Editorials
Join Clive Barker and John Carpenter for Dinner – 1990 BBC Special ‘Horror Cafe’
You’re invited to a dinner party hosted by none other than Clive Barker (Books of Blood, Hellraiser). The guests are a ghastly group of horror geniuses from both fiction and film: John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing), Roger Corman (The Poe Cycle of films for AIP), Ramsey Campbell (Hanging Moon), Lisa Tuttle (Windhaven), and Peter Atkins (screenwriter Hellraiser 2, Wishmaster). What’s even better than getting to sit in on this group discussing the ins and outs of genre and what qualifies as “scary”, you’ll actually witness their creative process. The task they’ve set for themselves is to “create the ultimate horror movie for the end of the millennium, the year 2000.” Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is their jumping off point. With that, you have the setup for this highly captivating special originally broadcast by BBC Late Night on September 15th, 1990.
I’ve seen almost every horror special that’s ever surfaced on YouTube, but somehow this golden nugget had eluded me until now. I’d just finished a fairly intense, non-stop, two week long creative process and I was mentally drained. I needed something to spark the light of inspiration within me and just like magic (or some overly complicated algorithm) there in my “Recommended” column was a grainy broadcast image of young Clive Barker and a title that read Horror Cafe. I had no choice but to click the link, obviously.
Clive Barker sitting across from John Carpenter in the “Horror Cafe”
After a quick opening that reveals rather gruesome meal-prep in a quite literal “Hell’s Kitchen”, I was treated to an hour and a half “behind the curtains” style conversation among the six talented creators. Despite the blatant studio setting (the stage is dressed in German Expressionist style), the conversation flows very naturally and feels completely unedited as if you’re witnessing a real-time brainstorming session over a three course meal. In truth, the group apparently filmed for over three hours, only to have it whittled down for air. I would certainly be ecstatic to find on uncut version pop up online one of these days.
So do they manage to crack the “ultimate horror movie”? No. Not really. The final conceit is a bit of a jumbled mess due to the conflicting styles of horror from each creator. Carpenter is mostly interested in creating a “popcorn flyer” thrill ride. Barker’s focus is on exploring the fantastical, while Corman is more concerned with the social subtext of it all. That said, some of the images they manage to conjure up are truly haunting and one can’t help but wonder what this idea may have looked like brought to life on screens. Intriguingly, one can compare elements of their Millennial saga to what ultimately became Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness only four years later. Both stories share an apocalyptic WTF-ness that seems far from coincidental.
So, if the combined efforts of such fantastic minds doesn’t end with the greatest horror story never told, what can we gleam from Horror Cafe? It seems, the answer is, plenty. The discussion starts early about audience’s love of the macabre. As Carpenter so succinctly puts it, “Why do they watch our films and read our books? Because they want to feel SOMETHING.” He further breaks down the two main types of horror, “left wing” and “right wing”. The right’s fear is of something evil coming into “our tribe” but the left is afraid of the evil already inside us all. Through it all, Carpenter maintains the more pragmatic voice of the bunch…which should surprise no one.
John Carpenter in the “Horror Cafe”
When the concept begins leaning into a more intellectual, heady direction, Carpenter is quick to point out, “I’m not scared yet.” And with this statement an age old Hollywood Horror push and pull is acted out in the microcosm of a dinner party. That is, “smart” horror can not in fact be successful. The opinion being, the masses prefer more simplistic, straightforward monsters. Carpenter describes a teenage girl after a test screening of The Thing being upset with that film’s ambiguous ending. When told she was to use her imagination, she responded with, “Oh, I hate that!” Barker expresses concern that youths are called upon to use their imagination less and less. This, of course, was long before the over saturation of social media. It’d be interesting to hear his thoughts of today’s youth culture.
Humorously, the table finally settles on making a “good” film if not inherently a runaway blockbuster smash. Afterall, as Corman points out, “…there’s a difference between a work of art and an Oscar.” Ultimately, no real headway is made on the story until the group decides to take turns, each telling a small piece of the story and leaving it up to the next guest to continue where they left off. This is where the special truly takes flight. Watching these horror masters spitball is both exciting and humorous. Not all of the ideas land, but this might be the closest one can get to actually seeing the creative process in its infantile stages. I can’t recommend this enough for all you out there who want to be the next Barker, Carpenter, or Ramsey.
What a shame this didn’t become an ongoing series of specials. Each episode could’ve highlighted a different group of creative minds given a unique brief to inspire their ideal horror movie. In the least, It’d be truly amazing to see a follow up piece, reuniting Barker and crew to brainstorm another film concept for today’s vastly different market. I’m sure that’s a farfetched wish. Nonetheless, a nerd can dream. Do you find inspiration in any horror docs or behind the scenes specials? If so, which ones do you turn to for that creative spark?
Check out Horror Cafe right here.
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.
You must be logged in to post a comment.