Horror in the 90s: 'Popcorn'

Popcorn (1991)

Directed by Mark Herrier

Written by 'Tod Hackett'

Starring Jill Schoelen, Tom Villard, Dee Wallace Stone, Ray Walston, Derek Rydall

Release Date February 1st, 1991

Box Office $4.205 million

Popcorn is a minor miracle of a horror movie. The film should have been a complete disaster. The film ran through three directors, two lead actresses, and a screenplay credit fight that ended with the credited screenwriter being a fake name. There is no good reason that Popcorn turned out as well as it did. And yet, the film has developed a minor cult following. Despite having been passed on by Black Christmas director Bob Clark and then taken away from director Alan Orsmby, who directed a significant portion of the film, and switching lead actors after the film had begun production, Popcorn is a wildly fun and exciting horror flick.

Popcorn follows the denizens of a college film class as they seek funding for their short films by throwing a horror film festival at a rundown local movie theater. Having somehow secured three cult horror movies from the 1960s, the plan is to use the wild, over the top marketing gimmicks of these movies to sell out the place and use the money to make short films. The plan comes together when one of the students manages to legendary movie props from the dramatic and iconic Dr. Mnesyne (Ray Walston). With his tools, the students can recreate the weird wonderful time when the movies in their festival were briefly the most innovative and popular of genre fare.

The story of Popcorn however, truly centers on one of the students, Maggie (Jill Schoelen). Plagued by nightmares, Maggie hopes to take her wild dreams and turn them into her own short horror movie. What she doesn't know yet is that her dreams are based around a real childhood drama. When Jill was very young, her film director father murdered her mother on stage after the showing of his own short film for which the ending was unshot. The ending was instead acted out live on stage with the murder of Jill's mother. Jill was also meant to die but she was rescued at the last moment.

Jill knows none of this so when a ragged looking can of film is found among the movie props they've borrowed for the festival, she's unaware that it is her father's legendary lost short film, 'Possessor'. She does however, recognize some of it as she and her fellow film students watch it out of curiosity. The short film happens to look a lot like the scenes from Maggie's nightmares. The question that will eventually emerge as Popcorn goes along, is Maggie's father actually dead? We may find out as her fellow students consider showing this creepy short as part of the festival.

Popcorn is a movie made by movie nerds, for movie movie nerds. The wonderful homage to horror films past crossed with the modern, at the time, slasher trend of the early 90s remains potent and entertaining today. The kills are inventive and odd and proceed from a clever and broad logic. The movies within the movie, those being shown at the film's film festival, are three terrifically realized horror homages to classic monster movies and inventive spectacles involving electric shocks to theater patrons' chairs, and a variation on the classic Smell-O-Vision gimmick where the audience can smell what the characters in the movie smell.

That's a real thing! That was something that a film company tried to pull off back in the 50s and 60s. Popcorn shows our film school protagonists feeding scent pods in a container that is fed into the vents of the theater based on a cue from the movie. Similarly, the shock seats in Popcorn are also based in reality. The makers of a movie called The Tingler in 1959 outfitted theaters to shock audience members based on cues from the movie. All of the innovative ideas you see in Popcorn can be traced back to legendary film world huckster and showman, William Castle and the earnest homage to horror's past, makes Popcorn even more special.

I adore Popcorn. As a film nerd and a horror movie fan, I find the loving homage to the glorious and disreputable past of the genre irresistible. I also like the modern story being told about Maggie, her father, and her fellow film students, each of whom is at least briefly framed as a potential horror movie villain. The resolution of Popcorn contains some of the DNA that the Scream franchise would cultivate into one of the biggest horror franchises of all time. In many ways, Popcorn is the proto-Scream, minus the genius of Wes Craven but filled with the same love of horror movies at its core.

So, about screenwriter 'Tod Hackett.' That's not the actual name of the writer of Popcorn. Tod Hackett is the pseudonym chosen by director Alan Ormsby after he'd been let go from the movie and replaced as directed by Mark Herrier. So much of Ormsby's work remains in Popcorn that he deserves plenty of credit for how the film turned out. That said, credit to Mark Herrier who stepped in and, though he'd never directed before, and would not direct another feature in his career, managed to pull together a hit horror movie out of the disparate parts and significant challenges in front of him.

That's why I say Popcorn is a minor miracle. The film survived challenge after challenge and still delivered a clever, funny, and scary horror movie. There appears to be a deep love and reverence for horror movies and the past of horror movies in every moment of Popcorn and that loving homage is infectious. I loved the choices made with the villain of Popcorn. It's a smart, darkly funny, and chilling performance that culminates brilliantly on the stage, blurring reality and fiction in a cacophony of scares and invention.

This loving appreciation of Popcorn is a serialized piece from my book project, Horror in the 90s. I am watching and writing about more than 200 horror movies released between January 1990 and December 1999 in order to observe how the horror genre evolved and changed over that period of time and how horror in the 90s effected what came after in the early 2000s and all the way to today. It's a labor of love for sure but one I cannot complete Horror in the 90s without a little help. If you have enjoyed what you have read, consider making a monthly pledge or leaving a one time tip here on Vocal. You can also contribute to support Horror in the 90s on my Ko-Fi account linked here. Thanks!