All Aboard...Hammer's Train of Terror

Christopher Fowler knows his horror film history. His excellent novel Hell Train is set during the mid 60s, when Hammer studios was turning out a cycle of popular horror films starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and a stable of reliable character actors. As our story opens, Screenwriter Shane Carter arrives in England to meet with Michael Carreras, the head of the studio. Carreras wants him to write a film for Hammer. Carter has just worked with Roger Corman on his Poe films, and is looking for a new project. The catch is that Carreras needs the screenplay in a week, so production can begin quickly. What follows is Carter’s vision of the screenplay as the novel’s main story, with some brief interludes set while he’s writing the movie.

Aboard a mysterious train called the Arkangel, we’re introduced to a variety of characters whose fates are intertwined. Once you board the train, you can’t leave until you’re “tested.” A creepy Conductor leads the passengers on a trip whose destination may be…hell itself. Along the way, terrifying creatures and strange phenomena plague the passengers, some of whom are not what they seem. As they struggle with demonic forces, it becomes apparent that not everyone will leave this journey alive…and perhaps some people aboard are already….not among the living. And why does one of the passengers, a young woman named Isabella, seem to find the train so familiar?

Fowler pokes gentle fun at many classic Hammer films (and those of their contemporary competitors Amicus and Tigon; you may find echoes of old favorites like Dr. Terror's House of Horrors) and throws in a freight car full of references and in-jokes for horror film fans. The main story set on the train is chilling; there are some neat set pieces, and some truly frightening moments. The novel is an expansion and re-imagining of Fowler's 2008 short story entitled "Arkangel." I would have liked to have seen more of the framing story, featuring Carter inter-acting with many of the Hammer films family, including a truly memorable scene with stars Lee and Cushing. Fowler could have written an entire novel set within the horror film industry of the 60s, and that really would have been something. Still, this book is head and shoulders above most of what passes for horror fiction these days. If you’re a fan of 60s and 70s horror, and you're looking for some old fashioned, Creature Features style fun, Hell Train is a ride you’ll want to take.

"One, Two, Freddy's Coming For You......"

The Nightmare on Elm Street films have been very profitable for New Line Cinema. Robert Englund’s portrayal of Freddy Kruger has made the character one of the most iconic in modern horror. Now, a documentary recently released on Blu-ray covers the entire history of the franchise. Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010) is a comprehensive look at the movies, from the original entry in 1984 thru 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason. The film runs four hours, and is an exhaustive look at the making of the series. There are in-depth interviews with almost everyone involved with the Elm Street films, including stars Englund & Heather Langenkamp, writer-director Wes Craven, as well as a host of other actors, writers, directors, producers, and make-up and special effects artists.

Executive produced and narrated by Langenkamp, the film begins with a brief history of New Line Cinema’s origins as a company, and then moves on to the conception and production of the first film, 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. Each movie is given it’s own “making of” segment and there are behind the scenes videos from the sets of the films, as well as photos, clips and production drawings. There’s even some coverage of the short lived TV series, Freddy’s Nightmares. The stories told by the cast and crew members are fascinating, and if you’re a fan, you’ll really enjoy this documentary. There’s a refreshing amount of candor about the quality of some of the entries in the series, and a frank discussion regarding the tension between creator Craven (who never wanted to do a sequel, much less start a franchise) and New Line executive Bob Shaye.




The better films in the series stood out from the other “slasher” movies because Freddy was a character that got at you through your dreams, a place where you couldn’t truly escape his power. His original motive for killing the children of Elm Street was getting revenge for his own death. Freddy had been a child murderer (softened from his original portrayal as a child molester), who was killed by the parents in an act of vigilante justice. Craven discusses what inspired him to write the original story, and there’s a lot of information regarding how the character and concept was changed, updated and refined over the course of the sequels. Various cast and crew members also discuss the thematic subtexts (some intentional, some unintentional) of the various films in the Elm Street saga.




One of the best films in the series, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994), took the story in an entirely different direction. It featured the actors playing themselves as filming begins on a new Elm Street movie; they are threatened by Freddy, who is portrayed as an evil force that seeks to invade the real world and cause mayhem and death. Englund cites this entry as his favorite. The cast and crew also talk about Johnny Depp’s and Patricia Arquette’s pre-stardom appearances in the series. Also included is an interview with the heavy metal band Dokken, who provided the theme for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987); the MTV-era music video for the song included a cameo by Englund. All in all, this is probably everything you ever wanted to know about the Elm Street series, and more.




While this informative film may not appeal to casual viewers due to its length, it is a thorough look at how genre projects are produced, released and marketed to the public. It even makes reference to the fact that Peter Jackson, the man behind the Lord of the Rings films, made an unused story pitch for one of the sequels. It's also noted that without the financial success of the Elm Street franchise, New Line may not have been able to produce the Lord of the Rings movies! Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010) was originally released on DVD, and is now available on Blu-ray. Both versions include extensive additional interviews and featurettes as extras. Here’s a link to the trailer for the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js_hu0iPyM8 and Dokken's music video for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDveKxl7Ohs.

Robert Culp Rocks "The Outer Limits"

The 1950s and 1960s television landscape featured many anthology series, and a number of those shows planted their feet firmly in the genre of the fantastic: The Twilight Zone, One Step Beyond, Thriller, and Science-Fiction Theatre, to name a few. There was one short-lived show that proved to be as groundbreaking and influential as its better-known counterparts: the original version of The Outer Limits. The series was the brainchild of writer-producer Leslie (Stoney Burke) Stevens. Along with Joseph (writer of the screenplay for Psycho) Stefano, and a talented crew of actors, writers and an amazing array behind the scenes talent, they produced some of the most creative, chilling and thoughtful hours of science-fiction (often laced with horror and fantasy) on television. There are a number of episodes I could write about, but for this week, I’d like to focus on a different kind of alien invasion tale, entitled Corpus Earthling, starring Robert Culp.

Culp plays Dr. Paul Cameron, a surgeon who has a steel plate in his head as a result of a previous injury. His wife Laurie (portrayed by Salome Jens) works with geologist and researcher Jonas Temple. While visiting them in their lab, Cameron thinks he hears voices coming from a couple of rock samples they’re studying. The voices are talking about a takeover of the planet Earth. When the aliens realize Cameron can hear them due to the metal plate in his head, they try to induce him to jump from a window, but the attempt fails. Cameron thinks he’s going crazy; and neither Jonas nor Laurie can hear the voices. But does that mean they aren't there?

Laurie (Salome Jens) and the alien invaders

After Laurie and Paul leave, one of the interstellar rocks takes over Dr. Temple’s body. Now possessed by the aliens, he is driven to search out Laurie and Paul, who’ve left town for a few days so Paul can rest. Temple (played by Barry Atwater, who later went on to portray vampire Janos Skorzeny in the classic telefilm The Night Stalker) follows the couple, and Laurie is taken over as well. The now transformed Temple and Laurie both cause Cameron to doubt himself, and his life becomes a living nightmare. Cameron must make some difficult choices, as he’s the only one standing between the aliens and their plan to conquer Earth. Alien rocks taking over the Earth may sound like a silly premise, but the straight-forward treatment of the idea and stark look of the episode bring the idea home. It's a nicely-crafted tale, written by Orin Bortsen, based on a story by Louis Charbonneau.

The Outer Limits was always noir-inspired, baroque and Gothic in its look and feel, due in no small part to the inspired work of cinematographer Conrad Hall (who later went on to win several Oscars) and director Gerd Oswald, who both contributed to a significant number of episodes. The dark atmosphere gives life to the hellish experience of Paul Cameron, who’s well played by Culp, especially in the creepy scene when he discovers the now-transformed Laurie, who both tempts and repels him in equal measure. Culp appeared in two other excellent episodes of the show, The Architects of Fear, and the Hugo award-winning Demon with a Glass Hand, which was penned by the late Harlan Ellison.

If you’re looking for something a little different in your classic science-fiction television diet, give The Outer Limits a try. There was no on-camera host for the show, just an eerie control voice proclaiming “There is nothing wrong with your television set…” The series lasted a season and a half, and boasts an unusually high number of quality episodes for such a short-lived run. Other stars that appeared on memorable episodes of the series include Martin Landau, Sally Kellerman, David McCallum and Robert Duvall. There’s an excellent website devoted to the series called We Are Controlling Transmission, which can be found here: http://wearecontrollingtransmission.blogspot.com. Episodes of the show can be found on Hulu, and the first season of the series was recently released on Blu-Ray by Kino Lorber.

Leaves of Grass: Ed Norton Times Two

What if your past came back to haunt you in the present? The 2009 drama Leaves of Grass offers one answer to that question. Bill Kincaid (Ed Norton) is a philosophy professor at Brown University; he’s been successful in the world of academia, and is being courted by Harvard to create a philosophy curriculum within their law school. A phone call from home changes everything. Bill is told his twin brother Brady has been killed. Bill hasn’t been home in years and left his old world behind to re-invent himself in a new place, with a new life.

Ed Norton and...Ed Norton in Leaves of Grass

Bill heads home to Tulsa, but discovers Brady (also played by Norton) isn’t dead after all. He’s hatching a plan to break free of his allegiance to a local drug distributor, and start over with his pregnant girlfriend. Brady’s a pot grower, who makes some of the most potent weed in the state. He needs Bill to pose as him in order to enact a plot to outwit the drug dealer. Bill refuses at first, but is drawn into his sibling's plan. He also has to deal with his own demons, and reconcile his memories of the family he left behind.

Norton is excellent in the dual role, as the strait-laced Bill, and the free-spirited Brady. He expertly conveys Bill’s reluctance to deal with the ghosts of his past; the mixed emotions he feels for his brother, and his buried feelings of resentment towards his mother (a nice supporting turn by Susan Sarandon).  As Brady, he portrays how the brother who stayed behind feels about his sibling, who deserted the family, and never looked back. 

The story goes in directions you don’t expect, with moments of drama and pathos mixed with some unexpected black comedy. The fine supporting cast includes Keri Russell, Richard Dreyfuss and Tim Blake Nelson, who also wrote and directed the film. A soundtrack of Southern style rock and folk is a nice touch that adds flavor to the movie. This is a unique film, a little different from the usual Hollywood product. The closest comparison would be the films of The Coen Brothers (Blood Simple, Fargo, Miller’s Crossing). If you’re a fan of intelligent dramas that are a little off center, then I recommend you give Leaves of Grass a try.  Here's a link to the film's trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83AbvPYqIko.

Milius: Portrait of a Zen Anarchist

The ‘film school” generation of the 60s and 70s gave us such writer-directors as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and John Milius. Who's John Milius, you ask? You may not know his name, but you’re certainly familiar with some of the films he’s worked on as a writer, director or both: Apocalypse Now (1979), Conan The Barbarian (1982), Red Dawn (1984) and later, the HBO series, Rome (2005). Now a new documentary entitled Milius (2013) covers the life and career of this talented, sometimes controversial filmmaker. Milius came to prominence as a screenwriter in the early to mid 1970s. He worked on movies such as 1971’s Dirty Harry (Milius did an uncredited rewrite of the script, and came up with the famous “Do you feel lucky, punk?” speech) and writing the screenplays for the 1972 Robert Redford film, Jeremiah Johnson, (for which he received a record payday at the time) and the Dirty Harry sequel, Magnum Force (1973).

Milius quickly became one of the most in demand writers in Hollywood. Interestingly enough, at a time when the movie business (and the country as a whole) was in the midst of a more liberal stance politically, he was very conservative, but was still able to be a success in the industry. He wrote and directed the old-fashioned adventure film, The Wind & The Lion (1975) starring Sean Connery, Candice Bergen and Brian Keith as Teddy Roosevelt, one of Milius' personal heroes. He also penned the famous monologue about the USS Indianapolis that Robert Shaw performs in Jaws (1975), as a favor to his friend Spielberg. Then he co-wrote the screenplay for Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, a project that he, Lucas and Coppola had talked about endlessly since film school. The documentary covers the genesis and production of the celebrated Vietnam war epic (and Milius' contributions to it) in great detail.

During the 80s, Milius worked on bringing Robert E. Howard’s legendary Conan character to the screen in Conan The Barbarian, and wrote and directed the original Red Dawn, about a Russian military takeover of the US, and a group of teenagers who rebel against the invaders. The film covers a lot of ground talking about these two movies, and the political controversy that was sparked by Red Dawn during its original release. During this period, Milius (and the entertainment business in general) were being heavily criticized for the overly violent content of films. And while Milius had famous friends and colleagues like Lucas, Coppola & Spielberg, his over the top personality often rubbed studio executives the wrong way, causing some of his projects to be derailed or cancelled. The self-proclaimed "zen anarchist" could sometimes be his own worst enemy.

The documentary is a well-rounded portrait of Milius, and features fascinting interviews with Lucas, Spielberg and Coppola. There are also comments from Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Milius’ children, as well as current filmmakers like Bryan (X-Men) Singer and Kurt (Sons of Anarchy) Sutter, who've been inspired by him. The Lucas and Spielberg sequences are some of the most engrossing parts of the film. While they often give interviews about their current projects, it’s fascinating to see them really open up about their friendship and collaborations with Milius, and tell stories about their early days working together in the 70s. Milius really is the kind of larger than life persona that you don’t see in today’s Hollywood, and even the studio executives he knocked heads & battled with admit they admire his talent.

The latter part of the film goes into some health struggles Milius has suffered after having a stroke a few years ago, which is why he’s largely seen in archival footage. He’s working to get better, and is hoping to get a long in development project about Genghis Khan produced. This is an absorbing portrait of a man who’s given us a host of iconic movie moments. It’s a must see for fans of 70s & 80s cinema, and if you've read Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, you'll see that a lot of the information from that book resonates in this documentary. Milius, which was directed by Joey Figueroa and Zak Knutson, is often shown on the EPIX cable channel and is available for digital viewing at various sites. Here’s a link to the film’s trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLuPXfsCkWg.

It's All About Ray...Lamontagne

My latest piece for the wonderful arts & entertainment website Culture Sonar takes a look at the very talented singer-songwriter Ray Lamontagne. You can check it out by following the link below the photo. Feel free to use the search function to check out my other articles! Thanks for reading!

http://www.culturesonar.com/ray-lamontagne/

The Sounds of "Muscle Shoals"

The best stories, whether they’re fact-based or fictional, give you a true sense of their place and time. That's one of the strengths of the fascinating music documentary, Muscle Shoals, which was originally released in 2013. The film gives us an in-depth look at the Alabama town where two well-regarded studios have given us classic music by Percy Sledge, The Rolling Stones, Wilson Pickett, Arthur Alexander and many others. It’s also the story of producer Rick Hall, a fascinating man who survived quite a bit of personal tragedy and went on to open the celebrated FAME studios. Hall was a determined, driven man, who changed the shape of his own destiny, as well as the lives of many others. He gathered together a talented crew of studio musicians that came to be known as the Swampers, who became the backbone of the “Muscle Shoals sound.”

For many of those interviewed in the film, including Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Steve Winwood and reggae icon Jimmy Cliff, the town and its atmosphere have as much to do with the sounds they created and recorded there as the music itself. They all talk about the special energy of the place, and how being there affected them. Many artists found that the trajectory of their careers were changed by recording in Muscle Shoals, including Aretha Franklin, who was having trouble finding a sound on record which matched the intensity of her live shows. Until she headed to Muscle Shoals, and did a session with the Swampers for the song “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You),” and her career changed forever. That’s just one of the classic tunes that were recorded at FAME studios.

Another interesting fact brought out by the film is that many people thought the Swampers were black, due to the funky, R&B laced grooves they were creating; in fact, they were mostly white. But they were playing and recording with many black artists at a time when the civil rights movement was at its height. Hall points out that there were no color lines in the studio, and everyone got along with each other. The Swampers became one of the most in demand backing groups in the business, even attracting the attention of Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler, who eventually brought them to LA to play on some sessions.

That success caused a rift with Hall, and the Swampers eventually broke off and founded their own studio, Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. They became just as successful in their own right, and the town found it now had two studios producing memorable music by Paul Simon, The Staple Singers, Rod Stewart, Bob Dylan and many others. The film is filled with excellent performance clips, and that footage, coupled with the intimate behind the scenes stories, really make the movie worth viewing. There’s also some interesting background on Lynyrd Skynyrd, who made some of their first recordings in Muscle Shoals, and famously name checked the Swampers in their classic song “Sweet Home Alabama.”

Muscle Shoals is about a remarkable town, an amazing group of people and the wonderful music they made. The story of Rick Hall (who passed way earlier this year) the Swampers and the songs that sprang from this celebrated location is essential viewing for rock and roll fans. The film was produced and directed by Greg 'Freddy' Camalier. Along with Standing In The Shadows Of Motown, 20 Feet From Stardom and The Wrecking Crew,  this is one of the best recent documentaries about the people “behind the music” I've seen. The movie is now available on DVD, Blu-ray and for online viewing at various sites. Here’s a link to the film’s trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UDe4JrFAIQ.