ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - July 2nd

"BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA" 
released in 1986

When Jack Burton helps his friend Wang Chi rescue Wang's green-eyed fiancée from bandits in San Francisco, they must go into the mysterious underworld beneath Chinatown where they face an ancient sorcerer named David Lo Pan, in John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China!

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Truck driver Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) wins a bet with his restaurant owner friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun), and accompanies him to the airport to pick up Wang's Chinese fiancée Miao Yin (Suzee Pai) to make sure he honours the payment. A Chinese street gang, the Lords of Death, tries to kidnap another Chinese girl at the airport who is being met by her friend Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall), intending to sell her as a sex slave. After Jack intervenes, they take Miao Yin instead. In Jack's big-rig truck, he and Wang track the Lords of Death to the back alleys of Chinatown, where they find a funeral procession that quickly erupts into a tong war between the Chang Sing and Wing Kong, two ancient Chinese societies. When "The Three Storms" - Thunder, Rain, and Lightning, mighty warriors with weather-themed powers - appear, slaughtering the Chang Sing, Jack tries to escape but runs over Lo Pan (James Hong), a powerful and legendary sorcerer and the leader of the Wing Kong. Horrified, Jack exits his truck, but finds Lo Pan entirely unfazed and glowing with malicious power. Wang hurriedly guides Jack through the alleys; the two escape the carnage and mayhem, but Jack's truck is stolen. Wang takes Jack to his restaurant, where they meet up with Gracie, Wang's friend Eddie Lee (Donald Li), and magician Egg Shen (Victor Wong), a local authority on Lo Pan. They try to explain to an incredulous Jack some of the ancient knowledge and sorcery the Chinese brought with them to America. Later, Jack and Wang track down the front business used by Lo Pan, but are quickly captured and taken to Lo Pan - who now appears as a crippled old man - who explains that he needs to marry (and then sacrifice) Miao Yin to permanently break the curse and regain his human form. Eventually escaping with the help of Gracie, Eddie, and a journalist Margo Litzenberger (Kate Burton) - although Gracie is re-captured - Wang and Jack regroup with the Chang Sing and Egg Shen, and as a group they enter an underground cavern to return to Lo Pan's headquarters and face Lo Pan and defeat him once and for all!

TRIVIA:   After the commercial and critical failure of the film, Carpenter became very disillusioned with Hollywood and became an independent filmmaker. He said in an interview, "The experience [of Big Trouble] was the reason I stopped making movies for the Hollywood studios. I won’t work for them again. I think Big Trouble is a wonderful film, and I’m very proud of it. But the reception it received, and the reasons for that reception, were too much for me to deal with. I’m too old for that sort of bullshit."

Top and Above:   Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) and his friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) must save their respective love-interests Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall) and Miao Yin (Suzee Pai) from the evil clutches of Lo Pan (James Hong)!

Although the original screenplay by first-time screenwriters Gary Goldman and David Z. Weinstein was envisioned as a Western set in the 1880s (envisioned combining Chinese fantasy elements with the western), before screenwriter - and veteran script doctor - W.D. Richter was hired to rewrite the script extensively and modernize it. Discarding almost everything from the original storyline (except the Lo Pan backstory), Richter rewrote the script in 10-weeks. Fox wanted to deny Goldman and Weinstein writing credit, and even eliminated their names from press releases, before a Writers Guild of America, West ruling determined that "written by" credit would go to Goldman and Weinstein, based on the WGA screenwriting credit system which protects original writers, leaving Richter with an "adaptation by" credit.  Director John Carpenter was disappointed that Richter did not get a proper screenwriting credit because of the ruling, and subsequently made his own additions to Richter’s rewrites, which included strengthening the Gracie Law role and linking her to Chinatown, removing a few action sequences due to budgetary restrictions and eliminating material deemed offensive to Chinese Americans.

TRIVIA:   Big Trouble in Little China was rushed into production when Carpenter learned that the next Eddie Murphy vehicle, The Golden Child, which featured a similar theme, was going to be released around the same time as Big Trouble. Interestingly, Carpenter was asked by Paramount Pictures to direct The Golden Child. To beat the rival production at being released in theaters, Big Trouble went into production in October 1985 so that it could open in July 1986, five months before The Golden Child’s Christmas release.

Carpenter, who had a long-standing desire to make a martial arts film, was first approached by Fox for the project in July 1985. The studio then approached Carpenter's longtime collaborator Kurt Russell to star as Jack Burton. Russell, however, was initially not interested because he felt there were "a number of different ways to approach Jack, but I didn’t know if there was a way that would be interesting enough for this movie". But after talking to Carpenter and reading the script a couple of more times, Russell gained insight into the character and liked the notion of playing "a hero who has so many faults" and began lifting weights and running two months before production began in order to get ready for the physical demands of principal photography. After being impressed with his performance in Michael Cimino's Year of the Dragon, Carpenter cast Dennis Dun in the role of Burton's friend Wang Chi just two days before principal photography began.  

To commemorate the release of Big Trouble in Little China, IHdb has included this in-depth featurette on the making of the film, including interviews with the cast and director John Carpenter, behind the scenes footage and clips from the movie.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   82%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - June 25th

"THE THING" released today in 1982

Who Goes There? first terrified readers when published in Astounding Science-Fiction in 1938. Over the next 40-years, John W. Campbell Jr's science fiction novella would be adapted to the screen three times; The Thing from Another World (1951) and Horror Express (1972) being the first. But is was John Carpenter's treatment of the story in the horror classic that would be remembered as the definitive film version - The Thing! 

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At a remote weather station in Antarctic, a small American research team is preparing for the first week of winter when a Norwegian helicopter appears overhead, shooting at a fleeing Alaskan Malamute. During the shooting, the helicopter explodes (killing the Norwegian pilot) and the second is shot by the station commander, Garry (Donald Moffat). Cooper (Richard Dysart), the station doctor, enlists their own pilot MacReady (Kurt Russell) to join him in investigating the Norwegians camp for answers. They find the camp all but destroyed, along with the charred bodies of the remaining station crew; and a video tape that recorded their efforts to dig up a flying saucer buried in the ice for more than 100,000 years. Back at the US camp, scientist Blair (Wilford Brimley) performs an autopsy and theorizes that there is an alien organism that can perfectly imitate other organisms, including the Malamute the Norwegians were trying to kill. When the creature finally reveals itself, paranoia spreads through the rest of the station crew; Childs (Keith David), Nauls (T.K. Carter), Palmer (David Clennon), Bennings (Peter Maloney), Norris (Charles Hallahan), Clarke (Richard Masur), Fuchs (Joel Polis) and Windows (Thomas Waites). Just who is really human and who has already been taken over by the Thing?

[MacReady and Fuchs talk privately in the snowmobile]
Fuchs: There's something wrong with Blair. He's locked himself in his room and he won't answer the door, so I took one of his notebooks from the lab.
MacReady: Yeah?
Fuchs: Listen: "It could have imitated a million life-forms on a million planets. It could change into any one of them at any time. Now, it wants life-forms on Earth."
MacReady: It's gettin' cold in here, Fuchs, and I haven't slept for two days.
Fuchs: Wait a minute, Mac, wait a minute.
[reads from the book]
Fuchs: "It needs to be alone and in close proximity with the life-form to be absorbed. The chameleon strikes in the dark."
MacReady: So is Blair cracking up or what?
Fuchs: Damn it, MacReady!
[reading from the notebook]
Fuchs: "There is still cellular activity in these burned remains. They're not dead yet!"

Top and Above:   Helicopter-pilot MacReady (Kurt Russell) and other members of the station crew from Antartica's US Outpost 31 discover a UFO frozen in the ice, that was unearthed by a doomed Norwegian crew.

Early drafts of the screenplay were written by Texas Chainsaw Massacre co-creators Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel, none of which were liked by Universal studios that the pair were contracted too. Producers Lawrence Turman and David Foster turned to Bill Lancaster to re-write the film and approached John Carpenter to direct; Carpenter fresh off the success of Escape from New York (1981). Carpenter then approached actors he had worked with previously for various roles in The Thing, including Isaac Hayes, Donald Pleasance and Lee Van Cleef - with only Kurt Russell among them being cast in the lead role of MacReady. Carpenter's most important collaborator was special creature effects designer and creator Rob Bottin. Bottin and his crew of 40 special effects artists went on to create the most realistic creature effects that are still remembered to this day!

With filming being done primarily on sound stages in Los Angeles, to give the illusion of icy Antarctic conditions the interior sets were refrigerated down to 40 F while it was well over 100 F outside! In the scene where Norris' head separates from his body, Bottin used highly flammable materials for the construction of the head and neck models. During the shot, John Carpenter decided that, for continuity reasons, they needed some flames around the scene. Without thinking, they lit a fire bar and the whole room, which by now was filled with flammable gases, caught fire. Nobody got hurt, but the entire special effects model, on which Bottin had worked several months, was destroyed! Stan Winston was soon brought in to create the dog creature when Bottin's team found themselves overloaded with work on the other creatures seen in the film.

MacReady: Somebody in this camp ain't what he appears to be. Right now that may be one or two of us. By spring, it could be all of us.
Childs: So, how do we know who's human? If I was an imitation, a perfect imitation, how would you know if it was really me?
[everybody begins to look at each suspiciously]

Top:   The crew recover a alien specimen from the Norwegian camp;

Above:   Unbeknownst to the Outpost 31 crew, the Thing has already infiltrated the crew!

The final weeks of shooting took place in the British Columbia town of Stewart. The camp was built in July 1981 in anticipation of filming commencing in December, where temperatures ranged between 0 F and -15 F during the filming costing the production $75,000 alone just to keep cast and crew warm in winter gear. Russell was almost injured in the scene where he blows up the alien Palmer with a stick of dynamite. Apparently, he had no idea exactly how big of an explosion it would produce, and the reaction that he has in the movie is genuine. Wrapping in February 1982, Carpenter collobrated with composer Ennio Morricone on the score - this being the first time Carpenter has not score one his movies himself - and supervised the special stop-motion effects sequence of the Blair-Thing for the finale. Carpenter ultimately cut most of the scene, leaving in only a few seconds, as the effects were not convincing enough due to the limitation of the technology.

When it was first released The Thing was a commercial and critical disappointment. The film's makeup special effects were simultaneously lauded and lambasted for being technically brilliant but visually repulsive and excessive, Time magazine's Richard Schickel wrote, "Designer Rob Bottin's work is novel and unforgettable, but since it exists in a near vacuum emotionally, it becomes too domineering dramatically and something of an exercise in abstract art." Film critic Roger Ebert called the film "disappointing", though said he found it scary and that it was "a great barf-bag movie." Carpenter himself would later state about The Thing in 2014 that he takes all his failures hard but "The one I took the hardest was The Thing.The movie was hated. Even by science-fiction fans. They thought that I had betrayed some kind of trust, and the piling on was insane. Even the original movie's director, Christian Nyby, was dissing me."

The Thing has been reappraised substantially in the years following its release however, being named "the scariest movie... ever!" by the staff of the Boston Globe in 2007 and was selected by Empire magazine as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time in 2010. The movie also has become part of the culture in Antarctica - it is a long standing tradition in all British Antarctic research stations to watch The Thing as part of their Midwinter feast and celebration held every June 21.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   81%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - June 20th

"JAWS" released in 1975

"You're going to need a bigger boat" - those iconic words echoed across more than 450 screens during the summer of 1975. And with an estimated 67 million Americans going to the see the now-classic shark movie, Steven Spielberg's Jaws, also played a major part in establishing summer as the prime season for the release of studios' biggest box-office contenders and coined the phrase 'blockbuster'. Set on Amity Island, a fictional New England summer resort town, the waters are about to be claimed by one of the seas greatest killing machines, a rogue great white shark!

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When Amity Island police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) finds the remains of a missing swimmer, he is initially informed by the Medical Examiner she was the victim of a shark attack. Brody's first reaction is to close the beaches, but is later persuaded by the Mayor, Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) to reconsider it, as the news of a shark attack will effect the island's Fourth of July tourism trade; instead the death is ruled a "boating accident". Soon, another fatal attack results in the death of a local boy - in full view of everyone on the beach - and starts an amateur shark-hunting frenzy (spurred on by a $10,000 bounty offered by the boy's grieving mother). Coming to the island is oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) who soon determines that a tiger-shark recently killed is not the one they are looking for, and subsequently he and Brody find the corpse of a local fisherman with a tooth "the size of a shot-glass" embedded in the wood of his sunken boat. However, Vaughn still stubbornly refuses to believe there is a problem, and dismisses Brody and Hooper's claims. The next day, the Fourth of July weekend, tourists pack the beach and the shark swims into a nearby estuary, killing a boater and nearly killing Brody's son, Michael. Brody finally convinces Vaughn to act, and he hires a local shark-hunter, Quint (played brilliantly by Robert Shaw) to kill the shark. Brody, Hooper and Quint then set out on the Orca to find and kill the shark, but instead encounter a creature like they have never seen before - a cunning, brutal, 3-ton, great white shark that will pit three men against nature's perfect killer!

[griping to himself]
Brody: "Slow ahead." I can go slow ahead. Come on down here and chum some of this shit.
[the shark suddenly emerges from water right in front of Brody!]

Top and Above:   Quint (Robert Shaw), Brody (Roy Scheider), and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) join forces to hunt one of natures perfect killing machines - a great white shark!

Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, producers at Universal Pictures, independently heard about Peter Benchley's novel Jaws, and purchased the movie rights in 1973, before the book's publication, for approximately $175,000. Brown would later claim that had they read the book twice, they would never have made the film because they would have realized how difficult it would be to film. After first considering director John Sturges and Dick Richards (Zanuck and Brown later dropped Richard's from the project as they got irritated by Richards's habit of describing the shark as a whale), the producers were approached by Steven Spielberg for the job; having just directed The Sugarland Express for the duo, Spielberg noticed their copy of the still-unpublished Benchley novel, and after reading it was immediately captivated. Universal signed Spielberg to direct in June 1973.

Spielberg wanted to stay with the novel's basic plot, while omitting Benchley's many subplots, including the novel's adulterous affair between Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gray) and Matt Hooper. Author Benchly himself wrote three drafts of the script, before Spielberg starting including the contributions of other screenwriters, notably Howard Sackler, Carl Gottlieb, Matthew Robbins and Hal Barwood, and John Milius (with only Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchly being credited). Benchley would later describe his contribution to the finished film as "the storyline and the ocean stuff – basically, the mechanics".  The first actors cast were Lorraine Gary, the wife of then-president of Universal Sid Sheinberg, as Ellen Brody, and Murray Hamilton as the mayor of Amity Island. Roy Scheider became interested in the project after overhearing Spielberg at a party talk with a screenwriter about having the shark jump up onto a boat and was later cast as Brody. With only nine days before the start of production, neither Quint nor Hooper had been cast. Zanuck and Brown had just finished working with Robert Shaw on The Sting, and suggested him to Spielberg (he had originally wanted Lee Marvin or Sterling Hayden) for the role of Quint, and Spielberg's friend George Lucas suggested Richard Dreyfuss (whom he had directed in American Graffiti) for the part of Matt Hooper.

And then there was the creation of the mechanical shark, affectionately nicknamed "Bruce", after Spielberg's lawyer Bruce Ramer. Three full-size pneumatically powered prop sharks were soon made under the supervision of art director Joe Alves; a "sea-sled shark", a full-body prop with its belly missing that was towed with a 300 feet line, and two "platform sharks", one that moved from camera-left to -right (with its hidden left side exposing an array of pneumatic hoses), and an opposite model with its right flank uncovered (the models required 14 operators to control all of the moving parts!). But when filming began, a whole host of mechanical problems started to occur;  pneumatic hoses taking on salt water, frames fracturing due to water resistance, corroding skin, and electrolysis. Due to frequent malfunctioning of the sharks, Spielberg later calculated that during the 12-hour daily work schedule, on average only four hours were actually spent filming.

Brody: Smile, you son of a BITCH!
[shoots at the air tank; the shark explodes]

Top and Above:   Brody must overcome his fears in the final fight with Jaws!

With shooting at sea leading to many delays - and a costly budget overrun - Spielberg shot many scenes so that the shark was only hinted at. For example, for much of the shark hunt, its location is indicated by the floating yellow barrels. In a later interview, Spielberg declared, "The shark not working was a godsend. It made me become more like Alfred Hitchcock than like Ray Harryhausen." Mechanical problems, sea-sickness and sun stroke weren't the only problems on set. Robert Shaw reportedly could not stand Richard Dreyfuss and they argued all the time, although it did result in some good tension between their characters Hooper and Quint. Shaw's trouble with alcohol was also a frequent source of tension during filming. There was another incident when the Orca actually began to sink! Spielberg yelled over his bullhorn for the support boats to resuce the actors, while sound recordist  John R. Carter, already up to his knees in water on the sinking Orca, held his Nagra (tape recorder) up over his head and screamed, "Fuck the actors, save the sound department!". Jaws finally wrapped on October 6, 1974, going 104 days over schedule!

Spielberg than began the arduous six-month editing process with Verna Fields. Fields, who rarely had material to work with during filming, expertly inter-cut footage of "Bruce" with real underwater shark footage shot by divers Ron and Valerie Taylor, and crafted the classic "Indianapolis" scene; the question of who deserves the most credit for actually writing Quint's monologue about the Indianapolis has caused controversy, with Spielberg ultimately stating that it was a collaboration between Sackler, Milius, and actor Robert Shaw. Meanwhile, John Williams composed the film's score.  The main "shark" theme, a simple alternating pattern of two notes—variously identified as "E and F" or "F and F sharp" would later terrify audiences and became a classic piece of suspense music, synonymous with approaching danger. Spielberg later said that without Williams's score the film would have been only half as successful, and according to Williams it jump-started his career.

The glowing audience response to a rough cut of the film at two test screenings (one in Dallas, the other in Long Beach), encouraged studio's plan to debut Jaws at hundreds of cinemas simultaneously. At the time, wide openings were associated with movies of doubtful quality (employed to diminish the effect of negative reviews and word of mouth), and the studio's national television marketing campaign yielded a release method virtually unheard-of at the time. The results paid off, and when Jaws opened across North America on 464 screens, and was subsequently expanded to nearly 700 theaters on July 25, and on August 15 to more than 950, eventually grossing a record-breaking $123.1 million!

[to Quint]
Brody: You're gonna need a bigger boat.

Top:   Director Steven Spielberg (behind camera);

Above:   Spielberg on set with actors Shaw, Scheider, and Dreyfuss

Critics also praised the film,  Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a sensationally effective action picture, a scary thriller that works all the better because it's populated with characters that have been developed into human beings". Writing for New York magazine, Judith Crist described the film as "an exhilarating adventure entertainment of the highest order" and complimented its acting and "extraordinary technical achievements". Jaws was, however, not without its detractors. Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "It's a measure of how the film operates that not once do we feel particular sympathy for any of the shark's victims. ... In the best films, characters are revealed in terms of the action. In movies like Jaws, characters are simply functions of the action ... like stage hands who move props around and deliver information when it's necessary". Jaws would later win three Academy Awards for Best Film Editing (for Verna Fields, which was the last film she edited), Best Original Dramatic Score for Williams, and Best Sound (Robert Hoyt, Roger Heman, Earl Madery and John Carter). It was also nominated for Best Picture, losing to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Spielberg was not even nominated as Best Director - something Spielberg greatly resented.

In the years since its release, Jaws has frequently been cited by film critics and industry professionals as one of the greatest movies of all time. It was number 48 on American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies, a list of the greatest American films of all time compiled in 1998. Roy Scheider's line "You're gonna need a bigger boat" 35th on a list of top 100 movie quotes, Williams's score at sixth on a list of 100 Years of Film Scores, and the film as second on a list of 100 most thrilling films, behind only Psycho. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry as a "culturally significant" motion picture. It would also serve as a springboard for a long running franchise - Jaws 2 being released three years later, Jaws 3-D in 1983 and Jaws: The Revenge in 1987.

But none the sequels would compare to the success of Steven Spielberg's original masterpiece, which still to this day, continues to terrify audiences worldwide, and made entire generations hesitate before going swimming in the moonlight!

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   97%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - June 16th

"PSYCHO" released in 1960

Who can possibly forget Bernard Herrmann's amplified screeching/ear-piercing score during the now infamous scene with the mysterious "Mother" figure slowly entering the motel room bathroom while the not-so-innocent Marion Crane is showering, and proceeds to stab her to death - and we're only in the first twenty minutes of Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece, Psycho!

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Desperate to help her deeply in debt lover, Marion Crane (played to perfection by Janet Leigh) spontaneously steals $40,000 from her boss's property company, and flees town. On her way to Fairvale, Crane encounters a number of disturbing characters - a gruff yokel car salesman, "California" Charlie (John Anderson) and a stern suspicious Highway Patrolman (Mort Mills) - but none as disturbing as she is about to meet. Caught in a rain storm, Marion pulls into the Bates Motel for the night, befriending the odd but like-able owner, Norman Bates (a career performance for Anthony Perkins). Spending the evening chatting and having supper, Marion learns of the complex relationship Norman has with his Mother - a clinging, demanding woman, who takes every opportunity to belittle her son. Reaching a catharsis of sorts, Marion retires to her room for the night and has her fatal encounter with Mother in the shower. Norman, as the dutiful son, covers up his Mother's murderous crime from Marion's searching sister, Lila (Vera Miles), boyfriend, Sam Loomis (John Gavin) and the dogged attention of private detective Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam); his investigation not ending so well as he also meets Mother. Desperate, Lila and Sam decide to stay at the Bates Motel themselves to solve the mystery, but discover a shocking, twisted truth they never expected!

TRIVIA:  Although Janet Leigh was not bothered by the filming of the famous shower scene, seeing it on film profoundly moved her. She later remarked that it made her realize how vulnerable a woman was in a shower. To the end of her life, she always took baths.

Top and Above:   Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), on the run from her employer after stealing $40,000, finds herself at the Bates Motel - and meets a grisly fate in the shower!

Adapted in part from the 1959 bestselling book by Robert Bloch - who in turn was inspired by the real life murderer and body snatcher Ed Gein, who had been arrested two years before - Psycho was recommended to Hitchcock as a possible film idea by his longtime assistant Peggy Robertson (Robertson being one of a trusted few people who chose prospective material) after she read Anthony Boucher's positive review of the novel. Hitchcock acquired rights to the novel for $9,500 and personally financed Psycho through his own Shamley Productions, if Paramount would merely distribute; and waived his usual $250,000 fee for 60% of the profits. With financing in place, Hitchcock commissioned the first draft of the screenplay from James P. Cavanagh (a veteran of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series) before meeting the inexperienced Joseph Stefano; Hitchcock, liking him, hired Stefano to rewrite the script - Hitchcock may have also been influenced to hire Stefano as he was, at the time, in therapy dealing with issues with his own mother.

Partly inspired by the low budget B-movies of William Castle, Hitchcock chose to film Psycho in black and white, musing that "if so many bad, inexpensively made, black and white B movies did so well at the box office, what would happen if a really good, inexpensively made, black and white movie was made". To keep the budget under $1,000,000 (almost US$8 million today) Hitchcock took most of his crew from his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including the cinematographer (John L. Russell), set designer , script supervisor, and first assistant director (Hilton A. Green). He also cast Leigh for a quarter of her usual fee (paying only $25,000) and  Anthony Perkins agreed to $40,000; despite their both being proven box-office stars in their own right.

Filming began at Revue Studios (located on Universal's backlot, where the infamous Bates house on the hill still stands to this day!) on November 11, 1959. Throughout filming, Hitchcock created and hid various versions of the "Mother corpse" prop in Leigh's dressing room closet. Leigh took the joke well, and she wondered whether it was done to keep her on edge and thus more in character or to judge which corpse would be scarier for the audience. This hopefully served her well when shooting the iconic shower scene! Involving six-days of filming and 77 different camera angles, the scene runs 3 minutes and includes 50 cuts. There are varying accounts whether Leigh was in the shower the entire time or a body double was used for some parts of the murder sequence and its aftermath. Leigh later stated in Roger Ebert's interview for the book,  Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, that she was in the scene the entire time and Hitchcock used a stand-in (identified as Marli Renfro) only for the sequence in which Norman wraps Marion's body in a shower curtain and places it in the trunk of her car. And of course there was Hermann's score, the effect being achieved only with violins in a "screeching, stabbing sound-motion of extraordinary viciousness."

TRIVIA:   Psycho marked the fifth and final time that Alfred Hitchcock would earn an Oscar nomination for Best Director.

Top:   Private detective Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam) follows Marion's sister, Lila (Vera Miles), to Sam Loomis (John Gavin);

Above:  Arbogast "meets" Mother!

As the cast and crew had to a "loyalty oath" not to reveal the films secrets during filming, Hitchcock also did most of the promotion himself to preserve the films finale. Even critics were not given private screenings but rather had to see the film with the general public, which, despite possibly affecting their reviews, certainly preserved the secret. Perhaps as an homage to William Castle, Hitchcock had a "no late admission" policy for the film, which was unusual for the time, with Hitchcock concluding that if people entered the theater late and never saw the star actress Janet Leigh, they would feel cheated. Theatre owner's, who first opposed the idea, began to love seeing the long lines of people waiting to see the film.

Initial reviews for Psycho were certainly mixed.  Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, "There is not an abundance of subtlety or the lately familiar Hitchcock bent toward significant and colorful scenery in this obviously low-budget job."  Other negative reviews stated, "a blot on an honorable career", "plainly a gimmick movie", and "merely one of those television shows padded out to two hours." British critic C. A. Lejeune was so offended that she walked out before the end! In sheer contrast, the public loved the film, with lines stretching outside of theaters as people had to wait for the next showing. This, along with box office numbers (US$50 million by the end of it's first theatrical run), led to a reconsideration of the film by critics, and it eventually received a very large amount of praise - Psycho was, by a large margin, the most profitable film of Hitchcock's career both in gross and critical acclaim.

 Above:   Cult director Alfred Hitchcock

Ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films, and is widely considered to be the earliest example of the slasher film genre. In 1992, the US Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry and has been the subject of numerous books and documentaries. When the rights to Psycho were bought by Universal, and prompted by Richard Bloch also writing a sequel with the novel Psycho II, the studio began production on Psycho II (1983). The sequel had original stars Anthony Perkins and Vera Miles return, joined by newcomer Meg Tilly (originally producer's had wanted Jamie Lee Curtis - daughter of Janet Leigh - to star, but Curtis wanted to distance herself from her "scream queen" reputation and starred in Trading Places instead). Psycho III quickly followed in 1986, a spin-off Bates Motel in 1987 (the only film not to feature the Norman Bates character), and the made-for-TV film Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990) with Olivia Hussey as the younger Norma Bates and Henry Thomas as Norman.

Eight years later, Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho (1998) starred Anne Heche, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, William H. Macy, Robert Forster and Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates. This version of Psycho received negative reviews; it was awarded two Golden Raspberry Awards, for Worst Remake or Sequel and Worst Director for Gus Van Sant, while Anne Heche was nominated for Worst Actress. On January 23, 2012, A&E announced that a television series called Bates Motel, the series taking place before the events of the original film and chronicle Norman Bates' early childhood with his mother and how she drove him to become a killer. Set in the modern day and stars Freddie Highmore as young Norman Bates and Vera Farmiga as Mrs. Bates, Bates Motel has aired for five successful seasons before airing it's last episode on April 24th, 2017. It just goes to show, audiences just can't get enough of Norman Bates and his "boys best friend" Mother!

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   96%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - June 12th

"ROSEMARY'S BABY" released in 1968

For Rosemary Woodhouse, moving into the Bramford apartments was a dream come true; spacious living and friendly neighbors. But when Rosemary becomes pregnant, her maternal happiness quickly descends into hysteria, madness and horror, in Roman Polanski's shocking supernatural chiller, Rosemary's Baby!

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Rosemary and her husband Guy (Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes) - a struggling actor - move into an opulent but antiquated New York City apartment building, the "Bramford", next door to the eccentric but seemingly harmless old couple, the Castevets, Minnie (Ruth Gordon) and Roman (Sidney Blackmer). As time goes by, Guy's career begins to pick up (landing a role in a play when the actor who was originally cast suddenly and inexplicably goes blind!) and suggests that he and Rosemary try to conceive. After a harrowing experience, Rosemary awakens the next morning to scratch marks on her body and, sometime later discovers, is pregnant. As her preganancy progresses, strange events begin to surround Rosemary - her friend Hutch (Maurice Evans)(who originally tried to dissuade them from moving into the Bramford) mysteriously dies, eerie noises from the discovered secret closet, and the unnatural attention of the Castevets providing strange pendants and mysterious "vitamin pills". As Rosemary's comes closer and closer to giving birth, her sanity is strained to the breaking point - before she learns the shocking and horrifying truth!

TRIVIA:   Mia Farrow said in a recent interview that the actor playing the Devil, Clay Tanner, was completely naked during the rape scene, dressed up in demonic makeup with vertical contact lenses. She said Clay Tanner spent hours grinding on top of her as they were shooting the rape scene. After they were done he got up, shook Mia's hand in a very cordial and businessman type way and said "Miss Farrow, it was a pleasure working with you". Mia shook his hand back and said "thank you. He was a very lovely man", she said. Clay Tanner is an actor and an extra who has appeared in a lot of movies, most notably The Outlaw Josie Wales and Lady Sings the Blues. This, of course, dispells the urban legend that Anton LeVay, founder of the Church of Satan, served as a technical advisor on the film and performed the rape scene himself, dressed in Devil make-up.

Top and Above:   Rosemary (Mia Farrow) finds strange scratch marks on her body after waking from a bizarre dream

Based on the 1967 bestselling novel by Ira Levine, the film rights to Rosemary's Baby were originally purchased by famed B-movie producer/director William Castle (financed by mortgaging his house). Castle took the picture to Paramount pictures in the hopes of directing his first A-list picture. Executive Robert Evans, recognizing the commercial potential of the project, agreed but with the stipulation that Castle, who had a reputation for low-budget horror films, could produce but not direct the film adaptation (as well as making a prominent cameo appearance). Paramount instead chose European filmmaker Roman Polanski to direct his first American movie, with producer Evans luring Polanski to America with the offer to direct Downhill Racer with Robert Redford - although he always intended to have Polanski make Rosemary's Baby.

 Casting for this film presented its own problems: Roman Polanski at first saw Rosemary as an "All-American Girl" and sought Tuesday Weld for the lead, but she passed. Other actresses considered for the part were Sharon Tate (Polanski's real life wife), Jane Fonda, Julie Christie, Elizabeth Hartman and Joanna Pettet, before Evans suggested Mia Farrow. And John Cassavetes was cast as Guy over fellow contenders Richard Chamberlain, Jack Nicholson, James Fox, Burt Reynolds, Laurence Harvey (who begged to play the role) and Warren Beatty (who turned it down claiming "Hey! Can't I play Rosemary?").

Filmed on location in New York, The Dakota Building (1 West 72nd Street) on Manhattan's Upper West Side was used as the exterior for infamous "Bramford". While on location shooting a scene where a dazed and preoccupied Rosemary wanders into the middle of a Manhattan street into oncoming traffic, Farrow was reluctant to film the scene for "real" until Polanski pointed to her pregnancy padding and reassured her, "no one's going to hit a pregnant woman". The scene was successfully shot with Farrow walking into real traffic and Polanski following, operating the hand-held camera - since he was the only one willing to do it!

TRIVIA:   There is a popular rumor that Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey gave technical advice and portrayed Satan in the impregnation scene. This is false - LaVey had no involvement with the film.

Top and Above:   As Rosemary's pregnancy progresses, her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) grows more distant, and the neighbours, Minnie and Roman Castevets (Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer) become more and more involved in the "health" of her unborn child

This was Roman Polanski's very first adaptation, and it is very faithful to the novel with pieces of dialog, color schemes and clothes taken verbatim from the book. Ira Levin felt that this film is "the single most faithful adaptation of a novel ever to come out of Hollywood." William Castle speculated the reasons for this were because it was the first time Roman Polanski had ever adapted another writer's work, unaware he had the freedom to improvise on the novel.

Rosemary's Baby was widely well received by critics upon its theatrical release in 1968, and has since earned almost universal acclaim from film critics, won numerous nominations and awards, and today is considered one of the greatest American horror films ever made. In her 1968 review for The New York Times, Renata Adler said, "The movie—although it is pleasant—doesn't seem to work on any of its dark or powerful terms. I think this is because it is almost too extremely plausible. The quality of the young people's lives seems the quality of lives that one knows, even to the point of finding old people next door to avoid and lean on. One gets very annoyed that they don't catch on sooner." In 2015, Variety stated, "Several exhilarating milestones are achieved in Rosemary's Baby, an excellent film version of Ira Levin's diabolical chiller novel. Writer-director Roman Polanski has triumphed in his first US-made pic. The film holds attention without explicit violence or gore... Farrow's performance is outstanding." Ruth Gordon would go on to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Minnie Castevet.

At the end of the book Rosemary seriously considers killing Andy and then committing suicide for a few minutes, much like Terry did at the beginning of the novel under similar circumstances. She then takes pity on Andy, after seeing the terrified look on his face. After considering all the options she decides to raise Andy as her own. Even though he's a demon, she decides to love him and mother him and let her good natured human personality influence him, hopefully to do good ( "he's half Devil but half me after all!"). She also decides to report everything to the Pope and the Vatican, and to let them handle the issue as they see fit (whether that be executing Andy, forgiving him or trying to reform him). None of this is said in the movie; we just see Rosemary begin to rock the cradle and look at the baby inquisitively as the camera pulls back, the lullaby cues up on the soundtrack and the movie fades out and ends.

 Above:   Director Roman Polanski on location in New York with Mia Farrow

In 2014, Rosemary's Baby was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Thirty years after he wrote Rosemary's Baby, Ira Levin wrote Son of Rosemary, a sequel which he dedicated to the film's star, Mia Farrow. Reaction to the book was mixed, but it made the best seller lists nationwide. A remake of Rosemary's Baby was briefly considered in 2008 by producers Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller, before  NBC made a four-hour Rosemary's Baby miniseries, with Zoe Saldana as Rosemary, in 2014. The miniseries was filmed in Paris - in place of New York - under the direction of Agnieszka Holland.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   99%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - June 10th

"TALES FROM THE CRYPT" 
premiered on HBO in 1989

MINI BLOG

Like a hellish version of Alfred Hitchcock, the Cryptkeeper (voiced by John Kassir) introduces a collection of chilling tales adapted from the classic 1950's EC horror comics in it's 1989 premiere of HBO's cult TV series, Tales from the Crypt!

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In the first episode, The Man Who Was Death, William Sandler plays an unnamed prison Executioner who, due to the state's repeal on the death penalty, finds himself out of work and not exactly qualified to do anything else. The Executioner then begins administering his own justice to acquitted murder suspects, with results that the Executioner certainly didn't see coming. The second episode - and my personal favourite episode of the entire series - is Robert Zemeckis' And All Through the House. A scheming greedy wife (Mary Ellen Trainor) decides to finally murder her brute husband (Marshall Bell) on Christmas Eve, the same night that a crazed maniac has escaped from the nearby lunatic asylum dressed in a Santa Claus outfit with an axe; and he's looking for people who have been naughty! The last segment in the premiere episode is Dig That Cat… He's Real Gone. A carnival showman, Ulric (Joe Pantoliano), whose specialty act is being literally killed on stage in front of an audience, through flashback tells the viewers how he was formerly a homeless man who underwent a doctor's experiment to transfer a cat's nine lives to him. Let's hope that Ulric remembers to count correctly before his nine lives are up.

TRIVIA:   Ironically, the first three segments in the pilot weren't actually based on stories from the magazine Tales from the Crypt, but instead from its sister publications Crypt of Terror, Vault of Horror, and Haunt of Fear. An actual episode adapted from a Tales from the Crypt story wasn't until the second episode of the second season, The Switch - directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Top:   "Santa" (Larry Drake) is going from house to house, seeing if you've been "naughty"!;

Above:   The infamous Cryptkeeper.

Because it was aired on HBO, a premium cable television channel, it was one of the few anthology series to be allowed to have full freedom from censorship. As a result the series contained content that had not appeared in most television series up to that time, such as graphic violence, profanity, sexual activity, and nudity, which might possibly give the series a TV-MA rating for today's standards. Then there was the wisecracking Crypt Keeper, who was voiced by John Kassir and performed by puppeteer Van Snowden, would then introduce the episode with intentionally hackneyed puns and bookend the episode with an outro sequence. Airing for seven seasons on HBO, Tales from the Crypt episodes were either directed or starred a who's who of Hollywood celebrities of the 1990's (to see just how many, see here.) As the years past and the budgets of the episodes got even lower, the seventh and final season was moved to England, resulting in the huge appearance of British actors in an American series, including; Daniel Craig, Ewan McGregor, Stephen Coogan, Jane Horrocks, Paul Freeman and Eddie Izzard.

The final episode, and the only Tales from the Crypt to be completely animated, The Third Pig was aired on July 19, 1996, ending the series. However, you can't keep a good Cryptkeeper down, and Tales from the Crypt returned for its feature film debut with Demon Knight (1995), starring Crypt-alumnus William Sandler with Billy Zane and Jada Pinkett-Smith. A second film Bordello of Blood (starring Denis Miller, Angie Everhart and Chris Sarandon) followed the following year, and a third movie, Ritual, went straight-to-DVD in 2006. At one time, Peter Jackson's The Frighteners was originally intended to be a Tales From the Crypt movie, but producer Robert Zemeckis released it as a stand alone film after being impressed by the script.

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