the blood of a thousand men and women was spilled within these walls. Limbs twisted and broken! Eyes gouged from bloody sockets, flesh burned black.” Barnard says his sister was a strong, willful woman, not someone who would succumb to evil atmospheres... so Medina tells the story, and we get a blue tinted flashback...

Elizabeth Medina (Barbara Steele) as his perfect wife and their perfect life. He would always bring her breakfast in bed, she would pose for his painting, dinner - often with Dr. Leon, she would play the harpsichord afterwards and sing with her beautiful voice... And then one morning she had no slept, and then she stopped eating... Then one night she disappeared, and when Medina searched the castle for her he found her down in the torture chamber, obsessed with all of the evil devices. Medina’s curse - his blood curse inherited from his father - had been passed on to her. Medina decided to take her away from this cursed castle - an extended holiday to rid her of the curse. On the night before their departure, Medina and Dr. Leon heard a scream... they ran down to the torture chamber to find her... locked in the iron maiden! Just before she died she called out a name - “Sebastian!”

Later, Catherine begs Barnard to believe that Don Medina did not mean to lie to him, only to save him from the frightening details of his sister’s death. Barnard thinks Medina is acting guilty... Catherine says of course he acts guilty - he believes his blood, the curse he inherited from his father along with that torture chamber, is to blame for his wife’s death. Catherine decides to reveal the deep, dark, family secret to Barnard, in a blue tinted flashback...

When Nicholas Medina was just a ten year old boy, we wandered down to the torture chamber even though he was forbidden to ever open that door. Curiosity. A nice creepy bit where the boy pokes around the foggy torture chamber, opens an iron maiden and a skeleton pops out. Footsteps on the stairs above - the boy hides. He spies his father Sebastian (also Price) and Mother and Uncle Bartolome climbing down the stairs to the torture chamber. Sebastian gives them a tour of torture chamber... then Sebastian picks up a hot poker and kills Uncle Bartolome. Our blue tinted flashback becomes red tinted! As Sebastian kiss his brother Bartolome he keeps screaming one word over and over, “Adulterer!” And then he turned on her. Accusing her of sleeping with is brother...

“And there before my brother’s eyes, our mother was tortured to death,” Catherine says as we come out of the flashback. Since then, Medina has been haunted by his mother’s death, and then his wife’s death almost pushed him over the brink into insanity. Barnard promises Catherine that he will be more gentle with Don Medina.

That night, the sound of a harpsichord echoes through the castle...

Barnard hears it, and goes to investigate... a hand grabs his shoulder! Catherine. She heard it, too. As did Dr. Leon (who says he feel asleep in a chair after dinner). Barnard thinks it must be Don Medina (since he is the only one not present), but Catherine says Don Medina *doesn’t know how to play the harpsichord*. Spooky! They go downstairs to the harpsichord, and when they turn a corner in the stairway - A Woman Pops Out - it’s Maria the maid, she heard the harpsichord, too. At the base of the stairs - Wham! - Don Medina! He is completely freaked out - that was his dead wife’s playing, he recognized it! The music stops. Barnard unlocks the door to Elizabeth’s bedroom and throws open the doors - the room is *empty*. On the harpsichord, Elizabeth’s ring... as if she had taken it off to play the keyboard. Are there any other doors - ways out of the room? No. Don Medina takes one look at the ring and faints.

They take Don Medina to his room, and Dr. Leon gives him a sedative to help him sleep. Outside the room, Catherine asks Dr. Leon to stay for the rest of the night, and he agrees. How did the ring that she was buried with end up on the harpsichord? Dr. Leon asks Catherine and Barnard to come with him to the dining room so they can discuss this...

Dr. Leon says that what he is about to say is something that only Don Medina and he have known... and insists that Catherine and Barnard have a drink first. Must be something really weird, right? Don Medina believed that Elizabeth may have been interred... prematurely. The doctor says this is not the case... she was quite dead. But Don Medina believes this due to what happened to his mother when he was 10 years old. You see, she was not tortured *to death*, as Catherine was told. “Your mother was walled up in her tomb, while yet alive.” From that day, Nicholas Medina has been afraid of being buried alive. Since Elizabeth died, he has had trouble sleeping - thinking that he hears her roaming the hallways of the castle... that he has heard her speaking his name.

Barnard’s skepticism jumps in - But we all heard the harpsichord playing.

Dr. Leon answers that he thought only himself and Don Medina knew of his belief that his wife was buried alive... but maybe one of the servants overheard, and are behind this.

But Barnard is still the skeptic: “I want to know one thing, sir. Are you absolutely positive that Don Medina’s dread is unwarranted?”

“If Elizabeth Medina walks the corridors of this castle, it is her spirit, not her living self.” So now we have three possible explanations for the harpsichord playing: It’s a servant trying to gaslight Don Medina for some reason (but what would be the motivation?), it’s Elizabeth’s ghost haunting the castle because she was buried before she died, or it’s just Elizabeth’s ghost who was buried dead but still haunting the castle.

The next morning - a blood curdling scream from Elizabeth’s room - Dr. Leon, Catherine, and Barnard run to the room. When they open the door - WHAM! - Maid Maria blasts through the door at them. While Dr. Leon tends to the frightened Maid, Barnard investigates the room - empty. The Maid says he *heard* Elizabeth’s voice. She said, “Maria, leave this room!” That’s when Don Medina shows up, “My wife spoke to you?”

Don Medina is freaked out, taken back to his room and given a sedative.

At breakfast, Barnard is in full investigative mode - he knows it is not ghosts, so who is behind these things? Dr. Leon says only Maria heard the voice. Barnard says he questioned the maid, and the voice was just a whisper - not completely identifiable as Elizabeth’s voice. It could have been anyone...

BANG! The sounds of a things being thrown around and broken upstairs. They run up and follow the crashing sounds to Elizabeth’s room - door locked. They pound on Medina’s room and ask him for the key. Barnard and Dr. Leon take the key and open the door to Elizabeth’s room. Catherine tries to hold Medina back, but he insists on looking inside. Inside that locked room. Barnard and Dr. Leon find that the room has been **destroyed*. All of the furnishings broken. The painting of Elizabeth *slashed*. And no one is in the room. Locked door - no way in or out... so *what* could have done this? When Medina see s the slashed painting, he faints. Dr. Leon takes him back to his room.

Barnard is alone in Elizabeth’s trashed room. How could this have been done behind a locked door? He begins to poke around the room, looking for some secret passage... and finds one! Covered in spider webs. He enters the passage - a narrow corridor between the walls of the castle - and follows the voices until he find the secret passage into Medina’s bedroom. Startling Medina and Dr. Leon and Catherine.

Barnard accuses Medina of being behind all of this. He breaks it down, “haunt” by “haunt” - Medina is the one person who could have done all of it. But Medina pleads innocence... and eventually breaks down and wonders if it is possible that he is doing these things unaware, to punish himself? Has he gone crazy? Has his subconscious mind created this evidence of Elizabeth’s revenge from beyond the grave because she was buried alive to punish him? Could he be haunting himself? Medina wonders if he is crazy...

Medina says the only way he can be at peace is if he knows for sure.
Knows that his wife Elizabeth was dead when she was buried.
They all go down to the crypt with axes...


They use the axes to cut through the brick and mortar, Medina has another blue tinted flashback to when he was a boy, watching his mother being bricked up in her tomb alive.

They break through the wall, and Elizabeth’s ornate coffin is in the crypt. They climb through the hole, open the coffin lid, exposing...

A horrifying mummied corpse of his dead wife - hands raised and clawing at the coffin lid! Her scratch marks on the coffin lid!

“True! True!” Medina screams as he is pushed over the edge into madness.
Dr. Leon tries to comfort him: “On my honor as a physician I though she was dead. I swear to you!”
This doesn’t help. Medina runs off screaming “True!”

Catherine finds Medina in his room, a pistol against his head. He says, “I killed her!” and breaks down, dropping the pistol and himself to the floor. He keeps repeating, “I killed her!”

Dr. Leon tries to calm him... but can not. “While we were up here mourning her, she was alive - struggling to be free. I am responsible, for if it were not so she would not want to haunt me.” Dr. Leon says he must leave in the morning, and begs Medina to leave with him. “I can never leave. I must accept whatever vengeance Elizabeth chooses to inflict upon me.”

Downstairs, Barnard apologizes to Catherine. Even though all of his suspicions were true, he can not blame Don Medina for this horrifying accident... for which Medina is suffering. He feels only sympathy for Medina. And he does a nice subtle hit on her, hoping that they meet again someday under better circumstances, perhaps in Barcelona where she lives. Catherine responds very favorably - the romance subplot that has been quietly running in the background of this horror story reaches its resolution... they will be hooking up later.

On the stairs Barnard bumps into Dr. Leon, who advises him not to disturb Don Medina. Maybe in the morning Don Medina will be... more himself. Dr. Leon offers Barnard a ride into town in the morning, which is accepted. Is this the end of our story?

Don Medina snuffs out all of the candles in his bedroom to prepare to sleep... when he hears Elizabeth’s ghostly voice calling his name. “Nicholas...” Did he imagine that? The secret passage in the wall slowly creaks open. Medina grabs the last candle and follows her voice into the secret passage.

Dark, dank, filled with spider webs... he follows her voice calling his name deeper and deeper into the bowels of the castle. The candle blows out, leaving him in almost total darkness. A great creepy moment when he walks full face into a spider web - the webs clinging to him, suffocating him... yech! He wipes them away. Her voice continues to call him deeper and deeper down the secret rat-filled corridors. All the way down...

Upstairs, Catherine finds Medina’s bedroom empty... knocks on Barnard’s door. They form a search party with Dr. Leon - Catherine and Barnard will search the upper floors, Dr. Leon will search the lower floors of the castle... including the torture chamber.

Medina continues too follow his dead wife’s voice... on the brink of insanity... he comes to a Y in the hallway - one door leads to the torture chamber, the other leads to the crypts. Her voice calls to him from... the crypts. He follows the echoes to the broken open crypt for his wife. “Elizabeth?” He peers through the shattered bricks to her coffin...

And the coffin lid slowly opens...

And a bloody hand emerges...

Bloody fingernail scratches on the underside of the coffin lid...

And dead Elizabeth crawls out of the coffin...

Medina falls to the ground in terror...

Elizabeth rises before him - bloody and dead and...

Medina runs like hell... the corpse dragging her dead form down the dark corridors behind him. He unlocks the crypt door, races to the doorway leading up to the torture chamber - but it is locked. He fumbles for the keys as she creeps closer, and closer, and closer! He finally gets the door unlocked, running onto the landing above the torture chamber, slamming the door behind him. But Dead Elizabeth throws open the door, screaming his name! He sees her dead face and stumbles backwards... falling all the way down the stairs to the floor of the torture chamber, where he is finally pushed over the edge to complete insanity... a babbling lunatic. No longer a man.

We saw her face, too - it was not Maria the maid dressed like Elizabeth, this was Medina’s actual dead wife!

The door opens and Dr. Leon enters, sees Dead Elizabeth and says, “I told you to wait.” So everyone can see this ghost? Dr. Leon goes down the stairs to examine Medina - “He’s gone.” Medina is over the edge crazy...

Dr. Leon goes back to Dead Elizabeth and gives her one hell of a kiss. Then another one. And another one.

This has been Dr. Leon and Elizabeth’s plan - they have faked her death, and then begun gas-lighting Medina... making him believe that her ghost is haunting the castle. Using the secret passages so that she could play the harpsichord, whisper his name, play the ghost. Once Medina has been driven crazy they will have him committed and liquidate the castle and all of Medina’s belongings and run away together - wealthy! Dr. Leon scolds Elizabeth for jumping the gun and doing the final phase of their plan a day too soon. Couldn’t she have waited until Barnard left in the morning? Elizabeth says it had already been too long..

Elizabeth bends down to Medina, “We have finally broken you. Is it not ironical my husband: your wife - an adulteress, your mother - an adulteress, your uncle - and adulterer, your closest friend - and adulterer? Do you not find that amusing dead Nicholas?”

Medina laughs like a lunatic, then moves to his feet... and calls Elizabeth by his mother’s name, Isabella... and calls Dr. Leon “his brother”... the son has become the father. Their plan was to drive him crazy... and they have succeeded! He grabs Elizabeth, tells her that he will torture her to death and drags her to the iron maiden, locking her inside! Dr. Leon tries to escape, but Medina chases him... Leon opens the door at the end of the torture chamber and runs through... right off the edge of the landing and into *the pit*. He screams all the way down to the bottom!

Splat!

Barnard comes downstairs - he heard strange sounds. Sees Medina, “Oh, there you are, sir, we’ve been searching all over for you.” Medina hits him, knocking Barnard out.

69 minutes into our story, and Barnard wakes up... strapped to a table on a platform over the pit. Above him - the pendulum. Medina explains the horror that “Bartolome” is about to endure... then sets the pendulum in motion. The razor sharp blade swings lower and lower and lower - inching towards Barnard’s stomach!

Catherine pounds on the torture chamber door, then runs to get the servant.

As Medina operates the pendulum, swinging it closer and closer to Barnard’s stomach - blade slicing the man’s shirt - Medina flashes back to his father using the pendulum on his Uncle Bartolome (in blue and red tint). The blade swings closer - scratching flesh. A few more swings and Barnard will be sliced open.

Catherine and the Servant break open the door, the Servant wrestles with Medina while Catherine tries to figure out how to stop the pendulum. Medina fights the Servant, then mis-steps and goes over the edge into The Pit. Screaming all the way down. Splat!

But Catherine has not stopped the pendulum’s descent! She calls for the Servant to help. They finally get it stopped - it has sliced into Barnard, but not deep enough to be fatal. Catherine tends to his wound, unties him from the table, and she and the Servant help him up and out of the room. On their way out of the torture chamber, Catherine locks and bolts the door, “No one will ever enter this room again.”

Of course, Elizabeth is still locked in that iron maiden!

Great twist end shocker! I love how everyone is basically hoist by their own petard - they want to drive him crazy... and they get their wish! I think these kinds of resolutions are great in horror flicks, and wish there were more of them.

Tomorrow we will take a look at one of the non-Price Corman Poe movies... THE PREMATURE BURIAL, starring Oscar Winner Ray Milland.

- Bill

Fridays With Hitchcock: Masters Of Cinema Interview.

Trying to keep the blog slightly fresh, I have been scouring YouTube for newly uploaded interviews with Hitch or with people who worked with Hitch, and discovered this Masters Of Cinema interview from 1972. Over half an hour long! "Method actors are like children." Lots of great juicy stories about actors. What is always interesting are the film critics who don't understand film. Lots of silly questions. Early on, a great breakdown on the story of NOTORIOUS. On how to create a great villain (they are charming and frather normal). Why *humor* is required.



- Bill

Of course, I have my own books focusing on Hitchcock...

HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE

LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!

Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the “Master Of Suspense”; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?

This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!

Films Included: NOTORIOUS, SABOTAGE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE 39 STEPS, REBECCA, TO CATCH A THIEF, FRENZY, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE LODGER, THE BIRDS, TORN CURTAIN, SABOTEUR, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1955), SUSPICION, and NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 17 Great Films!

Only 125,000 words!

Price: $5.99

Click here for more info!

OTHER COUNTRIES:


UK Folks Click Here.

German Folks Click Here.

French Folks Click Here.

Espania Folks Click Here.

Canadian Folks Click Here.

And....

HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR

USA Readers click here for more info!

HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!

We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?

Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 52 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.

Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.

Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.

UK Folks Click Here.

German Folks Click Here.

French Folks Click Here.

Espania Folks Click Here.

Canadian Folks Click Here.

THRILLER Thursday: Portrait Without A Face

SEASON 2

THRILLER: Portrait Without A Face

The spider web fills the screen, it's Boris Karloff's THRILLER!

Season: 2, Episode: 14.
Airdate: Dec. 25, 1961 (The Christmas episode?) Director: John Newland
Writer: Jason Wingreen.
Cast: Jane Greer, Robert Webber, Katherine Squire, George Mitchell, John Banner.
Music: Morton Stevens
Cinematography: Lionel Lindon
Producer: William Frye

Boris Karloff’s Introduction: “Robertson Moffat’s greatest masterpiece doomed by the shot of an assassin’s crossbow to remain just as we see it - blank, lifeless as the murdered artist himself. It is said that art is a human effort, having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and noblest feelings which men have risen. Well, my friends, tonight you’ll see that the activity of art can be inhuman as well. And that its purpose, at least in this case, is shall we say, unexpected. The victim’s vacant canvas should give you a hint of the title our play. It’s called Portrait Without A Face. Look closely, and it will reveal the identity of our leading players. They are: Jane Greer, Robert Webber, Catherine Squire, George Mitchell, and Brian Gaffikin. Sit back, relax if you can, while we whet your pallete with some bold strokes of terror. Oh, do you have a skylight? Be sure to bolt it securely, otherwise you won’t know that you are absolutely alone.”

Synopsis: In his studio, egotistical painter Roberston Moffat (John Newland) is strangling over-acting newspaper reporter Nat Fairchild (Brian Gaffikin) and tosses him to the floor. Fairchild says he didn’t want to come, but she begged him to try and get the painting back. Moffat laughs - says she begged him to paint her nude. Moffat pours himself a drink and pontificates on death... and says he’s going to paint the Angel Of Death, and orders Fairchild to get out. Once Fairchild is gone, the phone rings - Marie, the woman in the nude painting begs him to give it to her. He refuses.... but does ask if she wants to hook up. She hangs up instead.

As Moffat gets his brushes and paints ready, someone climbs the wall of the studio with a crossbow, opens the skylight, fires an arrow into Moffat’s *head*, killing him. Closes the window and vanishes.

Six Months Later: Art Appraiser Arthur Henshaw (Robert Webber) arrives at the Moffat house and is *greeted* by crazy old Aunt Agatha Moffat (Katherine Squire) who asks if he’s from the Janus Gallery in New York. Moffat left all of his paintings to Janus because he discovered him, but Moffat’s wife Ann keeps all of the paintings in the house until she dies... so Janus will probably be long dead before he sees any of the paintings. Crazy old Aunt Agatha is an exposition machine who rattles off information and backstory and plot points and just about anything else the story needs. She tells him the police still have no clues as to who shot the arrow into Moffat’s head.

Ann Moffat (Jane Greer from OUT OF THE PAST) descends the stairs and introduces herself, and crazy Aunt Agatha scampers away. As Ann shows him out the backdoor of the house and across the courtyard to the studio, Henshaw says he’s here to catalogue all of the paintings so Janus can decide what to show at Moffat’s last exhibition. No one has been in the studio since the murder.

She unlocks the door and shows Henshaw around, pointing out Moffat’s last canvas... which is blank. But Henshaw looks at it and says it is not blank... Ann takes a look, and there is a painting of Moffat’s head on the floor with the arrow sticking out of it in the corner of the canvas - the rest is blank. Ann faints.

Dr. Grant (Gage Clarke), who has the worst bedside manner ever, scolds Ann for fainting and yells at her to keep calm. On his way out, Dr. Grant has a conversation with Henshaw about why she fainted. Henshaw says the canvas was blank, and then there was part of a painting on it. “Do you realize what you’re saying?” Dr. Grant replies. Unfortunately, I’m not sure anyone has any idea what they are talking about - because they avoid the word “ghost” and avoid anything that might make you think that’s what they are talking about. Also, they forgot to plant that the painting of dead Moffat was in Moffat’s style. Grant scolds and yells at Henshaw, then leaves.

Ann gets out of bed, tells Henshaw that she must destroy the painting, and heads out the backdoor into a night thick with fog. They have a conversation about the key to the studio - there was only one, Ann didn’t even have a key until her husband died and she was given his. They discuss the arrow shot through the skylight - could someone have entered the studio through the skylight and painted on the canvas... maybe the killer? The fog is so think in some of these shots that the actors didn’t have to show up for work that day.

In the studio, crazy Aunt Agatha is looking at the painting a cackling. They send her away, and Henshaw closes the door. Henshaw goes to get the canvas... and looks at it for a long long long time. Anne eventually comes over and sees that someone has added to the painting - dead Moffat’s body has now been added. Henshaw wants to leave and lock the studio door behind them and call the police. Now we get Ann saying that the painting is in her husband’s style. “He’s dead, but he’s painting this picture.”

Sheriff Pete Browning (George Mitchell - the old drunk in ANDROMEDA STRAIN) shows up and says it’s crazy - Moffat can’t be painting from beyond the grave. Henshaw tells him that he’s sent for the greatest art critic in the world to authenticate the painting. Browning isn’t sure what that will prove... and that’s when Fairchild shows up unannounced. He’s heard rumor that Moffat is painting from beyond the grave, can Sheriff Browning or Henshaw verify this? Again, this guy is over-acting like crazy. Browning shows Fairchild out... then asks Ann for the key to the studio so that he can investigate this alleged ghost painting.

Henshaw helps Ann upstairs, then goes to the studio - where Browning is looking at the painting. Browning pulls up a chair to make sure no ghosts add to the painting overnight. Henshaw goes upstairs in the studio to catalogue paintings.

Crazy Aunt Agatha runs around in the thick fog cackling.

Ann looks out her bedroom window at the fog.

Fairchild looks through the gates at the fog.

Crazy Aunt Agatha makes a cup of coffee, then looks out the window at the fog... and sees a MAN! She screams!

Sheriff Browning hears this and runs out of the studio and through the fog into the kitchen, where Ann is comforting crazy Aunt Agatha... and the MAN is standing in the kitchen. He is Professor Martin Vanderhoven (John Banner, Sgt Schultz) the art expert. He explains how many times he knocked at the front door before coming around to the back and looking through the kitchen window, scaring Agatha, Then he explains exactly why he came here... to examine the painting. Browning realizes that no one is guarding the painting and races back to the studio... Everyone follows.

Browning looks at the canvas and calls for Henshaw, who has been upstairs all along, and says that no one has entered or left the studio. Except, more of the room has been painted - including a roughed out version of the ceiling and skylight!

Vanderhoven says this is definitely Moffat’s work. How is that possible? He’s been dead for six months. Vanderhoven touches the new portion of the painting - and the paint is still wet. Impossible! Vanderhoven wants to take more time to study the painting.

Meanwhile, crazy Aunt Agatha is using a Ouija Board in the livingroom and cackling... while all of the other cast members wait. For some reason, Fairchild is there.

Vanderhoven comes back from the studio and says it is Moffat’s work - but that is impossible. Everybody freaks out in their own way.

Sheriff Browning wants to take the painting to the police station, and Henshaw stops him in the fog - neither actor really needed to show up for this scene, the fog is so thick you can barely see them. Henshaw says the painting belongs to Janus Galleries, and as the representative of the owner, he can’t let Browning have it. Besides - it’s not finished. Browning goes to get a court order.

Henshaw is going to spend the night in the studio guarding the painting.

Fairchild spends the night in a bar. Someone sits across from him - unseen. Fairchild has a file on Henshaw... he was captain of the archery team in college.

Ann grabs a knife and goes into the studio to destroy the painting... but Henshaw wakes up and stops her. That’s when they notice that more of the painting has been filled in. The skylight, but not the face of the killer. Henshaw asks if she killed her husband - she says she hated him, but didn’t kill him. Dude was an a-hole, and screwed every woman who posed for him.

Henshaw says he believes that the killer will return to the scene of the crime to destroy the painting...

And a masked man climbs over the wall with a cross bow!

Henshaw tells her that *he* has been doing the painting - as an art student he learned how to mimic the styles of other painters. He is doing this to catch the killer. He couldn’t tell her until he knew that she wasn’t a suspect. That’s when they hear the noise from the skylight. Henshaw tells her to sit in the chair, and then he races upstairs to the door overlooking the skylight (um, kind of negates the locked room aspect of the mystery) and tangles with the masked cross-bow dude... throwing him through the skylight!

Outside, Fairchild grabs a screaming girl in the fog and brings her into the studio for no apparent reason, where Henshaw rolls over the dead masked man and pulls off the mask... exposing Sheriff Browning. The screaming girl is Marie, Browning’s wife (Alberta Nelson)... who was the nekkid girl Moffat painted who called him in the first scene. Browning found out and got jealous and...

Then, for no apparent reason, everyone looks at the painting as Browning’s face is painted by Moffat’s ghost! Creepy... not!

Review: Newland’s technical direction is a small step better than in his last episode, there is actually a moving shot in this hour! But still, most of his plan is to set up a camera and have actors act in front of it - zero actual direction. This stands out in scenes in the living room set and the art studio set when characters are so far away from the camera that it is like watching a stage play. In the episode’s teaser, where he plays the famous artist *and* directs, there is an awkwardly shot conversation where Fairchild is in close up talking to Moffat in long shot... and the different sizes of the characters on screen is confusing. Had this been done for some purpose it might be okay, but it just seems like Newland wasn’t thinking about how the shots would cut together.

The living room scenes often have the camera planted somewhere and characters move back and forth across a diagonal in front of it - again, making it seem like a stage play. One of the weird things about that moving shot is that it goes from two characters talking to each other on the sides of the screen in profile (flat shot), to behind one of the characters so we can only see the back of his head for the rest of the conversation. What’s that all about? Newland’s flat lack of style has been an issue with all of his episodes since Stephen King’s favorite PIGEONS FROM HELL, where he couldn’t make cobwebs creepy... here he doesn’t make fog creepy.

But the biggest problem with this episode is that it doesn’t get the creepy concept to the audience until close to the end. Whether that is the fault of the screenplay or the direction (most likely both), despite several chunks of exposition, the concept that Moffat is painting his killer’s face from beyond the grave isn’t made clear or even made creepy and strange until the episode is almost over. Yeah, someone is painting that canvas, but the critical information that the painting is in Moffat’s style is never mentioned - and never shown - until Sgt Schultz shows up. The direction is so flat that it can’t make the additions to the painting spooky - someone is just painting - and the writing seems to miss that this is important information. The writer, Wingreen, is a character actor whose face you would recognize - but this is one of 5 TV episodes he wrote, and no one ever asked him back. My guess - due to all of that clunky exposition in an early scene - is that *on the page* we are told that the painting is in Moffat’s style, but because it is never shown in any way - that information stays on the page.

One of the issues here is that for a story that hinges on the painter’s style, prop paintings all seem to be from different painters with different styles. There is never a sequence after the post-death painting has begun that shows shots of Moffat’s previous work and compares it to the post death painting to show the audience that it’s the dead guy doing the painting. One of the checks and balances in cinema is that if the writer drops the ball and the information is on the page but not the stage, the director can rectify that and come us with a visual way to show that information. Here, that wasn’t done. So the concept of a dead man painting his killer doesn’t pop up until too close to the end.

Oh, and the painting is NOT of the killer. Another big issue. The painting is of Dead Moffat with a tiny little piece of the painting being where the killer was. Prop department failure? Writer failure? Director failure? All three?

Though better than his previous entry, Newland’s theory on shooting fast for TV seems to be minimal set ups - and not in a great Stanley Kubrick’s THE KILLING way. He has one more episode coming up, let’s see if there is more camera movement and style than in his previous entries. Meanwhile, the next episode is a clever little crime story about the family that slays together...

- Bill

ATLiH: Rubber Gloves Of Death!

ALL THE LOSERS IN HOLLYWOOD: RUBBER GLOVES OF DEATH!

As usual, the names and details have been changed to protect the very very guilty!

One of the things about low budget movies that bothers me these days is that so many of them just suck. Now, I fully understand films made on low budgets have little or no money to do things, but often it seems as if no one on the film is trying to make up for that with creativity, imagination, and passion. It often seems like they just don’t care. I know that good films, even great films, can be made for no money. I see films in festivals made on a shoestring like CRUEL HEARTS and FAVOR and DOWN AND DANGEROUS and FOREV and JOE SHERMANN SONG and dozens of others (sorry if I didn’t mention your film) that just kick ass. They are often *better* than anything Hollywood could do on a Hollywood budget. I also see some films that don’t quite work, but you can see the filmmakers really trying to make something excellent, they just didn’t have the cash or some small thing sunk them. But often I see low budget films where it seems like nobody gave a damn...

And that’s a problem.

Recently I rented a low budget film that a guy I know was involved in. A sci fi action flick. Now, I can get behind a cheap sci fi action flick. I interviewed the guys who made SIX STRING SAMURAI before the film came out, and *that’s* a wild ride! But this film just sucked... because the people involved obviously didn’t care. They were just making a product - and not even a very good one.

The way to become a loser in Hollywood is not to care. To not be ambitious. To think that in focus is good enough. Or, worse, to think that your sub par work is great! Even if you are making a cheapo genre film, make it the best it can possibly be. Not the best you can make it, because you always want to stretch and grow - so make it the best it can be (which is better than you can do... you have to stretch). In this case, the writer-director just didn’t care and made 90 minutes of pure torture.





This was one of those “Mockbusters” - a cheapo film designed to have enough similarities to a big studio blockbuster to maybe fool someone into thinking it’s a prequel or sequel or maybe that studio blockbuster available in a RedBox kiosk or on the shelves at Walmart at the same time it’s in the cinemas. These films basically use the TV adverts and trailers of the big studio blockbuster to help sell their cheapo version. Before striking gold with the SHARKNADO movies, producer The Asylum made a ton of these - even being sued by studios because they copied the posters and other elements of movies like BATTLESHIP (AMERICAN BATTLESHIP) and THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (THE DAY THE EARTH STOPPED) and THOR (ALMIGHTY THOR) and TRANSFORMERS (TRANSMORPHERS) and 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN (18 YEAR OLD VIRGIN) and I AM LEGEND (I AM OMEGA). But this wasn’t an Asylum movie - it was made by other folks with the same scheme. Can I tell you the biggest problem with a “Mockbuster”? You can easily compare it to the actual big budget blockbuster... and these films don’t compare well. They don't even try to be as good, or even to offer something that the big studio movie couldn'y provide.

The story opened on a space ship... which was the worst CGI exterior I have ever seen (why not use a model if you can’t afford good CGI? This looked like a really bad cartoon of a spaceship. Heck, you could build your own unique model of the space ship - all that takes is time *before production begins* when you don’t have a cast and crew waiting.) And when we cut to the interior? It was some office with a drop ceiling and a visible drinking fountain in the background (how would that work in zero gravity?) and there was a gameboy console or something on a desk. Nothing was done to dress the office to make it look like a spaceship. The space ship had drop ceilings and florescent lights and a drinking fountain and square windows with vertical blinds. WTF?





I worked on a friend’s sci fi movie where he took cardboard and curved it to look like a space ship wall and painted it gray and made some oval windows with black cardboard sheets that had little LED lights punched into them as stars. Cost him a couple bucks total. He also built a pretty nice control console and put a couple of $29 desk chairs behind it (the actor’s bodies covered the chairs, but they could swivel like STAR TREK chairs). The console had knobs and buttons and blinking lights and screens with green gel and lights behind them. Basically, he took a couple of weeks before he made the film to build the space ship set in his garage. It looked amazing on film. This film made by this looser that I paid real money to rent? No time spent on anything!

The story had a spaceship filled with hot female prisoners crashing on an alien planet, and (of course) the aliens want to capture the women and mate with them... because if a spaceship filled with *alien* females crash landed on Earth, the first thing you’d think was: can we have sex with them? Sure, they’re green and look like lizards or something, but can we have sex with them? That’s the whole danged plot! Except the escaped female prisoners are attractive human women.

Now here’s the thing about cheapo films like this - they are exploitation flicks. My friend Fred Olen Ray says that “nudity is the cheapest special effect”, and many a bad film I rented back in the VHS days and watched with buddies from work while drinking beer and eating pizza were saved by nudity and inventive action and some funny lines. If nudity is the cheapest special effect, funny dialogue and inventive action scenes are second and third on the cheap list. There are two things about nudity (female or male or aliens wearing rubber gloves for some reason) - and these not only appeared in every version of my SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING book, they go all the way back to the xeroxed “generic script notes” that spawned that book: 1) A rape scene is **not** a sex scene (it’s a violence scene, and if you write it or film it to be “sexy” that’s just plain disturbing and wrong), and 2) All nudity must make sense! If a character just gets naked for no reason, that’s stupid! They have to get naked for a logical reason! Fred has a movie (don’t remember which one) where a character gets completely spattered with blood when one of their friends is killed by a monster, and what would *you* do if you were covered in blood? Wash it off! So the character takes a shower - and now we get a suspense scene where we know the monster is out there and this character is *vulnerable* because they are naked. Hey, it’s the danged “Psycho” shower scene, but with a monster instead of Mrs. Bates. I’m not saying this is art, but you understand why the character takes off her clothes. She’s not just disrobing for the pervs in the audience - there’s a logical reason. Nudity has to make sense! Even a crappy film where nudity might be the only thing that saves the movie from being torture needs to have *motivated* nudity. Or else it just seems cheap (which it is, but we don’t want the audience to be thinking that). Even with the six pack and the pizza, you want the story to make some sort of sense.





When I pitched my BLADE RUNNER type script STEEL CHAMELEONS about the underground railroad for androids that wanted to pass as human... and ended up getting paid to write a movie about robot hookers from outer space, I decided to write the exact kind of movie that my buddies from work would want to see. A six pack and pizza movie. Funny, lots of action, some inventive elements, maybe a little parody of some popular film snuck in there (EMPIRE STRIKES BACK in that case) and some *motivated* female nudity (and even some shirtless dudes in case someone watched it with their girlfriend). Fred directed that, by the way. So you might have watched that film and thought it was stupid, but it would at least be *fun* and include all of the elements the target audience wanted to see. “Hey, I saw this movie, and it was terrible... but funny and had a cool spaceship battle and beautiful women.” (Or hunky dudes, if that’s what you enjoyed). But there’s a *criteria* for films like this... do you think this terrible mockbuster film delivered on any of the required elements?

The aliens chasing our escaped women? Well, they obviously bought some cheap alien masks the day after Halloween, and then had the actors playing the aliens dress in jeans and long sleeve shirts (so they didn’t need to do full body make up). Oh, and tennis shoes. But what about the *hands*? The alien hands that would be grabbing for these escaped women? Well, instead of doing any sort of make up, they just gave them yellow rubber gloves. Worst looking aliens *ever*! I did better stuff when I was making super 8mm films in High School!





Then the rest of that film was filled with “we don’t care” costumes and “we don’t care” acting and “we don’t care” sets and “we don’t care” props and a “we don’t care” script and, worst of all, no action! Most of the film was two or more characters standing somewhere talking about action that had happened earlier. No action scenes at all!!!!

You know what’s almost as cheap as nudity? A foot chase or a fight scene. Or even a shoot out - when I was doing those stupid super 8mm films in High School I had toy guys from Toys R Us painted to look real, and created cool muzzle flares by wrapping match heads in aluminum foil and heating the end (this was built into the toy gun - a disposable cigarette lighter to do the heating). The match heads exploded out of the barrel, which looked really cool at night. I also used flash bulbs built into those Toys R Us plastic guns with a battery that connected when the trigger was pulled. And blood squibs - a bent piece of aluminum tubing hidden in the victim’s shirt, plastic aquarium hose going down the body connecting the tubing to a lens cleaner bellows taped onto the bottom of their shoe, filled with Kayro Syrup blood. The victim stomps on the bellows and the blood sprays from their chest! You could film them in a long shot getting shot! People always wanted to know how I did that - because there was no visible special effects rig and the victim could show their empty hands on camera (no trigger in their hands). As long as the foot was angled right or off screen. So if I could do a cool shoot out when I was an idiot High School student, someone making a film that I could rent or buy from a legit rental source could probably do the same... if they cared.





Now, here was the funny part: this was obviously shot in the woods somewhere. Once they were off the flying rental office, they landed on some wooded planet where the female prisoners escaped and those aliens in Playtex gloves chased them. Except they didn’t. There was no chasing in the film at all. When the hero woman escaped, she instantly twisted her ankle and was recaptured within seconds.

She got maybe two steps, max.

Then it was back to evil alien in bad Halloween mask making a never ending speech gesturing with his rubber gloved hands as if he had been interrupted while scrubbing the toilet as attractive female hero just sits there listening and waiting her turn to make *her* never ending speech.

No action. No suspense. No nudity. No reason to watch this film. Just never ending sitting and talking.

If I had the woods, I would sure as hell use them for a great foot chase. I would have characters hide and almost be discovered, generating suspense. I would have made it fast paced (less time to notice how cheap it was) so instead of having a big action scene within every ten minutes (like any normal film) I would have had a pair of 2-3 minute action or suspense scenes within every ten minutes of the film. Out of the frying pan into the fire. And kept the dialogue scenes to a minimum because you aren't hiring the best actors at this budget. And I would have spent the time to write a great script filled with clever dialogue - lots of smart ass zingers (the six pack and pizza crowd loves them), because the one thing a low budget film has as an advantage is pre-production time. The more time you spend in prep, the more you can solve problems long before they pop up on set. The more you can craft something exciting that won’t cost a lot of money to make. I would have taken the time to write the greatest script ever. I would have written a big action chase thing like MOST DANGEROUS GAME, but with aliens! MOST DANGEROUS GAME was a low budget film when it was made...

But here? No chases, no danger, no nothing... just people sitting and talking.

Wearing rubber gloves and Halloween masks.

For 90 very very long minutes.

With absolutely no nudity, motivated or not.

And no hunky dudes, if that’s what you enjoy.





And nothing they said was clever or amusing - it was dead serious, as if they expected the audience to take all of this stuff as if were Shakespeare or something. Hey, wait, Shakespeare is damned funny! All of that clever word play and those dirty jokes for the groundlings!

But nobody involved cared enough to make this even slightly amusing, or have any chases or suspense or action or anything else that people might want to see. That’s what makes the writer-director of this mess a loser. They didn’t care. They were just trying to fill 90 minutes of film so they could collect their check and go home.

You have to care. You have to do the best that can be done with what you have. You have to give it your all... even if the movie is about robot hookers from outer space when you wanted to make something like BLADE RUNNER. It’s better to try and fail than to not try at all.

- Bill

Trailer Tuesday: HOUSE OF USHER

HOUSE OF USHER (1960)

Starring: Vincent Price, Mark Damon, Myrna Fahey, Harry Ellerbe.
Written by: Richard Matheson
Directed by: Roger Corman
Produced by: Roger Corman and James H. Nicholson (American International Pictures)

The 13 Films Of Halloween - Vincent Price Edition - continues with the first of the Roger Corman Poe adaptations for American International Pictures, based on “The Fall Of The House Of Usher”. Roger Corman had been making quickie black & white B pictures for AIP, shot in 10 days (max) which played on double bills with other AIP films in drive ins and grind houses. But Corman convinced AIP to give him 15 days for a color Cinemascope wide screen film based on this classic Poe story, and designed as a stand alone feature which would not be double billed. Budget was under $200,000, which was much much lower than a studio film. The result was a movie that not only played indoor cinemas that usually played big studio films, it also managed to make much more than anyone expected. A huge hit, which had AIP wondering if they should make another Poe adaptation... they ended up making a very successful series, and Roger Corman became a fairly successful director. These films are still great, lush, spooky films... made on a low budget.

One of the things I find interesting about this series is that while big studios were now going out on location and shooting very realistic looking films, these Corman Poe films were shot on sets and look like crazy fever dreams. One of the reasons why they could be made on a budget was that studios had all of these unused sets and pieces of sets - stairways and wall sections - as well as warehouses full of period costumes and props they were not using at the time. Corman and his crew were able to rent all kinds of things that they probably could not have afforded a decade earlier when studios were turning out big period pieces instead of the more contemporary realistic films of the 60s like THE APARTMENT (which won Best Picture that year). And 15 days of costume rentals was still cheap! This gave these films so much production value that AIP could say they cost $1 million and most people believed them. A ticket buyer who saw this film in a cinema thought it looked like a big studio film!



The film opens in desolation... a dead forest covered in fog. Nothing survives here. Winthrop (Mark Damon) rides up to a huge mansion, where the doors are covered in spider webs. Butler Bristol (Harry Ellerbe) asks him to take off his boots... Mr. Roderick Usher has acute hearing and the sound will disturb him. WTF? He’s given “house slippers”. This is a great strange opening scene.

When Bristol starts to knock on Roderick’s door, it blasts open - shock moment - and Roderick (Vincent Price with dyed yellow hair) is there. “If you please - *softly* - an affliction of the hearing, sounds of any exaggerated degree cut into my brain like knives.” Roderick tells Winthrop that his sister Madeline (whom Winthrop is engaged to) is ill and he can not see her... the door opens and there is Madeline (Myrna Fahey). Winthrop will be allowed to stay.

After Madeline leaves, Roderick explains to Winthrop that his family is cursed with a morbid acuteness of the senses... so this marriage is just not going to happen. Madeline can not leave this house and survive, Winthrop says he will stay and see what Madeline says in the morning.

That night, a candle moves on its own in Winthrop’s room... caused by vibration. Winthrop looks out the (spider web covered) window and sees a crack forming in the wall of the mansion as the ground beneath shifts. As he goes downstairs to dinner, the house shakes and a chandelier comes crashing down at Winthrop’s head! He dives out of the way, Madeline (looking hot now that she’s dressed for dinner) tends to him... and begs him to leave this house before anything worse happens. This is cool because it sets up that worse things can happen... and are even expected to happen in this house.

At dinner, as Winthrop asks questions about the dead trees and cracks in the walls, Roderick is evasive... what is he hiding? What is the dark secret of this place?

After dinner Roderick says that Madeline must retire now, even though she says she is not tired. Roderick insists. Nice moment where Madeline kisses her brother goodnight and only nods to her fiancé.

Middle of the night, Madeline is sleeping when a dark figure enters her room and puts his hand over her mouth... it’s Winthrop, who kisses her and tells her he intends on taking her away with him in the morning. Wham! The door opens and Roderick tells them that Winthrop will *not* be taking Madeline anywhere. She has the family curse and must remain in the mansion.

Middle of the night again, Winthrop is awakened by a noise, goes to Madeline’s room... the bed is empty and the wind howls through an open window. Winthrop searches the dark mansion for her, but when he leans against a balcony banister it gives way and he almost falls to the floor below - is the shifting house trying to kill him? More spooky stuff as he searches the mansion in the dark... nice shock moments with doors slamming closed on their own, and he almost trips over furniture in the dark. He finds Madeline unconscious on the floor of the chapel, as he goes to touch her... Butler Bristol says “Don’t touch her!” from the darkness. Nice jump moment. Bristol explains that she walks in her sleep, and waking her could cause her death. Bristol carries her back to her room.

That morning, Winthrop slyly pumps Bristol for information - he has been a servant in the house since *birth* and the house has always shifted and settled. “If the house dies, I shall die with it.” This is an odd sort of haunted house story where the house seems to be trying to kill the occupants.

In order to explain why she can not run away with him, Madeline takes Winthrop deep down into the bowels of the house... through cobwebbed passages and rusted doorways, to the crypt below... where the coffins of every Usher from the beginning if time reside. She goes through her family line, ending on *her* coffin! She will die in this house and fill that coffin... soon. Then a shift in the house brings a coffin crashing down at them, it pops open and a skeleton spills out. Madeline faints, Winthrop catches her and then - shock moment as Roderick asks “What have you done?” - hey, where did he come from?

After Madeline has been taken to bed, Roderick tells Winthrop that the tarn is deep enough to swallow this house whole (in a great crane shot). And then we get a little flashback about the House Of Usher - how the lands were once fertile, and then everything died and the ponds became black and stagnant... and a plague of evil descended upon the house. Roderick gives Winthrop the evil background of all of past Ushers in a tour of the paintings in the main hall. That evil is rooted in the very stones of the House Of Usher. “The house itself is evil now. And the evil resides in her.” Roderick doesn’t want Madeline to marry and pop kids, because those kids will be evil. He wants to make sure Madeline dies a virgin. Winthrop has a different plan - and thinks taking her from this evil house will remove any evil from her. He goes to grab Madeline and escape the house...

While packing, Winthrop hears Madeline scream and runs to her room, where he finds her sleeping on her bed and Roderick looking out the window... but she is not sleeping, she is *dead*! Winthrop accuses Roderick of killing her - but Roderick says there is no mark on her, that *Winthrop* is the cause of her death by trying to take her from this house. The house killed her. It stopped her heart.

In the Chapel, Madeline in a coffin as the two men pray over her... and argue about her death. As Roderick closes the lip of the coffin to take it down into the crypt we see Madeline’s finger moving. Is she alive? They carry her coffin deep down into that crypt. After the lock the door and leave the coffin in darkness, a scream from within... unheard.

The next morning a heartbroken Winthrop prepares to leave - and asks Bristol if he thinks Winthrop’s coming to this house caused Madeline’s death. Bristol tells him not to feel guilty - everybody dies here because the family is cursed, and runs through the various diseases and causes of death for past Ushers... including Catalepsy. Bristol says Miss Madeline did *not* suffer from catalepsy, but Winthrop races down, deep down, into the crypt and uses an ax to break open the coffin... which is *empty*!!!

Winthrop grabs the ax and goes looking for Roderick.

Roderick refuses to tell him where Madeline is, even when threatened with the ax. “She is in a secret place.” Winthrop *screams* at him, and Roderick says she’s dead. Yes, we buried her alive, but she is dead now... “You buried your own sister alive!” “I had to, don’t you understand that?” Roderick refuses to tell where the “secret place” is, and Bristol doesn’t know, either... so Winthrop searches the dark and creepy house for the woman he loves. Looking for secret passages or hidden doorways - and tearing the house apart. He can not find her... and collapses.

A spooky blue tinted dream sequence where Winthrop searches for Madeline, finding all of the Usher’s out of their coffins in the crypt beckoning him into the darkness. And there in the darkness is Roderick, smiling like a madman, pointing to the coffin with Madeline’s skeletal remains. The Dead Ushers surround him! He goes to pick up the ax, but it is a skeleton arm! Then he hears Madeline screaming... and wakes up.

A storm outside. Roderick plays his lute... tells Winthrop to leave or die with the rest of us. Winthrop says he will go to the authorities and have Roderick charged with murder. Roderick admits that his acute hearing meant that he could hear her breathing inside the coffin, he could hear her fingernails scratching against the casket lid... Then he screams “Be done!” and Winthrop asks if she is still alive and forces Roderick to admit that she still breaths... he can still hear her. Still clawing at the inside of the coffin!

Winthrop runs down into the crypt once more, into the darkness... hears her screaming, but the coffin is empty! A secret passage way... more dark stairways where the spiders have been working overtime on their webs. Bristol yells for him to leave her - she’s gone insane. Winthrop continues through secret passageways... into the main hallway with all of the paintings of the Dead Ushers looking down upon him... and a trail of blood on the floor. He follows the blood to a door which BLASTS OPEN and a bloody Madeline bursts out and tries to kill him, thinking he is Roderick. He pushes her off of him, and she escapes into the darkness. He chases after her.

Finding her in Roderick’s room... when Winthrop tries to stop her from killing Roderick, they struggle... knocking wood from the fireplace and setting the whole house ablaze! Madeline grabs Roderick by the throat - insane - and strangles him to death as the room burns around them! Winthrop escapes the house as it begins to crumble and burn... enveloping the last of the Ushers within. As he stumbles into the wasteland the house burns and crashes and is enveloped by the tarn.

“... and the deep and dank tarn closed silently over the fragments of the House of Usher.”

Tomorrow we will look at the second film in the great Roger Corman / Poe series... THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM.

- Bill