About the Author
FANGORIA magazine is based in New York City and sponsors five horror conventions each year throughout the United States.
ADAM LUKEMAN is a horror script analyst and videographer. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
Alice, Sweet Alice
(a.k.a. Communion)
If you survive this night, nothing will scare you again.
Category: Killers/Slashers
Year: 1976
Director: Alfred Sole
Writers: Rosemary Ritvo, Alfred Sole
Country: USA
DVD Availability: Anchor Bay
Lead Actors/Characters
Linda Miller: Catherine Spages
Mildred Clinton: Mrs. Tredoni
Paula E. Sheppard: Alice Spages
Niles McMaster: Dom Spages
Brooke Shields: Karen Spages
The Story
If you like your slasher films filled with Catholic imagery and well-developed characters, this movie is for you. Two sisters-Karen (Brooke Shields), the beautiful one, and Alice (Paula E. Sheppard), the strange and twisted one who likes wearing her school's yellow slicker and a translucent mask-are about to take their First Communion. Alice is extremely jealous of Karen, steals her doll, and locks her sister in an abandoned building. As those about to receive their First Communion file into the church, a masked character in a hooded school raincoat suddenly grabs Karen and strangles her. The killer pulls off her crucifix before setting her on fire. Smoke fills the church and panic sets in.
Catherine (Linda Miller), the girls' mother, is naturally devastated, and her ex-husband Dominick (Niles McMaster) soon arrives to help her. Alice and Karen's aunt Annie, who hates Alice, believes the girl is the killer. Other characters in this truly riveting movie include Father Tom, his suffocating housekeeper Mrs. Tredoni, and a repulsive fat guy named Alfonso who lives downstairs and eats cat food.
All suspicion turns toward Alice, who begins to have sordid encounters with Alfonso. Alice is certified as schizophrenic and violent, so when Dominick receives a call from his niece to meet her in an abandoned building so she can return Karen's crucifix, we immediately suspect that Alice is striking again when he is met and slashed by someone in a mask and yellow raincoat. Scenes of violence continue, including a character being beaten with a brick, another being thrown out a window, and brutal stabbings. However, the most terrifying image throughout this film is that of the yellow school raincoat and translucent mask with a hint of lipstick underneath. More can't be said without giving away the shocking and surprising conclusion.
Alice, Sweet Alice is a first-rate thriller, evocatively set in working-class New Jersey, that raises many strange questions, keeping viewers firmly planted in their seats. Paula Sheppard gives a fantastic performance as Alice. The fear and horror of the film are augmented by the omnipresent Catholic imagery. This is thinking person's horror, with a dash of blood and mystery, and a tense, suspenseful accomplishment.
Terror Trivia
Prior to Alice, Alfred Sole directed the X-rated Deep Sleep, which got him hauled into court on archaic obscenity charges in New Jersey. Sole plea-bargained, and the case led to the abandonment of these morals laws-but the director was excommunicated from the Catholic Church, which inspired Alice's antireligious bent.
The movie was rereleased in 1981 as Holy Terror, with new poster and ad art playing up Brooke Shields's role (she had Endless Love in theaters at the time).
Alone in the Dark
They're out-for blood! Don't let them find you . . .
Category: Killers/Slashers
Year: 1982
Director: Jack Sholder
Writer: Jack Sholder, from story by Jack Sholder, Robert Shaye, and Michael Harpster
Country: USA
Lead Actors/Characters
Dwight Schultz: Dr. Dan Potter
Donald Pleasence: Dr. Leo Bain
Jack Palance: Frank Hawkes
Martin Landau: Byron "Preacher" Sutcliff
The Story
Dwight Schultz (Lieutenant Reginald Barclay from both the Star Trek: Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager series) plays Dr. Dan Potter here, a psychologist and straight-arrow family man who is starting a new job at an insane asylum, and who just moved his wife and young daughter into a new home. He feels privileged to be working with the hospital's head doctor, Dr. Leo Bain (Donald Pleasence), well-known for his untraditional yet effective methods of working with psychotics. Dr. Bain is a far-out, pot-smoking shrink who acts more like a friendly fellow inmate than a medico. Bain's philosophy is that nobody is insane, just on a "journey." In Alone in the Dark Pleasence carries the same intense aura displayed in his performance as Halloween's Dr. Loomis, the hunter of Michael Myers.
Unfortunately for Dr. Dan, he is replacing a doctor who was popular among a particularly dangerous clique of psychotic killers. In the paranoid mind of Frank Hawkes (Jack Palance), the leader of this group, Dr. Dan has killed their former psychiatrist to gain his new position. Inciting the motley crew of nuts, which includes Martin Landau, Frank hatches a plot to take sweet revenge. All they need, he says, is to wait for the right moment.
A citywide blackout comes upon them almost like an act of the devil, inciting their plan into action and a bloodbath to come. Controlled by electricity, the locking mechanisms at the asylum fail, freeing our group of gruesome buddies. Finding themselves in the midst of mass civil looting and burning on the outside, they take full advantage, entering a shopping mall and arming themselves to the teeth with knives, crossbows, guns, and baseball bats. Emerging out of the darkness, they surround Dr. Dan, his family, and some friends inside his home, and the murderous siege begins.
At its essence, Alone in the Dark is about an otherwise nonviolent and vulnerable family who must join together in self-defense and are forced to kill for survival. The film includes a scene where the mother must stab a psycho to death, and she does so with all the disgust and hesitation any normal person would feel. We feel her horror as she penetrates with the knife. The tension runs high as we watch Dr. Dan, who must embrace murderous rage and kill the very people he was intent on curing, and his visiting sister, who works to hold together her already weakened nervous system.
Though released on the heels of landmark slashers such as Friday the 13th and Halloween (and obviously inspired by the same), watching this otherwise mundane American family having to embrace their primitive sides, the several nice plot twists, and so many good actors in one place makes Alone in the Dark a memorable viewing experience.
Terror Trivia
Alone in the Dark was the first horror film produced by New Line Cinema, which had previously found success distributing genre fare. It paved the way for such productions as the Nightmare on Elm Street series, for which Alone director Jack Sholder helmed the second installment.
Sholder made his directorial debut on this film after working as an editor on projects like the slasher cheapie The Burning. In his original concept for Alone in the Dark, the villains were mafiosi.
Tom Savini (Friday the 13th) was called in to provide a last-minute effect for the nightmare scene.
Apt Pupil
If you don't believe in the existence of evil, you have a lot to learn.
Category: Killers/Slashers
Year: 1998
Director: Bryan Singer
Writer: Brandon Boyce, from novella by Stephen King
Country: USA
DVD Availability: Columbia TriStar
Lead Actors/Characters
Ian McKellen: Kurt Dussander
Brad Renfro: Todd Bowden
Bruce Davison: Richard Bowden
Elias Koteas: Archie
Joe Morton: Dan Richler
The Story
Apt Pupil was a recipe for quality right from the start, directed by Bryan Singer (coming off the success of The Usual Suspects), adapted from a novella by Stephen King (from the Different Seasons collection), and starring such a high-caliber actor as Ian McKellen, whose credits include The Keep (see later entry in this book), Gods and Monsters, and most recently the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
McKellen plays Kurt Dussander, a Nazi who committed atrocities and has been hiding in an American suburb for forty years, now nothing but a frail, old alcoholic. Teenager Todd Bowden, played by Brad Renfro (The Client), is studying the Holocaust in school when he recognizes the Nazi from a picture in a book. Todd has a dark side, and instead of turning in the old man, he blackmails him, forcing him to share the deeds of his horrible past in gruesome detail.
Apt Pupil is an examination of evil, how it can spread and develop a life of its own. The stories of the Nazis have a profound effect upon Todd's thinking, and he begins to transform, becoming evil himself. Encouraging the Nazi and feeding off his anguish, Todd brings him an old SS uniform, forcing Kurt Dussander to put it on and march the way he once did. When the elderly Nazi objects, Todd replies, "What you've suffered with me is nothing compared to what the Israelis would do to you. Now move!" It is a chilling moment.
Director Bryan Singer creates a thick, suffocating atmosphere, while Ian McKellen gives an authoritative and powerful performance. Apt Pupil is a study of the dark side of humanity and delivers its fear through the exposure of what can lie inside mankind.
Terror Trivia
Stephen King's novella ends with Todd going on a shooting rampage, but the movie opts for a more subtle ending. (This decision had nothing to do with current events, as the film opened several months before the Columbine tragedy.)
The critically acclaimed movies Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption are also based on stories from Different Seasons. From this collection, only The Breathing Method remains to be filmed.
A previous film version of Apt Pupil was attempted in 1987, but ran into financing problems and was shut down. This version starred Rick Schroder (N.Y.P.D. Blue) and Nicol Williamson (Excalibur), and was directed by Alan Bridges.
Ian McKellen plays a Nazi victim in both The Keep and X-Men, his second film with director Bryan Singer.
The Asphyx
If it were in your power . . . would you sacrifice your...
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