Who's going to believe a talking head? Get a job in a side-show. |
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I'm sorry to say that this week's column contains no "Bet you didn't know THIS!" revelations. Nope. Just a fanboyish article about a director that I have admired for many years, and one whom I'd like more people to be acquainted with. In fact, if he were a household name, why, that wouldn't suck at all.
That name is Stuart Gordon.
There're probably two or three people nodding in agreement right now, four or five more thinking, "I know that name, where the hell have I heard of him before?" and the rest going, "Who?"
As way of some backstory, Gordon took theater class as an anthropology major at Wisconsin University, but only because he couldn't get into the film class. Which turned out to serve him well, as he started and ran three theater companies after graduating. The first was Screw Theater, which was essentially an anarchist enclave, and their first production was called The Game Show. The Game Show was a purposefully incoherent mess, designed to see how long it took to get the audience to storm out. Their last production was a subversive version of Peter Pan, protesting the Vietnam War. Leaving the James Barrie dialog intact, but recasting the roles as the mayor of Chicago and the Chicago police force, respectively, this enterprise got Gordon and his wife, Carolyn-Purdy Gordon, arrested for obscenity. Maybe now you can see why Gordon is my kind of man.
From there, Gordon and his wife started Chicago's Organic Theater Company, which had such routine players as Joseph Mantegna and Dennis Franz, and also made him friends with David Mamet and his crew. One of the OTC's long-running plays, Bleacher Bums, was captured on video for PBS at one point, but never officially released (anyone with a line on a copy should contact me), and one short-lived play, ER, became what I remember to be a really funny, if also short-lived, television sitcom (the older crowd might remember it – it starred Elliot Gould).
After getting a little taste of his stuff going in front of a camera, and a lot of his players getting cast in film roles, Gordon started thinking about making his own movie. Fortuitously, at about the same time another future freaky horror film director, Brian Yuzna, just had a film he was producing for Empire Pictures fall apart...but he still had the money. He was turned on to Gordon through a mutual friend, and they hit it off like gas on a fire. The resulting collaboration was a little film called RE-ANIMATOR (1985).
For those of you who don't know (and shame on you – get thee to a Netflixxery!), RE-ANIMATOR is based on a six-part magazine story by HP Lovecraft, called Herbert West: Re-animator, and concerns that titular character arriving at the fictional Miskatonic University. Fresh on the heels of the dubious death of his former mentor, Dr. Hans Gruber, West is right back on track with his work, which happens to be injecting dead bodies with his reagent, and observing the results. Since it is a horror film, I probably don't have to tell you what the results are. But I will anyway. Complete fucking mayhem and carnage! HAHAHA!
Okay. Sorry. I just love the movie so much. I don't know if Gordon just figured he might not ever get another chance to make a film, or what, but he went balls out here. It is blackly-comic, in the truest sense of the phrase, vomitously gory, and has the audacity to show David Gale thrusting his own severed head between the legs of a naked and bound Barbara Crampton. It was also the career-making role for genre heavyweight and all around creepy-nice guy, Jeffery Combs.
RE-ANIMATOR was such a success for the Charles Band-run fledgling Empire, that they immediately tapped him to do the Band pet-project, DOLLS (1987). Gordon was reticent, at first, because he had his heart set on another Lovecraft adaptation, so Band set him up in Rome and let him do them back to back. DOLLS was technically shot first, around Thanksgiving of 1986, but due to a prolonged post-production, was actually released after its sister project, which I'll get to in a few paragraphs.
DOLLS is something of a trifle, barely over an hour long, but it is very cute, in a twisted kind of way. It's an interesting juxtaposition of fairy tale 
Eat a death nut, asshole! |
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and horror film, concerning the sad vacation being had by poor little Judy. It seems that her dad and step-mom (OTC alumnus Ian Patrick Williams and Gordon's wife, Carolyn, respectively – both also featured in RE-ANIMATOR) don't like her very much, and are pretty vocal about it, which doesn't bode well for them when they get stuck in the mud, during a rainstorm, down the road from the home of geriatric toymakers Gabrielle and Hilary Hartwicke (the wonderful Guy Rolfe and Hilary Mason). They end up paying each their own price at the hands of the dolls. Along for the ride are a couple of British punker chicks (one of whom is Bunty Bailey, the blonde from that awful A-HA video) and the chubby and charming Stephen Lee, each of whom is similarly forces to shelter by the weather. Maybe not fun for quite the whole family, but I'd say it's safe for anyone 12 and up.
Which I absolutely cannot say for the film Gordon shot immediately following DOLLS, the jaw-dropping masterpiece, FROM BEYOND (1986). As I stated earlier, this film was shot second, but released first. FROM BEYOND reunites Gordon with Combs and Crampton, in the lead roles of Crawford Tillinghast (Best. Name. Ever.) and Dr. Katherine McMichaels. It seems that Crawford was assisting Dr. Pretorious, perfecting a contraption known as "the resonator," which allows an alternate dimension, co-existing 180 degrees out of phase with ours, to align with us, so that we both exist at the same time. Which leads to Pretorious getting his head bitten off by a giant monster. But, much like Dr. Hill from RE-ANIMATOR, Pretorious's will is so strong that instead of being consumed by the monster, he consumes it, and becomes the monster. He then begins affecting our reality from his side, and every time he makes an appearance, he is in a further state of metamorphosis. All manner of hell breaks loose, and it is gory good fun, with a little BDSM thrown in for good measure. The film also features a healthy dose of Ken Foree, which always makes the medicine go down a little better.
From here, Gordon's career takes a bit of a strange turn. He did a fourth film for Empire, called ROBOT JOX, which sucked. It's only of interest for some of the cast (Carolyn and Williams, again, a cameo from Jeffrey Combs, and what I believe to be Gordon's only appearance in one of his own films – he's uncredited, and it takes a super-geek to spot him – luckily, I am just that super-geek!). This film was a failure, and Empire folded after it's release.
Never count out a Band, however. Charlie went right ahead and started Full Moon productions, and Gordon did two of his next three films for them (THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM and CASTLE FREAK, surrounding FORTRESS, a movie I have never seen, due to my Christopher Lambert allergy).
THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1991) is a very effective retelling of the Poe classic, starring Lance Henriksen as Torquemada, with smaller roles for Stephen Lee, Carolyn, and Combs (Gordon likes to give work to the people he likes, over and over again). I didn't have a chance to view it fresh for this column, but I don't think I'll ever forget the image of Henriksen whipping himself. It's burned onto my goddamn retinas.
I didn't view CASTLE FREAK (1995) fresh on purpose. Because I hated it, and it depressed me. You see, it once again re-teams Combs and Crampton in the lead roles, and it could have been part three in the Holy Trinity of Gordon/Combs/Crampton. Except it sucked. I mean, I was in a funk for weeks. I'm not going to describe it. Watch it if you must, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Up next came SPACE TRUCKERS (1996), which I realize is a mightily goofy name, but that is sort of the point: it's a mightily goofy movie. It's a $25 million dollar independent production which is apparently the first and possibly only science fiction space movie to be shot entirely in Ireland. It has what I would consider to be moderate to heavy star-power, with Dennis Hopper, Stephen Dorff, Debi Mazar, and George Wendt. Oh, it also features a plum role for Charles Dance, as a self-made cyborg. When he thinks on a problem, you can actually see the lights dancing around in the see-thru portion of his head. Wonderful. True 
The cover alone scares the hell out of me. |
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geeks will most remember Dance, otherwise a serious British thespian, for his role as Sardo Numspa in THE GOLDEN CHILD.
So, SPACE TRUCKERS is just what it sounds like: a cross between 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and CONVOY, with a little STROKER ACE thrown in for good measure. It features scary genetically engineered killing machine's called Bio-Mechanical Warriors (BMWs, hehehe), an aging, down-on-his-luck road jockey hauling a load of square pigs from Mars, and a cameo from Barbara Crampton at the end. It is also possibly the only sci-fi movie to have a country music soundtrack. I've heard people talk shit about this film, and I guess I can't really blame them, but I urge you all to become familiar with Gordon's early works first, and then give this one a fair day in court. It just might surprise you.
Is that all for Gordon?
Oh no. Hell no.
After a Bradbury adaptation called THE WONDERFUL ICE CREAM SUIT (which I must shamefacedly admit I had never even heard of), he was back up to his old Lovecraftian tricks with DAGON (2001). DAGON is a much-maligned film, and with no good reason, as far as I can see. A small Spanish town renounces Christ in favor of the old one Dagon, and all slowly turn into vicious fish-creatures over the decades. I personally see no wrong in that. It has some really creepy scenes, and wonderful prosthetic make-up jobs. I'll admit that the acting isn't note perfect, and to say the few CGI shots present are lacking would be an understatement, but the look and feel of the film easily surpasses its flaws. I strongly suggest a viewing.
Gordon's next project was the brutal KING OF THE ANTS (2003). I mean, this is a film where the good guy, the hero, murders an innocent man in cold blood, and then gets with his unsuspecting wife. So what do you think the BAD guys are like? This film has a very Ken Loach, documentary-feel. Both in look and "stolen shots." Stolen shots are where you film on location, except you hide the camera and don't tell anyone you're filming. This film, like SPACE TRUCKERS, attracted a fair amount of medium-range star power. It has a larger role for George Wendt (who also produced, after bringing Charlie Higson's source novel to Gordon's attention in the first place), and features Daniel Baldwin, Ron Livingston (in an uncredited role), Kari Wuhrer, and Lionel Smith and Vernon Wells (both alumni of previous Gordon films – and you might remember Wells sporting a particular haircut in THE ROAD WARRIOR). I defy you to watch Chris Mckenna get jobbed with a three-wood to the head over and over and over again without becoming more than mildly uncomfortable. Or seeing Wuhrer with a giant wang dangling between her legs. Yikes!
This brings us around to the final film for discussion, EDMOND (2005). This film is based on a David Mamet play (who I already mentioned is friends with Gordon, as well as featuring Lionel Smith in all of his own movies), and had many filmmakers and actors attached to it over the years, but it took Gordon to get it done. It concerns the mental breakdown of one Mr. Edmond Burke, played pitch-perfect by William H. Macy. And even though Macy is in every single scene, the film still features quite an impressive list of cameos. People like: Joe Mantengna, Julia Stiles, Denise Richards, Mena Suvari, Bai Ling, and Dule Hill, as well as a host of other Gordon regulars. This movie is not what you expect, no matter what you expect, and is absolutely a must see.
According to IMDB, Gordon's new project is called STUCK, starring Suvari and Stephen Rea, and I look forward to that almost as much as I look forward to his future project, HOUSE OF RE-ANIMATOR, the third sequel, which features Gordon taking the helm back from Yuzna, who did the second two installments.
In closing, I'll say that I admire Gordon for his tenacity, for his ability to turn out great product across a wide array of genres for what other films spend on their craft services tables alone. He might not always make gold, but even his crap has heart and soul, and if his name is attached to it, you can be assured to find something in the film to enjoy.
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| Agent Provocateur |
Every other Sunday
Eating the flesh of lesser film geeks since '72.
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| Zombie Boy |
Zombie Boy is not a Hollywood insider, just a movie
geek with a big mouth and a strong desire to spew
opinions. His column will concentrate on the things he
feels you need to know about less mainstream cinematic
issues, but probably don't. He strongly encourages
interaction from his readers, just be sure to not put
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