Monday, March 18, 2024

A Quick Look: A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3 DREAM WARRIORS (1987-color)


    In the 80's cycle of slasher horror, one franchise stood apart with a degree of intelligence and special effects, although the series could be hit or miss. Wes Craven delivered a superior horror epic called A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET which did boffo box office. In it, teenager Nancy found her friends being bumped off by supernatural killer Fred Kruger, a murderer who had been killed by the parents of his victims only to come back in their dreams as a monster which could kill them in reality. A sequel film, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART 2, FREDDY'S REVENGE, found Kruger trying to take over the body of the young man who had moved into Nancy's old room in an effort to exit the dream world and step into our world. This one was pretty good too, as 80's monster movies go, but New Line Cinema felt it wasn't quite on par. Craven was brought back to provide the script for the third entry, which stands as the high water mark of the series.


   Heather Langenkamp returns as Nancy, now a dream psychologist who discovers Kruger is again trying to slay the teenage children of Elm Street. Said kids have been gathered at an asylum to which Nancy enters the staff. With nobody but Nancy willing to believe the truth of the situation -that the kids can't risk going to sleep lest they be horribly slain by Kruger, the gang must unite to defeat the bogey man. This is possible thanks to one of the inmates, a young lady who has the power to actually pull others into her dreams.


   This was easily the best entry in the series, not to be matched until Wes Craven and Heather Langenkamp, along with John Saxon, returned for WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE -which was a stand-out bit of fiction that fizzled at the box office possibly due to it's being too intelligent. Meanwhile, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3, DREAM WARRIORS stands as one of the best horror movies of the 80's, and certainly one of the better sequels offered up by a decade noted for it's numerous sequels. (In fact, as a kid, that was how I figured a series was a success or a flop: if it reached a third entry.)

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

What if...?


    What if Cartoon Cuties had been a Saturday morning show back in the 80's? Is this what Crissy and Roger would've looked like?

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

A Quick Look at TV: PIGGSBURG PIGS


    Here's an obscure one. Produced in 1990 for the Fox Network, this was one of the last classic shows from Ruby-Spears. It was an odd one, too. Basically, it was a funny animal version of a classic Archie-style teen comedy -with monsters. 

 

   Somewhere along the coast, evidently in California, was Piggsburg -a town populated entirely by cartoon pigs. It bordered a gloomy forest region called The Forbidden Zone, and was prone to visitation by monsters of all variety. The first episode involved body-snatching mummies from outer space! The main characters were the Bacon brothers. Bo was the regular guy supported by his more comedic brothers Portly (modeled on Curly Howard) and Pighead (based on Art Carney). They had a pet duck named Quackers (the pigs had fowl as pets rather than dogs). Portly and Pighead competed for the affection of their friend Dotty, while Bo favored a blonde piggette named Lorelei. Also interested in Lorelei was rich-but-shallow snob Rembrandt Proudpork. Others in the regular cast included frequent babysitting subjects children Piggy, Pokey, and Prissy. Piggy and Pokey were troublemakers who loved to pull pranks on the others, Prissy their sweet sister who tried to keep peace. Peripheral to all this was a pair of wolves named Huff and Puff, who kept trying to snare Piggsburg citizens in order to eat them. Fortunately, their attempts usually backfired with the pigs being entirely unaware that the wolves were even on the scene. 

 

   For some reason, Piggsburg was a magnet for the supernatural, with monsters frequently trying to invade and use the city as a base for world conquest. All this was evidently set in the real world, too, and the characters occasionally interacted with human beings. Unfortunately, they tended to be mad scientists and the like. The results felt akin to the old Bowery Boys pictures in a way. Strange as it sounds, it could be a pretty good show. It didn't quite catch on, however, and was cancelled in the first season. Only 13 episodes were made, and they remain difficult to find. The only known DVD release was in the UK, which consisted of but six episodes spread over three disks.

Saturday, February 17, 2024

A Quick Look: HOMEBODIES (1974-color)


    One of the quirkiest flicks I've run across. HOMEBODIES tells the story of a group of elderly folk who live in a condemned building in a city slum area. The block is being cleared for an industrial project by it's owner, but the tenets of this building refuse to move out of their familiar surroundings. When an accident causes delay in construction of a new skyscraper, the elders begin arranging for more accidents to keep their building standing a little longer... One oddball picture. It's opening sequences imply it's going to be about the hardships of the elderly in an uncaring world, but we eventually figure out that these people are just insane (standing in the way of progress out of selfishness more than anything else, but beyond being able to realize it). A weird one, to say the least, but I gotta admit that it kept me engaged. Plenty of familiar faces here, including Ian Wolfe, Peter Brocco, and Ken Tobey. An odd one you might not return to very soon, but intriguing in it's own quirky way.

Daisy Duck, Pinup Girl?














 

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

A Quick Look: THRILLER (1983-color)


    Say what you will about Michael Jackson, he certainly earned his title of The King Of Pop in the 80's. Truly, the Jackson sound defined 80's pop music. Once a member of the Jackson Five, Michael embarked on a solo career which produced hit after hit and really defined the new entertainment form of the music video (while the format went back to the dawn of the cinematic age, it really became a force in the opulent 80's). Still considered one of the best music videos ever made, THRILLER was an ambitious project directed by John Landis, co-written by Landis and Jackson. The two-reeler was a tribute to classic monster movies, which is somewhat ironic as Jackson reportedly hadn't seen all that many monster flicks. (Despite his performance here, he thought the genre too scary!)


   The plot is fairly simple. We open with a sequence in which a young lady is shocked to discover her fella is a werewolf, but this turns out only to be a movie being viewed by Jackson and his girl (Playmate Ola Ray) at the theater. Despite the fact that the couple is IN the movie they're watching, she finds the picture more terrifying than enjoyable so Michael walks her home and begins singing the title tune to calm her down. Unfortunately, as they pass a cemetery, the corpses start crawling out of their graves. When they surround the couple, Michael becomes a zombie himself and leads the undead in an elaborately choreographed production number.


   Running a full 14 minutes, the film is an incredible work of art. Rick Baker (no relation) provides the make-up (amusingly, within the zombie horde is a fella meant to resemble Tor Johnson). Elmer Bernstein provides the "scary" music in between the song sequences. Vincent Price provides some spooky voice over during the scene where the zombies are emerging from their graves. Co-producing with Jackson is legendary music man Quincy Jones. Forry Ackerman and Charlton Heston are visible in the theater audience. The budget for the film, that was released theatrically, was five times what the average video cost. 


   Reportedly, it only took four days to shoot, which is pretty impressive. Jackson proves a decent actor as well as a great singer, although at this point he's already had his nose reduced beyond the point of no return (which makes his zombie makeup effective, but I could never figure why a singer would risk his craft by having his nose operated on -not that he was the first by any means, Dean Martin had his nose reduced and obviously his voice never suffered for it). Given his later escapades, it's difficult to praise his work with such relish, but there's no denying the incredible talent on display here.


   THRILLER remains one of the most popular music videos of all time, and like so many of Jackson's tunes from this period has you humming the song endlessly after hearing it.