A Little Fangorian Support

 Fangoria are exclusively running the trailer for my second new feature, Pond Scum, this week.

As a reader since Issue #1 (the one with the Godzilla cover), I'm humbled.



Exclusive trailer, photos: Savage picture “POND SCUM”

Apeshit Over Apes

In the mid-70's, my brother Colin and I collected Planet of the Apes trading cards. We both bought the View-master version of the movie, and we exchanged punches over who was going to get the last 'General Ursus' doll at Frank's Toy's, our local toy emporium. We got up every Saturday morning and watched Return to the Planet of the Apes (the cartoon) while leafing through Apes comics, we recorded the show's theme music and played it loud and often (true rebellion!), and when Battle for the Planet of the Apes got released and quickly paired with Ralph Bakshi's Wizards, I skipped school twice to see it. It wasn't even good!

Bottom line: We did everything to fill the fill the house with Apes back then. Apes were better than parents, better than teachers, and much better than stupid sisters. 

I saw the original Conquest of the Planet of the Apes with my dad. My mum wouldn't go near the fuckin thing because it was too "far-fetched". Star Wars was too "far-fetched" for her, too. While I was sitting down one evening with a pile of homework, she entered my bedroom, paused, then told me that Star Wars couldn't happen." Hang on, she hadn't even seen the film. Where was her credibility? Despite that minor quibble, it seemed important to her that this fact was understood. Perhaps she'd already perceived my slide towards the Dark Side of the Force.

 Apparently, this will never happen! Spread the word.

 Before you say, it, I'll agree, science fiction was not, is not, my mother's bag. Never will be.

I enjoyed the original Conquest. Wait a minute -- enjoyed? You thought about nothing else for days, cunt, after you'd seen it, and you pissed everybody off with your Apes obsession! OK, OK, I went apeshit over the film. Loved the red ape suits and the contemporary setting, loved the violent gorillas (their violent ignorance was inspirational!), and tapped my oversized toes to Jerry Goldsmith's rich, percussive score. Beyond that, I just wanted it all to be real. I lived in Mt. Waverley, Melbourne, Australia, for Chrissakes, we never got anything like ape action there.

As much as it now pains me to say it, I loved Roddy McDowell as 'Ceasar'.  Little did I know that Roddy would one day be very rude to me at a Fangoria convention. I forgive him for that now (today!) because there's no benefit holding a grudge for over twenty-two years, is there? But, yes, you were a cunt to a young fan, Roddy, but that's OK because I loved you as a giant chimp.

 Roddy prepares to give me an earful of bile at a Fangoria convention.

Pal, you were great in Class of 1984, too, and you were decent in The Fantastic Journey TV show, and very good in It, that Golem rip-off. For what it's worth to you in the ground wherever that may be, my mum liked you in the original Lassie. If you'd been rude to her, she wouldn't have been as forgiving as me. Clearly Lassie's brutal journey home to Elizabeth Taylor wasn't too far-fetched for the woman I called  "mum" (and variations of when she wasn't listening).

 

  
If only my little hometown of Mt. Waverley had hosted "awesome spectacles" like simian rampages.

The best we got was a puppet show in the Safeway parking lot.

Like most people, I'd like to forget Tim Burton's attempt to do an Apes film. Let's pretend it never happened. I'm sure Mark Wahlberg is fine with that.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes made this Apes fan very happy. It is a remake of Conquest, but it's very much its own movie, and it takes the themes presented in Conquest and develops them in imaginative ways. The best thing is its script. It's encouraging when a studio (Fox) allows a Summer film to have intelligence. Although the trailer makes it look like The Bourne Identity with hairy paws, it's far from that.

Almost three-quarters of the movie is focused on one ape, 'Ceasar' (Andy Serkis), and his development as a thinking, distrustful, intelligent being with the capacity to rule. His growth and maturity process is extremely well handled, and never does the film become a display of dazzling special effects (like a certain Michael Bay franchise). The effects work, by Weta Digital,  is beyond dazzling for its realism, but the story and characters always come first, and much emotion is derived from Ceasar's inevitable separation from his human supporter

Just as Ceasar embraces his destiny at the conclusion of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I heartily embrace this movie. Now to find the View-master version. That will be ace!

Gold!

***

In the original Planet of the Apes, the intelligent orangutan, 'Dr. Zaius', was played by actor Maurice 

Evans. In Rise, the intelligent oranguatan is named Maurice. I like that.

Dawn of the Dead: The Australian Cut

United Artists, the Australian distributor of "Dawn of the Dead" (the US distributor was United Film Distributors; UFD), went with the Italian art, not the iconic American art, to sell George Romero's horror watershed to down under audiences. Trailers saturated the radio and TV waves. Ad mats that made no excuses about what they were selling crowded newspaper entertainment sections. It was an enthusiastic, optismistic campaign from UA.

Unfortunately, the film that was released in Australia bore few similarities to the American or Dario Argento's Italian cut of the film. "Cut"is the only way to describe the abortion that played Ozzie drive-ins and a single, city hardtop (The Palace).

My first exposure to "Dawn" (as it came to be known) was the famous, gory still of the head being blown off that appeared in Fangoria magazine's premier issue. It was raw and violent and it said "Fuck you!" to the establishment. It also indicated a new, explicit direction for on-screen horror, a direction horror fans like my brother and myself were aching to embrace.

To us, George Romero -- the director of "Night of the Living Dead" and Martin" -- was a type of god, an independent filmmaker who was definitely marching to the beat of his own drum.

So, what was missing from the Australian cut of "Dawn"?

* The exploding head

* The basement zombies enthusiastically ripping into flesh

* The helicopter zombie getting the top of his head lopped off

* Tom Savini burying a machete in a zombie's head after saying: "Say goodbye, creep!"

* "Flyboy" being attacked and bitten in the elevator

* Zombies ripping intestines from a biker's belly

Shall I go on?

I sat in the mostly empty The Palace theatre on that Thursday afternoon feeling so angry and disappointed that I wanted to, quite literally, kill the Australian censors. I was like Okay, give me their address, I'll go 'round there, I'll take their fuckin' heads off!, I'll teach them to mess with Romero's masterpiece, the Fucks!!!

My hormonal rage was so far off the meter I was on the verge of a massive, adolescent coronary. What an absolute affront to freedom of speech this was -- in a so-called "Free Country", a "Lucky Country", as Australia liked to call itself. Well, I didn't feel one bit lucky as I stormed out of The Palace into the white glare and peak hour traffic of Bourke St. and headed for the train. I felt deflated, disillusioned, confused and disenfranchised.

So I got political. I vented to the newspapers, at three letters a day for two weeks, and I got one printed. They censored my anger and passion and reduced my rant to a few innocuous lines about Australian censorship being "out of touch" with reality. "Out of touch"? I didn't write things like that back in those days. I wrote things like "totally fucked" and "a pack of conservative, bureaucratic cunts with raisins for eyeballs ". Perhaps that's why my message got fogged?


Australia is a great place, but Australian governments of both persuasions have always been a censorious, ignorant bunch. Without being invited, they take a paternalistic role in the population's activities and operate in a state of righteous cluelessness when it comes to emerging technologies and shifts in pop culture. Cable TV was delayed for years because the government couldn't get its bureaucratic act together. R-rated video games are still banned and seen as a threat to beer-drinking, car-driving, child-raising, responsible adults. They even banned Jim Jarmusch's "Dead Man" once because it featured a long shot of a woman giving a blowjob to a cowboy holding a pistol. It doesn't surprise me at all that they are currently attempting to collectively censor "offensive" web content -- not specific websites, mind you, but "offensive content" in general. They're trying to force ISP's to apply a draconian filter to all streams going out to users. It's about as practical as stamping out sarcasm, the common cold, "subversive thoughts" and Terrorism. Now, nobody would assume they could do that, would they?

I finally saw the uncut "Dawn of the Dead" on a double bill with Romero's "Knightriders" at the Northgate cinema in Detroit. It was everything I dreamed it would be. And more.

Eventually, the film was released uncut on VHS in Australia, signaling a surprise shift in attitudes.

Not long after "Dawn" played at The Palace on Bourke St. the theatre became The Metro nightclub. The club was an instant success and attracted more patrons in one night than "Dawn" attracted in its two week run. Horror has never gotten much respect Down Under.