Grim Prairie Tales

Grim Prairie Tales (1990) aka Hellbent

Dir. and written by Wayne Coe

Starring Brad Dourif, James Earl Jones, William Atherton

Somewhere in the American West during the only time period that movies about the American West are ever set in, a tightly-wound traveler in a city-slicker bowler (Brad Dourif, CHILD’S PLAY) encounters a bellicose bounty hunter (James Earl Jones, DR. STRANGELOVE, EXORCIST II, THE LION KING 2: SIMBA’S PRIDE) and the two end up around the campfire for a long night. They’re almost immediately at each others’ throats, but somehow can’t quite manage to get angry enough to part ways, and end up telling each other scary stories to pass the time. Their respective obnoxious characteristics mean that the more they tell, the more they provoke each other to taller tales. It’s a pretty standard setup for a horror anthology, but this extremely odd mash-up of Western iconography and anthology horror is anything but standard. It’s truly odd, its characters as one-of-a-kind as its weirdo genre mish-mash.

Dourif and Jones’s offbeat sniping is a thing of weirdo beauty, an unexpectedly enjoyable wrinkle for a horror anthology, which generally spend the minimum possible effort on both characterization and framing narratives. Both storytellers give deeply and proudly bizarre performances (particularly Jones, who gets most of the best lines. “I like to think of myself a philanderer,” he muses on the subject of marriage) and it’s a total joy to watch them go at it.

Man, how did they make it through this film without ever using "ghost riders in the sky?"

Unfortunately the stories they tell aren’t as interesting as the people telling them. I know, right? What kind of God allows a horror anthology where the framing narrative is the best part? In the first tale, an old man (Will Hare, who we encountered earlier in EYES OF FIRE) is ironically punished for desecrating an Indian burial ground. In the second, a young man (Marc McClure, Jimmy Olson in SUPERMAN II-IV)* tries to win over a shy, pregnant woman he finds wandering the wilderness, only to discover that things aren’t quite what they seem. In a third, a daughter (Wendy J. Cooke, “Alien” in COCOON) learns something about her loving father’s (William Atherton, for once playing a seemingly nice guy after a career playing assholes in everything from GHOSTBUSTERS to DIE HARD) darker side. Finally, a cold-hearted OCD gunslinger (Scott Paulin, THE RIGHT STUFF) is haunted by the ghost of a rival.

This would be an excellent cover for a Gordon Lightfoot album.

Usually with an anthology I’d go through and discuss each story separately, but there’s no need here because these stories each have the exact same strengths and the exact same problems. The strengths are good ones: they’re generally quite well appointed, with a more-competent-than-usual cast, a strong score (which ranges from classical piano to Carpenter-style electric drones to typical Western tributes to Morricone) and some lovely camerawork by frequent Spielberg cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (in only his second film in that capacity, before he would move on to the likes of SCHINDLER’S LIST**). Kaminski in particular deserves some credit for painting the Old West with an unusually colorful palette; often Westerns are all about dusty earth tones and sepia nostalgia, but here we see the West in rich blues and greens, the first sequence in particular highlighting an eerie, alienly beautiful sunset which turns the impossibly huge sky into something surreal and mysterious. Oh! And the final section as a brief but really cool animated sequence, gotta like that. So everything looks nice*** and generally seems competently made. But these stories have one problem, and it’s a big one. They’re not very interesting.

Let me get that for you! People in the old west sure are helpful!

Here’s the issue: director Wayne Coe (no other credits of any kind, but his IMDB bio claims he’s primarily a storyboard artist and credit-sequence designer to some major films, including SEVEN, ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, and ARGO. Oh, and that he designed the poster for BACK TO THE FUTURE) either doesn’t understand or chooses to deliberately ignore how horror shorts usually work. Short fiction is the perfect format for a setup and payoff: a brief introduction to the characters and world, a hint of conflict, and then, WHAMMY, they pull the rug out from under you. There’s an unexpected twist, or a character is ironically punished, or the context abruptly shifts -- in other words, a conclusion that plays off the setup in some unexpected thematic way. But these stories here, by and large, simply do not have those elements, and to the extent they do, the tone and the structure is all wrong. A few characters do get punished, but the things that happen to them seem unsatisfyingly unrelated to their sins, there’s no real payoff for the setup and the details of their respective stories. There’s not a narrative structure that leads to a cathartic conclusion, it’s just a short tale of someone who seems to more or less randomly encounter a strange death. And in the case of Atherton’s story, there seems to be no ending at all. The story finds nice-guy dad Atherton unexpectedly drawn into a lynch mob, which horrifies his daughter when she catches sight of it. He swears things aren’t what they seem, that he had good reason, that she just doesn’t understand. Very interesting, so what’s actually going on here, what, are these guys vampires or something? Well, they never tell us. Daughter decides she loves him anyway, and that’s the end of the story. Wha? Was that the conflict we were looking at here? Fundamentally, the problem is that Coe seems to misunderstand the way narrative conflict actually works, and so the stories all feel formless and unsatisfying, ending abruptly just when it seems like thing might be getting interesting.

On the other hand, look at these frames from the animated sequence in the last segment and try and tell me you don't want to see this:

So, I dunno, I kinda enjoyed them anyway. They’re narratively sloppy but they also feel unexpected and sort of intriguing, even if they don’t really pay off. They’re mostly not really scary as much as strange and macabre, and you definitely miss the usual denouement part of a horror short where they drop the other shoe and make you realize how clever they’ve been. They have their moments, though; several have some strong atmosphere (mostly courtesy of the fine photography) and they generally take themselves fairly seriously, an odd decision in contrast to the hilarious framing story but welcome nonetheless (the big exception being the second, shortest tale, which ends up being a ridiculous and tastelessly amusing shaggy dog). I don’t blame the world for finding this a hard one to love, but as a strange little genre experiment it offers plenty of offbeat charm if you can overlook its narrative shortcomings. And even if you can’t, at least fast forward through it and check out the parts with Dourif and Jones. Come on, when are you gonna see that pairing again? His IMDB bio claims Coe wrote a sequel, maybe someday there’s a chance, I mean, DUMB AND DUMBER just got a sequel, so you never know. Maybe ditch the horror anthology format next time and just make it a buddy-cop comedy in the old West, with Dourif and Jones mismatched buddies riding around solving mysteries, searching for a better set of stories than they have at their disposal here.

*Also Dave McFly in BACK TO THE FUTURE, which had a small role for Will Hare as well.

**Haha, I just noticed he was also the DP on COOL AS ICE, the Vanilla Ice movie. That’s gotta be even more embarrassing than GRIM PRAIRIE TALES.

*** Slight proviso: I watched this on a VHS fullscreen version that looked like it was playing directly from a potato. That seems to be the only available version so be warned, the transfer is terrible and sometimes so dark as to be literally unintelligible. Presumably it looked good on film, though.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2014 CHECKLIST!

The Hunt For Dread October

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No
• SEQUEL: None, although IMDB say Coe wrote one.
• REMAKE: Ha. Not likely.
• FOREIGNER: Nope
• FOUND-FOOTAGE CLUSTERFUCK: No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: James Earl Jones?
• BELOVED HORROR ICON: Brad Dourif
• BOOBIES: None.
• SEXUAL ASSAULT: No.
• DISMEMBERMENT PLAN: None
• HAUNTED HOUSE: No
• MONSTER: None
• THE UNDEAD: Nope
• POSSESSION: No
• SLASHER/GIALLO: No
• PSYCHO KILLERS (Non-slasher variety): No
• EVIL CULT: nah
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: No dolls.
• TRANSMOGRIFICATION: During the animated dream sequence, a guy imagines himself transformed into a bullet.
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: Extremely high. No official DVD release, quickly forgotten at the time.
• MORAL OF THE STORY: If James Earl Jones starts to tell you a story, you fucking shut up and listen to him, even if he gets to rambling.
• TITLE ACCURACY: The cringy pun notwithstanding, these Prairie tales are indeed grim, if not necessarily terrifying.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A

I was almost tempted to go with four, since there's plenty of fun to be had here, especially with Jones and Dourif. But I cannot in good conscience do it, the stories here are just slightly too weak for that to feel right. Still, call it a strong 3, a C+, nearly a B-.

Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat

Sundown: Vampire in Retreat (technically 1989, released on video in 1991)

Dir. Anthony Hickox

Written by John Burgess and Anthony Hickox

Starring Morgan Brittany, Jim Metzler, David Carradine, Bruce Campbell, M. Emmet Walsh, John Ireland, Dana Ashbrook, Deborah Foreman, Maxwell “Texas Holden” Caulfield, George Buck Flowers

Despite the awkward title, SUNDOWN: A VAMPIRE IN RETREAT is pretty good, a fun, silly vampire-western-action-comedy romp. Since it’s pretty much the only movie in history to fit that particular description, I’ll even be bold and can call it one of the best vampire-western-action-comedies ever made. To quote Abraham Lincoln, “Whatever you are, be a good one.” Actually now that I think about it Lincoln himself recently starred in a vampire-western-action-(comedy?) which was pretty good itself, so he definitely knew what he was talking about there.

Sittin' pretty.

S:aViR has kind of a hard plot to describe, because it’s sort of an ensemble piece, there’s a ton of different characters each with their own agendas and conflicts, they kind of overlap loosely as they run around the isolated desert town of Purgatory, which is entirely run by vampires hoping to live a more peaceful existence. It’s kinda like NASHVILLE, but with vampires, and also not in Nashville. And worse music, but more karate. The vampiric town is run by the ridiculously named Count Mardulak* (David Carradine, DEATH RACE 2000, and also every other movie from 1966-2012) as a kind of refuge for vampires who are tired of the whole being a vampire thing and want to settle down for a quiet, less murderous life. They’ve combated their vulnerability to the sun with heavy sunscreen and dark glasses, and are developing synthetic blood to make sure everyone stays fed without needing a constant supply of victims. But their dickish head chemist Shane (Maxwell Caulfied, Rex Manning in EMPIRE RECORDS) is having problems with the formula, and requires the help of David Harrison (Jim Metzler, minor roles in 967-EVIL and ONE FALSE MOVE, even more minor ones in LA CONFIDENTIAL and UNITED STATES OF LELAND), a clueless human who bumbles into town incorrectly assuming that the worst of his problems is that years ago, Shane happened to have an affair with his wife (Morgan Brittany, Love Boat, Dallas, The Dukes of Hazzard, Fantasy Island…pretty much every cheesy TV show the 80’s could produce, plus now she’s obviously qualified to appear regularly on Sean Hannity’s show too). Also, there’s a Robert Van Helsing (Bruce Campbell**, MANIAC COP 2) suspiciously snooping around and worrying everyone, but it turns out Purgatory’s biggest problems may come from within.

This is just screaming to be turned into a meme.

Like I said, that’s a ton of plot and characters, and there are a bunch more I didn’t even mention (M. Emmett Walsh and Dana Ashbrook and John Ireland and Deborah Foreman are all in there too!). But the strength of S:aViR isn’t in narrative, it’s in the tone and performances. It’s not an out-and-out comedy but it has a nicely light-hearted adventurous tone, the sort of thing you used to get back in the days when it seems like every movie didn’t need to target a niche as directly as they do now. It's offbeat and sometimes vaguely flirting with surrealism, perhaps trying to evoke Twin Peaks (which peaked in popularity as SUNDOWN was being produced) but maybe a little too silly and schlocky and cheerful to bother with the darker undercurrents of that series.

It has some delightfully funny moments; every time a strange human comes around, the vamps have to pretend to be a normal American town and some of them don't have a whole lot of experience at this. You gotta laugh at their confusion over how to portray ordinary diner customers (many haven't eaten human food in hundreds of years, so they're a bit out of practice as to what this would look like). That's pretty clever, how have I never seen that idea in a vampire movie before? The movie doesn't even have to go blue to get laughs. In fact, save for a couple of not-very-graphic beheadings and one inexplicable flash of full-frontal male nudity this could have been a perfect one for youngsters just starting to get into horror, with its broad characters, colorful cast and cheerful but action-packed story. Along the lines of NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, or GREMLINS or something. Horror movies which take their plots and characters seriously, but are more interested in having fun with their clever concepts than they are in proving how hardcore they are. Director Anthony Hickox (son of famed British B-movie director Douglas Hickox) also managed to capture that feeling pretty well with his slightly better-known WAXWORKS and WAXWORKS II: LOST IN TIME, though unfortunately it seems like his career went downhill after this, stagnating in HELLRAISER III (better than it’s rep, but still problematic) and nosediving into the unwatchable with SUBMERGED (one of Steven Seagal’s worst films, and that’s really saying something) and a DTV crime film starring Eddie Griffin and Breckin Meyer, why not. Oh well, at least we’ll always have the late 80’s.

Big hug!

There’s some pacing issues here, and the fact that the various characters and plotlines don’t always overlap very much makes the whole thing (especially the climax) feel a little looser than it should. But it’s a fun ride, completely charming all the way through. My only gripe (SPOILERS) is the way the conflict between Shane, David, and his wife is resolved. Wifey had an affair with Shane previously (which she greatly regrets), and now the guy has designs on her again. It would be nice if the conflict was about giving her a chance to definitively reject the jerk and take back some control of her life, but instead the movie sees the conflict as being between the two men. It’s David who has the defeat the guy and claim the prize (his wife), while she remains a somewhat passive victim. Kind of sexist in my opinion (not to mention less satisfying), but hey, the 90’s were a less enlightened time. (END SPOILER). But don’t be turned off by that minor complaint; mostly this is a fun, breezy ride featuring great characters and some clever twists and remixes of an old formula. Sadly American audiences never got to fall in love with it because it never made it to theaters and languished unreleased til it unceremoniously hit video a few years later. Too bad, because this is exactly the sort of cheerful romp which we sorely need a dozen or so DTV sequels for. Like I said, there ain’t too many vampire-western-horror-comedy-action joints out there, so America, I call upon you to posthumously give some love to this movie, one of the bold, the few.

*I hypothesized that his name is a phonetic rendering of traditional Romanian boogieman the vârcolac, but I can’t be sure. Could be a Marmaduke reference too, I guess.

**Campbell, only a year or two off EVIL DEAD 2, hams it up so tenaciously that I’d advise Jews, Muslims and vegetarians to avoid watching him, just to be safe. He’s fun, but seems a little out of place here amongst a plethora of veteran character actors who all get as much or more mileage out of playing it straight than Campbell does going way over the top. For the inevitable remake, I hope they get him back --now a veteran character actor himself-- for another go-round, maybe as one of M. Emmett Walsh's brothers? See below:

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2014 CHECKLIST!

The Hunt For Dread October

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No, there is a reference to Dracula, though.
• SEQUEL: None, tragically
• REMAKE: None, they should totally do one though.
• FOREIGNER: Nope
• FOUND-FOOTAGE CLUSTERFUCK: No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: None, but tons of veteran character actors. John Ireland was once nominated for an Academy award, but by this point in his career was probably not "A" list
• BELOVED HORROR ICON: David Carradine, M. Emmet Walsh, Bruce Campbell
• BOOBIES: No, full frontal male nudity, though
• SEXUAL ASSAULT: Yep
• DISMEMBERMENT PLAN: Beheadings!
• HAUNTED HOUSE: No
• MONSTER: No
• THE UNDEAD: Vampires!
• POSSESSION: Seems like I remember the vampires using their Vampire-y hypnotism.
• SLASHER/GIALLO: Nah
• PSYCHO KILLERS (Non-slasher variety): Yeah
• EVIL CULT: Not exactly
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: No dolls
• TRANSMOGRIFICATION: Man becomes vampire, vampire becomes adorable stop-motion bat.
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: High. Never hit theaters, snuck onto video 2 years after its "premier."
• MORAL OF THE STORY: Never take a mysterious job in an isolated town named after a realm of the undead to help your wife's ex-lover use science to create synthetic blood. You would think that would be obvious, but some guys just gotta learn the hard way.
• TITLE ACCURACY: Clunky as it is, I suppose it's basically accurate. The town is a "retreat" for vampires to escape the modern world, and sundown is an important time of day for them.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A

A little too loose to earn a five-thumb medal, but a strong B+.

The Burrowers

The Burrowers (2008)
Dir. J.T. Petty
Written by J.T. Petty
Starring Karl Geary, William Mapother, Sean Patrick Thomas, Clancy Brown, Doug Hutchinson

Actually a pretty damn good attempt to make a period horror film, even if for a long time it does sort of seem like a classy remake of TREMORS 4: THE LEGEND BEGINS.

There’s not a ton to say about it, but it’s a well-cast, carefully filmed, and unique little gem of a horror film which genuinely shows you something different and cool without being gimmicky and self-conscious about it. It makes good but subtle subtext out of it’s post-civil-war western setting and uses it to milk some good isolation horror out of the vast, hostile expanse its characters traverse. It even has a really unique badass character played by noted Tom Cruise cousin William Mapother (so good in ANOTHER EARTH, too). Mapother plays a gritty frontier badass, but he’s not some kind of John Wayne mythic type. He’s down with the Indians, but only knows enough of their language to barely get by. He’s familiar with death enough to not be shocked by a creepy corpse, but when someone asks if she’s been raped he snaps, “how the hell would I know?” He’s not a forensics expert, I guess. He’s a good guy to have around when shit goes down, but he’s pretty honest that if it comes down to him or you, it’s gonna be him. I like that.

I also like the burrowers themselves, which look like a cross between grasshoppers and cadavers. They have a particularly horrible method of killing you that I won’t spoil here, suffice to say it raises all kind of red flags for claustrophobics. Unfortunately the film doesn’t quite have the budget to make them move as fast and scary as it obviously wants to, but come on guys you can use your imagination on a movie which is otherwise this good. The only thing that’s a bit of a letdown in the climax, where it seems like our hero wins out way too easily. Fuckin' burrowers got to step up their game a little if they’re gonna keep up with the Graboids.

Still, this is an uncommonly well-made and well-imagined period horror film, maybe even the best one I’ve seen in many a year (better, for instance than DEAD BIRDS or RAVENOUS, which are trying to something similar). Director J.T. Petty (S&MAN) sprinkles just enough well-composed shots, convincing scenes, and original ideas to make me think he’s probably the real thing. Hell, he even got a pretty convincing Tom Waits knock-off for the closing credits, which demonstrates his genuine commitment to quality, even if it has to be budget-conscious quality. Give this kid some money and let him make something really wild.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2012 CHECKLIST!

LOVECRAFT ADAPTATION: No.
BOOBIES: Don't think so.
> or = HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS LEVEL GORE: At least one good limb-ripper.
SEQUEL: No.
OBSCURITY LEVEL: Mid-High. Indie horror, but sort of known in some circles.
MONSTERS: Yeah, pretty cool ones.
SATANISTS: No.
ZOMBIES: No.
VAMPIRES: No.
SLASHERS: No.
CURSES: No.
ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A