#That 70s slasher

[kafkalegacy]

[escapismthroughfilm]

⋆˚｡⋆ ⋆˚｡⋆⋆˚｡⋆ ⋆Carrie (1976) dir. Brian De Palma⋆˚｡⋆ ⋆˚｡⋆⋆˚｡⋆

[the-watcher-in-the-sky]

[roadkilledsusie]

Imagine talking shit about me and I'm just a sweet transvestite from transsexual transylvania

[bl00dfroma-fairy]

[legallybrunettedotcom]

i'm having a 70s/80s horror summer I youtube link

[janesprescription]

him and that fuck ass accent

[film-head]

Halloween (1978)

[slashericons]

Jess Bradford — Black Christmas (1974)

[acinematicworld]

Behind the scenes of Halloween (1978)

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

𝔍𝔞𝔭𝔞𝔫𝔢𝔰𝔢 𝔥𝔬𝔯𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔪𝔬𝔳𝔦𝔢 𝔭𝔬𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔰

[lunatiksart]

Leatherface Throne of bones design. The idea being this is what leatherface maybe fantasizes about, having his own throne in his household.

[ladamarossa]

Coda (1987)

[clandestinewhore]

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚂𝚊𝚠𝚢𝚎𝚛 𝙵𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚢

𝙽𝚎𝚠𝚝, 𝚃𝚎𝚡𝚊𝚜 𝟷𝟿𝟽𝟹

[the-watcher-in-the-sky]

[oneinathousand]

I recently got the 1995 book Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and Horror Cinema by Mark A. Miller and decided to put together some of my favorite quotes. I bought the first edition because it was cheaper, but the second edition had some revisions and expansions, what exactly was different I don't know (I'm sure it addressed Lee's big explosion in popularity in the early 2000's among other things), but there's still lots and lots of interesting material in here; plus, to my surprise the copy I got was signed by the author himself back in 1995, so that's pretty cool.

Anyway, here's some quotes for ya:

These first two quotes are Vincent Price talking about Lee and Cushing which I thought were absolutely darling. Here's the one about Lee:

Everybody told me that he was rather stiff and unbending and not very funny. Well, we screamed with laughter from the minute we shook hands until now. We get along just like mad... write each other rude notes and funny letters and telegrams and postcards and, you know, anything we can find that we know will tickle one another. He's one of the few actors in my life that I have stayed in touch with, strangely enough. If you get him on a subject that he likes, he's very warm and vibrant. I think he's got a wonderful sense of humor, but I don't think everybody knows how to get at it. For some reason or other we strike each other as funny, and it's wonderful fun to be with him.

Here's him about Cushing:

He's nothing like Christopher Lee because Peter's a very wiry, little fellow. But Peter is one of the strongest men I ever knew in my life. I had to do several fight scenes with him [in Madhouse]. My God! He can throw you! He doesn't fake it at all. Nobody warned me about this, and I was sort of battered and bruised. He's a very realistic and very serious-minded actor. I like Peter very much, and I hear from him always at Christmas. On our birthdays we send each other the funniest cards we can find too. He's a very gentle, sweet man. I am very, very fond of him.

Cushing was, in fact, not a little man, but of course Price would have seen him as one from his perspective lol... The part about Cushing apparently being incredibly strong is pretty wild considering Price was referring to him during the making of Madhouse, when he had spent the last 2-ish years losing a lot of weight, smoked like a chimney (the book mentions at one point that he could smoke up to 50-60 cigarettes a day before he quit), was a vegetarian, and was in his early 60's. If he was strong enough to toss Price's tall ass around like a rag doll then (which is a very funny mental image), how strong was he during his prime???

Here's a description of the Lee family cheering up Cushing for the holidays during the making of Horror Express:

He faced his first Christmas without Helen and in a country that was not even his own. Luckily he found solace on Christmas Day in the warm family gathering of the Lees in their Madrid hotel. Gitte and Christina had flown over for the holiday, and they invited Peter to spend the day with them. This was the fourteenth film in which they had both acted since The Curse of Frankenstein fifteen years before, and one that offered them many great scenes together. But their best scene together was the one in that Madrid hotel on Christmas in which Peter Cushing received the emotional support he needed so desperately. The next morning Cushing was back at the studio, cheerfully ready for work.

So sweet... For anyone wondering, this book did not mention anything about Lee supposedly comforting Cushing with his presence in case the latter ever had any night terrors while making Horror Express. I'm starting to think that story might be made up! Maybe it was mentioned in the second edition, or maybe it was mentioned in one of the interviews or whatever that Miller used for researching this book. My search for a primary or secondary source continues.

Here's actress Lorna Heilbron about Cushing and Lee during the making of The Creeping Flesh:

Peter Cushing is a brilliant actor I think. I was, of course, playing his daughter, and Peter had quite recently lost his wife Helen and was grieving for her and was very open about this. He related to me as a father and was tremendously caring and supportive, especially as he felt that I resembled Helen, so we had a rather intense relationship where I felt he really "lived" his part in the film. He came the first day on the set with his script covered, literally covered, with notes he had written about what he felt his character would do or be feeling at any particular time. He also knew down to the last detail what props he would require and had obviously chosen his costumes with immense care. Within all this careful forethought he was very flexible so that if an actor gave him something unexpected, he would respond to this and was willing to go with what was happening "now". He was charming, courteous, and clever and was dearly liked and admired by everyone. At that time he was, as I said, feeling very sad and so was clearly very vulnerable. He would take himself on his own to have a bit of a wander and, I suspect, a jolly good cry. I adored him. I didn't get to know Christopher Lee so well, mostly because I didn't actually have many scenes with him and partly because he kept "himself to himself" as we say over here. I remember he had a most wonderful singing voice, of which he was justly proud, and which would go ringing round the corridors of Shepperton. The crew called him "Rabbity Lee" because he loved to talk, which he did very amusingly and at some length. I have often felt he was a much better actor than some of his material. He and Peter seemed close and distant at the same time. They probably didn't have that much in common apart from a very strong symbiotic working relationship.

Rabbity Lee… 🥲

Next is Price, Lee, and Cushing's opinions on House of the Long Shadows, which I feel each perfectly encapsulate their personalities.

Vincent Price spoke bitterly about the film in 1991: "A disaster - because the man, whoever - I can't even remember his name; psychosomatically I've forgotten it - the guy who directed it and the [editor] who cut it... they just cut all the comedy out of it... I hated it. Desi Arnaz, who was very good in it - they just turned it all over to him so that you never had the four people you wanted to see ever doing anything at all. That was that stupid director." When asked in 1992 if he agreed with Price that the film constituted a missed opportunity for the all-star team-up, Christopher Lee quickly responded: "I do, without a doubt. He was absolutely right. It's the old, old story: get it on film, finish it in time and on budget, and if it's in focus, we can sell it." Asked also of his memories of Pete Walker directing him, Lee replied simply, "He didn't." Peter Cushing's only complaint is that he suffered from bronchitis while making the film in a cold, damp, seventeenth-century manor house in Hampshire that had no heat. Because he found working with Lee, Price, and Carradine to be "a joy," Cushing summed up the film as "lovely to do."

Speaking of House of the Long Shadows, I wanted to bring up one particular criticism Mark A. Miller had of the movie to be very ironic if you've been in the fandom for this era of horror whatsoever on Tumblr. Miller absolutely hated the iconic "bitch" line from Price, saying of it:

Instead of the good-natured, funny lines that work so well in horror send-ups like The Raven, A Comedy of Terrors, and Young Frankenstein, in this film we only hear Price's character call Lee's a "bitch" - the embarrassing epitome of the script's nasty, witless spirit. After Price's line, the film seems more like a cruel practical joke on the venerable cast than an amusing parody of their images.

I agree with many of Miller's takes throughout the book, but definitely not all of them, and this is a case of that. That line's the best part of the movie! It's Vincent Price saying "bitch" in cursive, it's so delicious! Did Miller hate fun? I can't ask him because he's dead. What if the line was an ad-lib from Price, huh? If Miller knew how popular that moment is on this website, he'd probably be baffled, lol.