One of the many great things Dragon Age: The Veilguard has to offer is its robust character creator. It’s so thorough that some players have spent dozens of hours creating and perfecting their versions of protagonist Rook, as well as the Inquisitor, their hero from Dragon Age: Inquisition. Leading up to launch, fans…
Sean Penn would like to thank the Academy…for nothing. Despite two Best Actor Oscars — putting him in the company of Marlon Brando and Gary Cooper — Sean Penn is calling out AMPAS for their lack of risk taking.
It’s been more than 15 years since Sean Penn won his last Oscar (for Milk; he won his first for Mystic River), but he keeps himself in the loop enough to have some thoughts on how simple the Academy can be in their choices. “The Academy have exercised really extraordinary cowardice when it comes to being part of the bigger world of expression, and in fact, have largely been part of limiting the imagination and very limiting of different cultural expressions.”
So what does Sean Penn hope to see at this year’s Oscars? Surprisingly, he has some high expectations with what is currently projected to score some major nominations. “I don’t I get very excited about what we’ll call the Academy Awards [except for] when a film like ‘The Florida Project,’ or ‘I’m Still Here,’ or, you know, ‘Emilia Pérez,’ of the things that are likely to happen this year.” Right now, Emilia Pérez is poised to land a slew of nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (Jacques Audiard) and Best Actress (Karla Sofía Gascón), with Zoe Saldana possibly even looking at a Best Supporting Actress win (yeah, there’s a little bit of category controversy there…). Speaking of The Florida Project, Sean Baker’s latest film, Anora, is also shaping up to capitalize on its Palme d’Or win. You can read our 9/10 review here.
Sean Penn also took the stance that the Oscars should be seen as a “television show first”, suggesting winning a statue doesn’t have the prestige that most think it does. Penn might have a point overall, as a lot of people tend to think that there is still so much campaigning and “buying” of votes that it complicates the whole scene, while there’s also the argument of how you can compare one performance to another. But it’s hard to deny that the Academy Award is still — and always will be — seen as the highest accolade in cinema.
Nomination for the 97th Academy Awards will be announced on January 17th, while the ceremony itself takes place on March 2nd, with Conan O’Brien as host. Just like Sean Penn said: television show first!
What do you make of Sean Penn’s comments about the Oscars?
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The Prime Video TV series adaptation of the popular Fallout video game franchise already had a second season in the works before the first season even started streaming – which turned out to be a good move, because Fallout quickly became Prime Video’s second most-watched title (after The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), drawing in 65 million viewers in its first 16 days of release. Now, we’ve learned that Fallout season 2 has started filming, and we’ve been tipped off by the fact that Walton Goggins, who plays The Ghoul, shared an image on social media that shows him getting back into Ghoul character.
Like the video games on which it is based, the “Fallout” series is set in a world where the future envisioned by Americans in the late 1940s explodes upon itself through a nuclear war in 2077. The TV series is telling an original story that is set in the world of the video games and will be canon to the game franchise. The story plays out in and around a fallout shelter in Los Angeles called Vault 33.
In addition to Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4, the video game series also consists of the spin-offs Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 76, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout Shelter, and Fallout Pinball. The first game takes place 219 years after nuclear war and is set in a post-apocalyptic Southern California. The protagonist, referred to as the Vault Dweller, is tasked with recovering a water chip in the Wasteland to replace the broken one in their underground shelter home, Vault 13. Afterwards, the Vault Dweller must thwart the plans of a group of mutants, led by a grotesque entity named the Master.
Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner are the showrunners on the Fallout TV series and are executive producing the series with Todd Howard of Bethesda Game Studios, James Altman of Bethesda Softworks, and Athena Wickham, Jonathan Nolan, and Lisa Joy of Kilter Films. Amazon Studios and Kilter Films are producing the series, in association with Bethesda Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks. Nolan and Joy developed the concept for TV, and Nolan directed the first three episodes.
Prime Video’s Fallout stars Ella Purnell (Yellowjackets), Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks), Walton Goggins (Justified), Xelia Mendes-Jones (Sans Comic), Aaron Moten (Father Stu), Moisés Arias (The King of Staten Island), Sarita Choudhury (Homeland), Michael Emerson (Person of Interest), Leslie Uggams (Deadpool), Frances Turner (The Boys), Dave Register (Heightened), Zach Cherry (Severance), Johnny Pemberton (Ant-Man), Rodrigo Luzzi (Dead Ringers), and Annabel O’Hagan (Law & Order: SVU).
Purnell’s character is Lucy, who has lived her entire life inside a subterranean vault, where every need and want has been satisfied while generations and generations await the day when it is safe to surface. When a crisis forces Lucy to venture above on a rescue mission, she finds that the planet above remains a hellscape crawling with giant insects, voracious mutant animal “abominations,” and a human population of sunbaked miscreants who make the manners, morals, and hygiene of the gunslinging Old West look like Downton Abbey. Moten’s character is Maximus, who grew up aboveground but, like Lucy, was also raised in a cloistered “family” of sorts—a brutal collective of warriors called the Brotherhood of Steel. The Brotherhood is made up of battalions of super-soldier knights in shining power armor, who stalk the landscape enforcing the Brotherhood’s notion of order. Maximus serves as a squire. MacLachlan plays Lucy’s father, the overseer of Vault 33, which essentially makes him the mayor of their hometown, while Choudhury is a different kind of leader in this world, willing to sacrifice anything for her band of people. Arias plays Lucy’s inquisitive brother. Emerson is an enigmatic researcher named Wilzig.
As Vanity Fair noted, “in the Fallout games, Ghouls are typically cannon fodder, mindless zombies whose bodies have been mutated by radiation.” Goggins’ character is Cooper Howard, a legendary Ghoul who still retains some of the person he used to be. He’s “a gruesomely scarred roughrider who has a code of honor, but also a ruthless streak. He’s also quite a survivor—having existed for hundreds of years. The show occasionally flashes back to the human being he once was, a father and husband named Cooper Howard, before the nuclear holocaust turned the world into a cinder and transformed him into an undead, noseless sharp-shooting fiend.“
Joining the cast for Fallout season 2 is Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin, who will be playing the recurring role of “a crazy genius-type character.”
Are you a Fallout fan, and are you glad to hear Fallout season 2 is now filming? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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As with the Riemann SMG, the Lullaby in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is another high-end, unique weapon locked behind a specific side quest that’s only obtainable by paying for the Ultimate Edition. If you’re willing to fork over the extra cash, you’ll receive additional Journalist’s Stash quests.
As with the Riemann SMG, the Lullaby in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is another high-end, unique weapon locked behind a specific side quest that’s only obtainable by paying for the Ultimate Edition. If you’re willing to fork over the extra cash, you’ll receive additional Journalist’s Stash quests.
Back in 2014, writer/director Patrick Brice and co-writer/star Mark Duplass teamed up with Blumhouse Productions to bring us the found footage horror film Creep – which was so well-received that a sequel, appropriately titled Creep 2, followed in 2017. Before Creep 2 was even released, Brice confirmed that a third film was in development and was meant to wrap everything up as a trilogy – but along the way, the plan changed from making another feature to making a TV series called The Creep Tapes. The six-episode series made its premiere on the Shudder and AMC+ streaming services last month – and during an interview with The New York Times, Duplass revealed that he made the show with the intention of it becoming comfort viewing for the audience, much like Friends and Seinfeld.
Created by Brice and Duplass, the first season of The Creep Tapes continues to unravel the mind of a secluded serial killer who lures videographers into his world with the promise of a paid job documenting his life. Unfortunately, as the tape rolls, the killer’s questionable intentions surface with his increasingly odd behavior and the victims will learn they may have made a deadly mistake.
Duplass provided the following statement: “A little over 10 years ago, Patrick Brice and I spent a week together in my cabin with a small digital camera. We emerged with a found footage horror film that was so wildly strange and uncomfortable we assumed no one would see it. To be continuing this unholy legacy in the series format is a true nightmare come true.” Duplass previously let us know, “The series is based on a collection of video tapes in the secret vault of the world’s deadliest and most socially uncomfortable serial killer, who hires his victims to film him for the day under false pretenses. Each episode exposes a new victim from one of the fabled ‘Creep Tapes.’“
Duplass told The New York Times, “I wanted The Creep Tapes to feel, as crazy as it sounds, the way I felt with my family during the pandemic when we binge-watched Friends and Seinfeld. There’s a cold open, and the credit sequence hits, and we just feel comfortable. This is going to be a comfort show, weirdly, for people who love this character. It’s the comfort of discomfort.” He was concerned that viewers might be too familiar with his creepy character to be scared by him anymore, but he found that the enhanced humor in the show made the scares more effective. “We found that by incorporating more humor into it, people got way more relaxed. When it came time for the scares, they got got at a more intense level. The humor allows us to bring back the shock factor that we’ve lost by the fact that everybody already knows I’m a killer.“
Have you been watching The Creep Tapes, and have you been finding it to be a “comfort viewing” experience? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
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After starting off his career by directing independent dramas like George Washington and All the Real Girls, David Gordon Green shifted over to making stoner comedies like Pineapple Express and Your Highness for a while, then made his horror debut by taking the helm of a full trilogy of Halloween sequels: the 2018 Halloween, Halloween Kills, and Halloween Ends. That trilogy turned out to be rather divisive – some fans love what Green did with them, others were disappointed with how the story played out. Then he was planning to direct a trilogy of sequels to The Exorcist… but when The Exorcist: Believer was poorly received, he stepped away from that project. He’s currently doing the press rounds for his latest film, the family holiday comedy Nutcrackers, and during an interview with MovieWeb he shared advice and encouragement for directors who have the chance to work on established franchises like he did with Halloween and The Exorcist.
Green told MovieWeb, “I certainly want to encourage people to do it, but it’s challenging because you want the filmmaker to invest all of themselves in that project. When we’re talking about bigger franchises that have legacies and fan bases, that’s a really delicate balance. Because where I can watch Joker 2 and also see a very challenging and artful and passionate movie that’s made, if you’re a different type of fan, you might think, ‘they sabotaged my franchise,’ where I didn’t see anything like that. All I saw was a very specific, unique, one of a kind voice, doing their interpretation of a character. So I have great appreciation for that. I’m always just like, give me the amount of money that says I’m going to do my version of this. It’s responsible, because the budget is, in my case, always limited. But you can take chances, you can take swings, and you can make a passion project that feels very personal to you, even though it might be dabbling in the world of IP.“
It’s interesting to see him show his support for Joker: Folie à Deux there, as Todd Phillips made decisions on that film that really upset some fans, much like Green’s choices on his horror movies (especially Halloween Ends) were upsetting to some fans.
What do you think of what Green had to say about directors working on established franchises – and of the work he did on the Halloween and Exorcist franchises? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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There’s nothing more disheartening for a movie fan than when you go see a movie with a bunch of your friends, and while you absolutely love the movie, when the lights come on, and you walk out, you realize your friends absolutely HATED it. Sometimes this is justified, such as when my group of buddies rightly accused me of being insane for loving Die Another Day. At other times, they’re dead wrong, such as when one of my best friends tried to convince me Rushmore was bad (believe it or not – this also happened at The Matrix – but with a different friend). Another time I was totally disheartened by the reaction of a group of friends was back in the fall of 2004 when a group of us went to see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow on opening night.
Wait a second, some of you might be asking. What the heck is Sky Captain? It’s a movie that – twenty years ago – was pretty heavily hyped by Paramount Pictures, as it was shot in a revolutionary way by director Kerry Conran, with it all shot against virtual sets and green screen. Before this came out, people were saying Condon was maybe going to be the next George Lucas because he seemed to be a total VFX pioneer. Still, audiences ended up not caring for the cartoonish world our live-action heroes find themselves playing against. What happened was that Conran was too early with his use of the technology, which was used to better effect by Robert Rodriguez on Sin City and Zack Snyder on 300, and nowadays is standard.
Of course, it likely wasn’t just the visual style Sky Captain had going against it. The film, which aims to recreate old Saturday afternoon serials from the thirties, albeit with a Dieselpunk/ quasi-futuristic spin, was another failed attempt by Hollywood to make a pulp-style movie. Indiana Jones had done this brilliantly, but movies like The Shadow and The Phantom tried to mould pre-existing pulp characters into modern action heroes, adopting this high adventure style. Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow would be more like Indiana Jones in that it was Conran’s original creation, but while those movies were grounded by amazing stonework and action, Sky Captain was deliberately artificial in an extreme way.
In it, Jude Law plays the titular Sky Captain aka Joe Sullivan, who heads his own private airforce and acts as a kind of superhero protector of this alternate history New York circa 1939. When mysterious robots invade the city, Joe teams up with his ex-girlfriend, a plucky reporter in the Lois Lane mode, Polly Perkins, to discover what’s behind the sinister plot. The next hour and forty minutes feature our heroes doing battle against all kinds of mechanical villains, including Bai Ling’s retro-cyborg henchman, with a little help from Angelina Jolie as a dead-sexy, one-eyed Navy pilot named Franky, and Sky Captain’s sidekick, Dex, played by Giovanni Ribisi.
The movie is highly stylized to a fault, with it very much in the “gee whiz” style of a movie made seventy years before this saw the light of day. More cynical audiences of the time dubbed it as cheesy, with only a few of us appreciating the retro pulp feel. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow had a visual style that likely turned off a lot of viewers, with it shot on primitive digital video and then manipulated to look like a highly stylized film. Some thought it looked terrific; others thought it looked cheap. Paramount swore it wasn’t the latter, with them saying it cost a pricey $70 million, although Conrad, years later, scoffed at this number, saying that if indeed it cost that much, it was spent on things other than the filming.
Some critics of the time appreciated Sky Captain, with Roger Ebert a notable defender. He gave it four stars and said watching it reminded him of seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time. In theatres, it only grossed $37 million domestically and another $20 million overseas, meaning it was considered a flop and put Conran’s career on the ice, with him never directing another movie.
Yet, there were reasons other than the film’s quality that played a role in its failure. At the time, the movie’s two stars, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law, were considered very over-exposed. This was particularly true of Law, as it was around this time that Hollywood decided to make him a household name. This happens now and again, where every once in a while, an actor or actress becomes the toast of Hollywood and makes a whole bunch of high-profile films is quick succession with the idea that they will be future megastars. Sometimes this backfires, as with Armie Hammer or Jai Courtney, but sometimes it works too, such as what seems to be happening with Glen Powell right now or Jennifer Lawrence back in the day. Law made too many movies back-to-back, with this his sixth film in 2004, with many of them, including his ill-advised remake of Alfie, being notable flops. The failure of all these films put a notable chill on his career for a while. Still, Law was smart and doubled down on being a character actor first, eventually gaining new fans in more complicated roles, and his career has endured well in the twenty years since Sky Captain (the week you can see him in Star Wars: Skeleton Crew and The Order).
If you haven’t seen this movie, I urge you to check it out. It’s a fun, old-fashioned adventure with a great score by Edward Shearmur, who never entirely became the A-list composer he should have been. It has a bouncy pace and even an early example of post-mortem casting with Laurence Olivier playing the bad guy despite having died 13 years before this came out. Give it a shot!
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It’s that time of year when family favorites of the holiday season are played repeatedly on TV. Movies like Home Alone, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Elf, A Christmas Story and The Santa Clause are on heavy rotations. Even though the movie is as popular as ever (complete with brand-new merchandise released decades after its premiere), Succession star Kieran Culkin revealed recently that he actually had not allowed his children to watch Home Alone, which stars his brother Macaulay and features him in a small role.
You might ask, “But why?” Is it because he doesn’t want his children to see him guzzle down Pepsi with the implication that he’ll wet the bed? The explanation is actually much simpler and more sensible. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Culkin would tell E! News that “there’s still some scary parts” for his young children. He expounds,
For the 3-year-old, there’s the tarantula [and] there’s the guy at the end who said, ‘I’m gonna bite off all your fingers.’ That’s scary for a 3-year-old.”
However, this Christmas may finally be the time to unveil this classic. Culkin says, “We think they might be ready for Home Alone this year. If not, next year.”
Culkin, who is currently getting accolades for his film A Real Pain, reflected on his time on the movie as a little tyke himself, “I had no idea what that movie was about when I saw it, and I was in it. I was at the premiere, and I was dying laughing. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen. I had no idea what the movie was about.” He also revealed that Buzz would do a very Buzz thing in real life as well, “Devin Ratray, the guy who plays Buzz, lied to me and told me the movie was all about him, and I believed him. And then when I saw it, the movie’s cracking me up, and I go, ‘Mac was on set all the time. That makes sense the movie would be about him.’”
Our own Chris Bumbray praised Culkin’s performance in his A Real Pain review, saying, “Culkin has been long overdue for some recognition, and it’s nice to see him getting roles outside of Succession that prove what a first-class actor he is.”
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Legends. Legends are special and live on far after the legend themselves have passed from this plane of existence. There are many legends in the world of film and specifically the realm of horror, but none can compare with Vincent Price. He belongs with the greats of not only the horror genre but of film specifically. His career would wind up spanning the black and white film world but also the advent of color and television. He was a renaissance man with a love of art, his fans, and he would embrace his role in the world of horror wholeheartedly. Today on What Happened to This Horror Celebrity, we’re going to look back at the life of one of the world of horror’s true kings, Vincent Price.
Vincent Price was born on May 27th, 1911, in St. Louis Missouri. If this surprises you, well it came as a shock to me too many year ago when I found out one of my favorite actors of all time was born in the same state as me. For some reason, maybe he’s cultured demeanor or suave way of carrying himself, young me always assumed he was from Europe. But nope, Vincent Price was a Midwest boy. His family were part of the food industry, something that probably helped play a part in his later love of cooking. His grandfather invented cream of tartar which was sold as Dr. Price’s Baking Powder. His father (both his grandfather and father were named Vincent) was the head of the National Candy Company which was one of the largest candy companies in the US. The family was well to do.
Young Vincent would wind up with a degree in English as well as a minor in art history, something else that would come into play years later. He’d go to England and attend school there where he would find himself falling in love with the theater. In 1935 he’d start a career on stage and would eventually become well known for his role of Prince Albert in Victoria Regina which he’d perform on Broadway back in the states. A few years later, Price would become part of Orson Welles Mercury Theater.
Price would start working in films in the late 1930s. 1939 would see him star in Tower of London but he’d truly become part of a horror legacy in the Universal film The Invisible Man Returns. In 1946 he’d star in one of my favorite classic gothics Dragonwyck where he’d really step into the brooding, tortured character who is always doomed by their own actions. In 1953 Price would bring 3 Dimensions to the screen with his role in the classic House of Wax. The film was a remake of the original 1933 film, Mystery of the Wax Museum. But here we have glorious color to truly highlight the horrors on screen. We’d also have a young Charles Bronson as Price’s mute assistant and Carolyn Jones pre-Morticia Addams.
The 50s would really see Price start his climb into the upper echelon of horror royalty. The Mad Magician was another entry with Price playing a mad genius that would use 3D for a hook in 1954. Price would star in the original The Fly and it’s sequel The Return of the Fly. The ending scene of the lead character screaming “help me” as a spider comes to eat his human headed fly body eventually had to be shot with Price and his co-star standing back-to-back because they couldn’t stop laughing.
Price would end out the decade with two of his most famous black and white roles when he teamed up with the PT Barnum of movies, William Castle. House on Haunted Hill where he truly cemented himself as the sinister and suave character, we all know and love. House on Haunted Hill’s gimmick was a skeleton being released on a wire to slide above the audience in the theater. His other film, The Tingler, where Price played a doctor trying to find the source of human fear and discovers the creature who makes it. That gimmick had wires set up on certain seats in the audience that would actually deliver electric shocks to the person sitting there when The Tingler was released in the theater. These two films were really setting Price up for what I call Suave Horror. With his impeccable mustache, cultured voice, debonair air but ability to turn from cool to sinister with just an arched brow he created himself a blue print and one that many actors and artists in the coming decades would look to for inspiration like Jeffrey Combs, Julian Sands, and even the band Ghost with the original appearance of Cardinal Copia.
It would be in the 1960s though that Price would join forces with the late, great, Roger Corman to create what is considered the greatest adaptations of the works of Edgar Allan Poe, beginning in 1960 with House of Usher. Price would step into many different roles in these films, from villain, tortured victim, to even the hero. Usher was a great success and with Corman’s knack for finding talent and making every penny count, he would follow it up with The Pit and the Pendulum, Tales of Terror, The Raven, The Masque of the Red Death and The Tomb of Ligeia. Price was very good at making his villains likeable. Prince Prospero for instance is a real bastard but as the viewer, you, much like Francesca, want him to see the error of his ways before it is too late. But of course he doesn’t. Ligeia would see Price showing some of his romantic side before…well…the brooding cursed nature takes hold.
The Raven was one of the more pure comedies to come out of the run of films with Corman, though Tales of Terror had a big comedic heart too with its telling of The Black Cat. It’s a fun, wacky, and great bringing together of Price, Karloff, and Peter Lorre with Price playing the heroic wizard of the film. AIP followed this up with The Comedy of Terrors which would bring back Price, Karloff, Lorre and Basil Rathbone who had also co-starred in Tales of Terror. Richard Matheson would write the screenplay for Comedy of Terrors, and he would also be the writer of one of the greatest horror sci-fi novels of all time with I Am Legend, a story that would be retold a few times by Hollywood. But Vincent Price would star in the first adaptation of the book in 1964 titled The Last Man on Earth.
In 1963 Price would star in the possession story Diary of a Madman. That same year he’d star in the Corman directed The Haunted Palace, which was based off of HP Lovecraft’s The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward, even though it was released under the guise of an Edgar Allan Poe tale.
In 1968 Price would portray probably one of the most evil characters in his history as the very real Matthew Hopkins in Witchfinder General. It’s a brutal film and was actually going to be far more violent before the script was toned down. It was a hard shoot as well and Price and director Michael Reeves didn’t get along during it but would later come to an understanding. In 1969 he’d star in the voodoo driven The Oblong Box alongside Christopher Lee. During this time Price would also show up on numerous television series in guest roles with standouts like a villainous turn in The Man from UNCLE and especially Egghead in the Batman live action series.
In the 1970s Price entered another busy time. He’d star in An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe, retelling some of Poe’s greatest works. Scream and Scream Again would pair him up with two of the UK’s horror greats, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. This would be followed up by The Cry of the Banshee. In 1971 Price would take on one of my favorite roles he starred in, the strange and bizarre The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Here, you’re really rooting for the bad guy who is out to avenge the death of his wife on the operating table and the destruction of his own face, leaving him a ruined skull with a voice box and mask. Dr. Phibes is brilliant and ruthless and has a beautiful assistant named Vulnavia who helps him in his unique form of murder. Joseph Cotten would co-star as would the legendary Terry-Thomas who comes to a bad end. He’d return to the role the following year with Dr. Phibes Rises Again which would put him at odds with Robert Quarry, the man who would give unlife to Count Yorga.
In 1973 Price would give it to the critics in Theater of Blood, very much in the vein (that’s a joke) of Dr. Phibes where using a series of unique deaths, Edward Lionheart murders his critics based on works of Shakespeare. Diana Rigg stars as his daughter. The film is darkly comedic at times but it’s great to see Price eating the scenery in a role. In 1974 Price would don the role of another actor, this one also close to home in Madhouse, one of my other favorites of his that seems to not be as talked about. Madhouse follows Paul Toombes, known for his Doctor Death series of movies whose fiancée is murdered horribly one night during a party. Everyone suspects him of the murder but when he is brought back after a breakdown to star in a new series of Doctor Death films, people start dying around him again. The film uses footage from Price’s other movies intercut with new footage to create his Doctor Death work. It also brings back legends Peter Cushing and Robert Quarry to star alongside Price. It also has one of the creepiest ending shots I’ve seen and I’m still not sure how they did it.
Vincent would join Alice Cooper for his TV movie The Nightmare in 1975 as the actual Spirit of the Nightmare. He’d also host the Welcome to My Nightmare concert movie that same year.
Price actually loved doing kids shows and content for younger viewers and he made this very clear in the 70s. In 1977 he would be the host of the Muppet Show which themed a lot of the content in the scary way (they’d actually create a Muppet named Vincent Twice for Sesame Street in 1989 in homage to Price.) Kermit would famously bite Price in the neck during the appearance.
It would also be during the 70s that Price would take a role that many still don’t know exists. A local tv station in Ontario created a kids/teen show called The Hilarious House of Frightenstein. The series was a sketch comedy with skits that had psychedelic dancing werewolves, recurring characters, and used popular music at the time (this would later make it nearly impossible to be released on DVD in full.) At the time, the creators reached out to Price and asked if he’d host segments, and he agreed as he wanted to do more of children. Vincent Price flew out to Hamilton, Ontario and filmed all of his scenes for the entire run of 130 episodes in less than a week. According to people who were working on the shoot, Price disappeared during his last day of shooting making many think they’d angered the great actor. But he’d actually went and bought a large stock of beer that he brought back to share with the crew and spent the last hours in town drinking and telling stories about old Hollywood. Frightenstein is actually now avail to stream on some services like Tubi and Pluto TV. Some fans have uploaded episodes to YouTube. If you’ve never heard of this series, you really should check it out. Star Billy Van plays a number of characters in the show and if you love classics like The Munsters, you’re going to really dig the look. It’s wacky, fun, and Price is just having a great old time.
In 1981 Price would portray the vampire Eramus in the anthology film The Monster Club, another of my favorites of his and I believe the only time he’s ever played a vampire. The film takes place over an evening at said Monster Club where John Carradine’s horror writer is told stories by Price’s vampire. There’s also some awesome musical segments and a striptease that gives new meaning to the phrase boner. In 1982 Price would join forces for the first time with director Tim Burton for his short, animated film Vincent that was inspired by Price. It’s beautiful, gothy, and 100 percent Burton. In 1983 the greats of horror would all join forces in the horror comedy House of Long Shadows. The film would see Price with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, John Carradine. The film was a parody in many ways of the films that the four had starred in previously through their careers. That same year Vincent Price would be introduced to a whole new generation of fans with one of the biggest moments and songs in music history with Thriller. The Michael Jackson music video and record of the same name changed the world of pop music forever. Vincent Price’s “rap” in the song and his iconic laugh were perfect for it.
Vincent Price kept busy during the 80s and would return to the parody world in 1984 with the awesomely titled Bloodbath at the House of Death where he played the aptly titled Sinister Man. This is another one not enough people talk about and is just wickedly funny. It skewers films like The Omen and supernatural investigations like The Legend of Hell House as well as Carrie. Price’s character is just a sarcastic bastard, and I love it.
Continuing his love for working in kid friendly content, Price would join the world of Scooby Doo in 1985 with The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo as Vincent VanGhoul, basically Price himself if he were a wizard/magician. The character would return very recently in a direct to DVD finale to the story with Maurice Lamarche in Scooby Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost.
In 1986 Price was the host in the anthology film Escapes, released direct to video. That same year one of his favorite roles he would ever play happened when he stepped into the world of Disney as the villain Ratigan in The Great Mouse Detective. Price actually sang in the film which followed Basil, the mouse who lives in Sherlock Holmes’s 221 B Baker Street apartments and happens to be a detective too.
In 1987 Price would once again be the guide through a handful of horror stories in the anthology film From a Whisper to a Scream. Price’s health was starting to decline in the late 80s, but it didn’t slow him down much. In fact he would co-star in the Oscar nominated The Whales of August the same year. In 1988 he would play one of the main villains in Dead Heat, the zombie buddy action cop comedy horror film starring Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo.
Vincent Price would rejoin with Tim Burton for one of his last on-screen roles as The Inventor who gives life to Edward Scissorhands. It’s a beautiful role for one of his last and in a way is a passing of the torch to actor Johnny Depp who would go on in roles in a number of horror films himself.
Vincent Price’s last on-screen role would be in the TV Movie The Heart of Justice in 1992 alongside actor Dermot Mulroney. I actually spoke with Mulroney about working with Price in this and he was very excited to share that, in his mind, Price is his furthest back touchstone to early Hollywood in his career. It meant a great deal to him to work with an icon like him.
Vincent Price passed away only a week before Halloween on October 25th of 1993 at the age of 82. It was right around the launch of the Sci-Fi Channel, and they included a tribute to Price when they launched.
Vincent Price was more than a horror actor though. Growing up during the times he did, there were moments were Price crossed paths with extremism and even Nazi sympathizers and ideals. But Price would not let that taint him. He would eventually become one of the most anti-hate actors in Hollywood. He denounced racism and prejudice and would become an ally to the LGBTQ community and was supportive of his daughter Victoria when she came out to him.
Price loved art. He was passionate about it and felt that it was something that everyone, no matter their income, class, or position should have access to and be touched by. He had an extensive collection and would partner with Sears on offerings for shoppers. Price donated a number of pieces of his own collection to the Vincent Price Art Museum in California.
Vincent Price was as well known for his cooking and love of cooking as he was his art and acting. Price wrote a handful of cook books over the years and would host his own cooking show in 1971. He also recorded tutorials on how to cook as well, even on LPs.
Vincent Price was a one of a kind and while there are many who are inspired by him I can’t think of any one else that can really replicate him. He was smart, kind, funny, and could chill you with a look or a cackle. He embraced his horror pedigree with grace and wit. He enjoyed it as is evident by the interviews and chats he would have over the years. He cared about his fans and was able to span decades easily. Price was afraid to go weird or make fun of himself. He was thrilled to be a Muppet and to make kids laugh and scream in equal measure.
Vincent Price’s legacy lives on through his work and the ones inspired by him. You can find him peeking out through performances, in music, in writing, or in a young fan dipping their toes in the blood of horror’s past. Join us at that House on Haunted Hill, the parties there are killer.
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