fangoria: leatherface edition

Issue #57

Issue #89

Issue #256

Issues #57 & #89 have lovely posters included for use in your family room of The Beast from Poltergeist II & Michael Myers (and his hideous mask) from Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. That mask looks fucking atrocious in the actual movie, but in that poster, it manages to look even worse. Quite a feat.

I also have the 42nd issue of Rue Morgue with Leatherface on the cover and a nice article on the 30th anniversary of the original film, so I figured I'd toss that up here, too. However, unlike the Fangoria issues above, this is only the cover and accompanying article.

Issue #42 Cover + Article

"halloween 6" megapost.

I was never one for the Friday the 13th flicks. The first entry lulled me asleep, the next three were moderately entertaining, and the rest would probably smell like children if I were the Grand High Witch of Roald Dahl's magically perverse imagination. The Elm Street movies were more my style; the first is genuinely frightening, the second is amusing in a rather homoerotic way, and once they went full dreamland as a plot device, I relished the cheese with a tupperware bowl full 'o crackers.

But when it comes to my particular favorite slasher series, I have to hand it to Halloween, simply because of the manner in which those calling the shots torpedoed it from the threadbare premise of a psycho in a mask killing teenagers to full-blown ridiculousness involving cults, Druids, telepathy, and Paul fuckin Rudd.

Just when the "Man In Black" element of Halloween 5 got you thinking that it could not possibly get any crazier, along came Halloween: The Curse of Michael Mysers six years later. Plagued with reshoots, rewrites, a pathetic director (according to star Marianne Hagan), and teen boys at test screenings, what ended up on theater screens is generally considered an abortion of what could have been by all involved.

Fortunately, a so-called "Producer's Cut" leaked shortly after the theatrical release in the mid-nineties; a cut vastly different from the one released, but even more muddled with absurdity. Those absurdities, however, are what make it such a stand-out entry in the series. Moustapha Akkad & Co. dived in, tits to the wind, to make a horror flick of such preposterousness that one much admire it for that alone. A horror flick in which small stones are used to stop Michael Myers.

This is that so-called "Producer's Cut" in the best available quality. Whereas previous versions spliced the cut footage in with the DVD release, resulting in a film of varying quality every few minutes, this version is completely unspliced, taken from a low generation copy before it really started making the rounds in trading circles.

Screenshots (click to enlarge):

"Producer's Cut" DOWNLOAD (800 MBs, join with HJ Split)

In addition to the alternate cut, I also have quite a few odds & ends that I've acquired over the years. The Fangoria cover story, promos, trailers, and even some home movies of the special effects shot during the reshoots.

Fangoria Magazine #147 - Cover Story Scans

Promotional Featurette

Entertainment Tonight Feature

Special Effects Home Movies

Early "666: Origin of Michael Myers" Trailer

Theatrical Trailer

TV Spot #1

TV Spot #2 (awful quality)

alejandro jodorowsky is bitchin'.

I generally count Santa Sangre as one of my favorite horror flicks, despite the fact that it transcends a myriad of genres, and attempt to view it at least once a year. Visually, it's a marvel; many scenes, regardless of their dark nature, astound me to this day. The baptismal pool found within the Church of Santa Sangre is especially striking.

Many critics fault it for being highbrow nonsense, but they fail to realize that beautiful, overwrought nonsense is the point. The use of deep reds has always struck me as being indicative of extravagance, the surrealism indicative of the disregard Alejandro Jodorowsky has for making complete sense of the story being unspooled. Surrealism is nonsense.

I recently came across a rather interesting documentary from the BBC about Jodorowsky, "For One Night Only," produced around the time Santa Sangre was released. It's a rather obscure, moderately fascinating look at a director whose work I find startlingly beautiful (and alternately grotesque), one who has managed to stay under the radar enough where I know next to nothing about the actual man.

(click to DOWNLOAD)