A week after releasing a teaser for a new horror game seemingly called Emio, Nintendo has pulled back the curtain on the mysterious project with a full reveal. Turns out, it isn’t exactly what the creepy first trailer made it out to be, and is instead a new entry in the long-dormant Famicom Detective Club series. The…
INTRO: What is the first movie that comes to mind when you hear the name Elisabeth Shue? Do you think of her as the Karate Kid’s love interest? The babysitter who went on an adventure through downtown Chicago? The Oscar-nominated prostitute from Leaving Las Vegas? Chances are, the movie that comes to mind is not Link. A horror movie where Shue shares the screen with a homicidal orangutan that’s passed off as being a chimp. Link isn’t very well known, but it should be. If you haven’t seen it, it’s the Best Horror Movie You Never Saw.
CREATORS / CAST: Link (watch it HERE) was directed by Alfred Hitchcock devotee Richard Franklin, an Australian filmmaker who, for a while, looked like he could be one of the best sources for new Hitchcockian thrillers once the Master of Suspense had passed away. Franklin had even been friends with Hitchcock, having met him while attending film school in California. He got his directing career started in the ‘70s, making the Western sex comedy The True Story of Eskimo Nell and the softcore sex study Fantasm. Not to be confused with the Don Coscarelli horror classic Phantasm. Then he shifted gears and started following in the footsteps of his hero. He teamed with screenwriter Everett De Roche to make the 1978 sci-fi horror cult classic Patrick. The following year, he optioned a short outline, presumably written by Tom Ackermann and future MacGyver creator Lee David Zlotoff, for a horror film that would have been like Jaws, but with chimps. The story wasn’t entirely there, though. So Franklin set it aside and focused on making the 1981 thriller Roadgames, starring Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis. A project that came about when De Roche suggested making a version of Hitchcock’s Rear Window that would take place in a moving vehicle.
It was De Roche who cracked the story for Link. Not surprising, since he already had killer animal movie experience, having written the 1978 nature run amok film Long Weekend. He read a National Geographic article by chimp expert Jane Goodall that shook up everything people had believed about chimps. As Franklin explained to Fangoria magazine, Goodall saw “the cannibalizing of young chimpanzees by one particular mad female chimp. She observed actual inter-tribal warfare between two groups of chimps. The whole ’60s idea of man being the only animal to make war against its own kind was suddenly thrown out the window. That, to me, was a really interesting idea for a good thriller.”
The script De Roche wrote follows American zoology student Jane Chase, who attends the London College of Sciences. She gets a job working as assistant to anthropology professor Doctor Steven Phillip – not at the college, but at his isolated home on the English coast. A house that sits on the edge of a cliff, in farmland that’s patrolled by dangerous wild dogs. Phillip has to do his work at home because the university won’t let two of his three chimps anywhere near the campus. Six-year-old Imp is okay. He seems to be gentle and harmless, despite his habit of killing birds and cats. But the mature female Voodoo is wild, and 45-year-old Link, who likes to wear clothes and smoke cigars because he used to be called the “Master of Fire” in a circus… well, there just seems to be something off about Link.
Things fall apart soon after Jane arrives at Phillip’s house. The doctor makes a call about selling Voodoo because she can’t breed anymore and having Link put down because the old boy is getting increasingly strange. Link doesn’t care about Voodoo, but he murders Phillip to protect himself. He dumps the body in the well and pushes the doctor’s car over the cliff. It takes a while for Jane to realize the doctor is dead, but it doesn’t take long for her to realize that Link is weird. He even likes to creep on her when she’s trying to take a bath. And soon enough, she finds out he’s dangerous. A killer. She needs to find a way out of this situation, which is complicated, since Link has destroyed the phones and vehicles, and she can’t walk to town because of the wild dogs roaming the countryside.
Franklin was going to start filming Link in Australia in 1981. The funding was in place. But then, a major distraction: he was offered the chance to direct the sequel to the Hitchcock masterpiece Psycho. It was an opportunity he couldn’t turn down. Psycho II turned out to be a better movie than anybody expected it to be. It was so well received, it led to Franklin and writer Tom Holland re-teaming on the spy adventure Cloak and Dagger. That one wasn’t a box office success, so Franklin circled back to Link, which he hoped people wouldn’t compare to The Birds, so it wouldn’t look like he was just copying Hitchcock with every movie he made. He wanted his killer animal movie to be more rooted in reality than the fantasy of The Birds. But the two films do share a crew member: Ray Berwick, who trained the birds for Hitchcock’s movie, also trained the apes for Link.
The film was set up at Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment, which was, during that period, headed by Verity Lambert, known for being the founding producer of the Doctor Who series. Production took place in Scotland, although the story is set in England and that setting was very important to Franklin. He said that, “in mood, tone and look, it resembles Psycho II, crossed with the English setting of Jane Eyre. … The English setting to me was essential. I wanted to contrast the primitivism of jungle animals with Old World values, high culture, and civilization.”
Elisabeth Shue, fresh off The Karate Kid and the short-lived TV show Call to Glory, was cast as Jane Chase, her first lead role in a feature film. Terence Stamp plays the ill-fated Doctor Phillip. Kevin Lloyd shows up as chimp dealer Bailey. With Steven Finch, credited as Steven Pinner, playing Jane’s boyfriend David. And Richard Garnett and David O’Hara as his friends Tom and Dennis, who are just there to boost the body count. But aside from Shue and Stamp, most of the human actors have very brief roles in the film, and there’s still an hour left in the running time when Stamp makes his exit. So the majority of the film is carried by Shue and some apes. Imp is played by Jed, with Carrie as Voodoo. Then there’s Link, who is referred to as a chimp, even though he’s clearly an orangutan. This ape actor was named Locke. His fur was dyed a darker color and he was given prosthetic ears so he would look more like a chimp. It didn’t do any good, but it was better than the alternative. Throughout pre-production, Franklin was pressured to have the chimps played by people in costumes and makeup. He refused because he wasn’t making a fantasy film. This was meant to be rooted in the reality of what chimps are capable of. So he got to make the movie with actual apes.
Shue would go on to earn an Academy Award nomination for Leaving Las Vegas, but watching this movie will make you think the Oscars should have a category for Best Ape Acting. Locke turned in an incredible performance as Link. Of course, this is mainly the work of Franklin and his editors. Locke didn’t know what kind of story his trainer had him acting out, but he was able to give the filmmakers the movements and expressions that they built his screen performance out of. And when the camera cuts to Link, you can see the wheels spinning in his mind. He’s plotting. Scheming. Or perving, in the case of the bathroom scene.
BACKGROUND: There’s an old saying that you shouldn’t work with animals, but Franklin didn’t have much trouble working with the apes on Link. Production even went more smoothly than he was anticipating. The real problems didn’t arise until post-production. That’s when Franklin was informed that Cannon Films, the U.S. distributor, would be cutting eight minutes out of the film. It got worse when Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment went up for sale… and was purchased by Cannon. Now that they owned Link, they decided to cut out five more minutes. The film was now thirteen minutes shorter than the director intended it to be. Which may not have been the worst thing. Even at the final running time of one hundred and three minutes, Link feels slightly longer than necessary. Cannon really could have gotten a bit more out of it. But, as far as Franklin was concerned, his film had been compromised.
Before the Halloween 1986 release, Franklin was considering making another ape thriller about an anthropologist getting caught in the middle of war between chimpanzee tribes in Africa. But it wasn’t to be. Link was not as well-received by critics as Roadgames, Psycho II, and Cloak and Dagger were. And the box office numbers weren’t great, either. Made on a budget of six million dollars, Link earned less than two million in U.S. ticket sales. It made the video and cable rounds and got a bit of a cult following. In 2021, an extended cut that boosted the running time to one hundred and twenty-five minutes was released in France. But Link has never become as popular as it deserved to be. Even those who were involved with it wrote it off. Franklin dismissed it as an unsatisfying experience on almost every level. In a 2021 interview, Shue said her career wasn’t going well when she did “a not-great horror movie called Link.” But we have to disagree with her. Link is a great horror movie.
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: The set-up is perfectly simple. A young woman trapped in an isolated house with a dangerous ape. Dialogue in the early scenes lets us know how much trouble she could be in, as we hear that chimps are eight times stronger than humans and are told a story about a man being torn to pieces by a chimp who was just happy to see him.
Franklin does a great job of building the suspense as Jane gradually figures out what’s going on. And Shue did a great job of carrying the film for the long stretch where she’s alone with the apes. She was only twenty-one years old during production, just starting out in her career, and she proved she was capable of being a strong lead. Hopefully she’s proud of her work on the movie, even if she’s not a fan of it.
There are plenty of other killer primate movies out there, and this ranks up there as one of the best, along with the 1932 Murders in the Rue Morgue and George A. Romero’s Monkey Shines. It’s unique in its approach to the concept, as it builds up Link in the same way it might if the character were human. He’s lurking around, a silent creeper. We know it’s only a matter of time before something terrible happens. We’re waiting for the moment when he’s going to fully snap. And once Jane comes to understand what Link is capable of, it kicks off a sequence that’s around thirty minutes of almost non-stop action and thrills.
BEST SCENE(S): That is, of course, the most entertaining section of the film. And judging by the way it was shot, it feels like Franklin was having a lot of fun bringing it to the screen. When Jane attempts to shoot Link through a door, there’s a cool shot of her through the hole left in the door. There’s a cave in the cellar that leads down to the sea, and when Jane and Imp make it down to the water, you might think they have just escaped from Link. But Franklin lets us know the action is far from over by cutting to a helicopter shot, the song “Apeman” by The Kinks kicking in on the soundtrack as we fly over to the road that leads to the house to see that Jane’s boyfriend and a couple friends are about to arrive and meet Link for themselves.
Then we get to watch the body count increase as Link deals with the new arrivals. And Franklin was particularly pleased with a moment where he had Link pull someone through the mail slot in the front door.
Jane’s boyfriend David is injured by Link. She has to help him by putting a makeshift splint on his leg, adding a humorous element to the final chase sequence as we watch this injured guy with a leg splint try to escape from Link, getting tossed all over the place and probably injuring himself some more. The only questionable shot in here comes when Link chases Jane and David upstairs and they try to hide in Phillip’s lab, which has a metal door. To follow Jane and David into the lab, Franklin has the camera going over the top of the wall, breaking the reality and revealing this is just a set. This is something that’s done in movies all the time, but some may find it jarring.
PARTING SHOT: But a movie is doing pretty well when you’re only left questioning one shot and whether or not a couple extra minutes could have been taken out. Overall, Link is an intriguing, well-crafted thriller with good human and primate performances and a score by Jerry Goldsmith that is occasionally reminiscent of the work he did on Gremlins. This film proves once again that Richard Franklin was indeed a Master of Suspense. Unfortunately, it was the last movie he made in the ‘80s. And in the ‘90s, he decided to change directions. Rather than continue making genre movies, he moved on to the arthouse. He would eventually re-team with Everett De Roche on the 2003 horror film Visitors, his last film before he passed away in 2007. But that run he had from Patrick through Link really makes us wish we had a lot more Franklin thrillers to watch.
So if you haven’t met Link yet, head out to that isolated home on the English coast and spend some time with him. He’ll do some tricks for you: smoking cigars, setting fires, murdering people. He puts on a great show, and it’s definitely worth checking out.
A couple previous episodes of the Best Horror Movie You Never Saw series can be seen below. To see more, and to check out some of our other shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
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The Stephen King TV adaptations of the 90s have their legion of fans despite the varying qualities. The most famous mini-series of the bunch is the 1990 adaptation of IT with Tim Curry in one of his many cultural defining roles as Pennywise. Many other adaptations include Storm of the Century and The Langoliers. One of the adaptations that has a cult following is the TV adaptation of The Stand from 1994. Blu-ray.com has recently reported that Paramount Home Media Distribution will celebrate the 30th anniversary of Mick Garris’ The Stand with a Limited SteelBook edition of the film, which is set to be sold exclusively at Walmart on September 24.
The description reads,
“In Stephen King’s epic vision of an apocalyptic future, the few survivors of a plague-ravaged world must choose sides in the ultimate battle of good vs. evil that will decide the fate of humanity. As the followers of demonic Randall Flagg plot to rebuild the world in his dark image, a courageous foursome embarks on a heroic mission against Flagg and his minions. Fighting overwhelming odds, they will risk more than their lives as they take one desperate last stand against evil.”
Adapted by Stephen King from his best-selling, celebrated novel, the all-star cast features Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Jamey Sheridan, Laura San Giacomo, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Miguel Ferrer, Corin Nemec, Matt Frewer, Adam Storke, Ray Walston and Rob Lowe.
Not much was announced by way of features except that it will be presented in its original 1:33:1 TV aspect ratio.
In 2021, King’s novel was adapted for TV again when The Stand was released in 2021 on CBS All Access. The CBS All Access mini-series stars Alexander Skarsgård as Randall Flagg, Whoopi Goldberg as Mother Abagail, James Marsden as Stu Redman, Odessa Young as Frannie Goldsmith, Jovan Adepo as Larry Underwood, Henry Zaga as Nick Andros, Amber Heard as Nadine Cross, Owen Teague as Harold Lauder, Katherine McNamara as Julie Lawry, Fiona Dourif as the Rat Woman, Nat Wolff as Lloyd Henreid, Heather Graham as Rita Blakemoor, Ezra Miller as Trashcan Man, Greg Kinnear as Glen Bateman, Brad William Henke as Tom Cullen, Irene Bedard as Ray Bretner, Natalie Martinez as Dayna Jurgens, Hamish Linklater as Dr. Ellis, Eion Bailey as Teddy Weizak, and Daniel Sunjata as Cobb.
This new version of The Stand was produced by CBS Television Studios. Josh Boone and Benjamin Cavell executive produced with Taylor Elmore, Will Weiske, Roy Lee, Jimmy Miller, and Richard P. Rubinstein. Will Weiske and Miri Yoon served as co-executive producers, and Jake Braver, Stephen Welke, Knate Lee, Jill Killington, and Owen King have producer credits.
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As No Man’s Sky nears its eighth anniversary, it’s clear the open-world survival crafting sim isn’t slowing down. A cavalcade of free updates continues to transform the game from what it once was at launch, and the latest of those is no different. Today, Hello Games revealed Worlds Part 1, a complete overhaul of…
As No Man’s Sky nears its eight anniversary, it’s clear the open-world survival crafting sim isn’t slowing down. A cavalcade of free updates continues to transform the game from what it once was at launch, and the latest of those is no different. Today, Hello Games revealed Worlds Part 1, a complete overhaul of…
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the long-awaited sequel to director Tim Burton’s 1988 classic Beetlejuice (watch it HERE), has officially received its rating from the Motion Picture Association ratings board – and it’s the rating you’ve probably been expecting. While the original film was rated PG, it would definitely have been a PG-13 if it were released today, and that’s exactly the rating the new film has received, a PG-13. What’s interesting is the reason given for this rating: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has been rated PG-13 for violent content, macabre and bloody images, strong language, some suggestive material and brief drug use.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was in development hell for decades before it finally got made. In 1990, Jonathan Gems was hired to write a sequel that was going to be titled Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. Burton considered having Daniel Waters rewrite that script, Pamela Norris did rewrite it, and Warner Bros. offered Kevin Smith the chance to do another rewrite. He turned it down. Seth Grahame-Smith was hired to write and produce a new version of a sequel in 2011. Mike Vukadinovich was brought on to rewrite his script in 2017.
Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, co-creators and co-showrunners of Wednesday, have written the screenplay for Beetlejuice 2 that was actually filmed. Brad Pitt’s Plan B is producing the sequel, which filmed in London before moving to Vermont and Massachusetts.
Here’s the official synopsis: Beetlejuice is back! After an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid, discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened. With trouble brewing in both realms, it’s only a matter of time until someone says Beetlejuice’s name three times and the mischievous demon returns to unleash his very own brand of mayhem.
Michael Keaton is back as Beetlejuice and is joined in the cast by Winona Ryder, reprising the role of Lydia Deetz; Catherine O’Hara, back as Lydia’s stepmother Delia; Jenna Ortega as Lydia’s daughter Astrid, Justin Theroux as a fellow named Rory, Monica Bellucci as Beetlejuice’s wife and Willem Dafoe as a law enforcement officer in the afterlife. Arthur Conti is also in there, in an unspecified role.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is set to reach theatres on September 6th. Will you be catching it on the big screen? What do you think of the reasons given for the PG-13 rating? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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Music icon Madonna is no stranger to the film side of entertainment. The singer would crossover into movies on many occasions, including starring in a variety of projects like Body of Evidence, A League of Their Own and Dick Tracy. For a time, she would even be married to director Guy Ritchie, who she made a film with called Swept Away. In the past few years, Madonna had been reportedly developing a biopic about herself in which she would be in the rare position to both write and direct. Early last year, the project would not come together and she scrapped the project just ahead of her world tour.
Deadline is now reporting that the 80s pop icon teased on her Instagram that the project is once again in development. Madonna posted a slideshow that featured a series of pictures of her working on a typewriter and her table is littered with screenplay pages. The caption to her post read, “I Need A-lot of Bandz to make this………..OKAY. (Story of my life).” Additionally, in one of the pictures from the video that Madonna teased, you can see a line drawn across the title M Untitled. The new title of the biopic is now reportedly Who’s That Girl, which is a nod to Madonna’s 1987 film and song of the same name.
On her early attempt to develop the film, Madonna first tackled the script with Juno and Jennifer’s Body scribe Diablo Cody, who later exited the project, and again with Erin Cressida Wilson (The Girl on the Train). In Madonna’s Instagram post, the script is noted as being “Rewritten by Madonna and ECW.” There have been previous attempts at telling the story of Madonna’s rise to fame, but she’s never been happy with the scripts she’s been sent. “I read that Universal was doing a script,” Madonna told Jimmy Fallon in 2021. “Like they sent me the script because they wanted my blessing, and I read it. It was the most hideous, superficial crap I’ve ever read.” The artist added that “the reason I’m doing it is because a bunch of people have tried to write movies about me, but they’re always men.”
Julia Garner, best known for her award-winning performance in Netflix’s Ozark, was said to be the frontrunner to play Madonna in the biopic. Julia Garner was one of several stars who participated in a months-long audition process to play Madonna. Garner, along with Florence Pugh, Odessa Young, and Alexa Demis, took choreography lessons with Madonna’s choreographer, as well as singing and reading sessions with Madonna herself.
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Pop culture and entertainment fans have lost a number of icons over the past few days. First was Shelley Duvall on July 11th, followed by Richard Simmons two days later. That day, it was also announced that Shannen Doherty – star of Beverly Hills 90210, Charmed and more – had passed away after a long battle with cancer at just 53. Now, Kevin Smith – who directed Doherty in 1995’s Mallrats – has broken his Silent Bob ways to honor the late actress.
It was no secret that Shannen Doherty held a grudge against Mallrats for the toll it took on her career but she and her director did end up having a good relationship. As such, Smith took to social media following the loss of his star, who was by far the most famous in the cast at that point. In his lengthy post, he wrote, in part: “Long before any other pop culture figure “broke the internet” @theshando singlehandedly shattered it in the early 90’s. This is an incredible accomplishment considering the internet as we know it didn’t even exist yet. I (and the rest of the known universe) used to watch “the girl from #heathers” every week on @beverlyhills90210. I usually did so while jockeying the register at @quickstopgroceries – so it was ironic that the film I’d eventually make there would lead to #shannendoherty.”
Smith would go on to detail how he ended up landing Doherty in Mallrats despite just how huge of a TV star she was at the time, acknowledging that she was also truly the reason the movie even got greenlit in the first place. He, too, had fond memories of their mall days. “I cherish the memories of Shannen walking her German Shepherd around the @edenprairiecenter every morning, or whenever she’d gossip and giggle between takes…But while Shannen was no shrinking violet and she gave as good as she got (particularly to the paparazzi), she was never anything but sweet to me. I told her back in December when I was on her podcast that I felt like the girl I used to watch on TV at Quick Stop was there to welcome me when I got into show business.”
Shannen Doherty, as Smith said, may have taken a lot of flak from the media – and even some of her co-stars – but there’s no denying her importance in pop culture and the View Askewniverse, as her turn as Rene Mosier in Mallrats is one of the stronger in the Smith canon. And without her, it’s evident we never would have gotten the movie at all.
At this point, all we can say is thank you to Shannen Doherty for your contributions to entertainment, especially as you helped define a decade.
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The San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) could end up ditching the namesake city it has called home for more than 50 years, with organizers saying their hands might be tied when it comes to how hotels in the area are trying to price gouge fans.
Ahead of this year’s event – slated for July 25th – 28th – David Glanzer, Chief Communication and Strategy Officer for Comic-Con International, said that since their contract expires next year, it’s quite possible that the famed convention could end up ditching San Diego. “We would never want to leave, but if push came to shove and it became untenable for us, it’s something that we would certainly have to look into…As event planners, we’re always contacted by different cities and it would be reckless for us to not at least acknowledge that.”
The primary issue is that certain hotels are limiting how many rooms they will actually block off for SDCC attendees, something that is traditionally done for major events like that. Considering there is always a gargantuan turnout for SDCC – which had over 150,000 people last year (one heck of a recovery following 2020 and 2021’s canceled events) – this is a bad look for the hotels. On this, Glanzer added, “Many of the hotels downtown have been incredibly wonderful to us. They’ve allowed us to use meeting space, they’ve given us huge room blocks, they’ve kept their rates very competitive. But it’s tough when those hotels offer a competitive rate and then a hotel that chooses not to be in the room block charges an exorbitant amount of money. That means the people who work with us end up losing out.” Essentially, those that help make SDCC the event that it is are being priced out.
If SDCC does in fact leave San Diego, it wouldn’t just be a hit for the convention but also for “America’s Finest City”, as SDCC reportedly brings in $140 million annually to San Diego. SDCC would undoubtedly survive elsewhere if they do change hosting cities after 2026, but, like Sundance potentially leaving Park City, it just won’t be the same.
How do you feel about SDCC potentially leaving San Diego? Do you hope to see it stay in the area or will it not ultimately matter? Share your thoughts with us.
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The world has been plunged into darkness. The dead persist violently among the living. What remains of humanity following a cataclysm I helped trigger is now at each other’s throats. I carry my share of the blame, but it’s clear the gods must pay for what they’ve done to us. There’s a path to seeking justice, and it…