My Review of Body Bags (1993) (SPOILERS)
If someone approached you in the 1980s or 1990s and asked "will the actor that plays Luke Skywalker ever show his buttocks, scrotum and taint on film" you might have justifiably punched that person in the face. But, then director, Tobe Hooper, convinced Mark Hamil to do a fully nude scene with (inexplicably) famous 1960's British cultural icon, Twiggy, in a stupid made for cable movie. At about the 1:16:56 mark, not only does Twiggy flash the audience (Sharon Stone-Basic Instinct style) but the great Mark Hamil reveals his undercarriage.
Body Bags was originally filmed as three separate episodes for a planned new horror series to air on the Showtime cable network. This was Showtimes attempt to copy the popular HBO series, Tales from the Crypt. Showtime lined up John Carpenter's wife, Sandy King, as the Producer for this prospective new series. Sandy King, then lined up her brilliant husband, John Carpenter to direct the pilot episode, The Gas Station. John Carpeneter was not a fan of anthologies in general but agreed to direct a few episodes when he found out that he was going to play the "Coroner", an over the top Crypt-Keeper-like role. Plus, Sandy King convinced her husband that this project would be quick and easy and something he could do in between larger cinema projects. John Carpenter and Sandy King had many friends in the Horror world and they called in a lot of favors for this series. Cameos by notable Horror icons such as Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Wes Craven, Sam Rami (Evil Dead), Roger Corman and Greg Nicotero were easy to arrange because this series was filmed in Las Angeles. Even actors like Tom Arnold were able to agree to appear for a half hour in between other film projects to shoot a scene as a favor to Sandy King or John Carpenter. Although many years later, John Carpenter was still pissed off that Clive Barker passed on his invitation to make a quick cameo in an episode.
Unfortunately, once the first three episodes were filmed, Showtime wanted to significantly lower the budget of the series and move the filming to Canada. John Carpenter and Sandy King quickly lost interest in continuing the series in Canada and on a reduced budget and the series was ultimately cancelled before the pilot episode aired on Showtime. Showtime packaged the three episodes into a movie and aired the movie sporadically throughout 1993 and 1994.
John Carpenter relished the opportunity to collaborate with Jim Lang on the score for the series and to work with famous Horror make up artist, Rick Baker. Rick Baker modeled the make up for Carpenter's "Coroner" on Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera. It took Baker three hours a day to apply the elaborate make up to Carpenter. But once the male up was on, John Carpenter had a blast playing the character and admits that his portrayal of the "Coroner" was nothing more than a blatant Beetleguise imitation.
All in all, this was not a very innovative film. It was very derivative of Tales from the Crypt and Creepshow. Was Marvel Films the first production company that realized that you don't have to film a comic book style movie in repetitive single frame close up shots? Nearly every shot in this film was framed like a comic book panel and that leads to a small scope and cheapens the overall look.
The last two episodes, Hair and The Eye, were so unremarkable that I don't really have much to say about either one. Both of these stories seemed like they had already been done before in better movies or television series.
The first episode, The Gas Station, had some interesting moments:
*This episode was set in the fictional town of Haddenfield, home of Michael Myers and setting for Halloween. In fact, there are several references made in this episode to an escaped mental patient killing people in Haddenfield. John Carpenter winks at the audience by having the maniac in this episode perform a Michael Myers style sudden sit up after we think the heroine has killed him outside of the gas station booth.
*The episode, The Gas Station, was filmed in the desolate Mojave desert so that John Carpenter could escape all of the ambient light of the cities. John Carpenter had his crew wet down the ground with hoses in between every shot so that the light from the gas station would reflect up from the ground. This effect caused the gas station to shimmer in the otherwise pitch black background adding to the intended atmosphere of isolation.
* I kind of enjoyed the early pacing of the film. The audience is made aware early on from the news broadcasts that there is a maniac on the loose. The damsel in distress is left all alone in the dark and strange characters keep approaching her. Any one of these characters could be the maniac. This slow burn of tension was masterly handled by John Carpenter.
*Even this moderately well done episode was not without its problems though. If the maniac killed Sam Rami's character, Tim the real gas station attendant, and then donned his uniform shortly before our heroine arrives for her shift, how did he know the phone number for the repair garage?
