(Prime/hoopla/tubi/VOD) A quintessential mid-80s high school film where the teachers fear the students, but a new pupil has come to town to set them straight. TUFF TURF features a pre-PRETTY IN PINK James Spader as the new stranger at school, Kim Richards as the gang leader’s girlfriend who Spader has designs on, and a pre-LESS THAN ZERO Robert Downey Jr. as Spader’s over-eager new friend.
TUFF TURF is directed by Fritz Kiersch, best known for helming the first CHILDREN OF THE CORN, which may explain why the film is surprisingly violent, especially the elaborate final confrontation. While the combination of wooing, dance scenes, and vicious beatdowns does feel a bit jarring, it results in a rather winsome little film. It helps that the soundtrack features a healthy dose of The Jim Carroll Band.
(hoopla/Prime/tubi/VOD/Vudu) While this show was always on this month’s slate, I wanted to recommend it on the day of SUPERNATURAL’s (WB/CW, 2005-2020) series finale. SUPERNATURAL is a show that’s been a bit of a lingering constant in my life since I glommed onto it around the third season. I haven’t watched every season, but I drop in from time to time — usually for any episode that Ben Edlund has penned, or any of the obviously meta eps — and I’m looking forward to seeing how everything ends.*
But I’m supposed to discuss ROUTE 66! Here’s what you need to know about ROUTE 66:
1) It’s one of the first road trip shows, and the creator of the show (Stirling Silliphant, who previously pioneered shot-on-location TV with THE NAKED CITY) insisted on shooting in every location detailed on the page. He wanted the show to explore America, hence the title.
2) ROUTE 66 is fundamentally about two drifters, one sensitive (Tod, played by Martin Milner), one more callous and randy (Buz, played by George Maharis), and they drive from town-to-town solving mysteries and soothing community wounds in a Chevrolet Corvette. Sound familiar? They often come to blows with how to deal with a situation, with one wanting to drive off while the other wanting to stay and help those in need. Each week ended up with everything neatly tied up, and they’d drive off to another town, slightly satisfied. Also, just take a look at ‘em! 60s versions of Sam and Dean if you ever saw ‘em.
It’s a fine case-of-the week strategy, which is exactly why SUPERNATURAL stole it. SUPERNATURAL creator Eric Kripke’s elevator pitch for the show was ‘X-FILES meets ROUTE 66’.** SUPERNATURAL became something completely different — and rarely ever shot on location — but you could still see the ROUTE 66 roots showing even in the final season.
By today’s eyes, ROUTE 66 is a fun, but mostly insubstantial show. It often feels like smaller scale version of the teen drifter/loner film dramas that were released around the late 50s/early 60s but, unlike those films, it showcased parts of the US that hadn’t previously been aired on TV. It boiled down to an entertainingly slightly dramatic tourist show, of which I think the only comparable show on the air right now is THE AMAZING RACE (also CBS, but a reality show).
Later on in the series, when the show started flagging a bit, they started having fun some fun with it, most notably with -Lizard’s Leg and Owlet’s Wing- which features Tod and Buz working at Chicago’s O’Hare Inn, where Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Lon Chaney Jr. just happen to be staying, and TV-safe horror antics ensue. (If you’d like to read more about the ep, see here: https://www.classicfilmtvcafe.com/2010/10/route-66-lizards-leg-and-owlets-wing.html ) You don’t have to watch every episode of ROUTE 66, but that ep is a fine spooky treasure.
(Not a trailer, but the full first episode.)
For what it’s worth, my favorite SUPERNATURAL episode is probably the 200th ep. While it’s complete fan-service, it also cuts to the quick about all that works about the show, including the hows and whys it’s lasted fifteen years.
(Spoilers for the …prior 199 episodes? Really, apart from one specific reference that’s a running joke throughout the series, it’s mostly benign.)
(hoopla/VOD) If you’re reading this, you’re probably familiar with Matt Berry and his vocal and musical talents, either via FX’s WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS, THE IT CROWD, or THE MIGHTY BOOSH, but SNUFF BOX is still my favorite work of his. (Also, shout-out to Rich Fulcher, who keeps popping up in the oddest places, including Oscar-winning MARRIAGE STORY (2019).)
SNUFF BOX is a severely dark British sketch comedy show that lasted for only six episodes, but it is endlessly re-watchable. It’s centered around two loathsome hangmen, their puerile antics, their ability to break into song, and that’s all you need to know.
Please note: the Rude Song below is very rude and NSFW.
(Hulu/hoopla/TNT) The closest thing to misfit neo-noir TV has seen in years. While the show is loosely based on Blake Crouch’s* Letty Raines series of heist novellas, it improves on it in every way: the show sees Letty (played with gusto and a wavering American accent by DOWNTON ABBEY’s Michelle Dockery) as a conflicted, stubborn addict slowly trying to improve herself and her life, but keeps making terrible life decisions, including falling for a hitman (handsomely played Juan Diego Botto).
It’s a surprisingly emotionally grounded show that balances conflicted romance with pulpy plotting. Also, the chemistry between Dockery & Botto is off the goddamn charts.
The second season becomes a tad too convoluted and ends on a a major cliffhanger, and then the show was canceled so, if you’re the type easily frustrated by open endings, this probably isn’t the series for you. There’s been talk of a TV movie to give closure but, given the world nowadays, that’s unlikely to happen.
S1 trailer:
S2 trailer:
“Can I give you a bit of relationship advice? The only thing you can change about a man is his hair.” “…I like his hair.”
Blake Crouch is also responsible for the WAYWARD PINES trilogy. Similarly, the show improved on the source material.
(AMC+/hoopla/Prime/VOD) TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 has a similar reputation to its original as HALLOWEEN 3 has to the first two HALLOWEENs: fans felt betrayed. Both films toy with their hallmark villains (in the case of HALLOWEEN 3, Michael is nowhere to be found), neither film tries to repeat their prior efforts, and both look and feel drastically different from what fans expected. While HALLOWEEN 3 has finally been embraced by horror fans, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (TCM2) is still mostly ignored, which I believe is rather unfair.
TCM2 is unmistakably glossier and poppier — just take a listen to the soundtrack. And yes, it’s far broader than the original. In other words, far closer to the tone of similar 80s horror films, but there’s a reason for that.
Hooper and co-writer L.M. Kit Carson (co-writer of PARIS, TEXAS) are using TCM2 to actively undermine what Hooper created with TCM1, by putting a slapstick, circus-like veneer on the entire film. Texas, as a state, is reduced to a brightly colored carnival (Texas Battle Land, chock full of crass Alamo murals and poorly rendered re-enactments), the Sawyer family become a twisted Three Stooges, and Dennis Hopper is reduced to an short-sighted, idiotic buffoon, often over-compensating for his own weaknesses by taking up not one, but two chainsaws.
Is it puerile? Oh, most definitely — there’s even a scene where Leatherface (who quickly falls for our radio DJ heroine) ejaculates in his pants, then quickly becomes frustrated and tears up the radio station upon discovering this new sensation. New Sawyer family member Chop Top has a disgusting habit of picking the skin from around his skull wound with the hook of a clothes hanger and eating it.
Is it satire? I’m hard-pressed to say, but Hooper’s definitely undermining his original creation and having a lot of fun doing so. If they had replaced Leatherface and recast the Sawyer family and hadn’t sold it as a TCM sequel, I’m sure this film would be better regarded today. However, it’s questionable whether the film would have the same bite that Hooper intended if it weren’t billed as a Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, if it hadn’t pulled the rug out from fans’ feet.
(AMC+/Criterion/fubu/epix/HBO MAX/hoopla/kanopy/Paramount+/tubi/Vudu, anywhere really, although I watched The Directors Cut via my Criterion copy) One of the few films I discovered because of a video game — no, not CARNEVIL — I’d read about it influencing SILENT HILL.
CARNIVAL OF SOULS is a surprisingly singular vision from industrial film Herk Harvey, who only made this one film, but he made that swing count. A woman is the sole survivor of a three-person car crash, and goes about trying to move ahead in life, but can’t shake a gauzy hazy or the stare of a ghostly man.
It’s a surprisingly quiet film, despite the often oppressive organ soundtrack, and while it’s built upon a number of small moments, it culminates in an astounding final sequence. Art-house horror, full of tension and dread, well before such a thing widely existed.
One final note: I believe some song I’m quite familiar with sampled Mary’s meeting with a Dr. Samuels, as well as the exchange: “Now you quit licking your chops, she’s outta your class.” “You wanna bet?” If anyone knows who sampled them, let me know!
(AMC+/hoopla/SHUDDER/tubi/VOD/Vudu)? I recently watched a short documentary about the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET franchise and one of the dudes in the doc — because of course they only talked to dudes — panned MASSACRE because the killer lacked character, and wow, way to miss the fucking point of the film.
MASSACRE was penned by Rita Mae Brown, a well-known feminist activist and writer, and Corman picked it up and gave it to Amy Holden Jones to direct, but only if she’d play it straight. It features wall-to-wall women, all more capable and unique than you’d normally see in a slasher film, and the film leans so heavily on the male gaze that it’s intentionally absurd, a sly way of gaining Corman’s approval while hoping others would recognize it as visually subversive.
As I’m sure anyone reading this is aware, sadly, the horror genre has leaned even harder into exploitation and male gaze — not to mention outright misogyny — since ’82, so what at that time was meant to be winking reads as standard fare.
As a slasher film, it holds up — the killer may not have the silhouette of Jason or Michael, but the drill is undeniably iconic, and the film utilizes the full frame in more Hitchcockian ways than you’d expect from an 80s Corman exploitation film.
It excels at satire, though. None of the boys are heroes, the girls spend their time reading PLAYGIRL and trying to figure out the score of a recent baseball game, often while eating pizza over a dead body.
Again, you might want to skip the trailer, as it gives everything away.
(hoopla/tubi/VOD) A thrillingly convoluted ‘twins tale’ thriller from the director of ROAD HOUSE (1989) that also happens to be a Ripper tale. Despite it taking place in the US, it never forgets the Ripper’s roots, of which the script is -very- smart about handling.
The film’s also a great reminder that anyone could smoke anywhere during the 80s. You’ll even see a huge Marlboro Man fixture during a chase scene.
(hoopla/kanopy/Plex/tubi/VOD/Vudu) Yes, this is a bit of a cheat, as it is technically part of Showtime’s TV horror anthology series MASTERS OF HORROR (masterminded by Mick Garris, who will pop up later). Yeah, I could mention any of Stuart Gordon or Joe Dante’s contributions, but those feel like -prestige- horror (-especially- Dante’s brilliant version of THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION) but, to me, THE WASHINGTONIANS is a perfect go-for-broke hour long ‘What If?!’ adaptation, which I feel is what short horror stories excel at.
THE WASHINGTONIANS is about the buried history of George Washington, based on Bentley Little’s short story, and it’s batshit crazy in a NATIONAL TREASURE + Joe Dante way. It’s horror via discovery. The stakes are high, but the peril is low. I won’t say it’s family-friendly, because it’s utterly disgusting at times, but it’s mostly non-threatening and a lot of dumb fun in a way that I think has been lacking in the past decade of horror. (It helps that they have Saul Rubinek to sell the lore. Oh, and did I mention that Peter Medak (THE CHANGELING, plenty of TV including two eps of HANNIBAL) directed it?)
(Just to be clear: if you do watch it, I’d like to note that I don’t approve of the epilogue.)
(hoopla/kanopy/tubi/VOD/YouTube) It’s an early James Whale pre-code piece, directed after FRANKENSTEIN (1931) but before THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933), and the progenitor of the classic ‘overstuffed featured players haunted house’ film genre.
It’s based on J. B. Priestley’s BENIGHTED novel — I’m not familiar with the novel itself yet — but the film excels as the same sort of trapped room psychological horror/thriller that’d become extremely popular — even routine — a decade or so later.
As always, Whale and his cinematographer Arthur Edeson (one of Whale’s regulars, who also shot FRANKENSTEIN and THE INVISIBLE MAN, but also CASABLANCA (1942)) play with visual planes, and maximize the height of the titular house.
