Editorials
“Stan Winston’s Creature Features” Brought 1950s Horrors into the Early 2000s [TV Terrors]
Horror and science fiction have always been a part of the television canvas, and constant attempts have been made over the years to produce classic entertainment. Some have fallen by the wayside, while others became mainstream phenomena. With “TV Terrors,” we take a look back at the many genre efforts from the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s, exploring some shows that became cult classics, and others that sank into obscurity.
This month we revisit the five-film series (and toy line) known as “Creature Features.”
- Aired from 2001-2002
- Aired on Cinemax and HBO
In 2001, the late great Stan Winston, Stan Winston Studios, Cinemax, and HBO teamed up to create a multimedia cross promotional project called “Creature Features.” Winston, together with famed producers Colleen Camp and (Samuel Z. Arkoff’s son) Lou Arkoff, produced a series of made-for-cable films for premium movie channels Cinemax and HBO. The series featured five individual monster movies inspired by the titles of American International Pictures’ monster movies from the 1950s.
The full roster of AIP inspirations included Earth vs. the Spider (1958), How to Make a Monster (1958), Day the World Ended (1955), The She-Creature (1956), and Teenage Caveman (1958). The catch was, though, that these new films were basically remakes in name only (or “Tributes” as they’ve been described). What the studios did were recruit directors to take the aforementioned titles and tack on their own concepts and plots, bearing absolutely zero resemblance to the cult classics we all know.
The results and quality varied wildly, but it allowed both networks to premiere new horror titles, while Stan Winston’s team was able to advertise their highly detailed “Creature Features” action figures line. Said figures were often inspired by the new monsters included in these re-imaginings. “Creature Features” was very much a precursor to Hulu’s “Into the Dark,” as all five episodes were low budget feature films, and the very definition of late night cable movie fodder.
She Creature from Sebastian Gutierrez is a period piece set in 1905 starring Rufus Sewell and Carla Gugino as Angus and Lily, a pair of carnies that seek to kidnap an actual living mermaid from a traveling doctor. After a botched robbery, Angus and his crew kidnap the mermaid intent on bringing her home as their new attraction. Things go awry though when Lily inadvertently bonds with the mermaid who begins eating various crew members that cross Lily.
Soon Lily begins getting possessed by the vindictive mermaid, who seeks to escape from their clutches. She Creature is painfully slow considering the great atmosphere and solid special effects. You assume such a good cast would help keep the movie afloat, but in the end, neither Sewell or Gugino’s combined talents help what is a very drab, tedious monster pic.
The second feature, Earth vs. the Spider from director Scott Ziehl, is a ballsy monster movie; ballsy in that it completely rips off Cronenberg’s The Fly wholesale. Quentin is a rabid comic book geek and a security guard for a laboratory. After failing to stop thieves on the job, he willingly injects himself with an experimental serum derived from spider DNA. Hoping it will turn him into the next big arachnid superhero, he soon realizes he’s transforming into a carnivorous giant man-spider, whose lust for human blood is insatiable. Co-starring Dan Aykroyd (who looks like he accidentally walked in from a Sam Spade play), Theresa Russell, and John Cho, it’s a silly, fun, and gory monster movie despite being so unabashedly derivative that I’m surprised Cronenberg didn’t seek legal action.
How to Make a Monster, from George Huang, is a classic monster movie romp that’s also silly but so much fun. A mix of Virus and Chopping Mall, the narrative revolves around a video game development crew anxiously trying to create the ultimate horror video game, “Evilution.” Using an advanced technology, shit hits the fan when the tech is struck by lightning giving it a sentience and awareness. Intent on fulfilling its purpose, it begins stalking and mutilating the group, with only meek intern Laura standing in its way. Gruesome and campy, this installment packs some dark comedy, along with a cast that includes Clea Duvall, Tyler Mane, Jason Marsden, and Julie Strain, who cameos.
The Day the World Ended from Brian King feels like a longer version of the 1983 take on The Twilight Zone‘s It’s a Good Life. Nastassja Kinski plays Jennifer, a child therapist who gets a job in a small town. The small town is filled with generally cold and unwelcoming locals and she takes an interest in a local boy named Ben. Bullied by everyone, Ben begins to display unusual powers, and is convinced he’s the offspring of an alien who mated with his deceased mother. He’s also certain his alien father is looking for him and will arrive any time to enact bloody vengeance.
What Jennifer uncovers is a dark past involving aliens, the town, Ben’s ill fated mother, and his single dad who hovers over Ben constantly. Starring Kinski, Randy Quaid, and a plethora of notable character actors, The Day the World Ended is uneven and veers more toward fantasy, but at least it introduces a slick looking monster.
Teenage Caveman is the absolute nadir of the series. Larry Clark (of Kids infamy) directs what is a ninety minute glorified Skinemax film made up of an hour of very young looking actors in the buff having sex in long, drawn out, tedious sequences. There’s about twenty minutes of actual narrative. Said film involves a pair of evolved humans (Andrew Keegan, Tiffany Limos) that lure a group of exiled teens from a post apocalyptic tribe to their home base where they seduce and sexually transmit their genes to them, allowing them a chance to evolve for survival. Believe it or not, there are monsters in this movie, but they play third fiddle to the shameless, nigh endless T&A.
Premiering on late night cable on Halloween 2001, “Creature Features” basically disappeared from both channels in 2002, accruing almost no buzz or acclaim. Released concurrently with the films, Stan Winston Studios made their very first line of action figures based on the monsters from these individual features. Winston also included CD-ROMs with each figure, detailing the creation and Stan’s feelings on the process. There are five total figures and CDs with five making-of videos. All five segments can be found on YouTube, allowing fans that didn’t spend money on the collectibles an interesting insight into the ambitious project.
Today we have Sideshow, Mezco, NECA and various boutique companies cross promoting their collectibles with TV shows and video games, and Stan Winston was ahead of his time on that front. Even if the movies that resulted from the endeavor were mostly duds.
Is It On DVD/Blu-ray/Streaming?
The movies were all individually released under the “Creature Features” banner, and are still available (on both DVD and VHS), if a tad pricey; which should be an indicator of how much HBO and Cinemax loved these films. The collectible figures are also still available, with reasonable pricing.
Lionsgate’s The Strangers: Chapter 1 launches a reboot trilogy based on the 2008 home invasion film, all three movies shot simultaneously under the direction of Renny Harlin.
To tide you over until Chapter 2, Chapter 1‘s home video release offers an audio commentary from star Madelaine Petsch and producer Courtney Solomon that hints at what’s to come.
Here are six things I learned from The Strangers: Chapter 1 commentary.
1. The opening music cue was inspired by The Shining.
The film’s opening establishing shot roving over the woods — with Bratislava, Slovakia standing in for the small town of Venus, Oregon — evokes the beginning of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, which was also a point of reference for the score.
“When we were scoring this, we looked at The Shining,” says Courtney Solomon, referring to Wendy Carlos’ iconic main title theme. “‘Cause we were looking for how, even though it’s dated, they were in that open, sort of everything environment, musically.”
Justin Caine Burnett (I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, 9-1-1: Lone Star) composed the score.
2. The cold open features an important character to the trilogy.
Shot together like one long movie, The Strangers trilogy will take place over a four-day period, with each subsequent entry picking up immediately after its predecessor’s finale.
Chapter 1‘s cold open features actor Ryan Bown — doing his own stunts, as Petsch points out — as a character who will play a bigger role in the coming installments.
“Jeff Morell, we’ll come to find out who this guy is as we go through all three chapters, but we sort of begin here,” Solomon notes.
“He’s a pretty important piece to this puzzle,” teases Petsch. “Some might say the piece.”
They also hint that viewers haven’t seen the last of Rachel Shenton’s Debbie, who Petsch’s Maya talks to on FaceTime, along with many of the townspeople from the diner scene.
3. Petsch was terrified of the project due to her love of the original film.
The shadow of the original Strangers looms large over Chapter 1. Petsch is “such a fan” that she was hesitant about doing a new version:
“I was terrified to touch that property. I think it’s an incredibly perfect horror film. I’ve seen so many horror films, and I feel like it’s one of the only ones that’s truly scared me to my bones, that I still think about all the time. So as we were trying to expound upon that story, with the second and third movies, we had to naturally repel the first story.”
Solomon similarly thinks highly of the original:
“I love the original Strangers. I wasn’t as big a fan of the sequel [2018’s The Strangers: Prey at Night], because it was just another story in a trailer park with the Strangers. I didn’t love that two of the Strangers got killed. That was just me personally; there are people that liked it. I was like, ‘I’d like to do something more interesting.’ In order to do it, to find that balance of retelling what made the first one so great as the basis to be able to launch off and tell the rest of the story.”
Petsch adds, “As we know, at the end of the first one, one of the last shots is Liv [Tyler]’s eyes opening. I’ve always wondered what happens after that.”
4. The killers’ hair is concealed to hide their identity.
Although the filmmakers opted to keep the look of the titular Strangers true to the original, Dollface and Pin-Up Girl’s hair is now concealed. This was a “purposeful change” to hide their identities, which will presumably be revealed later in the trilogy.
“We had a specific reason for doing it, obviously, because you do end up meeting a bunch of the folk from this small town,” explains Solomon. “You don’t know who’s wearing the mask, so if we had given up the hair that would make that identification a little bit easier.”
5. Petsch conceived the shower scene based on a personal fear.
In addition to starring in all three films, Petsch is an exclusive producer on the trilogy. More than a mere vanity credit, she had creative input throughout the stages of production, including the addition of Chapter 1‘s shower scene.
“This was not in the original script, the shower. Maybe our first week we were talking about what would be the scariest thing for me if I was in a situation like this,” she recalls. “I shared with you that every time I take a shower and I’m at the point where there’s suds of soap in my eyes and I’m shampooing, I’m always sure that’s when the serial killer’s gonna walk in. So we wrote this in, because I think that must be a common experience.”
6. Remaking the original film was a conscious decision to kick off the trilogy.
It’s not until the end titles that the pair directly address the thought process behind launching the reboot trilogy with a retread of the original.
“Some people may go and watch this and go, ‘Oh, my god. It was a remake of the original.’ But actually this is just act one of our giant movie! If you watched it as a whole, then you’d be like, ‘Oh, shit. That’s just where it started,” says Solomon. “This is the 90-minute setup of the entire thing.”
Petsch concurs, “Don’t get me wrong. I also feel like the original is so good that it would be crazy to just do a remake of the original, but in order to tell the story that we were trying to tell, you kind of have to go back and do a repurposing of that story with these two new characters.”
“They did the whole first movie, the original, amazing, but that’s the jumping off point. This entire giant movie that’s become three chapters was done with a lot of love,” Solomon concludes.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 is available now on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital.
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