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There are certain fears baked into the experience of childhood: Your tee-ball trophy looking like a vampire bat when lights go out. That dark corner of the basement with the wood stove. Delsym Cough Syrup.
But there's another, more primal, fear all kids have: "Why isn't anyone listening to me?"
For an example, I bring to you 1986's "Invaders From Mars"...or at least half of it.
Because "Invaders," a big-budget remake of a 1953 film cherished by the nerdiest of Boomers, is one of those movies that's just so blandly passible, talking about why it exists is far more interesting than talking about how.
Part of why it exists is because of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2," a sequel that director Tobe Hooper wanted desperately to get to market during the '80s horror boom-time.
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The only company that would put up the money for this was Cannon Studios, the folks responsible for every movie you saw after dark on HBO that didn't feature Sylvia Kristel but did feature Chuck Norris in a jungle or a slow-moving Charles Bronson.
THE THROWBACK MACHINE: A scary movie that's perfect for stick season
But Hooper had to agree direct two other films first, both attempts at getting Cannon a bit more mainstream respect. The first was 1985's "Lifeforce," where a naked alien girl arrives via a space pod hiding in Hailey's Comet, escapes from the research lab and promptly turns all of London into a screaming mass of zap-ray emitting life-force draining zombies. It flopped, but has rightfully become a cult item.
It's actually featured briefly on a TV-screen in the background of the second film of the deal, "Invaders From Mars," a movie that's always been more of a success in my mind than in reality, ever since I overheard a classmate in fifth grade excitedly describe scenes from it during recess; specifically the scene where a Martian-possessed teacher gets caught swallowing a live frog whole. That's another childhood fear, I guess. That secretly, every adult in a position of authority over you is secretly a monster.
The biggest problem with "Invaders" is evident right from the promise of the opening credits, where the film's logo, in blazing red jagged comic book letters, comes screaming out of a black starfield with ruby-red contrails following behind. That's the kind of detail that would have made little-kid-me, if this movie had played Mattoon back in '86, go, "Oh yeah!"
Then, as that same effect is used for every single credit thereafter, over and over again, with no variation, I probably would have also thought, "I guess they just used their best trick."
Because that's a signal as good as any that this is a movie that gets a few B-movie details correct, but never really dials them up in a way that would interest anyone beyond fifth-grade boys.
THE THROWBACK MACHINE: Back to the Castle!
Remember how I said I was only bringing you the first half of the film? Well, that's because only the first part of the film really works, in that it taps into a nightmare-fuel vision of a young boy from a kind family who one night sees a bright light descending behind a ragged wooden fence on the hill behind his house and wakes up to find his chipper dad suddenly...different.
After that, his mom changes too, suddenly insistent on taking a picnic over that same hill while blankly chewing on uncooked red meat. Then everyone at the school, from the battle-axe science teacher (with the frog in a jar on her desk) to the annoying pig-tailed class suck up, starts displaying more hostile than usual attitudes, while also sporting gross red sores on their necks that no one else seems to notice. And what's more...no one is listening to him!
Well, except for the kindly school nurse, who spots those gross neck boils too, and eventually the two are running hither and yon all over the neighborhood, not knowing who to trust. Eventually, the kid gets brave enough to climb over that fence on the hill where he finds a hole in the ground that leads him into the endless, surreal chambers of an alien spaceship controlled by a, you guessed it, giant, slimy brain with a face. Naturally.
Folks, that's quality stuff right there, I don't care how old you are. But then the movie makes a mistake that it never recovers from. And that's when, with the Martians closing in, the kid suddenly goes, "Oh, what about General Wilson?" Because yeah, every kid is friends with the commanding officer from his dad's military base.
And from that point, it all shifts from being "Invasion of the Body Snatchers For Kids" to a filmed version of any young lad's afternoon play session ramming his G.I. Joes into Wacky Wall Walkers in the sandbox. And as anyone out there who actually did that can tell you, it gets old fast.
I can name you one adult of authority who's judgement might also have been affected by an alien brain: Bloomington Pantagraph film critic Dan Craft, who gave "Invaders From Mars" a whopping three stars (one more than I'd give it), before deploying the classic smart-guy gambit of saying the reason you might think it's silly is because you don't realize it's all a joke (a courtesy he didn't afford to the remake of "The Blob" a couple years later, it must be said), and closing his review by saying he can't wait to see what Hooper does with his then-upcoming sequel to Texas Chainsaw.
He gave that film two-and-a-half stars, because "Invaders" was ripe for mocking. But with Chainsaw 2, "as the film winds down...the comic dementia begins to seem labored and without purpose," and that unlike the child hero at the end of "Invaders," "we awaken from the nightmare giggling instead of screaming."
Oh. Dan. You really should have listened to me.
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From the the very first THROWBACK MACHINE Spooky Movie Spectacular in 2015, it's "Halloween III: Season of the Witch, clipped from the Nov. 4, 1982, Journal Gazette; along with the headline for Carl Lebovitz's review. Now and forever my 100th favorite horror movie of all time.
From 2016's Second Annual Spooky Movie Showcase, the classic Italian gross-out "Zombie," clipped from the Sept. 19, 1980, Journal Gazette, alongside "Meatcleaver Massacre," a movie that I thought I had seen...but I was thinking about "Microwave Massacre."
Also from the Second Spooky Movie Showcase: "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," clipped from the May 4, 1979, Journal Gazette. It's tied for the #1 spot on my favorite horror movie of all time.
Arguably one of the most important THROWBACK columns I've ever written, here's "Prince of Darkness," from a Nov. 5, 1987, Journal Gazette article by Carl Lebovitz about the commonality of horror movie posters with giant screaming faces on them, that had been rattling around my memory since I first read it when I was a kid. The movie itself has since been (rightfully) reclaimed as a classic.
My mother swore up and down she saw "Last House on the Left" at the Mattoon Skyway Drive-in. Well, she was right, because here it is, clipped from the July 12, 1973 Journal Gazette. It also made a return engagement, along side "Don't Look In the Basement" in 1974.
Here's another very important THROWBACK, "The House That Vanished," clipped from the June 7, 1975, Herald and Review; the first column where I tackled an actual double-feature of horror movies I had never seen before. The second movie that week was "The Godsend." Note the poster similarities between this and "Last House On the Left."
From the Sept. 1, 1978, Journal Gazette, a Skyway Drive-In Ad for "Something Is Out There," a movie I fell down quite a wormhole with since I had never heard of it before; turns out it's a re-titled version of "Day of the Animals," which I had always wanted to write about, so it all worked out.
There's no horror movie VHS box art that looms as large in my distant memory as "Xtro," pictured here from the May 14, 1983, Herald and Review. It's real gross.
THROWBACK MACHINE'S Ten Years of Spooky Movies
From the the very first THROWBACK MACHINE Spooky Movie Spectacular in 2015, it's "Halloween III: Season of the Witch, clipped from the Nov. 4, 1982, Journal Gazette; along with the headline for Carl Lebovitz's review. Now and forever my 100th favorite horror movie of all time.
From 2016's Second Annual Spooky Movie Showcase, the classic Italian gross-out "Zombie," clipped from the Sept. 19, 1980, Journal Gazette, alongside "Meatcleaver Massacre," a movie that I thought I had seen...but I was thinking about "Microwave Massacre."
Also from the Second Spooky Movie Showcase: "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," clipped from the May 4, 1979, Journal Gazette. It's tied for the #1 spot on my favorite horror movie of all time.
Arguably one of the most important THROWBACK columns I've ever written, here's "Prince of Darkness," from a Nov. 5, 1987, Journal Gazette article by Carl Lebovitz about the commonality of horror movie posters with giant screaming faces on them, that had been rattling around my memory since I first read it when I was a kid. The movie itself has since been (rightfully) reclaimed as a classic.
My mother swore up and down she saw "Last House on the Left" at the Mattoon Skyway Drive-in. Well, she was right, because here it is, clipped from the July 12, 1973 Journal Gazette. It also made a return engagement, along side "Don't Look In the Basement" in 1974.
Here's another very important THROWBACK, "The House That Vanished," clipped from the June 7, 1975, Herald and Review; the first column where I tackled an actual double-feature of horror movies I had never seen before. The second movie that week was "The Godsend." Note the poster similarities between this and "Last House On the Left."
From the Sept. 1, 1978, Journal Gazette, a Skyway Drive-In Ad for "Something Is Out There," a movie I fell down quite a wormhole with since I had never heard of it before; turns out it's a re-titled version of "Day of the Animals," which I had always wanted to write about, so it all worked out.
There's no horror movie VHS box art that looms as large in my distant memory as "Xtro," pictured here from the May 14, 1983, Herald and Review. It's real gross.
"The Throwback Machine" is a weekly feature taking a look back at items of interest found in the JG-TC online archives. For questions, comments, suggestions, or his "Song of the Day" recommendation, contact him at [email protected].
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