Editorials
[It Came From the ‘80s] Vampires, Werewolves, and Flaming Death in ‘Fright Night Part 2’
With horror industry heavy hitters already in place from the 1970s, the 1980s built upon that with the rise of brilliant minds in makeup and effects artists, as well as advances in technology. Artists like Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr., Tom Savini, Stan Winston, and countless other artists that delivered groundbreaking, mind-blowing practical effects that ushered in the pre-CGI Golden Age of Cinema. Which meant a glorious glut of creatures in horror. More than just a technical marvel, the creatures on display in ‘80s horror meant tangible texture that still holds up decades later. Grotesque slimy skin to brutal transformation sequences, there wasn’t anything the artists couldn’t create. It Came From the ‘80s is a series that will pay homage to the monstrous, deadly, and often slimy creatures that made the ‘80s such a fantastic decade in horror.
One of the ‘80s most beloved vampire films is the Tom Holland’s directorial debut Fright Night. The horror comedy followed teen horror fan Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale), who discovers his new neighbor Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon) is a vampire responsible for the disappearances of multiple people. When no one believes him, he turns to local horror host Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) for help. Throw in werewolves, monstrous bats, and melting, oozing deaths in the midge of the golden era of practical effects, and Fright Night became a hit. The inevitable sequel that followed four years later saw Jerry’s vampiric sister out for revenge against Charley and Peter, except Charley has since stopped believing in vampires. Though the plot structure is closely aligned with its predecessor, the special makeup and creature effects has a much bigger role to play.
The biggest change for this sequel is the gender swapping. With Charley now the skeptic, it’s his girlfriend Alex (Traci Lind) that teams up with Peter Vincent to save him from the big bad vampire’s clutches. That vampire is Regine (In the Mouth of Madness’ Julie Carmen), an eccentric performance artist turned new horror host of Fright Night. Regine is dead set on a slow revenge upon Charley for killing her brother, Jerry, and she comes with a bigger entourage. There’s the roller skating right-hand vampire Belle (Russell Clark), bug-eating enforcer Bozworth (Brian Thompson), and flirtatious werewolf Louie (Jon Gries).
Between the larger cast of monsters and the performance artist aspect of Regine’s character, that meant a lot more room to play for the special makeup effects team. The large scope of work was a big undertaking for special makeup and creature effects artist Bart Mixon (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), stepping into the supervisor role for a major effects-driven film for the first time. He enlisted a core team of artists made up of key sculptor Brian Wade, key painter Aaron Sims, Norman Cabrera, and moldmaker Jim McLoughlin. He was also able to pull in artists Gabe Bartalos, Barney Burman, Matt Rose, and more for periods of time to work on the film.
The crew had a lot of effects to handle, from the decapitation of the bowling alley owner, Bozworth’s chest getting sliced open, Belle’s melting demise, and even Louie’s transformation sequences. It paled in comparison to the epic final battle between Regine and our plucky heroes. Pissed off, Regine transforms into a monstrous bat creature and attacks. What was originally designed to only feature a stop motion puppet eventually evolved into a full-sized bat crashing through the floor. The epic bat attack became a splicing of both stop-motion animation of the miniature bat and a massive bat puppet secured on a rod and pushed through the elevator floor.
From there, the movie has Regine transforming back to her original form to finish off Charley before suffering a gruesome death by sunlight. Mixon’s original designs for this death proved much too disgusting for director Tommy Lee Wallace (Halloween III: Season of the Witch), so Mixon and team scaled back to a more traditional gelatin burn makeup application. For the spectacular flaming death scene, it was actress Dinah Cancer in makeup and prosthetics, undergoing three hours of makeup application to look somewhere halfway between giant bat and human.
Despite how successful the original film was, the sequel only saw a limited release in the U.S. and didn’t fare as well as a result. From a narrative standpoint, Fright Night Part 2 most sticks to the same story beats of its predecessor. It’s the visual element that makes this underseen sequel shine, though. Mixon and his crew made a fun effects-heavy sequel that’s an improvement over the original, and Carmen is a compelling villain as Regine.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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