Popcorn (1991)

Popcorn makes the major mistake of placing high-camp burlesque versions of 1950s-style horror and science fiction movies—the kind using outlandish ballyhooish gimmicks to sell tickets—in the center of a quasi-legit slasher movie. The slasher part of the whole is not entirely serious as it’s a black comedy, but the parody movies-within-the-movie creamy filling are flat-out silly and so much more obviously funny than the chocolate coating that the whole thing melts in your hand.

Jill Schoelen (who had co-starred in the Robert Englund Phantom of the Opera in 1989) is Maggie, would-be screenwriter. She is a college student still living with her mom Suzanne (Dee Wallace). When Suzanne finds out that the struggling campus film department wants to put on an all night horror-palooza to raise money, she suddenly hesitates and asks Maggie not to get involved. Maggie wants to take part in the fund raiser. After all, they intend to run three schlocky gimmick flicks, recreating the original William Castle-ish stunts—shockers in the seats, a giant mosquito that buzzes the audience, and foul odors pumped into the theater to accompany a Japanese import called The Stench. Yeah, who’d want to miss that?

Ray Walston delivers a high energy cameo as Dr. Mnesyne (he remembers the good old days of motion picture promotion), proprietor of a movie memorabilia shop and owner of all the artifacts the students will need in order to pull off the promotional stunts. Walston is very much like the Devil in Damn Yankees.

While going through cases of stuff, one of the students finds a film can bearing a warning Not To Open, which is, of course, immediately ignored. A small reel of film is inside and when they project it they discover it’s part of a notorious movie made 15 years previously by Lanyard Gates, indie director and professional wacko. The movie was called The Possessor. To get revenge on everyone who ever doubted his talents, Gates presented his final film without an ending—an ending he intended to create live on stage by murdering his wife and daughter and everyone else he could. Somehow the theater caught on fire and Gates, as well as several people in the audience, were killed.

When she sees the remaining snippet of The Possessor, Maggie realizes that she has been dreaming it and quickly jumps to the conclusion that she is, in fact, Lanyard Gates’ daughter. How she wasn’t killed by the evil genius is explained in a quick bit of we-better-tell-the-audience-what-the-hell-really-happened-or-they’re-going-to-be-pissed exposition. And it seems that Gates is still alive, too, and plotting to kill everyone in the film department, a move that will spare future audiences hours of dreary independent art cinema.

The rest of the cast includes Tom Villard as Toby, the nerdiest of the class movie geeks; Elliott Hurst as Leon, the one in the wheelchair; and Freddie Marie Simpson as Tina, department flirt and student kootchymama (“people wonder how I manage to make straight A’s”) to department chair Mr. Davis (Tony Roberts). Derek Rydall is along as Mark, Maggie’s sort-of boyfriend and ineffectual hero.

To save some money on production costs, the picture was shot in Kingston, Jamaica. It’s based on a story by Mitchell Smith and screenwriter Alan Ormsby was set to direct until he lost the job after about three weeks of shooting and was replaced by Mark Hellier.

The film is a watchable failure, never generating anything like thrills or chills. That it has a cult following tells you more about movie cultists than it does about quality cinema, and I suspect people get a kick out of the movie parodies—I suspect this is where Ormsby’s heart really lay. You can watch this one once, but you’ll go back to Joe Dante’s Matinee, which also contains a burlesque movie-within-a-movie, over and over again.

Midnight Movie (2008) and A Cat in the Brain (1990)

Today let’s take a look at the perils, both to yourself and others, of making horror movies.

Midnight Movie is an enjoyable chiller that has ambitions beyond its director’s and writer’s current capabilities. Jack Messitt (director, co-writer) and Mark Garbett (co-writer) have attempted something a little unusual, which earns them a lot more credit than just hacking out a remake of some 1970s cow cookie that was overrated then and is practically unwatchable now.

Back in the day, actor/writer/producer/director Ted Radford shot a horror movie that is something of a cult item now called “The Dark Beneath,” and it drove him mad. The movie has been sitting on the shelf collecting dust for 40 years, and Radford has been in an asylum doing pretty much the same thing. It seems that watching his cinematic masterpiece makes him do unpleasant things, especially to people who are made out of meat. One night, a well-meaning psychiatrist runs the film for him and, well, let’s just say that the hospital is suddenly in the market for a new night staff.

Eight years later a neighborhood theater decides to screen “The Dark Beneath” as a midnight movie and every few scenes the movie killer, portrayed by Radford, somehow manages to step out of the picture and into the theater. Think of it as Sherlock, Jr. meets The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

It’s a clever gimmick that never quit crosses over into a genuinely frightening experience, but it does generate some legitimate suspense and goes all batshit nuts during the last reel. You won’t love it, but you won’t go hunting for whomever recommended it to you, either.

Where Midnight Movie is a mostly serious attempt to be a spookshow about fictional horrors coming to life, A Cat in the Brain toys with the notion that directors who make these films might be a little touched to begin with.

There are actually people who claim to take Lucio Fulci’s A Cat in the Brain (Un gatto nel cervello, 1990) seriously. They see it as a statement about the nature of success in art, but you know what I think? I think it’s just Fulci jabbing an elbow into the ribs of people who have to find serious messages in gore-horror because to do so makes viewing it acceptable. Just look at that title: Fulci, who co-wrote the script with John Fitzsimmons, Giovanni Simonelli and Antonio Tentori, is making a joke at the expense of Dr. Seuss.

Fulci frequently popped up in cameos in his films, but this is the only one in which he starred. He plays Lucio Fulci, a director of gore-horror movies who is beginning to suspect that his preoccupation with sex and violence is causing him to lose his mind, and is turning him into one of the serial killers who inhabit his movies.  He goes to a psychiatrist for help and we quickly learn that the head shrinker has been driven mad by watching his patient’s films, and he is the killer who hypnotizes Fulci into blaming himself.

It’s the ultimate giallo plot and, no, it can’t be taken seriously.  As Fulci tries to finish his latest film, which apparently is the film we are watching, he frequently hallucinates moments not only from his own pictures, but also from those of other directors who work in the same genre. Much of this movie is a mash up of gory death scenes from other gialli.

So why don’t I think this is all commentary on art overtaking nature, or nature overtaking art, or the painfulness of a director becoming so associated with a certain kind of movie he can’t escape it? A couple of reasons. At one point the psychiatrist tells Fulci that the old idea of violent entertainment leading to violence in real life has been discredited.  And he’s grinning like a madman when he says it. Also, the movie ends with an act that would tend to support that interpretation, until a second ending tags along that makes you mumble, “Are you f***ing kidding me?” a question Fulci answers with a gleeful, “Sure am.”

So I suspect a serious reading of the film is naïve, but something we can all agree on is that the production values are strictly from hunger. This is a low, low budget movie, and every negative cent of it is clearly up there on the screen.  Fulci once complained that the only difference between his films and those of Dario Argento was budget. Ah, maybe not, but this is obviously a production that would have to move up to a better neighborhood to be on Poverty Row.

So if your passion for horror movies scratches away like a cat in your brain, fix up a little steak tartar and red wine, and here’s just the picture for you. But if you’ve never sampled Fulci and you’d rather start with one of his better efforts, check out Paura nella citta dei morti viventi (City of the Living Dead, 1980) or E tu vivrai nel terrore – L’aldila (The Beyond, 1981). Stare in guardia, bambini.