Inspired by a recent reading choice, I returned to another horror novel I had read that deals with mid-20th century exploitation filmmaking, which seems like a ripe setting for a horror story.
From rock musician Greg Kihn came his '97 debut.
Hollywood, 1996. When Monster Magazine reporter Clint Stockbern sets out to interview the legendary '50s horror movie director Landis Woodley, he uncovers a bizarre story of real-life horror.
Flashback to Hollywood, 1957. Woodley is shooting his latest zombie movie, Cadaver, in a real morgue when he has a brainstorm that will help him pinch some pennies. But when zombie make-up effects are replaced by real corpses, a deadly curse begins to take its toll on those foolish enough to become involved with the filming of the soon-to-be cult classic, Cadaver.
Landis Woodley was a once "legendary" horror film-maker responsible for such no budget Grade Z drive-in schlock like
I Married A Vampire,
Blood Ghouls Of Malibu,
Attack Of The Haunted Saucer ("The worst movie of all time" -
The New Yorker),
The Mummy's Brain,
Slave To The Sadist,
Satan's Daughter,
Hot Rod Monster,
Snuff Addict (did it contain a real murder?),
Big Rock Beat (a flop) and late entry
Cold Flesh Eaters ("rarely seen"). The controversial aftermath after the release of
Cadaver sent his career even further downward, reduced to making "skin flicks, peep-show loops, and worse" before finally quitting. He's not made a movie in decades and now festers in his decrepit Hollywood Hills house with just his pet bats and a couple of owls for company. Everyone has forgotten about him, except horror nerd Clint Stockbern. Stockbern has managed to interview most of his heroes, but he views Woodley as a challenge, especially as the grizzled geezer won't talk until Clint pays him $600 from his own pocket.
Woodley begins to talk about his salad days, he and his cast and crew of regulars, a collection of has-beens, never-weres, never-will-bes, movie biz fringe dwellers, the blacklisted and so on. These included his co-conspirator, special effects man and fellow alcoholic Buzzy Haller. Screenwriter Neil Bugmuir, the cross-dressing ex-Marine who dreamed up the original script for the notorious
Cadaver. The two biggest actors in his stable: Jonathon Luboff, once a handsome matinee idol, now a heroin addict slumming for decades in moronic creature-features and Tad Kingston, a 30ish failed rock 'n roller turned "teen" matinee idol with no discernible acting ability but he has "movie star quality" hair.
They were both going nowhere fast. One a dying shooting star, on it's last crash through the atmosphere, destined to burn out long before it hit the ground, and the other a cheap skyrocket, hopelessly trying to compete with real celestial bodies.
Woodley is a hustler with ambitions, to show those studio fatcats what a guy with no budget whose movies still pack the kids into the drive-ins and movie houses can do.
Cadaver he feels is the shocker that will make people stand up and take notice of him.
"What about an ending?" Neil asked.
Landis smiled. Leaning back in his chair, he said. "Don't need one. There is no ending. The cadavers win. No explanation, no nothing. They win, period."
"Bleak. Fatalistic," Neil droned. "Horror show noir."
"Uh-huh," Landis concluded. "Just like life."
Best of all, Wooley finally comes clean to Clint about the
Cadaver shoot in the LA County Morgue after hours. It was Buzzy who figured how to open the morgue drawers while no attendants were around. Removing a particularly gamey corpse, he worked it like a marionette. Never again would Landis Woodley get to shoot such horrifying footage. He still has a reel of out-takes. He still has a copy of all the material dropped at the censor's insistence. Then there was all of the unpleasantness that followed the making of the movie, including the rumors of a curse on the cast and crew...
There came the sequel,
Big Rock Beat.
1967: After having been out of the directing business for awhile, a badly aged Woodley, forced to make a living writing up short stories for men's magazines and cheap private eye novels has been hired for a directing gig by his old producer Sol Kravitz. It's a dubious low-budget beach rock musical funded by a group of investors headed up by a sleazy record producer. Beach bunnies, racing cars, drugs, monsters and musical acts provided by the producer's record label. True, you couldn't shoot a TV show episode on the budget laid out for this movie which mostly exists as a showcase for the label's acts, but if anyone knows how to stretch a dollar, it's Woodley. He rounds up who is left of his old crew and gets to working.
A few kinks work their way into the production, such as Woodley's cousin Beau and his band getting swept up into it, or the producers ending up making a deal for funding with a Mexican gangster called "El Diabolo" who insists on putting his sinister nephew in charge - who in turn insists on details like a custom car's inclusion in the movie, a odd looking vehicle supposedly rebuilt from James Dean's death car...
