Blog Archives
Clapboard Jungle | Do you have what it takes to survive the modern independent film business?
If you have ever thought about becoming an independent film-maker, then you must check this out first. Justin McConnell, who writes, directs and features, has worked as a film festival coordinator, as well as being a cinematographer and editor on heaps of featurettes you’ve probably seen as bonus content, and also directed a number of documentaries and helmed two features. But he has still yet to make his mark in this riskiest of businesses, where it has become harder and harder for independents to make a living due to media giant monopolisation and a market oversaturated with product.
Featuring interviews with a vast range of industry luminaries, Clapboard Jungle (which is available on ARROW from Monday 19 April) follows Justin’s personal journey over a five year period, exploring not only the nitty-gritty of the film business (from pitch to product) but also the physical and emotional strain that comes with it. It’s a fascinating insight and something of a survival guide for anyone brave enough to attempt themselves.
Once you have watched the documentary, I strongly urge you to check out the extended interviews which feature a roll call of some of our favourite cult heroes who all discuss their career highs and lows, and their place in the independent film world today. Poignantly, among them are Dick Miller, George Romeo and Larry Cohen, who are no longer with us – so these are very special indeed.
Clapboard Jungle is available from ARROW from Monday 19 April
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
• Audio commentary with Justin McConnell
• Crew commentary: Justin McConnell, co-producer Darryl Shaw, executive producer Avi Federgreen and editor/associate producer Kevin Burke)
• Guest commentary/panel discussion: Barbara Crampton, Richard Stanley, John McNaughton, Gigi Saul Guerrero and Adam Mason
• Deleted scenes with optional commentary by Justin McConnell
• Extended interviews: Anne-Marie Gélinas, Barbara Crampton, Brian Trenchard-Smith, Brian Yuzna, Charles Band, Corey Moosa, Dean Cundey, Dick Miller, Don Mancini, Frank Henenlotter, Gary Sherman, George Romero, George Mihalka, Guillermo Del Toro, John McNaughton, Jon Reiss, Larry Cohen, Larry Fessenden, Lloyd Kaufman, Mette-Marie Kongsved, Michael Biehn, Jennifer Blanc-Biehn, Mick Garris, Paul Schrader, Richard Stanley, Sam Firstenberg, Tom Holland, Tom Savini, Vincenzo Natali
• Documentaries: Working Class Rock Star (2008) and Skull World (2013)
• 13 short films with optional commentaries and intros
• Trailers, promos, photo gallery and Easter eggs
• Artwork by Ilan Sheady
• Collectors’ booklet featuring new writing by producer/director Brian Yuzna
From Beyond (1986) | Stuart Gordon’s deranged Lovecraftian body horror
Following Arrow Films’ restored release of Brian Yuzna’s Bride of Re-Animator, here’s a look back at his 1986 horror weird-o-fest, From Beyond.
Humans are such an easy prey
When two scientists, Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel) and Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs), invent a device that can expand the powers of the mind, they unwittingly open a door to a parallel universe inhabited by grotesque beings with an insatiable appetite for depraved sensorial experiences.
Having drawn on the warped imaginings of HP Lovecraft for their cult hit Re-Animator in 1985, director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna supped from Lovecraft’s universe the following year, and ended up turning his 1934 short story From Beyond into a Day-Glo monster melange oozing with slimy hybrid creatures (part-puppet, part-animatronics) that could be suitable companions to David Cronenberg’s Brundlefly (The Fly also came out in 1986).
While Gordon and Yuzna’s body horror doesn’t reach the giddy tongue-in-cheek heights of Re-Animator; From Beyond is a gross-out sensual delight that becomes something altogether new if you watched it as being a really bad acid trip.
In 2013, Second Sight put out Blu-ray edition in the UK. Aside from the pristine print, the release hosted a delicious array of bonus features, including interviews with director Stuart Gordon, writer Dennis Paoli and actress Barbara Crampton, featurettes on the film’s editing, music and (my favourite) special effects; plus an illuminating commentary from Gordon, producer Brian Yuzna and actor Jeffrey Combs.
Bride of Re-Animator (1990) | The ghoulishly fun sequel gets the deluxe restoration treatment from Arrow
From Arrow Films comes the 2k restoration of Brian Yuzna’s 1990 sequel to Stuart Gordon’s fan favourite on Blu-ray and DVD, plus a mausoleum’s worth of bonus material over three discs.
Just as soon as the end credits rolled on Re-Animator‘s gore-splattered finale back in 1985 (check out my review here), horror fans wanted more from Jeffrey Comb’s crazed Dr Herbert West and his ‘work’, and they got their wish when producer Yuzna – who helmed the melt-tastic satire Society in 1989 (check out my review here) – took to the director’s chair of what would become a worthy successor to the original cult classic (although critics might beg to differ).
Eight months after the Miskatonic Medical School massacre and after a spell as a medic in Peru, the obsessive Herbert West (Jeffrey Comb) continues his re-animation research back in Arkham when he comes across the heart of Megan Halsey – the deceased girlfriend of his unwitting accomplice, Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) – and decides to build a new Megan out of stolen body parts. But our heroes had better watch out, as the revived head of Dr Carl Hill (David Gale) – West’s rival and nemesis – has sprouted bat wings and hypnotic powers and has West’s ‘rejects’ under his control…
While Bride of Re-Animator may not hit all the right notes all the time, Yuzna’s Freaks-inspired climactic set-piece, boasting wonderfully warped SFX creations, is a batshit crazy horror ride that’s worth repeated viewing. And let’s not forget the scenery chewing turns of Combs and Gale, who come off like the bastard acid-tripping offspring of Colin Clive’s Henry Frankenstein and Ernest Thesiger’s Dr Pretorius. But more than anything, Yuzna’s quickly turned around horror comedy sequel proves that pure cine-magic can happen with a little imagination and ingenuity – and a fair helping of team spirit.
THE ARROW VIDEO BOX-SET
This new Arrow Video release includes director approved 2K restorations of the Unrated and R-Rated versions of the film on Blu-ray and DVD, with original Stereo 2.0 audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-rays) and optional English subtitles. The digipak, featuring artwork by Gary Pullin, contains a collector’s booklet and (in the limited edition) the Re-Animator: Dawn of the Re-Animator, the official comic book prequel to Re-Animator.
Disc 1 (Blu-ray) & Disc 2 (DVD) – Unrated Version
• Audio commentary with Brian Yuzna, Jeffrey Combs, special effects co-ordinator Thomas Rainone and the effects team.
• Audio commentary with Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbott.
• Brian Yuzna Remembers Bride of Re-Animator: New featurette making of featurette.
• Splatter Masters: The Special Effects Artists of Bride of Re-Animator: New featurette.
• Getting Ahead in Horror: Archive making-of featurette.
• Meg is Re-Animated: Deleted scene with behind-the-scenes footage.
• Carnival Sequence: The cast and crew discuss this excised sequence.
Disc 3 (Blu-ray) R-Rated Version – Limited Edition
• 2K restoration of the R-Rated version
• Behind-the-Scenes Reel
TRAILER
Society (1989) | Time to lube up! Brian Yuzna’s re-mastered slimy shock satire is a must-have on Blu-ray
‘You’re a different race from us, a different species, a different class… You have to be born into society’
Beverly Hills teenager Bill Whitney (Billy Warlock) has it all: good looks, popularity, a cheerleader (Heidi Kozak) for a girlfriend – and a bad girl (Devin DeVasquez) sniffing around. But he’s seeing a shrink about feeling disconnected from his power-dressing parents and their well-heeled friends. When an audiotape implicates his family in a sick incestuous orgy, Bill decides to investigate for the sake of his sanity. But lurking beneath the surface of his glossy suburban world lurks something far more sinister than he could ever have imagined…
‘The rich have always sucked off low-class shit like you’
Having won legions of horror fans around the world producing Re-Animator, From Beyond and Dolls in the mid-1980s, Brian Yuzna made his directorial debut with Society, a wildly original body horror shocker which has gone down in history as having one of the ickiest ‘climaxes’ ever conceived.
The film was made at a time when Reagan was passing the Republican baton to Bush Sr, Thatcher had Yuppie-fied Britian, and Dynasty and Dallas ruled the TV airwaves. Yep, the 1980s was all about money, power and privilege and Yuzna responded with this impressively vicious anti-establishment satire (which is still very relevant today) that plays like a flesh-melting horror version of Ferris Bueller meets Wall Street.
Not surprisingly, Yuzna’s lubed-up fist up at everything that America stands for didn’t go down well with US cinemagoers – when it eventually got a cinema release. They were also more shocked by Baywatch hunk Billy Warlock getting tongued by Tour of Duty‘s Ben Meyerson than by anything else in the climatic orgy scene in which all manner of aberrant sex and gender blurring went on. Thankfully, European audiences ‘got it’.
For me, this was the film to seek out when it landed in my local video store in the early 1990s, and it was just to see that outrageously inventive centrepiece. But I was hugely disappointed. Not by the SFX (which rocks) or the story (which is way ahead of its time), but by the terrible VHS print, which was all dark and muddy. So, it’s a big thumbs-up to Arrow whose specially commissioned 2k transfer looks bloody terrific – especially so in that all-important climax. I just can’t believe I’ve had to wait 25 years to see Yuzna’s insane masterpiece as it was meant to be. But it’s been worth the wait.
THE ARROW FILMS RELEASE
• Director approved restored and re-mastered 2K digital transfer, featuring original Stereo 2.0 audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray) and optional subtitles, available on Dual Format (Blu-ray and DVD)
• Audio commentary by Brian Yuzna NEW (very informative)
• Governor of Society – NEW interview with Yuzna (The best of the bunch).
• The Masters of the Hunt – NEW featurette including interviews with Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Ben Meyerson and Tim Bartell. (Candid and excellent)
• The Champion of the Shunt – NEW featurette with FX artists Screaming Mad George, David Grasso and Nick Benson (SFX fans rejoice!)
• Celluloid Screams Festival 2014 Q&A with Yuzna
• Society world premiere backstage conversation with Yuzna (Wow! Yuzna in top form)
• Persecution Mania – Screaming Mad George music video (I wanted more of these!)
• Limited Edition (3000 only) Digipak packaging featuring artwork by Nick Percival, collector’s booklet and the official comic sequel, Society: Party Animal.
Society also screens at the BFI Southbank on Thursday 16 July (8.30pm) and Sunday 19 July (6pm)
Re-Animator (1985) | Stuart Gordon’s cult comedy horror is back, kicking and screaming in gore-ious HD
Herbert West Has A Very Good Head On His Shoulders…
And Another One In A Dish On His Desk
Brilliant medical student Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) arrives at Miskatonic University and immediately clashes with the eminent Professor Hill (David Gale) over his views on brain death. Obsessed with his own radical theories, West concocts an adrenaline-like serum that will bring the dead back to life. Roping in idealistic student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) and Dan’s girlfriend Megan (Barbara Crampton), their shocking experiments work all too well, allowing limbs to move, heads to speak, corpses to go berserk and giant intestines to have a life of their own. Stealing the serum, the power crazed Dr Hill then plans to kidnap Megan for his own sick, perverted pleasure – and that’s after he gets his head chopped off. Barf bags at the ready!
IT WILL SCARE YOU TO PIECES
1985 was a great year for some cult-worthy zombie flicks. George A Romero’s Day of the Dead gave his original Living Dead trilogy a grim but superior send off, while The Return of the Living Dead (also available through Second Sight Films) was an inspired punk-fused spoof of the genre. But Re-Animator was a real game changer: a ghoulishly gruesome, outrageously funny thrill ride that rightfully deserves its place in the Horror Hall of Fame. Dripping in gallons of blood, gore and gallows humour, it’s the mad scientist flick that refuses to die and – beyond the shock value – still it holds it own thanks to the witty script, crazy camp performances, and audacious, eye-popping pre-CGI effects. It also propelled director Stuart Gordon, actor Jeffrey Combs and producer Brian Yuzna into horror fandom.
Inspired by Roger Corman’s Gothic Poe pictures starring Vincent Price, Gordon wanted to mine the stories of HP Lovecraft, beginning with his 1922 serial, Herbert West: Re-Animator, to launch his own series of films. But the path from script to screen ended up the stuff of horror cinema legend (check it out on the great Re-Animator Resurrectus extra on this release).
Shot over 22 arduous days, on a budget of just under US$1million, at the same crumbling LA studios that The Terminator was filmed at, Re-Animator was produced by new kid on the block, Brian Yuzna, but owned by Empire Pictures, whose owner Charles Band insisted on bringing in his own crew, including brother Richard, who supplied the film’s cult hit Psycho-inspired score.
Released unrated into US theatres to avoid any cuts by the censor, the gross-out comedy horror became an unexpected critical success at Cannes and quickly recouped its budget, landing Stuart Gordon a three-picture film deal with Empire – starting with From Beyond (also available from Second Sight Films), while its cult status was forever sealed when it was released onto home video (which is how most fans remember the film).
Empire later assembled an R-rated cut, which added 10 minutes to the running time. This (integral) version offers more in the way of character development (especially Dr Hill’s mind control abilities), but it also excised some of the films’ most memorable gore sequences. The Second Sight release presents both this version (great for completists), as well as a brand spanking new 4k print of the unrated version (for the purists), making this bona fide classic of the horror genre a must-have title for your horror collection.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
‘A livid, bloody, deadpan exercise in the theatre of the undead’
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times (Ebert famously championed the movie)
‘A jaw-dropping, steroid-loaded zombie masterpiece’
Glen, Kay, Zombie Movies; The Ultimate Guide
‘Morally offensive’
US Conference if Catholic Bishops Office for Films and Broadcasting
THE SECOND SIGHT FILMS RELEASE
Second Sight‘s Blu-ray Steelbook contains two versions of the gorefest and a bundle of extras (see below), while a two-disc DVD version is also available. The Region B Blu-ray transfer features the film in its 1.78:1 aspect ratio with 5.1 DTS-HD audio master and LPCM stereo option, while the DVD is coded Region 2 and features an 16:9 anamorphic widescreen print.
Disc One
• Unrated version – brand new 4K restoration
• Audio commentary with director Stuart Gordon
• Audio commentary with producer Brian Yuzna and actor Jeffrey Combs, Robert
Sampson, Barbara Crampton and Bruce Abbott
Disc Two
• Integral version (exclusive to Blu-ray)
• Re-Animator Resurrectus: This terrific 2007 documentary looks back at the making of the film with the cast and crew and pays homage to actor David Gale who died in 1991.
• A selection of talking head interviews from 2002 with Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna, writer Dennis Paoli, composer Richard Band and Fangoria editor Tony Timpone
• Extended scenes, deleted scene and trailers
• Behind-the-scenes gallery and production stills
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