Schlock. (12A.)
Directed by John Landis. 1973.
Starring John Landis, Saul Kahan, Joseph Piantadosi, Eliza Garrett, Charles Villiers and Eric Allison. 79 mins. Out on Blu-ray from Arrow Video on 15th October.
In the late 70s/ early 80s John Landis was probably second only to Spielberg in the movie brat ratings, turning out The Kentucky Fried Movie, Animal House, The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London and Trading Places, back to back and all before he was 35. KFM, the first script by Airplane writer Jim Abrahams, David and Jerry Zucker, is a film I remember as being hilarious but doubt it stands the test of time and Trading Places I turned off after about half an hour the last time I watched it. But those other three, magnificent.
Before that though, there was a debut film, made when he was 21. We've all been around the block enough times to be wary of the great auteur's low budget debut, which are generally pretentious dirges. That certainly isn't the case with Schlock, is a spoof of monster B-movies. Starring Landis himself in an impressive monkey suit, Schlock is the Missing Link brought back to life and going on a murderous rampage around California. Of all its failings, pretentiousness doesn't get a look in.
The most telling criticism of it comes from Landis himself: “Schlock's a terrible movie but there are some funny things in it and it's charming.” The film is a disorientating mix of the amateurish and the professional. The actors are mostly terrible but some of them are surprisingly effective. It looks like a proper movie even though some of the editing is atrocious. And the monkey suit is an early effort by Rick Baker, who would become one of Hollywood's most celebrated makeup artists with a mere 7 Oscars.
Its problem perhaps is that the film's humour lurches from satirical spoofs to parodies of bad moviemaking, that just looks like bad movie making. There are some funny bits, but also lots of moment where you can't really work out what the point is. (On his commentary Landis will occasionally look back on at his youthful endeavour and be totally perplexed, at a loss to recall why he'd ever thought that would be funny.)
Somewhere on the disc, there is a moment where Landis mentions the idea of how bad his career will have gone if he finds himself talking about Schlock when he's 75. Well he's not quite there yet and the commentary with him and Rick Baker dates back to the early 2000s and film's DVD release, but the knowledge that his career went bad, and went bad quickly, hangs over the disc.
After an American Werewolf, he shot Michael Jackson's Thriller video but during the making of his segment of The Twilight Zone, a horrific helicopter accident led to the death of actor Vic Morrow and two Vietnamese children. He was acquited in the resulting court case, but his career never got back on track. (Though the Three Amigos is really funny.)
There's an interview with a German film crew, shot last year, with Landis looking back over his career which has a certain poignancy and awkwardness: Landis wants to do his usual schtick of going back over Hollywood history, dropping a few names and cracking some jokes but isn't sure of his Teutonic interlocutor and has to occasionally stop to check they got the reference or the joke.
What you see in the extras is that Landis is a man so immersed in the movies, and so enthralled to be part of the movies that perhaps it doesn't matter to him how great what he makes is, as long as he is still in the industry. I always thought The Blues Brother and American Werewolf were beautifully directed but maybe he just got lucky early on in that he was handed some good scripts with great performers, and that the profligate mess that was the filming of The Blues Brothers resulted in enough decent footage to make a great movie from. The Landis we see here is like the Movie Brat equivalent of the 70s showbiz bore joshing with his golf buddies.
Extras.
Audio commentary by writer/director John Landis and makeup artist Rick Baker
New video interview with author and critic Kim Newman
Birth of a Schlock, a 2017 video interview with John Landis
Archival video interview with cinematographer Bob Collins
1972, 1979 and 1982 US theatrical trailers
US radio spots
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys
First pressing only: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Joe Bob Briggs
Directed by John Landis. 1973.
Starring John Landis, Saul Kahan, Joseph Piantadosi, Eliza Garrett, Charles Villiers and Eric Allison. 79 mins. Out on Blu-ray from Arrow Video on 15th October.
In the late 70s/ early 80s John Landis was probably second only to Spielberg in the movie brat ratings, turning out The Kentucky Fried Movie, Animal House, The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London and Trading Places, back to back and all before he was 35. KFM, the first script by Airplane writer Jim Abrahams, David and Jerry Zucker, is a film I remember as being hilarious but doubt it stands the test of time and Trading Places I turned off after about half an hour the last time I watched it. But those other three, magnificent.
Before that though, there was a debut film, made when he was 21. We've all been around the block enough times to be wary of the great auteur's low budget debut, which are generally pretentious dirges. That certainly isn't the case with Schlock, is a spoof of monster B-movies. Starring Landis himself in an impressive monkey suit, Schlock is the Missing Link brought back to life and going on a murderous rampage around California. Of all its failings, pretentiousness doesn't get a look in.
The most telling criticism of it comes from Landis himself: “Schlock's a terrible movie but there are some funny things in it and it's charming.” The film is a disorientating mix of the amateurish and the professional. The actors are mostly terrible but some of them are surprisingly effective. It looks like a proper movie even though some of the editing is atrocious. And the monkey suit is an early effort by Rick Baker, who would become one of Hollywood's most celebrated makeup artists with a mere 7 Oscars.
Its problem perhaps is that the film's humour lurches from satirical spoofs to parodies of bad moviemaking, that just looks like bad movie making. There are some funny bits, but also lots of moment where you can't really work out what the point is. (On his commentary Landis will occasionally look back on at his youthful endeavour and be totally perplexed, at a loss to recall why he'd ever thought that would be funny.)
Somewhere on the disc, there is a moment where Landis mentions the idea of how bad his career will have gone if he finds himself talking about Schlock when he's 75. Well he's not quite there yet and the commentary with him and Rick Baker dates back to the early 2000s and film's DVD release, but the knowledge that his career went bad, and went bad quickly, hangs over the disc.
After an American Werewolf, he shot Michael Jackson's Thriller video but during the making of his segment of The Twilight Zone, a horrific helicopter accident led to the death of actor Vic Morrow and two Vietnamese children. He was acquited in the resulting court case, but his career never got back on track. (Though the Three Amigos is really funny.)
There's an interview with a German film crew, shot last year, with Landis looking back over his career which has a certain poignancy and awkwardness: Landis wants to do his usual schtick of going back over Hollywood history, dropping a few names and cracking some jokes but isn't sure of his Teutonic interlocutor and has to occasionally stop to check they got the reference or the joke.
What you see in the extras is that Landis is a man so immersed in the movies, and so enthralled to be part of the movies that perhaps it doesn't matter to him how great what he makes is, as long as he is still in the industry. I always thought The Blues Brother and American Werewolf were beautifully directed but maybe he just got lucky early on in that he was handed some good scripts with great performers, and that the profligate mess that was the filming of The Blues Brothers resulted in enough decent footage to make a great movie from. The Landis we see here is like the Movie Brat equivalent of the 70s showbiz bore joshing with his golf buddies.
Extras.
Audio commentary by writer/director John Landis and makeup artist Rick Baker
New video interview with author and critic Kim Newman
Birth of a Schlock, a 2017 video interview with John Landis
Archival video interview with cinematographer Bob Collins
1972, 1979 and 1982 US theatrical trailers
US radio spots
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys
First pressing only: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Joe Bob Briggs
