Trick ‘r Treat (2009)
Written by Michael Dougherty
Directed by Michael Dougherty
Produced by Legendary Pictures/ Bad Hat Harry Productions
Running time: 82 minutes

So, What’s This About?
In “Warren Valley, Ohio” on Halloween Night, a Yuppie couple (Leslie Bibb, Tahmoh Penikett) are paid a visit by a demonic trick ‘r treater with a burlap sack for a head. In the first of four tongue-in-cheek horror tales to follow, a junior high school principal (Dylan Baker) poisons an obnoxious candy seeker and attempts to dispose of the body before his young son finds out. Three sexually aggressive party seekers (Lauren Lee Smith, Moneca Delain, Rochelle Aytes) get separated from their more precocious friend Laurie (Anna Paquin). Costumed as Little Red Riding Hood, she soon draws the attention of a psycho killer dressed in black.

Four adolescent trick ‘r treaters (Britt McKillip, Isabelle Deluce, Alberto Ghisi, Jean-Luc Bilodeau) let an outcast named Rhonda (Samm Todd) join their expedition to the local quarry. The trick ‘r treaters intend to make an offering of eight pumpkins to the eight children who as legend has it were driven off the quarry by a homicidal bus driver; their ceremony does not go as planned. Finally, the reclusive Mr. Kreeg (Brian Cox) wants to be left alone on Halloween, but receives a visit from the burlap headed trick ‘r treater, who’s been wandering in and out of all the stories. The imp seems to have retribution on its mind for All Hallow’s Eve.

Who Made It?
Michael Dougherty was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. He attended New York University, graduating in 1996 from Tisch School of the Arts. Dougherty spent three years toiling on Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues, while an animated short he’d written and directed titled Season’s Greetings made it to television. Director Bryan Singer read a spec script Dougherty had written titled Trick ‘r Treat — expanding the character and themes from Dougherty’s short — and introduced him to aspiring filmmaker and screenwriter Dan Harris. After moving to L.A. independent of each other, the duo won jobs writing X2 (2003) and Superman Returns (2006) for Singer.

Championed by late makeup effects maestro Stan Winston — originally slated to produce the film — Trick ‘r Treat was developed by Legendary Pictures, the Burbank based production company behind Superman Returns, Lady In the Water and 300, co-financing and co-producing in partnership with Warner Bros. Bryan Singer of Bad Hat Harry Productions came on board as a producer in the fall of 2006 and was present on the set of Doughtery’s live action directing debut in Vancouver. Despite overwhelmingly positive word of mouth, Warner Bros. backed away from giving Trick ‘r Treat a theatrical release, finally rolling it out on DVD in October 2009.

How’d They Do It?
Seasons Greetings (1996) was a 4-minute, hand drawn and hand colored short film, which writer-director Michael Dougherty spent nine months drawing with pencils and paper at NYU. Each frame was colored with magic markers instead of paint with fellow film students helping him color many of the cels. The short — about a trick ‘r treater with a burlap sack for a head being menaced by a stalker — was broadcast on MTV’s Cartoon Sushi and Sci-Fi Channel and played a few film festivals. As Dougherty brainstormed ideas for short films or short stories he noticed they all ended up being about Halloween.

Dougherty recalled, “So I started thinking, well how neat would it be to put them all together into one movie and I guess it was kind of my way of cheating and saying here’s, look, here’s my feature film screenplay, it’s an anthology movie. But then they also started interweaving and it became one movie, just with a lot of characters whose lives start intersecting. I realized I could take this character and make him the next door neighbor of that character and make these trick-or-treaters show up at the door of this guy and so it all ended up coming together. And Sam became a character that wandered though all of their stories.”

He continued, “The first story is really just about a father and a son and introducing the son to the holiday and its traditions. The next one, it’s a group of kids who are between ages 12 and 15 and it’s when you break away from your parents and you’re walking around the town by yourself trick-or-treating. And then the next one, you’re in your twenties and the holiday becomes about nothing but partying and having sex and trying to find the hottest costume possible. The fourth one is the twilight years, when you’re old and alone and celebrating the holiday by yourself, which hopefully none of us end up like, but it’s kind of these weird four seasons of Halloween in a sense.”

Dougherty’s spec script — Trick ‘r Treat – became his calling card to meeting the director of The Usual Suspects and X-Men, Bryan Singer, in 2000. After working with his writing partner Dan Harris on drafts of X2 and Superman Returns, executive producers Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni and William Fay of Legendary Pictures were prepared to give Dougherty a shot making the transition from screenwriter to director of Trick ‘r Treat. Dougherty revealed, “I think the transition was made easier by the fact that Bryan Singer always had me and my writing partner Dan Harris on set throughout X2 and throughout Superman Returns and it’s interesting to realize how much I picked up just from osmosis.”

Dougherty added, “In terms of preparing, interacting with the crew, knowing how to set up a shot, getting your coverage, etc. I think I’m blessed in that I’ve had Bryan to show me the ropes as well as my writing partner Dan who directed a feature film a few years ago called Imaginary Heroes. They’ve both been available to give me pointers and tips and help me out. As well as Alex Garcia; he’s been on the set of Bryan’s movies and produced his TV projects. It’s been good, but I definitely know that those two movies, Superman Returns and X2 were basically boot camp. I’d be twenty times more terrified doing this if I hadn’t been on set for 131 days on each of those two movies.”

With Bryan Singer and Alex Garcia of Bad Hat Harry Productions as producers, Trick ‘r Treat commenced filming November 2006 in Vancouver. Singer was reportedly on set throughout the film’s nine-week shoot. Also working with Dougherty was NYU alum Breehn Burns, who’d come on board as a concept artist and would also design the film’s comic book panel title sequence. Of Burns, Dougherty added, “He referred me to a storyboard guy named Simeon Wilkins, who’s a young guy who has an amazing resume. He worked on The Ring, Monster House, he just finished Beowulf for Bob Zemeckis, and we click really well too.”

Scheduled for release October 2007, Halloween came and went without Warner Bros. giving audiences Trick ‘r Treat. Legendary Pictures screened it December 2007 at the annual Butt-Numb-a-Thon in Austin, Texas, an invitation-only film festival hosted by the architect of Ain’t It Cool News, Harry Knowles. Avid dispatches from film geeks who’d seen the movie would trickle through the popular website for the next two years. “Massawyrm”: “Horror fans are going to have a ton of fun with this and I fully expect this to take its rightful place as the holiday classic that gets pulled out every year, much the same way Halloween was for many of us in our youth. It is a film very much about the holiday and its spirit, and it captures that wonderfully.”

Warner Bros. began to license Trick ‘r Treat T-shirts, graphic novels and action figures, but the studio was at a loss over how to market the movie. Dougherty mused, “I remember having a conversation with, you know, an executive who shall remain nameless about this, and he said, ‘Oh, it’s a horror movie.’ And I said, ‘Well, yeah.’ He goes, ‘Well, we’ll target the Saw and the Hostel demographic.’ And I said, ‘No, no, no, that’s not them.’ ‘Well but they’re the horror audience.’ ‘No, they’re not this horror audience.’ Horror itself isn’t just a genre. There’s so many subgenres to it, just like there’s so many types of comedy. You have your Wayans Brothers comedies and you have your Judd Apatow comedies. Very different audiences. And so, sometimes it can be difficult to try to explain horror as a genre to people.”

Despite successful screenings at Screamfest L.A. in October 2008, Comic Con in July 2009 and recently at L.A.’s New Beverly Cinema, Warner Bros. shuttled Trick ‘r Treat onto Video On Demand and DVD in October 2009. Reviewers were effusive with praise. Bill Gibron, Pop Matters: “Almost too clever for its own good, Trick ‘r Treat is a really good film. In fact, it’s so unusual in its practical F/X approach and retro direct to video charms that a second viewing is definitely needed before confirming its almost masterpiece status.” Alex Billington, First Showing.Net: “There hasn’t been a horror movie this original and this inventive since Wes Craven brought us Scream in 1996. I guess it only took twelve years to finally find the next great horror franchise.”

Commenting on his film’s winding road to release, Dougherty suggested it was caught between two business models, one dying out, the other taking its baby steps. “We’re reaching a day and age where the generation of kids growing up expect to have the option of going to the theater or watching a movie at home. I think that window is going to close completely, soon. But I think, in the meantime, I think it’s smart for distributors to look at that limited-release fan demand method of distribution.” He added, “Why not try to open it in two cities and let the fans post on Facebook or send out tweets about getting it in their hometown? I really wish we could have tried that model with Trick ‘r Treat, but by the time the decision had been made it was too late.”

Should I Care?
Here’s a movie stoked by such an outpouring of love from its target demographic that I’m left to ponder whether I even saw the same film the fanboys did. Trick ‘r Treat isn’t really for people who read reviews, it’s for the people who love those movies that aren’t screened for critics. It’s also blatantly the work of a first time screenwriter and director. At 82 minutes with credits, Doughtery gets in a hurry introducing too many characters without giving us a reason to care about a single one. Some of his ideas are sketchy and poorly executed. Burlap head — referred to as “Sam” in the credits for reasons that are never explained — never makes the leap from doodle to compelling screen creep.

There’s a segment here — the film’s best — about 13-year-olds trick ‘r treating that recalls those Saturday afternoon, kids on a mission movies I grew up with like The Goonies or The Monster Squad. That’s nice, and so is Breehn Burns’ gorgeous title sequence with comic book panels illustrated with scenes from the movie flipping by. Douglas Pipes supplements this with a fantastic musical score that easily surpasses anything Danny Elfman has composed in 16 years. Trick ‘r Treat isn’t a bad movie. I can name 10 recent horror movies that were a lot worse. But if this is destined to become a Halloween standard, I’ll be watching It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Where’d You Get All of This?
“Superman Returns Writers Ride a Wave of Success” By Torquin Hedd. Moving Pictures Magazine, July 2006

“Quartet are in for Treat” By Pamela McClintock. Variety, 9 November 2006

“Trick ‘r Treat: Writer/Director Michael Dougherty, On Set in Vancouver, BC Canada” BloodyDisgusting.com, 11 January 2007

“Director on what the long-delayed release has meant for Trick ‘r Treat” By Patrick Lee. Sci-Fi Wire, 28 July 2009

“Q&A: Trick ‘r Treat writer-director Michael Dougherty” Heat Vision Blog. The Hollywood Reporter, 8 October 2009

Trick ‘r Treat. DVD audio commentary with Michael Dougherty. Warner Home Video (2009)

Surveillance (2008)
Written by Jennifer Lynch & Kent Harper
Directed by Jennifer Lynch
Produced by Lago Film/ Arclight Films/ Blue Rider Pictures
Running time: 97 minutes

So, What’s This About?
Following a gruesome murder, FBI Special Agents Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman) and Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormond) arrive at a rural police station to interview three witnesses. A drug whore (Pell James) recounts driving out to the middle of nowhere with her boyfriend (Mac Miller) to score; the couple stops to assist a family station wagon stranded by a flat tire. The family’s only surviving member — an observant 8-year-old (Ryan Simpkins) — recounts noticing a strange van earlier in the day, but her mother (Cheri Oteri) and stepfather (Hugh Dillon) ignored her when The Violent Femmes tune “Day After Day” came on the radio.

Officer Bennett (Kent Harper) is a wreck following the murder of his partner out on the road. Under questioning, Bennett admits that his partner (French Stewart) and he liked to pass their time shooting out the tires of passing motorists and victimizing the drivers. Each surviving witness recounts the arrival of two masked killers along the roadside differently. Also participating in the investigation is Captain Billings (Michael Ironside), a receptionist (Caroline Aaron) with intimate access to coroner’s reports, an eager to please rookie cop (Charlie Newmark) and another local policeman (Gill Gayle) hostile towards the FBI.

Who Made It?
Jennifer Lynch is the daughter of painter Peggy Reavey and filmmaker David Lynch. Growing up in Michigan, she would serve as a PA on the set of Blue Velvet and adapt The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, the bestselling book tie-in to her father’s heralded TV mini-series Twin Peaks. Lynch made her screenwriting and directorial debut at the age of 23 with the critically reviled Boxing Helena (1993). The gothic drama about a surgeon (Julian Sands) who kidnaps the object of his desire (Sherilyn Fenn) and amputates her arms and injured legs incurred a frenzy of bad press when producers took the picture’s original star — Kim Basinger — to court for backing out of the film at the behest of her agents.

Taking time to recuperate from several spinal surgeries, kick drug and alcohol addiction and raise a daughter by herself, Lynch paired with a friend — Kent Harper — to rework a script he’d written about witches into a Rashomon-like take on the serial killer genre. After numerous rejections, David Lynch agreed to lend his name to his daughter’s project as an executive producer. Germany’s Lago Film agreed to finance Jennifer Lynch’s second feature film at a budget of $10 million. American audiences got a look at Surveillance in May 2009 on video-on-demand, followed by a limited theatrical release the following month.

How’d They Do It?
Jennifer Lynch recalled the genesis of the Boxing Helena fiasco. “I was reading poetry at a fucking nightclub before I was old enough to drink. This person came up to me and said ‘I have this screenplay I’d like you to write about a woman who is cut up and put into a box.’ I said ‘I won’t do it.’ They said, ‘What would you like to do?’ I said ‘I’ve always had a fascination with the Venus de Milo, who has no legs and no arms. I have a story I’d like to tell based on that.’ But I didn’t think in a million fucking years — I mean I was reading goddamn poetry, which is the most schmaltzy fucking thing you can do in L.A. — and I never fucking thought it would go anywhere.”

18 years old when given the idea, 19 when she wrote the script, Lynch’s directing experience was limited to watching her dad work. To her amazement, Madonna expressed interest in starring in Boxing Helena. The pop icon would graciously back out to do Evita for Alan Parker and Andrew Lloyd Webber instead, but Kim Basinger came on board to replace her. Four weeks before shooting was to begin, Basinger’s reps at CAA coaxed her into dropping out as well. Main Line Pictures would retaliate with a breach of contract suit carried out in a televised trial. The jury awarded the producers $8.1 million in damages, but the ruling was later overturned.

Lynch recalled the tumult with Kim Basinger by stating, “If the creative folks had been left to themselves, it would have been settled over a dinner. But because suits got involved, they decided they were going to wipe the slate clean. You don’t bring an army sergeant into a sandbox with kids. She was ordered not to speak to me. I wasn’t allowed to speak to her. The whole thing was stupid. It became a nightmare for all of us. None of us look back on it well.” Scathing reviews, three surgeries to repair critical spinal injuries (suffered in an auto accident at age 19), getting clean from drugs and alcohol and raising a daughter as a single parent all kept Lynch from jumping behind a camera again.

Surveillance began when a friend of Lynch’s — actor/ producer/ screenwriter Kent Harper — approached her with a script he’d written. “It was called Three Witches, Tres Brujas, and it was a really great story, but I didn’t want to do something about witches and I wasn’t quite sure what had happened and this conversation was born about things that happen in the middle of nowhere and what terrifies you. We just started throwing things out on the table and he did have two very corrupt cops in the story. I said, ‘That interests me, and the clarity with which children see interests me, and I haven’t seen a serial killer film the way I want to see a serial killer film and I want to confuse people about what good and bad look like.”

Jennifer Lynch sent a rough draft of Surveillance to actor Bill Pullman. He turned it down, but Lynch remained a big enough fan to recommend her father cast the actor in Lost Highway (1997). Lynch would finally share her script with her dad, prompting an urgent late night phone call. Lynch was aghast at the way his daughter wrapped up the story and challenged her to write a more optimistic ending. Even after Jennifer heeded the fatherly advice, no one expressed much interest in bankrolling the movie. She recalled, “This was very hard to get off the ground. My father called me after he read the script a couple of years ago and he said, ‘You’re the sickest bitch I know!’”

She added, “But he called ages later and said, ‘What’s happening with your movie?’ and I said ‘Zilch.’ I told him I don’t know if it’s the material, if it’s the 15 years raising a kid, if it’s Boxing Helena, but nobody’s interested. And he said, ‘What if I put my name on it?’ I’m like, ‘C’mon Dad, you know how I feel about it.’ Because, believe me, it’s a big issue for me. But that day I typed: ‘Executive producer: David Lynch’, and within 48 hours I had more offers than I knew what to do with. I swear, any screenwriter wanting a little attention should just write ‘Steven Spielberg’ on their script. Who’s checking?” Kent Harper traveled to Germany and in November 2005, it was announced that he’d hooked producer Marco Mehlitz and Lago Film to provide $10 million in financing.

Nine months later, actor Billy Burke (Twilight) agreed to take the lead role and Surveillance was slated to begin shooting in October 2006. But Burke became the latest actor to get cold feet with Lynch and dropped out. Lynch phoned Bill Pullman and begged him to give her script another read. Lynch recalled, “He said, ‘Why did I say no?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. You never told me. Can I send it to you?’ He said, ‘Do it right now.’ And two hours later he called me and said, ‘I’m in.’ And Julia actually found me. She read the script and called and I said, ‘The Julia Ormond? You’re so classy and beautiful and awesome.’ And then I thought, that’s a genius idea. That’s the perfect FBI agent.”

Surveillance commenced a 22-day shooting schedule April 2007 in Saskatchewan, Canada near the town of Regina. “They call it the town that rhymes with fun. It’s just outside Big Beaver too so it’s just crude joke after crude joke.” Lynch had envisioned shooting the film in Santa Fe, but the New Mexico Film Office did not embrace the script. Lynch added, “There we were in Regina where they give amazing tax breaks because it’s Canada, incredible crews, incredible production facilities, and their prairies look like middle America and really afforded me the opportunity to aim the camera in any direction and just see that vast nothingness and feel how everything is seen and yet there’s nowhere to go. It’s like there’s all this space but you can’t go anywhere.”

Critics were not favorable to what they saw. Manohla Dargis, The New York Times: “It seems doubtful that Surveillance, a would-be transgression that tries to squeeze dark laughs from the spectacle of human suffering, would be taking up space in theaters if its director were not the daughter of a name filmmaker.” Robert Abele, The Los Angeles Times: “At the end, all is horrifically explained, the body count inflates, yet hardly anything makes sense. In Papa Lynch’s films, little is explained, yet because he’s so gifted at mining our deepest fears and scariest desires, logic is excused.” Scott Mendelson, Film Threat: “In the end, Surveillance is a puzzle box film that has nothing to offer except the various puzzle pieces. The characters do not stand out, the drama is not compelling, and the screenplay is light on even remotely interesting dialogue.”

After playing in Europe summer 2008, Americans got a look at Surveillance on HDNet Ultra VOD in May 2009 and in a limited theatrical release in June. Playing only three theaters, it took in $27,349 at the U.S. box office and grossed $974,522 overseas. Jennifer Lynch appeared content to have finished a film after her 15-year hiatus. “The good news is: everybody can make a film. The bad news is: everybody can make a film. And everyone should. It’s just really tricky so it makes those available spots and moments of financing really hard to get and you really earn it. Making a film is hard enough. Starting it’s hard, doing it’s hard, finishing it’s hard, and so I champion everyone who gets it done whether they’re doing it themselves or through a studio or independent financing.”

Should I Care?
Loaded with enough gore to win Best Director for Jennifer Lynch at the 2008 New York City Horror Film Festival — and to get her the job directing Nagin: The Snake Woman, a straight-up horror flick — Surveillance is more coherent than I remember Natural Born Killers being, so as Joe Bob Briggs might opine, if you liked that, you’re gonna love this. Lynch keeps the blood flowing, but her film is dry as a bone everywhere that counts. If you expect suspense, interesting characters, atmosphere or passable dialogue, don’t waste your time on this. Lynch is a fine person, I’m sure, but after two films in 15 years, she’s yet to demonstrate why she should be making movies.

Like The Boondock Saints — which was also ridiculous past the point of being watchable — Lynch is either unable or unwilling to involve the audience in anything emotionally and in an effort to compensate, goes for farce. Instead of Dennis Hopper or Robert Blake, Lynch’s boogeyman is played by … French Stewart, TV’s French Stewart, the guy most likely to be confused for Fred Schneider of The B-52s and least likely to terrorize anyone. Like the ultraviolence, Stewart’s mere appearance seems to be the joke. I didn’t laugh. What’s least amusing about Surveillance is seeing Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond — two actors still rolling strikes and not working near enough in film — wading through garbage like this.

Where’d You Get All of This?
“Jennifer Lynch: Life with David and the Turkey of the Decade” By James Mottram. The Independent, 22 February 2009

“Even Hitler Deserved To Be Loved” By John Patterson. The Guardian, 27 February 2009

“Director Jennifer Lynch Interview Surveillance” By Sheila Roberts. The Collider, 22 June 2009

“Jennifer Lynch” By Alex Simon. The Hollywood Interview, 25 June 2009

“LiC Interview: Jennifer Lynch — Surveillance” By Craig Kennedy. Living in Cinema, 25 June 2009

Synopsis
On the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles, Jenny (Mya) drags her skeptical pal Becky (Shannon Elizabeth) to have her palm read. The young fortune teller (Portia de Rossi) takes one look at the girls and notifies them of blood in their future. In Hollywood, Ellie (Christina Ricci) gets off work and visits her boyfriend Jake (Joshua Jackson), a promoter finishing a monster themed club to be called Tinsel. This makes Ellie late to pick up her brother Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg), a nerdy high schooler whose moment with a classmate (Kristina Anapau) is ruined when her jock boyfriend (Milo Ventimiglia) shows up to torment him. Heading home on Mulholland Drive, Ellie and Becky smash into each other when an animal darts across the road. Becky is yanked out of the wreckage by the beast and ripped in two, while the siblings walk away from the attack with nasty scratches.

Jimmy wakes in the morning to find himself outdoors and naked. Ellie – a producer for The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn – now finds herself able to sniff out blood at a distance. At a PETA event, a fellow producer (Judy Greer) schedules Ellie time to pre-interview Scott Baio (as himself) for the show; not even Charles In Charge is immune to Ellie’s weird energy. Jenny is also at the event and after coming on to Ellie’s boyfriend, is stalked through a parking garage by what turns out to be a bipedal and hungry werewolf. Jimmy’s research on Google leads him to believe that the pentagrams forming on his and his sister’s palms are the sign of a curse. As the siblings try to control their new powers and keep from wolfing out at work or school, Ellie comes to believe that the werewolf that bit them may be in her midst.

Production history
In August 2000, Kevin Williamson had an idea for a movie. The idea found a home at Dimension Films, which had produced nearly all of the screenwriter’s thrillers, some hits (Scream and its two sequels), some misses (Teaching Mrs. Tingle). Williamson’s treatment – titled Cursed – was described “as being in the vein of Silence of the Lambs“, with a serial killer on the loose in New York City, but with a twist. Originally fast tracked to shoot before an anticipated writer’s strike in the spring of 2001, the coals were really put to studio’s feet two years later, when Warner Bros. optioned Kelley Armstrong’s werewolf novel Bitten as a vehicle for Angelina Jolie. To beat their competition into theaters, Dimension co-founder Bob Weinstein announced in October 2002 that Cursed would “reinvent the werewolf genre,” that Wes Craven would direct and that the movie was coming to multiplexes August 2003.

Christina Ricci, Skeet Ulrich and Jesse Eisenberg were cast as three strangers attacked by a werewolf after a car crash in the Hollywood Hills. With a budget of $38 million, Cursed commenced shooting March 2003 in Los Angeles. Academy Award winning makeup effects maestro Rick Baker was hired to design the werewolf. But reviewing dailies as shooting progressed, Dimension became increasingly worried over the state of the special effects, and was sweating the film’s third act, which hinged on Scott Baio (playing Scott Baio) being unveiled as the werewolf. Having recently sent Scary Movie 3 back to Vancouver – where director David Zucker shot 25 minutes of new material after his comedy fell flat at test screenings – the studio prescribed even more radical triage to rescue Cursed.

Dimension took the unusual step of putting Cursed on “an extended hiatus”, shutting down production with 11 weeks of footage in the can and another 4 weeks to go. In a comment to the Hollywood Reporter, Weinstein stated, “In the car business, General Motors comes out after five years in the planning and research and development with a new model. And it gets reviewed and everybody says ‘Tremendous.’ Our attitude’s the same with filmmaking. If it comes out right, it’s a miracle. If it doesn’t, we have enough faith in these filmmakers to keep going and fix what we need to fix. The middle process is just the process. And if we weren’t in the movie business and we were in the car business, this wouldn’t even be a story.” The studio brought in screenwriter Sean Hood – whose credits included Halloween: Resurrection (the one with Busta Rhymes) – to unravel the problematic script.

Interviewed by the New York Times in May 2007 – as his new TV series Hidden Palms struggled to get on the schedule of the CW Network – Kevin Williamson lamented, “That werewolf movie. That was 20 years out of my life. You can’t just be asked to do a werewolf movie and then expect it to be good. I wasn’t the guy who should ever have been writing a werewolf movie.” Craven estimated that 70% of what he’d already shot had to be ditched, while new director of photography Robert McLachlan – replacing John Bailey – recalled, “They planned to save about 10 minutes from the first go around which was little enough that we had carte blanche in terms of the look. The only request from Wes and the studio was to shoot a much darker, scarier movie with the goal of ‘less is more’ for the werewolf sequences.”

Skeet Ulrich was not happy with the new approach and declined to participate, while Mandy Moore (who’d shot a cameo as the first victim), Omar Epps, Illeana Douglas, Robert Forster, Scott Foley and James Brolin were either unable to resume work or not asked to. Version 2.0 of Cursed began shooting in December 2003 with Joshua Jackson, Portia de Rossi, Michael Rosenbaum and pop singer Mya joining the cast. Shannon Elizabeth, Judy Greer and Milo Ventimiglia came back, while Scott Baio was reduced to a walk-on cameo. Rick Baker had walked all the way off the show; Greg Nicotero and his K.N.B. EFX Group came on to execute the werewolf effects. In terms of story, the serial killer angle had been dropped to focus on a pair of siblings (Christina Ricci, Jesse Eisenberg) bitten by a werewolf on Mulholland Drive. Even after the ending had to be rewritten and reshot, Wes Craven was confident Cursed would be in theaters October 2004.

As Dimension put Cursed before test audiences in the fall of 2004, the studio followed what was then a popular trend and – in a bid to sell more tickets in the U.S. – cut the film for a PG-13 rating. The blood and guts were trimmed, neutering the film’s two most visceral moments: the gloriously over the top death of Shannon Elizabeth, and the discovery of Mya’s body after she shares an elevator with the werewolf. Speaking to the New York Post, Wes Craven would comment, “The contract called for us to make an R-rated film. We did. It was a very difficult process. Then it was basically taken away from us and cut to PG-13 and ruined. It was two years of very difficult work and almost 100 days of shooting of various versions. Then at the very end, it was chopped up and the studio thought they could make more with a PG-13 movie, and trashed it … I thought it was completely disrespectful, and it hurt them too, and it was like they shot themselves in the foot with a shotgun.”

Sneaking into theaters February 2005 without press screenings, Cursed was batted around like a piñata once critics got a hold of it. Kim Morgan, L.A. Weekly: “Poor special effects, a silly looking werewolf and clunky comic writing help to spoil what should have been a fun B-movie.” Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: “Screenwriter Kevin Williamson (the Scream trilogy), having bottomed out in the horror genre, now dips below bottom (there isn’t a line that has his knowing sweet-and-sour zing), and Craven directs as if he could barely rouse himself to stage one of those bulging-bladder-and-elongated-fang transformation scenes that revived the lycanthrope genre in its early-’80s acidhead baroque phase.” Dana Stevens, the New York Times: “It’s not bad enough to make you curse, but you are likely to laugh when you should scream, and to roll your eyes when you are meant to laugh.”

Grossing $19.2 million in the U.S. and $10.3 million overseas – on a relatively modest budget – Cursed never threatened Dimension with bankruptcy. But speaking with Ain’t It Cool News in August 2008, Wes Craven mused, ” … the Cursed experience was so screwed up. I mean, that went on for two-and-a-half years of my life for a film that wasn’t anything close to what it should have been. And another film that I was about to shoot having the plug pulled – Pulse - so it was like, I did learn from the Cursed experience not to do something for money. They said, ‘We know you want to do another film, we’ll pay you double.’ And we were 10 days from shooting, and I said fine. But I ended up working two-and-a-half years for double my fee, but I could have done two-and-a-half movies, and done movies that were out there making money. In general, I think it’s not worth it and part of the reason my phone hasn’t rung is that that story is pretty well known.”

Opinion
The R-rated version of Cursed available on DVD is watchable for two reasons: some interesting actors were cast and Wes Craven – director of Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes and A Nightmare on Elm Street, which you can rent now before they’re remade – knows how to construct a suspense sequence, of which this flick has two that work pretty well. And now that the demolition derby resembling film production is public record, Cursed is actually in the position of having nowhere left to go but up. Ultimately though, the movie is every bit as fucked as you’ve heard, starting off on the wrong foot and staying there: Hyperactive opening titles transition into what amounts to a music video for pop band Bowling For Soup. Then, characters start talking and the whole enchilada lapses into one of the weakest excuses for a movie in recent history, one deserving the title Cursed.

The cast members who have done terrific work in better films – Jesse Eisenberg, Judy Greer, Portia di Rossi, even Shannon Elizabeth – acquit themselves of embarrassment, while Christina Ricci, who has hit a career wall playing believable adults, at least has a kookiness and physical prowess that bubbles to the surface every now and again. But like many of Miramax’s movies that went into the editing room and came out scarred for life, this damned thing is neither fish nor fowl. Lacking an atmosphere of tension or dread, Cursed is too mild to really appeal to horror fans, while werewolves and the odd mauling make it too gnarly for kids. The only thing scary about the film is how desperate it feels, as if Kevin Williamson was sending out an encrypted S.O.S. that he was so over writing about high school and murder sprees.

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
After taking part in a sting netting fugitives by luring them into what they think is an event for the New York Yankees, Detective Frank Keller (Al Pacino) celebrates twenty years on the NYPD by getting drunk and calling his ex-wife. He responds to a murder scene on the west side of Manhattan – a male shot in the back of the head in bed – with the detective (Richard Jenkins) who’s moved in with his ex. Keller notifies his lieutenant (John Spencer) that the victim must have known his killer because a sentimental tune he was playing for her on a record player: “Sea of Love.” A detective from Queens named Sherman Touhey (John Goodman) approaches Keller with a case eerily similar.

When the detectives learn that their victims placed a rhyming ad in a singles magazine, Keller proposes writing their own ad, arranging dates at a restaurant and taking prints off a wine glass until they get a match. One of the suspects, a headstrong blonde named Helen Cruger (Ellen Barkin) walks out on Frank before he can get her prints. “I believe in animal attraction, I believe in love at first sight. I believe in this [snaps fingers] and I don’t feel it with you.” While a lead puts the detectives on the trail of a male shooter, Frank bumps into Helen at a grocery store, where she has second thoughts about him. Touhey urges Frank to walk away, but the couple begins a torrid affair, even as evidence mounts to her as their killer.

Production history
In the mid-1980s, novelist Richard Price was working on his first original screenplay – Sea of Love – which Dustin Hoffman had attached himself to star in. Hoffman was so enamored with Price’s writing that he asked the Bronx native to doctor the script for Rain Man, a troubled project that three different directors would ultimately tackle and withdraw from. Six weeks of work with the exacting star led to Price quitting as well. Hoffman responded by dropping out of Sea of Love. The project was dead for a year, until Price hand delivered the script to Al Pacino, whose interest suddenly made it a hot property again.

Pacino showed Sea of Love to Martin Bregman, his former manager and the producer of Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and Scarface. Bregman set the project up at Universal, but the studio had concerns. Price recalls, “I spent nine months shoehorning that script into a thriller, which I never meant it to be. I wanted it to be this moody, mopey thing, a character study. The worst thing you can say in a meeting with the studios is, ‘This movie about I’m about to pitch to you fellas, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.’ They immediately say, ‘Well, in that case, get the fuck out of here.’ You sell a movie by its bloodlines, like you sell a racehorse. You tell them, ‘This is sired by Die Hard out of Do The Right Thing.’ Or, ‘It’s The Crying Game meets Jurassic Park, dinosaurs and transsexuals.’”

To direct, Bregman hired Gregory Hoblit, whose experience at that time was limited to episodes of Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law. Disagreements with the producer over the script and over the crew he wanted to hire led to Hoblit being fired days before filming was to begin. Bregman turned to Harold Becker, whose credits included The Onion Field, Taps and The Boost. Becker recalled, “This Richard Price script, interestingly enough, had been around for many, many years. I had seen it in an earlier incarnation, it must have been about three, four years earlier and I think had probably been seen by a lot of people. It had made the rounds, so to speak. It’s hard to believe, such an interesting piece of material wouldn’t have been grabbed up right away, but that happens sometimes.”

With a budget of $16 million, Sea of Love commenced shooting May 1988. The production filmed in Toronto for eight weeks before moving to New York for another eleven weeks. Becker recalls, “This was a very difficult film to do. It was difficult because first of all, it was so intense. It also had so many different shades to it. Everything from the comedic to the darkest moments to murder. Also an intense erotic relation, it really covered the bases. So it was a big film and it also a very long shoot because we had a lot of night shooting – also always tough – shooting on the streets of New York during the summertime.” Ironically, Richard Price, Martin Bregman and Harold Becker all had grown up in the Bronx, as had the stars. Ellen Barkin even lived on the same block as Al Pacino when she was six.

Released September 1989, the picture was praised by critics, mostly. The New York Times’ Vincent Canby wrote, “It has the manner of a heavily fiddled-with work, something that, after all the suggestions have been incorporated, finds itself in a corner from which it can’t plausibly be extricated.” David Denby retorted in New York Magazine, “Sea of Love is both an exciting murder mystery and a wonderful Manhattan love story – all lust and paranoia. It has a powerful erotic pull to it.” Siskel & Ebert gave it two thumbs up, with Siskel noting, “It’s Al Pacino’s best performance since The Godfather Part II.” Pacino had been absent from movie screens for four years, but Sea of Love brought him back in a big way, grossing $58.5 in the U.S. and another $52.3 million overseas.

To introduce Ellen Barkin’s character sooner, several scenes had been dropped, including a performance by Lorraine Bracco as Keller’s ex-wife. Despite the wholesale changes made to his script, Richard Price recalled, “What do they say? Comedy is Tragedy plus Time? Everybody’s telling me I’ve got to turn my movie into Fatal Attraction. Next thing I know, about a year later, I’m at a party and I run into James Dearden, the guy that wrote Fatal Attraction. And I said, ‘Oh. So you’re the prick that wrote that thing. I can’t tell you how miserable that made my life. I had to make my story like yours.’ And he said, ‘Look, I’ve just got a job directing a movie and everybody’s telling me I’ve got to make it like Sea of Love.’”

Opinion
After a decade in which Hollywood seemed to crank out a sleazy thriller from the pen of Joe Eszterhas every year – each a bigger dose of stupid than the last – the class act of that cycle and the one that’s endured is Sea of Love. With very little violence and a near aversion to dwell on any business beneath the sheets, the film is a classic due to its well-drawn characters, as well as its vibe, which conjures a classic sense of nocturnal desperation and edginess. Instead of taking its whodunit all that seriously, the film is more interested in exploring the desires, connections and dangers that lurk beneath urban affairs.

Richard Price – who would script the remake of Shaft and episodes of The Wire – knows his way around cops, and cuts into prime rib like few writers with the NYPD operation that opens the movie, as well as the intricacies of the Miss Lonelyhearts sting. Pacino remains scruffy and immensely watchable, but where the film lights up is with the entrance of Ellen Barkin, who capped a decade of gutsy screen performances with working class verve. Harold Becker imbues the film with a robust kinkiness that never overwhelms the characters, but stays strongly rooted in their reality. Trevor Jones assists this with a stark, jazzy musical score.

Johnny Web at Movie House Commentary writes, “Sea of Love is not a major movie, but is a solid little thriller with deep character development. Pacino’s cop is more than just a cardboard cut-out. He’s flawed; he’s an ass; he’s lonely; he’s a drunk. The key point is that he’s somebody who is known to us. We can probably answer questions about elements of his life than have not been specifically covered on screen. That kind of character development allows the audience to think of him as a member of the family, maybe a cousin who’s a pretty decent guy but needs to slack off the booze. We get deeper into the thrills because we’re into him.”

Andrew Wickliffe at The Stop Button writes, “Sea of Love is a great film. Richard Price’s writing is beautiful. For the first three quarters of the film, until the mystery takes over for a half hour, the nuance is unbelievable. Characters saying things, the meanings involved, just beautiful. Sea of Love is, I think, the last film written by the novelist Richard Price, everything after was by screenwriter Richard Price, who was still good, but reserved the good stuff for his novels (Clockers, incidentally, came from the research he did for Sea of Love).”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
Mild mannered Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) arrives for an interview at the luxurious Overlook Hotel in Colorado. General manager Mr. Ullman (Barry Nelson) explains his duties as caretaker will be to maintain the hotel when it shuts down for six months during the winter. Jack maintains that the isolation will give him time to outline a novel. Ullman feels obligated to mention a tragedy that occurred in 1970 when their winter caretaker killed his wife and two daughters with an axe before shooting himself. This fails to deter Jack, who proclaims that his wife – a fan of “ghost stories and horror films” – will be thrilled.

Back in Boulder, Jack’s passive wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) watches cartoons with their 7-year-old son Danny (Danny Lloyd). Danny is hyper intuitive, and though he keeps his abilities secret from his parents, receives glimpses of the future. He attributes these to “Tony,” a little boy he says lives in his mouth. “Tony” shows him a terrifying, bloody vision of what waits for him at the Overlook Hotel, and Danny blacks out. Arriving at the hotel, Jack and Wendy are shown through the hallways, lounges, kitchen and boiler room that will soon be completely deserted. The hotel also features a 13-foot tall hedge maze outside.

Head cook Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) senses that Danny and he share the same ability. He tells the boy that his grandmother called this “shining,” the ability to see things that haven’t happened yet. Danny feels that there’s something bad in the Overlook Hotel, particularly in Room 237. Hallorann orders him to stay out of there. With the coming of snow, Jack grows more annoyed by Wendy, and more withdrawn. Danny knows something’s wrong. Moaning in his sleep, Jack is awakened from a nightmare by Wendy. He tells her, “I dreamed that I killed you and Danny. But I didn’t just kill ya. I cut you up in little pieces.” Nightmare and reality soon become blurred for the Torrances.

Production history
Following the publication of Carrie and Salem’s Lot, Stephen King felt he needed a change of scenery. Relocating his family from Maine to Colorado for a year, King’s wife Tabitha ultimately suggested a Halloween getaway to the Stanley Hotel. The resort was closing for the season, and the Kings were the only guests. The author recalls, “That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire hose … I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in a chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of the book firmly set in my mind.”

Titled Darkshine at one point, later The Shine, the novel was published in 1977 as The Shining. Printed in a hard cover edition of only 50,000 copies, the book went on to become a bestseller in paperback. Producers Robert Fryer, Mary Lea Johnson and Martin Richards of The Producer Circle optioned the film rights. During this time, director Stanley Kubrick had spent the two years since completing Barry Lyndon combing through newspapers and magazines piled around his home in England, searching for a story for his next film. Warner Bros. president John Calley knew that Kubrick had an interest in the paranormal, and sent him a galleys copy of The Shining.

Kubrick was not moved by King’s prose. “I had seen Carrie, the film, but I have never read any of his novels. I should say that King’s greatest ingenuity lies in the construction of the story. He does not seem to be very interested in writing itself. They say he wrote, read over, rewrote maybe once and sent everything to the editor. What seems to interest him is invention and I think that is his forte.” King was contractually guaranteed the right to adapt a screenplay and turned in a first draft, but Kubrick didn’t read it. He turned to American novelist Diane Johnson, who impressed Kubrick when he learned she was teaching a course on the gothic novel at UC Berkeley.

Johnson recalled, “Kubrick was thinking of making either the Stephen King or my novel, The Shadow Knows. And, you know, he ultimately decided on the King. The Shadow Knows had some problems like being a first person narrative . . . he and I, in talking about it got along better than he and Stephen King, I guess … And I spent, oh, I don’t know, a couple of months, I guess eleven weeks all together, so almost three months in London, working everyday with him.” Kubrick had never directed a horror film. He was a studious viewer of movies, and when asked in 1980 which ones were his favorites, the reclusive director offered The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby.

Kubrick had wanted to work with Jack Nicholson for close to a decade and cast him as Jack Torrance. King stated in an interview that he much preferred an everyman like Jon Voight to play Jack. “To me, he would have been much more convincing as an ordinary man going crazy.” Kubrick’s first and only choice for Wendy Torrance was Shelley Duvall. A six-month search for a child actor to play Danny culminated in 5,000 boys being interviewed in Chicago, Denver and Cincinnati. Danny Lloyd was chosen. Kubrick hoped to round out the cast with Slim Pickens as Hallorann, but the Dr. Strangelove vet had no desire to reunite with Kubrick. Scatman Crothers was ultimately rewarded the part.

With a budget of $13 million, shooting commenced at Elstree Studios outside London in May 1978. The exteriors of The Overlook Hotel were done later at The Timberline Lodge, located on the slopes of Mount Hood in Oregon. The interiors – including the hedge maze – were all built on a soundstage. Kubrick’s obsessive attention to detail slowed what had been scheduled as a 17-week shoot to a grind. Nicholson stated in 1980, “He’ll do a scene fifty times and you have to be good to do that. There are so many ways to walk into a room, order breakfast or be frightened to death in a closet. Stanley’s approach is, how can we do it better than it’s ever been done before? It’s a big challenge.”

The Shining took 200 days to shoot. Elstree Studios waited anxiously for Kubrick to clear out so Raiders of the Lost Ark and Reds could move in. The intense lighting that Kubrick and director of photography John Alcott poured through the windows of the set was so intense, temperatures climbed to 110 degrees. With filming nearly completed in February 1979, the Colorado Lounge set burst into flames and was destroyed. Elstree hoped Kubrick would pack it in, but he ordered the soundstage rebuilt and the set reconstructed to finish his close-ups. Steven Spielberg used the soundstage to shoot the Well of Souls sequence for Raiders.

Warner Bros.’ strategy was to open The Shining Memorial Day weekend 1980 in New York and L.A. – in ten theaters and one drive-in – with the intent of going wide to 750 theaters two weeks later, after word of mouth started to build. But after playing for five days, Kubrick was still honing the film, cutting an epilogue in which the hotel manager Mr. Ullman visited Wendy in the hospital. “After several screenings in London the day before the film opened in New York and Los Angeles, when I was able to see for the first time the fantastic pitch of excitement which the audience reached during the climax of the film, I decided the scene was unnecessary.”

Critics were split on The Shining. While Newsweek gushed that it was “the first epic horror film, a movie that is to other horror movies what 2001: A Space Odyssey was to other space movies,” Variety countered, “The crazier Nicholson gets, the more idiotic he looks. Shelley Duvall transforms the warm sympathetic wife of the book into a simpering, semi-retarded hysteric.” The New Yorker (Pauline Kael), Time Magazine (Richard Schickel) and the Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert) were supportive of Kubrick, but the critical reaction at the time was that the director hadn’t watched enough horror movies.

In an interview with Playboy in 1983, Stephen King stated: “The real problem is that Kubrick set out to make a horror picture with no apparent understanding of the genre. Everything about it screams that from beginning to end, from plot decision to the final scene – which has been used before on The Twilight Zone.” Despite its lukewarm reviews, The Shining opened to the biggest grosses in the history of Warner Bros. It ultimately minted $44 million in the U.S. When King wrote and produced his own adaptation of The Shining as a four-hour mini-series for ABC in 1997 – with Steven Weber and Rebecca DeMornay – critics assailed it for being nowhere near as good as Kubrick’s “classic.”

Opinion
While Kubrick departs radically from King’s text – jettisoning among other things the backstory that explains where the specters that haunt the hotel come from – The Shining remains one of the great entertainments in the history of the movies, so exquisitely designed, so well cast and so filled with gothic terror that other filmmakers have been trying to top it for decades. The tedious mini-series demonstrated that many of the devices King felt were spooky – animal shaped shrubs, a fire hose, a boiler – are nothing compared to a child’s primal fear of a parent turning into a monster. The magnificence of the film is how the film exploits this dread viscerally.

Kubrick’s chilly aesthetic and his photographic work with Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown – gliding the camera through the corridors of the hotel – is noteworthy, but the film was destined to be a classic from the moment it was cast. Jack Nicholson, in perhaps the most iconic performance of his career, is breathlessly lunatic, while Shelley Duvall’s emotional depth charge is nothing short of brilliant. Danny Lloyd and Scatman Crothers are sublime as well. Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind provided electronic sound elements, which Kubrick sourced with music from classical composers György Ligeti and Krzysztof Penderecki to create one of the more unique scores ever created.

Gregory Dorr at The DVD Journal writes, “The beauty of Kubrick is that each of his films, with the exception of maybe Barry Lyndon, can be appreciated on several different levels: aesthetically, viscerally, and intellectually. Stanley Kubrick is also a master at including tiny moments, minuscule details that enrich his films beyond the scope of films not by Stanley Kubrick. Such moments in The Shining include: The sound of Danny’s Big Wheel rolling on the hard floor of the Overlook Hotel and then rolling over a rug and then over the hard floor again, etc.; The twin ghosts of murdered twin daughters who both eerily resemble dwarfish twin Christina Riccis … The red bathroom that looks like a set from 2001 … Every look, gesture, smile, frown, glance, and spoken word from Jack Nicholson.”

“The Shining (1980) is creative director Stanley Kubrick’s intense, epic, gothic horror film and haunted house masterpiece – a beautiful, stylish work that distanced itself from the blood-letting and gore of most modern films in the horror genre … Kubrick deliberately reduced the pace of the narrative and expanded the rather simple plot of a domestic tragedy to over two hours in length, created lush images within the ornate interior of the main set, added a disturbing synthesized soundtrack (selecting musical works from Bela Bartok, Gyorgy Ligeti, and Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki), used a Steadicam in groundbreaking fashion, filmed most of the gothic horror in broad daylight or brightly-lit scenes, and built an unforgettable, mounting sensation of terror, ghosts, and the paranormal,” writes Tim Dirks at The Greatest Films.

Graeme Clark at The Spinning Image writes, “Although a long film, especially for its genre, it never drags due to the obvious precision of the technique – every part of it is assembled with the attention to detail of a Swiss watchmaker … The Overlook is a time trap, where it makes sense that Jack has always been mad, Wendy always scared, and Danny always the possessor of powers that alarmingly fit right in there. It’s up to Wendy and Danny, with the help of a suspicious Hallorann, to break the cycle. An absolute joy from start to finish for those with a taste for the sardonic side of the macabre, The Shining is one of the best horrors of its time.”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
Disc jockey Dave Garver (Clint Eastwood) opens his show at jazz station KRML in Carmel by promising “a little verse, a little talk, and five hours of music to be very, very nice to each other by.” A regular female caller phones in and purrs, “Play ‘Misty’ for me.” Winding down at his favorite watering hole, Dave attracts the attention of a brunette at the end of the bar. Introducing herself as Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter), she tells Dave that she’s been stood up on a date. He gives Evelyn a ride home, but feels he knows the woman from somewhere. She reveals she’s his “Misty” caller.

Dave tells Evelyn he doesn’t want to complicate his life. She doesn’t see why this is any reason they shouldn’t sleep together. He sneaks off in the morning, but Evelyn shows up unannounced at Dave’s house to make him dinner. The disc jockey establishes a few boundaries before sleeping with her again. Dave is more interested in patching things up with his artsy ex-girlfriend (Donna Mills) when he discovers she’s moved back from Sausalito. But Evelyn tracks Dave down, asking why he hasn’t taken her calls. He’s not amused. “Where does it say I’ve got to drop what I’m doing and answer the phone every time it rings?”

Evelyn continues to smother Dave – banging on his door in the middle of the night and professing her love for him – until he makes it clear he doesn’t feel the same way. She responds by slashing her wrists in his bathroom and drawing out her recovery so he won’t send her home. When he finally leaves his house for a business meeting, Evelyn follows him to the restaurant and has a fit. Dave breaks it off with his schizophrenic woman for the last time, unaware she’s copied his house key and considers the affair far from over.

Production history
Jo Heims met Clint Eastwood while working at Universal as a legal secretary in the early 1960s. She wanted to be a screenwriter. He was a TV star taking acting classes with aspirations to be a serious actor. Some years later, Heims wrote a sixty-page treatment called Play Misty For Me. Eastwood read it and recalled, “I liked the Alfred Hitchcock kind of thriller aspect, but the main thing I liked about it was beyond that, the story was very real. The story was believable because these kind of commitments or misinterpretations thereof go on all the time.”

Eastwood optioned the treatment and took the project to CBS, to Universal and to United Artists, but with his feature film career limited to the spaghetti westerns he’d done in Europe, none of the studios were interested. While in England shooting Where Eagles Dare, Eastwood received a call from Heims. She had an offer from Universal to purchase Play Misty For Me. Unsure when he’d ever get around to the project, Eastwood told Heims to sell it. When Universal later signed him to a three-picture deal, Eastwood asked what had happened to that “odd little story about a disc jockey.”

He was shown a script the studio had commissioned, but didn’t care for it. Eastwood worked with Heims on a new draft – changing the setting from L.A. to Monterey County – then approached Dean Riesner to do a polish. Studio VP Jennings Lang was dubious. He tried to talk the star out of the project by mentioning that the woman had the best part, but Eastwood had already made up his mind that Play Misty For Me was going to be his directorial debut. Studio chief Lew Wasserman approved of the idea immediately, but notified Eastwood’s agent that he’d only be paid the DGA minimum for his services behind the camera.

With a budget of $700,000, Misty commenced shooting September 1970 in the area of Carmel, where Eastwood lived. He cast his mentor Don Siegel in the role of Murph the bartender, but ended up not needing the directorial guidance, bringing his first film in on budget. Despite an enthusiastic preview in San Jose a year later, Universal showed little inclination to support the picture. It performed well at the box office anyway, so well, that Eastwood received a call from the manager of the Cineramadome in Hollywood, asking if he could stop Universal from pulling the film after only four weeks. “The audience just keeps coming.”

Opinion
In the 1980s, Brian DePalma and John Carpenter were both approached to direct a potential blockbuster about an obsessive affair, but turned it down – in part – because they felt it was too similar to Eastwood’s directorial debut. Play Misty For Me is not only superior to Fatal Attraction as a thriller – slowly building dread and paying off with a couple of sharp, unexpected shocks – but remains a classic because it actually has something relevant to say about men and women; specifically, how flirtations can easily ignite into obsessions.

While not a model of perfection – the bar scenes are too bright and some of the casting is on the level of a nighttime soap – shooting on real location lends the film a terrific energy. Jessica Walter and Clint Eastwood are the chief reason the movie works as well as it does. Equally impressive is the fact that Dave Garver never picks up a weapon, but is left completely at the mercy of his conquest. Bruce Surtees provided the stark cinematography and Dee Barton – who Eastwood met at an L.A. nightclub where his band was performing – composed the moody score, his first.

Scott Weinberg at Apollo Movie Guide writes, “I doubt many people would argue against Eastwood’s skill on both sides of the camera. It’s a film that’s achieved cult status worldwide and was also the inspiration for the blockbuster hit Fatal Attraction. Regardless of the box office receipts, this one is easily the better film. As a cautionary tale on the benefits of monogamy or as a straight ‘psycho-girlfriend-from-Hell’ thriller, it’s worth your investment of time and money.”

“I could’ve easily gone without the Jazz concert bit. Felt trivial, self indulgent or/and there to ‘kill time’. Overall though Play Misty for Me was a tight, suspense laced little ditty that sported a couple of nasty surprises along the way and ended it off in a refreshingly grounded fashion. No overlong and flashy finale for this film! It capped off the way it should; “to the freaking point”. You going to Play Misty For Her or run for your life? This bitch is nuts!” writes John Fallon at Arrow In the Head.

Earl Cressey at DVD Talk writes, “Even though Play Misty for Me is highly regarded as one of the top films in the suspense thriller genre, I had overlooked it until now. However, when it came up for review, I was glad to correct this oversight. And it’s a good thing, as Misty is a terrific film. Though it was Eastwood’s first time directing, viewers will be hard pressed to notice, as everything looks and comes together great. The acting is all top-notch as well, especially on the parts of Eastwood and Walter. Though the movie slows down in the second half, it really is a great film that no fan of the genre should miss.”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
Resorting to a fantasy in which a stranger accosts her in the shower, Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) gets through a thoroughly unsatisfying round of sex with her husband. Revealing this to her psychiatrist, Dr. Elliott (Michael Caine), she’s advised to think about where her anger is going and to confront her husband with her sexual frustrations. Kate visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art and after a prolonged game of gallery tag with an amorous stranger, climbs into a cab and indulges in a quickie in the backseat with him. Leaving his apartment, Kate is cornered in the elevator and slashed to death by a blonde with a straight razor.

Call girl Liz Blake (Nancy Allen) witnesses the slaying and is hauled before the crass cop (Dennis Franz) leading the investigation. Kate’s geeky teenaged son Peter (Keith Gordon) eavesdrops on the interrogation electronically, hoping to nab the killer himself. Meanwhile, “Bobbi” – a disturbed patient who feels he’s a woman trapped in a man’s body – leaves a message for Dr. Elliott in which he reveals he’s taken the shrink’s razor. Peter follows Liz on the subway and saves her from Bobbi’s razor. Liz and Peter then hatch a plan to snoop through Dr. Elliott’s appointment book to learn who “Bobbi” is and stop her before she kills one of them.

Production history
Brian DePalma spent a year working on an adaptation of Robert Daley’s book Prince of the City when Orion Pictures balked at where the script was headed and dismissed the director. DePalma returned to an unproduced screenplay he’d adapted from the novel Cruising. Taking the idea of a character engaging in random sex, DePalma married it to a woman who gets picked up in an art gallery, something he’d tried in his college days. Seeing a transsexual interviewed on The Phil Donahue Show gave him the idea of a psychiatrist whose female side murders the women arousing his male side. This formed the basis for Dressed To Kill.

DePalma sent the script to his former agent George Litto, whose response was, “If you and I can’t agree that I can produce the movie, I’ll kill ya.” Litto knew that Samuel Z. Arkoff was an admirer of DePalma’s and set the project up at Filmways, which provided $6.5 million in financing and gave DePalma full creative control. His first choice to play Kate Miller was Liv Ullmann. The esteemed Norwegian actress turned the part down. Sean Connery was asked to play the psychiatrist and also passed. DePalma talked Angie Dickinson and Michael Caine into filling the roles, joining DePalma’s wife Nancy Allen, who the role of Liz Blake had been written for.

The first crisis arrived when DePalma submitted Dressed To Kill to the MPAA. The film was stamped with an X rating. To ensure that the theater chains would exhibit the film and that newspapers would run ads, the director reluctantly toned down the nudity in the shower scene and the bloodshed of Kate’s death to win an R rating. DePalma recalls, “I had an impression that because it so effective I was being penalized by being effective, not because I showed so much, but because it was so scary and so violent.” Audiences in Europe were able to see DePalma’s uncut version, while in the United States, they had to wait for home video.

Arriving in theaters July 1980, Dressed To Kill received some of the most enthusiastic critical notices of the year. The New York Times (Vincent Canby), the New Yorker (Pauline Kael) and New York magazine (David Denby) went out of their way to praise the film. Andrew Sarris dissented, calling it “soft-core porn and hard-edged horror” and citing DePalma for ripping off Alfred Hitchcock. An even more hostile reaction came from Women Against Pornography, which organized protests outside theaters in New York, Boston, L.A. and San Francisco. One of the group’s leaflets read, “If this film succeeds, killing women may become the greatest turn-on of the Eighties!”

The picket lines amounted to free publicity and vaulted Dressed To Kill past Airplane! and The Empire Strikes Back to the number one grossing movie in the country its second week of release. It went on to earn $31.8 million in the United States. Looking back on the furor in 2001, DePalma commented, “All those movies that they were trashing in the ‘60s and the ‘70s or ‘80s are the ones that people are writing about now and the ones that seem to have some kind of life. The revisionism will start basically and you basically as an artist, you just have to just do what you feel is what you’re doing and not get crushed by the particular establishment in place at the time.”

Opinion
Whether you’re an academic taking notes in the aisle with a pen light, a jackass up in the balcony with a box of Goobers, or a regular moviegoer somewhere in between, Dressed To Kill is a classic because it has something to marvel over regardless of which demographic you fall into. It’s my favorite Brian DePalma film, one that absolutely has to be considered on any list of top five achievements in the director’s infamous yet prodigious career. It is gruesome (the DVD features the film in both its theatrical and “unrated” versions,) but in a way that’s more electric than upsetting, soused on a pure intoxication for cinema and eliciting a visceral response from the audience. And does it ever.

From the opening chord of Pino Donaggio’s billowing musical score, the movie is too far over the top to be taken seriously as a drama. As an orchestration of camera movement, film and sound editing and art design, even the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock would have to admit that DePalma knows how to utilize the medium. Michael Caine sort of looks like he came in on his time off between Beyond the Poseidon Adventure and Blame It On Rio, but Nancy Allen and Keith Gordon have never been more engaging in a movie. Terrifying in parts, the film is also hilarious in others, courtesy Dennis Franz, who takes off running with the full range of New York cop talk, without ever looking back.

Gary Militzer at DVD Verdict writes, “Stylish psycho-shock films don’t come any better than this. Talented acting, superb direction, shocking twists, taut suspense – it’s all here. Sure, there is style to burn here – Brian De Palma is a filmmaker in love with his camera, after all – but De Palma sprinkles in just enough lingering substance to gel it all together into a memorable suspense classic that only gains in stature with repeat viewings. And it’s not just a one-trick, gimmick-twist of a film that insults your intelligence in the end… This is the real deal; Dressed to Kill is an essential De Palma masterwork that is not to be missed.”

“It has some genuinely creepy sequences and some really well-shot scenes, but De Palma strays too often into gratuitous violence and sensationalism. De Palma was one of the major voices in the 1970s-1980s school of filmmaking that wanted to see how far they could push the envelope. What they learned (or, at least, what the audiences learned) is that being able to show everything that classic Hollywood had to cover up is not necessarily a good thing, especially if the films exist only to see how far they could go,” writes Michael W. Phillips Jr. at goatdog’s movies.

Daniel Stephens at DVD Times writes, “The brilliance of the movie begins at its core: the script. De Palma has managed to create a taut thriller filled to the gills with false avenues, red herrings and ambiguity. It is much more original than it may look at first glance, combining visual scenes driven by the camera rather than dialogue, and for all intents and purposes throws out any remnants of genre conventions. For all its worth as a thrilling psychological drama, it has true connotations of gothic horror, romance, comedy and porn.”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
Following a tragic automobile accident, Royal Australian Navy captain John Ingram (Sam Neill) and his wife Rae (Nicole Kidman) isolate themselves aboard a yacht, the Saracen. Rae doubts she can get rid of the terrors in her head, but her husband assures her, “We’ve got weeks and weeks. Calm days, calm seas. And we’re gonna get strong, and when you’re strong, we’ll go home and start again.” With the exception of their dog Ben, the couple is completely alone. This changes when John spots a schooner on the horizon, the first boat they’ve seen in three weeks.

A man in a dinghy rows over. Behaving erratically, an American introduces himself as Hughie Warriner (Billy Zane) and states that his boat is taking on water. He claims five others were aboard, but died of food poisoning. Too traumatized to go back, Hughie is confined to one of the cabins while John rows to the battered schooner to investigate. Uncovering mutilated corpses, John races back to his wife, but not before Hughie escapes and takes control of the yacht, leaving John marooned.

John attempts to make the schooner ship shape in an attempt to head after his wife. Meanwhile, Rae tries to gain a psychological edge over her increasingly paranoid captor. Gaining use of the ship’s radar, she establishes the location of the schooner and communicates with her husband through Morse code. To give John time to catch up, she throws the yacht’s keys into the ocean, but her dog unwittingly hops into the water to fetch them. Learning that the schooner will sink in six hours, Rae resorts to more aggressive means to turn the yacht around and rescue him.

Production history
Dead Calm began as a 1963 novel by Charles Williams. The story followed John and Rae Ingram, a couple enjoying a South Seas honeymoon when they intercept a drowning ship. They retrieve a survivor, Hughie. John rows over and discovers the situation is shockingly different from what Hughie described, but the psychopath takes command of the couple’s yacht. A battle of wills ensues between Rae and Hughie, while her marooned husband struggles to catch them. Orson Welles optioned the film rights, casting Michael Bryant & Oja Kodar as the couple and Laurence Harvey as their tormentor.

Welles began shooting off the coast of Yugoslavia in 1968 under the title The Deep. Unable to secure financing to complete the film as he intended, the maverick director for all practical purposes abandoned it. He cut several trailers and short assemblages in a bid to raise more money, but the film never made it out of the vault of Welles’ estate. Over a decade later, Australian director Phillip Noyce was visiting America for the release of his well-received film Newsfront. He met with producer Tony Bill, who had taken an active interest in Dead Calm and threw Noyce a copy of the book as he was leaving.

Three months passed before Noyce got around to reading the book. Once he did, he flew back to Los Angeles and told Bill that he had to make the movie. The producer revealed that Welles had already tried and that his de facto widow – Oja Kodar – not only controlled the rights, but wasn’t inclined to sell them to the Hollywood establishment that had shunned Welles throughout his career. Several months later, Noyce repeated the story to George Miller, who was about to leave Australia to direct The Witches of Eastwick for the Hollywood establishment.

Miller and his producing partner Byron Kennedy had taken profits from the Mad Max trilogy and invested in the local film industry. They built their own studio in Kings Cross, grooming directors like John Duigan, Chris Noonan and Noyce on several “domestic movies” airing on Australian television. After obtaining permission from Tony Bill, Miller paid a visit to Oja Kodar and convinced her that his take on the material would be faithful to what Orson Welles intended, not a Hollywood studio. He left with the rights for Kennedy Miller to produce Dead Calm.

Terry Hayes adapted a screenplay, using the basic story and mood of the book, but making alterations. These included reducing the cast of characters to three – not counting the couple’s dog – and jettisoning a backstory that explained why Hughie went psychotic. The first actor cast was Sam Neill. For the role of Rae, Noyce approached Sigourney Weaver and Debra Winger among others, but each actress turned the part down. Hayes lobbied for a 20-year-old Australian performer named Nicole Kidman. Noyce screen tested forty actors for the part of Hughie and picked Billy Zane to round out the cast.

After months spent surveying waters around the world, fourteen weeks of shooting commenced on and off the coast of Hamilton Island in the Whitsunday Passage of the Great Barrier Reef. Due to the barrier reef, waters remained mostly flat throughout the schedule. The production used one yacht to stand in for the Saracen and two boats to substitute for the Orpehus. For the interiors, the production built a seventy-by-forty foot tank, buoying the sets on empty oil drums to generate the effect of being a sea.

Warner Bros. picked up distribution rights to the film. Test audiences voted thumbs down on the original climax, in which Rae knocked Hughie on the head with a speargun and left him on an inflatable raft. Noyce shot a new ending, which left little ambiguity to the bad guy’s future. Opening April 1989 in the U.S., Dead Calm received generally favorable reviews; Siskel & Ebert gave it two enthusiastic thumbs up, with Gene Siskel noting, “I liked the minimal approach of this picture; which is three people, two boats and they made an interesting movie out of it.”

Opinion
Director Phillip Noyce and actors Sam Neill, Nicole Kidman and even Billy Zane spent the next decade heavily in demand due to the craftsmanship they displayed here, but no matter how many generic mainstream movies they’ve worked on since, Dead Calm remains a classic for how unremittingly gothic it is in both structure and mood. The filmmakers take the water wing floaties off in the very first scene and commit the movie to a hard R-rating – dark and unsettling all the way through – with plenty of exciting twists along the way.

While the ending does have that familiar Fatal Attraction psycho killer disposal vibe to it, the previous 90 minutes are taut and spooky. By limiting the cast to three characters – often isolated from each other – the claustrophobia of their environment is heightened. Noyce makes fantastic use of the nautical setting and the importance of bearings, radar, radio, ships logs and basic seamanship to survival. Further demonstrating that Australians ranked among the finest filmmakers in the world, Dean Semler provided the eerie lighting and Graeme Revell – on his first ever film score – composed the ominous music.

Joshua Smith at Oz Cinema writes, “Just as Hitchcock often employed elements of both surprise and suspense in his riveting thrillers, Noyce (and George Miller, who allegedly directed the second unit and the opening sequence) have successfully utilised both elements, and defied various conventions to create a thriller that will have you holding your breathe until the very last revelation.”

“The really good parts of the movie are the scenes that rely on action, rather than dialogue, between the characters. The camera work and scenery are exhilarating and had me wanting more … In paying more attention to the action elements of the story, some of the performances suffer. Billy Zane’s performance is too exaggerated to be believable,” writes Dan Kelly at The Digital Bits. He gives the flick a C+.

Lisa Skryniarz at Crazy For Cinema writes, “Suspense films rarely gets better than this. The plot is not what you’d call complicated and yet I guarantee you will be glued to the edge of your seat. Dead Calm is a perfect example of an average story taken to a whole different level by the stellar performances of its’ stars.”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
A multi-ethnic street gang from Coney Island known as the Warriors sends nine of its members to a citywide gang summit in the Bronx. The chosen few include their leader Cleon (Dorsey Wright), a cool headed “war chief” named Swan (Michael Beck), and the cocky Ajax (James Remar). A truce enables the Warriors to move via the subway through turf controlled by rival gangs. At the rally, the charismatic leader of the Gramercy Riffs makes a plea for the gangs to unite and take control of the streets. Before he goes into specifics, a sociopath named Luther (David Patrick Kelly) shoots him dead.

Amid the confusion, Luther blames the assassination on the Warriors. The gang flees and finds themselves far from home in hostile territory. A radio DJ (Lynne Thigpen) keeps a running tally as the Warriors cross the turf of other gangs. The Orphans are so sloppy that one of their members, Mercy (Deborah Van Valkenburgh), joins up with the Warriors. The skinhead Turnball ACs prove more ferocious, as do a female crew, the Lizzies. After being chased by the sinister Baseball Furies, the surviving Warriors make it back to Coney Island to find Luther waiting for them.

Production history
Producer Lawrence Gordon was browsing the discount rack at a bookstore in the mid-1970s when he came across a paperback called The Warriors. Published in 1965 and authored by a former employee of the New York Department of Welfare named Sol Yurick, the story was inspired by The Anabasis (loosely translated: The March Upcountry), an account by the Greek general Xenophon of 10,000 mercenaries stranded in Babylon circa 401 B.C. To reach the safety of the sea, the Greeks battled through a thousand miles of hostile enemy territory in Persia.

Yorick’s novel concerned a night in the life of a Coney Island street gang called the Dominators who face a similar peril when they venture to a peace summit in the Bronx and have to fight their way back to the ocean. Gordon liked the concept enough to option The Warriors. David Shaber adapted a screenplay. To direct, Gordon had Walter Hill in mind. Gordon had produced Hill’s two films – Hard Times and The Driver – and was prepping a western Hill had written with Roger Spottiswoode called The Last Gun. Financing fell through on the western eight weeks before shooting was set to begin.

Gordon had shown Hill the paperback and his script for The Warriors. An aficionado of terse dialogue and hard hitting, stylized action, Hill’s response to the material was, “I thought it lent itself to a very pure, chase kind of atmosphere. I think the immediate attraction was that kind of purity and simplicity.” With its lack of roles for marquee stars, Hill didn’t think any studio would be interested, but Gordon informed the director that Paramount was looking for youth oriented fare, and if he could be ready to shoot right away, they could make The Warriors instead.

Hill rewrote the script. “At the very beginning, I said, ‘Look, to do this properly and to do the vision of the novel, it really only makes sense if you do it all black and Hispanic. And the studio was not very keen on that idea.” Instead of doing a realistic take on street gangs, Hill went in the other direction. “And I later came to realize that the studio forced me into the comic book idea, I think, because it was about the only way I could make it all make sense to myself. You had to create a different kind of reality.” Hill encouraged costume designer Bobbie Mannix to go more and more extreme in her wardrobe ideas for the various gangs.

After casting in New York – David Patrick Kelly and Lynne Thigpen were discovered performing on Broadway in Working – shooting commenced in June 1978. The romantic leads were to be the characters of Fox and Mercy, played by Thomas Waites and Deborah Van Valkenburg. Waites’ attitude didn’t endear him to Hill, who rewrote the script to have Fox thrown under a subway train. Michael Beck’s chemistry with Van Valkenburgh prompted their relationship to become a focal point. Other than the brawl in the subway men’s room – which was done in Astoria Studios in Queens – the film was shot on the streets of Coney Island, the Bronx and Manhattan over four months.

Paramount vetoed a number of Hill’s ideas; a title card reading, “Some time in the future” was deemed too much like Star Wars, while post-production was too rushed for the director to insert comic book splash panels as the action progressed from chapter to chapter. Orson Welles had been approached to give an opening narration on The Anabasis, but the studio didn’t feel that a lesson in Greek history was necessary to the film either. Released in February 1979 without press screenings – the same weekend as six other films – The Warriors was panned by The New York Times, The Village Voice and most of the newspaper critics of the day.

Audiences had a different reaction. The film opened number one at the box office with blockbuster returns of $3.5 million. In some cases, audiences got too wild. In its first weekend in Southern California, a fatal stabbing in Oxnard and a shooting at a Palm Springs drive-in were linked to The Warriors. So was a stabbing in Boston a week later. Paramount responded by pulling TV and radio ads, and notified exhibitors that they were free to cancel bookings out of concern for security (at least six theaters did.) Two weeks without incident – and a rave from esteemed film critic Pauline Kael in The New Yorker – resulted in a renewed advertising blitz.

By 2005, The Warriors had spawned action figures, a video game in Xbox and PlayStation 2 formats, a couple of fan websites and an “Ultimate Director’s Cut” DVD in which Hill was permitted to insert his opening narration and animated splash panels to heighten the comic book effect. Lawrence Gordon commented on the film’s enduring popularity by saying, “In the business, all the young screenwriters, all the young directors, everybody was just always … one of their favorite films. As far as I was concerned, we made a cartoon that people would not take seriously. I was way off base.”

Opinion
At first glance, The Warriors lacks the craftsmanship to overcome its dumb bell characters and dialogue (my favorite bad line comes from Mercedes Ruehl: ”Whoa, look at those muscles. I bet the chicks love all those muscles!”) There have been far better action movies, but that said, The Warriors stands out as a classic because of its creative panache. By wiping the real New York right off the screen – along with anything that would indicate the film was shot in 1978 – The Warriors achieves a very basic, yet highly stylized feel.

For a breakneck 93 minutes, we enter a nocturnal universe whose parks, subway stations and streets belong to gangs with names like the Boppers. Everyone has an insignia or affiliation. There are few guns. Combatants wail on each other with fists and bats, but no one gets injured. It’s a visceral, hypnotic and even addictive vision from Walter Hill, certainly on the short list of greatest “guys movies” ever made. Joe Walsh performed a sensational theme – “In The City” – co-written by Barry DeVorzon, who also composed the electric, frequently eerie synthesizer score.

Keith Breese at filmcritic.com writes, “There are certain films that by some unforeseen circumstance tap into a generation, a culture, a time, perfectly. The Warriors is just such a film. It is by no means a perfect movie. It is well crafted and dramatic, but what moves it beyond cult adoration and fanboy drooling is its epic storyline and intensely rendered narrative … It’s an archetypal tale of survival, of revenge, of power and corruption and the human spirit. Sounds like a load of over-educated under-paid horseshit, I admit. But The Warriors really does have that kind of power.”

“Despite being corny and dated as hell, The Warriors is a film fondly remembered by many, possessing an odd sense of timelessness, even by the harsh and modern standards of action films today. A quarter of a century later, and The Warriors remains as tense, as action-packed, and as entertaining as ever. Unfortunately, in this climate of cinematic unoriginality, this makes it ripe for a Hollywood remake … I suggest writing a letter to your congressman now, and beat the postal rush,” writes Adam Arseneau at DVD Verdict.

The Vocabulariast at Movie Cynics says, “The Warriors is an almost perfect movie. Sure some of the lines are corny and you’ll laugh out loud. Yes, some of the gangs are stupid. I’m thinking of a particular gang fond of dressing like mimes. Of course, the cast is fairly terrible except for a few exceptions, but that is what makes cult movies great, they manage to overcome all of their shortcomings and transcend the nature of their parts to create one classic experience that connects with moviegoers across all cross-sections of society. In this sense, The Warrior is the cult movie.”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
In a New England town, schoolteacher Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) takes his fellow faculty member and girlfriend Sarah Bracknell (Brooke Adams) to an amusement park after school. Johnny suffers a migraine on a rollercoaster. At the end of the day, he refuses her offer to stay the night, preferring to wait until they get married for that. But on the way home, Johnny collides with a jackknifed big rig and falls into a coma.

Regaining consciousness at a clinic run by the benevolent Dr. Weizak (Herbert Lom), Johnny learns that he’s been unconscious for five years. His parents inform him that Sarah has married. Johnny later grasps the hand of a nurse, and experiences a vision of her daughter trapped in a house fire. His warning saves the girl’s life. Later, he has a vision of Weizak fleeing the Nazis as a boy, and informs the doctor that his mother survived the war and is alive.

A sheriff (Tom Skerritt) looking for leads in the case of the Castle Rock Killer approaches Johnny. He refuses to get involved at first, but with little else to do once Sarah says goodbye for the last time, Johnny agrees to help. He tells Weizak about a “dead zone” in his visions, empty space that his doctor interprets as his ability not only to see the future, but to change it. Johnny then meets Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen), a charismatic candidate for state senate. He has a vision of Stillson winning the presidency and launching a nuclear war.

Production history
Stephen King crowned a prolific five year span – in which he wrote Carrie, ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining and The Stand – with his 1979 novel The Dead Zone. The book – which alternates between a schoolteacher experiencing visions after waking from a coma, and a sociopath rising to power as a politician – was King’s first to reach #1 on the New York Times Best Seller List. Producer Jon Peters approached King about acquiring the film rights, but the author hadn’t been impressed with The Eyes of Laura Mars and turned Peters down.

King sold the film rights to Lorimar Productions. Paul Monash wrote two drafts for veteran director Stanley Donen, but according to King, “Neither of the drafts were very successful.” Jeffrey Boam was brought in to pare the novel down to a two-hour film. A producer at Lorimar named Carol Baum had seen a 1979 Canadian horror movie called The Brood and without realizing they already had a director, contacted David Cronenberg. She offered him the job before having to retract it.

When a series of commercial failures forced Lorimar to suspend its theatrical operations, producer Dino De Laurentiis scooped up the rights to King’s bestseller in early 1982. David Cronenberg happened to be on the Universal lot when he met Debra Hill, who had been tapped by De Laurentiis to produce The Dead Zone. Hill offered Cronenberg the job. This time, he got to keep it. The director holed up in a hotel room in Toronto and working from Boam’s draft, restructured and rewrote the story with Hill.

King favored casting Bill Murray as Johnny Smith. Cronenberg liked Canadian actor Nicholas Campbell, who he ended up casting as the Castle Rock Killer. De Laurentiis wanted Christopher Walken. Budgeted at $7 million, shooting began in January 1983 in the Ontario town of Niagara-On-The-Lake, with interiors lensing at Lakeshore Studios in Toronto. The response from test audiences convinced Paramount to market The Dead Zone as a psychological drama as opposed to a horror movie, and when released in October 1983, it became the biggest success of Cronenberg’s career.

Opinion
The Dead Zone has been called the Stephen King novel to introduce people who don’t like King or horror novels to King’s work. The impressive film adaptation is the movie to introduce people who don’t like David Cronenberg or horror movies to Cronenberg’s work. Instead of shocking the audience with psychedelic or repellent imagery, here the director assuredly lures us in, using ordinary characters and a Norman Rockwell winter setting to spring King’s subversive tale of a political assassin as hero.

While the film feels chippy at 103 minutes and excises a lot of rich – and superfluous – material from King’s novel, present in almost every scene is Christopher Walken, giving a striking performance that was iconic almost the moment it hit theater screens. This is one of his five greatest film roles of all time. The conceit of a man who sets out to commit murder for the good of humanity gives The Dead Zone a real edge, particularly today. Michael Kamen added an enthralling musical score, perhaps his finest film composition ever.

Harold Gervais at DVD Verdict writes, “With its lonely vistas the film plays more like an Andrew Wyeth painting that has been brought to life than it does a horror shocker from the modern master of terror. It also helps that David Cronenberg is directing. If you look at the man’s body of work you will find one recurrent theme that runs throughout most of his films and that is the love story. Bizarre, otherworldly love stories to be sure, but still love stories.”

“There is no question that this is the most mainstream film that David Cronenberg has ever made, one devoid of his usual predilection for difficult, often controversial subject matter and disturbing imagery … However, considering the overall trajectory of the maverick director’s career, it did mark an important step forward in the development of a genuine emotional intensity hitherto absent from the filmmaker’s work,” writes Alan Daly at DVD Times.

Chris Coleman at Appreciating Great Trash says The Dead Zone is, “almost as crushingly sad as Cronenberg’s The Fly, and it functions even better than that film as one of his best character-studies; of particular interest is the story’s audacity in casting two characters who claim to have ‘psychic visions,’ but then committing the moral flip-flop of having the ostensibly crazed, gun-wielding assassin as the heroic proprietor of legitimate premonitions, while depicting the upright Populist politician as an insane, solipsistic fraud.”

© Joe Valdez