Cinema Shock

THE FUNHOUSE (1981) The Tragedy of Tobe Hooper

After the success of SALEM'S LOT, Hooper had in the in with Hollywood that he'd been looking for, but he still had a couple of bumps along the road to his next production.
When the next production finally came, it was in the form of a studio film — Hooper's first that was made for theatrical release — although it was still fairly low budget by studio standards.
Produced by Universal Pictures in the hopes of cashing in on the then-burgeoning slasher genre, Hooper's next film took viewers into THE FUNHOUSE.
In this episode, we'll give you the rundown on Hooper's career at this time, and get into all the dirty details on how THE FUNHOUSE came to be.
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Coming Up:
POLTERGEIST (1982)
Up Next: Dan O'Bannon: Hollywood's Secret Weapon
Theme Song: "There's Still a Little Bit of Time, If We Hurry and I Mean Hurry" by Slasher Film Festival Strategy.
This episode was written, produced and edited by Gary Horne, Justin Bishop, & Todd Davis.
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SALEM’S LOT (1979) The Tragedy of Tobe Hooper

After the disappointment of EATEN ALIVE, things were looking pretty dire for Tobe Hooper.
Luckily for him, as a film production of Stephen King's SALEM'S LOT was beginning to move along, the producer in charge screened Hooper's TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE while on the hunt for a director. Once he saw it, he knew he had his guy.
In this episode, we discuss the bumps in the road between EATEN ALIVE and SALEM'S LOT, and we get into all the details on how the project turned into a made-for-TV miniseries, and how that miniseries got made.
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Coming Up:
THE FUNHOUSE (1981)
POLTERGEIST (1982)
Up Next: Dan O'Bannon: Hollywood's Secret Weapon
Theme Song: "There's Still a Little Bit of Time, If We Hurry and I Mean Hurry" by Slasher Film Festival Strategy.
This episode was written, produced and edited by Gary Horne, Justin Bishop, & Todd Davis.
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EATEN ALIVE (1976) The Tragedy of Tobe Hooper

After the success of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, Tobe Hooper and screenwriter Kim Henkel caught the attention of Hollywood and landed themselves a three picture deal with Universal.
But before they could begin work on any movies for the major studio, they had to fulfill an agreement that had been signed before the Universal contract.
That agreement was with exploitation movie producer Mardi Rustam, who'd tapped Hooper for his killer croc movie EATEN ALIVE.
In this episode, we'll trace the story behind the making of Hooper's sophomore effort, giving all the grimy details about its creation, its legacy, and how it affected the career of Tobe Hooper.
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Coming Up:
SALEM'S LOT (1979)
THE FUNHOUSE (1981)
POLTERGEIST (1982)
Theme Song: "There's Still a Little Bit of Time, If We Hurry and I Mean Hurry" by Slasher Film Festival Strategy.
This episode was written, produced and edited by Gary Horne, Justin Bishop, & Todd Davis.
Visit our website for episode archives, blogs and more: http://cinemashock.net
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THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974) | The Tragedy of Tobe Hooper

Tobe Hooper was the director of a film that's considered by many to be the greatest horror film of all time, 1974's THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE.
In addition to introducing the world to iconic movie monster Leatherface, the film also served as one of the earliest examples of a subgenre that would later come to be known as the slasher film.
Unfortunately, much of Hooper's career following CHAIN SAW didn't live up to the promise that his breakout film showed, largely due to forces beyond Hooper's control.
In this series, we'll explore the ups and downs of Hooper's career. And we'll start back at the beginning, with the story of how THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE came to be created... and become legendary.
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Coming Up:
EATEN ALIVE (1976)
SALEM'S LOT (1979)
THE FUNHOUSE (1981)
POLTERGEIST (1982)
Theme Song: "There's Still a Little Bit of Time, If We Hurry and I Mean Hurry" by Slasher Film Festival Strategy.
This episode was written, produced and edited by Gary Horne, Justin Bishop, & Todd Davis.
Visit our website for episode archives, blogs and more: http://cinemashock.net
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KILL BILL VOL 1 & 2 | The Six Degrees of 'Kill Bill'

This week we come to our epic conclusion to this series.
For the last six weeks, we've explored a series of films that were major influences on director Quentin Tarantino when he set out to make his ultimate revenge film, KILL BILL.
To wrap things up, we're going to take a look at KILL BILL itself, in full.
In this episode, we take a deep dive into the creation of the film, from its inception as an idea on the set of PULP FICTION, all the way through Taratnino's writing of the screenplay, the long tumultuous filming process, and the ultimate decision to cut the film in half, releasing it in two volumes, six months apart.
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Coming Up:
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)
EATEN ALIVE (1976)
SALEM'S LOT (1979)
THE FUNHOUSE (1981)
Theme Song: "There's Still a Little Bit of Time, If We Hurry and I Mean Hurry" by Slasher Film Festival Strategy.
This episode was written, produced and edited by Gary Horne, Justin Bishop, & Todd Davis.
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SHOGUN ASSASSIN (1980) | The Six Degrees of 'Kill Bill'

For this week's Six Degrees of Kill Bill episode, we head back to Japan to discuss another film inspired by the work of LADY SNOWBLOOD writer Kazuo Koike.
Koike's magnum opus is a Lone Wolf & Cub, an epic series that ran for six years and nearly 9,000 pages. Its popularity led to a series of six films, produced in Japan from 1972-1974.
While the LONE WOLF & CUB films were released in the U.S. in their original Japanese language, English subtitled form, they didn't truly gain popularity in America until 1980, when a pair of film producers bought the rights, smashed together footage from the first two LONE WOLF & CUB films, added a new synth-heavy soundtrack and an English dub, and released it to the grindhouse circuit in 1980.
The result, SHOGUN ASSASSIN, was a success and led many cinephiles back to the original films.
In this episode, we'll discuss the history of SHOGUN ASSASSIN, from its origins as a manga all the way through the production of the LONE WOLF & CUB films, and its release and its legacy, including its use in Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL.
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Coming Up:
KILL BILL VOL. 1 & VOL. 2 (2003/4)
Up Next: The Tragedy of Tobe Hooper
Theme Song: "There's Still a Little Bit of Time, If We Hurry and I Mean Hurry" by Slasher Film Festival Strategy.
This episode was written, produced and edited by Gary Horne, Justin Bishop, & Todd Davis.
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THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (1978) | The Six Degrees of 'Kill Bill'

When KILL BILL begins, the first image that we see on screen (after the obligatory Miramax logo, of course) is the iconic shield that indicated that we're watching a Shaw Brothers film.
The Shaw Brothers Studio was one of the premiere studios in Hong Kong in the 20th century, and their "golden age" would probably have been during the 1960s and 1970s, when they began to produce the Kung Fu films that most western audiences would come to know them for.
These Kung Fu films were a major influence on Quentin Tarantino when crafting KILL BILL, especially during the House of Blue Leaves sequence in VOL. 1 and in the Pei Mei chapter for VOL. 2.
In this episode, we'll trace the history of the Shaw Brothers Studio, and take a look at what might be their most well-known Kung Fu flick, THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (1978), starring the legendary Gordon Liu, a performer who would appear in not one, but two different roles in Tarantino's film.
And yeah, we talk a lot about Wu-Tang.
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Coming Up:
SHOGUN ASSASSIN (1980)
KILL BILL VOL. 1 & VOL. 2 (2003/4)
Up Next: The Tragedy of Tobe Hooper
Theme Song: "There's Still a Little Bit of Time, If We Hurry and I Mean Hurry" by Slasher Film Festival Strategy.
This episode was written, produced and edited by Gary Horne, Justin Bishop, & Todd Davis.
Visit our website for episode archives, blogs and more: http://cinemashock.net
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THE GAME OF DEATH (1978) | The Six Degrees of 'Kill Bill'

That iconic yellow jumpsuit that The Bride wears in KILL BILL VOL. 1 was iconic years before Uma Thurman ever put it on. It was worn by the legendary Bruce Lee in what was to be his fifth film.
GAME OF DEATH was set to be Bruce Lee's magnum opus, a film that defined his martial arts philosophies, and proved the superiority of his own school of martial arts, Jeet Kune Do.
Unfortunately, Lee passed away having only completed a few minutes of footage. But that didn't stop greedy producers from cashing in on the now-world famous Lee, reediting the footage into a new film, and using stand-ins for Lee in the majority of the film.
In this episode, we'll discuss Lee's life career leading up to GAME OF DEATH, and the Brucesploitation films that came about in the wake of his death, as well as the ultimately Brucesploitation film that would eventually be released by his own studio, five years after his passing.
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Coming Up:
36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (1978)
SHOGUN ASSASSIN (1980)
KILL BILL VOL. 1 & VOL. 2 (2004/5)
Theme Song: "There's Still a Little Bit of Time, If We Hurry and I Mean Hurry" by Slasher Film Festival Strategy.
This episode was written, produced and edited by Gary Horne, Justin Bishop, & Todd Davis.
Visit our website for episode archives, blogs and more: http://cinemashock.net
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THRILLER: A CRUEL PICTURE (1973) | The Six Degrees of 'Kill Bill'

For week 3 of our Six Degrees of Kill Bill series, we're headed to Sweden to discuss an exploitation classic that Quentin Tarantino called "the roughest revenge film ever made!"
Released in the U.S. as THEY CALL HER ONE EYE, Bo. A. Vibenius's THRILLER — A CRUEL PICTURE and its star Christina Lindberg laid the inspiration for Daryl Hannah's character in KILL BILL.
In this episode of the podcast, we'll discuss the long, long history of Swedish exploitation films, going all the way back to the beginning of the film industry itself, through the films of Igmar Bergman (!) and into the 1970s, the golden age of exploitation cinema.
We're joined on this discussion by our good friend DJ Wilson, still the only guy we know with a Christina Lindberg tattoo!
We'd also like to give a huge thanks to writer Daniel Ekeroth's incredible book Swedish Sensasionsfilms, which served as an invaluable guide to the history of Swedish exploitation films.
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Coming Up:
GAME OF DEATH (1978)
36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (1978)
SHOGUN ASSASSIN (1980)
KILL BILL VOL. 1 (2003) & VOL. 2 (2004)
Theme Song: "There's Still a Little Bit of Time, If We Hurry and I Mean Hurry" by Slasher Film Festival Strategy.
This episode was written, produced and edited by Gary Horne, Justin Bishop, & Todd Davis.
Visit our website for episode archives, merch and more: http://cinemashock.net
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LADY SNOWBLOOD (1973) | The Six Degrees of 'Kill Bill'

For our Six Degrees of Kill Bill series, we'll be talking about a wide array of movies that Quentin Tarantino has referenced or cited as an influence on his 2004 film, but no film may be as influential on KILL BILL as Toshiya Fujita's Japanese revenge classic LADY SNOWBLOOD.
In this episode, we'll discuss the film's origin as a popular manga, and how the unlikely hiring of Fujita and screenwriter Kazuo Koike came to be. We also go down a rabbit hole regarding the Meiji era of Japanese history and how this historical context informs not only the manga, but the film itself. (I know that sounds boring as shit, but trust us, it's actually super cool.)
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Coming Up:
THRILLER: A CRUEL PICTURE (1973)
GAME OF DEATH (1978)
36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (1978)
SHOGUN ASSASSIN (1980)
Theme Song: "There's Still a Little Bit of Time, If We Hurry and I Mean Hurry" by Slasher Film Festival Strategy.
This episode was written, produced and edited by Gary Horne, Justin Bishop, & Todd Davis.
Visit our website for episode archives, blogs and more: http://cinemashock.net
Follow us:
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