Body Bags Review (Film, 1993) #31DaysOfHorror
content warning: nudity, gore, blood, flashing lights, violence against women, sexual assault
Body Bags is an anthology horror comedy film directed by John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper. A strange Coroner reveals the stories behind three bodies who come into morgue. The directors pull double duty, each playing one of the strange morgue workers that frame the story with Tom Arnold as the third.
This is a campy made for TV movie. Carpenter and Hooper aren’t necessarily known for their horror/comedy skills, but they’re more than capable of selling these kinds of story. The screenplays are all written by Billy Brown and Dan Angel. Carpenter directs “The Gas Station” and “Hair;” Hooper directs “Eye.”
“The Gas Station” is a solid little thriller that has a great concept. In a small town gas station near Haddonfield, a new gas station employee is on edge. There are reports of a serial killer escaping a nearby mental hospital and she’s working the overnight shift alone. Anne seems convinced that nearly everyone who comes through is potentially the escaped killer.
This short lets John Carpenter play to one of his strengths. “The Gas Station” is a slasher film focused on a survival girl by chance. It’s a greatest hits compilation of Carpenter’s approach to the genre. It’s largely the story of the survivor, Anne, learning about and then eventually facing the killer one on one. The way these chases are shot demystifies the true nature of the unstoppable killer.
“Hair” is goofy sci-fi/horror short about a hair growth treatment. A businessman obsesses over his thinning hair. His girlfriend tries to get him to calm down, but nothing can take his mind off his hairline. He visits a doctor with a miracle hair loss cure. It works overnight, but has a series of alarming side effects.
The cast does a lot of the heavy lifting to make this work as well as this does. Stacy Keach humanizes the businessman in a way that stops the whole thing from being parody. Sheena Easton finds just the right balance of playfulness and frustration as the girlfriend. David Warner (as the Doctor), Debbie Harry (as the Nurse), and Dan Blom (as the hairdresser) are just cartoonish enough to establish this bizarre alternate reality where everyone has the perfect solution to hair loss. The suggestion of “accept that you’re going bald” feels just as ridiculous as “inject yourself with a patented protein solution.” The introduction of the beautiful head of hair pushes everyone into the silly cartoon world that balances out the body horror that starts to take over.
“The Eye” is a paranormal slasher about a former professional baseball player. A car accident causes him to lose an eye, ending his career. He undergoes an experimental transplant to replace his eye with a cadaver donor. The surgery is successful, but the player starts seeing visions of horrific crimes against women.
Tobe Hooper’s short is the goriest entry in the anthology, featuring graphic footage of the accident, surgical footage, and those visions of women being murdered. This is Hooper playing in very dark territory even for him. Brent starts putting his wife in increasingly dangerous situations that he believes are caused by visions of whoever the donated eye came from. They’re both very religious people who turn to prayer to guide them, mixing the sacred with the profane throughout the short. The visions of brutal murders impact Brent’s actions, causing him to lash out with violence. The short works, but it is extremely dark compared to everything that came before.
Body Bags is an interesting experiment in anthology horror. The film was shot as a new TV series for Showtime, a darker spin on HBO’s super popular Tales from the Crypt, but the network decided not to pursue the series. The three completed shorts were combined into a made for TV movie and released on the network. The shifting tones make more sense in this context, but perhaps are a bit too far removed from each other to really click as a feature.
Body Bags is streaming on Shudder.
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