Trilogia do Terror

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.

Movie-buffs (and perhaps horror fanatics in particular) are strange and unpredictable beings, aren't they? Most of the time we're extremely skeptical and criticize ambitious new projects, yet sometimes we're easily pleased and highly enthusiast about something that is completely derivative, mundane and unoriginal. "Body Bags" is the perfect example to illustrate that: it's a horror omnibus existing of three incredibly prototypic segments and a repetitive type of wraparound story, yet I personally enjoyed it immensely. This is a good old-fashioned "sit back, relax and switch off all brain functions" type of anthology with a nice diversity in suspense, comedy, splatter and absurdity. Yet, the undeniable strongpoint of "Body Bags" is the all-star horror cast and crew, with legendary actors and even directors of the genre appearing in fun supportive roles and insignificant cameos. No less than John Carpenter directs two out of three stories and even stars as the host in the wraparound story. Clearly inspired by "Tales from the Crypt", Carpenter plays the witty and morbid morgue employee exactly like the infamous Crypt Keeper; though with still a little more flesh around the bones (though not too much). The first story was the most effective one! Regardless of how clichéd, repetitive and predictable "The Gas Station" is, it's a genuine horror entertainment. With the landmark "Halloween", Carpenter obviously proved he's the undeniable master of stalk-and-slash movies, and "The Gas Station" ideally fits the pattern. During her first night working in a remote gas station, Anne receives a visit from the maniacal killer who's been terrorizing the area since weeks. It's a highly segment with cool red herrings, dumb decisions, some good gore and a neatly uncanny atmosphere. The remaining two stories are slightly less overpowering, mainly because they revolve on sillier topics. "Hair" introduces an aging playboy who cannot accept his hairline becoming thinner. He desperately starts seeking for a hair-growing method that works and finds the incredibly treatment of the slightly odd Dr. Lock. Needless to say Richard's new hairdo begins to lead its own life with terrible consequences. "Hair" is obviously the most blackly comical chapter of the three. This story isn't gory or tense, but it's a very likable satire about vanity. Finally, "Eye" centers on a successful and happily married athlete who loses his eye in a tragic car accident. He spontaneously volunteers for a brand new and risky eye-transplant procedure and slowly begins to carry on with his life. Shortly after, he begins to suffer from horrific visions and learns the eye's previous owner was a sadistic serial killer. "Eye" starts off a little slow and dull, but gradually turns into an exciting and gruesome little shock-story. With a bit of imagination, you could even interpret this segment as some sort of predecessor for the more famous Asian ghost story "The Eye". Admittedly none of the stories are extraordinary brilliant or innovating, but they're definitely traditional and enthusiastically made. And, as said already, if you don't care about the actual stories, you can always yourself entertain by playing "spot-the-horror-star". "Body Bags" boosts an amazing cast including John Carpenter ("Halloween"), Tobe Hooper ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"), Sam Raimi ("The Evil Dead"), Roger Corman ("Pit and the Pendulum"), Wes Craven ("Nightmare on Elm Street"), Robert Carradine ("Orca"), David Naughton ("American Werewolf in London"), George Buck Flower ("The Fog"), Stacy Keach ("Mountain of the Cannibal God"), David Warner ("The Omen"), Mark Hamill ("Star Wars"), Twiggy ("The Doctor and the Devils"), Deborah Harry ("Videodrome") and Charles Napier ("Supervixens").

This was a pilot episode for a possible series on Showtime. Showtime wanted to spend less money on it, so the idea was aborted and John Carpenter continued to make feature films. All three episodes are packed with guest appearances and cameos by many great actors and horror directors. Performances in all of them are excellent and each episode has a different tone and style. The first is somewhat of a slasher. The second is a bizarre comedy with sci fi elements. Both of those were directed by John Carpenter. The third is the darkest and is directed by Tobe Hooper. Body Bags has a lot of actors that are very talented, but very underrated that normally don't get to do this type of stuff like Robert Carradine and Mark Hamill. Stacy Keach is always excellent as well and does great here. As far as I am concerned the Tales From The Crypt series on HBO is the best anthology horror there is. Body Bags would have made a good series and could have been able to compete with it if it could maintain this sort of quality. John Carpenter is the host of this show and has the right delivery and the right hair to keep up with The Cryptkeeper.

In this early-90s, Tales From The Crypt-style, made-for-TV anthology from masters of horror John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper, creepy morgue attendee The Coroner (played by Carpenter, whose acting is nowhere near as good as his directing) unzips three tales of the macabre…

Tale number one, The Gas Station, is directed by Carpenter, and stars Alex Datcher as Anne, whose first night as a gas station attendant doesn't go quite as planned when she is targeted by a serial killer. Operating well within his comfort zone, Carpenter returns to the same bag of tricks he used years earlier for his seminal blockbuster Halloween, delivering a tense, atmospheric piece that, while not exactly groundbreaking thematically or visually (one shot, in particular, is lifted directly from Halloween), still proves to be a lot of fun. Datcher makes for a likable scream queen, there's quite a bit of enjoyment to be had from guessing which of the station's patrons might be the killer, and we get a few welcome cameos from some well-known horror luminaries.

Hair, Carpenter's second offering, also sees the director visiting familiar territory: a They Live-style story of aliens operating undercover on Earth, it sees desperate, balding, middle-aged man Richard Coberts (Stacy Keach) visiting an experimental hair clinic that guarantees overnight results. Unfortunately for Richard, his new lustrous locks are actually minute parasitic extraterrestrials that intend to feed on his brain!!! With such a patently silly concept, Carpenter has no option but to play this one for laughs, and amazingly, it works, with the balding Keach proving that he has quite the sense of humour. Hair also features decent turns from David Warner as sinister Dr. Lock, Debbie Harry as his kooky nurse, and Sheena Easton as Cobert's sexy girlfriend Megan.

In contrast to the light-hearted nature of Hair, the third and final segment, Eye, is a much darker affair. Directed by Tobe Hooper, it tells of up and coming baseball player Brent Matthews (Mark Hamill), whose career looks to be over when he crashes his car, losing his right eye as a result (a shard of glass piercing the organ). However, thanks to a revolutionary eye-transplant procedure, he regains full vision, but at a cost: his new eyeball causes him to have horrific visions and gradually alters his personality. Yet another scary story to borrow heavily from horror classic The Hands of Orlac, this is extremely derivative stuff, but thanks to solid direction from Hooper, some cool gore, a surprisingly strong central performance from Hamill, and a neat downbeat ending, Eye proves to be a delightfully twisted and thoroughly enjoyable way to wrap up this fun little flick.

Three short stories in the horror genre: The first about a serial killer. The second about a hair transplant going wrong. The third about a base ball player who receives a questionable eye transplant.

The sad truth is that giving this film as high a rating as I did really comes down to one thing: the endless supply of guest stars from the horror genre (and beyond). Who can dislike a film with Wes Craven, Sam Raimi, John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper and more? That is incredible.

As for the film itself, it is about average. The acting and directing are fine, and the gore really starts to add up in the third segment. But the script was really nothing special, and I am not shocked that Showtime declined to turn this into a regular series (any given episode of "Masters of Horror" is better).

The disc from Scream Factory makes this average film a little something more, with plenty of insight from Stacy Keach, John Carpenter and producer Sandy King. Horror fans may think the movie is average, but you are bound to learn a few things from the commentary.