Pro Life/Cigarette Burns

I bet Troy Duffy could suck harder, but even so these are both not good at all.

So is this about Carpenter or just a personal vendetta against Norman Reedus? If it's the vendetta then that's fine, just leave Sean Patrick Flanery out of it.

Why do you hate BOONDOCK SAINTS so much? That movie is quite pleasant.

The "Hot Topic" cult of BOONDOCK SAINTS is odd, but I've always enjoyed the film. Oddly enough I think the OVERNIGHT documentary made me appreciate SAINTS a little bit more.

I've tried to forget most of what went on in "Pro-Life." About all I recall now was how the clinic's phone lines were cut, and in the (then) year 2006 nobody inside had a cell phone.

I quite enjoyed Cigarette Burns. Then again, it was my lifelong dream to see Udo Kier thread his intestines through a movie projector, so I guess I'm a little biased.

Pro Life, not so much. The best MOH I saw last year was The ScrewFly Solution.

That was a high point, as was the butler stabbing his own eyes out. Nice gore to be sure but beyond that it was an empty hour of television.

I really liked Cigarette Burns, and thought it was the best episode of the first season. Pro-Life wasn't great, but I didn't think it was that bad either. The non usage of cell phones did seem stupid, but I didn't let it bother me too much.

Ron Perlman did a good job in the episode, and there was some decent gore, although it has nothing in that department against Cigarette Burns. The snuff sequence with the Frenchman and the machete was probably the most gruesome thing I had seen in the series, until I saw Argento's Pelts.

Haven't seen Pro-Life, but I actively despised Cigarette Burns, but not for the obvious reasons. If you've read Theodore Roszak's Flicker, then you know what I'm talking about.

In Cigarette Burns, an obsessive collector tasks a young film enthusiast to find a rare print of a film entitled 'THE ABSOLUTE END OF THE WORLD', or something like that- which, as legend has it, will cause strange and possibly dangerous behavior in its viewers. The young film sleuth delves deep into the dark and mysterious world of creepy underground film collecting, meeting characters both macabre and insane, and he ultimately reunites the collector with the print, resulting in a disastrous screening.

In Flicker, (wait, let me get my cut and paste here... okay) an obsessive collector tasks a young film enthusiast to find a rare print of a film which, as legend has it, will cause strange and possibly dangerous behavior in its viewers. The young film sleuth delves deep into the dark and mysterious world of creepy underground film collecting, meeting characters both macabre and insane... resulting in a final screening of the reclusive director Max Castle's film, entitled... wait for it...

THE END OF THE WORLD.

Yes, Norman Reedus' acting was almost as bad as the script, but that's not nearly as bad a thing as plagiarism. The writers are lucky they weren't sued.

when i think about the fact that people compare cigarette burns with pro-life, i can only come up with one explanation that makes sense... the people that watched both of these episodes were drunk or high or both.

pro-life is fucking terrible. it stands out as terrible in a series filled with terrible episodes. yeah, cigarette burns is cheesy and sort of stupid but at LEAST it has a decent idea behind it, and at least it has some good gore. you can't claim pro-life has the same -- it's a joke.

Even as a huge John Carpenter fan - counting him as my favorite director ever - I simply can't excuse the nonsense that goes on in 'Cigarette Burns'. In the past, inspite of my better judgement, I've tried to find the good in both 'Vampires' and even 'Ghost of Mars', but 'Cigarette Burns' was the end of the line. I never thougt I'd see the day where I absolutely, positively did not give a shit about something Carpenter had a hand in, but in the winter of his career, he managed to make it happen.

I've always had a soft spot for Vampires and Ghosts Of Mars, and Cigarette Burns was a great return for him, but I will say that Pro-Life was a step down. If he's still on for season 3, maybe he'll have a better film in store.

I have the dvd of his showtime anthology film Body Bags, and even though it's cut, I still like it. The Gas Station is a great creepy flick, with Robert
Carradine doing a great job, and Hair is absolutely hilarious. Stacey Keach really hits it out of the park in that one.

I've always wanted to see BODY BAGS. It seems to pop up on cable from time to time but it's always on stations that edit and run commercials. Other than that I'd just to see his "Elvis" movie.

The first time I saw it was on Sci-fi, and it was of course cut, but I went out and rented the vhs, which was uncut, and then last year, I got the dvd off of E-bay. You can find the uncut vhs for about 2 bucks online, Molti. If you really want to see the flick. I still don't understand why the dvd was cut, and I don't think there'll ever be another release of it. Unless Synapse or Blue Underground get their hands on it. Although being an Artisan release, it's rights are with Lions Gate.

i'm not sure i know how to talk to someone who can sit through ghosts of mars but somehow sees cigarette burns as the straw that breaks the camel's back.

I said I've tried to find good in the film, doesn't mean I actually did and Cigarette Burns is infintely worse than 'Ghosts of Mars' which can at least be entertaining as a retarded misfire.

I think both sucked, but had enough parts worth seeing to warrant a viewing each. Cigarette Burns was way better than Pro-Life, though, and had a really good concept.

Come to think of it, I like Cigarette Burns despite its rather numerous flaws. Can't say the same for Pro-Life, though.

I haven't seen Pro Life, but Cigarette Burns was schlocky fun.

Sure the writing was terrible, but the gore, the concept and the over the top acting made it all worth it.

"Daddy, I'm hungry!"

I just realised by reading this interview with John Carpenter http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/John%20Carpenter/ that the writers are the guys from AICN.

Yep. Perhaps coincidentally, they broke a story about Aranofsky being interested in adapting Flicker in 2003.

You know what- it's a really fun, silly flick. Worth it just for the Hair story.

Plus it's got shitloads of cameos and horror icons in it- Corman, Raimi, Hooper, Carradine, Craven, etc. And Mark Hamill with a crazy eye!

And Deborah Harry!

And Carpenter doing the "Crypt-Keeper" role and looking like a corpse! Well, more of a corpse!

I thought the ywere both the kind of John Carpenter fun I come to expect. Especially Cigarette Burns, which I have seen a bunch of times (so far, I only saw Pro Life one time on Showtime).

re: plagerism re: Cigarette Burns: Yes, the film owes a debt to a classic forerunner, but you got to look back a little further than that. It is a variation on R. Chamber late 19th century classic "The King In Yellow," which is the foundation for much of Lovecraft and sizeable chunk of Carpenter's own body of work (Prince of Darkness, In The Mouth of Madness, Cigarette Burns), and has been used in slight variation by many, many others in the intervening 100+ years

When you play a variation on a theme of a story arc, that's one thing. But when both protagonists are on the hunt for films titled "the end of the world" (oh, and I forgot to mention- both wind up as theater owners before their final screening), you're not only playing the same theme, you're playing the same exact notes.

Many people complained that Eragon and Star Wars had striking similarities, and I agree. Had it been set in a futuristic space world governed by a mystical ether called "The Absolute Force," it would be one space monkey away from a lawsuit.

Are the Suicide Girls interviews always that weak? The interviewer was lobbing softballs with no follow ups. There was lots of opportunity to get at some really fascinating topics (TV versus Film, money versus artistic integrity) but he just pissed them away.

On topic, Cigarette Burns was better then Pro-Life but neither were very good.

I thought that suicide girls interview was hilarious, thanks for the link

The Suicide Girls interview with Carpenter was pretty interesting. I just want to see him make a new feature. I am interested in Pro-Life though. I like Ron Perlman quite a bit. Sounds like Carpenter isn't too pleased with Ghosts of Mars.

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nothing lasts forever...

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