Stephen King And Clive Barker Acquired A Creepy Film Adaptation You Forgot About
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It is a bit of baffling that Mick Garris’ 1997 TV film “Quicksilver Freeway” is as obscure as it’s, given its imprimatur. The film was, in spite of everything, a really uncommon team-up between star authors Stephen King and Clive Barker, two of the horror style’s most distinguished figures, and every answerable for miniature media empires unto themselves.
King was all the time the celebrity, after all, and movies based mostly on his work are plentiful and standard, however Barker, the “artier” of the 2, was nonetheless the creator of “Hellraiser,” “Candyman,” and “Nightbreed,” and nonetheless has a really wholesome following of followers. And the 2 regarded each other with respect; the promoting for “Hellraiser” famously leaned on a quote from Stephen King whereby he stated, “I’ve seen the way forward for horror. His identify is Clive Barker.”
“Quicksilver Freeway” was a two-part anthology collection a couple of creepy storyteller named Aaron Quicksilver (Christopher Lloyd) who informed scary tales to the individuals he met on the street as a touring showman. The primary story he tells was based mostly on the Stephen King story “Chattery Tooth,” which is about, properly, a set of toy chattering tooth that appear to have the ability to come to life. The second story he tells was based mostly on Clive Barker’s “The Physique Politic,” one of many tales from Barker’s “Books of Blood” anthology. It was about human arms creating lives of their very own and wanting to chop themselves free from their wrist-ly masters.
The TV film wasn’t very talked-about, and solely these of us being attentive to horror TV in 1997 might need seen it. It might need failed as a result of the tone was a bit of too whimsical to be taken severely as a horror collection. Dwelling chattering tooth? Dwelling human arms? It was a bit of cartoony.
Quicksilver Freeway was a whimsical Stephen King/Clive Barker teamup
It additionally did not assist that the primary character of “The Physique Politic” was performed by Matt Frewer, an actor who brings a number of wild, comedic power to his roles. Director Mick Garris and Frewer had beforehand labored collectively on the celebrated 1994 Stephen King miniseries “The Stand,” during which Frewer performed the bomb-obsessed Garbage can Man.
As talked about, the Stephen King-inspired portion of “Quicksilver Freeway” was based mostly on the writer’s story “Chattery Tooth,” first printed in 1992 in Cemetery Dance Journal. The story surrounds the well-known wind-up chattering tooth toys invented by Eddy Goldfarb and launched on an unsuspecting public again in 1949. Goldfarb’s tooth may be thought-about one of many central photographs of kitsch, and it is arduous to take them severely as a horror film risk. Within the story, a person buys a pair of chattering tooth shortly earlier than he’s accosted by a violent hitchhiker. The tooth spring to life and chunk the hitchhiker to dying. In “Quicksilver Freeway,” the protagonist is performed by Raphael Sbarge.
“The Physique Politic,” in the meantime, options some good hand-acting from Frewer. The unique story was foolish in comparison with Barker’s common bloody fare, that includes a revolution story in regards to the arms belonging to a health care provider staging a revolution. The arms have personalities all their very own. Whereas the considered being attacked by your personal arms may be scary, the picture of human arms crawling round is less-than-threatening. One will instantly consider the severed hand Factor from “The Addams Household.” “The Physique Politic” strains to be about, properly, a politic, however it emerges as one thing out of a sitcom.
How did Quicksilver Freeway come to be?
Given the brevity of the film (it is solely 90 minutes), and its anthology construction, one would possibly suspect that “Quicksilver Freeway” was a pilot episode for an meant anthology horror TV collection. Your instincts could be right. In the June 1997 subject of Fangoria Journal, there was a quick clarification as to the TV film’s origin, and evidently Mick Garris was certainly initially approached about making a TV collection based mostly on ghost tales and concrete legends. Garris was the one who invented the Aaron Quicksilver character to function the Cryptkeeper-like host. The premise was {that a} visitor actor would wander into Aaron’s tent, and that very same actor would star because the protagonist of Aaron’s story.
Garris wrote the “Chattery Tooth” brief, however it wasn’t sufficient to promote the collection. When Garris introduced the thought to Fox, they determined it ought to be a two-hour TV film as an alternative, and that is when “The Physique Politic” portion was added on. The model of “Quicksilver Freeway” audiences noticed was, it appears, not ever going to be expanded into a correct anthology TV collection. Frustratingly, when “Quicksilver Freeway” made its solution to DVD, the 2 tales have been swapped, with “The Physique Politic” coming first, and “Chattery Tooth” coming second. Given the bigger scale of the Barker phase, this swap seems like it will make the film anticlimactic.
Mick Garris was well-known within the horror group, and “Quicksilver Freeway” featured a number of enjoyable cameos. Veronica Cartwright performs a task, whereas Clive Barker himself has a cameo. John Landis additionally has a small bit, as does Garris himself. Is it price seeing? By all accounts, it is okay. It is a should, nevertheless, for Stephen King and Clive Barker completionists.
