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)
In this day and age, the word “troll” is often used to describe various online nuisances. Yet as abundant and irksome as the modern troll can be, they aren’t usually as fearsome as their mythological counterparts. I’m not talking about the small and gentler versions that have become more common to see in media. No, there are much bigger and scarier trolls out there—and André Øvredal’s movie Troll Hunter is one of the best places to find them.
It doesn’t take long for Troll Hunter (or Trolljegeren) to dump the Blair Witch Project-esque setup and aim for something a lot fresher. The trajectory of the story is augmented by Otto Jespersen’s character Hans, the titular Troll Hunter. The second he comes barreling out of the deep, dark woods and shouts “troll” at the camera, this movie takes a turn into what feels like uncharted territory. Not only subject-wise, but also conceptually.
For fantastical and made-up subject matter in cinema, found footage is a fast way to add a guise of believability. After all, what we accept to be the most crucial aspect of documentaries—the truth—rubs off on pseudo-documentaries, despite our understanding of the pretense involved. That is what Øvredal delivered with Troll Hunter: a movie so convincing that some viewers wondered if trolls really do exist. So, had this been straightforwardly made, it likely wouldn’t have been as effective. Conventional narratives would be more inclined to treat something like trolls as flat out unreal, and never try to convince the audience to think otherwise.
Hans petrifies the three-headed Tusseladd troll.
The viewers, like the characters trailing Hans, are quickly thrown into the deeper end of that extraordinary story. They have to process all this new information while staying on the go. So, although there is no significant amount of meandering, narratively or physically, there is still a good amount of atmosphere, not to mention tension building. It’s never anything frightful, but then again, Troll Hunter isn’t your standard offering of horror; it’s more on the low end of the dark fantasy spectrum. We aren’t ever spirited away to a faraway world—we stay in rather familiar surroundings, as well as dip into those less so. The outcome is a movie where you’re constantly more in awe than in terror.
As fantasy fiction might do, Troll Hunter prefers not to deal with incredulity. There is no time to waste on doubt, as interviewer Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), soundperson Johanna (Johanna Mørck), and cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) all follow Hans around, recording whatever this character is willing to reveal about his bizarre job. Of course, the Troll Hunter himself is not an open book; in that respect, the diegetic documentary fails to fully capture and unpack the more interesting of its two subjects. Yes, all those giant, monstrous trolls are indeed incredible, but understandably, your mind wanders to their pursuer. What kind of person signs up for this gig and then chooses to stick with it for so long?
Reviews have called out Troll Hunter for its lack of character development. In regard to Thomas and his fellow documentarians, that criticism is valid, but bear in mind, they aren’t the focus of the story, either. Meanwhile, Hans is a well-crafted character. At least better than first realized. Before he was introduced, Hans had already grown tired of the troll grind. Fed up with that low compensation for his services, resentful of the bureaucracy, and wanting to expose his employer on a large scale, Hans’ discontent is glaring.
Then there are those finer details about the Troll Hunter, such as that indifference to both the natural splendor of his everyday surroundings and the affections of an obviously smitten colleague, that also suggest some level of despondency. So it is fair to say this movie doesn’t feature any sizable growth for its characters; however, the namesake isn’t underwritten. No doubt, putting a real-life character like Otto Jespersen in that role is partly why Hans is so fascinating—maybe even relatable.
Otto Jespersen as Hans the Troll Hunter.
There is always a small risk whenever using the term “mockumentary” to describe a found-footage movie, as the word could imply humor where there is none. In the case of Troll Hunter, the term’s usage is appropriate. Some folks have claimed the English-dubbed version has the more comedic tone, however, the Norwegian cut isn’t exactly humorless. Apart from the trolls’ absurd appearances, this is a movie where the characters nearly choke on the monsters’ farts, and Christians are like walking targets. Hans’ complete apathy towards everything is another cause of laughter. Overall, the comedy is intentionally dry and inconsistent. Unfunny, though? Absolutely not.
In a movie where endemic creatures are maltreated, as well as disavowed from living freely and peacefully, it’s hard not to notice the ecological message buried beneath the story. In addition to that is the unmistakable political satire. There is this whole business about intrusive and unsightly power lines—like trolls, they’re big blemishes on the land—that leads to what is perhaps the movie’s funniest moment. The scene in question is that one where certain electric lines, the ones secretly being used to keep the trolls at bay, go in a loop and don’t actually send power to any residents. Yet the monitors of said lines don’t find this at all weird. So it stands to reason that Øvredal was having a go at those who accept the government’s doings without question.
Looking past the fact that trolls aren’t actually real, this movie is an enlightening source of information. And not just for international audiences; Norwegians, too, get schooled about their homeland’s own mythology. It’s also evident from everything on screen that Øvredal and his crew were enthusiastic about the topic. The creature designs are the most indicative of that zeal; those imaginative yet myth-accurate manifestations are equally amusing and grotesque. One second you’re laughing at their phallic noses, the next you’re white-knuckling during a hairy sequence. Most surprisingly is how well the trolls’ visual effects hold up after fifteen years. It’s not all spotless, but on the whole, they remain impressive.
Vouching for a mockumentary about trolls isn’t easy, but those who do come around and give it a shot will more than likely be grateful for the recommendation. For Troll Hunter is a real find in that vast and varied genre we call “found footage“.
A bridge troll reaches up for food and finds Hans decked out in armor.
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