Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 12:03:00 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Cursed Films

Started by SteveDave, February 15, 2021, 11:02:17 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

SteveDave

I watched all of these in a few nights. It wasn't hard as they're 25 minutes long but they're very entertaining and often spin off from the "cursed" nature of the film to explore different facets of the film.

https://www.shudder.com/series/watch/cursed-films/62bd7871627dfc6b

But the last episode is on "Twilight Zone- The Movie"...

I knew the story of what happened but was unprepared to see the helicopter hit the water and basically kill Vic Morrow and those two (non-actor) kids. It was like watching a snuff film. The show features an interview with the production designer who is in tears several times throughout it.

How John Landis was allowed to do anything but apologise for the rest of his life I don't know.

In conclusion- that whole Landis family should be sent into space.

St_Eddie

Quote from: SteveDave on February 15, 2021, 11:02:17 AM
In conclusion- that whole Landis family should be sent into space.

"Last month, John and Max Landis were blasted into space, to spend the rest of their lives aboard a two man prison vessel, posing no further thread to children, actors from the TV series Combat! or young women upon Earth... but it was revealed that two 7 year old Vietnamese children, 91 year old Jack Hogan of Combat! fame, a helicopter and a nubile woman were also placed onboard by mistake and are now trapped alone in space with the monsters.  A spokesman said 'this is the one thing we didn't want to happen'."

Quote from: SteveDave on February 15, 2021, 11:02:17 AM
I watched all of these in a few nights. It wasn't hard as they're 25 minutes long but they're very entertaining and often spin off from the "cursed" nature of the film to explore different facets of the film.

https://www.shudder.com/series/watch/cursed-films/62bd7871627dfc6b

But the last episode is on "Twilight Zone- The Movie"...

I knew the story of what happened but was unprepared to see the helicopter hit the water and basically kill Vic Morrow and those two (non-actor) kids. It was like watching a snuff film. The show features an interview with the production designer who is in tears several times throughout it.

How John Landis was allowed to do anything but apologise for the rest of his life I don't know.

In conclusion- that whole Landis family should be sent into space.

A while back, I went down the internet rabbit hole on this, found details of the court case, how they completely broke all sorts of laws with the two child actors and Landis' behaviour throughout.

Yeah, not sure where I'm going with this. No idea how Landis had any sort of career after that.

Which makes Three Amigos an uncomfortable watch :/

El Unicornio, mang

#3
I'm actually surprised the footage was ever released, it's in full with three different camera angles on YouTube (and was also shown on an episode of Barry Norman's Film 86) and is indeed horrific, the crash itself and also the reaction of the first crew members who go to investigate. If you're working on a film you don't expect to one evening be looking at pieces of a man and two children floating in water.

Landis doesn't come across as the most pleasant individual, I watched a documentary about An American Werewolf in London and Landis has for 30 years had a massive grudge against the FX guy who went "behind his back" to make The Howling (because how dare he use his skills on a film that directly competes with his own), although it seems like a catalogue of errors among Landis and the FX people and others involved with the film. The list of film directors acting recklessly and endangering cast and crew is pretty long, Landis is just the one who didn't get away without killing anyone. De Niro almost died filming The Deer Hunter (also a helicopter thing), Eli Wallach almost had his head cut off filming The Good the Bad and The Ugly due to a badly set up train scene, Friedkin infamously shot the French Connection car chase scene illegally on busy NY streets. You hear them talking in interviews years later and laughing about it, "phew that was close, guerrilla filmmaking!"

I wonder if Jennifer Jason Leigh (Morrow's daughter) and Landis ever crossed paths? It must be strange seeing all these big successful movies released year after year, directed by the man who got your Dad decapitated.

willbo

There's a 70s/80s b movie which has a shot of a stuntman bouncing down a big hill where he supposedly died. I saw it on youtube, but I forget what it was now.


Shit Good Nose

#5
Quote from: willbo on February 24, 2021, 01:02:42 PM
There's a 70s/80s b movie which has a shot of a stuntman bouncing down a big hill where he supposedly died. I saw it on youtube, but I forget what it was now.

You're not thinking of Dar Robinson's death during filming of Million Dollar Mystery are you?  It was captured on film and the footage did turn up on YouTube years ago (before being quickly removed), but it's not included in the actual film.


RE The Exorcist (which is part of the series), I'm not sold on that being cursed, supernaturally anyway.  I subscribe to Max Von Sydow's thoughts on it - the whole production lasted nearly two years and had hundreds of people working on it, so the deaths and "unusual" events linked to a curse were actually just statistically average for that many people over that length of time.  You have to remember that both Friedkin and Blatty had a lot of faith and were basically only slightly lapsed catholics, which should raise immediate red flags when it comes to them agreeing with and furthering the curse theories.

Johnny Textface

On a slight tangent.
The director of this series has been a favorite movie critic of mine for years (Film Junk Podcast) . When this series came out there was an extremely harsh review on a site called "high def digest" - it was so mean it sounded like the director had wronged this guy in some way.  So, they decided to invite him onto the podcast to talk about it critic v critic/director. Quite an interesting situation. He doesn't come across too well but I did feel a bit sorry for him.

https://filmjunk.com/2020/08/26/film-junk-podcast-episode-764-bacurau/
31.45 in if you're interested.

I thought it was a good series and am excited for season 2.

Quote from: A Hat Like That on February 24, 2021, 11:10:03 AM
A while back, I went down the internet rabbit hole on this, found details of the court case, how they completely broke all sorts of laws with the two child actors and Landis' behaviour throughout.

Yeah, not sure where I'm going with this. No idea how Landis had any sort of career after that.

Which makes Three Amigos an uncomfortable watch :/

I try not to think about it, because part of the charm of one of my favourite films (The Blues Brothers) is some of the ridiculous and probably unsafe or borderline illegal things they shot, the success of which probably directly contributed to his cavalier attitude filming The Twilight Zone.

Incidentally, John Landis's greatest crime of all is publicly suggesting that he thinks the long version of The Blues Brothers, which among other things explains that the Bluesmobile is able to fly due to some type of electrical irradiation, is superior to the theatrical cut.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: Pearly-Dewdrops Drops on February 24, 2021, 11:47:12 PM
I try not to think about it, because part of the charm of one of my favourite films (The Blues Brothers) is some of the ridiculous and probably unsafe or borderline illegal things they shot, the success of which probably directly contributed to his cavalier attitude filming The Twilight Zone.

Same here. No one died during the making of The Blues Brothers, but whenever I watch it there's always a nagging voice at the back of my mind: "The man who orchestrated this entertaining slapstick carnage was so irresponsible, he later caused the deaths of three people."

That's not a direct quote from my mind, but you get the gist.

willbo

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on February 24, 2021, 02:15:38 PM
You're not thinking of Dar Robinson's death during filming of Million Dollar Mystery are you?  It was captured on film and the footage did turn up on YouTube years ago (before being quickly removed), but it's not included in the actual film.

I think the movie I'm remembering may have been Sword and Sorcerer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_and_television_accidents#1980s

according to that same link a crew member lost a leg during the making of Landis' Blues Bros 2000

surreal

Poltergeist is also obviously another franchise always mentioned in these kind of discussions.  4 cast members died (Heather O'Rourke, Dominique Dunne, Will Sampson and Julian Beck), and there was the persistent rumour that Spielberg had used real skeletons in the swimming pool scene in the first one.

St_Eddie

Quote from: surreal on February 27, 2021, 01:26:45 PM
...there was the persistent rumour that Spielberg had used real skeletons in the swimming pool scene in the first one, whilst Tobe Hooper sat at the sidelines and watched.

Edited for expansion of details.