Census Bloodbath: Motorin', What's Your Price For Fright?

Well, this is awkward, isn’t it? As I got busier and my free time drifted away into the mist, I’ve at least been able to keep up a reasonably steady diet of movie watching and reviewing. However, several ongoing features are begging for completion, and I still haven’t rectified my unforgivable sin of leaving October’s Cardboard Science feature on a cliffhanger. However, as my health, my finances, and my schedule begin to level out, I shall once more give a grasping attempt to catch up with myself, starting with the resurrection of my most popular feature (in polls conducted on me’s everywhere): Census Bloodbath.

Year: 1986

Director: Robert Harmon

Cast: Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Jason Leigh

Run Time: 1 hour 37 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

1986 was a weird year for slasher movies. They had already died their first death following the video boom of the early 80’s, been resurrected by Wes Craven’s 1984 masterpiece A Nightmare on Elm Street, and had a brief supernatural vogue before dwindling once more, more or less immediately. 1986 catches the tail end of that second cycle, in the period of the decade where the perms were at their biggest and the legs at their warmest. This was the age where the slashers were really flexing their muscles to try and rise above the rest of the pack. Seeing that the year bore three separate slashers that took place on April Fool’s Day, I wouldn’t say this was entirely successful.

However, 1986 also saw the release of a different beast that accomplished that separation effortlessly, using the by now well-known slasher idiom to create an entirely different horror tale, hybridizing the subgenre with the popcorn action-thriller antics that were spreading across cinemaplexes like a virus: This movie was known only as… The Hitcher. Now, The Hitcher wouldn’t be the first quasi-slasher to take on Duel-esque roadside thrills (the 1981 gem Road Games beat it to the punch), but it’s certainly one of the more successful action slashers in the business. 

I mean, it’s no Terminator, but what is?

In The Hitcher, Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) is a young Chicago native taking a driveaway car to San Diego, where he intends to start a new life. Maybe. The Hitcher isn’t exactly a repository of character details, but then again what 80’s horror or action film really is? At any rate, he’s driving along the dark Texas highways and decides to pick up a hitchhiker to keep him awake.

He certainly made the right choice, because after picking up John Rider (Rutger Hauer), he may never sleep again. The hitcher turns out to be a vicious roadside serial killer and Jim narrowly escapes with his life. But he’s hardly in the clear – thus begins a dangerous game of cat and mouse as the Hitcher torments Jim along his journey, framing the boy for a series of grisly murders. It’s up to Jim and roadside diner waitress Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh, making her second Census Bloodbath appearance after Eyes of a Stranger) to prove his increasingly dubious innocence.

And if having great hair is a crime, he’s certainly not innocent.

The Hitcher starts off with a bang, plunging us almost immediately into gut-wrenching thrills. Hell, this is a movie where a toddler gets murdered in the first twenty minutes. It might be offscreen, but it doesn’t pull any punches when setting up our pal Hitch as a Bad, Bad Dude. He is evil incarnate, and though he might never vanish into thin air or otherwise show any signs of supernatural hijinks, it wouldn’t take much arguing to convince me that he’s the actual Devil. And the film opens with his most solid, sustained presence: a solid 10 minutes of torment that makes the skin crawl.

Whether you respond to Jim’s hopeless predicament, the stiletto-sharp screenwriting, the enclosed space, or Hauer’s uncomfortably serene performance, there is something in this scene to make you rethink ever getting in your car again. It’s the single strongest moment in the film, clocking you in the jaw before the plot even has time to warm up.

Now, that means the rest of the movie can never quite live up to this moment, but it sure as hell tries. Hauer’s inscrutable menace propels the tension whenever he reappears, and the increasing desperation of Jim’s situation means that the pace never really flags, but the increased focus on Jim and Nash allows some flab to creep in.

Slowly and subtly, like the fourth week of a diet plan.

C. Thomas Howell’s performance is just a wee tad cheesier than my taste, so spending any alone time with him is like putting on a Paul McCartney solo record. You don’t hate it, but you wish the other guys were still around. Plus, his lack of character depth doesn’t lend as much to the story as The Hitcher’s. An unknowable villain is scary. An unknowable protagonist is just frustrating. Jim’s blankness lends to its general urban legend-y air, but once the movie ditches nail-biting, close-up horror for bullets and car chases, there’s no way to get purchase on his character, making it a chore to even pretend to care about his fate.

Oh yeah, did I mention how many car chases there are in The Hitcher? I already said it was an action-thriller hybrid, but the sheer amount of car chasing, car crashing, bullet ricocheting mayhem here comes totally out of left field. The second a freaking helicopter comes hurtling onscreen, the 80’s have fully asserted themselves on the film, and my estimated budget shoots off the charts. The fact that this level of action is present at all in a slasher is pretty unprecedented, which certainly makes the film an intriguing curio, but the repetitive, over-the-top nature of these scenes causes the film to stall quite a bit during its second act, sputtering and coughing exhaust before it hits the right gear with its gonzo finale.

But oh, what a finale! Although the film’s gore level never hits a lofty peak (most kills are offscreen, and the ones that aren’t are pretty tame – even by 1986’s downright Puritanical standards), its viciousness returns with gale force. It exits the way it came in, leaving a wicked taste on the tongue that won’t quite scrub out.

I suppose that I should mention the artistry of certain moments: the slanted shafts of light cutting through the frame, the elegant photography of the dusty terrain (as should be expected from DP John Seale, who later shot Mad Max: F**king Fury Road), the lone dog walking through the empty police station, turning the scene into a waking, Craven-esque nightmare… but more than its generally being well put-together, The Hitcher leaves you with a sense of being genuinely unsafe, something totally unique in the realm of 1980’s slasher cinema. It’s a wonky entry in the genre, to be sure, but a lasting one. 

Killer: The Hitcher (Rutger Hauer)

Final Girl: Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell)

Best Kill: Poor Jennifer Jason Leigh. That's gonna hurt worse than being snubbed by the Oscars this year.

Sign of the Times: Listen to thirty seconds of this nonsense.

Scariest Moment: The Hitcher tells Jim he'll leave him alone if he says four words: "I want to die."

Weirdest Moment: Jim is eating french fries, but one of them turns out to be a finger.

Champion Dialogue: "Actually we're all from Mars around here, we keep our spaceship out back."

Body Count: 13; not including a potential truck passenger that may have been briefly glimpsed in a sandstorm, as well as five squad cars and one helicopter that crash, presumably killing their occupants.

1. Father is murdered offscreen.
2. Mother is murdered offscreen.
3. Child is murdered offscreen.
4. Truck Driver is murdered offscreen.
5. Cop #1 is stabbed to death offscreen.
6. Cop #2 is stabbed to death offscreen.
7. Cop #3 is stabbed to death offscreen. 
8. Cop #4 is shot.
9. Cop #5 is shot.
10. Nash is ripped in half between two trucks.
11. Cop #6 is shot.
12. Cop #7 is shot.
13. The Hitcher is shot through the chest. 

TL;DR: The Hitcher is a gritty slasher action-thriller, and that's the least of its charms.
Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1367

Census Bloodbath: Santa Claus Is Going To Town

Year: 1980

Director: Lewis Jackson

Cast: Brandon Maggart, Jeffrey DeMunn, Dianne Hull

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

As I've stated several times before, I'm having trouble getting through the back end of 1980 in my Census Bloodbath project, and Christmas Evil, more than anything else, was the reason why. You see, I screened this film several years ago at one of my Christmas Slasher parties and it killed the mood entirely, proving itself to be a dreadful, uninteresting slog.

As such, I had some severe post-traumatic stress dealing with the fact that, according to the very strict rules I have set for myself to provide you with an accurate and entertaining Census Bloodbath, I had to rewatch it. It's hard enough putting on a film like Terror on Tour and pretending that the obviously murky production values could be hiding a good movie inside, but its downright torture staring at a film on the list that I absolutely know is going to be a train wreck.

Luckily Motel Hell provided me a boost of energy that allowed me to choke Christmas Evil down so I can get on with my life. And now that it's over, I never have to think about the film ever again. You know, once I get out this 1,000 word review about it.

That's about 167 words per Santa.

Holiday-themed slashers would soon become a mainstay in the decadent 80's subgenre (and were, in fact, quite firmly established before this film ever came out with Black Christmas, Halloween, To All A Goodnight, and Terror Train) with Christmas slashers especially emerging as a fan favorite, but unfortunately both of the Yuletide Fear movies from the first year of the genre's existence were an utter wash.

Our story begins on Christmas Eve, 1947 (and the further we get away from the 80's, the more ancient these flashbacks seem) when young Harry Stadling (played by Gus Salud as a child and Brandon Maggart as an adult) sneaks out of his bedroom to see Santa Claus, but instead sees his father dressed in a Santa outfit... trimming his mother's tree, shall we say.

The sex is tame enough for a film of this pedigree, but young Harry is mortified, especially considering that he doesn't realize that (SPOILERS) Santa doesn't exist and the man behind his beard is actually his father. Instead of posting a "That Awkward Moment" status on Facebook like a well-adjusted human being, Harry runs up to the attic and cuts himself on a shard of snowglobe glass.

I must confess I had a similar reaction.

Cut to present day and it would seem that our Harry hasn't adjusted as well as one might have hoped. His apartment is decorated with Santa memorabilia, he keeps "Naughty" and "Nice" lists of the neighborhood children (Moss Garcia is the naughtiest of them all and - because there's nothing else going on - the primary antagonist of this supremely unfocused film) and, randomly, he channels Mr. Bean when shaving in the mirror. He works at the Jolly Dream toy factory and loves every minute of it until he realizes that two of his coworkers, the money-grubbing George (Peter Friedman) and the douchey ditcher Frank (Joe Jamrog), aren't partaking of the proper Christmas spirit.

All of this boils down to 45 minutes of Harry interacting with rude people, then returning to his apartment to overact while doing generically chilling things like play with dolls or use a crucible in a room filled with headless figurines. Reading that sentence is scarier than the actual scenes when you remember that Maggart is taking a page out of Rowan Atkinson's book rather than, say, Gunnar Hansen.

The second half of the film, which should for all intents and purposes be the more interesting of the two, is just as aimless as the first. On Christmas Eve, Harry dresses up as Santa and alternates between seeking goreless revenge on his coworkers and spreading Christmas cheer among the local children. Except Moss Garcia. Screw that guy.

The most evil thing about him is that bowl cut.

There's some deeply embedded twaddle about "he's insane because parents don't believe in Santa/the spirit of the holiday" and "I'm gonna make them dance to my tune," but mostly the film dawdles on one lengthy pointless scene after another.

It's a little bit like taking the SAT, really. It's divided neatly into segments (Harry donates toys to a hospital; Harry kills three people at a church; Harry dances at a holiday party; Harry smothers Frank in his bed), all of them taking much longer than you feel is really necessary. Except, unlike the SAT where there's always a chance of a good score, there's no reward for watching Christmas Evil. Just endless pain and tedium.

The death scenes are confoundingly edited, presumably to hide the low budget prosthetics, but to the detriment of narrative efficacy, ruining the one thing that could have boosted the film up a grade or two. Alas, as it stands, the killings are few and far between (of the parsimonious four in the film, three occur within several seconds of one another and the editing is such that all but the most sharp-eyed of unfortunate audience members won't even realize it happened to multiple people until we see the aftermath) and the gore is underwhelming.

At least the murders are all holiday themed (we see a sack, a toy soldier, and a star put to good, bloody use), so that gives us a leg up on To All A Goodnight. Then again, merely having a lighting designer would give a film a leg up over To All A Goodnight so perhaps it's not something to brag about.

This frame cost more than that entire movie.

There are exactly three things that make the film worth thinking about, although I would argue that nothing makes the film worth watching. The first, and most important, is the music and sound design by Don Christensen, Joel Harris, and Julia Heyward. None of them have done anything of note (pun intended) since 1980, but their manic hellish soundscape is by far the most interesting thing the movie has going on.

When it's not resounding with atonal mockeries of traditional Christmas carols, the soundtrack is working overtime, filling the scenes with rattling sleighbells, jangling chords, and random bits and bobs that effectively propel the theme of one man's descent into madness even when the dialogue and performance do not.

The second is the presence of Jeffrey DeMunn (The Walking Dead's Dale) as Harry's brother Phillip. He's not particularly good and his hair makes me want to stab my eyes out with scissors (come to think of it, maybe that's what his stylist did before cutting it), but it's always interesting to see a well-known actor flounder through the B-movie slums.

The third and final element is the ending, and if you care at all - which hopefully this review has prevented, please feel free to skip to the next section. You see, the film ends with Harry driving off a cliff and flying his van into the night sky as he recites the final lines of "The Night Before Christmas." It's heartwarming and fantastical in a way that every single frame of the film that came before it patently isn't and it's delightfully, criminally insane.

So, in conclusion, never ever watch Christmas Evil. I've done so twice now and look where I am. Don't be me. Stay in school. Eat your vegetables. Never ever put Christmas Evil in your Netflix Queue.

Killer: Harry Stadling (Brandon Maggart)

Final Girl: This is the first and only slasher film I've seen in which there's not even a hint of a protagonist survivor, male or female. This break from formula does not improve it in any way.

Best Kill: A man is stabbed in the eye with the bayonet of a toy soldier.

Sign of the Times: There are actual human people working on a toy assembly line.

Scariest Moment: Harry smiles warmly at the children right after slitting their father's throat.

Weirdest Moment: The protracted scene in which Harry dances to accordion music with a little girl right after his church massacre.

Champion Dialogue: "I wished I was super magic."

Body Count: 4

1. George gets a toy soldier in the eye.
2. Charles gets axed in the head.
3. Mean Church lady gets axed in the head.
4. Frank gets smothered with a sack and his throat is slit with a tree star. 

TL;DR: Christmas Evil is uneven and dreadfully dull.

Rating: 3/10
Word Count: 1431

Blob Me Blind

Year: 1988

Director: Chuck Russell

Cast: Kevin Dillon, Shawnee Smith, Donovan Leitch

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

You can never have enough Blob.

This is an opinion held by many, as evidenced by the popularity of Blobfest, a yearly convention in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania that has been going strong since 1958, the year the original film came out. The festivities include four double features (one half of which is always The Blob), 1950s Makeover and Costume contests, special guests, a Fire Extinguisher Parade, and the Friday Night Run Out, where the entire audience runs out of the Colonial Theatre, the location the Blob attacked at the end of the film.

That was all one sentence.

Anyway, it's nice to be reaffirmed in my love for the Blob, the topic I have chosen for my essay in my Horror Genre class. To complete this five page essay (which will shortly become available to you on this blog, should you wish to read an actual academic analysis of a dumb movie about a Blob that eats people), part of the assignment is to watch the sequel (Beware! The Blob) and the 1988 remake.

Since I was already planning on doing that anyway, it was an obvious choice of essay topics.

And since B!tB is stuck in the mail somewhere, I decided to begin with the remake, released exactly 30 years after the original Steve McQueen film.

Things have changed since then (although making a pile of silicone look like it's rolling around is still just as hard as before, evidently). Visual effects have improved tenfold. Horror has risen to prominence as the genre to beat. The beginning of the decade saw the invention of the slasher film.

That last development more than anything else is what informs The Blob of the 80's. This film is about one topless scene away from being a Census Bloodbath entry.

There's a Final Girl, a couple making out in a car and getting Blobbed, a man bursting from the shadows brandishing an axe, not to mention that half of it takes place in the woods. This is no accident. The movie showing in the cinema in the climactic scene is one of the most spot on parodies of the genre I've ever seen. Also, let's not forget about Chuck Russell, whose previous directing gig was none other than A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (The Blob also shares screenwriter Frank Darabont with that lovely late era slasher film).

Coming so late in the 80's, there was no way the new Blob could be anything other than a slasher riff. That's what was selling and had been selling for a decade at that point. If that makes it sound stale, trust me it absolutely isn't. Yes, it's a slasher framework but how many "teens in the woods" movies choose a ravenous gelatinous monster as their villain?

As a preeminent slasher scholar, I can tell you: Not a lot. 

Meg (Shawnee Smith of the first three Saw movies) is a sweet young cheerleader from the struggling off-season ski town of Arborville, California. Although the town's economy is troubled, she still has something to cheer about - cute jock Paul Taylor (Donovan Leitch of the Brad Pitt slasher abortion Cutting Class) has just asked her out on a date! Gee whiz! A great deal of time in the first act is spent on teen hijinks (including a bizarre reworking of this ancient joke) in a barely disguised Meet the Meat sequence.

There's Scott (Ricky Paull Goldin), Paul's douchey best friend (his best analogue is Ted from Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, and I'll bet my life's savings that the Blobmakers have seen that film); Brian Flagg (Kevin Dillon, who has made something of a name for himself with Entourage), the leather clad motorcycle rebel; the town weirdo Reverend Meeker (Del Close); Diner owner Fran (Candy Clark); and her suitor, Sherriff Geller (Jeffrey DeMunn, perhaps best known as Dale from The Walking Dead. This won't be the last time he'll pop up somewhere you least expect it - he'll appear in Christmas Evil, one of our upcoming Census Bloodbath features).

This is a remake after all, so although most of these characters are original, it's obvious that Meg and Paul are the stand-ins for teenybopper heroes Aneta Coursaut and Steve McQueen. Oh, also a meteor crashes to Earth containing a ravenous Blob. That too.

(SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH) The movie follows the original for a while with the couple driving a Blob-afflicted old man to the doctor. Then the movie tips its hand when it freaking kills Paul dead in just about the most violent manner possible. We just got Psycho'd hard, guys. Our young hero has joined Marion Crane and Casey Becker in the special Heaven for top billed characters who die before the 45 minute mark. Now that the movie has thrown a wrench in the works, Brian Flagg steps up to the plate, teaming up with Meg to help save the town, but the movie has already proved how far it's willing to go - anything can happen.

He never lived to see the advent of the selfie. It's hard to tell if this is a bad thing.

It also proves how far gore effects have come in the last 30 years. This is still massively tawdry and cheap stuff, mind you. It's no The Thing, but The Blob is exactly everything a 50's style sci-fi horror flick transplanted into the late 80's should be - tremendous fun with a gonzo flair for increasingly outrageous gore setpieces.

A man gets his arm ripped off as the rest of him dissolves in the Blob, a diner worker is pulled into a sink drain, a woman in a telephone booth is completely engulfed. Faces melt, bones are crushed, and the Blob gushes around with gusto, squealing and thrashing and crushing townspeople with its enormous tentacles (a new and appreciated addition - this feels so much like all the best parts of a cheesy black and white monster movie).

The final third of the film has some commentary on the US government (the monster being a failed biochemical warfare experiment) and it's all well and good but the most important part is the middle, in which nothing much happens but various people around town getting Blobbed. This is fantastic and worth the price of admission even without the witty repartee and cute meta humor.

Blobbed.

Blobbed.

I regret to inform you that you've just been Blobbed.

Blobbed Nightmare on Elm Street style.

The Blob avoids the modern remake habit of grittifying everything (Imagine if you will: a grey and world-weary Blob wearing sunglasses and dissolving townspeople as revenge for his dead bride. He keeps going out of a sense of duty but can't shake the nihilistic idea that maybe it just isn't worth it anymore. He's the Blob this city wants but doesn't need anymore.) and embraces its camp pedigree. 

There was hardly a better time for sci-fi/action/horror camp than the 80's, and this Blob turns it up to 11. Sillier. 80's-er. Gorier. Blobbier.

There's a motorcycle chase.

Somebody actually says the words "Chew on that, slimeball!"

A manhole cover is exploded with a bazooka because everything explodes in the 80's.

When nothing is taken seriously it's really quite hard to be even a little scared, but it's even harder to not have a good time. 

Who doesn't have a good time at the movies?

Also, the film isn't shoddily made at all. (What?) In fact, the editing is even rather brilliant at times, keeping in mind the campy tone. The opening shot of a cemetery pans over to a rowdy crowd cheering on a high school football game; a particularly Blobby scene cuts right to a kid slurping up Jello; and Brian's attempt at an Evel Knievel style stunt is intercut with the cheerleading squad chanting "GO! GO! GO!"

Not quite Academy Award level work, maybe, but it shows that a lot of thought and love went into this film. And if you don't agree, you can go Blob yourself.

Body Count (and the very fact that it needs a body count is telling): 21; also half of the audience of the movie theater and a multitude of random townspeople.

TL;DR: The Blob is a perfect remake, capturing the tone and humor of the original but ramping up the visual effects with modern flair.

Rating: 9/10

Word Count: 1418
Reviews In This Series
The Blob (Yeaworth Jr./Doughton Jr., 1958)
Beware! The Blob (Hagman, 1972)
The Blob (Russell, 1988)