“Zombies Ahead” sign fits Austin to a Z

The computer hackers who turned a road advisory sign into a zombie invasion alert this week in Texas were probably just juvenile delinquents, to use a quaint term, who were having fun with a prank. Then again, they could have been film fans who knew exactly why such a warning was, in a weird and warped way, appropriate for the Lone Star state.

That’s because it was in Austin. And why does Austin make a zombie alert appropriate? Because, as fans know who’ve seen Grindhouse, the double-feature exploitation flick from Austin director Robert Rodriguez and pal Quentin Tarantino, the former’s Planet Terror horror and sci-fi yarn was shot and set in and around the Austin area. And Planet Terror was as maxed out with zombie gore and lore as many George Romero flicks.

So there you have it: a clear Austin connection to a zombie invasion, albeit one that’s only real in film fantasy. Well, and also in the road signs which warn motorists of “Zombies Ahead!” It might be hard to conceive of such a zombie onslaught on Lamar Boulevard in my old college town, but at least I know now what the road advisory would look like if zombies did, indeed, invade Texas’ capital city. And if you hackers are Rodriguez fans, then thanks. You may have made brief mischief (for shame!), but your twisted zombie hearts were in the right place.

Review: ‘Outer Limits’ full-series DVD box is TV at its best

Stephen King once wrote that the original 1963-65 The Outer Limits was “the best program of its type ever to air on network TV.” I couldn’t agree more. But what is The Outer Limits’ “type”?

Returning to DVD today from MGM in a handsome full-series box set of 49 episodes, The Outer Limits was an anthology science-fiction show, albeit with hearty doses of gothic dread and monstrous horror. That stance, in itself, doesn’t make it a classic. Yet even with the limitations of meager budgets and no strong network track record for sci-fi — a marginal genre at the time — The Outer Limits did, indeed, push the limits of imaginative, thought-provoking entertainment in an “exploitation” genre, and has ultimately revealed itself as a monumental achievement.

Introduced by a “Control Voice,” story after story produced intriguing, insightful looks at humans –  often scientists — whose thirst for knowledge led them to expand horizons — sometimes in the form of alien contact — while learning that such progress rarely comes without a price.

Though The Outer Limits was a humanistic show, full of compassion for our small selves on a fragile planet, such humanism also extended to many of its aliens, who weren’t evil bug-eyed fiends but wise and peaceful explorers (“The Galaxy Being,” “The Bellero Shield”). It also taught lessons in enlightenment, as with the masterful tale of rapid human evolution called “The Sixth Finger.”

The series was blessed with outstanding creative work in almost every department, starting with the scripts written or overseen by producers Joe Stefano (Psycho) and Leslie Stevens. Outer Limits writers included future Oscar-winner Robert Towne (Chinatown) who wrote “The Chameleon” episode and sci-fi stalwart Harlan Ellison, whose acclaimed “Soldier” and “Demon With a Glass Hand” scripts informed The Terminator so much that he successfully sued for credit.

Outer Limits casts were incredible for network TV, from Cliff Robertson, Robert Duvall, Carroll O’Connor, Martin Landau and Robert Culp to Sally Kellerman, Vera Miles, Martin Sheen, Bruce Dern and Edward Asner. That’s not to mention future Star Trek stars William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and James Doohan.

Much of season one’s cinematography was by another future Oscar winner, Conrad Hall, whose use of handheld cameras, available light, creative framing and stark shadows was unprecedented for TV at this time. Too, the melodic and memorable first-season music by Dominic Frontiere was haunting, eerily beautiful and inspiring. And special effects, though done cheaply, could be striking and innovative.

Unfortunately, ABC killed the show in Season Two, giving it an unfriendly time slot and finishing it off at mid-season. The Outer Limits wound up with 32 first-season episodes and 17 in the second season, but that total of 49 is a full two seasons’ worth by today’s standards. And the franchise’s renewed life years later as a Showtime series (which remade several ’60s plots) has helped cement its status not just as a fleeting aberration amid a TVscape littered by slight sitcoms and “doctor” shows and recalled fondly only by aging Baby Boomers, but as a lasting phenomenon whose sheer artistry has made it more timeless and impressive than any other series of its day — and of any “type.”

Personal favorite episodes? Mine start with one which melds sci-fi trappings to a sheer “beauty and the beast” fairy tale, “The Man Who Was Never Born.” But Culp’s three episodes also are outstanding, from the horrific romantic tragedies of “The Architects of Fear” and “Corpus Earthling” — two of Outer Limits’ scariest yet most emotional stories — to Ellison’s time-tripping “Demon With a Glass Hand,” set largely in the wrought-iron interior of the Bradbury Building, which I’ve had the privilege to visit in downtown Los Angeles. (Blade Runner also shot there.)

Landau’s “The Bellero Shield” is a remarkable Shakespearean spin on ambition corrupting science, while rich gothic horror awaits in “The Guests” and “Don’t Open Till Doomsday.” And David McCallum played perhaps the greatest character arc any actor can claim in the rapid evolutionary tale of “The Sixth Finger.”

I could go on — there’s much more — but suffice it to say that King was right. This is TV at its finest — and often most cinematic — from an era when no other program challenged viewers and challenged itself with such ardent and inspirational creativity. A true treasure trove awaits you. Enjoy.

‘Icons of Horror’ DVD puts the Hammer down for creepy chills

While I did grow up with some creepy Hammer horror experiences (The Brides of Dracula, anyone?), and I do revere horror as a genre, I’m no student or fanboy of the Hammer brand, though I respect it. Back then, the veddy British aspect just threw me a bit. I was used to all-Amurhican heroes like John Wayne, not thin, erudite champions like vampire hunter Peter Cushing.

But some of my best buds looove these movies, and they are, in a word, excited about Sony’s new release of Icons of Horror: Hammer Films, a two-disc set featuring four lesser known Hammer flicks previously unavailable on DVD. They are: The Gorgon, The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll and Scream of Fear.

Now, these aren’t horror classics. They aren’t The Exorcist. But they are creepy, chilling entertainments from a British studio which consistently showed respectful devotion to horror as a legitimate genre, not just a form of box office exploitation (and hey, if you can achieve both, then so much the better).

The discs have no extras, apart from theatrical trailers, but print quality is largely high. Bottom line: These flicks now flicker in the digital world — which makes them more accessible and, in a way, permanent.

As I understand, with this release, the only Hammer horror film not yet on DVD is 1959’s The Man Who Could Cheat Death. Completists, your day is coming. Until then, hop aboard the Hammer horror express and enjoy these October-worthy rides. Though they aren’t Hammer’s best, they are Hammer — and isn’t that enough?

‘The Signal’ should be turned on, not off

New on DVD June 10 from Magnolia, The Signal is a bold little horror-comedy, if only because it so shamelessly — yet effectively — steals from other films, lacing elements of The Ring (a TV-sparked signal launches disaster) into a movie whose tone shifts from the tragic world-ending horror of 28 Days Later to the bizarre dark comedy of Shaun of the Dead.

The best part is the humor, smack dab in the middle of a film clearly designed as a three-act story by the three men who wrote and directed each segment, shooting in Atlanta and calling their fantasy town Terminus. Flashbacks and creative editing stitch the stories together by alternating between characters’ perspectives.

It seems a strangely garbled TV signal has sparked a plague of maniacal murdering in almost all of humanity (think zombie movies, but with no living-dead shambles) and only a few folks are unaffected. These include two star-crossed lovers who become separated and, as in Cloverfield, spend most of the movie winding their way toward reconnecting.

The love story is rather lame; I don’t think the three writer-directors have a clue, and their romance is meaningful only because the script says so. But when it comes to ghoulish horror and twisted humor, they know their stuff, especially in Act II.

Then, the protagonists’ paths cross those of a chirpy middle class couple who have planned a New Year’s Eve party. And even though bloody corpses are piling up everywhere, they dutifully try to “act natural” and keep up a bravely convivial front. One must be a good host, after all.

Beyond such mirth, the film is rather bleak, but then, that’s its premise. And it should be. You could argue that all of us, while so hopelessly plugged into our TVs, computers, cells and other masturbatory gadgets, are an accident waiting to happen, even if that accident is a deadly signal which unleashes murderous madness. With our slavish devotion to self-indulgent fixations on technology, we’re certainly ripe for it. (Stephen King took his own stab in his book The Cell.) Just don’t forget to supply the party favors. You never know when someone with a sledge hammer will ring your doorbell, and you wouldn’t want to disappoint them. 

‘Diary of the Dead’ is a mixed bag of rotting flesh — but tasty enough

I love George Romero, and I have no beef with him spinning off however many movies he wants from his original Night of the Living Dead, including his latest, Diary of the Dead. But that said, the new film is a mixed bag.

For one thing, in execution it feels like a poor man’s Cloverfield, coming so hard on the heels of that more fully realized production in which a group of young people facing calamity somehow never fail to record it all on video for our consumption, post-calamity. In Diary this fits a bit, at least, since the most obsessive video chronicler is a film student from Pitt — part of a group of students and one prof who have been out in the sticks shooting a creaky of old mummy movie, of all things, when a zombie plague hits.

The on-camera self-introductions are painfully stilted, but the rest starts to make sense when the chronicler spins his self-serving auteurism into a crusade for the truth by uploading his images on the ‘net to spread word about the horror after the media, for some reason, in total lockstep, spread lies about it. Of course, what would be the point of some mass conspiratorial media whitewash when a zombie army starts chomping down on all living humans (even if such a thing were possible)? And, of course, there are too many people in too many countries who could do the same thing as this guy. No way could this have been some sort of best kept secret that our valiant crusader singlehandedly exposes to help save the world. The plague was simply too pervasive, as are our communications options these days.

The film also has some awkward dialogue and wearisome stereotypes, but still — it’s good. In fact, it’s very good if you love Romero, as I do, and thus are in a forgiving mood. No, it doesn’t look as convincingly on-the-fly as Cloverfield’s amateur videographer shoot did (or The Blair Witch Project’s did, for that matter), and the necessity of establishing self-shot footage often gets in the way. But the story takes some strong twists and turns, the cast of unknowns is game and the ending leaves an enticing door open for yet another Dead sequel, prequel, remake, realization, or whatever you want to call them.

There’s also a superb extra feature called “Familiar Voices” which reveals that some of the off-camera voices heard on TV or the ‘net are actually Romero devotees who recorded them by phone for him as a favor. Three such sessions are played with the voices identified, and we’re asked to guess the rest. The three we now know are Stephen King, Simon Pegg and Guillermo del Toro. Though Pegg is the only legitimate actor among them, King and del Toro do the best job, especially del Toro. Hey, everybody wants to be in a zombie movie, even if it’s only as a disembodied voice. Enjoy!

 

‘Cloverfield’ is monstrous fun

OK, so it’s just another monster movie at heart — or Godzilla reimagined for the Big Apple — but Cloverfield is audaciously effective as “you are there” entertainment, mixing the handheld authenticity of the Blair Witch Project with enormous disaster-movie spectacle, as a huge, unnamed, mysterious creature lays waste to New York City.

Of course, the large video camera that a guy uses to chronicle his 20-something pal’s going-away party — and then The End of the World — seems as pertinent in today’s tiny phone-camera world as would those bulky old wireless phones from the ’80s. Say what?  And OK, the plot is pretty basic: When disaster hits NYC, a guy frantically tries to rescue his sorta girlfriend and reach safety, and that’s about it. But along the way to (pick one) death, escape, redemption or becoming monster chow, this ride really rocks, especially given its wildly effective cinema verite approach and its fine cast of relative unknowns who convincingly inhabit their roles.

Too, the oblique nature of only seeing what a vid camera happens to catch works wonders. I mean, I’d rather spot a large building suddenly explode in the distance on the edge of a shot than seeing a closeup with some dude walking calmly away, one of today’s cheapest cliches. Better to discover something on your own than have it trivialized and served on a platter in closeup.

Then again, the coolest shot, beyond the Statue of Liberty’s head being used as a bowling ball, has very little CG at all. It’s when a driverless carriage and its white horse — the kind that often circle Central Park for a price — slowly clipclops down a Manhattan street now empty of traffic. Ghostly. Haunting. Cool. They even use the image for a DVD menu.

So forget all the hype and the teasing marketing campaign and get down to business. Check out Cloverfield — whatever that means — and witness an old-style monster movie with a refreshing stylistic twist. If you don’t live in Manhattan, you’ll be glad of it. If you do, well, sweet dreams.

 

 

Hazel Court, R.I.P.

Hazel Court, the so-called “Scream Queen” who just passed away, will remain forever alive on DVD, where her films for Roger Corman and others are readily available, as are many of her TV appearances during her ’50s and ’60s heyday.

Among the latter were her guest spots on thriller-anthology show Alfred Hitchcock Presents, though only one is on DVD to date. That’s “The Crocodile Case,” a murder mystery from the latter half of Hitch’s third TV season. The series lasted seven seasons, and Universal has issued full-season box sets of the first three so far.

A bewitching beauty, Court also appeared on such staples as The Twilight Zone and Bonanza, and she also can be found on DVDs for such vintage series as The Wild Wild West (Season Two) and Gidget (its first and only season).

Her WWW episode, “The Night of the Returning Dead,” is an odd story with marquee casting that also included Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr. The latter plays a ranch worker who’s treated uncomfortably rudely — that is, in racist ways — even by Robert Conrad’s James West, until we thankfully learn that, don’t worry, it’s a ruse, and the men are in cahoots. In short, this was mid-’60s “we’re all brothers” storytelling for a time when racial tensions were high.

Among Court’s horror film treasures, I’d have to pick The Masque of the Red Death and Premature Burial as favorites, both from Corman. Happily, you can get those two together on an MGM “Midnite Movies” double feature DVD, where the short flicks appear on the same disc.

While playing a wicked woman in Red Death, Court’s more innocent female co-star was Jane Asher, an actress who at the time was dating Paul McCartney — who even visited the set. Perhaps “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” works with the Beatles, too.

My own personal role in that game is through Robert Altman’s Ready to Wear (aka Pret-a-Portet), in which I played a fashion-press extra at the Cort Romney (Richard Grant) fashion show, held in a chateau in the country outside Paris. (The clothes were actually by Vivienne Westwood.) For two days on the set, I sat behind Sophia Loren and to the side of Lauren Bacall, Stephen Rea and Rupert Everett. Anyway, Julia Roberts also was in that film (though not on the set during my two days of the shoot, unlike then-husband Lyle Lovett), and she was in Flatliners, and so was Kevin Bacon. So there — two degrees of separation between Kevin and ol’ Bruce.

But I digress. Whether related somehow to the Beatles or to such greats as Jack Nicholson (The Raven), Court was a star in her own right, and she will be missed.

Hazel Court was 82.

‘Sweeney Todd’ revenge yarn is cold, all right

Make no mistake: I love Tim Burton, and I love many of those in the superb cast of his Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, new on DVD today from DreamWorks – especially title star Johnny Depp. But I don’t love their movie.

Its Broadway-spawned tale of an English barber who’s betrayed and imprisoned, then returns a warped man bent on revenge, is potent enough. But it’s also quite depressing. I mean, what’s to enjoy in this film? The Monty Pythonesque absurdities of the blood geysers when Sweeny shaves his customers in grimy Old Englande a bit too closely? The cast?

Well, there is the great cast, including Burton’s beloved Helena Bonham Carter as Sweeney’s flesh-feeding partner in crime, Sacha Baron Cohen as a wicked rival and Timothy Spall and Alan Rickman as establishment heavies. But then, isn’t almost everyone a heavy in this leaden look at tragedy, misery and revenge, a dish that’s best served cold, but whose stark chill leaves me cold, as a viewer. 

Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m a sucker for strong song melodies, and Stephen Sondheim’s score doesn’t have any. Well, maybe the plaintive Joanna, though its tenderness is so out of place that it doesn’t really matter.

Sure, performances are good and the production is immaculate, but to what end? The characers and story are sad if not appalling — and relentlessly so, with no offsetting dark humor, token lift of spirits or hard-earned redemption. Just misery — and unimpressive music.

Again, I love these folks – love them. I just don’t love their movie — not this time. For Depp-Burton horrors that enthrall, not repel, give me Sleepy Hollow or Edward Scissorhands any day.

‘Blade Runner’: More sci-fi with class

Give Ridley Scott this: The man can take an often maligned genre, sci-fi, and make it shine like a sun in nova. He first did so with 1979’s Alien, giving a horror show in space a classiness bordering on elegance (despite the gore). He then returned to resplendent sci-fi with 1982’s Blade Runner, a film both classy and classic — and so much a classic that’s it’s now new in several DVD configurations, including a five-disc box set.

You can take your pick which cut you prefer from several that Scott offers, but in each you’ll find an absorbing noir thriller in which Harrison Ford’s hunter of replicants (androids) ranges through wet, steamy L.A. of the not-distant future.

It’s also L.A. of the not-distant past, when it comes to landmarks and sci-fi reference points.

Part of Blade Runner was shot in the architectural majesty of the Bradbury Building, a structure on a seedy side of downtown L.A. (trust me — I’ve paid it a visit) that’s been used in many film and TV productions. In fact, its wrought-iron interior was the chief setting for a classic Outer Limits episode from 1964, Demon With a Glass Hand, penned by Harlan Ellison. That story and Ellison’s Outer Limits script for Soldier shared so many elements with 1984’s The Terminator that Ellison took legal action and later received screen credit for that film.

Actually, his story shot in the Bradbury Building also shares elements with Blade Runner, and more than the setting. Yes, androids were big in ‘64, too. In fact, another Outer Limits episode not written by Ellison, The Duplicate Man (based on a 1951 story by Clifford D. Simak), is even closer to Blade Runner in terms of its illegal or ”bootleg” androids or replicants.

Of course, Blade Runner was drawn from a source novel by Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? But that was written in 1968, several years after the Outer Limits episodes. I’m telling you: That ’60s sci-fi anthology series was fertile ground for creativity, and it contines to yield rich harvests, directly or indirectly, today.

‘MSTing With the Stars’

As America slides more deeply into a rift between haves and have-nots – shameless greedheads and regular folks — at least some of our pop culture keeps the latter rich, if only in spirit. On ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, they’re show-biz has-beens or barely-weres whose fans love them because they’re still-standing borderliners. And for the faithful flame-keepers of Mystery Science Theater 3000, what could be better than fresh interviews with director Robert Fiveson and actor Don Sullivan?

Uh, whodat?

You’re right to ask. Those names may not ring bells even among barrel-bottom-loving MSTies. But they’ll get to know them better via Rhino’s Volume 12 of its Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collections, just out.

Though such sets always are artfully packaged — and I’m just grateful a show axed eight years ago still has life via DVD – they’ve never bulged with special features. But V.12 has ’em, notably sit-down gabfests for two of its films.

One is with Sullivan,  fifth-billed “star” (his credit didn’t make the trailer) of 1959 beatnik crime caper The Rebel Set, jeered and cheered in MST’s fourth season. A fleeting film and TV actor of the late ’50s to early ’60s — who by all rights should have crossed paths with Ed Wood – Sullivan also was in MST whipping-boy (whipping lizard?) The Giant Gila Monster (no MST disc yet). So OK — he’s exploitation-guy legit. But the cheesy charm of his fanboy credits aside, this Sullivan is no “really good show” Ed, just a dull as dust Don, droning drearily for 12 minutes of routine reminiscence.

No, the better choice for your plate of steaming-hot extras is to dish with Fiveson, director of 1979 sci-fi/horror cheapie Parts: The Clonus Horror, ripped by MST’s merry movie mockers in season eight. Fiveson spews juicy details on his legal battle with producers of big-budget 2005 flop The Island (even slave-to-commercialism Michael Bay found a way to blow $125 million that time), based on an alleged 103 similarities between the films about unsuspecting human clones in a cut-off colony being raised like crops for organ harvests. (The two sides “came to terms,” he says. Translation: DreamWorks and Warner must have caved, at least a bit. Shades of The Terminator’s precedents in Harlan Ellison’s two Outer Limits scripts.)

Less juicy but still tangy is Fiveson’s reaction to being bashed, berated and bushwacked by MST’s wacky crew.

I’ve always wondered how actors and filmmakers felt when targeted by Mike or Joel and their lot of  ’bots. Fiveson says his first reaction to the prospect was “like I’d been punched in the gut — the ultimate low in my career.” But minutes later, he had an epiphany: This would be cool. It would be cachet. And hey, any new national exposure would sure beat dusty video bargain bins.

“The film sucks. It had no budget. And who am I not to be laughed at?” he reasoned. Beyond that, he soon learned that stalwart MST fans, ever ready to dance with their “stars,” would champion his plagiarism case.

“I was very honored to be part of that show,” says Fiveson, who also admits ”there were some good zingers in there.” Besides, MST’s mirth is affectionate at heart, and at least “MSTing With the Has-Beens” provides some have-nots with a “have” and a haven.

That’s it for now. You’ll hear more from me on movies, TV and DVD, fields I’ve covered professionally for longer than MST’s run. Let’s have some fun — one of the best “haves” of all.