Had anyone else even suggested writing about Bones & Demon Knight on PINNLAND EMPIRE I woulda immedietlly dismissed the idea but John Cribbs (1/2 of the pink smoke) gets a pass. I mean after all, he did let me write about Drawing Restraint 9 (a movie he hates) on his site so its only fair. And besides, Ernest Dickerson is responsible for the movie that made me want to become a DJ (Juice), so why not give his two ventures in to the horror genre a second chance? Plus I'd be lying if I said Demon Knight wasnt on heavy rotation in my VHS player back in the day...
Demon Knight
I was going to take this opportunity to once again defend Ghosts of Mars, a movie so unjustly reviled it waylaid John Carpenter's career for almost a decade. But since Carpenter himself is anything but underrated, I decided instead to write about Ernest Roscoe Dickerson, whose approach in the two horror films he directed could be positively defined as "Carpenter-esque" (his style is a little more raucous, but I'd say he managed to get closer to the spirit of Carpenter than, say, Robby Rodriguez with Planet Terror or Neil Marshall with Doomsday.)
Most people know Dickerson best for shooting Spike Lee's first six
movies and John Sayles' Brother from Another Planet, or for his
directorial debut Juice. Not as many realize that, seemingly inspired
by working camera on George Romero's anthology series Tales from the
Darkside, Dickerson went on to direct some pretty decent horror movies
that didn't really catch on at the time and haven't had any kind of
resurgence since. Just recently up in Toronto, I was telling Marcus
about how you never hear Dickerson's name brought up in conversations
about legitimate horror directors. This discussion was based on my
recommendation of Def by Temptation, which I inaccurately claimed
Dickerson directed (he was the DP, the director was James Bond III,
who played Monroe in School Daze) but I also freely endorse his 1995
effort Demon Knight and 2001's Bones. Neither of them are classics,
but considering their time and place (the 90's was an awful decade for
popular horror movies) they deserve more respect their the bare-bones,
unbought bargain bin dvd releases can bring them.
Demon Knight
Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight was the first of two in an
as-of-yet-incomplete trilogy of spin-off movies from the popular HBO
show, and while it's got sex and comedy and mutilation etc., it's not
really of the same "snarky EC comic-influenced/macabre parable with
twist ending" formula that the show followed (although there is a
clever sequence where a Tales from the Crypt comic mirrors what's
going on in the movie frame for frame.) As I said, it's much more like
a Carpenter movie with a lone badass (Bill Sadler, appearing in what
must be his only theatrically-released lead role) holed up in a single
location that's under siege by a bunch of monsters, led by slick,
chrome-domed demon Billy Zane (this marking the middle of his
"villanious role" career between Dead Calm and Titanic.) Sadler (the
"knight" of the title?) is some kind of Connor MacLeod-like ragged
hermit who happens to be immortal, tasked with carrying Jesus' blood
around in a crucifix-shaped flask so that Zane and his clawed
companions can't use it to take over the world somehow. It's the flask
itself they need for some reason, the blood inside actually hurts them
- Sadler uses the liquid to create membranes across door and window
frames that seal out Zane's gang and protect the unfortunate folk in
the church-turned-hotel he happens to stumble into on this particular
demon night. Trapped along with Sadler are a pre-Willy Jada Pinkett,
Lowell-era Thomas Haden Church and the always delightful Dick Miller:
the group fight amongst themselves, turn on each other and try to find
a way to escape as Zane exploits their weaknesses to his advantage in
an attempt to gain entrance and obtain the all-important flask.
Demon Knight
When I saw this in the theater - jesus - 17 years ago, I was instantly
sold the minute Sadler is introduced mixing himself some ketchup and
mustard soup and scarfing it down. Not as weird and amazing as Marion
Cobretti cutting himself a piece of pizza with a pair of scissors, but
still enjoyable. Zane seems to be having a blast ripping people's guts
out while lamenting the loss of his designer sunglasses, shooting fire
from his penis at one point and using his demon powers to tease the
desperate survivors. These are the scenes that make Demon Knight so
enjoyable, even though they are clearly derived from the Nightmare on
Elm Street model of victims being transported to a surreal dreamscape
in which they are seduced by whatever's been established as their
characteristic vice; even the aforementioned "comic book/live action"
sequence had already been done in Nightmare 4 or 5 (Billy's older
sister Lisa Zane was the one who killed Krueger in Freddy's Dead, a
family connection which may have very well netted him the part of the
nameless "Collector"). The best one by far is dipsomaniac Dick Miller
tempted by demon booze and nude Hooters girls in a simulated tropical
bar setting - fuck Jack Torrance! Not so easily enticed is CCH
Pounder, who runs around most of the movie with one arm - when Zane
offers her the arm back, she extends her stump: "Is that a yes?" "No,
that's me giving you the finger!" Pounder has another nice moment when
she barks "Get that pussy off the table!" and the resident floozie
instantly hops off her perch. After a beat, Pounder clarifies: "I
meant the cat." That's what you get for letting the Pounder loose!
With Demon Knight, Dickerson delivers a brisk 90 minutes of action,
gross-out set pieces and comedy; it makes up for being derivative by
never being dull. The real challenge came with Bones, for which he was
tasked with taking goofy pothead/urban linguist Calvin Broadus and
turning him into a believable badass monster.
Bones
Now try as they might,
rappers-turned-actors haven't made much headway into Hollywood horror
films. Ice T got to pull a bat out of his afro in Leprechaun 4:
Leprechaun in the Hood, but other than that he didn't have much to do.
Busta Rhymes embarrassed himself by appearing in the awful Halloween:
Resurrection; Redman got killed by a doll in Seed Of Chucky; Rah Digga
was the sassy nanny in the 13 Ghosts remake...based on these examples,
there's no question that Snoop Dogg's role as pimpin' numbers
runner/neighborhood favorite Jimmy Bones is by far the most
prestigious. It may have seemed like funny stunt casting, but Snoop is
actually perfect as the soft-spoken mack in a polyester pimp coat and
Lincoln Continental who's murdered by his crew after rejecting a
corrupt cop's plan to peddle crack 'round the neighborhood, his bones
buried in the basement of the gothic brownstone where he was killed.
20 years later, some kids hoping to turn the building into a club to
launch their positive message music group* disturb the bones of Jimmy
Bones, thus freeing his soul from hell so he can seek his vengeance.
Snoop - who had already been fake-killed and resurrected by the devil
in the Murder Was the Case short film - is a surprisingly intimidating
boogeyman, his performance no doubt enhanced by the direction of
Dickerson, who guided Tupac to his most memorable role in Juice** and
turned Ice T into a sympathetic hero in Surviving the Game. It was
also a smart move by the director to have Snoop's character be played
by a literal dog for half the movie, a doberman that projectile vomits
maggots into the hero's face before announcing that "the gangsta of
love don't eat no fried chicken!"
Bones
How can you not love a horror movie with the title card appearing in
graffiti? Dickerson returns to Demon Knight's workable formula - one
central location (in this case, a cool skull-shaped brownstone), a
playful yet unrelenting demon who picks off the characters one at a
time - and strikes a similarly dexterous balance of laughs and gore to
turn what could have been a silly rehash into a pleasure, solid
B-minus horror movie. The supporting cast includes Khalil Kain (Raheem
from Juice), the beautiful Bianca Lawson, Deezer D from Fear of a
Black Hat and Pam Grier, who kind of awesomely plays herself in
flashbacks wearing a giant afro (I don't remember her looking like
that in the 70's.) A'la Demon Knight, Bones is a bastard son of the
Elm Street series: like Freddy, Bones has a creepy nursery rhyme theme
song and a cache of bad puns, including one about being on "a high - a
supernatural high" that rival Freddy's worst (thankfully the painful
"soul food" pun was already taken.) In its defense, Bones (and Demon
Knight) is better than half the actual Nightmare films and has enough
of its own personality to make it stand out. One nice touch is Ricky
Harris' severed head that stays alive after being separated from its
body by Bones to argue with him: "I killed you, you kill me - we even!
Damn, why you gotta get all meta-fuckin-physical, shit!" Severed heads
are Dickerson's visual motif: there's a whole "trophy room" full of
them in his Hard Target-like Surviving the Game and Demon Knight has a
memorable Dick Miller decapitation. Another great visual is
Dickerson's representation of hell as an H.R. Giger-like wall of
writhing pitch black bodies that Bones' victims are sucked into:
again, kind of a throwback to the squirmy souls caught inside Freddy's
chest in the Elm Streets, but still a neat-looking and well-executed
idea.
Bones
Sadly Bones was not the launching pad for Snoop to become the next
modern horror icon, but he's believable as the smug pimp who's got all
the stats while all anyone else gots is "quo," transformed into a
vengeful hellspawn. Following this and dramatic roles in Baby Boy and
Training Day from the same year, his film career was reduced to cameos
in a predictable stream of stoner comedies and playing Huggie Bear in
the big screen Starsky & Hutch.*** For his part, Dickerson went on to
direct episodes of such beloved shows as The Wire and Dexter; I never
saw his Masters of Horror because, well, those are mostly unwatchable.
I guess I should check it out (if it's on Netflix Instant.) Anyway,
I'm glad he's working on The Walking Dead now because he's a
super-competent and underutilized horror director.
THE STATS:
Demon Knight
BOX OFFICE: $21,088,568 from $21 million budget
RED TOMATOES: 29%
imdb RATING: 6.5/10 (not bad actually)
Bones
BOX OFFICE: $7,316,658 from $16 million budget
RED TOMATOES: 22%
imdb RATING: 3.9/10
* Leprechaun in the Hood also features a well-meaning positive message
rap group who inadvertently ressurect the monster while trying to get
their act off the ground. (That one's for certain; I haven't seen
Bones in 10 years so I'm not 100% sure they're a positive message rap
group...but they're definitely an unsigned music act who bring the
monster to life.)
** Juice also featured a number of rapper cameos including Doctor Dre,
Fab Five Freddy and Treach. *** He did make another horror movie in 2006: Hood of Horror, in which
he again plays a demonic dog.
