The Dog Farm Finally Creeps Up On The Creeper - Movies At Dog Farm IV Looms Ominously In The Distance...

A beaten and bound middle-aged man sitting atop a hill...

     Does the screen cap above look familiar to you?  I've been deviled by it for thirty-five years.  It doesn't look quite as I remembered it, but that's definitely it.  I was frustrated by my inability to recall the movie from which this image was taken for decades.  Then - even worse - I finally realized it was from a movie that was essentially unavailable.  This image was nothing more than a vague memory I would carry with me to the grave.  As the years passed I began to question if I'd ever even seen this image.  Perhaps it was only something I fabricated in my mind's eye, assembled from the unclassified scraps of horror movie detritus that litter my brain.

     I consider myself fortunate that I came of age during the seventies and eighties, arguably the last true golden age of genre movies.  I also consider myself fortunate that I lived through the glorious heyday of DVD in the nineties and aughts.  Almost any movie I recalled fondly from my youth was readily available to me, often in a beautifully packaged collector's edition.  Still, there were a handful of oldies that remained frustratingly out of reach. 

    I was haunted by the image above largely because it was from a movie that I could neither recall nor acquire.  I was certain it was from a movie I'd seen at the Skyline Drive-In.  I knew this because I remembered it being dark during its nighttime scenes to the point that it was almost incomprehensible.  I recalled also that it was a movie I hadn't particularly enjoyed, haunting visual notwithstanding.  My inability to remember its title and/or see it once again vexed me.

     At last I discovered that it was a Canadian movie I'd seen under the title The Creeper somewhere around 1980.  Part of the reason I could never place it was because it's better known in genre circles by its original title, Rituals (1977).  The Creeper was a retitling for the American market intended to position the movie as a backwoods slasher flick.  It's not, really.  That probably explains why my ten year old self didn't care for it at the time.  I'd been duped.  As for the impenetrable darkness in those nighttime scenes - it was due to damage inflicted upon the original negative during processing by Pathe Studios.  Who knew?

     So now I had a title, but I was thwarted by the fact that Rituals had essentially become a lost film since I'd seen it so long ago.  There were still substandard public domain releases under its retitling that popped up occasionally, but they were usually from a heavily edited broadcast television version that omitted over ten minutes of footage and still suffered from the excessive darkness that marred its presentation wherever it appeared.  The only unexpurgated version seemed to be an old Canadian VHS release by Astral Bellevue Entertainment, long out of print, that was difficult to locate and exorbitantly expensive.  Later there was a German DVD release, but it had forced subtitles and reportedly did nothing to correct the dark image.

     Finally there came word of an impending DVD release from Code Red DVD.  Code Red had obtained access to director Peter Carter's personal copy that his wife found in a closet and passed along to actor/producer Lawrence Dane.  The elements were still rough, but the print was uncut and Code Red had reportedly lightened the excessively dark passages.  This was all pretty big news in genre circles.  The impending release even scored a cover story in a special VHS issue of Rue Morgue magazine in December of 2009.  Then the release was delayed and later assumed abandoned by most until it finally showed up unheralded roughly a year and a half later.  It sold out almost immediately despite the low profile release, and it quickly became almost impossible to score a copy for less than fifty bucks or so from online resellers.  I missed that brief window of opportunity, and so Rituals once again eluded me.

     I've finally convinced myself to quit being a cheap bastard though, and I've ponied up the cash for a copy of that out of print Code Red DVD release.  I'll be sharing it with others soon at the next Movies At Dog Farm live event.  I'm pretty stoked about seeing Rituals again outdoors under the moonlight just as I saw it at the Skyline Drive-In nearly thirty-five years ago.  Rituals is now the first official selection for Movies At Dog Farm IV in May.

    

Movies At Dog Farm Retrospective: The Beast Within (1982)

The Beast Within (1982)

     For Halloween 2006 I created a week long series of drive-in double features for my friends and co-workers, seamless programs of shorts, trailers, ads, cartoons, and movies.  The logistics of trying to mount such a program outdoors in October were untenable, but we did a pretty good job creating the vibe indoors.  I had an LED moon on my living room wall, and I created shadow lanterns with popcorn containers and candles to create flickering "stars" on the living room ceiling.  We had a "refreshment stand" set up in the kitchen with hot dogs, boxed candies, sodas, and popcorn.  Each night was themed, and the trailers shown during intermission advertised the movies scheduled for the following night.  The final double feature was Motel Hell (1980) and The Beast Within (1982), both of which I had the good fortune of seeing for the first time at the Skyline Drive-In.  The Beast Within is the epitome of a drive-in creature feature.  It's roots extend all the way back to the likes of I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957), but with more rape, gore, and 1980s style bladder FX (all the rage at the time).  The Beast Within is incoherent, unrefined, and tacky.  It's a movie that simply wouldn't be made today.  Shortcomings notwithstanding, I love it dearly.

Eli and Caroline MacCleary (Ronny Cox and Bibi Besche)

     The Beast Within is the story of young Michael MacCleary (Paul Clemens), the now seventeen year old product of a wedding night rape near the small town of Nioba, Mississippi.  Eli and Caroline MacCleary (Ronny Cox and Bibi Besche) have raised Michael as their own.  They've kept the details of the rape - perpetrated by a humanoid creature of some sort - to themselves in the intervening years. Now young Michael, seemingly normal up to this point, has become gravely ill owing to what his doctor describes as an out of control pituitary gland.  The doctor suggests Michael's illness may be genetic, and so Eli and Caroline return to Nioba to solve the mystery of who - or what - fathered Michael in the hopes of finding some insight into Michael's illness.

Michael MacCleary (Paul Clemens), obviously feeling a little ill

     Several of Nioba's locals behave suspiciously when questioned about the rape, and it becomes clear that they know more than they're sharing about the particulars of Caroline's assailant.  Michael soon shows up in Nioba, as well, and the aforementioned locals begin to die in spectacularly gruesome fashion.  Michael shows himself to be his father's son during a show stopping transformation, then crashes through the wall and into the woods to track down another rape victim and repeat the cycle.  I've left the specifics of Michael's condition deliberately vague, because careening through the Scooby Doo style mystery surrounding Michael's true providence is half the fun.  It's also pretty freakin' vague in the movie, too, though it would seem that Michael is some kind of were-cicada.  Yeah, you read that correctly.

     Truth be told, The Beast Within has its fair share of flaws, not the least of which is the lack of narrative clarity.  Director Philippe Mora claims that United Artists cut several scenes that clarified key narrative points, and I'm inclined to believe that.  Screenwriter Tom Holland later wrote and directed both Fright Night (1985) and Child's Play (1988), as well as having written Psycho II (1983).  He's no hack, so I have to believe that whatever went wrong wasn't at the script level.  On the other hand, Philippe Mora later directed Howling III: The Marsupials (1987), so maybe . . .

The beast comes out

     In fairness, though, Mora does give The Beast Within a nicely grotty southern gothic vibe throughout, and I have to assume he's at least a little responsible for the earnest and mostly pitch perfect performances that serve to elevate the movie above most others of its ilk.  One of the things I appreciate most about The Beast Within is that it's played completely straight, despite its inherently silly B movie creature feature pedigree.  It's refreshing to see a movie like this that doesn't wink at the camera or revel in how clever and meta it is.  There's a place for that, but it's nice to see a sincere attempt to just tell a story occasionally, too.  I think the fact that so many genre movies now are consumed with being self aware parodies is often just a cop out.  Filmmakers try to excuse ineffectual film making by hiding behind the notion that it's o.k. for their movies to be bad as long as they know they're bad.

Michael MacCleary, now obviously feeling a lot worse

     Of course, I've thus far tiptoed around the very best reason to seek out this particular creature feature, and that would be its creature.  More precisely, it would be Michael's transformation into said creature.  The creature itself is a perfectly adequate man in a suit affair, but Michael's final transformation into that creature is an orgy of latex, slime, bubbling bladders and excess.  Masterminded by FX vet Rob Burman, it's one of those glorious, only in the 80s examples of the narrative just coming to a halt so the FX man can show off his wares.  Burman pulls out all the stops, and the results are horror movie gold.  They just don't make 'em like this anymore.

     One final note:  when I was a youngster I purchased a special "magazine" published by Fangoria made up of horror movie postcards.  I distinctly remember that one of the postcards was an image of a black lab with a human arm in his mouth that had been culled from The Beast Within.  I tried unsuccessfully to find any record of this magazine, nor could I find an image of the postcard itself.  If any of my readers remember this or could point me in the right direction, I'd be much obliged.

Movies At Dog Farm Remembers . . . The Drive-Ins Of My Misspent Youth

Skyline Drive-In, Waynesboro VA 

     I'm only glad to be older than dirt when I'm a horror fan who's older than dirt.  I've been fortunate enough to experience some great horror mileposts, some "end of an era" type opportunities that some of my younger contemporaries missed out on.  I've been lucky. 

     I'm grateful that my indoctrination into the world of grown-up horror movies coincided almost perfectly with the slasher movie boom of the late 70's and early 80's.  I was afforded the opportunity to see the likes of My Bloody Valentine (1981), Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), and Halloween II (1981) all on the big screen during their original theatrical releases.  These were the salad days of the gratuitous tit shot and the practical special effect.

The Bowman Body - Cobweb Theater

     I'm grateful that I could look forward to seeing some hoary old black and white horror movie hosted by the Bowman Body every Saturday night, first on Shock Theater (The Big 8!) and later on Cobweb Theater broadcast from Charlottesville.  The picture to the right is a screen capture of the Bowman Body reading a fan letter on the air from a much younger and less jaded movie fan.  You can see the clip in its entirety here.  Even as a youngster I was a genre critic.

Ticket booth at the Skyline

     Most of all, though, I'm grateful that I experienced the last hurrah of the drive-in horror movie.  Nothing beats seeing Lucio Fulci's Zombie (1979) on a gigantic outdoor screen with a cup of french fries in one hand and the badly dubbed soundtrack blaring through a speaker mounted to the window.

     My mother and I would spend each Saturday doing yard work for my Great Aunt Sydney so I could earn some drive-in money for Saturday night.  The theater in question was usually the Skyline Drive-In (Shenandoah's Showplace) in Waynesboro, VA.  There'd always be a line at the ticket booth because Saturday night was usually "carload" night - one admission price for as many people as you could fit in your car.  It  was an entertainment value that couldn't be beat, especially if it happened to be a dusk til dawn show.

     I had the good fortune to see Motel Hell (1980), Fear No Evil (1981), The Gates Of Hell (1980), and The Creeper (1977) on the Skyline's mammoth screen.  I saw The Toolbox Murders (1978), The Driller Killer (1979), and Wolfen (1981), too.  I saw them all out under the stars on humid summer nights, the way God intended.

     At some point I'd always have to visit the bathroom or the snack bar, usually after I was sufficiently spooked by the evening's entertainment to make the trek from the car to the snack bar a terrifying dash through the darkness and open air.  The bathroom, in particular, was the stuff of nightmares, lit by the jaundice glow of the yellow bug lights punctuated occasionally by the purple flash of the bug zapper.  The bathroom had a screen door and a trough to pee in - very utilitarian.

     Inside the snack bar, though, was the drive-in holy grail.  For as long as I visited the Skyline, there was always a poster for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) on the wall beneath a sign that read "Coming Soon".  It was a tease.  TCM never played the Skyline during these years.  I know.  I waited for it.  And waited, and waited . . .

     Undoubtedly, the poster had been there since TCM had played the Skyline years earlier.  I ultimately did see TCM on the big screen years later at a midnight screening - I can be grateful for that, at least - but nothing could've beaten seeing the epitome of the drive-in horror movie at the Skyline.

The Route 340 Drive-In marquee, covered by speedway signs

     I would occasionally find myself at the Route 340 Drive-In, as well - also in Waynesboro - and that was an even sketchier state of affairs.  The Route 340 shared land with Eastside Speedway, so on most Saturdays you couldn't hear the movies until after the drag racing was done for the night.  The Route 340 also generally played raunchier titles. 

     My most vivid memory of the Route 340 was the night my mother and I stumbled upon I Spit On Your Grave (1978) playing there.  Spitting on graves - it's a horror movie, right?  My mother was mortified that she'd taken her nine year old son to see a movie with a protracted and graphic rape scene that comprised nearly a third of the movie's run time.  She couldn't really make me leave the room, either.  I ended up standing by the snack bar for most of the rape, thereby at least sparing my mother the uncomfortable silence and unfathomable shame.  I still can't bring myself to watch I Spit On Your Grave in mixed company.

     There's one final drive-in that deserves an honorable mention here - Roth's Drive-In in Harrisonburg, VA.  We visited the Roth less frequently because it was farther away, but it distinguishes itself as being the venue in which I first saw both Halloween (1978) and Friday The 13th (1980).  A fellow in the bathroom assured me when I saw Friday The 13th that the version he'd seen the preceding week was gorier.  I'm not even going to conjecture as to why he felt the need to share that info with a ten year old standing at the pee trough. 

     This post came about because of an exchange with Jonny Dead at Blood Sucking Geek.  Jonny, who's younger than me (who isn't?), was envious of the fact that I'd seen The Driller Killer at a drive-in.  For those who didn't, I highly recommend  Jonny Dead's Trash Box Volume 1, wherein Jonny pairs The Driller Killer with Naked Massacre (1976) in a lovingly rendered ode to the drive-in / grindhouse experience.  All of the drive-ins mentioned here are long gone, but the drive-in aesthetic lives on.