Going To Pieces – The Rise & Fall Of The
Slasher Film (THINKFilm) + The Burning (MGM) + Silent Night, Deadly Night (Anchor Bay)
DVDs
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: B-/C/C Documentary/Films: B/C+/C+
When the
slice & dice cycle that followed John Carpenter’s Halloween (reviewed elsewhere on this site) arrived, it sported
more graphic and daring gore effects for the time, but was a reversal of many
of the key horror films (many of which were graphic) pushing the boundaries in
the 1970s. Many thought of them as
reactionary and playing into the hands of the ideological Right, but they were
a picnic as compared to the quasi snuff torture porn cycle we are still seeing
today. Three DVDs have recently arrived
to remind us of the difference.
Going To Pieces – The Rise &
Fall Of The Slasher Film (2006) is the first documentary to cover this period and do it so
well, showing how brief but intense it really was and despite the continued
popularity of such films, is a much forgotten and shockingly undocumented. This entertaining 88 minutes program shows
how big that period was, how it was the last big independent movement in cinema
and how great the promotion still was for the smallest B-film out of a sense of
actually selling the product and even having some pride in it. It is must-see viewing for all film fans,
even if you never liked these films.
To show
just how different the films were, two of the more interesting examples have
arrived on DVD. Less known is The Burning from 1981, an early entry
in the cycle involving the then-on-the-rise Weinsteins with some interesting
participants of note, including a teen-aged Jason Alexander as one of the
teens, Tom Savini doing the make-up and Rick Wakeman (of the progressive Rock
band Yes) supplying the score. The title
refers to a young man being picked on who is accidentally killed, only to
return as a killer for revenge burned all over his body. They made him a killer.
The
psychology is loose, but in this genre, it can be so slight as to be a
joke. This is the case with Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) which
is towards the end of the cycle, still controversial after four bad sequels and
a subject for Right-Wing extremists as a film that is somehow ruining the
Christmas holiday (those extremists beat the film to it back in the 1980s) as a
young boy learns to fear Santa Claus after seeing one rape and kill his
mother. When he grows up, he becomes a
killer Santa, but the script is absolutely idiotic, making the film amusing for
the wrong reasons, on top of the fact that it wants to rip off the original
versions of Halloween and especially
Black Christmas, down to the killer
being named Billy. As compared to Glen Morgan
hack snuff remake, it seems highly ambitious.
As
compared to the new cycle, one of the worst in cinema history, these actually
had some suspense, even if they were stupid films. Stupid enough that the cycle was so brief,
but still ambitious by comparison.
Fortunately, most of the current snuff porn has died a quick death at
the box office (especially from Morgan and hack Eli Roth) making it a less
successful trend. Now you can see for
yourself.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Pieces
is about the equal of the anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image the feature
films. The “pieces” edited together for
the documentary are done nicely, with some clips being in better shape than
others, while the prints for the features are in better shape that expected for
their age if not perfect. Night used two different quality prints
to include excises footage, but the copies are not as bad as expected. The Dolby Digital 2.0 is barely stereo on the
documentary and absolutely monophonic on the features. The combinations in each case are what you
would expect for the cycle.
Extras include
a trailer, trivia game, bonus interviews, message form the author and very good
makers audio commentary on Pieces,
audio commentary by Maylam with journalist Alan Jones on Burning and stills, trailer, critical clips sample and audio
interview with Sellier on Night. All three make it interesting to revisit the
era.
- Nicholas Sheffo
