Scream Factory has been going above and beyond with some really fine treatment of John Carpenter’s classic films on Blu-ray. Just this year we’ve seen excellent releases of The Prince of Darkness, Assault on Precinct 13 and what could possibly be their best Blu-ray release this year in The Fog. During the early 90’s Carpenter put together an anthology along with genre great Tobe Hooper for Showtime called Body Bags. Here, Carpenter directed two of the films -- Hair and The Gas Station, and Hooper directed The Eye. Much like Creepshow, Carpenter also does a frequently humorous and gory wraparound piece where he plays a mortician who uses the bloody corpses to tell the stories unfolding. The Gas Station is the first in the anthology and this is a straight-up slasher with some sprinklings of humor. It follows a young, attractive women and her new job as an overnight gas station attendant. She’s alone the whole night after reliving the evening shift attendant (Robert Carradine, Revenge of the Nerds). Creepy red-herrings are strewn about here in the form of a bum played by Carpenter regular, Buck Flower (They Live) and a drunk played by horror great Wes Craven.
The bodies gradually start to pile as someone is wandering about the darkness surrounding the gas station and hacking up folks. The premise of The Gas Station is routine but it starts a fun pace for the film and has an enjoyable performance by Robert Carradine.
