The Halloween Man.

Before diving into this memoir, Irwin Yablans was certainly not the first name I associated with the classic horror film Halloween. Naturally, my mind goes to director John Carpenter and his long-time partner, the late Debra Hill, and then (mostly due to his name leading the credits for decades) also no-longer-with-us Moustapha Akkad. However, after reading The Man Who Created Halloween, it is clear that Yablans was an integral part in the inception of what some believe to be the greatest horror film of all time.

This book was an enlightening read. Yablans’ recollections are written in a very interesting prose that covers many eras of modern United States history, starting with the Great Depression. He has had an extremely storied career, which he spent working for Warner Brothers, Paramount and MGM before finally going off on his own and co-founding the independent film company Compass International Pictures in the mid-seventies. Already armed with years of experience as a cog in the wheel, he was able to use the machine to his advantage and Compass soon flourished.

Yablans is candid about his dealings over the years, and even shows regret over some of his actions, both personally and professionally. I found this refreshing, as after the countless falling outs he had with people during his life, it is good to know he doesn’t think he is infallible  Now, the meat of the story is obviously how he came to meet with John Carpenter through distribution of his second feature, Assault on Precinct 13 (which was initially titled Siege) and how the idea of Halloween came to Yablans while on a flight to Los Angeles. It also occurred to me that I never actually knew where the name “Michael Myers” came from, until reading this book.

Irwin Yablans (left) & John Carpenter on the set of Halloween.

However, despite its title, it is surprising how little this book has to do with Halloween though. That turned out to be okay, as there are many other great tales for cinephiles to latch onto. Back when Yablans was a booking agent, he took care of the initial run Rosemary’s Baby, so it was cool to see Bill Castle’s handling of the film from a different perspective than was documented in Jason Zinoman’s Shock Value. Perhaps most interesting was hearing about Yablan’s dealings with Charles Band in the late eighties where he talked about certain projects that you don’t get to hear about very often, like Prison and Arena. There is also a sizable chunk of the book dedicated to the 1977 production of The Message, which culminated in a hostage crisis in Washington D.C.

Yablans appearing on the show "AM Northwest"

The book does unfortunately end with a whimper, as Yablans has distanced himself from the movie business in recent years, only resurfacing to deal with legal issues on the rights and revenues of the original Halloween, but The Man Who Created Halloween is an extremely brisk read that offers up immeasurable insight into the inner workings of the film industry over the last fifty years.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (#12)

Now that all of this film festival coverage is behind me, I can get back into knocking off the rest of these Time Out Best 100 List titles. The next one I checked out was Robert Fuest’s 1971 film The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

A police detective (Peter Jeffrey) struggles to find the man responsible for a rash of bizarre murders involving physicians.

This shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone who has seen this, but The Abominable Dr. Phibes is a gem of a film. There were several things about it that I was really not expecting. It is lavishly colourful and has this strong musical element that really gives the film some pomp and circumstance. It is fantastical and possesses that flamboyant air of an older generation of motion pictures.

It is also fairly restrained in the top half of the picture, using only the aforementioned music and camera to tell the story.  In fact, I believe it is at least a full ten minutes before a single line of dialogue is even spoken.  This falls in line with the great Vincent Price’s performance as well, as you can tell he fully relished this part.  Apart from a few monologues delivered through a speech device, his role is all mannerism. It was a joy to watch.

The film overall is just a fun time. Fuest is able to toe that line between humour and the macabre wonderfully. The deaths, based off the ten plagues of the Old Testament were made for some creative set pieces.

Most of all though, I was just plainly unaware of how influential this film was. I could see so many contemporary films inside The Abominable Dr. Phibes, whether it was Sam Raimi’s design of Darkman or the biblical-inspired serial killings re-appropriated for David Fincher’s Se7en.  Hell, James Wan basically lifted a scene right out of this film for his debut, Saw.

Vincent Price as The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

Out of all the movies that I have watched for the Time Out List, The Abominable Dr. Phibes is definitely one I regret not seeing as a youngster. I feel I would’ve really latched onto this, being that I’ve always been a fan of Ten Little Indians-style fables. The Abominable Dr. Phibes is wildly inventive fare that looks stunning to boot and easily earns its place on the list.

Trailer Tuesdays: Torso.

This week's trailer is another favourite of mine for Sergio Martino's 1973 slasher Torso. Join me, won't you, on a trip into the psycho-sexual mind!

TORSO! Reooooooowww reeeow reeow reeow! Best guitar lick in a horror movie trailer, ever. I love this movie. It is unabashedly sleazy, yet has all the visual hallmarks of its Italian contemporaries, as well as a parade of lovely ladies and a rockin' soundtrack. What more could you possibly want?

Never Forget.

DKTM 158

This week saw an abundance of trailers for upcoming genre projects, so here's a rundown for you.

Capital Z.

Perhaps the biggest thing to hit the Web this week was the new trailer for the movie adaptation of Max Brooks' zombie tome World War Z. Feast your eyes below.

My first reaction to this trailer was how overblown it looks, but upon further reflection I realized that we have never actually had a big budget zombie blockbuster before, as the zombie genre up until this point has been the domain of the low budget and independents. I guess the biggest would be Boyle's 28 Later films and Zombieland, but even those weren't particularly costly pictures to make. So, WWZ is what a hundred-million dollar zombie movie looks like.

I like this trailer, and despite all the CGI, as I cannot deny that those shots of the 'herd' are pretty eye-catching.  At the same time, I don't want this to become another I Am Legend. The book, even though it was grand in scope, was a collection of personal experiences, so it always felt intimate. By focusing in on Brad Pitt's character (or at least appearing to) it becomes more of an action movie with zombies in it. That's what I get from my Resident Evil movies and I want WWZ to have weight, dammit! Anyway, rant over.

Crickley Hall.

Being a huge fan of British writer James Herbert, this news is especially pleasing. Starting this Sunday, the BBC is premiering the newest adaptation of one of his works called The Secret of Crickley Hall. Here is the trailer.

Regular readers will know how incessantly I have rambled on about how many of Herbert's works remain unadapted, so good on the Beebs for getting on it, if no one else will.

Maniac Runs Red.

Here now is the full Red Band trailer for Franck Khalfoun's upcoming remake of Maniac.

It seems to have the tone right and I certainly respect Elijah Wood for taking on this role, but I'm worried the movie's largely first person perspective will become a little tiresome after a while. Still, this is exactly producer Alex Aja's wheelhouse and nobody working today does it better in my opinion.

Living Dread!

Through Halloween to the fourth of November, Toronto cinephiles were extremely fortunate this year, as the Lightbox was screening the filmography of the great George A. Romero.

Best of all, now that Romero is a resident (and has been for sometime now) of Toronto, he showed up to intro several of his films.  This began on Halloween night with an In Conversation session with the man himself, moderated by Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes.

Over the course of the evening, Colin ran through the gamut of Romero's genre films and did a very good job staying away from the oft-trodden subjects that have been covered previously in fourty-odd years of interviews. Here is a sampling of what was discussed that night.

Q: Why do refrain from using the word “zombie” in your films?

George: In later years, I just kept looking for something else to call them. I never thought they were zombies, when I made the first film, I didn't think of them as zombies. I didn't know they were zombies, I thought they were some new creature. At that time, zombies weren't dead as far as I knew. If you read Serpent and the Rainbow they were just given this cocktail and they're not dead, they are put in a state of suspended animation and become slaves to Lugosi or whoever. So I never thought of them as zombies at all.

Q: When did you first meet Tom Savini?

George: Before we made Night of the Living Dead, I had written a very high minded script, a coming-of-age story about teenagers in the Middle Ages. I guess I'd been watching too much Bergman (chuckles) So, Tom auditioned for the role of one of these kids. He was I don't know, 14. We went to see him in a high school play. He was the lead in this high school production I can’t remember the name of, and he was great. So, we talked to him and he was all set to star in our high minded movie. And, of course, the high minded movie never got financed and it all blew apart. Years later, we announced production on Martin and this guy walks off the elevator at our office and says “watch this!” and slashed his wrists, so he's bleeding all over the place and then he does a somersault and falls flat on his back on the floor. Then he stood up and said “Remember me!” And I said, “No. But that was impressive.” It was Tom. He re-introduced himself and said he'd done some films (Deranged & Deathdream) and asked if he could do the effects on Martin. I said, “forget effects, you're a pretty good actor if I remember, so why don't you be in the movie, as well.” And that's what started the relationship.

Q: What was it like to work with Stephen King, first directing him in Creepshow and then adapting his novel The Dark Half?

George: (On Creepshow) He was so compliant, he basically did everything I told him and then only at the end, did he say “ahhh, you're makin’ me look like a jerk!” Fortunately, my direction to him was “Steve, think of this as a coyote and roadrunner cartoon. And play it that big.” And that's what he did. He did it all the way and he went for it. And he has never forgiven me. (laughs) (On The Dark Half) It was great, Stephen basically left me alone. I've never had problems with him that way. He always kept his opinions to himself, and basically said “George take it, run with it, go” He didn't like the film in the end and I don't exactly know why. He could never really articulate exactly why he didn't like it. He's just crazy about certain things. He hates Kubrick. He'll go to his grave hating Kubrick. And he hated Creepshow simply because of the way Viveca Lindfors portrayed that character (Bedelia in Father's Day) She was smoking a cigar, she wearing a big hat, and Stephen was like, “that's not what I wanted her to be”. So he'll hate a movie for some detail like that. All he'd say about Dark Half was “well it could've been better.” Oh well, I did my best. He loves Mick Garris, that's all I know.

Director George A. Romero (left) with Colin Geddes.

Q: What happened with your rumoured involvement with the Resident Evil movie?

George: I was excited about to get the chance to do it. What happened was the rights to Resident Evil were bought by a German company called New Constantine. They had offices in LA, and assigned a production executive to supervise the script writing. So I started to write the script and guys from Capcom gave me clues as to what was going to be in the next game and we came up with a script that I loved. I thought it was great. Tom loved it and the executives from New Constantine loved it. But New Constantine is a company that is run by one guy. And he came in one day and said “this is not what I was thinking” and that was it. Then they brought in Paul Anderson, and I didn’t think it was that great.

Q: What do you think about your countless imitators, as well as the zombie genre’s growing popularity due to stuff like World War Z & The Walking Dead?

George: In four words: It pisses me off. (laughs) I don't know, man. The Walking Dead, I thought the books were great, but… The thing is, I used to be the only guy doing zombies, and now all of a sudden everybody's doing zombies. I guess I'm not really pissed off, but I'm bothered by the fact that there's now a lot of people in my playground. I have always tried to do something satirical or political, something going on underneath. The Walking Dead is a soap opera that happens to have zombies in it. I guess that's what I have to say.

Then, on the following weekend, there was back-to-back-to-back screenings of his Dead Trilogy, for which Romero once again took to the stage for an intro.  Here it is below.

It was great week indeed.

Trailer Tuesdays!

I'm starting up a new feature today called Trailer Tuesdays. It has always been a priority here at The Horror Section to showcase the wonderful coverboxes that adorned video store shelves during the VHS era, but I also wanted to pay homage to another awesome marketing tool - the trailer. Condensing a movie's essence down to a minute or so is tricky business, but I find it offers an experience that is sometimes - as was the case with coverbox art as well - better than the movie itself.

To kick things off, I present to you a favourite of mine, Chopping Mall.

While re-watching this trailer, (courtesy of YouTube user ChadBloodyHorror) I realized that the mall where this was shot is the same one featured in Commando. It's the multi-sided elevators that give it away. It's good to see the head explosion money shot made it into the trailer, as well. Here, for good measure, is the cover box.

I see a mall-themed movie night in my future.  Dawn of the Dead seems too obvious, so maybe The Initiation?

Lastly, as I was linking to Imdb, I saw there is apparently a Chopping Mall remake coming in 2013. But it won't involve killer robots. WTF?! Let me guess, the producers are going to flip a coin to decide between zombies or vampires.