Body Bags - Corpi estranei

Three stories courtesy of John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper, sounds like it can't miss, right? The results are mixed, but pretty interesting all the same.

The Gas Station is vintage Carpenter. Here he maximizes the effect from a truly simple premise and creates a genuinely scary story. It's simple, but the final minutes are riddled with tension and general uneasiness. The best of the bunch.

Hair is a truly funny story with a terrific performance by Stacy Keach. It goes way over the top towards the end, but still, it's highly amusing for the most part.

Eye, the weakest of the three, due to it's complete and utter predictability and complete failure of generating any real chills. It's fun to see Hamill and it's pretty gory but that's about it.

One terrific story, one pretty good and one pretty bad, all in all, it's worth watching but it's nothing spectacular.

John Carpenter presents "Body Bags", in which it reads true as he plays very-well looking coroner (well he might not be as what he seems) late at night fooling around in a morgue, while spitting out macabre jokes (visual and verbal) and then introducing us to three buoyant little stories. They range from horrific, humorous and simply bizarre with a "Tales from the Crypt" spin to them. In this low-budget TV production Carpenter would direct the first two; "The Gas Station" and "Hair", but the third story "The Eye" would be fronted by director Tobe Hopper. Carpenter and Hooper wouldn't be the only recognizable names, as the cast line-up is rather mouth-watering. You got Stacy Keach, David Warner, Mark Hamill, David Naughton, Robert Carradine, Deborah Harry, Twiggy, George Buck Flower, Charles Napier, John Agar, Roger Corman and a minor cameo from Tom Arnold. Also some horror participants have tiny parts; Sam Ramini, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper and make-up/special effects maestro Gregory Nicotero.

The first story; "The Gas Station" starring Alex Datcher, Robert Carrdine and David Naughton is probably my favourite of the lot. It's the most straight-forward, but effectively atmospheric (very well photographed with its encroaching angles) and suspenseful, which sees a lady on her first day of the job looking over an isolated gas station late one-night night, where she becomes a target of a satanic serial killer. Quite high-tempo with its grounded cat-and-mouse layout. You really do feel the growing unease displayed by Datcher's character and the tension that unfolds from its eerily forlorn backdrop, but this exercise into familiarity just works. Some fruity characters also helps, and it's not without its parodying humour either to balance it out.

"Hair" the second story, starts off with a natural fear before becoming quite an offbeat and quirky entry which sees Stacy Keach being plagued by the fear of losing his hair. After trying everything to combat it, he seeks treatment from a specialist doctor. It works --- lovely long hair, but at what cost. Keach is a blast in the lead and he shares terrific on-screen chemistry with the likes of Sheena Easton, David Warner and a colourful Debbie Harry. Witty dialogues and a nice sense of wicked cruelty in a revelation that's just plain crazy.

Finally we end off with Hooper's "The Eye". A brooding supernatural tale that has Mark Hamill an up-and coming baseball player in a terrible car accident, where he loses his right eye. However a doctor offers him the chance to get that sight back in an eye transplant but there's no guarantee it will work. However it does, but soon he's plagued by headaches and visions --- dark and disturbing ones. This one takes on a more serious approach compared with the previous outings with an excellently confident Mark Hamill with good support by Twiggy. The story might be predictable, but it's well-paced where the inflicted transformation of our edgy central character is suitably pitched. Some ghastly shocks moments show up too.

Joining it up is the enjoyably warped wrap-around segment with Carpenter (where Rick Baker did the make-up for) and this sees the cameo turns of Hooper and Arnold at the end. The dialogues might be what you most remember, but some of the decors on show in this segment are amusingly executed.

As a whole it's a complete package with the stories perfectly complementing each other. They might not be spectacular, but I liked the three.

Good, fun comic horror anthology opus by Carpenter and co.

The first segment "The Gas Station" is the only frightening story in this trilogy. Set at night, apparently in the middle of nowhere, it has a plausibilty that the others lack (similarly to Hitchcock's "Psycho", it is scary because it's not completely beyond the realms of possibility). Plenty of atmosphere, a little gore and enough sudden shocks and suspense to make it worthwhile. The second segment is at times funny, but not at all scary. The third is an improvement on the second, but more fantastical than the first and therefore not as frightening.

The scenes with the man in the morgue, between the segments, are pretty weird. Lots of jokes about corpses. Fine, if you like that sort of thing.

BODY BAGS is a lot of fun until the unrelentingly grim final segment directed by Tobe Hooper, which is the best thing Hooper has done since Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2. The other two segments are directed by John Carpenter, who also appears as a Crypt-Keeper-like character, and demonstrates why he has spent most of his time behind the camera.

Overall, I like the movie very much. The first segment is good, but also the weakest of the three. It also feels oddly out of place, as the next two stories both deal with medical horror, while it is simply a 50's style slasher-on-the-loose yarn. Despite the slight subject matter (and a poor performance by Alex Datcher in the lead role), it's a solid chiller with some good scares. David Naughton, Robert Carradine and Peter Jason are all good in supporting roles, while fellow horror directors Sam Raimi and Wes Craven have creepy cameos.

The second segment is great, and, unlike the other two, is an out-out comedy. Stacey Keach turns in one of his very best performances as a middle-aged man who dreads the prospect of going bald, and decides to try out a new experimental technique developed by scientist David Warner. It leads up to a great finale that is as disturbing as it is funny. Singers Deborah Harry and Sheena Easton have supporting parts.

The final segment is the polar opposite of the second. As stated earlier, it's directed by Tobe Hooper, and he shows a sense of the macabre here that he hasn't displayed since his CHAINSAW/FUNHOUSE days. A veteran baseball player is in a car accident which results in his eye being poked out. A surgeon suggests an experimental eye transplant. Unfortunately, the donor eye belonged to a homicidal maniac, and Hammill begins having nightmarish hallucinations and bouts of uncontrollable rage. The climax of the segment is unbelievably cruel and grim, recalling Hooper's early work. It's a genuinely unsettling and horrific little flick. Twiggy, Charles Napier, as well as horror icons John Agar and Roger Corman appear.

Carpenter's antics as the narrator are uncomfortably flat, and things don't get any better when an irritating Tom Arnold and a clueless Hooper show up in cameo roles as well. Despite the weak wraparound, I recommend this anthology to horror fans, particularly fans of the two directors' work.

Director John Carpenter narrates three stories as a walking corpse that must have been a real bad stand-up comic in life. The humour is generally very sophomoric(one scene depicts a rather bosomy lady corpse having troubles being slid in and out of the dead body drawer), but Carpenter actually handles the material very well. Carpenter also directs two of the stories, and Tobe Hooper(The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) directs the third(as well as has a small role as a mortician). The stories each are very different in style, mood, and tone, and each has something to offer in terms of entertainment. The first is probably the most derivative in terms of plot, but also for me was the most frightening. Sexy(very sexy) Alex Datcher plays a woman taking a new job at a 24hr open gas station in a town where many women/people have been killed in serial fashion. Carpenter holds no punches as he tries to make us jump from our seats. Although this story is predictable, it has a lot of suspense. The second story was a funny tale about a balding man that goes to a weird place for hair implants only to discover that he is being used in some horrifying way. Pure laughs with this one as Stacy Keach plays the hair-obsessed man with comic aplomb. David Warner also does a great job playing the Hair Doctor. Sexy Sheena Easton and Debbie Harry also help(they are quite good at teasing hair I'm sure!. The third story is the best-written and directed one as it tells the story of Mark Hamil, a baseball player that loses his eye in an auto accident and has it replaced with the eye of a serial killer. Naturally the eye takes over the rest of the body(shades of The Hands of Orlac here). A very eerie, taught piece of storytelling. All three stories are populated with the greats of the horror genre like John Agar, Roger Corman, Wes Craven, Sam Raimi, and a host of other recognizable faces. Great to see Twiggy again! Body Bags is just plain fun fare. There is no statement trying to be made, no overall theme, just some honest laughs mixed with some honest scares amidst the backdrop of a little sex and lots of guts.