ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - January 24th

"DARKNESS FALLS" released in 2003

MINI BLOG

A vengeful spirit has taken the form of the Tooth Fairy to exact vengeance on the town that lynched her 150 years earlier. Her only opposition is the only child, now grown up, who has survived her before, in Jonathan Liebesman debut horror film, Darkness Falls!

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In the Nineteenth Century, in Darkness Falls, Matilda Dixon is a kind old woman, who exchanges with children their baby teeth per coins. One day, her face is burnt in a fire in her house and she becomes sensitive to light, using a china mask to protect her face against light. When two children go missing in the town, Matilda is blamed by the townsfolk and she was hanged, tearing of her mask, exposing her hideous face to the light. With her dying breath, Matilda laid a curse upon Darkness Falls and their descendants, stating that when each child loses the last tooth, she would seek her vengeance on any who lay their eyes upon her face, fulfilling her curse: What I took before in kindness, I will take forever in revenge! After her death, the two children are found, and the shamed citizens decide to bury this sad and unfair event and never mention it again. Twelve years ago, a small boy Kyle (Joshua Anderson) accidentally sees the Tooth Fairy, who kills his mother. All the persons in Darkness Falls but his girlfriend Caitlin (Emily Browning) accused the boy of murdering his her and he is sent an institution, considered deranged. In the present days, Kyle (Chaney Kley) now lives in Las Vegas, constantly avoiding the dark. Until Caitlin (Emma Caulfield) calls Kyle and asks him to return to Darkness Falls to help her with her younger brother Michael (Lee Cormie) - who has also seen the Fairy Tooth!

Above:   Kyle (Chaney Kley) must overcome his fear to help save Caitlin (Emma Caulfield)and her younger brother Michael (Lee Cormie) from the Tooth Fairy!

Joe Harris originally wrote the screenplay for Darkness Falls, based on his own short film Tooth Fairy, which he wrote and directed in 2001. Co-written with James Vanderbilt and famed script-doctor John Fasano (who would also go on to co-produce the film), Darkness Falls was picked up by Sony-based production company Revolution Studios with South African filmmaker Jonathan Liebesman directing; at the time, Liebesman had won the Hollywood Young Filmmaker Award at the Hollywood Film Festival in 2000, for his 8-minute short film, Genesis and Catastrophe (based on a  short story written by Roald Dahl).

TRIVIA:   The entire movie was shot on location in and around Sydney and Melbourne, Australia.

The project went through five titles - The Tooth Fairy, Don't Peek, Fear of the Dark, The Tooth Fairy: The Ghost of Matilda Dixon and The Tooth Fairy: Every Legend Has Its Dark Side - before it became Darkness Falls. In a different version of the film's script, the creature only appears in the final act as an Angel of Death, designed by creatures effects supervisor Steve Wang. When Revolution demanded changes to the script to allow for more screen-time for the Tooth Fairy, Stan Winston was brought onto the project to create a new Tooth Fairy, and Wang's winged and toothy creation was jettisoned. The sound of Matilda Dixon's wailing throughout the film is really the sound of an elderly woman's groaning in bed; the sound was both sped up in the parts where Matilda screams, and slowed down in the places where she gurgles and breathes heavily. 

Above:   Matilda Dixon's demonic spirit, the Tooth Fairy, revealed!

Darkness Falls was panned by critics upon its release. Time Out reviewed the film as, "All semblance of plausibility is extracted, leaving a cast of TV actors to struggle with a plot with more gaps than an eight-year-old's grin." J. R. Jones of the Chicago Reader wrote, "It begins with not one but two prologues; one character turns up out of nowhere, his introduction no doubt left on the cutting-room floor; and the paltry 85-minute running time includes 15 minutes of end credits.", while Las Vegas Weekly's Josh Bell stated, "There are a few cheap scares, but overall the film is, well, toothless."

TRIVIA:   The closing credits run for 11 minutes. This is because without the extra time, the movie would have been considered too short to release theatrically.

Despite the incredibly negative reviews, Darkness Falls was a moderate hit at the box office, grossing an impressive $47.5 million against a $11 million budget. Joe Harris wrote Darkness Falls: The Tragic Life of Matilda Dixon, a prequel comic, which was published by Dark Horse Comics in 2002, while Liebesman went on to co-write and direct the cult short horror film Rings in 2005, and direct The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning in 2006. 

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   9%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - January 22nd

"THERE'S NOTHING OUT THERE" released in 1992

MINI BLOG

A frog-like alien attacks a group of teenagers who are camping, to mate with the girls. But a boy's previous horror film viewing helps them fight against the monster in Rolfe Kanefsky's There's Nothing Out There!

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Seven teens head up to a cabin on the lake for spring break. Mike has studied all horror films on video, and recognizes the signs of foreshadowing of doom. The others dismiss his concerns as the workings of a person that watches too many movies, but there really is something out there, and the teens begin experiencing an attrition problem when they start stumbling into all the cliches found in a typical teen horror film.  

Above:   Doreen (Wendy Bednarz) and Stacey (Bonnie Bowers) make the classic horror movie mistake - investigating the strange noise downstairs!

[Stacy is vulnerable to an attack from the creature]
Mike: Is someone paying you to stand by an open window? There are some razor blades in the corner you can play with if you like.

Rolfe Kanefsky wrote the script for this film over a 5-day period while still a senior in high school, and two years later - at age 20 - began to make the movie, after his parents put a mortgage on their house in order to raise the $350,000 (estimated) budget of the film. 

The cast rehearsed almost the entire film on video prior to the shooting of the picture (working on deferred salaries) with a production schedule of 24 shooting days in August,1989; filmed with 16 mm film, with the editing done on a Steenbeck. It would take another 3-years before There’s Nothing Out There received a theatrical release in New York in 1992. Although it did not make a profit at the box office, Kanefsky managed to make a profit selling the video rights to Image Entertainment/Troma Entertainment, before premiering on HBO in 1993.

Above:   The frog alien takes another victim!

Doreen: You really think there's something out there trying to kill us?
[Something inside the house breaks]
Mike: No, now it may be inside.

Tom Becker, of DVD Verdict, concluded his review with, "A cool, if slightly loquacious, release from Troma, There's Nothing Out There is a fun little film that's worth checking out". Interestingly, the concept used in this film - a horror film that references and satirizes other horror films - predated Scream by over 5-years!

Rolfe Kanefsky wanted to do a sequel called There's Still Nothing Out There. Later he scrapped that idea for a film set in the same universe entitled, This Isn't Funny Anymore.

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - January 21st

"THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW" released in 1983

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Seven sorority sisters pull a prank on their strict house mother, Mrs. Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt), who is known for carrying a sharp walking cane. Their plan is to put her cane out in their dirty pool and force her at gunpoint to retrieve it. The prank goes awry when Vicki (Eileen Davidson), believing the gun to be loaded with blanks, shoots Slater who collapses and appears to be dead. Terrified, the girls agree to hide the body in the pool until their graduation party is finished. As the party begins, a guest wanders around the pool and an unidentified figure stabs him through the throat with Slater's cane. When other guests attempt to throw Jeanie (Robin Meloy) in the pool, they are stopped by the sorority sisters, who realize that if the pool lights get switched on they will reveal Slater's body, so Stevie (Ellen Dorsher) goes into the power room to disable them. While doing so, she is brutally stabbed to death by the same cane-wielding figure. Later, the pool lights do come on, but Slater's body is no longer in the pool. The girls speculate about what could have happened to both Stevie and the body.

Deciding that Slater must still be alive, Vicki orders the girls to search for her. Morgan (Jodi Draigie) enters Slater's room where Slater's trussed-up body falls on her from the attic. Joined by the sisters, Vicki suggests hiding the body in the old cemetery. Horrified at Vicki's coldness, Morgan runs crying to her room where she is stabbed to death by the killer with Slater's cane. Meanwhile, Katey (Kathryn McNeil) ventures into the attic and discovers children's toys, a clown statue, and a dead bloodied bird lying in its cage. Downstairs, Diane (Harley Kozak) is waiting in her van for the other girls to bring Slater's body, but the murderer stabs her to death through the sunroof - witnessed by Jeanie, the most nervous member of the group, the murderer attacks her while running back to the house, but manages to escape. After informing Katey about the attack, Jeanie arms herself with a chef's knife and is chased into the upstairs bathroom. As she hides in a stall, the killer enters the bathroom and looks in each stall. As the killer reaches the last stall, Jeanie bursts out of the stall to attack but the killer gains the upper hand and decapitates Jeanie with her own knife!

Katey finds a medical alert tag on a necklace belonging to Slater. She calls the phone number and is put through to a Dr. Beck (Christopher Lawrence) who soon arrives at the house. The two discover the bodies of Stevie, Morgan, and Diane in the pool before beginning to believe that Slater is responsible for the attacks. Meanwhile, Vicki and Liz (Janis Zido) are attempting to bury Slater's body, but as they are about to finish, Liz and Vicki are both killed by the assailant. Katey and Dr. Beck travel to the cemetery where Katey finds the bodies of Vicki and Liz at the bottom of an open grave while Dr. Beck finds Slater's body in the back of the van. After forcibly giving Katey a sedative upon returning to the house, Dr. Beck reveals that Slater had a son named Eric (Charles Serio) who was horribly deformed and mentally underdeveloped thanks to an illegal fertility treatment he had given her. Eric was living in the sorority house's attic and witnessed the death of his mother and he is now exacting revenge on the girls - while Beck plans to use Katey as bait in his attempt to kill Eric to cover his own malpractice!

TRIVIA:   The number of college sorority sisters seen in the film totaled to seven. Actually, the movie's Spanish title is Siete Mujeres Atrapadas which translates into English as meaning Seven Trapped Women.

Top:   The sisters of Theta Pi sorority; Jeanie (Robin Meloy), Diane (Harley Kozak), Stevie (Ellen Dorsher), Vicki (Eileen Davidson), Morgan (Jodi Draigie), Liz (Janis Zido), and Katey (Kathryn McNeil);

Above:   The sorority house mother, Mrs. Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt).

Writer/director Mark Rosman was inspired to make The House on Sorority Row while as a voluntary assistant director on Brian De Palma's Home Movies, during his final year at New York University's film program. Rosman decided that the fastest way to become a film director himself was to make a picture himself, and, further influenced by the rising popularity of slasher films in the early 80's - as well as older classics such as Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic thriller Diabolique (1955) and the collective films of Italian horror maestro Mario Bava) - began writing a horror film based around a college sorority house.

After privately raising a budget of $125,000 (over a $300,000 in 2016 currency), Rosman cast mainly unknown actresses in the roles of the Theta Pi sorority sisters. Among those making their film debut were actresses Janis Ward, Robin Meloy, Jodi Draigie, Ellen Dorsher and Harley Jane Kozak (Kozak was working as a waitress in a restaurant in New York City at the time she was cast in this film) - and for many of these actresses, Sorority Row would be their sole acting credit for many years. Needing a star for the leading roles of Katherine 'Katey' Rose and Vicki, Rosman cast some of the new television actresses of the time, Kate McNeil and Eileen Davidson. McNeil began her acting career on the soap opera As the World Turns in 1981 (and also a turn in a low-budget comedy Beach House in 1982), while Davidson had just become a series regular as Ashley Abbott on The Young and the Restless (a role Davidson would continue to play on-and-off for over 20-years!).  

Vicki: My water bed got slashed to shreds and all you can do is joke about it. I swear she was trying to kill me.
Diane: Oh come on Vicki you deserved it, can't you fuck anywhere else.

Top:   As the graduation party begins, a mysterious figure starts killing off the sorority girls with Mrs Slater's bladed walking stick;

Above:   Stevie is the first victim in the sorority house basement!

Filmed on location in Baltimore, Maryland, the actual Theta Pi sorority house was actually a a converted mansion, while all the bathroom scenes were shot at the Baltimore School of Dentistry - because the sorority house location didn't have a communal bathroom. During filming, Rosman discovered that they he had already exceeded his $125,000 budget during pre-production and the picture was just days away from shutting down, before Rosman's cousin who came up with another $300,000 to continue shooting. To ensure the film stayed under the new budget, Rosman filmed most of the gory, close-up make-up effects in the backyard of Rosman's parents house and cut into the film during post production!

Reportedly, there were two alternate endings to The House on Sorority Row. The first was in the original screenplay, where Katie has survived and is in hospital being pushed along in a wheelchair - it is then revealed that the orderly pushing her is Eric and the film ends. The other alternate ending was changed at the request of the film's distributor Film Ventures. In the filmed version, the original ending followed right where the film currently ends, cutting to the police taking the dead bodies out of the swimming pool. The upside down body of a person in the clown costume was to be floating in the pool and when turned over it would reveal Katie in the suit. This ending was rejected as being too down beat and was removed. Film Ventures also insisted on colorizing the opening scene - which had been filmed in black-and-white - and adding more gore to appeal to the horror fans. But most bizarrely, the distributors insisted on dubbing over Lois Kelso Hunt's entire performance with voice actress Barbara Harris, deeming Hunt's voice not "scary" enough for the role! In the later Special Edition DVD commentary track, Rosman stated that he believed that she had the right look for the part but ideally he would have preferred a huskier voice, Lois's voice being more high pitched than he would have liked.

TRIVIA:   Director Mark Rosman's idea for the films poster was a Deliverance-style image of a hand rising out of the swimming pool. However the poster for the US release shows an image of a scantily-clad young woman, created by Film Ventures International's regular advertising agency, Design Projects Incorporated.

Top and Above:   Final girl Katey discovers Jeanie's head in bathroom, before confronting the killer - Eric (Charles Serio) - in the attic, dressed as a "clown statue"!

Opening on a slim 153 screens, The House on Sorority Row grossed an impressive  $617,661 in its opening weekend, ultimately earning over $10 million at the box office, making the film a certified financial hit. Although critics were a little more divided in their reviews - Tim Brayton of Antagony & Ecstasy wrote The House on Sorority Row was, "Easily the best slasher of 1983 (not a high bar)", while John J. Puccio of Movie Metropolis reviewed the film as, "...so awful it begs to be watched!". Brian Orndorf from Blu-ray.com was a little more postive in his review of the movie in 2014, writing, "Creative particulars are unexpectedly tight, with writer/director Mark Rosman investing in suspense over pure exploitation, though the basics in nudity, bloodshed, and screamy panic are covered." Dread Central wrote, "If you've never experienced the horrors of what happened that fateful evening at the Pi Theta House, this would definitely be an excellent introduction."

Above:   The sorority girls of the Sorority Row remake; Claire (Jamie Chung), Ellie (Rumer Willis), Cassidy (Briana Evigan), Charlene "Chugs" (Margo Harshman) and Jessica (Leah Pipes).

In early 2008, Summit Entertainment announced it was remaking horror classic as Sorority Row. Directed by Stewart Hendler - with Rosman serving as an executive producer - it starred Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis, Jamie Chung, Audrina Patridge, Margo Harshman, and Carrie Fisher. Based on the original screenplay Seven Sisters by Rosman and rewritten by Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger, principal photography began on October 16, 2008 in the Pittsburgh area, where the producers wanted to take advantage of the Pennsylvania state tax credits (much like the 2009 remake of My Bloody Valentine) and the strength of local film crews. Released in May, 2009, Sorority Row was a moderate success at the box office, but received mostly negative reviews.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   50%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - January 19th

"FROM DUSK TILL DAWN" released in 1996

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Fugitive bank robbers and brothers Seth and Richie Gecko (George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino) are fleeing the F.B.I. and Texas police. They hold up and destroy a liquor store, killing the clerk (John Hawkes) and  Texas Ranger Earl McGraw (Michael Parks). Two witnesses they held hostage in the store escape during the shooting, but they still hold a bank clerk hostage in the trunk of their car, whom Richie later rapes and murders. Meanwhile, The Fuller family — Jacob (Harvey Keitel), the father and a pastor who is experiencing a crisis of faith, his son Scott (Ernest Liu), and daughter Kate (Juliette Lewis) — are on a vacation in their RV. They stop at a motel and are promptly kidnapped by the Geckos, who force the Fullers to smuggle them past the Mexican border. Seth and Jacob make an uneasy truce: if the Geckos can make it past the border, Jacob and his family will come out of the ordeal unharmed. They arrive at the "Titty Twister", a strip club in the middle of a desolate part of Mexico, where the Geckos will be met by their contact Carlos (Cheech Marin) at dawn. The Geckos demand that the Fullers have a drink with them before leaving, despite Kate's obvious discomfort.

Soon after entering the club, chaos ensues as the employees and strippers are all revealed to be vampires. Most of the patrons are quickly killed, and Richie is bitten by the star stripper, Santanico Pandemonium (Salma Hayek), and bleeds to death. Only Seth, Jacob, Kate, Scott, a biker named Sex Machine (Tom Savini), and Frost (Fred Williamson) — a Vietnam War veteran — survive the attack. The slain patrons, including Richie, then come back to life as vampires, forcing Seth to kill his own brother. During this second struggle, one of the vampires bites Sex Machine in the arm. Subsequently, Sex Machine changes into a vampire and bites Frost and Jacob before Frost throws Sex Machine through the door, which allows an army of vampires to enter as bats from the outside. Seth and the Fullers desperately escape to a back storeroom and fashion anti-vampire weapons from items found therein, including a pneumatic drill, crossbow, shotgun, and holy water, which requires Jacob to recover his faith to bless. Jacob, knowing he will soon turn into a vampire, makes a reluctant Scott and Kate promise to kill him when he changes. With that, the four remaining survivors launch their final assault on the vampires, in a hopes of fighting them off untill dawn!

Jacob: Does anybody know what's going on here?
Seth: I know what's going on. We got a bunch of fucking vampires out there, trying to get in here and suck our fucking blood. And that's it. Plain and simple. I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires," because I don't fucking believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what I saw, is fucking vampires. Now, do we all agree that what we are dealing with is vampires?
Kate: Yes.

Top and Above:   Bank robbing brothers Ritchie (Quentin Tarantino) and Seth Gecko (George Clooney) join forces with their "hostages" the Fuller family - Scott (Ernest Liu), Jacob (Harvey Keitel) and Kate (Juliette Lewis) to survive until dawn!

From Dusk Till Dawn was the first script Quentin Tarantino was paid to write (for the princely sum of $1500) by special effects technician Robert Kurtzman; based on his original story in exchange for the providing the effects for the ear-slicing scene in Tarantino's feature debut Reservoir Dogs (1992). At first Kurtzman, and then Tarantino, were set to direct the picture, but both couldn't commit to directing; Tarantino preferred to concentrate on writing the script and playing the character of Ritchie Gecko, while Kurtzman would later serve as the film's producer and special make-up effects supervisor (along with his partners in KNB Effects, Gregory Nicotero and Howard Berger). According to Tarantino, Renny Harlin and Tony Scott (who directed Tarantino's script for True Romance) were the first directors who showed interest in directing the film, before Tarantino showed the script to his friend Robert Rodriguez, who eagerly signed on.

Before George Clooney was cast, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, and Christopher Walken were all offered the role of Seth Gecko, but all passed due to scheduling conflicts. Tarantino then pitched the role to John Travolta while he was casting Pulp Fiction, although Travolta was not interested in working on a "vampire movie" and wanted to work on Pulp Fiction instead. Clooney was picked partly because of his popularity from the TV show ER (1994) - Tarantino apparently liked the irony that Clooney had gone from saving people at the ER to playing a character who sends people to the ER! Harvey Keitel and Juliette Lewis were soon added to cast, both actors having previously worked with Tarantino on Reservoir Dogs and Natural Born Killers respectively. Rodriguez cast his Desperado star Salma Hayek in the role of vampire queen Santánico Pandemonium (the name originating from the title of a gory Mexican horror movie - Satanico Pandemonium: La Sexorcista (1975) - that Tarantino had seen on the shelves of the video store he worked in). Reportedly, Hayek has a real fear of snakes and had always refused to be near them, so naturally when she read the script, she knew her phobia would prevent her from taking the part. Rodriguez however "conned" her into thinking that Madonna was ready to nab the part instead so Hayek spent two months with therapists to overcome her fear.

Santanico Pandemonium: I'm not gonna drain you completely. You're gonna turn for me. You'll be my slave. You'll live for me. You'll eat bugs because I order it. Why? Because I don't think you're worthy of human blood. You'll feed on the blood of stray dogs. You'll be my foot stool. And at my command, you'll lick the dog shit from my boot heel. Since you'll be my dog, your new name will be "Spot". [she transforms into a vampire] Welcome to slavery.
Seth: No, thanks. I've already had a wife.
[shoots the rope holding the wooden chandelier, which impales her]

 Top and Above:   Vampire queen Santanico Pandemonium (Salma Hayek) leads the horde of the Titty Twisters strippers/vampires!

Production began on 13 June, 1995 outside Barstow, California. It was a particularly troubled shoot, with the exterior set for the Titty Twister burning down at one point, causing delays in filming. Other delays were caused by dust storms and the threat of union action because of shooting with a non-union crew - which is unusual for a production with a budget above $15 million.  

Greg Nicotero, who served as one of the main make-up design artists (and has worked on almost all of the films of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino ever since), cameo-ed in From Dusk Till Dawn as the long haired biker that Tom Savini's character (Sex Machine) steals the beer from with his whip. His character makes a further appearance in a deleted scene where in he is brutally murdered by Santanico Pandemonium when she sits on his lap (in human form) and seduces him into a false sense of security. Then a second vampire snake-like mouth erupts from her own and bites his head off in an explicit fashion. In another deleted scene, there was a special makeup effect in which one of the stripper-vampires has her stomach open into a large mouth and shoves a bar attendant's head into the large mouth, and bites it off. The effect was so graphic that Tarantino didn't even want to see it (although the scene can be accessed in the deleted scenes section on the special edition DVD).

TRIVIA:   From Dusk till Dawn has a total body count of 122!

Top:   Writer/actor Quentin Tarantino on the 1995 set of From Dusk Till Dawn with director Robert Rodriguez;

Above:   Rodriguez on set of the TV series with stars D. J. Cotrona and Zane Holtz

On its first week of release, From Dusk Till Dawn grossed $10,240,805 in the United States making it the highest-grossing film of the week. The film eventually grossed over $25 million and earned mainly positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars and described it as "a skillful meat-and-potatoes action extravaganza with some added neat touches". In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "The latter part of From Dusk till Dawn is so relentless that it's as if a spigot has been turned on and then broken. Though some of the tricks are entertainingly staged, the film loses its clever edge when its action heats up so gruesomely and exploitatively that there's no time for talk". Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "Rodriguez and Tarantino have taken the let-'em-eat-trash cynicism of modern corporate moviemaking and repackaged it as junk-conscious 'attitude.' In From Dusk till Dawn, they put on such a show of cooking up popcorn that they make pandering to the audience seem hip".

From Dusk till Dawn was followed by two direct-to-video prequels, From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money and From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter, with both films produced by Rodriguez, Tarantino and Lawrence Bender. Danny Trejo is the only actor to appear in all three movies, although Michael Parks appears in both From Dusk till Dawn and The Hangman's Daughter (albeit as a different character in The Hangman's Daughter). Currently, Rodriguez is writing, directing, and producing the TV series From Dusk till Dawn, for his own cable network, El Rey, with it's third season airing from September 6 to November 1, 2016.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   63%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - January 19th

"TREMORS" released in 1990

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Valentine "Val" McKee and Earl Basset (Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward) work as handymen in Perfection, Nevada, an isolated ex-mining settlement in the high desert east of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They eventually tire of their jobs and decide to leave for Bixby, the nearest town. As they leave however, they discover the dead body of another resident, Edgar Deems, perched atop an electrical tower, still grasping the tower's crossbeams and his .30-30 Winchester rifle. Jim Wallace (Conrad Bachmann), the town doctor, determines that Edgar died of dehydration, apparently afraid for some reason to climb down for three days. Later on, an unknown force kills shepherd "Old Fred" and his flock of sheep, with his severed head discovered by Val and Earl. Val and Earl become convinced that a killer is on the loose; they head back to town to warn the other residents, passing two construction workers who ignore Val and Earl's warning and are killed by the same force, causing a rock slide. Val and Earl try to get help but find the phone lines are dead, and the only road out of town is completely blocked by the rock slide. Out of sight, a snake-like creature wraps itself around their truck's rear axle; the creature is torn apart when Val stomps on the gas pedal and drives away.

Val and Earl return to Perfection and borrow horses. They come upon Wallace and his wife's buried station wagon near their trailer, but the couple is missing (they were killed the previous night). As they press on, something suddenly erupts out of the ground, revealing the snake-like creature to be one of multiple tentacled "tongues" joined to an enormous burrowing worm-like creature (later named a "Graboid" by general store owner Walter Chang (Victor Wong)). Thrown from their horses, the two men run for their lives. The chase ends when the eyeless creature violently rams itself into the concrete wall of an aqueduct and dies from the impact. Rhonda LeBeck (Finn Carter), a graduate student conducting seismology tests in the area, stumbles onto the scene; she deduces from previous soundings that there are three other Graboids in the area. Rhonda, Val, and Earl become trapped overnight atop a cluster of boulders near one of the creatures. Rhonda has a brainstorm and grabs one of several left-behind fence poles; the three of them pole vault from each residual boulder to her truck, finally making their getaway when Rhonda hits the gas pedal.

After the people return to town, the Graboids attack, eventually killing Walter and forcing the other citizens - Nancy Sterngood and her daughter Mindy (Charlotte Stewart and Ariana Richards), teenager Melvin Plug (Bobby Jacoby), Miguel (Tony Genaro) and Nestor Cunningham (Richard Marcus) - to the town's rooftops. Meanwhile, nearby survivalist couple Burt and Heather Gummer (Michael Gross and Reba McEntire) manage to kill another one of the creatures after unknowingly luring it from town to their basement armory. In town the two remaining Graboids attack the building foundations, knocking over the trailer belonging to Nestor and dragging him under. Realizing they cannot stay any longer, Val and Earl hatch a plan to get the remaining survivors to the mountains, but the Graboids still have a trick or two waiting for them!

[trapped on top of a boulder by a Graboid, Val, Earl, and Rhonda are thinking of explanations for where the creatures came from]
Valentine McKee: [joking] They're mutations caused by radiation. No, wait; the government made 'em. "Big" surprise for the Russians.
Rhonda LeBeck: Well, there's nothing like them in the fossil record... Okay, so they predate the fossil record.
[not buying it herself]
Rhonda LeBeck: That'd make them a couple of billion years old... and we've just never seen one until now. Right.
Earl Bassett: I vote for outer space. No way these are local boys.

 Top:   Handymen Earl (Fred Ward) and Val (Kevin Bacon) decide to leave Perfection - with just one little thing standing in their way of leaving!;

Above:   Seismology student Rhonda LeBeck (Finn Carter) stumbles across some strange readings under the ground

Writer/producer S.S. Wilson originally got the idea for Tremors while he was working for the US Navy in the California desert. While resting on a rock, he imagined what it might be like if something underground kept him from getting off the rock. Pitching the idea (which had various working titles, including Beneath Perfection, Dead Silence, and Land Sharks, before the filmmakers decided upon Tremors) to fellow producer Gale Anne Hurd (who had a production deal at the time with Universal Pictures), Wilson then hired director Ron Underwood to helm the picture. Underwood had previously made educational films, before established himself as a director when his animated special The Mouse and the Motorcycle won a Peabody Award, which was followed two years later by the sequel Runaway Ralph, for which he received a Daytime Emmy nomination. Tremors would be Underwood's directorial debut.

Stars Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward were the first to be cast as the film's heroes Val and Earl. Finn Carter - who had previously starred in the CBS daytime soap opera, As the World Turns, from 1985 to 1988 (and a short reprise in 1994) before making her big screen debut in How I Got Into College opposite Anthony Edwards - was cast as college student Rhonda LeBeck. Fellow TV star Michael Gross, playing the role of survivalist Burt Gummer, began filming one day after shooting the last episode of Family Ties. Country music singer Reba McEntire, playing Burt's wife Heather, made her screen debut with Tremors.

TRIVIA:   On November 28, 2015, it was reported that Universal Television and Blumhouse Productions are developing a new Tremors TV series and that Kevin Bacon would reprise his role of Valentine McKee for the first time in the series since the first movie. It was also later announced the series was moving forward at Amazon.

Top:   The townspeople of Perfection begin to realize the danger they are in;

Above:   Survivalist Burt Gummer (Michael Gross) fights off one of the Graboids in his basement!

With principal photography beginning in May 1998, the entire town of Perfection was built over a two-month period outside Lone Pine, California. In fact, except for two interior sets (Walter's Store and Burt & Heather's basement), the rest of the film was shot outdoors. 

The creature for Tremors would be designed by Amalgamated Dynamics. One idea by the special effects crew was for the worms to have an outer shell, but when above the dirt, the shell would retract to reveal a slimier 'inner worm'. However, many production members started to giggle at the 'phallic' resemblance it had with a foreskin, so this was changed to the big worm sprouting several smaller worms from its mouth. These "snake-tongues" were supposed to be completely dry, not slimy, but was changed when it was remarked that the gloss paint effect made them look like they were covered in nail varnish. The full-scale Graboid seen after being dug up by Val was cast in lightweight foam, and was placed in a trench, then buried, and dug up again to achieve the desired "used" effect.

[Monster slams into a concrete retaining wall]
Earl Bassett: Stupid son-of-a-bitch, knocked itself cold!
[One of the snake-tongues flop lifelessly out of the hole]
Valentine McKee: Cold, my ass, he's dead. We killed it. We killed it! FUCK YOU!

Top:   The miniature crew films the Grabiods puppet;

Above:   Director Ron Underwood (center) with stars Kevin bacon and Fred Ward

Tremors was initially given an "R" rating by the MPAA not for violence but for language; the film included as many as 20 f-bombs. As an appeal, producers removed all utterances of the "f" word, with the exception of only two. Many of the swears were dubbed over with other words, including "can you fly you sucker?", "we killed that motherhumper," and "what the s***" when Val is overlooking the dead sheep. Composer Robert Folk was brought in at the very last minute to re-score the film. This was due to the original score composed by credited composer Ernest Troost was lacking the punch that it needed for the film musically. Approximately thirty minutes or more was written by Folk and strangely goes uncredited in the film's credits. Oddly enough, both scores are used in the film; Troost's score is more westernly and country-like with the usage of guitars and harmonicas and is mostly used in softer moments, whereas Folk's score is more epic and uses more trumpets, violins, and big instruments, and is used more closer to the climax and in more intense moments.

Although Tremors was not a big hit during its theatrical run (grossing a little over $16 million against a $11 million production budget), the film became a runaway smash in the home video market, and ultimately tripled its original box office gross with VHS sales and rentals. With the success on video, four more Tremors sequels were produced direct-to-video/DVD, including Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996), Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001), Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004), and Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015). Original creator S.S. Wilson would produce parts 2 through 4, as well as directing Tremors 2 and 4. Fred Ward and Michael Gross both returned for Tremors 2, but since then Gross has been the only actor to appear in every Tremors movie in the franchise as Burt Gummer (and his ancestor Hiram Gummer). On September 20, 2016, Gross announced on his official Facebook page that a sixth film was in the works, with his Tremors 5 co-star Jamie Kennedy expected to return along with director Don Michael Paul, with filming expected to commence on Tremors 6 in late January 2017.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   85%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - January 18th

"MAMA" released in 2013

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Distraught after losing his fortune in the 2008 financial crisis, stockbroker Jeffrey Desange (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) kills his business partners and estranged wife before taking his children, three-year-old Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and one-year-old Lilly (Maya and Sierra Dawe), away from home. Driving dangerously fast on a snowy road, Jeffrey loses control and the car slides down the mountain, ramming into the woods. Surviving, he takes the children into an abandoned cabin. Planning to kill his daughters and commit suicide, he holds a gun to Victoria's head, but a shadowy figure kills him. The girls, huddled by the fireside, are tossed a cherry by the mysterious figure.

Five years later, a rescue party, sponsored by Jeffrey's identical twin brother Lucas (Coster-Waldau), finds Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse) alive, but in a feral state after years of isolation. The girls are put in a welfare clinic under the psychiatric care of Dr. Gerald Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash). They make reference to "Mama" (Javier Botet), a maternal protector figure. The girls are initially hostile to Lucas but Victoria recognizes him after he gives her a pair of glasses and she can see him properly. Dreyfuss agrees to support Lucas and his girlfriend Annabel's (Jessica Chastain) custody claim against the girls' maternal great-aunt, Jean Podolski. Victoria acclimates quickly to domestic life while Lilly retains much of her feralness (language regression, growling, laying on the floor), not being used to being around people. While in bed with Lucas, Annabel is startled by the appearance of a monstrous figure, and, later, Lucas is attacked by "Mama" and is put into a coma. Annabel, who is uncomfortable being around the girls, finds herself left alone to care for them. Although Annabel makes progress with Victoria, she finds Lilly hostile. Alarmed by nightmares of a woman and Victoria's warning about Mama's jealousy, Annabel asks Dreyfuss to investigate. He initially thought "Mama" to be an imaginary alter-ego of Victoria; however, his research corroborates Victoria's story that Mama is an aggrieved mother and brings to light the story of Edith Brennan, a mental asylum patient in the 1800s.

Annabel then begins to have nightmares revealing Mama's past: when Edith Brennan ("Mama") was sent to St. Gertrude's Asylum for an unknown reason, her child was taken from her and given to nuns. She escaped the asylum, stabbed a nun and took her baby back. Fleeing her pursuers, Brennan jumped off a cliff, but before hitting the water below, Brennan and the child made impact with a large branch and she drowned; Edith's child's corpse snagged on the branch and did not fall with Brennan into the water. Annabel realizes that Mama still hasn't realized her child died from hitting the tree; Mama unsuccessfully searched the woods for more than a century and had taken on Victoria and Lilly as substitutes. And with  Victoria's growing closeness to Annabel making her less willing to play with Mama (unlike Lilly), a jealous Mama takes the girls to the very cliffs where she died in a hope to re-enact her fall with Victoria and Lilly!

TRIVIA:   The moths which Lily eat were made of chocolate. Unbeknownst to the crew, Isabelle Nélisse doesn't like chocolate!

Top:   Left in isolation in the woods for over five years, sisters Victoria and Lily (Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nélisse) have become feral and animalistic;

Above:   Having been found, Victoria and Lily are placed in the care of their uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain).

Argentine writer/director Andrés Muschietti first made a three-minute short film Mamá in 2008, which attracted the attention of filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who stated that the film included the "scariest" scenes he had "ever seen." The short convinced del Toro to executive produce and make it into a feature-length film by teaming up with Muschietti. Muschietti co-wrote the feature-length script with his sister Barbara Muschietti, with Luther screenwriter Neil Cross also contributing.

With Universal Pictures set to finance and distribute the film, Muschietti cast Jessica Chastain in the lead role of Annabel; at the time, Chastain was already beginning to receive positive reviews for her part in Kathryn Bigalow's Zero Dark Thirty. Cast in dual role of Lucas Desange/Jeffrey Desange was Game of Thrones's star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Canadian actress Megan Charpentier was cast as Victoria, having recently completed her role in Resident Evil: Retribution as the evil holographic avatar, The Red Queen. Isabelle Nélisse was also cast as Victoria's mute, little sister Lily. In real life, Nélisse couldn;t actually speak english, which is why Muschietti did not give the child-actress that much dialogue and speaks more with body language. The pivital role of Mama was played by Spanish actor Javier Botet; interestingly, this was not the first Botet has played a female character - having been born with Marfan syndrome, which gives him a slender body and long fingers - the first being the role of Niña Medeiros aka Patient Zero in Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's cult found footage horror film, REC (2007).

 Above:   Lily encounters the ghostly "Mama" (Javier Botet)

With production beginning on 3 October 2011 at Toronto's Pinewood Studios, parts of Mama were also shot in Quebec City, standing in for Clifton Forge, Virginia. Mama's appearance was partially inspired by a painting by Modigliani, which requiredbv 4 hours every day to get Botet into his make-up, and another 2 to remove it. Mama's movement was not entirely CGI however - Botet has well-above-average range of motion in his joints - with the most CGI on Mama being her hair.

Originally set for release in October 2012, it was rescheduled to January 2013 so as not to compete with Paranormal Activity 4 (2012). Mama's success at that later date has, among with other dump months horror films, convinced studios to start opening horror movies year-round. Richard Roeper, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, enjoyed the film, giving it three stars out of four and saying, "Movies like Mama are thrill rides. We go to be scared and then laugh, scared and then laugh, scared and then shocked. Of course, there's almost always a little plot left over for a sequel. It's a ride I'd take again." Owen Gleiberman, reviewing for Entertainment Weekly, gave the movie a B and said, "Mama lifts almost every one of its fear-factor visuals from earlier films: the rotting black passageways that spread like mold over the walls (very Ringu meets Repulsion); the crouched figures that skitter and pounce à la the infamous 'spider' outtake from the original Exorcist; the way that Mama, with her arms like smoky-shadowy bent tendrils, evokes both the monster from the Alien films and also, in a funny way, the crumpled-puppet gothic mischievousness of Tim Burton animation. Nothing in the movie is quite original, yet Muschietti, expanding his original short, knows how to stage a rip-off with frightening verve. It helps to have an actress on hand as soulful as Jessica Chastain..."

Louise: A ghost is an emotion bent out of shape, condemned to repeat itself, time and time again... until it rights the wrong that was done.

Top:   Writer/director Andrés Muschietti (right) with executive producer Guillermo del Toro;

Above:   Muschietti with his sister and co-writer, Barbara Muschietti

Debuting at #1 at the box office on it's opening weekend, Mama eventually grossed over $140 million worldwide. Less than a month after Mama's release, it was reported that a sequel was in works, and, in January 2016, it was announced that duo Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch would rewrite and direct the sequel. Chastain would not return for the sequel, and neither would original Mama creator Muschietti, who passed on the sequel to write and direct the long-awaited Stephen King adaptation of It; with sister Barbara Muschietti co-producing and Javier Botet set to play the monsterous Leper (a form of the titular demon).

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   65%

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