Editorials
Kindertrauma Generation: The ‘Family Friendly’ Horrors of the 1980s
The ’80s were a wild time to be a kid. I am not as personally nostalgic about the period as some, but even I have to admit it was a great time for horror. One of the more surprising trends of the decade was serious horror films made for and marketed to children and families. Most responsible for this unique movement and its eventual demise, at least in this peculiar form, are Disney, Jim Henson, and perhaps above all, Steven Spielberg. Disney may not have been the most successful purveyor of “kindertrauma horror” in the ’80s, but it was the first.
Disney had been struggling to find its path since the passing of founder Walt Disney in late 1966 and, frankly, continued to struggle with its identity until the studio’s renaissance in the early nineties. However, during this time, they were open to a great deal of experimentation. Disney movies had often included elements of horror, even from the earliest animated features. The evil queen disguised as a hag with a poisoned apple in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence from Fantasia (1940), and the boys on Pleasure Island being transformed into donkeys for their sins in Pinocchio (also 1940) come immediately to mind. But, with the exception of the “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” half-feature of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949), the studio had never really attempted an all-out horror film aimed at children, and certainly not a live-action one.
That all changed with 1980’s The Watcher in the Woods.
‘The Watcher in the Woods’
The film was so poorly received upon its release that it was pulled from theaters and re-edited with a newly-shot ending and re-released a few months later to little improvement in that reception. It is certainly not a terrible film, I found myself quite drawn in by it upon a recent viewing, but it is very much in a style similar to classic Victorian mansion ghost films of the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s like The Uninvited (1944), The Innocents (1961), and The Haunting (1963). All of these are great films, but not what audiences of the time were craving in their horror.
Starting in the late ’60s, horror mostly moved out of far-flung Gothic locations into more familiar, everyday settings. The moment the ghosts moved out of crumbling old manors and into the suburbs to haunt the Freelings, an average, middle class family, is the flashpoint that started the “family horror” boom blazing.
‘Poltergeist’
Poltergeist (1982) is an undeniably frightening film, especially to children. It features one child abducted by ghosts, another being eaten by a tree and later attacked by a living clown doll, and a scene with a man peeling off his own face (if that’s not horror, what is?), and all with a PG rating. As an adult, I still find this film incredibly effective, though for different reasons. As a child, it was absolutely terrifying, but permissible due to its moderate rating and the Spielberg pedigree that was attached to the film. Though it was released the weekend before E.T.—The Extra Terrestrial, I saw Poltergeist as many of my generation did—on home video after we and our parents had been charmed and lulled into trusting passivity by Spielberg’s sweet alien movie. As producer and co-writer, Spielberg’s hand is clearly seen in the film, but it carries the distinct marks of its director as well. As a child, I had no idea who Tobe Hooper was, nor did I care, but today, I see the touch he brought to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and The Funhouse (1981) all over Poltergeist, especially in the corpse-ridden anarchy of its finale. Poltergeist lured us in under the guise of a wholesome family drama but delivered all-out horror. And audiences were sold! From that point on, the floodgates of a largely untapped horror market burst open.
In 1983, Disney attempted another horror film, this time from a bestselling novel by a legendary author, who also wrote the screenplay, Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. The film was released to decidedly mixed reviews and disappointing box-office, making back less than half its budget. However badly it was received at the time, the film is an effective dark fantasy that still holds up for the most part and is overdue for reappraisal. And despite two box-office failures, Disney would return to the horror well again before the decade was out.
‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’
In my opinion, a strong argument can be made that 1984 is the greatest year for filmed horror, at least in the modern era, if not of all time. It is the year of big budget horror blockbusters, cult gems, and everything in between. Under the “family friendly” banner, two films were released, not just in that year, but on the same day: June 8, 1984. Of the two, Ghostbusters is more comedy than horror, but the Lovecraftian underpinnings of the film cannot be denied. The film went through many iterations during its development, but what resulted is a pitch perfect balance of horror and comedy with some truly frightening scenes offset with impeccable comic timing. Rarely does lightning get captured in a bottle so sublimely.
Gremlins (like Poltergeist, produced by Spielberg), on the other hand, is more horror than comedy, but also manages to blend the two on a razor’s edge, as director Joe Dante has proven himself so adept at time and again. It is a darker, meaner film than Ghostbusters, but still fun and delightful. Gremlins also had a larger influence on kindertrauma horror in the ’80s going forward than Ghostbusters for two reasons in particular. First, it led to several more creature features aimed at kids like Critters, Troll, and the return of Tobe Hooper to family horror with Invaders from Mars (all 1986), and second, it is one of the films that most directly led to the PG-13 rating. As we shall soon see, that rating led to the demise of this form of horror in a very real way.
‘Ghostbusters’
Horror often snuck its way to the PG rating under the guise of the fantasy genre. Some of the most frightening movie-going experiences of my childhood included The NeverEnding Story (1984), the Jim Henson films The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986), and Disney’s The Black Cauldron (1985). Even Ridley Scott’s Legend (1985) and the 1988 George Lucas/Ron Howard effort Willow (the scene in which Bavmorda turns our heroes into pigs, for example) contained a great deal of horror. But of this category, perhaps the film most often cited for its traumatic effects is Disney’s Return to Oz.
In the early 80’s, before home video became ubiquitous, the annual television presentation of the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz was a major event enjoyed by families across the country. News of a sequel to the beloved children’s film being produced by Disney sent waves of excitement through children and parents alike. But, from the attempted electro-shock therapy on Dorothy, to the head switching witch the Nome King and his living stone minions, and of course the Wheelers, what we saw on giant screens in 1985 was nightmare fuel for a generation. Once again, Disney failed to capture box-office success with either this film or their next, rather frightening, animated feature, The Black Cauldron. The studio would not attempt another film that even dabbled in the horror genre until 1993 with Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas, both of which are cut from a very different cloth than the horror efforts of the ’80s.
‘Return to Oz’
In these years, even non-genre films like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and The Goonies (1985), both again with Spielberg’s involvement, were filled with intense horror elements including blood drinking, torture, people eaten by animals, and child endangerment including kidnapping and slavery; and few can forget the dinner scene in Temple of Doom. Particularly because of Gremlins and the Indiana Jones movies (Raiders certainly has its share of horror as well), a call for a new rating between PG and R arose. It came to fruition in 1985 with the PG-13 rating, which many still refer to as “the Spielberg rating.” At first, few knew what to make of this mysterious new label. It was perceived that these movies were too intense for kids, but too kid-oriented for adults and older teenagers. Films like Cat’s Eye (1985), the Poltergeist sequels (1986 and 88), The Monster Squad (1987) and Lady in White (1988) all suffered at the box-office due to this hazy limbo. There had always been inconsistency in the ratings system, even before the introduction of PG-13, but cases where some films inexplicably received the PG-13 while others of comparable content received a PG changed the nature of family targeted horror.
By 1990, filmmakers and audiences had more or less figured out how to maneuver the new rating. Though many, perhaps unfairly, blamed Spielberg for it, he was also most effective in showing how it could best be used. His film The Color Purple (1985) was the first PG-13 film to be nominated for Best Picture and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) was a massive success, even with the rating attached. PG-13 was perfectly suited for violent, but only moderately bloody films like superhero movies and science-fiction adventures or romantic comedies with moderate, but not explicit sexual content and the like. Horror films aimed at kids became much lighter in nature, focused more on comedy with supernatural but less frightening or perilous elements. Soon, such classics as The Nightmare Before Christmas and Hocus Pocus would be the standard bearers of a new brand of family horror. However, 1990 did bring one last film more in the old mold with Nicolas Roeg’s The Witches, based on Road Dahl’s novel and once again involving Jim Henson Studios to create its frightening titular characters.
Since then, horror elements have occasionally found their way into big family blockbusters like the Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter franchises, and we occasionally get a film like Corpse Bride (2005) or Coraline (2009), but we’ve never seen a trend quite like the kindertrauma horror of the 1980s. These were the gateway into the genre for a generation that is making some of the most frightening and acclaimed horror films of today. Ultimately, these films taught us to love the genre. To say we were traumatized by them is of course exaggeration. What they did in reality was show us that, even when the world is a very scary place, children have the power to face and overcome their fears and frightening obstacles.
Maybe that’s a lesson we should not be so afraid to teach.
‘The Monster Squad’
The great Ernest Dickerson turns seventy-five years old this month, so we’re looking back at his most memorable contribution to the horror genre – 1995’s Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight!
The film hit screens while the Tales from the Crypt series was winding down its run on television, and it stands apart with a story that feels a step or two removed from the franchise norm. That was the smart play, though, as the show’s stories – and those from the original EC comics – work best in short bites. The result is a film that holds up beautifully as a gory good time.
Now keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…
Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)
Commentator: Ernest Dickerson (director), Michael Felsher (moderator)
1. Dickerson was in post-production on Surviving the Game when he got a call from his agent saying that producer Gil Adler wanted to meet about a Tales from the Crypt feature film. It went well, so Dickerson met with Joel Silver next and secured the job.
2. The original screenplay for the film came to the producers as a spec script wholly detached from the Tales from the Crypt brand. They added the Crypt Keeper (voiced by John Kassir) bookends to make it fit.
3. Dickerson was more familiar with the original EC comic books having read them as a kid, but he had watched a few episodes of the HBO series, so he knew what the current vibe was for the project.
4. Adler directed the film’s wraparound segments, meaning Dickerson never actually got to work with the creepy puppet. “Gil and the Crypt Keeper had a great relationship,” he adds, “they worked together for years.”
5. While he was new to the Tales from the Crypt family, Dickerson had previously worked as a director of photography on the Tales from the Darkside anthology series. That show is underappreciated in my humble opinion, and I will go to bat for both it and the equally underloved Monsters.
6. A big appeal of the horror genre for Dickerson is the idea of dark mysteries that challenge our imagination. For this film, that came down to the mythology being created between the characters.
7. Five executive producers are listed in the opening credits, but Dickerson says the only two he had dealings with were Silver and Richard Donner. The other three were Walter Hill, Robert Zemeckis, and David Giler.
8. Dickerson had only ever seen Billy Zane in movies with a full head of hair, so he was surprised when Zane showed up on the first day with a bald head. “He had this case, and he opened up the case that he had all these hair pieces in, and he says, ‘So which one of these do you think I should use?’” Dickerson looked at him and suggested he just go bald for the character.
9. While the bulk of the opening exteriors were filmed in a desert just outside Los Angeles, the shot of the old church at 11:26 was created on a warehouse hangar soundstage where the film’s interiors were shot.
10. When he had read the script, Dickerson pictured the character of Jeryline (Jada Pinkett Smith) “as a little, tough lady.” He had recently seen Smith in Menace II Society, and while the producers had someone else in mind for the role, he fought to get her instead.
11. Just as Zane surprised Dickerson with his hair (or lack thereof), Smith arrived on the first day with her hair dyed platinum white. He “liked the idea” but asked her to please get it tweaked so it looked more yellowish blond. “It’s definitely a statement.”
12. He had seen Brenda Bakke in the 1989 sci-fi/action film from Japan, Gunhed, and thought she’d be great here as Cordelia. The rest of us might recognize her from Death Spa or Trucks.
13. Felsher comments that the film’s setup does a good job not telegraphing who’s going to live or die, and he uses the “nice guy” (Charles Fleischer) and “the kid” (Ryan O’Donohue) as examples. “You don’t play by those rules here,” he says, and Dickerson replies that he wanted to subvert those rules. That extends to Smith as well because she’s Black, “and usually in movies like this they’re the first folks to die.”
14. Dickerson says they had forty days of filming, “which, the way I’m used to working, was a very generous schedule.” It was budgeted at around $10 million.
15. This probably won’t surprise you, but Zane improvised the bit at 26:25 after he jumps out the window and says, “Fuck this cowboy shit! You fuckin’, hodunk Podunk, well, then, motherfuckers!”
16. In the original script, the demons that The Collector (Zane) raises from the dirt actually looked more like the people they used to be. “They were more human,” but the very smart decision was made in pre-production to make them look far more unique instead.
17. The demons are killed by shooting their eyes, but Dickerson felt there should be one more element to it. “Shoot out their eyes, you gotta duck because the souls come shooting out, and if it hits ya, boom, it can kill ya.” This is a fun touch.
18. He’s been asked more than once if these demons are where Peter Jackson got the idea for how the orcs would look in his Lord of the Rings movies. “They do look like orcs.”
19. He recalls having seen Ronny Yu’s The Bride with White Hair shortly before going to work on Demon Knight, and he hoped to bring some of that staged style into his own film. An example of that in practice is Brayker’s (William Sadler) brief flashbacks to Christ on the cross.
20. Character deaths were mostly based on the idea that “each person’s downfall was going to be predicated by their weakness.” The Collector discovers someone’s weakness and then uses it against them. Cordelia wants to be loved, Jeryline wants to travel, Uncle Willy (Dick Miller) is a horndog for both liquor and ladies, Danny loves horror comics, etc.
21. Dickerson says that plenty of genre classics were in the back of his head while making the film, including Assault on Precinct 13, Alien, Aliens, and more.
22. Cordelia is possessed into a demonic form, and Dickerson’s idea for how she’d look was originally a bit different. “Since Cordelia was a prostitute, I thought that her mouth should actually be a vertical slit that was in her stomach… which would open up with teeth and a tongue.” It was nixed, he says, when “the wife of one of the producers read that and said ‘no way you’re putting that in the movie.’”
23. The key makes an appearance in the followup, Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood, but it wasn’t originally meant to. Apparently, early test audiences expected it to be a more connected sequel to Demon Knight, so the filmmakers added it in to appease them. This is where I go on record saying that Bordello of Blood is a fun time. Can’t touch Demon Knight, obviously, but it’s more entertaining than its reputation suggests.
24. They had to film Uncle Willy’s bar scene “dream” twice, once with the women topless and once with them in bikinis, to have versions for both theaters and television broadcast. “Dick’s a pro.” (To be fair, Dickerson says this in regard to Miller having to endure the makeup application, but the sentiment fits both situations, so…)
25. Dickerson says he’s “always amazed at the love that people show this film,” and adds that fans bring it up to him incredibly often. This is great to hear, as we should always be telling artists how much their work means to us while they’re still alive and able to hear it.
26. Zane also suggested the gag at 1:08:21 with the sponge coming out of his mouth. The beat reminds Dickerson to praise the actor even more, adding that he was an “ally” to the director when “bad ideas” came down from the studio suits.
27. He didn’t get any pushback on killing little Danny. He did insist on one added element, though, as he wanted to immediately follow the boy exploding in the air with a shot of his bloody and torn sneaker hitting the ground below. “And the sneaker had to be a hightop.”
28. Dickerson says there’s “something kinky sexy about” Smith being covered in blood, and then the two commentators go quiet for almost two minutes out of respect for the scene. It’s a good opportunity to reflect on how Dickerson had previously mentioned Alien and Aliens as films being in the back of his head during filming, and how two scenes here reflect that – Jeryline stripping down to her underwear for the final confrontation feels like a nod to Ridley Scott’s film, while an earlier scene with Irene (CCH Pounder) and Dep. Bob (Gary Farmer) realizing they’re surrounded and choosing to blow themselves up alongside some of the demons is something of a callback to the air vent sacrifice in James Cameron’s film.
29. Asked about the film’s critical reception at the time of release, Dickerson says it received good reviews from horror-loving critics and then talks about the importance of horror in general. “Horror has always been a great way of putting out ideas, of talking about some of the things that affect us as people. Some of the best horror, like the best science fiction, talks about what it’s like to be human. Some of the best horror gets very political.”
30. The original ending would have featured The Collector showing “his true self, which is a demon made of fire.” They spent a lot of time trying to make it work, but it was “extremely difficult… back in the day of analog effects.” It was rewritten into the faceoff between him and Jeryline featuring the dancing, the crotch fire, Zane’s attempts at saying “love,” and his eventual demise from her bloody spit.
31. They both agree that a direct sequel to Demon Knight could be a lot of fun, but Dickerson says he’s unaware of any talk on the possibility.
32. Dickerson was super excited about this new Scream Factory Blu-ray in 2015, and he mentions that before its release, he had imported a Blu-ray from Germany presumably to enjoy the film in HD. He’s just like us! (Or am I the only one here who’s imported a German Blu-ray of the much maligned werewolf flick Big Bad Wolf…)
Quotes Without Context
“I was so happy to get Dick Miller for this movie.”
“There was a time when guys used to put ketchup on everything.”
“I’m a big student of Hitchcock, and the best way to make a moment of horror work is to lull the audience into a false sense of security.”
“A villain should always be the most interesting person in a movie.”
“They were a really great bunch of performers who were performing on these little leg-extension stilts wearing a diaper that had a radio-controlled tail that was being manipulated by a special effects tech right out of the frame.”
“It’s hard to direct air; it doesn’t do what you want.”
“The only censorship problem came from the producer’s wife, who didn’t want the vagina dentalis [sic] in the movie.”
“One of the executives wanted to know why the devil didn’t try to have sex with Jada.”
“It always starts with the script.”
Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.
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