Blu-Ray Review: Body Bags (Collector’s Edition)

By Brad Henderson

John Carpenter has blessed us with many great flicks and inspired a limitless amount of people. He continues to do so even today. Still, Carpenter has a few underrated flicks and Body Bags is one of them. The whole film wasn’t directed by The Horror Master himself, but he directed a segment and more importantly, he nailed it as the host of this anthology. Body Bags might not be the best thing ever but it is a blast. (Don’t take me too seriously when I say it may not be the best thing ever; I mean that in a very positive way, actually.) Now, Scream Factory has given us a pristine looking Blu-Ray.

“The Gas Station,” “Hair,” and “The Eye” are all segments in this three-part anthology with amazing introductions by “The Coroner,” played by John Carpenter himself. Body Bags was directed by three different directors: Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, and Larry Sulkis (who was uncredited).

“Gas Station” (Carpenter) is by far the strongest out of all of them and the movie is worth a watch just for that. I remember watching this when I was ten or so and thinking it was the best thing ever. I wouldn’t shut up about Creepshow 1 & 2 and Body Bags. Later on in life I watched these again and Body Bags just kind of fell flat amongst all the other flicks I watched.

There’s still a lot of nostalgia associated with this flick and I know there are a lot of fans of it, but I think that’s due to the fact that we grew up with it. I believe if this came out now, it would be easily dismissed and bad-mouthed. If I saw the segment “Hair” for the first time at this point in my life I would probably just turn it off. Hooper’s “The Eye” is just horrendous and Mark Hamill is by far the worst thing about Body Bags. Sorry, Luke.

You are probably thinking to yourself, “Is this guy serious? It’s John-Freaking-Carpenter!” I know it is, and I love the man myself, but we have to be honest with ourselves. Does this film really compare to anything that Carpenter has done aside from the “Gas Station” segment (and that’s mostly due to the fact he puts all his friends and recent co-workers into the film)? I’m fine with that, but I think we look more at who is in it and how fun it is to see everyone, rather than if the flick is great or not.

However, Scream Factory put together another great release of a cult classic and I love it no matter how boring the other segments are. Scream Factory lives to put out films from many companies that are overlooked and they want to please their fan base. They hit the mark on this release and I’m so happy they did.

Body Bags (Collector’s Edition) was released by Scream Factory on November 12.