(August, 1968)
And, to be frank, with no trace of the usual ham, I think this portrayal of the dastardly inquisitor, Matthew Hopkins, is one of the most arresting performances of Vincent Price's storied career. As was also AIP's modus operandi back then, The Conqueror Worm was sent out as a double-bill. And keeping up with the nonsensical approach, it was released with the Fabian-fueled stock car epic, The Wild Racers.
The Conqueror Worm (1968) Tigon-American International / D: Michael Reeves / W: Tom Baker, Michael Reeves / C: John Coquillon / E: Howard Lanning / P: Lou Heyward, Arnold Miller, Philip Waddilove, Tony Tenser, Sam Arkoff / S: Vincent Price, Hilary Heath, Ian Ogilvy, Rupert Davies
The Wild Racers (1968) American International / D: Daniel Haller / W: Max House / C: Néstor Almendros / E: Verna Fields / P: Roger Corman, Joel Rapp / S: Fabian, Mimsy Farmer, Alan Haufrect
(May, 1972)
And, with that, we'll wrap up our Stalk-n-Slashinema retrospective. Up next: Remember that Drive-In double feature of The Exorcist and Cahill U.S. Marshall, well, I found one that's even MORE mind-blowing than that mismatched combo. Stay tuned.
(January, 1985)
Wow. Didn't realize that the Friday the 13th franchise was up to Part V, already, before Freddy Kreuger finally showed up in A Nightmare on Elm Street ... Often vilified by franchise fans the Vth and Jason-less entry in The Friday the 13th canon has been gaining some traction lately in a lot of circles, and is being remembered with more fondness as opposed to well, that sucked. Originally intended to star Corey Feldman, who couldn't since he was shooting The Goonies, and with every intention to let Jason remain dead and replace him with Tommy Jarvis, director Danny Steinmann was charged to deliver a whodunit with a shock or death every 7 to 8 minutes. Once completed, the film was subsequently hammered by the MPAA, who really started to crack down on these slashers after the much publicized outcry over the Christmas ruination of Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984). 16 separate scenes had to be watered down, and it took nine submission attempts before Paramount finally got their R-rating. A direct sequel was planned with Tommy taking up the mask but the fans ultimately rejected this notion and Jason Vorhees was destined to return in Part VI.
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) Georgetown Productions Inc.-Paramount / D: Danny Steinmann / W: Martin Kitrosser, David Cohen, Danny Steinmann / C: Stephen L. Posey / P: Frank Mancuso Jr., Timothy Silver / S: John Shepherd, Melanie Kinnaman, Shavar Ross
(January, 1985)"It was a series of articles in the LA Times, three small articles about men from South East Asia, who were from immigrant families and had died in the middle of nightmares—and the paper never correlated them, never said, ‘Hey, we’ve had another story like this."
-- Wes Cravenxx
Those newspaper articles in question were about Cambodian refugees, who had fled from Pol Pot's bloody and devastating Khmer Rouge, which makes it doubly ironic with Nightmare on Elm Street being paired with Roland Joffé's The Killing Fields. According to the stories, several men refused to sleep, citing overwhelming nightmares -- and when they finally did, they apparently died in their sleep; the victims of acute heart failure. That's right: they were literally scared to death by their dreams. Dubbed Asian Death Syndrome, these sudden, unexplained, and lethal phenomena were also attributed to a combination of Post-Traumatic stress and a genetic disorder known as Brugada Syndrome, the leading cause of SUDS, kinda the adult version of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Combine that notion with a haunting pop song by Gary Wright and an old high school bully named Fred Krueger, and, well, here ya go.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Smart Egg Pictures-New Line Cinema / D: Wes Craven / W: Wes Craven / C: Jacques Haitkin / P: Stanley Dudelson, Joseph Wolf, Robert Shaye / S: Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, John Saxon, Robert Englund
(May, 1984)
(May, 1984)
(June, 1983)
(August, 1968)
