Film Inquiry Recommends: Joe Dante Films

Over at our official Facebook page, we are currently posting daily film recommendations, with each week being a different theme. This is a collection of those recommendations! This week’s theme is focused on the works of genre director Joe Dante. One of the graduates of the school of Roger Corman, Dante has emerged as one of the more consistently entertaining directors of the past 30 years, making a mix of family-friendly entertainment and stylish genre work which manage to subvert expectations and playfully toy with genre tropes.

His website “Trailers From Hell”, is a great compilation website featuring a bunch of directors you love talking about films they love. Here are seven of Dante’s films worth checking out (there are more, including Looney Tunes: Back in Action and Innerspace).

1. The Howling (1981, Joe Dante)

The original film that spawned eight awful sequels, The Howling is an delightful werewolf film which mixes action, comedy and horror much like John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London. This is one of the big films to launch the werewolf craze of the 1980’s, which included such films as Teen Wolf, Silver Bullet and Wolfen, which is now a genre that isn’t seen very often nowadays. The Howling is about Karen White (Dee Wallace) a television newswoman who has a traumatic experience with a serial killer , so she is sent to a secluded residence named “The Colony”. The residents at the Colony slowly reveal themselves to be a group of werewolves and with a human among their presence, things start to spiral out of control.

The film, much like most of Dante’s films, is extremely fun and puts the emphasis on making a crazy and compelling film, rather than purely exploiting the gory/violent aspects. The film has a striking story, which has a pseudo-mystery aspect to it, with elements of a siege film in there as well. It features some great transformation sequences, which are important to the werewolf genre. The ending is quite memorable too, ending on a similar note to John Carpenter’s They Live in its comedic sensibilities.

2. The ‘Burbs (1989, Joe Dante)

The ‘Burbs is one Tom Hank’s best 1980’s comedies, made during his streak of comedies that included titles such as Bachelor Party and Big. ‘Burbs is filled with a great cast, which include Hanks, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Dick Miller and Rick Duccomun (who sadly passed away earlier this year). The storyline involves Ray Peterson, a family man stuck in the suburbs with wife Carol (Carrie Fisher) who is kept at home due to a forced work vacation. Slowly starting to interact with his neighbours to pass the time, he and other neighbours start to suspect the odd house out, a run-down shack with people who rarely leave but make a lot of noise, may be the front for a cannibalistic cult.

The film, much like Dante’s other work, is incredibly fun and makes sure that the comedy/theme is consistent throughout the film, even when the film’s plot starts to go in crazy directions. Due to Dante’s extensive film knowledge, some great subtle homages are thrown in the film, from old-school horror to a flat out Sergio Leone tribute which will entertain any cinephile. Some critics didn’t quite get what Dante was doing with the film at the time, but its reputation has grown since.

3. Piranha (1978, Joe Dante)

Piranha is of Dante’s first films, intended as a parody of Jaws. It’s a B-Movie with a great crew that are still working today. Written by John Sayles, famous for screenwriting Oscar nominations for Passion Fish and Lone Star and co-edited by Mark Goldblatt (who did Chappie this year), this is a film which isn’t the greatest, but has old-school charm and a feeling that everyone who contributed to the film actually cared. The story is pretty simple, piranhas are accidentally released into the rivers of a summer resort, resulting in a bunch of random people getting killed.

Due to being a parody of Jaws, it takes the gruesome and morbid segments of Jaws and expands on them, featuring some great make-up effects by Rob Bottin. The lead is played by Bradford Dillman, an actor usually associated as the bad guy, in films like the Dirty Harry sequel The Enforcer, so it’s unique to see him play the likable protagonist in this film. Piranha also features Dante’s good luck charm Dick Miller, in another great supporting role.

4. The Second Civil War (1997, Joe Dante)

A made-for-TV movie, Dante’s The Second Civil War boasts an incredibly loaded cast, which features James Coburn, Phil Hartman, Denis Leary, Kevin Dunn, Beau Bridges, James Earl Jones, Ron Perlman, Elizabeth Pena and of course, Dick Miller. Whilst released on TV in America, it was released internationally in theatres, where its political issues caused quite a stir for some countries, such as Italy, where the events on-screen mirrored real life.

The story is set in a future United States of America, where the issue of immigration has become a hot topic. When it is announced that orphans from Pakistan will be immigrated into Idaho, the Governor of the State (Beau Bridges) announces that his borders will be closed to all immigrants. This causes quite a stir with the President of the United States (Phil Hartman) and the story shows the unfolding from all angles, from the citizens, government and the news that is reporting the story. As seen with Donald Trump’s controversial comments during his Presidential run, the topic of immigration in America is still a hot topic making this film still relevant today.

5. Matinee (1993, Joe Dante)

Dante’s most underrated work, Matinee is a loving homage to B-Movie cinema and the works of horror icon William Castle. William Castle was a famous B-Movie producer/director who became famous for his outlandish promotional gimmicks in order to hype up his films, one example being The Tingler, which employed electric shocks in the cinema seats to go off during different parts in the film.

Matinee, set in 1962, is about Lawrence Woosley (John Goodman, who does terrific work here), the character based on William Castle, who decides to capitalise on the fear during the Cuban Missile Crisis and release a nuclear-war themed B-Movie titled MANT. Woosley decides to do a test screening in Key West, Florida, where he meets Gene Loomis (Simon Fenton), a high schooler who is a huge fan of Woosley’s work, who starts to work for him.

The first half of the film is a build-up towards the screening and Dante does a great job of establishing atmosphere and character, which really makes the second half pay off, when the screening happens and a lot of problems and hijinks start to go down. A really fun film which balances childhood whimsy and the paranoia of nuclear war at the time, Matinee is a wonderful film which has sadly gone severely underseen in recent years.

6. Gremlins (1984, Joe Dante)

Gremlins is without a doubt Dante’s most famous film and one which has had a large impact on pop culture. The story is one that everybody knows, but if they don’t, it is about Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan), a high school kid who is given a Mogwai, a cute little creature of unknown origin. Given a particular set of rules to follow (including the famous ‘No Feeding it After Midnight’), things go awry when the rules are accidentally broken and the Mogwai spawns a horde of nasty little creatures, Gremlins, which escape and start wrecking havoc in the town.

Gremlins was such a hit, and the mythology built is quite interesting, featuring some great creature effects that really brings the Gremlins and Mogwai to life. Dante effortlessly goes between playful satire and mainstream friendly entertainment, which never compromises its story or themes in order to keep it family friendly.

7. Gremlins 2 (1990, Joe Dante)

Whilst not popular with the critics or audiences on release, Gremlins 2 is a film which has had its stance changed as it has aged. The film’s perception has changed as people understand Dante’s satirical decisions and how the film itself is a criticism on film sequels. Gremlins 2 is a much broader and comedic sequel, mixing morbid humour and overtly comic elements, which sheds the more mainstream feel of the original film. The film is about an army of Gremlins who are set loose within a high-tech corporate skyscraper owned by a media mogul, who must be stopped by Billy and Kate from the original film.

Initial audiences were confused by the film’s lighter tone and Dante’s trademark ability to fill his films with many different film parodies. Gremlins was a huge success, which lead to Warner Bros. wanting to create a sequel straight away. As the original film was quite a taxing experience on Dante, he declined and went to pursue other projects. Warner Bros. tried various ideas, but nothing was working. Six years after the original, Warner Bros. finally went back to Dante, who agreed to do the film on the conditions that he had complete creative control and triple the budget. This level of control can be seen in the film’s slightly bizarre direction, without the commercial restrictions that a studio film would usually impose.

Are you a fan of Joe Dante’s films? What are some other genre directors you’d like us to examine?

(top image: Matinee (1993) – image source: Universal Pictures)