Wild and Wonderful Horror: Chillers

One of the joys of going to a video store back in the day -- something today's kids don't get to experience -- is just wandering around the genre of your choice, taking in all of the covers, looking at the back of the tapes for more pictures and descriptions and whatever ravings a critic (known or invented) gave that movie. You were sometimes tricked into renting a movie that was never heard of, not even by the people who were involved in making it.

Sometimes you could get input from another customer or clerk; if they steered you towards a shit movie, you never knew whether to question their taste or if they were being an asshole. It was all fun, though, the video store, hunting for movies to rent. When video stores introduced the 5 for 5 deal, chances are you were renting more shit than good stuff, but sometimes a dud or B-Movie would leave you with something entertaining to remember it by.

Most times with B-list horror movies, they were never scary. For those movies, I think you really had to watch them at a certain age for there to be any scare factor going on. When I was a kid, I was creeped out by Dr. Giggles. Dr. fucking Giggles! Despite the fact that it's tongue-in-cheek and a very stupid movie, some bits stayed with me, and I can still feel a little heeby-jeeby at the memory when I watch the movie now. That's the way it is with several horror movies, especially the subpar B-ones or direct-to-videos, and that's the way I feel about today's entry, 1988's Chillers.

It doesn't take a film major to realize that Chillers isn't cinematic gold...or even just cinematic. It has the production value of your local dentist's TV ad; the acting ranges from "tolerable" to "wow, way to make porn stars look like Royal Shakespeare Company members;" the plot is thinner than toilet paper. But when I saw this movie as a kid, a couple of things must have spooked me out enough to remember it all these years later. I find when there's a movie that bothered you as a kid, what festers in your memory is always more disturbing than what the movie is actually like when you get around to rewatching it. You're like "Really? THAT is what gave me the willies? I thought it was played scarier than that. I didn't remember the actor being such a goddamn hambone with cheese."

Chillers is a movie shot in West Virginia, by a West Virginian writer-director and featuring folks from West Virginia regional theater. This has to be a horror first. And not only that, but it's obviously a MOVIE first that this is a movie taking place in WV and about WV with people from WV that's NOT about barefoot, inbred, hillbilly cannibals! So, let's applaud the movie for that alone! It takes creativity and restraint to accomplish that. (This movie is probably also the only movie in history to feature the fast food joint Rax, a regional place that had cheeseburgers so good that you knew it had to be made out of Soylent Green.)

Chiller is an attempt at a Twilight Zone-y series of vignettes -- a group of five travelers, waiting at a bus terminal on a stormy night, share with one another the strange dreams they've had within the previous night. They try to one-up each other in terms of fucked-up'ness of their dreams, and each dream sequence has a Twilight Zone-y twist or surprise to them. Sound interesting? Don't get excited -- the box art ruins what ends up being the movie's biggest twist.

The first dreamer to share her story is Lindsey, who looks like the illegitimate daughter of Meg Foster and Martha Plimpton. She's a failed swimmer who begins getting coached by a mysterious diver named Billy Waters (no foolin'), who looks like the illegitimate son of David Rasche and Necros from the James Bond film The Living Daylights. She begins a romance with Billy, and one day sees him dive into the pool and never come up. She gets the lifeguard, and both hop into the pool, not making much of an effort to search, sticking to the same spot despite the fact his disastrous dive occurred from the other side of the damn pool. They give up their lazy search and later talk to the manager, who thinks Lindsey is crazy or "up to some sorority trick," because he reveals that Billy Waters...DIED FIVE YEARS AGO. Did you get the Chillers? Probably not, because this is the most underwhelming segment of the movie.

From that moment on, Lindsey's dream turns into being chased around the indoor pool by a zombiefied Billy and other random dead swimmers. This entire segment takes place at this indoor pool, thrillingly. The undead water enthusiasts eventually corner Lindsey in the shower and she wakes up with a case of the Chillers. As Lindsey was asleep and dreaming this nightmare at the movie's start, she doesn't actually get to tell the others what her nightmare was. Which is a good thing -- comedian Daniel Tosh has a bit about when you tell a friend a dream you had, only to realize halfway through the story how stupid you sound. (He used a harsher, more un-PC word than "stupid.") Lindsey would have REALLY been tasting that right about now, had she told the other travelers.

As they all attempt to calm Lindsey, admitting that they've each had terrible nightmares within the last couple of days, Mason, the lone kid of the group, is the first to step up and recount his nightmare for the others. Mason, who looks like Waldo from those Van Halen videos, dreamt about going camping with his Scout Master and two other kids. Right away, something seems off, because...there are only three kids in this troop? It's a three member troop, and they don't even have uniforms! They're just in grey sweats, with a cheap sticker on their upper arm. Yeah, this is a totally legit organization here. This ain't a real troop and this guy ain't a Scout Master, and poison ivy or shittin' in the woods ain't the only things the trio should be worried about. I'm not saying these three are running the risk of getting Canteen Boy'd, but that's exactly what I'm saying.

No, the Scout Master is a seemingly normal guy, just enjoying nature with his three member troop. They're setting up camp, and one of the kids goes to fetch firewood when he comes across a mental case who thinks they're invading his territory. The mental case returns to camp with the kid, where he beats up the Scout Master and orders them to vacate the premises within an hour. Scout Master Bob is meek and a nerd, but he's filled out the paperwork and has permission to camp here, and he loves nature, dammit, so he's not going to be ordered around by a vagrant nut! He decides to ignore the threats and stay put.

The only scout who's into this camping stuff is Mason, who eventually wakes up to see his two fellow scouts tied up, and the vagrant tied up and hanging, dead. Surprise! Scout Master Bob might not be the pervert you were afraid he was, but he's a nutcase. He spares Mason for being the only one to appreciate camping and nature. Mason eventually attempts to free the other two kids, but is stopped and pursued by a disappointed Bob. He gets close to grabbing Mason during a chase, but falls hand-first into a bear-trap, giving Mason the time to get back to camp, free the others and attempt escape. Their method? They pile into the Scout Master's car. That's right, these kids are actually going to try to drive away...in a forest...at night. If Scout Master Bob isn't going to kill them, their genius decisions are. They see there aren't any keys in the ignition, when Bob pops into view of the driver's side window, having chewed his hand off to escape the bear trap. (He had earlier voiced admiration at wolves for doing so, which was still the least creepiest thing about his whole little endeavor.)

Handless Bob popping up in the window is something that scared me when I saw this when I was a kid. Now it just plays goofily, the actor really just going too over-the-top and not being all that creepy. I think this story would have been improved had the scenario not come across as being so shady from the start; actor Gary Brown's doing a good enough job at making Bob seem just mild-mannered and ordinary, so you CAN see where the surprise was supposed to fit. It would have been great if the movie could have pulled off the shock and reveal that Bob was the one attacking the kids and the real one to fear. But the way it's depicted, you can't help but raise an eyebrow, and even the vagrant nutbar accuses him of being up to no good. When THAT guy finds it weird...

People who have seen this movie tend to think this segment's the best. It had potential that wasn't reached. The two bratty kids are also funny, and there's also a nice shot where Mason's being chased through the dark forest, lit in a blue light. That was the end of Mason's story, and next up is Sharon, with the battiest dream of all...

Sharon, a dead ringer for Ma Walsh from 90210, is a lonely woman who has a crush on the new local anchorman, Tom, whose actor is so nondescript I don't even have a funny comparison to make. Sharon likes to talk to Tom when she's watching him. Sharon is weird. But, wait, what is this -- one night, she actually hears him say something back to her! Instead of being spooked or questioning her sanity, she rejoices. He muttered something about calling him and she whips out the old Yellow Pages, calling the station. Instead of being spooked or questioning his sanity, Tom answers the call. And in what's the most bizarre conversation since the invention of the telephone, she's all "I'm totally normal and I never do this, but I watch you on the TV every single day and I like you and I totally am never forward like this, Mr. News Reporter, but would you like to go out with me, an obviously unstable and weird nobody, sometime...?" And then she slams the phone down without hearing a reply. I'd like to think she realized how dumb she sounded, but I think she might be possessed by a 12 year old and was genuinely afraid of his answer, "Like, OMG, does he still like me even after I was weird like that?"

And then, time passes, and suddenly, someone is at her door. It's the reporter! Sharon prayed to the Bad Romance Novel Gods and was heard! Well, how else did he find her? This was the '80s, before Star 69 and caller ID. He claims he looked her up in the phonebook, although she didn't leave her number. (I guess there's only one Sharon Phillips around? Don't you find, when you look in a phonebook, that no matter how plain or weird a name, there's always like a dozen bastards with the same name? Did he just go around Sarah Connor-ing every Sharon Phillips in southern WV?) He at least acknowledges that he feels crazier for showing up than she probably did for calling. Sometimes, the characters in this movie actually show some logic, which is strange for a cheapy movie like this that doesn't usually care and could get away with just being batshit crazy since it's all a dream, anyway.

Anyway, instead of being spooked or questioning her sanity, she welcomes him in, where they sit around and she literally tells him the sucky, unremarkable journey that is her life. I'm not exaggerating or making a joke there, she's meant to be a dull, depressed loner. Instead of his being spooked or questioning her sanity, the reporter guy is into her. Soon, they're awkwardly making whoopee, and wait, what's this...Tom lifts his head up and is revealed to be a vampire! He swoops in for the kill, and Sharon is the most calm vampire victim of all time. No reaction. But his being a vampire explains why he's NOT put off by her; her imagining hearing him talk to her through the television was an intended suggestion on his part.

We're then introduced to my favorite part of the movie, Tom's daytime guardian, a really foxy, scene-stealing goth-punk chick, who looks like the rebellious, illegitimate goth-punk daughter of Maura Tierney and Stevie Nicks. In her first scene, for no real reason, she kills a pizza boy when she shows up. She slowly drains his blood into a vase, steals the pizza, and is then shown eating her free victory pizza with Tom, which makes Tom the only vampire in movie history that likes pizza. Days pass, and Tom explains to Sharon that he won't turn her into a vampire but just feed on her for a while.

He chose her because she's pathetic, with a "depressing existence," and since he sees her as dead already, he thinks he's doing her a favor by letting her live her final days fulfilling her fantasies. As his assistant blackens out the windows of Sharon's apartment, Tom's begun his vampire nap in a body bag, which the assistant zips up. Body bags instead of coffins always make me think of vampire going on camping trips or something. It's supposed to be cool and different, but...it's a sleeping bag. It makes you picture vampires making blood S'mores and singing some Cure, camping near their Port-a-John, no doubt filled with the black stool that accompanies all of their blood consumption.

We then cut to the assistant doing a weird dance to a weird song, like Violet in Friday 5 or Angela in Night of the Demons, all while Sharon sneakily stakes Tom (with a freaking hairbrush), while he's zipped up in his bodybag. This is a bit disappointing, as it means Goth-Punk the Vampire Babysitter isn't the greatest at her job, no matter how cool or good looking she is while (not) doing it.

Sharon flees the scene of the kill, getting the hell out of her apartment, but surprise! The assistant can apparently teleport and is there to stop her. Just then, a cop shows up asking about the missing pizza boy. He notices the loud music and acts like it's a murder confession or something! "That music's pretty loud. Want to explain it?" And then Sharon takes off out of the building, while the assistant returns to Sharon's apartment. Every cop show I've ever seen, scripted or reality, would have the cop chasing down the person who's leaving the building, rather than the one holing themselves up in one of the building's rooms. This brilliant cop goes after the assistant and we hear a few gunshots, but are never shown or told what the hell's happened.

Meanwhile, Sharon flies home to her sister's, where she's hospitalized for being so weakened by the vampire. While in her hospital bed, Sharon turns to the playing television; the city's local anchorman is retiring, and hands over the newscast to...Tom! I guess that's what happens when you randomly stake a vampire through his sleeping bag. The genius probably staked him in the nards. On a sidenote: isn't it a little lame and stereotypical that the two female characters in this movie have romance-related dreams?

The next one to tell their dream is Ronnie, who looks like the ne'er-do-well brother Bobby Van never wanted anyone to know he had. His dream sequence seems pretty quick and simple. While one day reading the newspaper, he's kind of saddened to read the various tributes family members write for lost loved ones. When he reads of a kid who died, he pounds his fist on the paper, wishing aloud he could do something to help. Suddenly, the kid materializes in his house. In a quick montage, we see Ronnie calling the kid's parents and telling him to pick him up. It's a silent montage, so we don't hear what's being said, and I guess we're not treated to any dialogue because what the fuck is that conversation going to be? There's no logical way to write that. The parents are happy to see the kid, Ronnie is self-satisfied, and goes about his day.

Later on, Ronnie is going through the paper, wanting to try this weird ability again, choosing to use an obituary this time. Judgmental bastard he is, he skips over anybody who died at an older age. He picks out a 22 year old, works his magic, and the dead dude appears before him, just as before. Although the obit says the guy had no family, Ronnie's like "Not my problem!" and sends him on his way, wherever that could be, it's not Ronnie's concern -- he's just wowed by his cool power.

Ronnie eventually goes through a family photo album, coming across a photo of his dead brother, who looks 20 years older than he is. (And nothing like him; the brother's parents must have been Barry Nelson and French Stewart.) Ronnie places his hand on the photo, wishing him to return. He does! And he's actually kind of pissed about it -- he now thinks about having to die and lose people all over again.

Without any time to worry, the 22-year-old Ronnie previously resurrected breaks through the door with a shotgun! Fuck yeah! What's this about? He demands Ronnie resurrect some of his buddies. Turns out this 22 year old isn't some innocent kid Ronnie brought back, but an executed murderer. When the murderer threatens Ronnie's brother, Ronnie quickly grabs the paper and does a reversal of his power, wanting to send the murderer back to where he came from. It works, and the murderer vanishes. And then, shortly afterward...Ronnie vanishes, too! Do you have the Chillers? The reason is because the paper with the murderer's obit was laying on top of Ronnie's photo album -- specifically, a high-school photo of Ronnie, so when he wished the murderer away, he wished himself away, too.

OK, this whole thing was another thing that stuck with me from the first time I saw this movie. On one hand, the power to bring back the dead through obituaries is at least something new in a movie, but the way it's played is kind of goofy. People laugh at it, and it's a weird concept, but it's all in the depiction -- because it's basically just a bit of a reverse Death Note, using supernatural powers to kill (in this case resurrect) a person through their name, and that anime works for some reason. At the risk of sounding like a total wussy, obituaries gave me the willies when I was a kid, so maybe that's why this segment worked on me. And the whole bringing back a killer and then ending up erasing his own existence was unsettling to me. Stop laughing at me! The biggest problem is the way the deceased return looking the way they did on their burial day -- I know this is a dream, and a magic power we're talking about, but I'd like to imagine something more Hellraiser-y, like Uncle Frank rebuilding himself back to life from nothing.

That leaves the last traveler to tell his dream, Conrow, a college professor. Looking like the bastard son of Gabe Kaplan and Geraldo Rivera, Conrow...is the worst actor in this movie. The guy had to be the local pharmacist or something. A banker. He is just...*bad*. His line readings are that -- readings. His delivery is so lifeless, I just tune the guy out, and have to rewind and listen to him again, trying not to fall asleep. And he raises his eyebrows on every word he says. Thanks for saving this guy for last. His dream's too underdeveloped, as if it was shot as an afterthought, for it to be the movie's last story, too.

The newspaper's out-acting this guy!

His dream's about a college course he teaches, about some ancient Mayan spirit that possessed warriors and violently won battles for them, making human sacrifices. He offers his class the incantation that was said to bring forth the spirit. One of his students is fascinated by all of it, and later that night recites the words and ends up possessed. (She looks like if Jean Grey was possessed by a Deadite and not the Phoenix.) She acts very Deadite-lite, kills a couple of people and attacks the class in a scene that wants to be Carrie-like, but comes across like a Freddy's Nightmares dream. Conrow recites a spell that's supposed to exorcise the spirit, but I guess in the tradition of Ash Williams, doesn't recite every single little syllable, no, but he basically said it, yeah, and the entity sticks around just long enough to force the girl to plunge a knife into Conrow's heart.

Lackluster, right? Derivative. Dull. Made worse by Conrow's expert acting ability. Now, after each person told their dream, the kid, Mason, would tell them that it's not scary. "That's not scary!" Which is kind of tricky of the writer, you know? Why would you admit your own attempts at a horror story isn't scary? Why am I watching your supposed horror movie, then? Anyway, the bus then arrives. The entire time the five have been at the station, there's been one dude asleep the entire time, with a newspaper over his face. I didn't mention this, because I can't imagine it coming into play.

The five board their bus, but wait...what is this? The man Ronnie sits next to is his brother! Conrow sits next to that redhead student of his, who was possessed! Lindsey spots across the aisle the zombiefied Billy Waters! Sharon sits next to the Sexy Goth-Punk the Vampire Babysitter! Mason sits next to the crazy forest dweller, and sees his two friends across the aisle! The bus driver turns around, telling his passengers that the next stop is Babylon! The bus's destination sign then switches over to "Hell." Mason flips out and runs out of the bus, frantically, back into the station. He tries to wake up that dude who's been sleeping throughout the whole movie. A bloody stump falls to the man's side. Holy shit, it's crazy Scout Master Bob! Do you have the Chillers yet?

Well, even if you did, the next scene kills 'em. It's Mason, bolting upwards in bed. It was ALL just a dream! The kid was dreaming he had a scary dream and that four other assholes had scary dreams and they told each other their scary dreams, which made his dream so elaborate in that he invented dreams for four other people, and then had to dream them twice for the sake of retelling them! What the fuck did this kid eat before going to bed, and how much acid did he sprinkle onto it?! I think a normal person's mind would explode. Mason breathes a sigh of relief. "Now THAT's scary!" he looks into the camera and says. Not really, Mason, but nice try. Infuriating is what it is. You just wasted our time on bullshit that didn't happen, Waldo.

Would it have been so bad to just have the dreams -- as screwed up as they were, as off the wall bonkers and/or supernatural they seemed -- be the way the characters actually died, and its the spirits of the fives that are meeting up at this bus station? Or that the dreams were premonitions of the crazy ways they're about to die? "It's all a dream" endings just make the entire story a waste of time.

I know I've been poking fun at this movie, but I like it for some reason. I'm not going to pretend like it's a great movie, or some obscure gem, but it has its certain charms and is entertaining. It's cheap and the acting's spotty, but there's at least some thought and creativity going into the stories, unlike those try-hard Syfy movies that are intentionally trying to be cheap and cheesy -- those movies are really just lazy and dumb and pointless wastes. A couple of the story ideas in Chillers ARE interesting (the vampire targeting lonely, depressed people; the Reverse Death Note powers), and needed reworked and to be in a movie with better production values or in a movie that wanted to be more serious. Chillers tries to play it serious and comedic, but the overall cheapness adds more to the comedic vibe -- while there's intentional humor to the script, there's a lot of unintentionally funny stuff, as well. But, hey, Chillers obviously has something going for it for me to have remembered it. Maybe I'm just amused by its being a Wild and Wonderful horror movie, or just the nostalgic attachment from being creeped out by it when I was a kid.

Writer-director Daniel Boyd followed this movie up with Strangest Dreams: Invasion of the Space Preachers, another cheapie B-movie filmed in WV with WV theater actors. It's a sci-fi movie, a riff on cheesy sci-fi movies from the '50s and '60s, and most of the actors from Chillers make an appearance in the movie. (Ronnie actor Jim Wolfe is the lead) This movie has Troma backing, so I assume Boyd had slightly more resources here than with Chillers, because there's more variation in locations and it doesn't have the local dentist ad visuals of Chillers. (I poke fun at Chillers' production value, but it doesn't look all that worse than something like The Evil Dead or El Mariachi, both considered indie classics. Chillers, to me, is really like an '80s Carnival of Souls.) The performances in Strangest Dreams are also a step-up, with the returning actors from Chillers seeming more at ease. It's a funny, amusing piece of silly fun, a movie with a giddy spirit that makes you smile along. You can make it a double feature by buying the two-movie DVD set at Boyd's website.