7Roulette - BODY BAGS

Anthology movies have always been my jam. Instead of one movie, how about 3 or 4? It also helps that I have a short attention span. Body Bags started out as a series hopeful for the Showtime network to compete with the insane popularity of Tales from the Crypt. Even though we only got a feature out of it, what we did get was pretty damn great! NO ONE can compete with the cool factor of The Crypt Keeper, but horror master John Carpenter hamming it the fuck the up as our "Coroner" and ghoulish host, is beyond excellent. He pops up a lot throughout the feature and I would have gladly taken more.

The first of the three parts, "The Gas Station," is my favorite part. People are so much more vulnerable when working essentially outside in the middle of the night. That's when all of the weirdos come out. Add to it that it's your first night on the job and you don't know who you can trust. Survival instincts kick in and you must fight to save yourself, whether you're ready or not.

Then we have "Hair," part two in the twisted triple threat. Imagine looking at yourself in the mirror every day and feeling like your own reflection will break the glass. But there's someone who can help you. He can make you beautiful again. Unfortunately it's going to come at the greatest price of all.

And finally we see "Eye." Your dreams have come true. You're a well respected professional baseball player on his way home to bang his gorgeous and loving wife when a life changing accident occurs, leaving you without your eye on the ball. But low and behold, there's a specialist who can restore it, or will it be really fixed? Mwah ha ha ha!

Vulnerability seemed to be a theme throughout all three of these. There's a real terror in losing what you value most: your life, your vanity, your dreams. People will do whatever it takes to hold onto it for dear life, even if it means losing it in the end. A

- Babes

To me, one of John Carpenter's greatest strengths has always been his sense of humor. Obviously it would manifest itself in much more abstract ways in his earlier stuff than it did in the mid 80s and beyond, but it wasn't never not there. But beginning with Big Trouble in Little China in '86 the winks and nudges began to share the stage with the thrills and chills, and he never seemed more laid back than he does with 1993's Body Bags - Showtime's failed attempt to compete with Tales From The Crypt that resulted in this Horror Anthology flick (as so many of these attempts often do). The movie features Carpenter as "The Coroner" - the wraparound MC pulling his energy from Beetlejuice, The Crypt Keeper, and every punny TV Horror Host you've ever seen, introducing three segments. 

The first is "The Gas Station", an old-fashioned campfire tale about a madman on the loose and the woman he terrorizes. Directed by Carpenter, its simplicity (and its parade of Horror icons and Carpenter regulars) are what make this otherwise humdrum cliche really very enjoyable. The second installment, entitled "Hair", is also directed by Carpenter and sorta fits in with his typically grim outlook on the fate of humanity; it maintains its small scope, following Stacy Keach as a man who undergoes an experimental hair growth treatment and lands on a very gross and depressing resolution. The last story, directed by Tobe Hooper, is called "Eye", starring Mark Hamill as a totally believable-looking baseball player who loses (wait for it) his eye. Doctors try (wait for it) an experimental procedure and transplant a "donated" eye in its place. Of course, the new eye belonged to a deranged murderer so now Mark becomes one as well. We've all seen this setup a few dozen times but I gotta say the Hooper/Hamill synergy is one of inspired extravagance. 

In summary, there are no "filler" segments as they're all good in different ways - very different; there's nothing cohesive in tone, theme, style, or setting to connect the stories, nor to make them stand out. I love variety but it felt like three different foods from three different menus. B+

- Paul