This summer, I had the pleasure of sitting in
the Gwinnett Center’s screening room as Russell Cherrington told the story of finding a VHS containing the mythical director’s cut of
Nightbreed behind some books in Clive Barker’s house to a spellbound (Hellbound?) crowd. The long awaited emergence of the “Cabal
Cut” has been, without a doubt, the biggest story in the horror world this
year; and Russell is the man that made it happen. An award winning film and music video director, he is the “restoration
director” of Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut.
With Scream Factory promising a highly anticipated DVD and Blu-ray
release in 2014, there’s never been a better time to be a member of the Tribes
of the Moon. Everything is true. God's an astronaut, Oz is over the rainbow, and today Mr. Cherrington has made the trip from
Midian to Celluloid Central to tell us what Halloween means to him.
“When I was
asked what Halloween means to me I had to think about it, simply because in
England Halloween is just not as big a deal as it is for my American friends.
Don’t get me wrong I love it as much as the next man. I love old school
Universal Monsters, I love Hellraiser, and so much more.
But I have a
confession to make; my Halloween film is going to have to be Carry on
Screaming! It was one fateful night in my childhood, on Halloween, that everything
changed. I remember like yesterday the
sight of Oddbod attacking the couple in the woods. How Oddbod Junior was
created. I still smile at the thought of Kenneth Williams as the dead Doctor
Orlando Watt bringing Rubbatiti back to life. All of this was carried out with
such finesse and old school charm.
Thinking about
it today, it was Fenella Fielding as the very sexy Valaria Watt trying to have
her way with the many men crossing her path that made it fun. Her character is
classic horror chick like Lily Munster and Morticia Adams, and a prototype
Elvira if you will, that really made this film fun.
Jump forward
35 years. Last year I decided to have a
filmmaker night at my home on Halloween and I choose 2 movies to watch out of
the 100’s if not 1000’s that I own. I choose Carry on Screaming and Hellraiser
because they are the first things that come into my head when I think of
Halloween.
Hellraiser is
my 1987. It is, in my humble opinion, the single most important horror film of
the 1980’s. It changed everything for me. The Monsters are twisted humans, bent
into new forms on their journey to find pleasure in pain at the far side of
human experience. The story of family dysfunction gives it a balance and a
human drama to give the film heart.
Like any good
horror film that is twisted at its core, the sex is powerful and is the heart
of what motivates our femme fatale to commit murder and the un-godly act of
reanimation. Blood is spilled, and the twist is epic. The Shakespearian
dialogue of the order of the gash is epic and separates the Cenobites from the
other Horror characters of that era of Horror.
5 more days ‘til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween. 5 more days ‘til Halloween, Silver Shamrock.
No comments:
Post a Comment