Body Bags is a 1993 American horror sci-fi comedy television film, directed by John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper and Larry Sulkis. It originally aired on 8 August 1993. It is an anthology film, featuring three unconnected stories, with bookend segments featuring Carpenter and Hooper as deranged morgue attendees. It is notable for its numerous celebrity cameo appearances.
The first story, “The Gas Station”, features Robert Carradine as a serial killer, with cameos by Sam Raimi and Wes Craven. “Hair” follows Stacy Keach as he receives a botched hair transplant that infests him with an alien parasite, and “Eye” is another transplant story, this time featuring Mark Hamill as a baseball player who loses an eye in a car accident and receives a transplant, only to be overtaken with the personality of the eye’s previous owner: a murderous misogynist.
Originally, Showtime Networks planned to create Body Bags as a television series, similar to HBO’s Tales from the Crypt. However, shortly after filming began on the project, the network did not feel it was in their best interest to pursue the series. The three completed stories were assembled around John Carpenter’s narration segment, and Body Bags became a horror anthology.
The film will make its Blu-ray + DVD combo debut as part of Shout Factory!’s Scream Factory line up in November 2013.
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“The real reason you should watch this is for Carpenter’s segments inbetween each episode where he plays the morgue attendant. These are a really fun and playful. Carpenter’s performance reminded me a lot of Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice. It’s got that same live-wire atmosphere. The attendant is a really twisted guy and there’s good ‘reveal’ about him at the very end of the film that I didn’t see coming. Also, it’s quite fun to catch all the famous cameos and in-jokes dotted around the episodes – Sam Raimi, Wes Craven, Twiggy, Debbie Harry, Tom Arnold all pop up in tiny roles. Another strong point is the gore used in the films. It’s not frequent but when people do die it goes way over-the-top.” Jack Thursby, Collected Cinema
“Anthology horror is always fun to watch. If one sucks you don’t have to wait long for it to be over. All three stories are well done with only The Gas Station dragging a bit. That segment is worth it just to watch Wes Craven as the leering old man looking to buy some smokes from the gas station. This was supposed to be the start of an ongoing series and it’s too bad that it never saw the light of day. It was fun, creepy and bloody and would have brought something to the small screen that we wouldn’t have been getting that much in 93.” The Film Reel
- “The Morgue”
- John Carpenter as The Coroner
- Tom Arnold as Morgue Worker #1
- Tobe Hooper as Morgue Worker #2
- “The Gas Station”
- Robert Carradine as Bill
- Alex Datcher as Anne
- Wes Craven as Pasty Faced Man
- Sam Raimi as Dead Bill
- David Naughton as Pete
- Lucy Boryer as Peggy
- George Buck Flower as Stranger
- Molly Cheek as Divorcee
- “Hair”
- Stacy Keach as Richard Coberts
- David Warner as Dr. Lock
- Sheena Easton as Megan
- Dan Blom as Dennis
- Attila as Man with Beautiful Hair
- Kim Alexis as Woman with Beautiful Hair
- Deborah Harry as The Nurse
- “Eye”
- Mark Hamill as Brent Matthews
- Twiggy as Cathy Matthews
- John Agar as Dr. Lang
- Roger Corman as Dr. Bregman
- Charles Napier as Baseball Team Manager
- Eddie Velez as Baseball Player
