VOTING CLOSED - WINNER: THE HITCHER
Thanks to everyone who voted!
Film producers, a cunning and savvy lot, are never prone to ignore a bandwagon to jump on if there's money to be made in it. This is, of course, the reason for the massive glut of slasher movies released between 1980 and 1984 (they were cheap and had enough of a steady fanbase that it was hard to lose money on them) but the impulse spread beyond the limits of the genre at its purest. Slasher-like storytelling and slasher tropes became depressingly prominent in all horror subgenres in those days - and in certain respects, they still are - and even found their way into some non-horror places. This week, I offer up three very different movies with entirely different audiences in mind, made at three different levels of prestige; the only thing that unites them is that all of them aren't quite a slasher film, yet all of them clearly emerged from the same crucible that resulted in Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees cutting their way through the world.
Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)
From IMDb: "Suddenly Laura Mars can see through the eyes of a serial killer as he commits his crimes."
The Hitcher (1986)
From IMDb: "A young man who escaped the clutches of a murderous hitch-hiker is subsequently stalked, framed for the hitcher's crimes, and has his life made into hell by the same man he escaped."
Silent Rage (1982)
From IMDb: "Dan Stevens is the sheriff of a small Texas town who checks out a disturbance which turns to murder."
31 July 2014
8 comments:
Just a few rules so that everybody can have fun: ad hominem attacks on the blogger are fair; ad hominem attacks on other commenters will be deleted. And I will absolutely not stand for anything that is, in my judgment, demeaning, insulting or hateful to any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. And though I won't insist on keeping politics out, let's think long and hard before we say anything particularly inflammatory.
Also, sorry about the whole "must be a registered user" thing, but I do deeply hate to get spam, and I refuse to take on the totalitarian mantle of moderating comments, and I am much too lazy to try to migrate over to a better comments system than the one that comes pre-loaded with Blogger.
I think Silent Rage would be getting more votes if the phrase "Chuck Norris vs. Michael Myers" appeared in your summary.
ReplyDelete"Eyes of Laura Mars". Definitely.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've rooted for anything this Summer as hard as I'm rooting for Laura Mars right now.
ReplyDeleteI'm so disappointed in the lack of votes Silent Rage is getting. Come on, people!
ReplyDeleteEYES OF LAURA MARS, just because I don't think you've ever talked about Faye Dunaway, as an actor/phenomenon, and I'm fascinated to hear your thoughts on her work and career.
ReplyDeleteHad to vote for the Hitcher because despite the movie being so roundly bad, Rutger Hauer's turn here is literally the creepiest thing I've ever seen. I have no idea if Javier Bardem took inspiration from it for his No Country for Old Men performance, but the stylistic resemblance is uncanny. Pure, unemotional evil is so fun to watch!
ReplyDelete@Kevin,
ReplyDeleteI'm with you. Tim needs to review more Norris solely for the sake of the lulz. Silent Rage in particular is an unintentional comedic goldmine.
Travis -- I think we need a double feature review of Silent Rage and Hellbound from Tim at some point.
ReplyDelete