Schlock (1973)

SCHLOCK

SCHLOCK (1973) ***

Schlock (/SHläk/): cheap or inferior goods or material; trash.

For quite some time as I watched it, I could not make heads or tails out of John Landis’ 1973 extremely low-budget feature film debut SCHLOCK.

I mean, I understood that it’s a good old-fashioned spoof of good old-fashioned monster movies, sure, from the moment I read a plot synopsis and that its title speaks louder than a thousand words, you bet, but it kept veering between tones. Our title character (played by none other than Landis himself) seemed menacing and imposing one moment and then funny the very next. He’s the missing link and “The Banana Monster” and the poster promises “A love stronger than KING KONG.”

There was one sequence though in particular that changed my tune about SCHLOCK.

Schlock (blanking on his full name right now) watches DINOSAURUS! from 1960 and THE BLOB from 1958 in a movie theater, both classics directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth and produced by SCHLOCK producer Jack H. Harris. We see choice scenes from both films, like a dinosaur fight and that classic moment in THE BLOB when its title character attacks first the projectionist and then the patrons to rudely interrupt the showing of DAUGHTER OF HORROR (renamed from DEMENTIA). Showing THE BLOB also provided Landis an opportunity to work Steven, er, Steve McQueen into his little $60,000 movie.

Not only that, but Schlock learns about vending machines and cleans out a candy counter. Bet he loved them jujubes with his sharp teeth. I love what Schlock does when this incredibly tall man sits in the seat one row in front of him. If only life could be that way. Then again, proper authorities cannot handle Schlock.

At the point Schlock went movie watching, I learned to stop worrying and like (not love) SCHLOCK.

Landis’ love for SEE YOU NEXT WEDNESDAY starts out early in his directorial career, by promoting it with “First, BIRTH OF A NATION! Then, GONE WITH THE WIND! 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY! LOVE STORY! SEE YOU NEXT WEDNESDAY! And now … SCHLOCK!” A line spoken in 2001 turned into a running gag throughout most Landis films and even the music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

So many low-budget movies have a great back story.

Landis and crew, including makeup artist Rick Baker early in his career, made SCHLOCK during 12 days in the summer of 1971, but it was not released until 1973. Johnny Carson found out about the film and he booked Landis on “The Tonight Show.” With this spotlight opportunity, Landis showed clips from SCHLOCK, which helped the first-time director find a distributor in Jack H. Harris Enterprises. Harris put up $10,000 if Landis put 10 minutes of running time on SCHLOCK.

I enjoyed SCHLOCK every bit as much as the Joan Crawford classic TROG (1970) and the similarly low-budget KING KUNG FU (1976).

Of course, I did not forget, but I will see you next Wednesday.

National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE (1978) Four stars

There are few comedies I have enjoyed as much as NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE.

I have watched it many times over the years and that’s not even counting all those times on TBS, because, let’s face it, one misses so many “good parts” of a movie like ANIMAL HOUSE when it’s been edited for TV. It warped my fragile little mind seeing it on video the first time and I lost count of how many times I watched that VHS tape I bought circa 1997.

I loaned it to Brad Rich so he could watch Bluto’s infamous “Germans bombed Pearl Harbor” speech and remember it verbatim for his high school speech class. Mr. Rich earned an ‘A’ for his performance. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to watch him act it out, though, fortunately, Mr. Rich returned the VHS tape. Bonus points for him.

College friend Don Stephens came over to my house about once a week to watch ANIMAL HOUSE it seemed like after Mr. Stephens joined a fraternity at Pittsburg State. Mr. Stephens and I started living ANIMAL HOUSE just a little bit so the viewings of the movie decreased significantly, especially after I continued my educational career in 2000 at Pitt State. Mr. Stephens eventually returned to the ranks of the independents and I remained one throughout both tours of college.

There was that one night when Mr. Stephens played Otter and I was Boon: “Hi, Don Stephens, damn glad to meet you,” then I hit ‘em with “Hi, that was Don Stephens, he was damn glad to meet you.” We only used it that one night, especially since it seemed like nobody got the reference. That’s when I started losing faith in the youth of America and have ever since.

Another time, Mr. Stephens and I went on a Thanksgiving break pilgrimage to Wichita to meet two young women (sisters) and, ahem, spend the night at their house. At some point, I believe it was early on at the bar, my date said that I was just like that Bluto guy from ANIMAL HOUSE, since I told her I’d been in college seven years. You win some, you lose some, and another time I’ll tell you about the six years off-and-on I knew my date from Wichita, although, to be honest, I really don’t want to do that.

Enough about that: ANIMAL HOUSE made a tremendous impact on the movie industry.

Every year, we get at least one raunchy, R-rated, gross out comedy.

ANIMAL HOUSE paved the parade route for PORKY’S, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, DAZED AND CONFUSED, AMERICAN PIE, OLD SCHOOL, WEDDING CRASHERS, and HANGOVER.

Every time I watch ANIMAL HOUSE, it holds up and it remains better than its followers.

First and foremost, it is superbly acted up and down the cast.

Tom Hulce and Stephen Furst (1954-2017) make a successful entry point into this world, as one snooty sorority sister calls them “the wimp and the blimp.” Tim Matheson and Peter Riegert play off each other so well as ladies man Otter and wing man Boon that we believe their characters have been friends for several years. James Daughton and Mark Metcalf, especially Metcalf as Niedermeyer, create thoroughly detestable characters that we love to hate.

Speaking of characters that we love to hate, Canadian actor John Vernon (1932-2005) had a knack for playing them better than just about anybody else. We enjoy every single appearance made by his Dean Wormer in ANIMAL HOUSE, every single time he gets his comeuppance, and especially every single time Vernon sinks his teeth into lines like “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son” and “Put a sock in it, boy, or else you’ll be outta here like shit through a goose.” Vernon later played a similar character in KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE, retaining that bias against college kids.

John Belushi (1949-82) exploded into stardom with the success of ANIMAL HOUSE, one of the biggest hits of 1978. Outside action heroes Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, and Steve McQueen, we don’t find star-making performances built around fewer words. Belushi’s Bluto makes us laugh mostly through classic physical comedy and he irritates the comic villains every bit as effectively as the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges did in their heyday.

Bluto definitely puts the animal in ANIMAL HOUSE, smashing acoustic guitars, downing full whiskey bottles in one fell swig (actually iced tea), pouring mustard on himself, starting food fights (by popping “zits”) and nationwide dance crazes, and peeping at cute coeds. Bluto’s predominantly silent act pays off with his big speech late in the pic for the Delta troops. It’s not quite George C. Scott as George S. Patton at the start of PATTON, but it’s close, real close in memorability.

Bluto has been described as a cross between Harpo Marx and the Cookie Monster.

Just about everybody has a memorable character in ANIMAL HOUSE, from Kevin Bacon in his motion picture debut (“Thank you sir, may I have another?”; how dare I forget a softball practice where I made every teammate who wanted another grounder hit their way ask that very question) to the lovely Karen Allen also in her debut, as well as Verna Bloom (1938-2019) as the ready and willing dean’s wife, Donald Sutherland as a hip professor, and DeWayne Jessie lip syncing his way through Otis Day on “Shout” and “Shama Lama Ding Dong.”

John Landis began a string of winners here, followed by THE BLUES BROTHERS, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, and TRADING PLACES over a few years. Universal wanted Chevy Chase to play the Otter role that went to Matheson, but Landis felt Chase was not right for the part and the director played a little Jedi mind trick by telling Chase that ANIMAL HOUSE would be an ensemble pic. That disinterested Chase, who instead made FOUL PLAY. Landis contributed to the anarchic atmosphere of ANIMAL HOUSE by throwing things at the actors, like an early scene when Bluto leads Flounder and Pinto into the Delta house and they’re greeted by a couple flying bottles.

Harold Ramis (1944-2014), Chris Miller, and Douglas Kenney (1946-80) combined on the screenplay and contributed their own collegiate and fraternal experiences.

George Lucas’ AMERICAN GRAFFITI famously asks “Where were you in ‘62?” ANIMAL HOUSE, released almost five years later to the day by the same studio, also takes place in ‘62 and Lucas, Ramis, Miller, and Kenney obviously had different answers to where they were in ‘62 and these different answers inform their respective movies and characters.

Both smash hit movies inform us what happened to their main characters. For example, in AMERICAN GRAFFITI, we’re told Terry the Toad is reported missing in action in Vietnam in December 1965. Meanwhile, in ANIMAL HOUSE, we read that Neidermeyer’s own troops kill him in Vietnam. Yes, indeed, they fragged Neidermeyer. Maybe even Terry the Toad took part in it.

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981) Three stars

The 1980s were a golden age for comedy horror: GREMLINS, GHOSTBUSTERS, RE-ANIMATOR, EVIL DEAD II, FRIGHT NIGHT, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, and KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE.

I’d put AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON among the second tier of 1980s comedy horror films, below every film listed in the opening paragraph. Do not fear, though, because it’s still a good movie.

AMERICAN WEREWOLF specializes in dark comedy, very very very dark, even beyond morbid especially when a dead Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne) haunts best friend David Kessler (David Naughton) as Mr. Kessler becomes the title character. Jack tells David that he must kill himself before he kills others and that he’s under the werewolf’s curse. Jack still has that same way with words he had when he was alive; that’s why David tells Jack, “I will not be threatened by a walking meatloaf.” Poor, poor Jack.

Of course, all this started when David and Jack, two American college students on a walking tour, stop at the Slaughtered Lamb. We’ve all heard of the Wrong Gas Station, a hallmark of many horror movies, but the Slaughtered Lamb represents the Wrong Drinking Establishment. You have to be real thirsty or hungry or both to stop at the Slaughtered Lamb. The regulars don’t exactly warm to no bratty Americans in the first place, but the irrepressible Jack sticks his foot in his mouth big time when he blurts out about a pentagram. The conspiratorial patrons give Jack and David the boot, although Jack and David are told very specifically to stay on the road and not to go into the moors. I believe that I last saw that setting in the 1939 Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movie HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. I love the moors in the movies.

Of course, we all know that David and Jack don’t stick to the road and go exactly where they’re not supposed to go.

1981 featured three good wolf movies: THE HOWLING premiered March 13, WOLFEN July 24, and AMERICAN WEREWOLF August 21. For the record, I prefer both WOLFEN and THE HOWLING over AMERICAN WEREWOLF, and that’s an indication just how great of a year it was for movies about wolves. All three have their own distinct qualities, though both Joe Dante’s THE HOWLING and John Landis’ AMERICAN WEREWOLF pursue laughter far more than Michael Wadleigh’s WOLFEN.

All three stand out for their special effects: Rob Bottin and Rick Baker, who previously worked together on Dante’s PIRANHA, battled for werewolf transformation superiority and Baker’s makeup work on AMERICAN WEREWOLF earned him the first Academy Award for Best Makeup, as he beat out Stan Winston on the comedic craptacular HEARTBEEPS. The overshadowed WOLFEN did some innovative things with sound and image to depict the world of the wolf.

At this point in Landis’ career, the controversial director was on a major roll with a three-picture run of NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE, THE BLUES BROTHERS, and AMERICAN WEREWOLF. This was before TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, when actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen were killed in a helicopter accident during filming in July 1982.

The National Transportation Safety Board reported a couple years later: “The probable cause of the accident was the detonation of debris-laden high temperature special effects explosions too near a low-flying helicopter leading to foreign object damage to one rotor blade and delamination due to heat to the other rotor blade, the separation of the helicopter’s tail rotor assembly, and the uncontrolled descent of the helicopter. The proximity of the helicopter to the special effects explosions was due to the failure to establish direct communications and coordination between the pilot, who was in command of the helicopter operation, and the film director, who was in charge of the filming operation.”

(If you want to watch something fucked up, you can find “Vic Morrow’s Death Video” on YouTube. The rotor blades decapitated Morrow and Le and the right landing skid crushed Chen to death. All three died instantaneously. For this reason and the fact that it’s not very good, I cannot watch Landis’ installment in TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE and skip ahead on the DVD to the Joe Dante and George Miller portions of the program.)

Despite being acquitted of involuntary manslaughter after a nine-month jury trial over 1986 and 1987, Landis’ reputation rightfully took a major hit … and every single thing you can find about the incident makes Landis seem like the ultimate asshole director, worse than Hitchcock, worse than Kubrick, worse than Lang, worse than Preminger, worse than Woody Allen, worse than any other director in relentless pursuit of perfection. Landis broke California child labor laws by hiring both child actors without their required permits, in addition to his reckless behavior filming the nighttime helicopter sequence. None of this should have ever happened and Landis served not a single second of time for his crimes.

TRADING PLACES and COMING TO AMERICA both were hits directed by Landis. He also directed the nearly 14-minute music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” a job Landis earned after Jackson saw AMERICAN WEREWOLF. It is widely considered the greatest musical video of all-time.

Back to AMERICAN WEREWOLF.

AMERICAN WEREWOLF represents a throwback to the horror movies of the 1930s, especially the ones from Universal, updated with gore, nudity, and profanity of a modern era.

Like several other films from the 1980s, it deftly balances laughs and scares just right so often.

AMERICAN WEREWOLF, though, falls shy of greatness: There’s a lot to love, especially in the first 30 minutes, but I’ve never loved its ending (full half-point deduction alone for this deficiency) and I just cannot believe the savvy Landis did not choose Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” — Lon Chaney Sr. and Jr. references on top lyrics “You hear him howling around your kitchen door / You better not let him in / Little old lady got mutilated late last night / Werewolves of London again” and “He’s the hairy-handed gent who ran amuck in Kent / Lately he’s been overheard in Mayfair / You better stay away from him / He’ll rip your lungs out, Jim / I’d like to meet his tailor.” In other words, Zevon’s dark sense of humor would have fit AMERICAN WEREWOLF, just like a wolf suit.

No matter how many times I’ve heard CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising” and Van Morrison’s “Moondance,” they still thrill and AMERICAN WEREWOLF uses them perfectly, especially pairing Morrison’s lyrics “Well, I want to make love to you tonight / I can’t wait ’til the morning has come / And I know now the time is just right / And straight into my arms you will run / And when you come my heart will be waiting / To make sure that you’re never alone / et cetera” with the escalation in David’s relationship with friendly nurse Alex (the alluring Jenny Agutter).

I’ll end this review with a warning to stick to the original and please do not watch AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS.