Strangeland (1998) Artisan/Horror RT: 85 minutes Rated R (language, extreme scenes of torture and violence, graphic descriptions of body piercing, nudity, sex) Director: John Pieplow Screenplay: Dee Snider Music: Anton Sanko Cinematography: Goran Pavicevic Release date: October 2, 1998 (US) Cast: Dee Snider, Kevin Gage, Elizabeth Pena, Brett Harrelson, Robert Englund, Linda Cardellini, Tucker Smallwood, Ivonne Coll, Amy Smart, Amal Rhoe, Robert LaSardo, Andy Cooper. Box Office: $713,239 (US)
Rating: ***
You’ll notice I awarded three stars to Strangeland, a horror movie written by Twisted Sister lead singer Dee Snider. I didn’t like it at all the first time I saw it opening night. It hurt all the more because I had to cross a state line to check it out. The closest theater showing it was this twin cinema in Delaware. I thought it was cheap, poorly-made, unscary and completely without artistic merit.
I recently came across a copy of Strangeland and decided to rewatch it to see if I still felt the same way. Call me crazy, but I like to do that sometimes. It can be interesting rewatching movies I initially disliked. Sometimes, they get better with age. This time, I found myself perversely fascinated by what was going on.
It’s about a twisted sadist named Captain Howdy (Snider) who uses the Internet to lure teens to his house for a party, only to kidnap, imprison and torture them by piercing various parts of their bodies. He also sews their mouths shut so they can’t scream. One of the girls he abducts is Genevieve (Cardellini, Legally Blonde), the 15YO daughter of local cop Mike Gage (Gage, Blow). Along with his young partner Steve Christian (Harrelson, The People vs. Larry Flynt), he searches for her even though her friend’s body was found in a nearby lake. He finally locates Howdy’s torture den, rescues his daughter and arrests the creep.
Ultimately, Howdy (real name Carleton Hendricks) is found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a mental institution. After a few years, he’s released a changed man thanks mainly to heavy meds. His crimes are still fresh in the minds of his neighbors who make their feelings about his return quite clear.
One of his most vocal opponents is Jackson Roth (Englund, A Nightmare on Elm Street). When his teenage daughter doesn’t come home one night, he assumes Hendricks is up to his old tricks again and gets a neighborhood lynch mob together. They drag Hendricks from his home, beat him and try to hang him. In the course of the incident, his medication is destroyed. After the hanging fails, he reverts back to his old persona and kidnaps the people who tried to kill him along with Genevieve. Of course, they all end up in his torture den where he subjects them to all sorts of terrible things. It’s up to Gage to find and stop him once and for all.
Strangeland is an interesting movie, especially now when you realize it might have been an inspiration for the Saw movies. Howdy doesn’t kill his prisoners; he tortures them in unbelievable ways. One poor guy almost gets pierced right through his penis. Howdy himself is all piercings and tattoos with crimson red hair. Another interesting aspect is it was made when now-commonplace things like instant messaging and chat rooms were still pretty new to the world. The cyber world was totally the domain of the teenager; adults didn’t know about that kind of stuff. Gage has to recruit his teenage niece Angela (Smart, Road Trip) to navigate him through all the chat rooms so he can pinpoint Captain Howdy’s location. Technology has changed since ’98; the things in Strangeland now seem quaint.
In any event, Gage uses this now-ancient technology to locate the home/torture den of Captain Howdy and goes after him alone. I found myself wondering why he didn’t call for back-up before he entered the sadist’s home. He had ample opportunity to do so. Also, he didn’t have a warrant to enter the premises so wouldn’t that be considered an illegal search and result in an immediate dismissal of charges? I guess I watch too much Law & Order, yes?
The acting in Strangeland is a weak point. None of it is all that good. In fact, it’s pretty bad. I didn’t buy Englund as the neighborhood tough guy. Without the Freddy Krueger makeup, he doesn’t look threatening at all. He actually reminds me of a younger Frank Perdue. I’m not sure what to make of Snider’s performance; it’s the first time he’s done any acting. I guess he’s okay, but the fact he’s never starred in another movie pretty much says it all. He does a better job with the screenplay; it’s actually not that bad of a story. Now that I think about it, I do know what to say about Snider’s performance. He overacts so badly as Captain Howdy, it’s almost funny. When he attempts to play the “normal” version of his character, it’s not at all convincing.
There’s not much in the way of character exposition in this movie. We don’t know why Howdy/Hendricks does the things he does. A lot more could have been done with Gage’s character. He sits in his car and watches as the lynch mob drags Hendricks out of his house. He does nothing to help the victim, the same man that traumatized his daughter. This matter of ethics would have been an interesting thing to explore further, but the movie doesn’t pursue it.
As for the violence in Strangeland, it’s not the splattery kind. It’s more cringe-worthy than gory. It’s mad uncomfortable to watch Howdy insert needles into himself and his victims. You just look at these people in his torture dungeon and know that it must hurt like hell. It’s not a pleasant movie (no kidding, right?), but interesting in the same way as 976-EVIL. It’s a bad, low-budget horror flick with some truly heinous acting and cheap special effects.
Strangeland is one of two movies directed by John Pieplow, the other being the 1996 TV movie Jurassic Women (never saw it, never heard of it). He’s done nothing since. Stylistically, the only thing that stands out about Strangeland is that it’s dark, very dark. I can’t rightly say it’s a good movie, but it’s definitely a crazy one. It some cool weird touches like the nightclub the cops visit during the search for Howdy. If it’s effective on any level, it’s a creepy curiosity that would play well on the grindhouse circuit if it still existed in ’98.
