OMG Horror

Greetings again all, it’s been quite awhile since I last visited you.  Don’t know, there’s something about the summer weather that makes me lay low.  Thin skin, I think.  Anyway, as long as it’s been since we shared time, it’s been even longer that I’ve wanted to shed a bit of shine on a writer/director of great and diverse talent, a man who can gerrymander genre with the best of them.  A man who has culled more than one cult-classic, at the same time keeping a well of un-dredged gems that largely go unnoticed to this day.  A man who was able to either foster amateur talent or coddle big name stars en route to achieving his vision.  I’m of course talking about the one, the only, the late great Bob Clark.

A New Orleans native, Bob Clark was born on August 5, 1939.  He grew up in Florida, in relative destitute after his father’s passing at an early age.  After playing quarterback on scholarship at Hillsdale College in Michigan, Clark soon found himself studying theater at the University of Florida rather than accepting offers to play pro-football (he did endure a stint as a semi-pro quarterback, for the Fort Lauderdale Black Knights).  Then, at the ripe old age of 27, Clark tried his hand at writing and directing, the result being the 1966 John Carradine vehicle The Emperor’s New Clothes.  

Shortly following was the irreverent tranny comedy She-Man, featuring a dual-gender role played by Leslie Marlowe (in her sole acting credit).  But it was the 1972 horror-comedy Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things that commenced a string of horror pearls in the early-mid ‘70s that keep Clark as relevant to the horror genre as any of his more acclaimed contemporaries.  Written by he and longtime collaborator Alan Omsby, the flick finds a cabal of friends who dig up a corpse in order to reanimate the dead.  Of course the dead do, and all kinds of wicked hell busts loose. 

That same year (but not released until '74) , Clark and Omsby reteamed to make Dead of Night (Deathdream), a much more stolid zombie flick, one of stark stylistics and topicality that proved as allegorical caution to the woes and detriment of the Vietnam War.  It starred many of the principals from …Dead Things, a tactic Clark often employed (recasting).  Probably his forgotten classic, go find and watch Dead of Night if you haven’t already. If for no other reason, check the flick out to see the first make-up credit for effects guru Tom Savini. I promise it will not disappoint!

And that brings us to by and large the progenitor of the modern American slasher subgenre.  In 1974, Clark directed Roy Moore’s script for a flick called Black Christmas.  Released four years before Carpenter’s Halloween, Black Christmas splays all of the inchoate horror conventions we’ve come to expect from a stalk-and-slash effort.  We’ve got the killer’s POV, the heavy breathing, the voyeuristic plotting, the creepy use of music, the blunt violence, the roiled resolution (or lack thereof) – all of it!  Not only was Black Christmas extremely successful for its time, it spawned endless knock-offs and imitations, even a sequel more than 30 years later. 

And as indubitable as the flick’s staying power has remained, it’s perhaps most fascinating to know that a decade later Clark would helm an equally if not surpassing holiday movie, a little flick you may have seen called A Christmas Story.  That’s right – the dude who made us quiver in fear at the sight of a Christmas light would, 9 years later, forever carve a place of warmth in our hearts with the flip-side of the yuletide season.  Both films are unquestionable classics, showcasing the diametric poles of human behavior.  One is funny, irreverent, heart-warming and has become part of the pop-culture lexicon (“you’ll shoot you’re eye out”) - the other is scary, irreverent, heart-wrenching and deserves to be more than a fading blip in the consciousness of, if not film fans in general, at least horror aficionados.       

Clark shifted genres in the ‘80s, harking back to his indie-roots with the salacious teen-cult-flicks Porky’s and Porky’s II: The Next Day.  In the ‘90s Clark forayed into TV, continuing to churn out projects well into the aughts, his last being the unfortunately forgettable Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.  But far more unfortunate was the sudden demise of Clark and his 22 year old son Ariel in April of 2007.  An unlicensed, intoxicated illegal slid into the Clarks’ lane and hit them head on.  Bob was 67.  And though his high profile projects, notably A Christmas Story and Porky’s will live on forever, it is his early toils in the horror genre that this fan will hold in equally high esteem.  We miss you Bob, wish you were still around!