An Acute Case of Sequelitis: SCANNER COP II (1995)

The mid-‘90s was an odd time of transition in pop-culture. Even though countless metal bands in the ‘80s promised us that rock and roll will never die, rock was dead. Guitars were unplugged and everyone got a haircut. Dark, dark times. Similarly in the world of exploitation cinema some serious dynamic shifts were taking place beneath the surface. Horror was so ‘80s and even action movies foundered at the box office resulting in attempts at parody, such as the disastrously misunderstood THE LAST ACTION HERO (1993). Schwarzenegger actually went on to borrow many of the parodied clichés and deploy them with a straight face in the disastrously understood COLLATERAL DAMAGE (2002).

Taking a cue from the boom of the made-for-video horror films of the late ‘80s, independent producers, such as PM Entertainment, took their action flicks away from theaters and went straight to video. Often these producers would use all that saved distribution cash for incredible car stunts (back in the days when they used real cars) and action set-pieces inspired by the wave of Asian films that were making the rounds on the gray market. It makes sense in this context that Pierre David, looking for that hook on which to hang his hat, used all of the above to make a tidy bundle off of his SCANNERS license. It’s action, it’s horror, it’s made for video! The thing that David knew and used to his advantage was that he knew that while his sequels may be video features on this continent, overseas they play theatrically. This may have also been his downfall as he tries too hard to pander to the Euro mainstream instead of the teenagers (mentally or physically) that would inevitably make the film successful.

A sheriff pulls in a rather clean and well-dressed drifter (Patrick Kilpatrick) in a remote area that I’m guessing is supposed to be near Los Angeles, even though the sign (of which the first letter is cut off) says *aviston Sheriff Station. The sheriff (Clayton Moore) calls the local doctor (Allan Kolman) and together they discover that the guy is a scanner! Of course this does not bode well for them since he is a bad scanner, we know this because he is very dramatic and dressed in a black duster… oh the ‘90s! For some reason our bad scanner, named Karl Volkin (Eastern bloc names are eeeeevil!), scans the sheriff to force him to set down his gun so that Volkin could pick it up and shoot the sheriff in the leg. When the sheriff continues to come after Volkin with a shotgun, Volkin scans him causing the sheriff to fall unconscious. Ummm… ok, so scanners used to make people’s heads explode or turn guns on themselves, now they just pass out? Pierre, c'mon man, you’re killin’ me!

Meanwhile, the premise of SCANNER COP is recapped in a news broadcast for no apparent reason while our scanner cop himself, Sam Staziak (Daniel Quinn), meets with Carrie (Khrystyne Haje), a dating service rep who also locates lost relatives. In a discussion with her well-used co-worker Carrie says “he’s not coming here for a date, he’s looking for his mother!” to which her co-worker quips, “basically, they all are.” Yes, that’s it, behold SCANNER COP II: THE QUEST FOR MOM! Phew! While working a hostage situation with his scanner skillz, two beat cops discuss Staziak’s new medication, a version of ephemerol that now lets you use your scanner powers, but not go batshit looney! This is a real boon to Staziak as he not only can apprehend villains peacefully, but apparently can now use his mad mental power to burn off people’s ears, create the illusion that he is a different person, deactivate explosive devices and even, no joke, animate the dead!

Volkin, we discover is off on a path of revenge, hunting down Staziak because he was the officer who busted him during an attempted rape and robbery. Says Volkin, “I’m gonna kill you… kill you so bad!” So I’m thinking “there is no way he just said ‘kill you so bad’!” then they repeat the line in present day as he is remembering the event while sulking in a bathtub! Suffering from some sort of telepathetic penis envy, Volkin is insane with rage that someone out scanned him (and made him shoot his brother), so he runs around killing everyone he runs across with his eeeevil scanner powers. Just like those movies in which an alleged Scottish dude mumbles something about there being “only one” over a series of sequels, Volkin's scanner powers allow him to suck out the life-force out of his good scanner victims, leaving shriveled husks in his wake in sequences that seem to be cribbed straight out of 1993s “Mortal Kombat II”. The way Volkin finds these good scanners is via Carrie’s personal services agency. Vexed by the Compaq computer system's security, Volkin must scan Carrie, forcing her to access the data files for him. Wait. Why can't he just scan the computer himself and bypass the security? Volkin seems to have his limbs painted on, because he uses his scanner powers for eeeeeeverything. He can’t even check into a sleazy, skid-row hotel without using his scanner powers to get the manager to give him a room key, he scans a woman doing her laundry in a laundromat (seriously, is nothing sacred?) and he scans a guy getting him to give up the phone in a phonebooth so he can make an important call. How does this guy eat? Does he go to a restaurant and scan the waitstaff into cutting up his food and feeding him?

Granted Staziak is not a hell of a lot better as he uses his scanner powers on the hospitalized and unconscious Carrie to discover Volkin’s identity via a pad of paper and pencil! While scanning her she convulses violently and her vital sign monitor explodes. Staziak is thrown out of the room by an orderly, leaving the doctor expressing his bafflement by saying “How’d he do this?!”, to which the nurse defensively replies “I’m just a nurse!” If there is one thing Pierre David consistently shows his love for, it’s mind-liquefyingly ridiculous hospital scenes. Why? I don’t know, I’m just a writer!

Robert Forster, during his direct-to-video career revival, checks in as Staziak’s captain, Jack Bitters, delivering mildly amusing lines such as when Staziak is trying to figure out how he’s going to tackle Volkin, Bitters states “he’s your people, how do you call it?” I can’t wait for the remake which will have that scene followed by a lawsuit and protests of discrimination from the scanner community.

The final confrontation takes place with an incredible scanner battle on top of Air Force One as it is screaming over Mount Rushmore that sends a scanner ripple effect out across the capitol causing politician’s heads to explode mid-filibuster and… oh no, wait. That’s not true at all. The climactic battle takes place in the boiler room of a retirement home where Volkin has tracked down Staziak’s mother and is going to turn her against him… No, really. That’s what happens.

Ah Pierre, limited only by your imagination and budget.

For some reason Pierre, having proved his point, seemed happy to let someone else take the reigns as director this time out and resume his favorite position of power, the back seat. This entry is one of the best remembered by most people and it is well shot with great lighting and effective music, but watching it now, the terminal flaw is that it tries too hard to be a serious film eschewing gratuitous car stunts, nudity, and random noggin-nuking, while at the same time being patently absurd. You get a priceless scene in which a surprisingly rational and well spoken mental patient complains that the person in the cell next to him is being too loud, while Volkin makes noises that sound exactly like Mel Blanc doing the Tasmanian Devil (you see... he’s “crazy”). Then you get kidney-punched by bits like when Volkin kills a modern artist, slaps a big-ass shit-eatin’ grin on his mug and says “I may not know about art, but I know what I like!” Oh duuuude, party foul! Who do you think you are? Robert Englund?

Pierre David lay dormant for a long time after this, but information has surfaced that… oh come on, like you couldn’t guess… yes, apparently the time is right for another SCANNERS film! Pierre David will finally get his wish and correct the mistakes, in his mind, that the original SCANNERS made almost three decades ago. A SCANNERS remake is in production as we speak and is scheduled to hit theaters in 2011. After 15 years of waiting, I’ve got my fingers crossed for a disaster of epic proportions.

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Obscure Oddities: Giulio Questi's ARCANA (1972)

One of the great joys of being a Video Junkie ® is the fine art of the discovery. We wade through so much junk (see this entire site) that it pays off when you see something really good. But the best is when you see something so out there that it knocks your socks off. You know a movie so bizarre that when you finish it you wonder what the hell you just saw. The kind of flick when you describe it to your friends they think you lying and instead relaying something out of a fever dream. Such is the case with Giulio Questi’s ARCANA.

If you’re reading this blog then Italian director Questi should be a familiar name. My only exposure to him was within the last few years when I watched the positively surreal DEATH LAID AN EGG (1968). I think it is safe to say it is the only film to feature a love triangle against the backdrop of prostitute murders and the high tech chicken farming industry. Well, I should say only legal film to feature such things. Obviously the film is one of a kind. I hear his western DJANGO, KILL! (1967) does for the spaghetti western genre what EGG did for the giallo subgenre. So, naturally, when I saw a grey market dealer offering up his rare ARCANA, I decided to take a look.

Now this is one tough puppy to summarize, but I’ll give it a shot. ARCANA tells the story of widow psychic Rose Tarantino (Lucia Bose), who runs her business in a slummy apartment building in Milan. Mrs. Tarantino is a bit of a charlatan while her son (Maurizio Degli Esposti) is the real deal, born with the power to see into the lives of their clients. Naturally, she exploits this to groups of folks who come into be “healed” by his touch. The son – whose name I don’t ever believe is mentioned – is one odd kid though as he likes to make faces in the mirror, cross dress and dabble in the real black arts. When client Marisa (Tina Aumont) becomes pregnant, she goes to Mrs. Tarantino for a talisman. Now the mother is content on creating a fake charm, but the son insists on making a real one. When he presents it to Marisa, she collapses and falls into convulsions. The son then wanders around the city, placing his homemade trinkets everywhere and visiting the underground subway rail where his construction worker father was killed by a train. The film culminates with Marisa coming to Mrs. Tarantino to get an abortion, which turns into a big get together for her clients. The end result is the son having a dwarf whisper into his ear as he unleashes chaos all over the city with the military gunning down folks.

I can practically hear you saying WTF? The funny thing is the paragraph above is just an attempt to put everything into some kind of digestible plot. Honestly, Questi doesn't seem that concerned with the plot and more interested in staging some really weird stuff. There are so many bizarre on goings here that the film almost becomes hypnotic. The “normal” strange stuff includes the incestuous nature of the mother/son relationship (she bathes him and they sleep in bed together). The “slightly out there” stuff includes the son threatening the mom in bed with a knife to tell him about a real talisman and this causes plates to fly around the kitchen.

Now the “Alejandro Jodorowsky would approve” stuff includes things like the children in the hallway that quack and bow to an egg (see pic to the right) and later bite an old man to death; the dwarf who brings a bridal dress to the abortion and whispers in the son’s ear; an legless man collecting disability and then saying to the son, “I’m not really disabled. It’s a trick” before some cops come and grab him; and the son building a shrine in his bedroom with string and photos he’s stolen from clients. The absolute show stopper though is the montage after the son makes the talisman that features a man playing a violin as Questi crosscuts between the images of some men hoisting a donkey onto the roof of a church (WTF?) and Mrs. Tarantino dancing zombie-like in her kitchen with ten other folks before she pukes up some frogs. Mrs. Bose – later seen as Elisabeth Bathory in THE LEGEND OF BLOOD CASTLE (19733) – is quite a trooper as she coaxes and ejects several live frogs from her mouth (see pics below). Let’s see Angelina Jolie do that for her art! An epic WTF moment that should be seen by cult film devotees worldwide.

So as you can see, ARCANA doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense but that is truly the film’s appeal. You won’t be figuring this one out like INCEPTION unless you have Questi sitting right next to you filling you in on what it is all supposed to mean. Rumor is that the film’s original running time is 111 minutes and that some prints remove 25 minutes from the film. The print I saw runs 104 minutes and, gambler that I am, I’m willing to bet that extra 7 minutes ain’t going to make things any easier.

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The "Never Got Made" File #24 - #30: The Cannon Group collection

If I had a dime for every project that Cannon announced that didn't get made, I'd be a very rich man. Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus were definitely enthusiastic about making movies and nowhere was this more evident than their "throw it at the wall and see what sells" approach to announcing projects. Below is just a small sampling of projects they promoted in Variety but never actually got made or morphed into something far different. For a larger sampling, check out this list of unrealized Cannon fodder.

File #24: CAPTAIN AMERICA

Okay, I'm cheating a little bit here because Albert Pyun did eventually make this for Cannon and it was released in 1990. But this was announced in the mid-80s with Michael Winner attached to direct with a screenplay by James R. Silke (REVENGE OF THE NINJA; NINJA III). One can only imagine.


File #25 - #27: Chuck Norris flicks

"We got Chuck under contract? Let's attach him to every action picture we make!" Yeah, Norris' heyday was for the Go-Go boys so it shouldn't surprise anyone that his name was attached to quite a few projects. AMERICAN NINJA was eventually made by Sam Firstenberg with Michael Dudikoff. NIGHT HUNTER, which was to be the return of INVASION U.S.A.'s Matt Hunter, was made by Sam Firstenberg with Michael Dudikoff as AVENGING FORCE. And the amazingly titled TOUGH KICK never got made. I guess Firstenberg and Dudikoff had better things to do?




File #28 - #30: Albert Pyun exploitation

Following THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER (1982), director Albert Pyun provided Cannon with a handful of professional looking low budget sci-fi tinged features. Professional looking and low budget? Let's sign that workhorse up! Toward the end of his tenure, Pyun was attached to seemingly EVERY Cannon project including their long gestating SPIDER-MAN adaptation. MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE PART 2 and SUPERMAN V never got made. And DELTA FORCE II ended up getting made with Chuck Norris pulling a Dudikoff on Michael Dudikoff and replacing his replacement. Oh, my head!

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Tobe or not Tobe: Tobe's TV Terrors pt. 2

After the small screen misfires reviewed in part 1, it seemed that the only place Tobe Hooper could go in the film world was up. Wrong! Following a few un-filmed announced projects, Hooper closed out the decade by making the theatrical feature SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION (see review), which got an unceremonious release in 50 theaters in February 1990 and bombed hard. Hooper was already onto his next project, the feature length TV movie I’M DANGEROUS TONIGHT, which debuted in August 1990 on the USA Network. Perhaps because of the burst of SPONTANEOUS, Hooper continued to remain active with several TV projects over the next few years.

One great refuge for filmmakers working in television was HBO’s TALES FROM THE CRYPT series. Debuting in 1989, the horror anthology dipped into the William Gaines EC Comics archives for stories of murder, mutilation and revenge. It succeeded thanks to enthusiasm from influential producers (Richard Donnar, Walter Hill, Robert Zemeckis, and Joel Silver to name a few), big stars looking to join in the fun, and a network not skimping on the budgets. Hooper stepped behind the camera during the show’s third season and delivered the voodoo-tinged tale “Dead Wait” in July 1991.

The story opens with carrot topped thief Red Buckley (James Remar) killing his partner on a war-torn tropical island. He is there to steal a black pearl from Duval (John Rhys-Davies), an embattled and sickly political head who keeps the desired treasure on his plantation. Conning his way into a job, Red is taken in and quickly starts up a relationship with Duval’s lady Katherine (Vanity) and the duo decide to work together to do the theft. Red is warned by Peligre (Whoopi Goldberg), the resident voodoo priestess, that Katherine is bad news. Red, naturally, doesn’t believe in this mumbo jumbo and dismisses Peligre’s warnings and her fascination with his red hair, which symbolizes life in her religion. If you read EC's horror comics, you know this won't end well.

Adapted from an issue of Vault of Horror, “Dead Wait” is a decent half hour with the prototypical EC storyline offering an immoral criminal who receives their twist comeuppance. Hooper obviously has budget to work with here and gets the best use out of him minimal settings. On the plus side, you get two cool gory bits. One is when Remar has to dig into some worm infested guts to retrieve the pearl and the other is pretty gruesome a decapitation. Another plus is you get nudity provided by former Prince protégé Vanity. On the downside, you have to watch her act. She actually isn’t that bad but you can see acting isn’t really her strong suit. The worst acting honors go to Whoopi Goldberg – fresh off her GHOST Oscar win - who can’t seem to figure out if she is going to do a Jamaican-style accent or not. Seriously, if you watch this, notice how quickly she slips back and forth between her regular voice and accent.

Hooper was back with another small screen project just a few months later with a 1-hour ghost special produced in part by TALES producers Al Katz and Gilbert Adler. HAUNTED LIVES: TRUE GHOST STORIES (later re-titled REAL GHOSTS II) premiered on CBS in early October 1991 and plays like an all-ghost version of UNSOLVED MYSTERIES. It is a slick production with Leonard Nimoy offering narration, but you have to stand back and marvel at the level which Hooper had dropped. Just a few years previous he was handling films with budgets up to $25 million and now he was reduced to doing one off TV efforts. Even worse, one segment actually shows the man imitating his most well-known work.

The show focuses on three real life semi-famous ghost stories with re-enactments and then interviews with the real folks who experienced them. “Ghosts R Us” details the haunting of a Toys R Us store in Sunnyvale, California in 1982. This history here is that store was built on some old farm land where a servant accidentally killed himself after the landowner’s daughter rejected him. So, naturally, he has decided to make life hell for Toys R Us employees. This entails whispering their names, running ghost fingers through their hair, playing with toys, and turning water faucets on and off. The store employees look up the history at the local library and then contact psychic Sylvia Browne (playing herself), who holds a séance there to contact this dead spirit. In the end, she claims the spirit has left…but has he???

“The Legend of Kate Morgan” tells of a lawyer who spends the night at the rumored to be haunted Hotel Del Coronado (known to movie fans as the setting for THE STUNT MAN) in San Diego, California. He stays in the room where Kate Morgan, a 19th century con woman, died under mysterious circumstances. Folks ruled it a suicide but, wouldn’t you know it, our intrepid lawyer digs deeper and finds out she was murdered. Of course, her ghostly formation in his TV set had nothing to do with this. In the story’s final twist, it is revealed that Morgan had a child before she died. She gave the baby away and it was raised by a Reverend who just happened to be this lawyer’s great-great grandfather. Creeeeeepy! And in case you question his credibility, the show tells us he is believable because, after all, he is a lawyer.

“School Spirit” relays the story of the Metz Elementary School in Texas and how a group of construction workers experience various phenomenon there while trying to tear it down in 1990. Of course, a psychic comes into play and she tells him the ghost children don’t want their home destroyed. Eventually a priest comes in to bless the place but that doesn’t help as one worker is killed. The school is eventually torn down, but the construction owner mentions he took a tree from there to plant in his daughter’s yard and now she reports hearing children playing when there are none.

As mentioned before, this is a pretty polished production. The most notable thing about the show is that Hooper feels the need to mimic his earlier POLTERGEIST in the first segment. There is a scene where two employees open a storeroom door, only to see a bunch of toys flying around on their own. Later, an employee notices some skateboards and roller skates stacked up oddly in an aisle, shades of the chair stacking in the Spielberg production. Hooper also receives credit alongside editor Jonathan Moser for developing the visual effects. I’m sure it looked state-of-the-art at the time but definitely looks dated today. One interesting thing is comparing a real photo from the Toys R Us séance versus how it is depicted on TV. The “real” ghost photo is far creepier (see pic to the right).

Hooper’s next television excursion is perhaps his most solid work in the medium since SALEM’S LOT. Hoping to develop a TALES-style show, Showtime courted Hooper contemporary John Carpenter with the end result being the movie BODY BAGS. The show also featured Carpenter – looking eerily similar to the Crypt Keeper – as the cadaver host who ushers out a series of tales from the crypt, er, morgue. Getting a bone from Carpenter, Hooper got the final segment “Eye” to bring to life.

This story centers on baseball player Brent Matthews (Mark Hamill), who loses his right eye to a piece of glass after he wrecks his car. Sensing his career is over, Matthews falls into depression before Dr. Bregman (Roger Corman) introduces him to Dr. Lang (John Agar). Dr. Lang is developing an experimental eye transplantation surgery and just happens to have a fresh eyeball on ice if Brent is willing to accept it. Brent talks it over with his wife Cathy (Twiggy) and is soon sporting a hazel eye right next to his blue one. Of course, it appears Brent didn’t see BODY PARTS because, as we all know, donor organs always come with a history. Before you can scream Orlac, Matthews finds himself having headaches, hallucinations and unexpected horniness (noooo!). Naturally, he finds out his right socket is now houses the orb of a recently executed mass murderer.

Looking at all of Hooper’s small screen work from this six year period, “Eye” might be his most focused (ah, boo yourself) work. It is definitely the best episode in this omnibus. Hooper seems to have regained his footing in terms of his style, offering some low, fish-eyed camera shots and some shocking edits. There is one shot where the camera drifts back from Matthews on the operating table that is pure Hooper. Given that it is only a half hour, the events unfold rather quickly but Hooper relays them nicely and gets a truly good performance out of Hamill. You also get to see 50s horror lead Agar in a choice role, Corman as his associate and even Charles Napier gets one scene as a gruff baseball coach. To cap it off, Hooper even gets in on the acting fun in the final segment as a coroner who gets to cut up Carpenter. Of course, with Tobe in this era you always have to expect a downside and that comes in the form of sharing the screen with talentless fattie boytoy Tom Arnold. You can’t win ‘em all, I guess. But I’ll take Hooper’s “Eye” over his NIGHT TERRORS, which I may or may not be foolish enough to revisit for review.

Next time: Tobe goes sci-fi!

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Tobe or not Tobe: Tobe's TV Terrors pt. 1

Here’s a peek behind the curtain: when I put up my review of Tobe Hooper’s misfire SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION, VJ founder Tom emailed me and said, “You are either very brave, or very, very foolish.” I couldn’t decide at the time which I was, but now that I have opted to examine Hooper’s 80s and 90s television work, I’m definitely going with the latter. Hooper’s work on the small screen actually preceded his theatrical efforts as he did documentaries – including one on folk artists Peter, Paul & Mary – for PBS in the late 1960s. After his second theatrical feature EATEN ALIVE, Hooper floundered a bit in developmental hell before producer Richard Kobritz selected him to helm the 1979 SALEM’S LOT miniseries. The project, as Hooper told Cinefantastique, “saved me from obscurity” and proved to be one of the most accomplished horror efforts for TV ever. The miniseries re-established Hooper and led to some major film work.

Following a period of 8 years that saw lots of professional highs and lows, Hooper returned to the small screen in 1987 during the second season of AMAZING STORIES. The anthology show was heavily hyped before its debut as creator Steven Spielberg bringing his “magic” to the small screen. By the time Hooper’s episode debuted, however, the public has tuned out as they figured out early on that the stories were anything but remarkable. In fact, NBC was just playing out their (record setting at the time) pre-order of 44 episodes and Hooper’s “Miss Stardust” was the FINAL episode of the substandard show. It seems only fitting that this would close out the series as it encapsulates everything that was wrong with the show as it isn’t amazing in the slightest.

PR man Joe Willoughby (Dick Shawn) wanders into a bar on a stormy night with quite the tale to tell. Tired of failed campaigns, he tells the bartender how a few weeks ago he was contacted by a group of men hoping to run a beauty pageant under the “Miss Stardust” moniker. Things go swimmingly on the night of the show until an alien (Weird Al Yankovic) shows up out of nowhere, demanding that some intergalactic representatives be allowed to participate. Dubbed The Cabbage Man because of his vegetable looking head, he kidnaps Joe’s secretary (Laraine Newman, fresh off Hooper’s on INVADERS FROM MARS) to ensure things go as he wants them. In the end, the contest features “ladies” from Mars, Venus and Jupiter and Joe finds a quick loophole to make The Cabbage Man lose his demands that his entrants win.

I can practically hear your laughter from here. Based on a Richard Matheson short story, this is one of those entries that make you sit back and wonder why they even bothered. The “telling a story to the bartender” routine is clichéd but offers a bit of intrigue. That is until you see Weird Al pop up. Decked out in a glittering green suit and one horrific looking prosthetic effect, his look is off putting enough. But just wait until he speaks. It is the kind of shrill voice that would make kids turn from the screen and yell, “This guy is annoying!” Even worse is the running gag of him having a lisp and stumbling on the word hideous (“this is hid-e-ufffffsssss”) over and over. It is about as painful a performance you can expect. To compound this horrible alien, Hooper resorts to including some Looney Tunes style sound effects. Was this ghost directed by Joe Dante? And, as was endemic in the series, they felt they could just throw money on the screen to fool viewers they are watching good stuff. The production values are all top notch and there are three elaborate aliens that look awful but you know cost a bundle. On the plus side, Hooper did load the cast for this half hour episode with some genre vets including Jim Siedow (the cook from TCM), James Karen, Anthony James and Angel Thompkins. Maybe he knew it was a “take the money and run” kind of deal so he hooked friends up?

The production values would be sorely missed in Hooper’s next TV fantasy endeavor. In 1988, New Line Cinema was sitting on a mountain of money thanks to Wes Craven’s A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series. Seeking to exploit their cash cow in every available avenue (Freddy pajamas!?!), New Line decided to bring their child-killer-cum-cult-hero Freddy Kruger to the boob tube in the anthology series FREDDY’S NIGHTMARES. Hired to helm the pilot “No More Mr. Nice Guy” was horror vet Hooper. This elicited positive response among fans because a) Hooper hadn’t crash and burned yet and b) this is the guy who made THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE! If anyone could put the scary back in Freddy, it would be Hooper. The news that it would be a prequel dealing with Freddy’s death by a vigilante mob was even more tantalizing. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Showing they had as much contempt for the filmmakers as the audience, the brain trust at New Line decided to do the series on the cheap and to continue on the self effacing, wise cracking Freddy. “Welcome to primetime, bitch” indeed!

The pilot gets off on shaky footing right off the bat with a newscaster addressing viewers before he disappears in a fuzz of static, complete with him going, “What the…?” He re-materializes on the steps of the Springwood courthouse, wonders where the hell he is and then launches into standard reporting about the trial of Fred Krueger. Inside the courtroom, Krueger (Robert Englund, of course) is covered in chains inside what looks like sensory deprivation tank while the prosecutor shows slides of his victims. Not so fast, says his slimy 80s coiffed defense lawyer, who introduces a motion to have the charges dismissed. Seems Lt. Tim Blocker (Ian Patrick Williams) forgot to read this child killer his Miranda Rights and ol’ Fred is freed by the judge on this technicality. And when I say freed, I mean freed. Freddy – unsubtly wearing his iconic fedora and red-and-green sweater – is literally un-cuffed and shown the door. No exit process or anything. An angry group of white folks rush outside to confront him but he is gone. “Where did he go?” wonders one man. “After more children!” shrieks a woman. But they vow to bring true justice to that kid killer.

Freddy returns to his boiler room (complete with creepy dolls), while Lt. Blocker tries to maintain order among angry parents. The fact that Krueger was in the process of molesting Blocker’s twin daughters when he caught him takes a backseat to upholding the law. Well, until Blocker confronts the lynch mob in Freddy’s boiler room. At first the cop tries to make them see the error of their ways, but when Freddy makes one quip too many about Blocker’s daughters, it is on! Grabbing a can of gasoline, he pours it over Herr Krueger and sets him on fire. Freddy is pretty nonchalant the whole time, screaming, “I’ll be back! I’m free! Free!” Everyone involved swears to keep what they did a secret, but Blocker’s dirty deed might be uncovered when the F.B.I. says they are coming to town to investigate Krueger’s disappearance. Even worse, our hero police officer begins having nightmares about a certain burnt maniac sporting a razor glove.

Scripted by New Line exec Michael De Luca, David Ehrman (who had previously done DENNIS THE MENACE cartoons) and Rhet (976-EVIL) Topham, this pilot episode is a total mess. First off, it takes some real geniuses to muck up the back story that series creator Craven had pretty much laid out for them. They get a plot point wrong as the original ELM STREET says it was an improperly signed search warrant that freed the Springwood Slasher. Nitpicking, I know. Second, you’re telling me you’re doing a history on Freddy’s death AND including a cop character but that character isn’t Donald Thompson (John Saxon)? I mean, c’mon, seriously? I’m not saying hire Saxon – who was probably out of their budget range – but at least offer some narrative consistency. Of course, what do you expect from a trio of writers who don’t even have the brains to mention Elm Street ONCE in their teleplay? The insipid script is also hampered by having to deal with televisions Standards & Practices so the bloodshed is minimal. They also desperately try to pack in some T&A in the film’s final moment and there is a hilarious implied blowjob that causes Blocker to hallucinate.

The terrible teleplay is serviced by equally uninspired direction by Hooper. I understand he was working on tight budget, but Hooper only offers the tiniest of glimpses of what made his earlier film work special. The incineration of Krueger is probably the highlight, worthy of something to be featured in the film. Hooper does try to concoct some Freddy Vision, an example of how the serial killer might see the world. Unfortunately, Freddy sees the world through some horrible 80s video effects that would be more at home in a Cinderella rock video. The final scene has Blocker tied to a dentist’s chair as Freddy performs some surgery with his special dental equipped glove. Given how Hooper drove audiences insane with Marilyn Burns tied to a chair in CHAINSAW, this dull scene serves as a comparison for how tame Hooper had become. It is almost as if you could see his mortgage payment due date on the screen. Just awful and might actually be the moment that one examining Hooper’s career could label “ground zero” for his downfall. Believe it or not, things would actually get cheaper after this!

The scariest thing about this episode? It might be one of the best of the entire FREDDY'S NIGHTMARES series. No joke, beginning with the very next episode they set the bar so low with some of the worst plots imaginable that made this look like a classic. Very hard to do. Next installment: Tobe tackles some ghosts on the cheap and gives us a tale from the crypt.

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Revenge of 3-D: A*P*E (1976)

In 1976 Paramount and Dino de Laurentiis decided the time was right for a massive rebirth of RKO’s gargantuan sacred cow, King Kong. The film had an all-star cast of Bert I. Gordon proportions, including Charles Grodin who you’d think would be your first casting choice for a giant ape movie. Don’t get me wrong, Grodin is the man and SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES (1980) is one of my favorite comedies of the era, but ummmm… King Kong? Really? Also, at the time it seemed like the height of technical wizardry with the massive ape actually destroying the pavement when he fell from the, now eerily ill-fated, world trade center. It also grabbed the imaginations of audiences, though not so much their wallets. The film weighed in at a massive $24 million, but only brought in $7 million on its opening weekend. So much for being “the most exciting original motion picture event of all time” as the tag-line proclaimed. Like I said, it grabbed the imaginations of the public and made giant apes a hot commodity. So, I hear you say, where do we go from here? Italy! Ummm, no. Japan! Well, that was in 1962, so again, no. I know, I know, this is a tough one. Get the kimchi ready, we are East bound and down, takin' a trip to Korea!

Thrown together by South Korean filmmakers to cash in on the popularity of the concept (if not the film) and inexplicably shot in 3D, this film actually managed to beat KING KONG (1976) in to theaters by a couple of months. It’s a smart move as anticipation was high and billfolds were ripe for the plucking. Originally titled THE NEW KING KONG, RKO slapped a lawsuit on the producers for (at the time) a suitably colossal $1.5 million. You’d have to multiply the budget of this film an awful lot to get it anywhere near that number, so the American distributors opted for the title A*P*E which, believe it or not, is a parody of M*A*S*H, which was, as you know, also in Korea. Get it? Phew!

During the opening credits there is a thank-you to the US military, leading to the question, how in the hell did they get the co-operation of the US military?! Are the guys in green so freakin’ bored that you can just call up Col. Henry Blake and say, “hey, we’re shooting a movie about a giant ape, can we borrow some tanks, men, jeeps and maybe an officer or two?” Maybe they ran it past Radar O'Reilly first.

Imagine Bill Rebane went to Korea and made a movie about a giant ape… Got the picture? No? Then I guess I’ll have to fill in the details.

The film opens with the captain of a freighter having a conversation with a mate about the “big guy” they have below decks who was apparently caught in Harlem (umm… since when are the Empire State Building or the World Trade Center anywhere near Harlem? If they are referring to his fall off the Empire State Building he would have had to have fallen 6 miles horizontally!). No sooner than you can say “are these actors delivering their lines under hypnosis?” than a *ahem* giant ape fist (or a the cheapest paper-mache ape fist imaginable), rips through the deck of a cheap miniature ship and so begins the rampage through Seoul. Err… well, sort of. First he needs to get in a brawl with a dead shark. Yes, I said “dead shark”. In an attempt to errm, “ape” the famous Kong vs. Alisaur scene in the original film, a dude in the cheapest ape suit imaginable “brawls” with a painfully obviously inert opponent in what is possibly one of the most jaw-droppingly bizarre scenes that I can think of. The shark just flops around as the “ape” really badly pretends to wrestle it (or maybe wash it, it’s hard to tell), finally tearing its jaws open to defeat it. From there it’s an attack on a military base where the ape throws tin cans painted up to look like fuel drums. But wait! There’s more!

The meat of the plot, such as it is, concerns a famous American actress Marilyn Baker (Joanna Kerns) who comes to Korea to make a film that seems to be entirely about her being sexually assaulted in historic Korean locations while comic music plays on the soundtrack (don’t ask me, I don’t know). Her amorous boy-friend Tom Rose (Rod Arrants) is a reporter who decides to take a job in Korea so he can annoy the crap out of her. You can see where this is heading right? Yeah, the famous actress is snatched up by the ape who seems somewhat less pre-occupied by her than is her stalker boyfriend. That doesn't mean Mr. Ape doesn’t hunt her down like a bloodhound on the Scottish moors! Would you believe a short-haired terrier in a suburban tract home? Our nameless ape lazily smacks around buildings, poking his nose in windows, disrupting family dinners, pool games and a hooker with her greasy, chubby American john. Why do I get the feeling Asians in the ’70s thought all Americans were fat, horny and shellacked with brylcreem? C’mon, we don't use brylcreem! Erm... anymore.

For whatever reason, the filmmakers decided that this movie demanded 3D effects and at no point would you ever want to see them more than in a scene in which a group of kids go to the most pathetic, deserted amusement park ever (titled “Familyland” in Disney script) and play on the see-saw. Hell yeah brother, you heard me right! 3D see-saw action! My life is complete. Actually I have to hand it to them with one 3D scene. Cut to a pastoral scene in which a group of martial artists are practicing with all manner of weapons and suddenly a “giant ape” attacks! Or rather is in a completely different place being shot by a second unit crew. Hell, what am I saying? These guys couldn’t afford a second unit crew! Still it’s pretty damn funny seeing them try to edit the martial artists fighting back against the ape, particularly in the miracle of 3D! The first half of the movie is pretty much a pastiche of scenes like these that are pretty damned amusing. In one scene a US military grunt is driving his Jeep along a road and WHAM! a wooden beam that is apparently growing out of a Korean Square Branch Tree that was planted in the middle of the road, slams right through his window (and of course into the audience). The soldier then stops, jumps out of the vehicle and looks around in complete bewilderment at the destroyed US base that he was just driving through completely intact! Unfortunately the second half descends into some slightly tedious destruction of cheap miniatures and some really painful intentional camp added by the US producers. After a farmer finds a giant footprint, some heated phone calls are made to the local US military outpost where the captain says “this is Korea not Scotland, the Loch Ness Monster couldn’t make it over the Berlin Wall!” Phew!

On the other hand, there is plenty of stuff to be entertained by:
- There is plenty of dialogue about how great certain famous Korean landmarks are, but never actually go to them or even show them.
- We discover that in Asia, it is Americans that can’t drive.
- “Scientific phenomenon? Bullshit!”
- The extras show far more enthusiasm than the ape.
- Korean kids are so poor they can laugh for hours at a marionette having what appears to be an epileptic sezure.
- Toy tanks can make giant apes vomit blood.
- You can destroy Korean tanks by throwing rocks at them.

I may not know this for a fact, but I’m pretty sure this is Kim Jong-Il’s favorite movie. I mean, what movie would a megalomaniacal, 5’ tall, platform-shoe wearing “supreme leader” in North Korea find the most arresting? Why a movie about a giant that destroys Seoul of course (I was going to make a joke about giant monkey’s and spankage, but as you know we’re too sophisticated for that)!

In the end this film is appropriately malnourished with some of the sloppiest editing I have ever witnessed with the ends of dialogue sequences being shorn of their final words. Even so, the rather uninspired final half and the American inserts that desperately try to salvage the film by trying to make out that it’s intentionally bad, kind of make it miss the mark. I’d love to see the original version, but that’s probably not going to happen any time soon.

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