Editorials
‘Strangeland: Disciple’ – Dee Snider Updates on the Planned Return of Captain Howdy [Phantom Limbs]
phantom limb /ˈfan(t)əm’lim/ n. an often painful sensation of the presence of a limb that has been amputated.
Welcome to Phantom Limbs, a recurring feature which will take a look at intended yet unproduced horror sequels and remakes – extensions to genre films we love, appendages to horror franchises that we adore – that were sadly lopped off before making it beyond the planning stages. Here, we will be chatting with the creators of these unmade extremities to gain their unique insight into these follow-ups that never were, with the discussions standing as hopefully illuminating but undoubtedly painful reminders of what might have been.
With this installment, we’re delving into Strangeland: Disciple, the planned but as-yet-unrealized sequel to 1998’s Strangeland, penned by metal legend Dee Snider and directed by John Pieplow. That film starred Snider as Carleton Hendricks, aka “Captain Howdy”, a sadistic and heavily pierced/tattooed modern primitive who uses nascent social media (namely, chat rooms) to lure victims into his web before brutally torturing them. Hendricks is brought down, institutionalized, medicated and eventually released, before a lynch mob enacts a brutal retribution which reawakens Captain Howdy and sets him onto a collision course with Mike Gage (Heat’s Kevin Gage), a vengeful cop whose daughter had been victimized by Hendricks during his prior reign of terror. The film ends with a vicious battle between Gage and Captain Howdy, which culminates with the cop setting the murderer alight and watching him burn.
Joining us for this entry is Mr. Snider, who discusses where the sequel would have taken Captain Howdy, why it hasn’t yet happened, and whether we may yet see Captain Howdy’s exploits continue on some day.
“You know, part of me still hopes that it’s going to happen,” Mr. Snider begins, noting his reluctance at revealing too much of a tale that he yet plans to make some day. “The story is so rich that I don’t want to give it away. I’ve currently got a movie called My Enemy’s Enemy that is in development with the people who produced the Halloween films, Malek Akkad, and I’m going to be directing that in the spring. I’m really hoping that’s going to get me back in the door to somehow get Strangeland made. ‘Cause right now, I’ve just had so many false starts with it.”
Indeed, rumors of a sequel go back all the way to the time of the first film’s release. Every few years, it seems as though the possibility of Disciple getting made would be discussed, with serious attempts made in 2010 and 2015 convincing fans that we might actually see the long-awaited follow-up come to fruition. A 2007 comic book prequel titled Strangeland: Seven Sins, penned by Snider’s son Jesse, stoked interest in the character even more, though that series would go unfinished when publisher Fangoria Comics unexpectedly went under after the release of its first issue.
Dee Snider as Captain Howdy in ‘Strangeland’ (1998)
Nevertheless, Snider insists that we will see Captain Howdy again some day, hence his reticence at revealing too much of the story. Still, he does offer some tantalizing tidbits on where the sequel’s story would take its villain. “We took the original Halloween format of picking up where the last one left off,” he reveals. “It literally started with the autopsy on Captain Howdy’s body.
“It was very brutal, very gruesome, and it went haywire from there. Things happened, he was institutionalized, and he was broken out by a collector who wanted to add Captain Howdy to his collection of ‘oddities’. That’s a mistake! He thought maybe he could control him. There is no controlling Captain Howdy. He’s sick and fucked up!”
This would have opened the story that was intended to be filmed not long after the release of the first film, sure. But that’s two decades ago now. How would the story be affected by that passage of time?
“So many years have gone by that I went back and rewrote it as in real time. It does still start with a very gruesome autopsy, but needless to say he’s not dead. He’s institutionalized, but he is released the way they released the guy who shot Reagan, if you remember. You know, these crazy people do get released after decades. He actually comes out, and the story goes from there. He’s being medicated, that’s why they think he’s okay to release.
“He comes out into a world twenty years later where he’s a legend. It’s like Charles Manson. He has people who admire him and look up to him, send marriage proposals to him. He comes into this world and everything picks up twenty years later.
“And … Mike Gage, he’s been waiting. Twenty years later, he’s been waiting. We see Gage, his world is in complete shambles. He’s in a trailer park. He’s out. And he’s got a heavy bag hanging from a tree in front of his decrepit trailer, and he’s just beating the shit out of this bag. Just waiting. So it becomes this whole revenge thing.”
Kevin Gage as Mike Gage in ‘Strangeland’ (1998)
The first film had Captain Howdy being institutionalized and seemingly rehabilitated as well, with Carleton Hendricks being medicated and sent back out into the world. The original movie seemed to point at society’s refusal to allow Hendricks to reclaim his mental health and find redemption. Would Disciple have been equally concerned with this notion, or would it have gone another way entirely?
“It really does, and it doesn’t,” Snider says. “One of the working titles before Disciple was called Cult of Personality, because he quickly becomes a celebrity. I even see it at signings at horror conventions. Girls come up…they’re like into him, you know what I mean? They want to come to a party. And I go, ‘I tried to make this guy as demented and sick as possible.’ And yet, there are women who found that sexy and attractive, the idea of being tortured. What is wrong with these girls? So yeah, it was really an exploration of fame that comes from doing something bad and something evil.
“I also played with the fact that he’s cured, but it’s that same thing – off his meds, he’s as dangerous as he ever was. And there are people who think that that’s okay, for someone like that to be off his meds. There was a line in the movie in the script – ‘You’re amongst friends, Captain.’ And Carleton Hendricks, he’s reverting back, he says ‘He has no friends.’
“He’s not looking for a date. He’s not looking for playmates. He’s not looking for like-minded individuals. He doesn’t like anybody. He hates everybody, and he wants to hurt everybody. Why don’t people understand that? I’ll make that clearer this time!”
It sounds as though the film’s title would have been explored, with Captain Howdy having followers and a possible protégé. “Well, yeah. There are people who are followers, that look up to him and admire him. They don’t understand. They’re disciples of Captain Howdy, but they don’t really understand the truth of just how fucked up he is. The fact that you like what he is makes him want to hurt you more. Just the arrogance of thinking you understand him, makes him want to hurt you more.
“And when you try to do what he does, he’s offended. He runs into somebody who was just such a disciple of his, and he’s offended. ‘You think doing what I do, that you’re paying me a compliment? It’s a fucking insult, what you’ve done.’ And he hurts that guy. He hurts everybody, because that’s what he does! He hurts people. Not a person you want to hang around with.”
In closing out our conversation, Snider promises the sequel will be extreme. “That was the first film rated ‘R’ for scenes of torture. So since then, people have…y’know, upped the ante? Well, I didn’t up the ante. I dug a hole in the ground and lowered the bar. I dropped the bar into the hole to make it low enough. The stuff that I brought to the table…nobody’s fucking ready. Even twenty years later, they’re still not ready for what Captain Howdy is about to unleash. I say ‘about’, because…one of these days!
“I don’t know if I’ll be wearing a loincloth, or somebody else will be replacing me, but he will rise. He will rise. We will hear from him one more time.”
Very special thanks to Dee Snider for his time and insights.
‘Strangeland’ (1998)
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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