Sadly Over-hyped

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

After four years away from a theatrical released film ("They Live"), with the exception of the lacklustre: "Memoirs of an Invisibile Man", John Carpenter moved to television to direct and produce, alongside his companion Sandy King, "Body Bags", a horror comedy anthology film which was a proposed pilot for a future Showtime's television series similar to the HBO's "Tales from the Crypt".John Carpenter, who cast himself in the prologue and the epilogue, delivers an excellent morbid, but tongue-in-cheek performance as a creepy-looking coroner, talking directly to the audience (à la Ferris Bueller) and introducing three different horror stories involving cadavers, who died in an unnatural ways, placed in body bags.The first segment, "The Gas Station" is a classic vintage Carpenter, a slasher short film full of references to his own works (a serial killer from Haddonfield) with peculiar camera angles to enhance suspense and providing an eerie & claustrophobic feeling to the whole, despite being a laid-back homage to his earlier masterpiece "Halloween" and his criminally underrated 'made-for-television' film, "Someone's Watching Me!". Carpenter's 'usual suspects' were present for the ride: Peter Jason; George 'Buck' Flower, playing his usual wino / bum character; Robert Carradine in a nerd / deranged mode that he can act in his sleep, plus unexpected cameos from two other "Masters of Horror": Sam Raimi & Wes Craven and David Naughton, the star of the lycanthropy cult-classic: "An American Werewolf in London".The second segment, "Hair" is a dark humored social commentary in the vein of "They Live", with Carpenter this time picking on vanity as one of the greatest weaknesses in the human being. It's the larger segment in length, well acted by Stacy Keach and featuring cameos of singers Sheena Easton (even she can't act) and Debbie Harry and a scene-stealer performance of David Warner as the flamboyant Dr. Lock.The third segment, "The Eye", the only directed by Tobe Hooper, it's the more serious in tone of the Anthology, but also its weakest entry. Mark Hamill stars as a promising baseball player that loses an eye after a car accident and got an ocular transplantation from a former serial killer who died in the electric chair. After leave the hospital, "Luke Skywalker" starts to have morbid visions of someone committing heinous crimes... The story borrows too much from Oliver Stone's "The Hand" and even from Eric Red's "Body Parts" which was released only 2 years before and besides being too predictable, introduces nothing new to the genre. "B-Movie" legends John Agar & Roger Corman play the doctors and the once upon a time a supermodel, Twiggy provides eye-candy for the viewer as Hamill's devoted wife."Body Bags" may had failed becoming a television series, but as 'stand- alone, made for TV anthology movie', it works for fans of John Carpenter and witty self-aware horror / comedy flicks, even if it relied too much on humour and farce and kind of lost its edge on the creativity and thrills' aspects. The sets may be cheap looking, but the gore is present (check out for the UNCUT DVD) and even if it wasn't a work on the caliber of Amicus' Anthology films; the "Creepshow" movies; "Cat's Eye" or "Tales from the Darkside - The Movie" (which also featured "Blondie" lead singer, Debbie Harry) it surely worth a watch.

A nice, fun little collaboration. Lots of appearances from familiar faces including Wes Craven, Blondie, and Twiggy. John Carpenter is great as the quirky morgue worker in between segments and his first piece is probably the best in the anthology. Tobe Hooper's addition was also surprisingly good, I really expected something more cringeworthy from late Hooper and although it wasn't exactly original it was still engaging and well made. Although I suspect Tobe probably isn't as good an actor himself as Carpenter seeing as how they placed him as morgue employee for all of ten seconds at the end.

Three short stories in the horror genre: The first about a serial killer. The second about a hair transplant going wrong. The third about a base ball player who receives a questionable eye transplant.The sad truth is that giving this film as high a rating as I did really comes down to one thing: the endless supply of guest stars from the horror genre (and beyond). Who can dislike a film with Wes Craven, Sam Raimi, John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper and more? That is incredible.As for the film itself, it is about average. The acting and directing are fine, and the gore really starts to add up in the third segment. But the script was really nothing special, and I am not shocked that Showtime declined to turn this into a regular series (any given episode of "Masters of Horror" is better).The disc from Scream Factory makes this average film a little something more, with plenty of insight from Stacy Keach, John Carpenter and producer Sandy King. Horror fans may think the movie is average, but you are bound to learn a few things from the commentary.

Finally seeing John Carpenter doing some real acting was very funny. His performance as the very ghastly coroner at a morgue, was brilliant, and he handled it very well for someone who technically isn't an actor. The TV movie is basically about the coroner who tell the stories of three corpses, basically because they were the only one's with interesting stories. Apparently he hates death by natural causes, because he have no fun checking them out. Honestly, he was hilarious, in a very morbid way of course. Oh, and of course, let's not forget the co-directing of Tobe Hooper who also did a splendid job with this TV movie. (I added this sentence later, because I forgot he was in this movie, so sorry Tobe Hooper fans for not having mention him anymore)The first story is about a woman who has to work late at a gas station. And there has been report of a murderer in the town, so she's a little shaky every time someone stop at the station. I think you get the general idea, so I don't think I'll need to say more about his one.The second story is about a man(Stacy Keach) who is very disturbed about his thin hairline and wishes their was a way to grow back his hair. One day he sees an ad on TV telling about a new miracle cure than can give you a full hairline over night. He applies, and wakes the other day with long lush hair. His life takes a twist for the better, but his hair never seems to stop growing and he starts feeling a little sick. Once again I'll leave the rest for you.The third story is about a baseball player (Mark Hamill) who in an car accident loses his right eye. Then he gets the offer from a doctor who say he can give him an eye transplant. the procedure is a success and he can play baseball again. Plus he's gonna be a father, his life couldn't get any better. But eventually he starts seeing dead bodies everywhere and his personality gets more aggressive. And he later uncovers a horrible truth about the man from which he got his new eye.Now these three stories were quite enjoyable. The first one had the best Carpenter style atmosphere and suspense, and was probably the best of the three. the second was more funny than scary, but that's not a bad thing either. To be honest it had a bit of a TwilighZone feel to it, but for me that's not a bad thing in any way. The third story had a great performance by Mark Hamill, but was little predictable. Still it had some frightening and gory moments.For Carpenters great performance in both acting and directing, and some decent horror stories, I give "Body bags" a 7/10. I only have a simple warning, if you're easily scared and are a afraid of a little gore, don't watch this. But if you're a horror fan, or for that sake a Carpenter fan, you'll love this.