The horror community suffered a massive blow with the news of Stuart Gordon's ing last week. The late great horror director was the preeminent adapter of From Beyond.
Once the 90s hit, Gordon's career suffered in direct correlation with the decline of horror films in general. The MPAA restrictions made it nearly impossible to show graphic onscreen carnage, a staple of Gordon's mid-80s films. And yet, Gordon ended his career with a total of 15 films and another half-dozen TV episodes. As we bid farewell to Gordon with one last RIP, let's check out his most underrated horror movies below!
Robot Jox (1989)
In a deranged low-budget movie version of Rock'em Sock'em Robots, or better yet a predecessor to Real Steel, Gordon envisioned a future WWIII as an epic Wrestlemania. What's wrong with that?!
From a story that Gordon conceived, Robot Jox describes gigantic machines pitted to do battle as a means of territorial dominance. The main character Achilles (Gary Graham), a pilot inside one such robot, is forced to do battle with another over the fate of Alaska. A fun film despite its deficiencies.
Daughter Of Darkness (1990)
Just by virtue of being only the second TV movie of his career, Daughter of Darkness easily s as one of Gordon's least-known movies. A shame, as it features one of Anthony Perkins' last solid performances!
When Katherine (Mia Sara) sets out to discover the truth about her enigmatic father Anton (Perkins), she travels to Romania for answers. While there, she becomes entangled in a surreal vampiric plot that threatens her existence. As the locals learn Anton is also a vampire, they try to usurp Katherine's rare powers as a bloodsucking half-breed.
King Of The Ants (2003)
Payback rhymes with a snitch in King of Ants, Gordon's wildly violent tale of stalking, slashing, and brutally barbarous backstabbing!
When Sean Crawley (Chris McKenna) is hired by a houseworker to stalk and kill a City Hall ant Eric Gatley (Ron Livingston), he eventually caves in and agrees to do so. However, once the task is completed, Eric reneges on the deal, fails to pay him in kind and instead puts a hit out on Sean's head. Sean must reverse course and fend for his own life. A good old fashioned thriller with Gordon's trademark carnage!
Fortress (1992)
Another Gordon film that barely recouped half of its budget upon release in 1992 was Fortress, the highly entertaining and cerebral piece of violent science fiction set in the year 2017.
In the dystopian future, population control is mandated. When illegally pregnant couple John (Chris Lambert) and Karen (Loryn Locklin) are thrown in jail and subject to sick mind control experiments, they concoct a plan of escape. However, the plan proves nearly impossible given the CCTV implants in their brain, which tracks dreams and monitor their every move.
The Pit And The Pendulum (1991)
The decision to swap Lovecraft for Edgar Allen Poe proved to be a wise one for Gordon, who in 1991 adapted The Pit and The Pendulum with terrific and terrifying results. Unfortunately, following swift festival screenings, the movie was never released theatrically. Instead, the film died a slow death on home-video.
The remake of the 1961 Roger Corman film centers on Torquemada (Lance Henriksen), a cruel and torturous Grand Inquisitor of the 1492 Spanish Inquisition.
Stuck (2007)
One of the great things about Stuart Gordon's movies is that they always tend to feature a tinge of comedy, however dark. In Stuck, Gordon takes the absurd humor to the absolute brink of repulsion and poor-taste.
Although it culled decent reviews, Stuck is still vastly underrated. The story finds a deadbeat hit and run victim literally stuck in the windshield of the car that slammed into him one ill-fated night. The driver Brandi (Mena Suvari) cannot go to authorities because she's still drunk from partying hours earlier.
Dagon (2003)
If numbers never lie, then Dagon is easily one of Gordon's most undervalued horror flicks of all. Made for an estimated 4.2 million Euros, the film earned an embarrassing $145,000 in worldwide grosses. Ouch.
Speaking of gross, Dagon is a mutated half-human-half-sea-monster that torments and terrorizes a small fishing crew off the coast of Spain. Right in Gordon's wheelhouse, the film is also a twisted mutation of two H.P Lovecraft vignettes, Dagon and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. This movie is far better than its financial performance!
Edmond (2005)
Adapted from a very angry stage-play by Pulitzer Prize-winning scribe David Mamet, Stuart Gordon directs one of William H. Macy's finest performances as Edmond, a man driven to the edge of sanity.
A downtrodden yuppie named Edmond visits a fortune teller in Manhattan who claims he's not long for this world. Hours later Edmond leaves his wife and goes on a ranting and raving sojourn into the hellish night. Driven to madness, Edmonds lashes out in some of the most extreme, grisly, and realistic fits of violence depicted in Gordon's career. Truly harrowing!
Castle Freak (1995)
Gordon's 1995 film Castle Freak is a hyper-gory, chillingly atmospheric, and deeply disturbing movie that, through no fault of the director, slipped through the cracks when it was eventually released...on video.
The film reunites Re-Animator stars Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, who play a married couple grieving of the death of their son. When they inherit an Italian castle from a relative, they move their blind daughter Rebecca (Jessica Dollarhide) to the moldering locale. Inside the castle resides someone who skulks after and slaughters people.
Dolls (1987)
Despite the legit scares it continues to boast to this day, Dolls has to be Gordon's most underappreciated horror flick of all. The box-office bomb failed to double it's budget, earning a paltry $3.5 million back from its $2 million budget.
The financial failure smarts doubly when considering the film came on the heels of the successful Re-Animator of From Beyond. Plot-wise, a gaggle of unsuspecting motorists stops at an ominous mansion during a torrential storm. Once there, they learn the residential toy-makers have made dolls out of miniaturized human beings out for blood!
