Nick Duguay 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.

dworldeater This was a pilot episode for a possible series on Showtime. Showtime wanted to spend less money on it, so the idea was aborted and John Carpenter continued to make feature films. All three episodes are packed with guest appearances and cameos by many great actors and horror directors. Performances in all of them are excellent and each episode has a different tone and style. The first is somewhat of a slasher. The second is a bizarre comedy with sci fi elements. Both of those were directed by John Carpenter. The third is the darkest and is directed by Tobe Hooper. Body Bags has a lot of actors that are very talented, but very underrated that normally don't get to do this type of stuff like Robert Carradine and Mark Hamill. Stacy Keach is always excellent as well and does great here. As far as I am concerned the Tales From The Crypt series on HBO is the best anthology horror there is. Body Bags would have made a good series and could have been able to compete with it if it could maintain this sort of quality. John Carpenter is the host of this show and has the right delivery and the right hair to keep up with The Cryptkeeper.

BA_Harrison In this early-90s, Tales From The Crypt-style, made-for-TV anthology from masters of horror John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper, creepy morgue attendee The Coroner (played by Carpenter, whose acting is nowhere near as good as his directing) unzips three tales of the macabre…Tale number one, The Gas Station, is directed by Carpenter, and stars Alex Datcher as Anne, whose first night as a gas station attendant doesn't go quite as planned when she is targeted by a serial killer. Operating well within his comfort zone, Carpenter returns to the same bag of tricks he used years earlier for his seminal blockbuster Halloween, delivering a tense, atmospheric piece that, while not exactly groundbreaking thematically or visually (one shot, in particular, is lifted directly from Halloween), still proves to be a lot of fun. Datcher makes for a likable scream queen, there's quite a bit of enjoyment to be had from guessing which of the station's patrons might be the killer, and we get a few welcome cameos from some well-known horror luminaries.Hair, Carpenter's second offering, also sees the director visiting familiar territory: a They Live-style story of aliens operating undercover on Earth, it sees desperate, balding, middle-aged man Richard Coberts (Stacy Keach) visiting an experimental hair clinic that guarantees overnight results. Unfortunately for Richard, his new lustrous locks are actually minute parasitic extraterrestrials that intend to feed on his brain!!! With such a patently silly concept, Carpenter has no option but to play this one for laughs, and amazingly, it works, with the balding Keach proving that he has quite the sense of humour. Hair also features decent turns from David Warner as sinister Dr. Lock, Debbie Harry as his kooky nurse, and Sheena Easton as Cobert's sexy girlfriend Megan.In contrast to the light-hearted nature of Hair, the third and final segment, Eye, is a much darker affair. Directed by Tobe Hooper, it tells of up and coming baseball player Brent Matthews (Mark Hamill), whose career looks to be over when he crashes his car, losing his right eye as a result (a shard of glass piercing the organ). However, thanks to a revolutionary eye-transplant procedure, he regains full vision, but at a cost: his new eyeball causes him to have horrific visions and gradually alters his personality. Yet another scary story to borrow heavily from horror classic The Hands of Orlac, this is extremely derivative stuff, but thanks to solid direction from Hooper, some cool gore, a surprisingly strong central performance from Hamill, and a neat downbeat ending, Eye proves to be a delightfully twisted and thoroughly enjoyable way to wrap up this fun little flick.

encyes 'Body Bags' (aka 'John Carpenter's Body Bags') appears to be many things; it's one of those fun, bad movies you can't help watch, force yourself to finish and then ask yourself why you did the first two. It is not only one of the many anthology movies of the 1990's cashing in on the genre: those poorly written, darkly filmed stories with no true catch-you-off-your-guard endings, but it is also a who's who of horror movies. It is only when you realize this, that you'll enjoy the movie so much more and even (gasp!) watch it a second time.Take for example, of course, John Carpenter (who not only lends his name to the title, but also directs a segment and scores the film) but also legendary horror movie makers like Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven putting in cameos. This film, although clearly nothing more than just three schlock horror stories, becomes an almost "Where's Waldo" of people who have cemented the horror genre as it is today.The structure of the film, like many other horror anthologies of the time ("Tales from the Crypt" television series comes quickly to mind), is "hosted" by a silly, seedy (and rarely scary) character with clichéd lines and no reservation for gore, hedonism or the bizarre. Beware! Your stomach may turn from the host's sickening dialogue than from all the gruesome special effects.This movie may stick in your head for all the wrong reasons; whether it is the fun and memorable parts like Stacy Keach's giggling, Mark Hammill doing his best Jeff Foxworthy imitation, or Tom Arnold doing, well, whatever Tom Arnold does that makes him so funny, this isn't award-winning storytelling, folks. Don't expect anything more than to be entertained for cheap entertainment sake. The overall B-flavor of the film fits perfectly like a crude, blood-soaked glove.