Flipping Through Fangoria #65 – July ’87

There are little pieces of movies burrowed into my subconscious; lines and songs from them often burst forth at just the right moments, triggered by a word or situation – Jaws (“We’re gonna need a bigger boat”), Seems Like Old Times (Eat the chicken, Fred) A Star is Born (Admission’s free you pay to get out) And Justice for All (You’re out of order, this whole courtroom is out of order), The Godfather (never cross the family) and Scarface (Say hello to my little friend); Zorro the Gay Blade (You’ve seen me walk before), All that Jazz (I think I’m gonna die), The Jazz Singer (Everywhere around the world, they’re coming to America), and Fletch (Can I borrow your towel, my car just hit a water buffalo). Each one has had some subtle influence on my social and/or political worldview.

But E.T. was most impactful, and in some sense the most damaging. It left me scarred, sobbing and drained. For weeks I couldn’t stop crying. 36 years later, my eyes still well up at the thought of E-L-L-I-O-T’s final goodbye and E.T.’s last words, “I’ll be riiiight here.”

You see mom, I was damaged well before discovering Fangoria. But it was Fango that taught me about the art of making movies and the artists behind them. The writers, always suffering their creation’s adaptations, the producers, pounding the streets to raise money and awareness, the directors, fighting studios, producers, the ratings board, and sometimes their actors to get their visions on screen, and the special effects masters working feverishly, against nearly impossible odds and always limited funds, to bring to life the dark visions of their directors.

Fangoria #65 introduced all of the above. And while flipping through this issue, I am reminded that each faced their personal fears and battled their world’s demons to bring us some of the most memorable films of the 80s.

Hellraiser

Fangoria on Hellraiser

A figure emerges from the shadows of an attic. The attractive woman standing in the middle of the room-already shaken and splattered with blood-starts suddenly, halting her movements with a sharp intake of breath. “Do I disgust you?”…Anatomically he seems perfect…Flayed muscle ripples, bone glistens, viscera steams in the cold air. “Come to daddy,” beckons the skinless man.

Hellraiser is a no-holds barred ghost train ride, a tale of Faustian deals with demons, violent bloody murder, and twisted passion. Hellraiser…is primarily a love story.

Clive Barker on the Dark Side

With Hellraiser, we’re delving into the dark side of desire. This is an extremely black story.

My brother bought me The Great and Secret Show for my birthday in ‘89, but he had no interest in Barker’s books or movies. But 15 years later, I would seize the opportunity to expose him to the masterpiece that is Hellraiser. His wife had recently had an affair with the neighbor from down the street, and Lloyd was struggling with decisions. Stay and work it out for the sake of the kids or get the hell our of there and start anew.

He was spending a lot of time at my house, and one afternoon he was looking for a diversion. I suggested Hellraiser. “Come on,” I said. “It’s perfect. It’s about the power that the box has over us, and when you open the box, pleasure and pain await,” I said. And just as he agreed, I realized for the first time what Hellraiser was really about.

With some regret, I started the movie. And sure enough, just after Frank appeared dripping wet in the doorway of Julia’s memory, Lloyd turned pale white and demanded I turn it off. He was shaken, and remained that way for sometime after.

An extremely black story indeed.

Clive Barker on the Cenobites

They’re like sadomasochists from beyond the grave.

The genius of Hellraiser lives within the Cenobites. It is classic misdirection. We remember Pinhead, the image of the articulate demon with a head full of pins, but behind the demon hides its source – the puzzle – a horror too beautiful to show. Yet we continue forever to open the box, repeating the sins of the flesh.

Clive Barker on Bad Movies

I will seek out a bad movie so long as it has an image I’ve never seen before.

The Believers

Mark Frost screenwriter (six million dollar man and hill street blues) on The Believers

I would call it a classy horror film. It’s a psychological shocker with elements of horror, not an exploitation movie. The Believers is more of a Rosemary’s Baby than a Friday the 13th.

This seems to be a common theme in 1987. Every genre picture stakeholder sought to distance their films from slashers like Friday the 13th. It’s ironic that the movie franchises we love the most have also, some might argue, been most detrimental to the genre. It also why I still love Fangoria; because Fangoria always respected us and the genre.

Mark Frost on Angel Heart comparisons

They’re not really similar. Angel Heart is more of a genre picture. Our film is more rooted in reality.

Covered in Fango 64 and helmed by another titan, Angel Heart might be the better known movie, if only for DeNiro’s turn as the devil and Lisa Bonet’s alluring performance, but The Believers has some memorable moments and the always awesome Martin Sheen.

Groovy Bruce

Fangoria on Within the Woods

In Within the Woods, Campbell played the monster. But when the trio decided to expand it to the feature length Evil Dead, Raimi decided that Campbell should instead become the protagonist, on theory that it would be more frightening if a man played the victims role…

Sometimes the simplest choices lead to groundbreaking solutions.

Bruce Campbell on Evil Dead

We were a bunch of idiots trying to make a movie. We didn’t really know anything about padding, so I kind of got scraped up.

I love this quote. Sam Raimi as idiot? There is something comforting here for a kid reading Fangoria. Raimi was not yet legend, but he would be soon enough; and even he started as idiot.

Bruce Campbell on Ash

I think audiences feel more for the character if they see the guy being knocked around. I’d like to see Jack Nicholson fall on his butt a couple times. I’d go, ‘Gee, he’s working!’

In the first one, up until about halfway through, its very difficult for me to watch it in the theater. Audiences are really abusive because Ash is so dumb.

Howard Berger (a member of Mark Shostram’s FX crew) on Bruce Campbell

Bruce got really, really into it. He eats this stuff up. He bit through the denture for his possession makeup. He went “Rarrrh!” and the denture broke in half, and those things don’t break.

And the legend of the chin was born.

Charles L Grant

Writer’s write…and write…even when the words won’t come out right. And it was, of course, Fangoria that enlightened this then 15 year old. As a kid, I thought the writer lucky; they get to be home and do whatever they want. They don’t. They sit alone in solitary places and write, for hours upon hours, sometimes dribbling just a few usable sentences or phrases onto the page.

Charles Grant on Why He Writes

I write because I have to write. I can’t go three days without writing something…even a sentence or two.

Writing is an obligation, like breathing. Some might even call it an affliction. But I still want it, to be a writer, but the writing…oh the agony. And instead I watch horror movies.

Charles Grant on the Effects of Television

But as Ramsey Campbell has said, everybody’s imagination is under attack because TV does not permit us to have any imagination.

Thirty-one years later and we are still terrified for our children’s imaginations. Lost inside their phones, elevating YouTuber’s to rock-star status, our kids are growing up on snippets of food challenges and slime recipes delivered by annoying kids with little talent other than acquiring likes. Our kids are isolated from themselves, their thoughts and reflections subdued by their need to swipe to the next. What will become of our children?

Charles Grant on Clive Barker

With Books of Blood, Hellraiser and Weaveworld, Clive was at the forefront of the British Horror scene in 1987. So it was only natural that Charles Grant would have something to say. After rereading this article so many years later, it seems Mr. Grant was toeing the line between jealous peer and concerned elder statesman.

Clive Barker is an incredibly talented man…His particular manner of writing is not to my taste, to be honest. There are a lot of no talents out there. Clive, thank God, has talent…I just wish a good editor would take Clive by the hand to help him polish a little of the rough spots.

And he is doing so much. I really am afraid that [he] will burn himself out in less than five years if he doesn’t make up his mind what he wants to do.

His worry that Barker was indulging in too many creative outlets – novels, movies, plays, short stories – seems trite and petty. In hindsight, however, one might argue now that Grant was right. Barker did go through a difficult period in the late 90s and nearly died after a standard procedure led to a dire infection.

Charles Grant on Advice to Young Writers

Read! Watch less TV! Exercise the imagination! Learn to use the damn language. Stay away from manuals of style and creative writing classes. They don’t do a damn thing for you.

The Lost Boys

I loved The Lost Boys. It was slick, violent, and bloody. The music was awesome and Jamie Gertz was hot. And in the end, the nerds destroy the bullies and save the girl.

Joel Schumacher on Vampires

Vampires are sexy, as opposed to other great monsters. They’re beautifully dressed, they come into your bedroom. I actually think that in victorian times vampires were created so people could express oral sex…they dreamed of old men sucking the life out of them and of themselves being totally under their spell that they were unable to resist.

Everyone was sexy; the kids oozed sexuality, which accentuated the innocence of the Corey’s while setting up the rip-roaring finale.

Joel Schumacher on Directing The Lost Boys

This has been the hardest job I’ve had in my life…I think sometimes, now that we’re finally finishing the movie, that if I had known at the start how hard this was going to be, I wouldn’t have done it.

Imagine if we knew how hard the capturing of our dreams to be. Would we ever embark on the journey?

31 years later, The Lost Boys foreshadowed the nerdist revolution of the 2000s. While comic book heroes rule the box office, the nerds rule the world.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for Flipping through Fango #67 (because I guess I didn’t have enough money to buy #66).