horror films - FILM & TELEVISION REVIEW

You would have to work very hard to come up with a film in the same stratosphere as Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water (2017). While not a sequel to The Creature from the Black Lagoon, it can easily be read that way. It is a lyrical fantasy that defies disbelief. It is the happy ending that every kid that watched the original film wished for and that del Toro made happen. Every frame brings you closer to the realization that anything is possible, or at least you want to believe it is so. It is less of a horror film than a beautifully bizarre beauty and the beast story.

Everything, from the production and casting to the fine points in the script are perfect. The cast performs flawlessly taking you deeper into the story’s depths, letting you float in the comfort of the lovers’ dream.

_{The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)}

The original film was where del Toro’s influence began–a classic tale of unrequited love. The first film in the trilogy it is undoubtedly the film that most people remember. The next, The Revenge of the Creature is the closest to del Toro’s in that the creature is brought back from the jungle and kept in a holding tank where an effort is made to communicate with him, and of course a beautiful young scientist, Helen Dobson (Lori Nelson) is one of the specialists. The Creature’s heartache is revived.

The third entry in the series is my favorite after the first because of its bizarre film noir influenced narrative (no comment on the Creature’s prison attire). At first, I thought I’d just been watching too much noir, but it was not my imagination: from the opening shot of the convertible racing up to the dock, the film was pure hot house noir right down to the smoldering ice blonde doctor’s wife.

_{LEFT: Lobby Card. RIGHT: Leigh Snowden in The Creature Walks Among Us}

The usual Film Noir conflict, jealousy, and double crossing ensues. There is the nice guy, the tough guy who won’t leave the girl alone, and the husband that pays her no attention except to berate her or accuse her of being unfaithful.

The jealous husband kills the tough guy and plans to frame the innocent Creature, but the Creature catches on and breaks out of his holding cell and kills the doctor.

At the end of this noirish escapade, the Creature exits and goes back into the sea; presumably, to drown due to his newly evolved lungs. There is no way I can let a sleeping sea creature lie. Somehow, he doesn’t drown but swims to LA where he gets rid of the prison suit they put him in and finds a Brooks Brothers where they are happy to fit him in a nice cream colored suit and a power tie that shouts, “I’m a fish out of water! Ask me how?” He then locates an office for lease on the seedy side of Hollywood Boulevard, and the landlord tells him it’s 250 clams a month and insists on three months security deposit because the Creature’s references are all wet. The Creature has the payment delivered packed in dry ice. Next, he hires the dead doctor’s wife as his receptionist and opens a private investigator’s office to the stars. Fade to deep blue.

Next: Mr. Renfield, I presume?

Adrienne Barbeau

Adrienne Barbeau began her career on the Broadway stage in Fiddler on the Roof (1968); prior to that, she had been working in a nightclub as a go-go dancer while auditioning for acting jobs. In 1972, Barbeau was nominated for a Tony award for her performance (Musical) as Rizzo for best supporting actress in the original Broadway production of Grease. By the mid-seventies she was doing mainly TV work in both series and movies. From 1972 to 1978, she was a series regular on Maude. In 1978 she met John Carpenter on the set of Someone’s Watching Me! a made for TV movie with Laura Hutton in the lead role that showcased Carpenter’s talent as a director.

_{Adrienne Barbeau in Th}_{e Fog (1980)}

Barbeau and Carpenter were married in 1979, and she made her feature film debut in John Carpenter’s, The Fog (1980); Carpenter wrote the part with his wife in mind.Her next film with her husband directing was the classic, Escape From New York (1981). Less a horror film than action adventure, Barbeau fit right into the exceptional cast that includes Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Donald Pleasence, Earnest Borgnine, Tom Atkins, and Isaac Hayes. The film was highly rated by both critics and audiences and Russell’s character, Snake Pissken remains his best known role.

LEFT: Earnest Borgnine, Henry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau & Kurt Russell in Escape From New York (1981) LEFT: Kurt Russell & Adrienne Barbeau in *Escape From New York* **(1981)**

**John Carpenter directing Adrienne Barbeau in *Escape From New York* (1981)**

In 1982 Wes Craven’s Swamp Thing was released, and was seen mainly as a campy version of the DC comic book, but Barbeau & Jourdan manage to lift the film above its director’s somewhat low aspirations. It is a better film than many may recall, and is a good film to revisit.

In 1981’s Creepshow, George A. Romero presents five tales in a screenplay written by Steven King. How could you go wrong, five stories inspired by E.C. Horror comics of the 1950’s penned by the undisputed master of horror that are both creepy and wickedly funny?

**Adrienne Barbeau in *Creepshow* (1982)**

Barbeau has had a long and colorful career and currently has two films in pre & post production: Hellblazers a new horror film with Billy Zane, Bruce Dern, and Tony Todd (Candyman 1982) in post production, and Pitchfork with Tony Todd and Dee Wallace (Cujo 1981) in pre production.

She has also starred in TV shows with guest spots on Dexter (2009), Gray’s Anatomy (2009), Creepshow (TV series 2019), American Horror Stories (2021), and as a regular in 24 episodes of the astonishingly well written and produced but sadly, short lived, Carnivale (2003-2005). She has had a total of 153 screen credits to date and counting.

Lori Hallier & Cynthia Dale

Lorie Hallier

Prior to My Bloody Valentine, Hallier appeared on the TV series, Bizarre in 1979. My Bloody Valentine was her first film appearance, and she went on to do guest appearances on many popular TV shows, including:

Trapper John, M.D., The Dukes of Hazzard, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Twilight Zone to name just a few. Hallier also appeared in a number of TV movies. She has clocked 94 screen credits to date.

Cynthia Dale

Cynthia Dale has had a long career in both film and television as both an actress and producer. After a TV movie appearance at the age of 10 in The Wonder of It All (1971), her next was in My Bloody Valentine in 1981. She also had a part in The Boy in Blue (1986) with Nicolas Cage, Christoper Plummer, and David Naughton (An American Werewolf in London), and Moonstruck (1987), and the successful TV series, Street Legal (1988-94).

Adrienne King

Adrienne King is best known for Friday the 13th and Friday the 13th 2. Although she has continued working intermittently, she currently has only twenty on screen credits including three that are in pre-or-post production.

**Adrienne King** earning her Scream Queen title in *Friday the 13th*

Jeannine Taylor

Jeannine Taylor has only two screen credits, and only one appearance in a horror film: Friday the 13th. The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982), a TV movie,was her other screen credit. Taylor will be forever remembered by fans as the axe victim in the former. She commented on her brief screen career, “But as far as acting in major motion pictures… I didn’t think I was pretty enough. I wasn’t tall and blonde – I didn’t ever think of myself in that way.”

Robbie Morgan

Morgan’s career on the screen was also a short but memorable one that began in 1969 with Me, Natalie with her playing the titular character along side: Patty Duke, Elsa Lanchester, Martin Balsam, Al Pacino, and James Farentino.

Her very next role was in a horror film in which she played a student at a dance studio run by, shall we say, a lunatic? In 1971’s answer to 1961’s Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters appear in the formulaic horror story What’s the Matter with Helen? A young Morgan does a diminutive version of Mae West in a musical interlude.

_{What’s the Matter with Helen? Poster (1971) / Robbie Morgan in What’s the Matter with Helen?}₍₁₉₇₁₎

Nine years later she played Annie in Friday the 13th and would only appear in three more projects in the 80’s, two of which were TV movies: Forbidden Love (1982) and I Married a Centerfold (1984). She also appeared in an episode of The Fall Guy “Eight Ball” (1983). Her next appearance was not until 2015 in Dutch Hollow. Most recently, her character in Friday the 13th was the focus of Episode 10 of the TV series, Coroner’s Report “Annie Phillips” (2021)

**Robbie Morgan in** *Friday the 13th (1981*)

Lauri Bartram

**Laurie Bartram in** *Friday the 13th (1981*)

Mark Nelson & Laurie Bartram in *Friday the 13th*

Friday the 13th was Laurie Bartram’s last screen credit in another short lived career. She began with two appearances on the TV series, Emergency! in 1973.

Next, she made an uncredited appearance in The House of Seven Corpses (1974), and from 1978 through 1979 was a regular on 85 episodes of the TV soap opera, Another World.

Felissa Rose

_{Felissa Rose in Sleepaway} _{Camp (1983)}

Sleepaway Camp is a deadpan parody of Friday the 13th as well as an original in its own right with an infamous twist ending. Unlike most of the Friday the 13th Scream Queens, Rose has had a long and eventful film career with too many projects in pre & filming & post production to name, and a total of 148 screen credits as well as 32 producer & 1 writing credit.

Barbara Crampton

Re-Animator remains the most entertaining as well as successful film version of an H.P. Lovecraft story. Barbara Crampton’s performance gives her a special place in the Scream Queen hall of fame. She also has enjoyed a long career on screen which began with 83 episodes on the daytime soap opera, Days of Our Lives (1983-84). She then did a TV movie and a guest shot on the TV series, Santa Barbara (season 1 episode 16-1984). Before being cast in Re-Animator, Crampton appeared in Brian De Palma’s Body Double (1984) in a supporting role. Re-Animator (1985) was the film that would land her in the horror hall of fame for all eternity!

_{LEFT: Bruce Abbott & Barbara Crampton in Re-Animator (1985) RIGHT: Barbara Crampton & Gary Daniels in Cold Harvest} ₍₁₉₉₉₎

Crampton has continued working in both TV & Films and to date has 69 screen credits including Snow Valley (2021) which is in post production.

**_{LEFT: Barbara Crampton in From Beyond (1986) Barbara Crampton LEFT: Barbara Crampton in Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018)}**

Facts, Rumors & Hearsay

Friday the 13th

Adrienne King was stalked by a fan with an obsession for her, terrified, she requested a much smaller role in Friday the 13th 2. She also refused to do horror conventions for 20 years.

Adrienne King’s scream was so good it clinched her getting the part.

My Bloody Valentine

Lori Hallier on Bloody Valentine: “I was watching it for the first time in 15 years. When I saw myself it was like watching a stranger, but I could finally watch it as a movie and see what made it cult-like.”

Creepshow

In the segment The Crate, the characters Wilma “Billy” Northrup (Adrienne Barbeau) and Professor Dexter Stanley (Fritz Weaver) are a tongue in cheek parody of the alcoholic and psychotically dysfunctional Martha and George in the film Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) Starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Sleepaway Camp

Being only 13 at the time, Felissa Rose was unable to see her own movie in theaters.

Re-Animator

Barbara Crampton does all of her own screaming in the film.

Originally, the film was going to be a faithful adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft novella, Herbert West – Re-Animator, but morphed into a parody of Frankenstein.

Tag: horror films

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