The Showtime TV movie Body Bags is a horror anthology in the classic
style, featuring three independent stories, the first two directed by the great
John Carpenter, the other one by the sometimes great Tobe Hooper, connected by a
framing device in which Carpenter himself gives a somewhat dead looking guy the
film credits as The Coroner and presents the tales cracking jokes that’ll make
the Crypt Keeper look funny.
Tale number one, “The Gas Station”, concerns the misadventures of psych
student Anne (Alex Datcher) working the night shift at the
titular establishment. She has to cope with bad luck, strange customers, and a
serial killer. It is the simplest story of the three, the sort of thing
Carpenter could probably direct in his sleep, but it’s made with the slick hand
of an old pro, and while it certainly isn’t Halloween, it is a fun way
to get the audience in the right mood for the rest of the film.
The second segment, “Hair”, is the mandatory comedy bit, but unlike most
comedy segments of horror anthologies, it is indeed funny. It tells the sad and
tragic tale of one Richard Coberts (Stacy Keach), whose once copious mane of
hair has begun to thin considerably – so much so that the word “bald” is
beginning to rear its ugly head. Desperation and ridiculous attempts at solving
his problem culminate in Richard following a TV advert into the hands of the
conspicuously named Dr. Lock (David Warner) and his lovely assistant (Debbie
Harry) whose treatment does indeed work wonders on Richard’s head.
Unfortunately, it might not exactly be hair he now has to cope
with.
“Hair” is probably the high point in Carpenter’s career as a comedy director,
at least in so far as it is indeed funny (though how funny for those of
you who aren’t middle-aged guys losing their hair like Richard and I, I’m not
sure), has a friendly satirical edge and features a wonderful turn by Keach that
gets the desperate ridiculousness of getting upset over hair, and the way this
stands in for the fear of mortality absolutely right, while being very funny
indeed.
Tobe Hooper’s segment “Eye” tells the tale of minor league baseball pro Brent
Matthews (Mark Hamill). Mark’s always just on the verge of breaking into the
majors (with probably his latest and last chance coming up soon), but things
never quite go his way. At least, he’s happily married to Cathy (Twiggy), and
seems a pleasantly down to earth guy. When he loses an eye in an accident, he
agrees to undergo an experimental full eye transplant. As we all know, that sort
of thing always leads to the new eye owner either seeing dead people or terrible
visions from the life of the former eye bearer. It’s the latter in Brent’s case,
with the added complication that he’s also increasingly being infected by quite
a bit of the former owner’s mental state. That’s particularly unfortunate
since the man in question was a serial killer and necrophiliac. Even worse,
Cathy looks rather a lot like the killer’s type.
This last story is a properly nasty bit of short horror, with terrible things
happening to perfectly nice people for no good reason whatsoever. Hooper uses
his penchant for the grotesque particularly well in a handful of daytime visions
that show the worst of the killer’s exploits, while Hamill portrays Brent’s
shift from good man and husband to insane monster with just the right amount of
scenery chewing. There’s also a truly upsetting scene in which Brent sexually
assaults his wife while fantasizing about her being a corpse that makes this
final episode an escalation from the EC fun of the Carpenter stories and the
framing device into the realms of horror that hits a bit closer to home, and a
bit deeper. That’s not a bad thing, mind you, it’s just not the typical way
horror anthologies work.
As a whole, Body Bags is a fine example of its form, with Carpenter
and Hooper showing themselves from their good sides, featuring a bunch of great
performances, more gore and violence than you’d probably expect after hearing of
its provenance as a cable TV movie, and a cornucopia of horror actors and
directors in roles minor and somewhat larger.
Sunday, May 13, 2018
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