In addition to hosting the popular Post Mortem podcast, Mick Garris is also a Master of Horror, an icon of a filmmaker behind tons of horror goodies from Critters 2 to Sleepwalkers, Quicksilver Highway, and the more recent anthology Nightmare Cinema. Before the Stephen King craze, Garris would also direct several series from “The Stand” to “The Shining”, and also took part in “Masters of Horror” (S1 & S2 are both now streaming on Screambox), “Freddy’s Nightmares” and even “Tales from the Crypt”. He even penned *batteries not included, The Fly II, and the infinitely iconic Hocus Pocus.
Bloody Disgusting recently took the reigns on the newly-relaunched Screambox, a subscription-based streaming platform loaded with movies that also hosts our live channel, BDTV. We have such sights to show you over the next year, but we kicked it off with five films Barbara Crampton is watching on Screambox.
Today, we’re digging deep into our catalog with Mick Garris, who curates six films he’d have pulled straight off the video store shelf!
Go straight to Mick’s picks here. Which one are you watching first?
AUDITION
Japanese cinema master Takashi Miike tricks you into terror by leading you into what you are led to believe is a lightly comedic scam by so-called movie producers into getting women to pay attention to them. But 45 minutes in, things change quickly—and darkly! There aren’t many films that get so intense as AUDITION, and though I won’t place any further spoilers here, you will go through an emotional whirlpool, and be terrorized in ways you never imagined. This is the film that made me want to bring Miike-san onboard when we did the MASTERS OF HORROR series.
BODY BAGS
Imagine TALES FROM THE CRYPT created by John Carpenter, and you have a good idea of the good times in store for you here. Carpenter himself has a field day portraying the show’s Cryptkeeper stand-in for what was a pilot for a Showtime series that never happened. Containing three stories, two directed by Carpenter and a third directed by the late, great Tobe Hooper, the show is a blast, sometimes straightforward horror, and other times a bit more lighthearted, but always weird and wonderful. And Mark Hamill stars in the Hooper segment, earning even more points!
FORBIDDEN WORLD
For years, Roger Corman’s New World Pictures made low-budget, exploitive sci-fi movies “inspired” by the juggernaut that was ALIEN. This one, probably the goopiest and most wildly entertaining, is awash in blood, boobs and beasts that probably blasted to the top of the Joe Bob Briggs metrics. It’s a massive romp that doesn’t mess around much with logic or science, and director Allan Holzman, who also was the second unit director on my first feature film, CRITTERS 2, delivers everything anyone could ever want from a Corman spectacular!
HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP
Roger Corman produced this epic monster classic, featuring outrageous creature effects by a barely pubescent Rob Bottin (okay, I exaggerate a little, but the guy was young), Barbara Peeters directs another squishy, racy sci-fi opus that doesn’t know the meaning of the word “subtle”. And thank goodness. This is all about alien aquatic creatures who aren’t here to murder or terrify, but to impregnate the beautiful women of a remote fishing town. As usual, Corman’s films try to integrate social consciousness, in this case environmentalism, into the doings, but it is clearly overshadowed by the demands of an occasionally erotic monster movie.
PIRANHA
This shameless JAWS rip-off is the movie that launched the brilliant career of the great Joe Dante. Indeed, it was so shameless—and so good, standing head and shoulders above the myriad other JAWS rip-offs of the day—that Steven Spielberg himself hired Dante to direct GREMLINS. With a witty script by John Sayles, and effects by Rob Bottin—and even a little stop-motion by Phil Tippett. It is funny and self-aware, but completely delivers the goods of a fine thriller and a true environmental monster movie. And Dante, of course, also played a major part in the two seasons of MASTERS OF HORROR.
RE-ANIMATOR
Few directorial careers launched with such confidence and originality as Stuart Gordon’s. RE-ANIMATOR may be an adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story, but this film is 100% Stuart Gordon (with a big boost from co-writer Dennis Paoli). There may be many stories about bringing back the dead with dire consequences, but there was never anything like RE-ANIMATOR before. It is filled with energy, a profound abundance of zombies who are not slowed down by their demise, and healthy (or unhealthy) doses of sex. The late Gordon also contributed to two seasons of MASTERS OF HORROR, and his remains one of the wryest, most original voices in horror cinema.
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