“Heads, I win. Tails, you ooze!”
Crypt Keeper- Tales from the Crypt
It’s not often that you stumble upon a movie that you’ve never heard of with a lot of well-known talent connected to it. Body Bags was the brainchild of John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, and Larry Sulkis. It has cameos by Same Rami, Wes Craven, and stars Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, and Stacey Keach. If you’ve never heard of this anthology, there’s a reason.
Body Bags was made by Showtime and was initially supposed to be a tv series similar to Tales from the Crypt. During production, the company scrapped it as a series and turned it into a film. You have probably never seen or heard of it because it wasn’t released to home video until 2013.
As an anthology film, it works. There are three stories, and they each have their merits. They are tied together loosely by a creepy coroner played by John Carpenter. The weird factor is at a high level here. Carpenter is having a lot of fun swigging formaldehyde and playing with guts. This is an interesting premise, and it’s executed well.
Unlike other anthologies like Trick r’ Treat or Amusement, each of the stories completely stands alone. “The Gas Station,” “Hair,” and “Eye” are all good to varying degrees. “The Gas Station” is the best of the three. It’s a slasher segment that is truly intense and extremely gory. I was not prepared for the way this one ended.
“Hair” is the funniest and the most cringe-inducing. There is a good amount of body horror throughout “Hair” and “Eye,” but watching someone pull hair from their throat is a stomach-churning experience. Stacey Keach is terrific in this segment.
Mark Hamill plays a baseball player who loses an eyeball in “Eye.” A doctor with an experimental procedure offers him an opportunity to play again. He receives a transplanted eye of someone recently deceased. Naturally, this causes him to see things and become unhinged. Hamill is great as a religious family man turned psychopath, but “Eye” is played too straight and isn’t as much fun as the other two.
Body Bags is a blast. It’s a shame that this wasn’t a series or there weren’t more of these released. Watching John Carpenter chew up some corny dialogue while being totally gross is fun. Each of the segments brought something different and were all really well made. I would highly recommend watching Body Bags because there is something for every horror fan.
