A dead Coroner (John
Carpenter) who checks out the corpses at
the morgue and each dead body he reveals
that was caused by murder he tells a
story about it.
The first chapter is
called The Gas Station
as a college student named Anne (Alex
Datcher) is working her first time at a
gas station at night before her exams and
encounters some unusual people.
One of them asks to borrow a key to use
the washroom and later on checks up there
as a customer said he was sleeping in
there but she finds nothing and sees a
demonic artwork drawn in there and finds
the guy dead as a killer with a machette
is on the lose there slaying people.
The next chapter is
called Hair
of an older man named Richard Coberts
(Stacy Keach) who is obsessed on losing
his hair and finds some way of growing
more to get his young girlfriend Megan
(Sheena Easton) to find him more
attractive and goes to this doctor named
Dr. Lock (David Warner) and a sleazy
nurse (Deborah Harry) who does hair
implantation to get him to grow more hair
as they put a bandage around his head
with some stuff to get his hair to grow
long and told him it will be fully grown
the next day.
His hair does grow the next day and
attracts others but his hair keeps
growing and has a life of it's own as he
feels drained out of energy as he notices
his hair pieces is moving and crawling
out of him too plus he finds out a secret
about Dr. Lock and the nurse.
The third chapter is
called Eye
of a professional baseball player named
Brent Matthews (Mark Hamill) returning
home from playing a game and suddenly he
crashes into a tree and a windshield
glass stabs him in one of his eyes and
ends up in a hospital and the doctors
tell him he will only have one eye and
obsesses on his baseball games so they
get an eye ball from a corpse from a
killer that had a death sentence and
store it on his eye socket but suddenly
he sees hallucinations of corpses and
dead victims and slowly turns into the
killer.
This is the best
horror anthology I've ever seen as it
delivers alot of frights!
My favourite chapter was the Gas
Station nothing could be
creepier than watching that chapter as
the film is off to a great start.
However, I found Hair to
be a little silly as the chapter doesn't
seem to fit in at all.
The Eye works quite well as we
deliver some psychological elements to
the story along with some unsolved
moments too.
But this anthology has got nothing on Tales
from the Crypt, Twilight
Zone or even Creepshow.
The acting is
quite good as we have a few familiar
faces like scream king Robert
Carradine who is very good at being
a deceivingly employee trainer at the
station for the Gas Station chapter
bringing wit and goofiness to his role.
Alex Datcher really pulls off her
role well as the tense first time
employee there showing nice actions to
her part.
Now for the cameo celebrities for this
one.
David Naughton shows it off well as
a handsome guy next door type of customer
who forgets his credit card and is a key
memeber to this chapter which was cool.
Wes Craven presents himself greatly as a
creepy type to the film which makes you
wonder if he's going to be the killer.
Peter Jason shows off his stuff as a
bubbly customer who likes to have a great
time with beautiful women as his comedic
performance was worth watching.
In Hair
Stacy Keach is quite good as a
guy obsessed at being bald and brings
some humor to his part
David Warner comes across well as a
businessman on hair growth but yet can
seem devilish with his part which looked
great and brings alot to a horror part
for this one.
Deborah Harry seems not too shabby
as his lustful nurse but seems to get a
little carried away for her part.
Dan Blom is very strong with his
lines as a hairdresser and shows a nice
energetic performance.
In The Eye
Mark Hamill stole the show with
his performance as a major league
baseball player who loses his eye and is
terrific at performing as a possessed
killer with his extreme intensity proving
he can play other character roles than
Luke Skywalker.
There are topless
corpses with boobs with breast implants
during the wraparound sequence.
In The Eye Mark
Hamill reveals his butt while acting
lusty in bed
There are corpses during
the narration sequence which look
gruesome especially when one was being
cut open and parts of their guts was
revealed. Also he shows a bag of
someone's insides.
In the Gas Station
we show some cut open throats on two
corpses
The killer is being crushed by a car and
blood is splurting out of him
John Carpenters character is the
narrator that shows his insides towards
the ending.
During the chapter of the Eye
Mark Hamill's character
gets stabbed in the eye by glass as well
as showing and eye getting taken out of a
corpse and other gruesome moments like
that in the chapter.
The directing by
both John Carpenter and Tobe
Hooper with separate chapters is
very well done as I have enjoyed their
other horror films too. They both know
what a horror anthology is all about.
There are nice shots on the mortuary
during the wraparound scene with Carpenter
talking about what these corpses died
from showing good dark humor to that
scene.
My favourite one
that Carpenter directed was the Gas
Station chapter which was the
scariest of them all.
There's a witty dialogue sequence between
Robert Carradine and Alex
Datcher on the first day of training
which looks like a believeably friendly
working environment.
There's a nice shot on Datcher
working on her studies in the gas station
booth while there;s a blurry background
on Wes Craven walking by outside
watching her and then he knocks which
makes you jump and Datcher
reacts well to it by being scared at
first. Craven also does well
with his words to her asking for
something and acting very strange.
We also have a nice shot on Datcher
smiling in awestruck out the window to a
handsome customer driving away.
Then we see a nice shot on Datcher
standing outside and George Buck
Flower walking up behind her and
scaring her when he asks the key to the
washroom and she shows a nice stare at
him and being unsure. It looked great
when she was going through stuff to find
the key as the energy looked good with
her panicking.
She reacts well after seeing a grizzly
artwork on one of the walls in the
washroom and also looks believeable by
acting cautious when she enters a repair
garage in the gas station.
She certainly screamed terrifically after
spotting a corpse.
There's a nice presence on Carradine
when he is walking towards the booth
outside showing an evil but goofy
expression on his face when he is putting
his bloody machette in his belt and
holding a sledge hammer to attack.
However, Carradine's reaction to
his gruesome broken nose when he is
falling down looks a little fake.
Datcher knew how to react intense
after crushing the killer with her words.
Overall the filming around the gas
station looked pitch dark and still which
was perfect for this chapter.
In the chapter Hair
the direction is a little slow but still
it does show some interesting moments.
Stacey Keach reacts well with his
obsession at being bald and constantly
combing his hair to make it look like he
is balding.
He has nice dialogue moments with Sheena
Easton about their disputes on his
obsession and her getting fed up with it
all. They also have nice lustful moments
too afterwards.
There's a good setting with Keach
in the office with David Warner
as there is a good reaction on him as he
seems a little devilish with his actions.
Supporting actress Deborah Harry seems
okay acting lustfully and feeling Keach
all over. However it's very comedic but
again this is a comedic chapter in this
anthology.
Keach really reacts well after
finding out that he has longer hair and
shows a nice studly expression
afterwards.
Keach looked wonderful when he feels
sick after finding out what the side
effects of his long hair is doing to him
as the direction looks believeable on how
he is reacting to all of this.
At the end we see a good expressionless
look on his face.
In the final chapter called
The Eye Tobe Hooper
seemed to still deliver some jumps with
this one.
Theres a good shot on Mark Hamill while
driving his car on a rainy night.
After an accident he does his blocking
well by covering his eye as you know
something awful will be revealed and is
good at reacting stunned by all of this.
Hamill's direction on acting
devastated that he lost his eye is a
little slow as it could've been a bit
more convincing.
He does his dialogue well between Twiggy
when she tells him she's pregnant and
showing him the gift of a crib as they
seem like a believeable husband and wife.
Hamill has good shocked reactions when he
hallucinates especially a good shot on
the backyard with a corpse rising as well
as an arm in a garbage disposal.
Hamill acts great running in the
house and almost losing his sanity as he
does this during other moments too.
The setting with Hamill acting lusty in
bed looked nicely done and then even
better when he goes crazy by biting Twiggy's
shoulder as she reacts
in shock wonderfully
He shows a nice evil expression on his
face towards Twiggy when he
tells her that he is digging up a grave
for her and then attacking her as she
really knew how to act emotionally scared
by all of this.
The music was composed by John
Carpenter who is a great composer as
it is equal to his directing and he had a
little help with Jim Lang who
was famous for composing music for the
animated TV series Hey Arnold!
We also get a groovy
rockin' songtrack from Crosby,
Stills, Nash & Young with their
hit "Almost Cut My Hair" which
was performed in the Hair
chapter which stood out well.
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