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aka The Offspring
Directed by Jeff Burr
Review by Molly Celaschi
Vincent Price plays a librarian whose niece is executed for a string of murders. When a journalist comes to investigate, he tells her stories of the haunted town of Oldfield and its connection to the murders. Each of the 4 stories appear in their own clever segments featuring brave social commentary, but unfortunately the implausible wraparound story fizzles out at the end.
[Editor's Note: I am banning the word "social commentary" from HYB from now on!]
The first segment involves a lonely dorky man named Stanley, played by Clu Gulager (FEAST, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) looking like Truman Capote, who has to care for his sickly sister (Miriam Byrd, STEPFATHER II) and harbors an unhealthy obsession with his co-worker Grace. After making a failed pass at her during a friendly date, he murders her and has sex with her corpse. Problems arise when he murders his annoying sister and his unborn corpse baby returns for some Daddy love. I think this segment has the best lesson as a clever riff on the unpaid child support problem. That even if this man kills (metaphorically or not) the woman he slept with and left, he still must face the consequences of his actions by supporting the baby.
But what is strange about this segment is the unlikelihood that Grace would ever have accepted his date proposal in the first place. She couldn’t stand him and he acted like a stalker, so why would she go out to eat with him? Then when he attacks her kissing, groping, and near strangling her, she calmly pauses, and says, “Take me home before you embarrass yourself more.” WTF? How about screaming? So of course, he kills her right after that. There is a disturbing scene worth mentioning though. Stanley is giving his sister an ice bath to lower her temperature. Besides the incestuous implications and the fact that the actors are pushing 60, he murders her as she screams that she loves him.
The second segment features con man Jesse, played by Terry Kiser (Bernie in WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S I & II) who is on the run from other cons, gets shot, and a black voodoo priest saves him. When Jesse figures out that the black man is really over 200 years old and knows the secret to eternal life, he kills him. Only the black man comes back and the irony is that Jesse was already given the magic potion to live forever. So the black man gets his revenge on Jesse who is forced to continue living no matter what happens to his body….
This was my favorite of the shorts as it had the most screwed up ending possible. The shot of him in the “bag” and later in the hospital still “living” was pretty sick and I loved it. This also symbolized the rape of the Africans during slavery. The voodoo priest began his eternal life during slavery and gets his revenge while stating, “You tried to kill me for something you already had.” Beautiful.
The third segment is about a circus freak named Steven that can eat glass and metal without harming his body. Steven is forced to live this lifestyle by the black magic used on him by the black voodoo priestess circus owner played by Rosalind Cash (DEATH SPA, TALES FROM THE HOOD). When he falls in love with Amaryllis (What a mouth full) and flees from the circus, the circus owner exacts her revenge by making the razor blades and such, cut him from the inside out. Then she adds a new freak show to her circus.
This had the worst acting and the funniest lines like, “You don’t own my emotions. I am a glass eater! A circus freak!” It also features the best gore scene of the bunch when the razor blades slide up the length of Steven’s body from the inside, cut him open, and his hotel room is covered with a shower of blood. The final “human pin cushion” image is creepy as well.
The fourth segment has 3 Civil War soldiers returning home after the war has ended and falling prey to young children with guns in an almost deserted town. The moral to this is the effects of war on children. They are left alone physically injured and their parents were killed. They even teach the adults to respect one another even as they are being offered up as sacrifices. The children’s war chant is, “A time to kill, a time for hating, the magistrate is no better than a beast.” When the final soldier is set to die, he says, “the war is over” but the obvious effects on the children are not. And there is one nasty little scene where one of the soldiers convinces a little girl that he will be her new father, kisses her on the lips (gross), and snaps her neck.
I think I should also mention that 3 of the 4 segments featured slavery and questionable situations with black people. Even the Northern soldiers in the 4th part (obviously invading the South to free the slaves) were perceived as evil. I am not even going to debate this; I just thought it was somewhat humorous. Overall, the segments deal with some pretty adult themes like necrophilia, child abuse, incest, and slavery without being sleazy or gratuitous. Director Burr also helmed TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACE III, PUPPET MASTER 4 & 5, STEPFATHER II, PUMPKINHEAD II, and more. Seemingly a director only noted for carrying on series he never started himself, he has orchestrated the best horror anthology I have seen to date.
Released by MGM Entertainment and clocks in at 100min. The sound was spotty in a couple segments and lame background music was present too. The production values were pretty good, but there was obvious stock footage used during the Civil War segment.
DVD Extras: Just the original trailer. Language/ Subtitles available in English, Spanish, and French. Oui, oui.
Bottom Line: Best horror anthology to date with a great supporting cast adding to the well written shorts. Highly recommended.
Rating: 9/10
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