"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Ode to George Romero, Tobe Hooper and the Masters of Horror

After two years I was finally starting to get used to a post-Wes Craven world – now all the sudden we Fangorians find ourselves heading into Fall minus George Romero and Tobe Hooper, two of the largest shadows in horror. Like Craven, both of them made an iconic horror classic early on, and remained primarily in the genre for their whole careers, delivering many other gems across multiple decades. Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD and Hooper’s THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE are two of my most obsessed upon horror films, the two that seem to take turns being my All Time Favorite on any particular day. Just as important, Romero and Hooper each maintained a distinct voice that made their weaker movies still interesting when taken in context with the larger body of work.

When I think of Romero I think of independence. He and his Pittsburgh based commercial company Latent Image made NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD to break into features, a recipe they may have gotten from Herk Harvey’s CARNIVAL OF SOULS. For them it worked, but instead of moving to Hollywood, Romero built his empire in Pennsylvania and filmed almost all of his movies there. That includes his first studio movies, MONKEY SHINES and THE DARK HALF, both of which I think are underrated. Since he later moved to Toronto, his last three films, LAND OF THE DEAD, DIARY OF THE DEAD and SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, are filmed around there.

Like most people, the Romero movies I’ve watched the most are those first three dead movies. I saw NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD when I was young (but not young enough to be terrified) and have liked it for most of my life. But when I first saw DAWN it blew my head open. There’s so much to love about it: that appealing zombie-post-apocalypse survival that later took over like 22% of pop culture, the matter-of-fact unrated violence, the vivid seventies-ness of the orangey blood and brown mall furnishings, and of course I got to thinking it was real deep because it was this sort of parody of consumerism. And as I got smarter and saw it more times I found other things in it.

But there’s another Romero movie that actually speaks to me more directly, and that’s KNIGHTRIDERS. I know there are people out there who have not watched this because it’s not a horror movie and it’s super corny and it’s like 2 and a half hours long. But I watched it again the night after Romero died because that’s a movie about how I try to live. No, I am not part of a traveling community who live as knights and joust on motorcycles for entertainment, as the characters in the movie are. If I was, I promise I would tell you. But I love these guys because they have their own weird thing they do, a small fringe thing to most of the world, but to them it’s everything. So they – or at least King Billy, played by Ed Harris – stubbornly live by a code of honor. They don’t have a problem with weirdos or any races or sexual orientations. Their biggest fight is over the purity of the artform when some of them, led by Tom Savini, attempt to go mainstream with a commercialized, compromised version involving disco music. I don’t think Billy disagrees that they should be making more money, he just isn’t willing to do it by compromising this life that he loves. It’s too sacred.

In the end he does loosen up and goes to find a random young fan he had been rude to, and actually gives the kid his sword, which is way better than the autograph he’d asked for in my opinion. I’ve always wanted a sword. Of course, this change in attitude comes (SPOILER) when he’s ready to die. And Romero, too, stuck to his ideals his whole life. Although I wasn’t very satisfied with his last two movies, nobody could say they were paycheck gigs or retreads or going through the motions. He messed with his zombie template to create the heartfelt, audience-challenging independent experiments that were important to him.

Hooper’s trajectory was arguably a little more traditional. He came up out of the independent Austin scene, but soon after his second movie THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE blew up (his first was EGGSHELLS, which I still haven’t seen, though it’s an extra on a region B special edition of TCSM2) he was taking gigs, meeting Steven Spielberg, etc.

But he never let go of that sweaty Texas graverobber mentality. His next movie, EATEN ALIVE, was filmed on a soundstage in California, but might be the sleaziest, most feverish thing he ever created. And it’s certainly clear that THE FUNHOUSE is a relative of CHAIN SAW, even though it’s filmed in Miami. Shit, even the all-about-Los-Angeles THE TOOLBOX MURDERS invites a bunch of dirty weirdos into your home. I guess he never conquered Hollywood – many still claim he didn’t direct his biggest hit (POLTERGEIST) – but at least Hollywood didn’t tame him.

If I had to name only one thing that defines Hooper’s movies to me, it would be the extravagance of their madness. We have discussed, and will continue to discuss, the mechanics of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and why it’s so powerful. But I want to point out specifically the amount of elbow grease that went into this low budget movie made by nobodies staying together in a house that smelled like burning animal corpses (because somebody tried to burn the pile of animal corpses they’d used as props).

Today’s “make a name for yourself” horror hits are often about simplicity. Many have premises that allow for intentionally crappy home video aesthetics. Even the more accomplished, arty ones tend to lean on improvised dialogue, minimal plot and editing, and as few special effects as possible. But Hooper, armed with 16 mm film and Daniel Pearl, made a raw drive-in nightmare that counter-intuitively grows more cinematically beautiful with each successive restoration. And he populates those images not only with the four Hall of Fame screen lunatics Hitchhiker, Old Man/Cook, Grandpa and Leatherface, but with the meticulous details of their reprehensible lifestyle: skin masks, hanging bones and turtle shells, chicken feathers, the wall of animals skulls, the graveyard body sculptures glistening in the Texas sun the morning after a grueling photography session.

Now skip ahead twelve years to Hooper’s second greatest movie and only sequel. Many had noted that TEXAS CHAIN SAW’s outrageousness was partly an illusion – showing and telling just enough about its gruesome ideas to impress them into our imaginations. For part two Hooper ditched subtlety on the side of the road and unleashed full-on Reagan era excess, most notably in the unrated Tom Savini gore and the dark humor that almost taunts the audience like we are victims. (Thankfully most of the broadest comedy, shot by second unit, was excised.) He amplified the cannibal playground by a thousand, building Texas Battle Land’s endless catacombs webbed in Christmas lights, decorated with corpses and skeletons set up with props and in comical poses. The sequel was made quickly and reluctantly under pressure from Cannon Films after they’d bankrolled his insane sci-fi duo of LIFEFORCE and INVADERS FROM MARS, yet it turned out to be the Tobe Hooperest movie ever made.

Is it possible that TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 is also my All Time Favorite?

These recent passings can only lead to a scary realization for me as a fan of this era of horror that spanned the ’70s through the ’90s. There are only a few other “Masters of Horror” on the level of Craven, Romero and Hooper, and I’m not even gonna name them because maybe I’m too superstitious. As many have noted, the few marquee names among later generations of horror directors can never measure up to the accomplishments of these three. These guys didn’t really want to work so exclusively in horror, but there’s something special about the fact that they did, finding so many variations on their themes, communicating ideas in a less literal fashion than they would outside of the genre, and making a stronger connection with their audience. These days a horror director might be more likely to have chosen that path intentionally, but he or she will likely be stuck with micro-budgets their whole career. You don’t get many horror epics these days. You don’t get many Fangoria issues, either.

This month in my Halloween celebrating I plan to do my usual Slasher Searching and hitting up whatever other horror I feel an urge to watch. But I want to be sure to pay tribute to Romero and Hooper as well as other Masters we should be appreciating while they’re still with us. I’ll start with a look at a few of the later Hooper movies I haven’t watched in a long time, and we’ll see where else the month takes us. As always, I love to get suggestions even though I won’t have time to watch most of them before Halloween. That doesn’t mean I won’t watch them later.

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70 Responses to “Ode to George Romero, Tobe Hooper and the Masters of Horror”

  1. I understand exactly why you love KNIGHTRIDERS. I love it too,man.

  2. Great piece, Vern, and I’m glad you’re finally getting out from under the moving situation.

    For me, what the Masters of Horror represent is integrity. They had/have a point of view and a way of doing things, and no amount of money was enough to get them to go back on that, even if it hurt them professionally. They did it their way their whole lives, and they did it without being assholes. I got nothing but respect, love, and admiration for their journeys and I hope to one day be one-tenth the artist and human being they were/are.

  3. After Wes Craven died I had made my peace with John Carpenter dying one day. Then he started doing things like make music and produce another Halllween. Now when he does die i don’t know if I can deal with it. I’m going to see Jim perform in November. I am going to treasure that night. Anyway, god Bless the true Masters of Horror both alive and dead.

  4. Same thing with Stephen King. If that dude would die, I don´t know if I could handle it.

  5. Correction: Obviously he is not immortal, but I´d like to keep him around for a long, long time. Dude knows humanity intimitaly. And without him I would know a hell of a lot less.

  6. Vern,

    Thanks for this. If you get the chance, please review Tobe Hooper’s “The Funhouse.” It’s a very underappreciated gem. And if you’d like a bit of a nice October watching, Romero wrote the first episode of Tales From the Darkside which is a fantastic Halloween episode

    .

    (And everyone should check out the pilot episode of “Freddy’s Nightmares” that Hooper directed. A Freddy Krueger origin tale directed by the man who brought us TCM!? Oh yes!!!

    Freddy's Nightmare's Episode 1: No More Mr. Nice Guy - Video Dailymotion

    Watch the video «Freddy's Nightmare's Episode 1: No More Mr. Nice Guy» uploaded by strobogo on Dailymotion.

    )

  7. This weekend I’m going to the Music Box of Horrors 24 Hour horror movie festival. They are showing Land of the Dead and The Funhouse in honor of our fallen Masters of Horror.

  8. THE FUNHOUSE gets better every time I see it. It’s got great atmosphere, good performances, and solid writing. I like that the killer is a straight up monster, yet you understand where he’s coming from (he actually has a motivation besides basic revenge or “I saw my mom have sex once and it fucked me up”) and even pity him a little. That’s a lot to get from a character who can’t speak and at no point has any facial expressions.

  9. Unfortunately, I feel like the horror genre is a dying entity as far as mainstream movies go, sure you get the occasional interesting indie joint but that only appeals to a select following, what the mainstream likes is just so toned down these days, it’s amazing to think that ten years ago the big trend was “torture porn” when it’s the total opposite today, I saw THE CONJURING and it’s not a bad movie, but it’s also not something that inspires passion like a DAWN OF THE DEAD or TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE do.

    Point is, you’re never gonna have another generation of dudes like Craven, Romero and Hooper and that’s a real shame.

    By the way Vern, I agree about THE DARK HALF being underrated, Romero manages to capture a certain vibe of King’s work well, I wasn’t too keen on MONKEY SHINES though.

  10. I love the Hooper/Canon trifecta! Glorious and insane films, all. Invaders From Mars freaked me out as a kid (I was young and foolish) but it has always stayed with me.

    And I would also like to send the love to The Dark Half. My friend and I to this day will occasionally just say to each other “You are disturbing… the mood I am in. You are disturbing… the peaceful frame of mind… I am in. You are disturbing my peaceful frame of mind”. Random, yes, but a solid fun flick. (I also love the detail in the beginning when the doctors discover the “tumor” in the kid has an eye that blinks at them, and that one of its’ teeth has a cavity.

  11. I’d hoped you’d do a Hooper series. I watched Spontaneous Combustion the week he died and I’ve been thinking about it since. It falls apart at the end, but gosh does it have a lot of things I like in it. I discribed it to a friend as, ‘Tobe Hooper does Cronenberg,’ and that should be enough to get about anyone exited.

    As to The State of Horror movies, I remember when we were in the torture porn era wishing horror would go supernatural again and then when this current trend started I was upset that I didn’t instead wish for creature features. That said, I think we’re in a pretty good place. Get Out is an all time classic, but more tellingly we’re getting a really interesting slate of horror movies Not For Us. When we talk about horror we usually think of cool and attractive people such as ourselves as ‘real’ horror fans and the teens that actually fill theaters as… mostly annoying people who sometimes show up for real horror films and complain about being bored when we’re trying to watch the movie. We are, of course, 100% right and fuck teens, but the movies trying to get teens’ disposable income these days are way more interesting and better than they have been in years. The biggest one that comes to mind is Light’s Out, a decent short film gimmick stretched out to full length that is used as a metaphor for living with a loved one suffering from mental illness. (Is it good? Eh, but it’s a heck of a lot more interesting than it ought to be.) Or Unfriended, a dumb laptop screen gimmick that’s also pretty fun? Maybe I’m misremembering but I don’t recall disposable teen horror being of this high of caliber in recent memory. Hell, I am told they made to alright movies out of the fucking Ouiji board license. Oh! Also, horror anthologies are big right now. That’s awesome!
    I guess what I am arguing is that I don’t want to write off the genre as a whole just because there’s only a handful of horror movies released in a year that actually appeal to me. I think the internet has really pushed horror shorts into the public eye and the stuff that’s coming out of that space is easily a cut above what we had before, even if I will never watch 99% of it and actually just want the 80’s back.

  12. Not sure if this was coincidental or intentional but last night, at BeyondFest here in LA, they had a double feature celebrating Romero and Hooper. Showed a beautiful 4k restoration of NOTLD and then a great print of TCM. In between they had 4 “masters of horror” speak and talk about the movies as well as Romero and Hooper.

    The funny thing is one of the hosts from BeyondFest also went on and on about how much he loves Knight Riders and made most of the same points you did.

    I don’t really have anything to add, just thought it’s an interesting and crazy coincidence if it was all coincidental.

    I share your feelings throughout this post, and also love Knight Riders. It sucks losing these two legends this year.

  13. Good points, Birch. I’m not as down on the current state of horror as Griff is. I would also mention DON’T BREATHE and some imports like TRAIN TO BUSAN and THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS and there are others I’ve heard good things about that I need to catch up with. My worry is just about the way the business works after piracy and streaming, so that directors of low budget movies no longer can expect to move on to a bigger budget unless they get hired to do a comic book or a star war or something. The type of medium budget, special effects driven studio horror that Craven and Carpenter often did doesn’t exist much anymore. But IT being a smash hit could help with that problem.

  14. Grimgrinningchris

    October 5th, 2017 at 4:51 am

    John Dugan shared and added to a (totally non horror or TCM related) FB post of mine the other night.

    So I’ve got THAT going for me. Which is nice.

    Great article, Vern.
    Somehow with everything else going on and then your little moving hiatus, I had forgotten that it was time to get excited about your October writings.

  15. just wanted to add The Blackcoat’s Daughter and The Wailing to the list of recent horror that was good

  16. The Devils Candy is another good one I think.

  17. Genuinely touching piece about 2 of our greatest masters. Never again will we see filmmakers as unapologetically them as those 2. Especially in the horror genre. I think Don Mancini who was an acolyte of both is about the last one left. Well him and Don Coscarelli but sadly the spirit of that generation of horror filmatists is now generally a relic. With that said….MONKEY SHINES 4 LIFE!!!

  18. Yeah, I’m an idiot because somehow I totally forgot about IT, that could lead the horror genre down some interesting directions.

  19. I wouldn’t hold my breath truth be told. I view IT more as an exception than a forthcoming rule.

  20. Great to have you back in earnest, Vern!

  21. Dude you should review the last film Hooper made, Djinn. All I’ve heard is terrible but maybe you could put a spin to it and convince me and a lot of people to finally watch it.

  22. Both of these hit me hard. Way harder than I expected them to. I already mostly made my feelings known in the DAWN OF THE DEAD and THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE threads.

    If there is a silver-lining, I hope this means more people watch and realize that KNIGHTRIDERS is a great movie and not one who ‘What were they think!?’ ones (also everyone catches up with us here and realizes that LAND OF THE DEAD is just fine and not a disaster of epic proportions). Also Hoopers non-CHAINSAW and POLTERGEIST movies get re-valuated. I still need to see DJINN and one other Hooper.

  23. It’s inneresting because based on their filmographies and what I know about them, I don’t think either Romero or Hooper INTENDED to go into horror per say or even really loved the genre. In both of their cases, they aimed towards horror way back when because it has the best chance of low-budget success. But if you would’ve told either one of them when they were making NOTLD or SAW “Hey man, even though you aren’t going to make a damn nickle off this movie, it’s going to MAKE your career, everbody will love it, and people will still be watching it long after we’re all gone!”, jeesus – I think they would’ve looked at ya like you just fell off the stupid truck.

    And of course after that, horror is what they got paid to make, so they made ’em. Some of ’em aren’t great (what the diddy fuck is BRUISER??), some of them are pretty good (THE FUNHOUSE and THE CRAZIES), and some are goddam masterpieces – like you said, KNIGHTRIDERS and SAW 2 but don’t forget MARTIN and SALEM’S LOT, 2 of the best vampire movies ever made, right within a few years of each other.

    While we’re talking about great horror directors that are still kicking around, don’t forget Dave Cronenberg. He might be Canadian, but don’t hold that against him. Long live the new flesh and all that.

  24. I’m at the Music Box of Horrors and before The Funhouse they played an awesome video tribute to Tobe Hooper and if they put it up online I’ll link it.

  25. Anyone know if the TV series Masters of Horror is worth watching?

  26. Depends on the episode. Some of them are very good (Dario Argento’s, Don Coscarelli’s), some are fun but slight (John Landis’), some are pretty bad (Tobe Hooper’s), most are fair to middling. You have to bear in mind that, while these might be visionary directors, they’re still working on a TV schedule with a TV crew that they had no hand in hiring. So even though they have final cut, it’s never gonna feel like a full-fledged authorial-type work. I get the sense that most of the directors treated the job as kind of a lark.

  27. I only saw the John Landis one with George Wendt, but I thought it was pretty good and creepy. Equivalent to a decent TALES FROM THE CRYPT episode, which is good enough for me.

  28. I absolutely recommend Takeshi Miike’s Masters of Horror episode. It’s fucking insane.

  29. I just remembered that I didn’t see most of the second season, so my recommendations are for the directors’ first-seasons episodes. DEER WOMAN is still the best thing Maximum Landis has ever written.

  30. Just remembered that the episode I referenced above was written by Brent Hanley, the writer of FRAILTY. That’s gotta count for something. I don’t know if he’s got writer’s block or what, but he’s been pretty much inactive beyond these two credits, which is a travesty.

  31. Just remembered that the episode I referenced above was written by Brent Hanley, the writer of FRAILTY. That’s gotta count for something. I don’t know if he’s got writer’s block or what, but he’s been pretty much inactive beyond these two credits, which is a travesty.

  32. I remember thinking Argento’s JENIFER episode was the best thing he’d directed in a long time (maybe since OPERA), and that the season one Miike episode was also a standout. There’s probably a lot in that series that’s worth revisiting, though it was pretty inconsistent. One issue I remember having is that the directors had to work with the show’s pre-assigned DPs, so individual eps aren’t as unique in *look* as you’d expect from filmmakers this distinctive. It all has that X-FILES type Vancouver-sheen.

  33. I´ve only seen two episodes sofar. I loved Carpenter´s PROLIFE. His CIGARETTE BURNS left no impact on me whatsoever, so that couldn´t have been that good.

  34. I have a soft spot for Joe Dante’s season 1 episode, which is a super un-subtle satire of the G. W. Bush era. Even liberals criticized it for being too on the nose, but I don’t mind. Especially now, that zombies are all the rage again, it’s an interesting twist on the sub-genre. It’s not exactly great, but like I said, I like it.

  35. BTW, Umberto Lenzi has died, which made surprisingly few headlines.

  36. Saw NIGHTMARE CITY on blu ray a week ago. Still a fun zombie romp.

  37. Most hate pro life and love Cigarette Burns.

    Is Nightmare City the one with the zombies in an airplane? The ending with the dummy falling from the helicopter gave me such a belly laugh. Lame ending though.

  38. That’s the one. It’s now perhaps best known as the first movie to feature fast zombies.

  39. Also most of the zombies seem to be wearing Cosby sweaters. So is it a rebellion of the middle class? Whatever. The ending is not lame. It´s just Italian.

    Sterny- if you love Cigarette Burns so much, can you recap it? Because I can´t remember shit from it. The cornerstone of any good story is that you can remember it.

  40. Oh ,I misunderstood your post there. I didn´t know that most people hated Pro Life

  41. Lenzi was one of my favorites of the Italian B-movie kings. Nightmare City is the masterpiece, but here are some others worth your time if you’re into trashy Italian horror and crime movies:

    Spasmo
    Almost Human
    Gang War in Milan
    Violent Naples
    Cannibal Ferox
    Man From Deep River
    Seven Blood Stained Orchids
    Eyeball
    Nightmare Beach AKA Welcome to Spring Break
    Hitcher in the Dark
    Ghosthouse

    Not all of these are, uh, “good” movies per se but you won’t regret watching them. Well, except maybe the cannibal ones.

  42. I think I´ve seen CANNIBAL FEROX a long time ago. I rememebr it being quite gross. But when you´ve seen a lot of italian genre flicks they kind of mled together.

  43. Didn’t they announce a NIGHTMARE CITY remake years ago? Or am I just miseremembering since the law of today is that anything 80s gets a remake?

  44. Tom Savini was about to do a Kickstarter-financed movie. But that may be dead

  45. Damn that could’ve been interesting. A zombie work from a true zombie movie legend in this post-WALKING DEAD era where the genre is mainstream? That could’ve gone so many different places.

  46. I gotta confess that most Euro-horror horror outside of the Gothics and Argento doesn’t really hold much interest to me as a grown-ass man – re-watched BEYOND THE DARKNESS last week and found it utterly interminable – but Lenzi’s EYEBALL and NIGHTMARE CITY are the real deal, full-blooded turbo genre trash that genuinely exhilarate. Thanks, dude.

  47. Nobody gives a shit about classic atmosphericc gothic horror anymore which makes me sad. I love all that shit. From the Universalm Studios to Hammer to Roger Cormans Vincent Price pictures. But especially Bava from the Italian wave. That dude knew how to shoot atmospheric pictures as his dad was a cinematographer. The anthology BLACK SABBATH, the immensly gothic BLACK SUNDAY. Goddamnit even his ridiculed BARON BLOOD. He continued to make Gothic horror even when it went out of vogue. I respect that. I respect anyone making these highly stylized type of movies even when nobody else wants them. I wish more horror people learned to use fog machines and gothic architeture.

  48. I miss that shit too Shoot. My least favorite of the Universal monster movies was actually THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. Reason being is that it had way too many daytime scenes with the creature and on top of that those scenes were far from stylized.

    0 atmosphere so no real “oomph” despite impressive filmatism on technical terms. Is it a wonder it’s most lasting and iconic image is the creature carrying the lady of his desire out of the water inside a dark atmospheric cave?

    Even stuff like HOUSE OF DRACULA and SON OF DRACULA goes from just OK to “pretty damn rad” because it holds no pretenses when it comes to showcasing gothic atmospherics. That would actually be the one thing that could be used to give modern Universal’s fledgling Dark Universe sub label it’s character and sense of purpose. But they’re just too dense and misguided about the whole thing to even realize that that is what’s missing.

    Bringing back an emphasis on gothic and stylized atmosphere and production design over the generic theatrics they opted for with DRACULA NON FRANCHISE STARTER and TOM CRUISE IS THE MUMMY would work greatly in their favor and be a true revitilaztion of their roots.

    Especially since nobody else is really doing that especially in mainstream horror. I think SLEEPY HOLLOW was the last one to really double down on that. Although now that I think of it even BENECIO DEL TORO IS THE WOLFMAN at least got that part right despite it’s many other notable flaws.

  49. And this is why every single October month of mine will be devoted to Universal Pictures monsters, Vincent Price/ Roger Corman shenanigans Hammer horror frightfulness and Mario Bava theatricals.

  50. I got nothing against that stuff’s place in horror history, but it’s never really done much for me. I think the problem is that my introduction that that kind of imagery was all secondhand. It was the stuff of Scooby-Doo and sitcom Halloween episodes. By the time I experienced the real thing, it had already become the opposite of foreboding—it was quaint. That’s not what I’m looking for from horror so that style never grew on me. I’d imagine it would be different if that kind of thing was your first experience with horror and thus you feel nostalgia for it, but my first experience was with the generation after, which eschewed the comforting exoticism of gothic horror for more banal, contemporary settings. Throw on a horr movie with brownish cinematography and a soundtrack of synth stabs and female screams and I’m in my happy place. The gothic stuff with fainting vixens in corsets and foggy castles doesn’t scratch that itch.

  51. Actually, I should clarify: a little touch of Gothic atmosphere can really jazz up a non-Gothic horror movie. I just don’t like it when it’s the whole show.

  52. Well, for me Gothic horror is my place. I never connected with modern day horror that well. I prefer the cobwebs and antiques and the aesethic stiffness above the shenanigans with teenage camps and slasher villains. I mean it is a preference after all. And it might explain my disinterest with the slasher genre. I just prefer the old stuff that is all

  53. Hey, man, I’m not judging. Whatever makes you happy, that’s cool with me.

  54. I know Tarantino is a big fan of NIGHTMARE CITY and cited it as a big influence on the PLANET TERROR part of G****HOUSE. Lenzi also made some great poliziotteschi with Maurizio Merli, like ROME ARMED TO THE TEETH and VIOLENT NAPLES. Lenzi’s MAN FROM DEEP RIVER, the O.G. Italian cannibal film, gets over-shadowed by his more extreme CANNIBAL FEROX, but I think DEEP RIVER is a superior film.

  55. I am more into slashers, psychological horror, Hitchcock, and then I’ve got a big soft spot for the old Universal Frankenstein films. I’ve tried valiantly to get into giallo, but thus far, my body has rejected it. I’ve seen BAY OF BLOOD, DEEP RED, CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, and SUSPIRIA, and I’m sure that in their cultural and historical context, they’re worthy of appreciation, but I find them to be borderline incomprehensible and generally quite boring.

  56. Bay of Blood is a hugely influential movie for slasher films.

  57. You’re not trying to watch every single scene, are you? You poor bastard. Every giallo has at least a half an hour of footage of well-dressed people walking through a public plaza talking about a fake scientific study or newspaper article they read while the cameraman zooms in on them indiscriminately. You’re not supposed to watch these scenes. The filmmakers fully expect you to spend the duration of these parts either hand-rolling a cigarette or trying to get to second base with your sophisticated paramour before tuning back into the movie during the outlandish murder set-pieces. If you can deal with that, gialli can be a lot of fun. If you insist on actually WATCHING them, they can be a slog.

  58. Hahaha. Yup, that pretty much sums it up, Majestyk.

    Sternshein, you’re right. I’ve heard that about BAY OF BLOOD. F13th definitely stole some BAY OF BLOOD’S impalement game. And DEEP RED pioneered the submersive scalding kill that later appeared in HALLOWEEN 2 and, wait for it…greatest slasher film of our generation…VALENTINE. Actually, I think, BLOOD AND BLACK LACE may have also had a bathtub scalding (forgot, I saw that one, too).

    I enjoy some of the trippy David Lynch stuff, which suggests I should also enjoy Argento, but for the life of me I can’t get into any of his films.

  59. Don’t give up yet, Skani. 80s Italian horror, while far less sophisticated and well crafted, has a faster pace and more aggressive ridiculousness that might suit you better. The DEMONS films are the best gateway to that era, in my opinion.

  60. Cool. I think DEMONS may be available on Prime or Shudder or something. I’ll take the plunge.

  61. I second the recommendation for DEMONS. I thought that and it’s sequel were a lot of fun. Recently I watched one that is apparently hated called Paganini Horror which I also thought was a lot of fun for it’s craziness.

    Also, I have enough love in my heart for both classic gothic horror and more modern slasher/shock-style horror. I used to really not like giallo but I learned to appreciate them and take them as what they are and enjoy the crazy stuff.

  62. I understand where Majestyk is coming from, but I’d take the opposite approach with Italian horror movies. I find they’re best when I totally devote my attention to them, and get lost in their weird atmosphere, including the strangely dubbed boring parts where they explain scientific studies.

    In general, discussing movies with my friends has changed a lot in recent years, because I’m never sure if they really watched them or were looking at their phone half the time. It’s a problem for me, too. A lot of the people I know five years younger than me aren’t really even into movies, and that’s why. Gotta put your phone in the other room with Italian horror.

    Agreed on DEMONS, and its underrated sequel, which has a weaker premise, but is even more fun than the original.

  63. Obviously that’s a better approach if you can manage it. Even with a couple dozen gialli under my belt, though, I still don’t think I can. The characters are barely human and even the filmmakers seem to hate them. I feel my mind wandering the second they start talking.

  64. I’m just glad to know the plural of giallo.

  65. It’s just about the only thing I learned from the banal yet pretentious interviews on all those Anchor Bay DVDs I picked up in the early 00s.

  66. Hahaha! Thanks for sifting through the dirt to give us that nugget.

  67. I think that’s why I didn’t embrace gialli at first. By the time I saw any of them I was told over-and-over again about how artistic they are and how multi-layers they are unlike those horrible American horror movies that just care about gore! So when I finally saw some, I was very disappointed to learn that outside of the gore bits, they pretty much offered nothing else worth talking about (music, cinematography excluded of coarse).

  68. I love the weird talking scenes.

  69. That’s how you separate the true giallomaniacs from the rubberneckers like me.

  70. Hey wait a minute, someone asked about MASTERS OF HORROR and I almost missed it? I loved MASTERS OF HORROR back in the day, as a young, budding horror fan it was like catnip to me and served as a good primer for guys like Argento, though I was already familiar with Dante, Gordon, Landis and of course Carpenter.

    The show was inconsistent but overall a lot of fun, I loved the variety of it, you never knew what to expect next, a few of the episodes were stinkers and many were mediocre at best, but the standout ones are a lot of fun, although keep in mind, while I’ve revisited a few episodes over the years, a lot of it I haven’t seen in over a decade now, so my memory’s a little vague, plus there were a few episodes I missed all together.

    From what I remember were the best episodes I’d say CIGARETTE BURNS, DEER WOMAN, IMPRINT, FAMILY, SOUNDS LIKE, THE BLACK CAT and THE WASHINGTONIANS.

    Most of the others were decent and worth watching, I’d say the true stinkers are only a few and Joe Dante’s Iraq war episode HOMECOMING is pretty bad but amusing.

    It was overall a really cool idea and it’s a shame it couldn’t have lasted for at least a third season.

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