It's an American Travesty that Paperhouse has never been released to DVD on our shores (it is available in the UK). A wonderful, terrifying film, I first saw it via a battered library VHS when I was in my early teens, maybe 13 or so, and it's stuck with me ever since. It tells the story of s sick little girl and the hallucinations her fever brings, taking her into a stark world where what she draws by day becomes real by night.
The film was directed by Bernard Rose. For those of you who watch the television show Lost, that name may make you think of the older married couple, Bernard and Rose, who are
stranded on the island of the show. Could it be that some outside force is imagining/ drawing what's happening on the island, which is making it happen to the castaways? Is it all a fever dream?Or is there a terrifyingly hook-handed, Cabrini-Green-projects-haunting monster like Candyman lurking about, the other film that Bernard Rose is best known for?
Candyman starred Virginia Madsen, whose career recently got its groove back
with Critic's Darling Sideways, but has since hit a rough patch by becoming Harrison Ford's choice of movie- wife- cum- Golden- Globes- booze- wench du jour.
What's with Harrison Ford anyway? When did he become the Poster Man for elderly public drunkenness anyway?
And of course, Candyman also starred the amazing
Tony Todd as the C-Man himself. I caught a second of Todd's cameo in the original Final Destination the other day; it's amazing how much presence the man has. And speaking of the FD movies, why do critics always have to point out how ridiculous it is that, in regards to the sequels, a "Final" destination really can't have a second part? What about, say, The Neverending Story II? Um hi, the first one Never Ended?But I've never seen The Neverending Story, either "Chapter", so I should
shut up about that. All I know is that weird dog-dragon thing from the cover that seemed like an endless trail of mange.
Anyway, Paperhouse starred the lovely Glenne Headly, who, when it was decided two days before the film was going to be released that her character should suddenly be British, had to run in and dub over all of her dialogue with
an accent. Headly is better known as the wife in Mr. Holland's Opus, Richard Dreyfuss' last mad dash for respectability before giving up altogether, the comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with Steve Martin and Michael Caine - where she steals the show, I might add - and as Tess Trueheart in Dick Tracy.
Paperhouse also stars Ben Cross, he of the running- in- slow- motion- to- the- theme- song- that- accompanies- us- all- when- we run- in- slow- motion- from- here- on- out epic, Chariots of Fire, as well as being Barnabas Collins himself in the 90's remake of Dark Shadows.
Director of many of those Dark Shadows episodes, Rob Bowman, was the man behind the Ode to Jennifer Garner In Red Leather, Electra, as well that Ode to Christian Bale and Matthew
McConaughey In Dirty-Shirtlessness, Reign of Fire. Mmmm dirty shirtless Christian Bale.And then there's Paperhouse's young star, Charlotte Burke, who was never in anything again. I wonder whatever happened to her?
Maybe she became a doctor like Mayim Bialik?Anyway, you totally have to see Paperhouse if you can. It's awesome.
(... and with that, Hello! I'm JA of My New Plaid Pants, and I'll be one of your guest-bloggers this week! Thanks to Nathaniel for having me! And I promise not to try so hard again... All of the above has been made possible by my not being able to fall asleep for several hours last night - I am giving you an inside peek to my psyche. Be afraid. Be very... you get it.)
