MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MONSTERS PART 53; DON COSCARELLI

When I was a kid, my favorite toys were Masters of the Universe. I had a pretty good collection for a poor kid. One Christmas, my dad even got me Castle Greyskull. I have to say, though, I hated the name 'He-Man.' I didn't get it, such a dumb name. And the cartoon? Fuck that cartoon, I always hated it. Fortunately, I discovered a movie called The Beastmaster (1982). The Beastmaster was a fantasy epic that contained some really scary scenes, featuring humanoid bat creatures, and followed a lone warrior that traveled with a falcon, a panther, and two ferrets-all of whom he could communicate with. After I saw The Beastmaster, my He-Man figure lost his armor/bandoleer thing and Skeletor's giant black panther lost his armor, and He-Man was from then on The Beastmaster and all my MOTU stories became Beastmaster stories.
I had no idea, then that the director of The Beastmaster would wind up having a much more profound influence on me as a writer. Don Coscarelli wrote and directed the film, but more importantly, he wrote and directed the horror classic Phantasm.
I was well into my obsession with the big slasher franchises of the 80s when I rented Phantasm one Fangoria that month (July 1988) so I felt like I should get to it. I watched it on a Saturday afternoon and I can honestly say I had no idea if I liked it or not. It certainly filled me with dread, but I was also confused. I felt like I missed something. I let it go for a while, waiting for the sequel to make it to VHS, which, from reading Fango, sounded really cool. And hey, it was!

weekend. The second film had been the cover feature in
Phantasm II built on the first film in a really interesting way and inspired me to re-rent the first film again. This time it made more sense. Taken together with the third film, Lord of the Dead and the fourth, Oblivion, the Phantasm franchise presented worlds within worlds. Layers of reality, dreams and hallucinations becoming corporeal, misdirection, and no rules to govern the universe. Phantasm 1-4 are a slow burn end of the world about a kid named Mike (Michael Baldwin) growing up in the twilight years of Earth as an entity known only as 'The Tall Man' (Angus Scrimm, RIP) plunders grave yards across the country, creating slaves for inter-dimensional world conquering. Teaming up, first with his older brother Jody (Bill Thornberry) and later with Jody's friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister), Mike becomes a man between 1 and 2, becoming a hardened soldier in the war against the dead. As does Reggie, who we first meet as a mild mannered ice cream man and soon becomes a four barrel shotgun toting bad ass. Phantasm was as out of step with Jason and Freddy in the 80s as Clive Barker's Hellraiser. Surprisingly, there was only one attempt to expand on the Phantasm universe outside of the films and that was in Stephen Romano's (Eibon Press, Fulci Comics)single issue comic.
In 2002, Coscarelli returned to the director's chair with one of the best horror films of the last three decades, Bubba Ho-Tep. Based on a story by Joe Lansdale (Hap and Leonard), Bubba Ho-Tep was a wild and off-beat concept inside an emotional and down beat story about a seventy year old Elvis Presley living out his last days under an assumed name in a Texas retirement home that's being menaced by a soul sucking mummy. Elvis was played by Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead) and Ossie Davis played John F Kennedy. I don't know if anyone was prepared for how smart, exciting, cool, and quirky Bubba Ho-Tep was. I've had to watch it annually and it hasn't diminished a bit from repeated viewings.

Coscarelli's next film (after shooting two episodes of Showtime's Masters of Horror) was an adaptation of the David Wong novel John Dies At The End (2012). I was fortunate to catch the film at the Nevermore Film Festival in Durham NC. I had been obsessing over the trailer leading up to the fest and my god it did not disappoint! The story centers on best friends, David and John, who have been exposed to a drug called Soy Sauce that opens doors to other worlds. Similar to Phantasm, dreams and hallucinations could become physical threats, as monsters from the multi-verse spill into our world, with nothing but a couple of numb skulls standing between them and our world. Hilarious, gross, and smart, Coscarelli boiled the sprawling novel down to a fast paced, action heavy thrill ride. It also featured an amazing animated sequence from David Hartman, who would go on to direct the fifth Phantasm film, RaVager (which I fully love).
Going back to Bubba Ho-Tep, that movie dropped at a time in my life that I would call my 'wilderness period.' I had been struggling as a writer since mid '98 to write...anything. Before I graduated high school in '94, I had moved on from Stephen King and Clive Barker to Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs and the horror and sci-fi elements in my writing started taking a back seat to more character dramas and political content. I got into Charles Bukowski and Hubert Selby Jr and almost never picked up a horror novel. In 1996, I went to see Scream with my friend Jase on opening night. I still rented horror movies on a regular basis, but that night with Scream I misunderstood wes Craven's intentions and felt like I was being made fun of for being a horror fan. Scream opened the flood gates for the late 90's teen horror deluge and it felt like horror slipped right out of my life completely. But when Bubba Ho-Tep came out I was reminded of how much horror meant to me and that was the beginning of me finding my way back into writing new material. I went back to the Phantasm films (as well as Argento's films that were finally becoming available in uncut versions from Anchor Bay) and in 2011 I completed my first novella, Conspiracy of Birds-a story where reality and time were slippery and dreams and hallucinations had physical ramifications. Just last month I released my latest collection of short stories, and the closing tale, "The Jennings Point Story," owes a lot to my love of Coscarelli's work.

Coscarelli is coming to Syracuse in October with his new autobiography, True Indie along with a double feature of the remastered  Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep. I'm ridiculously excited and will be bring my Phantasm II issue of Fangoria and my special edition Anchor Bay DVD of Phantasm to get signed. Here's hoping we get the Ho-Tep sequel Bubba Nosferatu soon!

Keep watching the skies, nerds!

CATCHING UP WITH LIFE

Wow, a lot has been happening lately! The two most notable bits of news are polar opposite in the good/bad variety. We lost Dave Brockie the man who was Oderus Orungus of GWAR. He was just 50! It sucks. I owned GWAR's two films Phallus In Wonderland and Skullhead Face. Both were endlessly entertaining and hilarious. And disgusting. And awesome. Oderus's appearance on the Fearnet series Holliston was a great joy.
At the other end of the spectrum comes the surprise news that PHANTASM V; RAVAGER is complete! I loooove Phantasm and I'm a huge Don Coscarelli fan. This film means a lot to mean and I can't wait to see it. It looks amazing...

The Walking Dead season finale was great except that it was only five minutes long! Seriously it was over so quick, but damn if it wasn't a nice place to stop; "They're screwing with the wrong people."
Bates Motel keeps getting better. I was completely skeptical about this show in the beginning, but I'm sold. Last week's episode gave us a taste of the Norman Bates to come. This week's episode helped solidify what a great crime drama the show is.
We plowed through the four original Psycho films last month, because it'd been a while and I was happy to see just how well they all held up over the years. Made me miss Anthony Perkins.

I've got a collaborative project in the works that I hope to be announcing soon. All I'll say is that your IPod will thank you.
Some other things to be looking for;
Epic release of the Creepshow OST from Waxworks Records. It's gore-geous!
Mego style 8" figures of Ash from Evil Dead and Iron Maiden's Eddie (as The Trooper) are coming soon from NECA. I have their retro Jason figure and it's one my favorite pieces in my collection.
Werewolves In Siberia's new album, Beyond The City of The Dead, is out now and  is fantastic. If you love '80's style horror/synthwave music this album will on heavy rotation on your audio consuming device!
I've got some new fiction done and ready to roll and I've made some major headway on three book projects, including the first volume of My Heroes Have Always Been Monsters. I'll be posting bits and pieces here soon.
All right, it's almost 3 am, the hour of the wolf. I better go now. Take care, fiends! Reviews and new chapters of Heroes are just around the bend!

(just a little blast from the past I've been writing to)

ELVIS Vs THE MUMMY; Reviewing Bubba HoTep

Now that I've watched Don Coscarelli's John Dies At The End a couple of times, I wanted to rewatch Coscarelli's previous film, Bubba Ho-Tep. The film knocked me out the first time around...

I was only a few months old when Elvis Presley died, yet his image loomed large for years after. Maybe it was just where I grew up, but Elvis was like a Protestant saint. It seems like I grew up knowing Elvis better than Jesus. I always knew about the dark haired man in the rhinestone studded white suit. I always knew Jailhouse Rock, Hound Dog, and Gentle On My

Mind. I've never been to Memphis, TN but I've only ever thought of it in association to Elvis's home, Graceland (even before Cash, The Killer, or Sun Records). I knew he was in a bunch of movies, none of which I ever saw growing up.  I knew the only other artists that demanded reverence on Elvis's level were The Beatles.  It was only in my early teens that I discovered he had been a bloated drug addict that died on the toilet.

    Elvis hit America like a bombshell with his hips and sneer and voice. He was raw energy. You had to shoot him from the waist up for television, because the rest was too obscene. You had to make him do something stupid like dress up in a tux and sing Hound Dog to a basset hound to take the edge off.  For a time Elvis had the world wrapped around his finger.  Then his manager Col. Parker started controlling him and making him appear in god awful movies and recording crap music. So, after a while Elvis became nothing special. He still had fans. He still made money. It was a price to pay and so far away from the hillbilly cat he once was.

   Starting in 1968 Elvis began to shrug off the bubblegum pop that had weighed him down and stripped him of his raw animal coolness. There was the comeback special where he appeared head to toe in black leather, looking badder and more dangerous than he ever had in 1956. This wasn’t just the Elvis fans had been missing for the last decade, this was a new and improved, mature, sexier Elvis. It was an Elvis in his thirties. He was not just back from a long slumber to reclaim rock and roll, but to reclaim the world.

It was the Memphis record backed by Neil Diamond’s band that showed the world what this hillbilly cat from Tupelo could really do. Never had his voice sounded so good. Never had he been given such a wealth of great material to work from. Never had he shown such range; from raucous R&B to smooth southern soul to pure shit kicking country to weeping ballads. It was a middle finger to critics and those who’d lost faith. It was a middle finger to his peers who spoke ill of him through the 60’s. And perhaps it was a middle finger to Col. Parker, because Elvis always knew he was better than all those crap films. Perhaps he realized what ‘Elvis Fucking Presley’ meant to the world and that he’d just spent ten years not meaning anything.

Unfortunately, after the comeback there would be less than a decade left for the King for Rock and Roll. The 70’s were a fast decline in health, mental and physical. Drug addiction and erratic behavior

that would’ve been laughable if it weren’t so damned sad.  But he never failed to put smiles of adoration on the faces of those who’d pack the venues to see him. They cheered, clapped their hands, stomped their feet-right up to that day when that putrid walking corpse Rock and Roll fell for the last time, again. 

The faithful gathered at Graceland and wailed and sang his praises. They left flowers and exalted him to the TV cameras. A nation mourned, as they had for Kennedy as they would for Lennon. Elvis lives on though. Metaphorically for most, very physically for many others.

In Bubba HoTep, Elvis didn’t die on a toilet. That was merely an imposter Elvis had traded places with. The real Elvis was off performing as an Elvis impersonator, doing what he’d always loved with out all the bullshit he’d always hated. But not dying young has its disadvantages, like being 70, bedridden

with a large cancerous growth on your dick, and no one believing whom you are. Not to mention being stuck in an East Texas rest home with a bunch of senile freaks and a soul sucking mummy on the loose.

Written by one of the best modern horror writers, Joe Lansdale, and directed by the great Don Coscarelli, who brought us the excellent Phantasm movies, Bubba HoTep is an anomaly in a genre bloated with recycled plots, that were weak the first time around. 

Bubba HoTep isn't just one of the greatest horror movie ever made, it’s one of the best movies ever made. It’s got action, laughs, drama, tragedy, an over the top story line that sucks you in, great special effects and performances from two of the finest actors to grace the silver screen.

Bruce Campbell’s performance as Elvis (in three different periods of his life) are spot on and undeniable. He is Elvis and you believe it. Then you have Ozzie Davis playing John F. Kennedy, who, like Elvis, didn’t die when he was supposed to and has wound up at this nursing home in east Texas. Ok, you say, Ozzie’s character is just crazy, right, because JFK was white. Well, Lyndon Johnson and his cronies dyed him black and filled the bullet hole in his head with sand.

An inept staff, the Lone Ranger, a kleptomaniac, some generally normal old people, and a couple of big, nasty bugs round out the cast. Then there’s the title character himself. Bubba HoTep is a soul-sucking mummy from ancient Egypt, who was stolen from a carnival sideshow, then lost in a bus accident, not far from the nursing home, where he goes to feed at night.

Elvis and JFK are the only ones who know about Bubba, and feel that it is their duty to put a stop to him. “Ask not what your nursing home can do for you, ask what you can do for your nursing home.”  But the destination wouldn’t be worth the ride if it weren’t for the characters’ stories and the actors’ performances. Ozzie Davis is comical without doing anything funny. He’s so earnest and straight about

playing JFK, and delivers his lines about conspiracies and Lyndon Johnson sincerely, never hamming it up, never nudging the viewer in the ribs with a wink. The same can be said for Campbell’s Elvis, who spends nearly half the movie in bed lamenting over the lost years with his daughter and his inability to get a hard on. If there was no mummy in this film, and it was just an hour and a half of Campbell and Davis being these people and dealing with the everyday aspects of being forgotten, unloved senior citizens, the film would still be riveting.

There’s little to compare Bubba HoTep with. To compare it to anything you’d have to split the movie in two, the drama half and the horror half. The drama half is a quirky character driven piece similar to The Royal Tannenbaums, while the horror half is something like Evil Dead meets Santa Clause Vs. The Martians or something Ed Wood would have pitched. It would be hard to imagine anyone besides Don Coscarelli pulling off such a masterful piece of filmmaking with such a bizarre premise.

Its no wonder Coscarelli had such an uphill battle to find distribution; just to describe the movie isn’t easy to do with a straight face. It has to be seen to be believed, but what a risk. Elvis and a black JFK fighting a mummy in a nursing home? It could only be one of two things; awful or brilliant. Bubba HoTep is a brilliant film and I love it. Of those who have seen it, I’ve been hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t love it.  Hats off to Don Coscarelli, Joe Lansdale, and the whole cast and crew for injecting a little more life into the American movie.

     

John Dies At The End...Reviewed!

 So a pal gets me a free pass to see one flick at the Nevermore Film Fest here in Durham NC, where a bunch of movies including one of my top five faves, Dawn of the Dead, was playing, as well as the new film Found (which looks pretty damn exciting itself), but the choice was simple. There was only one choice, one film I had to see above all others...John Dies At The End!

I've talked about this movie here before, posted trailers, images. I've driven my wife crazy talking about it. Now I've had about 24 hours to reflect upon this little epic, chomping at the bit to talk about it, but I'm not going to!
Yes, this is a review, but no I'm not telling about anything that happens in the movie. You want it spoiled, plenty of places to go. Here I'm giving you my emotional response to the film, which you can base your decision upon whether you too will see it or not.
Long story short; see John Dies At The End. It is a hilarious, gory, mind blowing film. It's not just everything you want in a Don Coscarelli (Bubba Ho Tep, the Phantasm series) film (genre melding/smashing what-the-f-is-gonna-happen-next action) but it's everything you want in a really good movie. It transports you, it helps you escape-fully-into another world. It's a roller coaster, gets your heart thumping, your mind racing, and it ENTERTAINS you! Beginning to end, no lulls, nothing to roll your eyes about. Get ready, fiends, you are in for a treat!
5 Severed Thumbs Up, this is a modern classic!

My Heroes Have Always Been Monsters Part 22

My first exposure to The Mummy came from the old Remco action figure and probably Scooby Doo. The first time I watched Universal's original film with Boris Karloff I have to admit I was pretty bored. I thought it was less creepy than Frankenstein or Dracula and not as cool as The Creature From The Black Lagoon. These days I have much more appreciation for the film, but I'd still like to see a truly kick ass horrifying take on The Mummy.

Probably the two best takes on the Mummy have been Hammer Films' starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and the incomparable Don Coscarelli's Bubba Ho Tep. 

Keep watching the sky, nerds!