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.
Jeff gives his review of the blu-ray release of one of the most iconic horror films of all time.
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. 
For those of you who thought Cannon Films were just action film specialist back in the 80's, look no further then the sci-fi/horror oddity that is Lifeforce. Directed by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Funhouse, Poltergeist) and penned by the late Dan O' Bannon (Alien, Return of the Living Dead), this cluster of space-vampire wackiness has just made it to Blu-ray and DVD via the folks at Scream Factory in a special edition that could "breathe" some new life into this underrated space fright flick.
When Tobe Hooper's macabre creation The Texas Chainsaw Massacre rattled audiences throughout the world in 1974, you would have thought that by now, 37 years later, he would have resume of work that was among the greatest directors in horror. That's unfortunately not the case as the often maligned talent could rarely hold onto some of the film opportunities given to him after The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's success. The Funhouse (1981) was one of a handful of Hooper's successes - though not without it's flaws - to make an impact on the genre. Arrow Video is handling the duties of presenting one of Hooper's finer outings on Blu-ray. Does it hold up like it did upon its release back in the 80's?