#brendan faulkner

[schlock-luster-video]

On January 15, 1987 Spookies debuted in Singapore.

[panneshirley]

every movie I watched in 2024:

Spookies dir. Brendan Faulkner, Thomas Doran, & Eugene Joseph, 1986

[brokehorrorfan]

Doctor Butcher M.D. / Zombie Holocaust will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on November 28 via Severin Films. The four-disc set includes both the original 1980 Italian cut and the 1982 US re-edit.

Marino Girolami directs from a script by Romano Scandariato (Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals). Ian McCulloch, Alexandra Delli Colli, Sherry Buchanan, Peter O'Neal, and Donald O'Brien star.

Both cuts have been scanned in 4K from original vault elements and are presented with Dolby Vision/HDR. It includes a slipcover (pictured below) and reversible artwork. Special features are listed below.

Disc 1 - 4K UHD:

Doctor Butcher M.D.

Theatrical trailer

Video trailer

TV spot

Disc 2 - 4K UHD:

Zombie Holocaust

Trailer

Disc 3 - Blu-ray:

Doctor Butcher M.D.

Interview with editor Jim Markovic

Interview with Aquarius Releasing's Terry Levene

Interview with Gore Gazette editor and Butcher Mobile barker Rick Sullivan

The Four Boroughs of Blood – Rue Morgue's Michael Gingold tours New York locations of Italian horror

Down on the Deuce – 42nd street tour with Temple of Shock's Chris Poggiali and filmmaker Roy Frumkes

Tales That Tore Our Heart Out – Filmmakers Frank Farel and Brendan Faulkner discuss unfinished anthology film

Roy Frumkes' segment from unfinished anthology Tales That Tore Our Heart Out with director commentary

Experiments with a Male Caucasian Brain - Visual essay by Gary Hertz

Theatrical trailer

Video trailer

TV spot

Disc 4 - Blu-ray:

Zombie Holocaust

Interview with actor Ian McCulloch

Interview with actress Sherry Buchanan

Interview with special effects artist Rosario Prestopino

Interview with special effects artist Maurizio Trani

Filmmaker Enzo G. Castellari Remembers His Father, Director Marino Girolami

New York Filming Locations: 1980 & 2015

Ian McCulloch Sings "Down By The River"

Trailer

A local Hospital in New York is plagued by missing body parts. It turns out that one of the Hospital's male nurses is a member of a Cannibal cult which is also connected to a series of gruesome murders. Dr.Chandler, together with his beautiful anthropologist assistant Lori Ridgeway, are sent for an expedition to the remote island called Kito to investigate the mysterious case further on.

Pre-order Doctor Butcher M.D. / Zombie Holocaust.

[chaoticdesertdweller]

Spookies, 1986

Dir. Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran

[docrotten]

SPOOKIES (1986) – Episode 257 – Decades Of Horror 1980s

“We almost got our tuchus plunged!” Almost? Shoot, that would’ve made a perfect scene to go with the farting Muck Men. Join your faithful Grue Crew – Crystal Cleveland, Chad Hunt, Bill Mulligan, and Jeff Mohr – as they discuss Spookies (1986)! Wait. Why haven’t we seen this before?

Decades of Horror 1980s Episode 257 – Spookies (1986)

Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! Click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine

Gruesome Magazine is partnering with the WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL (https://wickedhorrortv.com/) which now includes video episodes of Decades of Horror 1980s and is available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, and its online website across all OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop.

(It was going to be) A group of teens go to an abandoned house to party and do battle with spirits and creatures they accidentally release from a strange Ouija board. (Instead, it became) A wicked sorcerer tries to sacrifice a group of people inside his house to use their vitality to keep his wife alive.

  Directed by: Thomas Doran & Brendan Faulkner (footage from Twisted Souls); Genie Joseph (as Eugenie Joseph);

Writing Credits: Thomas Doran, Frank M. Farel, & Brendan Faulkner (Twisted Souls footage screenplay); Ann Burgund (additional material) (credited as Joseph Burgund)

Produced by:

Thomas Doran, Frank M. Farel, Brendan Faulkner (producers) (unfinished film Twisted Souls)

Genie Joseph (producer) (credited as Eugenie Joseph)

Michael Lee (executive producer: Miggles Corporation)

Makeup Department:

Jennifer Aspinall (makeup artist/special makeup effects) (credited as Jennifer Aspinal)

Gabriel Bartalos (special makeup effects)

Arnold Gargiulo (special makeup effects) (credited as Arnold Gargiulo II)

Vincent J. Guastini (special makeup effects) (credited as Vincent Guastini)

Nick Santeramo (assistant makeup effects)

Nancy Tong (makeup artist) (credited as Nanxy Tong)

John Dods (prosthetic makeup artist) (uncredited)

Special Effects by:

Ken Brilliant (animation model construction)

John Dods (creator: additional effects/special creature design and animation)

Ken Walker (animation model construction)

John Mathews (creature effects assistant) (uncredited)

Visual Effects by:

Al Magliochetti (special effects photography)

Larry Revene (special effects photography)

Selected Cast:

Peter Dain as Peter

Kim Merrill as Meegan

Nick Gionta as Duke

Joan Ellen Delaney as Linda

Charlotte Alexandra as Adrienne (credited as Charlotte Seeley)

Anthony Valbiro as Dave

Lisa Friede as Carol

Al Magliochetti as Lewis Wilson

Peter Iasillo Jr. as Rich

Soo Paek as The Spider Woman

James M. Glenn as The Grim Reaper

Gabriel Bartalos as Muck Man

Peter Delynn as Muck Man

John Beatty as Muck Man

Robert Epstein as Graveyard Zombie

Felix Ward as Kreon

Maria Pechukas as Isabelle

Dan Scott as Kreon’s Servant

Alec Nemser as Billy

A.J. Lowenthal as Korda/Son of Kreon & Isabelle

Pat Wesley Bryan as Drifter

If Spookies feels like two different movies, it’s because it’s one of those nightmare productions where the “making of” story might be more interesting than the movie itself. Yes, too many cooks spoil the broth and Spookies is solid evidence that too many filmmakers ruin the movie. With production being shanghaied near the beginning of post-production work and half the film reshot, Grue Believers will never know if the original crew’s vision would’ve made a better movie. Throw in some top makeup and effects people early in their careers and the Grue Crew have plenty to fuel their talkabout of this fun, mess of a movie.

At the time of this writing, Spookies is available to stream from Tubi, Shudder, ScreamBox, and AMC+, and on physical media in Blu-ray format in a 2-disc set from Vinegar Syndrome.

Every two weeks, Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1980s podcast will cover another horror film from the 1980s. The next episode’s film chosen by Jeff, will be Just Before Dawn (1981), an underappreciated slasher from co-writer/director Jeff Lieberman (Squirm, 1976; Blue SunshineI, 1977) and starring George Kennedy, Chris Lemmon, Deborah Benson, Greg Henry, and Mike Kellin. 

Please let them know how they��re doing! They want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans – so leave them a message or comment on the Gruesome Magazine Youtube channel, on the Gruesome Magazine website, or email the Decades of Horror 1980s podcast hosts at feedback@gruesomemagazine.com.

Check out this episode!

[swallow-wind]

Check out a lot of the Jellyfish off-shoot bands and artists, if you don't know them already--The Grays, TV Eyes, Malibu, Logan's Sanctuary, Imperial Drag, Moog Cookbook, Lickerish Quartet, Jason Faulkner, Brendan Benson.

Thanks for the recommendations! I haven't listened to them yet, but I plan to check them out at some point :)

[everydaym0nstrosity]

Spookies (1986), Directed by Brendan Faulkner, Thomas Doran, and Eugenie Joseph. Spookies started out as a low-budget independent feature film from 1984 that originally was entitled Twisted Souls, written and produced by Frank Farel, Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran as well as directed by Faulkner/Doran. Twisted Souls was being edited when creative and legal issues between the producers and the financial backer prevented final post production work (final editing, scoring, post-effects, etc.) from being carried out.

The original Twisted Souls footage directed by Faulkner and Doran consists of all the travelers who arrive in two cars and all the monsters and effects they encounter within the house. The monsters include: the demon Ouija girl, the muck men, the spider woman, the snake demons, the hallway demon, the Grim Reaper and the first set of zombies seen outside earlier on in the film. In 1985, the financial backer of Twisted Souls hired Eugenie Joseph to direct more footage, which was pieced together with the finished footage from Twisted Souls to create Spookies. The rumor that the film is composed of two completely unrelated and unfinished films is NOT true as this has been actually debunked by the cast & crew in the interviews that are on the Blu Ray release by Vinegar Syndrome (which is worth the money).

These added scenes, written by Ann Burgund (under the name Joseph Burgund), feature an entirely different cast and also include all the footage of the boy looking for his birthday party, the man in the tree, the cat-man, the old magician, the girl in the coffin, zombies (at the end of the film), the witch in the basement/cave and the creepy little blue boy. The film was given a limited theatrical release in 1987, with a more widespread video release in the latter year, and also aired on the USA network on cable television multiple times between 1988-1991. Despite its rather limited release, modest box office haul and scarce availability, it has achieved a strong cult following over the years. Case in point, I love this film. The soundtrack is amazing!

[pierppasolini]

Come on, Meegan, it’s spooky as hell inside!

Spookies (1986) dir. Brendan Faulkner, Thomas Doran, Eugenie Joseph

[cultfaction]

Spookies (1986)

Spookies (1986) was produced by Michael Lee, founder of legendary video distributor VIPCO, and saw original co-writers/directors Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran and co-writer/producer Frank M. Farel fired, and Eugenie Joseph brought on board to shoot new scenes and re-edit the existing footage. The chaotic and deranged result has gone on to amass an army of devotees in the intervening years,…

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/17/2020: SPOOKIES

What do we watch, when we watch movies? This question was sparked by my SOV experience with the very different, and differently interesting BLOODY MUSCLE BODYBUILDER FROM HELL and HORROR HOUSE ON HIGHWAY 5. Within the Shot On Video category, one can find inventive homemade features that are driven entirely by blood, sweat, and the creators' feeling of personal satisfaction. The results are sometimes fascinating, in their total alienation from the conventions and techniques of mainstream filmmaking, and after all, one rarely sees anything whose primary motivation is passion, here in the late stages of capitalism. But, all this talk about what goes on behind the camera points to a discrepancy in how we consume different kinds of production. The typical mode of consumption is internal to the movie: What happens in it? Do you relate to the characters? Are you able to suspend your disbelief, to experience the story on a vicarious level? One hardly needs to come up with examples of films that invite this style of viewing. Alternatively, we can experience the movie as a record of a time and place in which real people defied conventions and sometimes broke laws in order to produce a work of art. SOV production is usually viewed through this lens, where the primary interest is not the illusory content, but the filmmakers' sheer determination to create. We find some overlap in movies like EVIL DEAD, which simultaneously presents a terrifying narrative, and evidence of what a truly driven team can create without the aid of a studio, or any real money to speak of. See also, Larry Cohen's New York City-based horror films, in which a compelling drama with great acting can exist side by side with phony but beautiful effects, and exciting stories of stolen footage that would be dangerous or impossible to attempt today. I'm thinking about these different modes of consumption now because I just watched SPOOKIES, a legitimately cursed-seeming film whose harrowing production history has superseded whatever people think about what it shows on the screen. The lovingly composed blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome includes a feature-length documentary that attempts to explain the making of the film--which is accompanied by its own feature length commentary track by documentarists Michael Gingold and Glen Baisley. The very existence of this artifact suggests a lot about the nature of this movie, in and of itself. The truth behind its existence is as funny as it is tragic.

I'm not going to do a whole breakdown of the tortured origins of SPOOKIES, which is much better told by the aforementioned documentary. To summarize: Once upon a time in the mid 1980s, filmmakers Brendan Faulkner, Thomas Doran and Frank Farel conspired to make a fun, flamboyant rubber monsterpiece called TWISTED SOULS. It was wild, ridiculous, and transparently fake-looking, but it was loved by its hard-working creators; as a viewer, that soulful sense of joy can rescue many a "bad" movie from its various foibles. Then, inevitably, sleazoid producer Michael Lee stepped in--a man who thought you could cut random frames out of the middle of scenes to improve a movie's pace--and ruined it with extreme prejudice. Carefully crafted special effects sequences were cut, relatively functional scenes were re-edited into oblivion, and the seeds of hatred were sown between the filmmakers and the producer. Ultimately, everyone who once cared for TWISTED SOULS was forced to abandon ship, and first time director Eugenie Joseph stepped in to help mutilate the picture beyond all recognition. Thus SPOOKIES was born, a mangled, unloved mutation that would curse many of its original parents to unemployability. For the audience, it is intriguingly insane, often insulting, and hard to tear your eyes off of--but in spite of whatever actually wound up on the screen, it's impossible to forget its horrifying origin story as it unspools.

As far as what's on the screen goes: A group of "friends", including a middle-aged businessman and his wife, a vinyl-clad punk rock bully and his moll, two new wave-y in-betweeners, and...a guy with a hand puppet are somehow all leaving the same party, and all ready to break into a vacant funeral home for their afterparty. Well, this happens after a 13 year old runaway inexplicably wanders in to a "birthday party" in there, that looks like it was thrown for him by Pennywise, and he has the nerve to act surprised when he is attacked by a severed head and a piratey-looking cat-man who straight up purrs and meows throughout the picture. Anyway, separately of that, which is unrelated to anything, the island of misfit friends finds a nearly unrecognizable "ouija board" in the old dark house. Actually this thing is kind of fun-looking, having been made by one of the fun-havers on the production before the day that fun died, and I wonder if anyone has considered trying to make a real board game out of it...but I digress. Naturally, the board unleashes evil forces, including a zombie uprising in the cemetery outside, a plague of Ghoulie-like ankle-biters, an evil asian spider-lady (accompanied by kyoto flutes), muck-men that fart prodigiously until they melt in a puddle of wine (?), and uh...I know I'm forgetting stuff. One of the reasons I'm forgetting is because of this whole side story about a tuxedo-wearing vampire in the basement (or somewhere?) who has entrapped a beautiful young bride by cursing her with immortality. That part is a little confusing, not only because it doesn't intersect with the rest of the movie, but because sometimes it seems contemporary--as the bride struggles to survive the zombie plague--and sometimes it seems like a flashback, as our heroes find what looks like the mummified corpse of the dracula guy, complete with his signet ring. So, I don't know what to tell you really. Those are just some of the things that happen in the movie.

Some people like this a lot, and have supported its ascendance to cult status, which is a huge relief when you know what everyone went through to make this movie, only to have it ripped away from them and used against them. I found SPOOKIES a little hard to take, for all the reasons that the cast and crew express in the documentary. It holds a certain amount of visual fascination, whatever you think of it; something of its original creativity remains evident in the movie's colorful, exaggerated look, and its steady parade of unconvincing but inventive creature effects. But then, you have to deal with the farting muck-men. What was once a scene of terror starring REGULAR muck-men, that sounded incredibly laborious to pull off, became a scene of confusing "comedy" when producer Michael Lee insisted that the creatures be accompanied by a barrage of scatalogical noises. Apparently this was Lee's dream come true, as a guy who insisted everyone pull his finger all the time, and who once tried to call the movie "BOWEL ERUPTOR". But, of all the deformations SPOOKIES endured, the fart sounds dealt a mortal injury to the filmmakers' feelings, and even without knowing that, it's hard to enjoy yourself while that's happening.

Actually, all the farts forced me to ask myself: Is this...a comedy? Like for real, as its main thing? As the movie slogged on, I had to decide that it wasn't, but I was distracted by the notion for around 40 minutes. I was only released from this nagging suspicion when the bride makes her long marathon run through throngs of slavering zombies who swarm her, grope her, and tear off her clothes, before she narrowly escapes to an even worse fate. The lengthy scene is strangely gripping, and sleazy for a movie that sometimes feels like low rent children's entertainment. Part of the sequence’s success lies in its simplicity; it is unburdened by the convoluted complications of the rest of the movie, whose esoteric parts never fall together, so it seems to take on a sustained, intensifying focus. The action itself is unnerving, as the delicate and frankly gorgeous Maria Pechuka is molested and stripped nearly-bare by her undead bachelors, running from one drooling mob to another as the horde nearly engulfs her time and again. Actually, it feels a lot like a certain genre of SOV production in which, for the right price, any old creepy nerd can pay a small crew-for-hire to tape a version of his private fantasy, whether it's women being consumed by slime, or women being consumed by quicksand, or...generally, women being consumed by something. I wish I could describe this form of production in more specific or official terms, because I genuinely think it's wonderful that people do this. Anyway, Pechuka's interminable zombie run feels a little like that, and a little like a grim italian gutmuncher, and a little like an actual nightmare. Perhaps it only stands out against its dubious surroundings, but I kind of love it--and I'm happy to love it, because apparently the late Ms. Pechuka truly loved making SPOOKIES, and wanted other people to love it, too.

Which brings me to the uncomfortable place where I land with this movie. On the one hand...I think it's bad. It's so incoherent, and so insists on its impoverished form of comedy, that it's hard to be as charmed by it as I am by plenty of FX-heavy, no-budget oddities. Perhaps the lingering odor of misery drowns out the sweet joy that the crew once felt in the early days of creation--which is still evident, somehow, in its zany special effects, created by the likes of Gabe Bartalos and other folks whose work you definitely already know and love. But I feel ambivalent, about all of this. On the one hand, I can be a snob, and shit on people for failing to make a movie that meets conventional standards of success. On the other hand, I can be a DIFFERENT kind of snob--a more voyeuristic or even sadistic one--and celebrate the painful failures that produced a movie that is most interesting for its tormented history and its amusing ineptitude. I'm not really sure where I would prefer to settle with SPOOKIES, and movies like it. (As if anything is really "like" SPOOKIES) With all that said, I was left with one soothing thought by castmember Anthony Valbiro in the documentary. At some point, he tells us how ROSEMARY'S BABY is his personal cinematic comfort food; he can put it on at night, after an exhausting day, and drift to sleep, enveloped in its warm, glowing aura. He then says that he hopes there are people out there for whom his movie serves that same purpose, that some of us can have our "milk and cookies moment" with SPOOKIES. Honestly, I choke up just thinking about that.

[schlock-luster-video]

On January 22, 1988 Spookies debuted in the United States.

[byneddiedingo]

Tim Blake Nelson in the title segment of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

James Franco in the "Near Algodones" segment of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Liam Neeson in the "Meal Ticket" segment of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Tom Waits in the "All Gold Canyon" segment of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Grainger Hines in "The Gal Who Got Rattled" segment of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Jonjo O'Neill and Brendan Gleeson in "The Mortal Remains" segment of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 2018)

Cast: Tim Blake Nelson, Willie Watson, Clancy Brown, Danny McCarthy, David Krumholtz, James Franco, Stephen Root, Ralph Ineson, Jesse Luken, Liam Neeson, Harry Melling,  Jiji Hise, Paul Rae, Tom Waits, Sam Dillon, Bill Heck, Zoe Kazan, Grainger Hines, Jefferson Mays, Jonjo O'Neill, Brendan Gleeson, Saul Rubinek, Tyne Daly, Chelcie Ross. Screenplay: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, "All Gold Canyon" segment based on a story by Jack London, "The Gal Who Got Rattled" segment based on a story by Stewart Edward White. Cinematography: Bruno Delbonnel. Production design: Jess Gonchor. Film editing: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Music: Carter Burwell. The six short films collected into The Ballad of Buster Scruggs are set in the central period of the American myth, the Old West, and they evoke major American writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, and William Faulkner, as well as the two chroniclers of the vanishing American wilderness cited as sources for the segments "All Gold Canyon" and "The Gal Who Got Rattled," Jack London and Stewart Edward White. It's a very "literary" film whose characters often don't just talk, they orate, in florid 19th-century diction. And it's a film based in that American folk genre, the tall tale. Those who task the Coens with cynicism and coldness will find ammunition in all of these short films for their argument: Every good deed or noble intention in these stories gets thwarted or maimed. There's probably no crueler story on film than the "Meal Ticket" segment. And yet, we treasure Poe and Twain and Faulkner for their frequent heartlessness, praising their ironic vision. Is it that we expect more warmth from our movies than from our literature? As a genre, the anthology film has gone out of favor, largely because so many of them are uneven in quality, and while it's easy to rank the segments of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs -- I would put "The Gal Who Got Rattled" at the top and "Near Algodones" at the bottom -- the Coens have a unifying vision that makes each segment play off of the others, the way short stories in an anthology by Alice Munro or George Saunders set up reverberations among themselves.

[vsthepomegranate]

Spookies (1986)

by Brendan Faulkner

[everydaym0nstrosity]

Soo Paek as The Spider Woman in Spookies AKA Twisted Souls (1986), Dir. Genie Joseph, Thomas Doran, and Brendan Faulkner. 

[pbandjstew]

Spookies (1986)

Directed by Thomas Doran, Brendan Faulkner, & Eugenie (Genie) Joseph.

[brokehorrorfan]

Spookies will be released on Blu-ray on February 25. Vinegar Syndrome previously made the film available Black Friday, but it quickly sold out. This version appears to be identical without a limited edition slipcover.

The 1986 independent horror oddity is co-directed by Thomas Doran, Brendan Faulkner, and Eugenie Joseph. Peter Dain, Nick Gionta, Joan Ellen Delaney, Peter Iasillo, Charlotte Alexandra, Anthony Valbiro, Kim Merrill, Lisa Friede, Soo Paek, Maria Pechukas, and Felix Ward star.

Spookies has been newly restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative. It features a reversible cover with new art by Gary Pullin. Special features are listed below.

Special features:

Twisted Tale - The Unmaking of Spookies - Feature-length making-of documentary, including a commentary track with documentary co-directors Michael Gingold & Glen Baisley and extensive deleted scenes (new)

VIPCO - The Untold Story - Feature-length documentary on the notorious UK home video label, including extended interview footage with founder Michael Lee and a trailer (new)

2015 Alamo Drafthouse screening introductions by director Thomas Doran and co-writer/producer Frank M. Farel

2015 Hudson Horror Show screening Q&A with actors Peter Iasillo and Anthony Valbiro and production assistant Tom Sciacca

Archival locations featurette with actor Peter Iasillo

Pinreel outtakes and bloopers

Behind-the-scenes still gallery

Theatrical trailer

After their car breaks down, a group of travelers find themselves stranded in a remote part of New England.  After taking shelter in a spooky old mansion, complete with a graveyard, they discover a ouija board and decide to spend the night attempting to summon some spirits. But the group soon learns that playing with the forces of black magic isn't fun and games, and it's not long before they're head-to-head with all sorts of demonic creatures, shape shifters, and other forms of evil, all of whom are more than happy to pick them off in the most gruesome of ways.