Tag Archives: the 80s

Is there something you’re trying to tell us?

Something new today as Vegan Voorhees hands over the writing reins to Ross Tipograph, who looks into some of the most popular horror flicks that seemed to be hiding parts of themselves in a subtextual closet with only a little more subtlety than this:

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The horror and slasher genres are notoriously for carrying weirdly sexual undertones… It’s really unavoidable, when you think about it: One predatory killer (always a man, or for shock value – gasp! – a woman) stalks and obsesses over a group of usually gorgeous, usually young characters, waits for that one dark night or empty hallway moment, gets up to them real close in a one-on-one moment and… penetrates them, usually with something sharp and phallic (if not shooting, decapitating, or creatively terminating them in any way other than stabbing).

The sexual is imagery is RAMPANT! So, as a focus, we’ll take a look at an underrated way of observing the horror & slasher genre(s), through this sexual lens:

THE TOP UNINTENTIONALLY GAY HORROR MOVIES

1.  A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

This sequel was abysmal, not only because it was following / attempting to cash in on one of the greatest horror movie classics of all time, but also because it was just downright horrible and unwatchable. The entire movie follows one guy, Jesse (played by Mark Patton), as he tries to escape the taunting, phallic knives of predatory Freddy Krueger.

First of all – why the hell is Freddy setting his sights on a teenage boy? In almost every other Elm Street movie, Freddy stalks a luscious young girl, staying true to the weird psycho-sexual stereotypes of movies – a creepy man chasing a girl. So, what is the aggressive, arguably heterosexual genre audience supposed to gain from Freddy chasing a guy? The answer is: nothing. Except for weird parallels to gay porn.

At one point, Jesse has a nightmare that takes place in a bar with his gym teacher… Which leads to a naked shower scene with said character… Which leads to a series of wet and wild ass-whippings. In another scene, Freddy literally emerges from Jesse’s body, tearing through his flesh, coming out from within. Explanations? None.

Why confide in your girlfriend when your unnaturally-hot sparring partner will do?

2. The Lost Boys (1987)

(What is it with these eighties movies?)

A cult classic with some definite gay undertones, The Lost Boys is awesome. It is also, yes, kinda gay. The brooding, buff Michael (Jason Patric), his eager younger brother Sam (Corey Haim), and their cool, single mom (Dianne Wiest) move to a new town on the coast of sunny California. Already, we have a queer vibe of “the outsiders” trying to fit in. And soon, they sort of do, when they meet a gang of snarling, hungry vampire teens – a group of touchy-feely guys with one hot girl (Jami Gertz), whom they virtually ignore.

The girl is so neglected, she’s actually used to lure new boys into this vampire coven. She bounces around and shows off her goods, leading these unsuspecting newcomers to a seriously scary Kiefer Sutherland, complete with bleached-blonde mulleted hair, along with Bill & Ted reject Alex Winter and others. Also, in one scene, Corey Haim has a poster hanging up in his closet of a naked Rob Lowe. Go see for yourself.

The vampire genre has always been pretty gay, drawing parallels to homosexuality with its intense man-on-man eating (seen here in The Lost Boys), secrecy and self-hatred (seen here in The Lost Boys), and post-1980 comparisons to the HIV/AIDS  crisis, passed on through blood, just like vampires (see: The Lost Boys).

"I have so much to show you, Michael..." Never trust anyone with a peroxide blonde mullet.

3. Rope (1948)

Alfred Hitchcock’s notorious attempt at a eighty-minute continuously-shot movie, tied together with a few suave editing tricks (which surely tricked the crowds of the late ‘40s) is so entertainingly, blaringly gay you can’t help but wonder if it was intentional. Taking into account the casting of two closeted Hollywood actors and the rumors of Hitchcock’s own sexuality, anything is possible.

The film opens in a Manhattan loft, where two men… do something sinful, in the dark, with the blinds closed. John Dall, one of the two, is more suave and accepting of it, lighting a cigarette after the deed is done and wanting to open the blinds. The other man, Farley Granger, is much more terrified, disgusted by this act they’ve committed together and wanting to die. What they’ve actually done is kill a man, but with lines like “Don’t open the curtains yet; let’s just stay this way for a minute,” and moments like the killers removing each others’ rubber gloves – you decide.

The movie amps up when the two guys have a dinner party with several guests, trying to keep their secret quiet and acting like nothing is wrong. It’s up to old Jimmy Stewart, their professor from their boarding school days (gay!), to figure out what’s really going on between these two men. A thrill.

"I can't believe you didn't choose orchids for the centre-spread!"

More ‘mo fun to look for:

Jeepers Creepers (2001), in which a mythical man-hungry beast stalks and eats a teenage Justin Long. Written and directed by shady gay filmmaker Victor Salva

Interview with the Vampire (1994), in which Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, and Tom Cruise (of course) battle for Most Theatrical Queeny Performance while sucking each others’ necks, wearing corsets and crying

Fright Night (1985), another eighties (and another vampire) entry, in which a guy who can’t have sex with his girlfriend because he’s too distracted by the charming man next door and this neighbour’s creepy, unexplained male “roommate”.

Scream (1996) – there’s always been a thing between Skeet Ulrich & Matthew Lillard. (Ever notice how Stu screams “yeah baby, get it up!” when inviting Billy to knife him? – Hud)

Ross Tipograph is a film buff and Emerson College screenwriting major. When he’s not reviewing movies, he’s writing about Halloween costumes.

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So there you have it Voorheesians, vampires are gay, Hitchcock might’ve swung wider than a pendulum and, well we all knew Elm Street 2 was one big pride parade, didn’t we?

Trade-a-Life II

Sometimes when watching a slasher pic there’ll be a nice person who dies and I’ll be sad about it for ten or twelve minutes. In recent years horror’s insistence that all people bar heroes are tossers has meant this is rarely the case anymore but way-back-when it wasn’t uncommon for sympathetic victims to pile up along with their more promiscuous, pot-smoking, more sinful buddies. It smarts more if someone who damn well should’ve been turned into a giant pin cushion makes it out unscathed.

Hence, here are three such examples where I’d gladly play God and swap one of the survivors for someone who bought the farm… Humongous spoilers follow.

THE PROWLER

Joseph Zito’s nihilistic little splatter movie may be largely a bore-fest punctuated by some excellent grue but it did offer up a strange little moment of trickery where a teen boy and girl, who I’m calling HornySexCouple for lack of a better understanding of their purpose, creep away from supervision to do the dirty in the basement. A classic slasher flick error.

Meanwhile, nice teech Miss Allison (Donna Davis) goes to look for a missing (and in fact dead) student. The camera cuts between both parties challenging us to guess who’s gonna get it. We watch from behind blurry foreground objects HornySexCouple get in on while Miss Allison discovers a bloody pool where the now-dead chick was slashed up.

Alas, Miss Allison is hijacked on the way back to safety by the killer and gets a blade to the neck while HornySexCouple, it turns out, were being watched by the local perv rather than the psycho. A cruel trick on a nice character.

HornySexCouple were just non-dimensional fodder who would’ve bolstered the rather low body count and Miss Allison should’ve lived to twirl another day in her delightful pink-with-black-shapes dress.

SLEEPAWAY CAMP III: TEENAGE WASTELAND

I actually have nothing against eventual Tiffany-lite heroine Marcia (Tracy Griffith, Mel’s half-sis), she who along with Tony (Mark Oliver), are the only campers at Camp New Horizons who make it out in one piece after puritanical transsexual psycho-loon Angela does away with the rest, who are participating in a meeting of the privileged and not-so youths in an “exercise of sharing.”

Tony is from the less-privileged group, while Marcia is middle class all the way, and herein lies my objection: bad guys can survive but final girls almost always have to be good, moralistic and girly. So I champion Arab (Jill Terashita) as the preferred choice to Marcia.

Arab has ‘tude, silky long hair and a bitchin’ leather jacket. She’d have kicked Angela’s ass if she hadn’t fallen for her trick and lost her head in the process. In fact, looking back at the film, Arab didn’t actually commit any particular ‘sin’ of the type Angela is always so keen to act on.

Although, I should point out neither can hold a candle to Sleepaway Camp II‘s final girl, Molly, played by the lovely Renee Estevez.

FRIDAY THE 13TH (the remake)

Were you sad when final-girl-for-most-of-it Jenna (Danielle Panabaker) became nothing more than a bit of meat stuck to the end of Jason’s machete? Even though I saw her demise coming, it was still a rare ‘awww’ moment for a Friday film, where characters seldom graduate beyond well-trodden stereotypes who we don’t care much about.

Why swap her with Clay, you ask? Well, I loves me some Amanda Righetti in The Mentalist so I can’t bring myself to trade her in for Jenna but then I thought, why couldn’t there have been two final girls for like the first time ever (unless you count Bloody Murder 2 or the Scream movies)?

There’s nothing wrong with Jared Padalecki as the lead but in Jason movies, the main character should really be a girl who channels some inner-Xena to kick ass. A 6’4″ buff guy doesn’t quite press the right buttons but on this one I’m fairly forgiving and it’s clear that Chewie (Aaron Yoo) was the best character by a mile anyway.

Yes? No? Still reeling from my inclusion of Alice last time? Leave me a comment and let’s duke it out.

Pant-Soiling Scenes #17: FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2

My earliest Friday related memory is seeing a TV spot for a Halloween showing of The Final Chapter when I was in Florida circa 1989: it featured the scene where Jason bursts through the window and grabs Corey Feldman and also the re-used footage of the campfire tale from the opening montage. I was only about 10 so couldn’t watch.

Years later when I became dependent on an almost daily Friday-fix, I kept expecting these scenes to show up. Neither were in Part 1 (and I was also staggered to find that neither was Jason!) and by the time I saved up for my VHS of Part 2 I was to find that that window scene was also absent. The Final Chapter would turn out to be the last of the original films I tracked down. But…the creepy campfire story, it was present along with some of the most effective jump-scares I’ve ever encountered…

And so it comes to this: my favourite scene in any movie ever. I love this moment so much. Sure, it’s predictable now but the first two or three times I watched it, it succeeded in making me jump outta my skin.

Ginny hides from bag-headed (and so even creepier) Jason in a bathroom that can’t be locked. The soundtrack maintains a tense string note that seems to go on forever as she listens through the door and slowly…sloooowly…reaches for the window… As Vera Dika’s dissection of how these films work keyed in on, we wonder where Jason might’ve gotten to in the meantime. Oh, you’ll find out!

The fact that Amy Steel is without a doubt the best final girl in the history of the genre aids this remarkably well choreographed scene and those that follow as she runs past the camera and into another room. These films might’ve been cheap but they were certainly not hack jobs made up of rubbish edits, crappy synths and ketchup squirts – some real craft went into making them tense and, in the case of this scene, downright frightening, something all too absent in todays boardroom-produced box-ticking exercices that pass for horror.

Read my full review for further ranting.

Who killed Cock Robin, possums?

CASSANDRA

2.5 Stars  1987/18/89m

“Cassandra can see the future, you may not want to!”

Director: Colin Eggleston / Writers: Eggleston, John Ruane & Chris Fitchett / Cast: Tessa Humphries, Briony Behets, Shane Briant, Lee James, Susan Barling, Kit Taylor, Tim Burns.

Body Count: 5


Available on video cassette. We’ll never see those words at the foot of a movie poster again, likely. I miss the 80s. Let’s all grow our hair into dried out bouffants and pretend we’re still there. In Australia. Being stalked.

Dream over, this arty export from down under from the producer of 1980’s Stage Fright (a.k.a. Nightmares) mixes wannabe-Argento stylings with the plot of The Initiation, which sounds a bit like swirling bechamel sauce around with ice cream. Ugh.

Things begin creepily enough with the suicide of a young woman as witnessed by a small child, seemingly at the command of an evil little boy to the sounds of a siren-like score, further proving that children are, in fact, inherently evil. This is the dream that torments titular heroine, Cassandra – the daughter of a fashion photographer who is having an affair with his pregnant model.

When Cassandra discovers them together, the family portrait begins to crack. Then the model is murdered, accompanied by a message in her mirror that reads; “Who killed Cock Robin?” – child-like dialogue from the nightmare. Weird. Cassandra finds sanctuary in the company of her friend Robert and later discovers that her parents are, in truth, siblings and the woman who committed suicide in the dream was her birth mum.

Meanwhile, the knife-toting killer does away with a few others, including a good decapitation with a shovel, before we reach the disappointingly anti-climactic finale in which the obvious conclusive elements are revealed to an audience who figured it out twenty minutes earlier. Well, all of it bar the Cock Robin references anyway.

Cassandra is a prime example of those weird Australian horror movies you get every now and then. They make the most of the often never ending landscapes that just ring the dread and fear bells long n’ loud with the abject nothingness of life beyond city limits. It’s ambitious, littered with visual trickery that peaks during the stalking sequences around the photo studio and is let down mostly by a slack first half hour and the predictable ending. They should’ve tried a bit harder to conceal the killer’s identity, which is made all the more glaringly evident by the limited number of characters. Like all arty horror things, nice to look at but a bit skeletal otherwise.

Blurbs-of-interest: Briony Behets was in Stage Fright. Lead actress Tessa Humphries is the daughter of Barry Humphries, better known as Dame Edna Everidge. Colin Eggleston also directed Innocent Prey, which also featured Kit Taylor.

Trade-a-Life

Sometimes when watching a slasher pic there’ll be a nice person who dies and I’ll be sad about it for ten or twelve minutes. In recent years horror’s insistence that all people bar heroes are tossers has meant this is rarely the case anymore but way-back-when it wasn’t uncommon for sympathetic victims to pile up along with their more promiscuous, pot-smoking, more sinful buddies. It smarts more if someone who damn well should’ve been turned into a giant pin cushion makes it out unscathed.

Hence, here are three such examples where I’d gladly play God and swap one of the survivors for someone who bought the farm… Humongous spoilers follow.

THE BURNING

Yeah, that’s right – let’s switch whiny Peeping Tom Alfred (Brian Backer) – who somehow survives! – for shy, well-meaning but slightly naive Karen (Carolyn Houlihan), she with whom we become acquainted early on, tricking us into believing she’ll be the one to face off with Cropsy. That is, until she disrobes in full view of the camera and gets her throat cut with his pointy shears in a particularly spiteful demise.

I’m all for Final Boys every now and then but Alfred ain’t got it – he is saved by Todd anyway, who does most of the legwork, and adds almost nothing to the mix and should’ve gotten the shear blades through the nuts for his penchant for perving.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER

This could be an unpopular one as Alice (Lisa Wilcox) successfully took on Freddy Krueger not once, but twice and lived to tell the tale. However, after the ass-kicking Nancy and Patricia Arquette’s Kristen, it’s like the writers of The Dream Master dug out an old American Gothic painting and decided the heroine should be all dowdy and feeble. So yeah, she grows a pair and wins the war later on but I’d rather have seen uber-dork Sheila (Toy Newkirk) take that journey.

She of oversized glasses and a sort of Janet Jackson-lite ensemble, Sheila may be even weaker than Alice Plain n’ Tall at the offset but would undoubtedly be the kind of black final girl we’ve been in need of for so many years: smart, sweet and unassuming.

HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION

Conversely, I think a lot of people who watched the eighth Halloween movie through distraught eyes would’ve been happy with anyone surviving in place of Busta Rhymes, who surfs a wave of cliches through the movie until only he and willowy heroine Sara are left alive.

But let us look to Rudy (Sean Patrick Thomas) who isn’t given much to do in the film but thankfully is not turned into a ghetto stereotype by the script. Instead, Rudy and his gal pals merrily join the webcast group and he’s smart enough to toss spices into Michael Myers’ eyes – something that hadn’t been tried before – shame it didn’t work though… In any other movie, the guy who tries to use martial arts or some other physical skill to best the killer (see Julius in Friday the 13th Part VIII for example) is usually swatted away like a gnat – unless he’s a well-known “musician” who probably only signed on with a clause that he wasn’t killed off. Boooo.

Agree? Disagree? Someone I missed? Drop a comment and let me know!

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