one of my absolute favorites!

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

After four years away from a theatrical released film ("They Live"), with the exception of the lacklustre: "Memoirs of an Invisibile Man", John Carpenter moved to television to direct and produce, alongside his companion Sandy King, "Body Bags", a horror comedy anthology film which was a proposed pilot for a future Showtime's television series similar to the HBO's "Tales from the Crypt".John Carpenter, who cast himself in the prologue and the epilogue, delivers an excellent morbid, but tongue-in-cheek performance as a creepy-looking coroner, talking directly to the audience (à la Ferris Bueller) and introducing three different horror stories involving cadavers, who died in an unnatural ways, placed in body bags.The first segment, "The Gas Station" is a classic vintage Carpenter, a slasher short film full of references to his own works (a serial killer from Haddonfield) with peculiar camera angles to enhance suspense and providing an eerie & claustrophobic feeling to the whole, despite being a laid-back homage to his earlier masterpiece "Halloween" and his criminally underrated 'made-for-television' film, "Someone's Watching Me!". Carpenter's 'usual suspects' were present for the ride: Peter Jason; George 'Buck' Flower, playing his usual wino / bum character; Robert Carradine in a nerd / deranged mode that he can act in his sleep, plus unexpected cameos from two other "Masters of Horror": Sam Raimi & Wes Craven and David Naughton, the star of the lycanthropy cult-classic: "An American Werewolf in London".The second segment, "Hair" is a dark humored social commentary in the vein of "They Live", with Carpenter this time picking on vanity as one of the greatest weaknesses in the human being. It's the larger segment in length, well acted by Stacy Keach and featuring cameos of singers Sheena Easton (even she can't act) and Debbie Harry and a scene-stealer performance of David Warner as the flamboyant Dr. Lock.The third segment, "The Eye", the only directed by Tobe Hooper, it's the more serious in tone of the Anthology, but also its weakest entry. Mark Hamill stars as a promising baseball player that loses an eye after a car accident and got an ocular transplantation from a former serial killer who died in the electric chair. After leave the hospital, "Luke Skywalker" starts to have morbid visions of someone committing heinous crimes... The story borrows too much from Oliver Stone's "The Hand" and even from Eric Red's "Body Parts" which was released only 2 years before and besides being too predictable, introduces nothing new to the genre. "B-Movie" legends John Agar & Roger Corman play the doctors and the once upon a time a supermodel, Twiggy provides eye-candy for the viewer as Hamill's devoted wife."Body Bags" may had failed becoming a television series, but as 'stand- alone, made for TV anthology movie', it works for fans of John Carpenter and witty self-aware horror / comedy flicks, even if it relied too much on humour and farce and kind of lost its edge on the creativity and thrills' aspects. The sets may be cheap looking, but the gore is present (check out for the UNCUT DVD) and even if it wasn't a work on the caliber of Amicus' Anthology films; the "Creepshow" movies; "Cat's Eye" or "Tales from the Darkside - The Movie" (which also featured "Blondie" lead singer, Debbie Harry) it surely worth a watch.

A nice, fun little collaboration. Lots of appearances from familiar faces including Wes Craven, Blondie, and Twiggy. John Carpenter is great as the quirky morgue worker in between segments and his first piece is probably the best in the anthology. Tobe Hooper's addition was also surprisingly good, I really expected something more cringeworthy from late Hooper and although it wasn't exactly original it was still engaging and well made. Although I suspect Tobe probably isn't as good an actor himself as Carpenter seeing as how they placed him as morgue employee for all of ten seconds at the end.

This was a pilot episode for a possible series on Showtime. Showtime wanted to spend less money on it, so the idea was aborted and John Carpenter continued to make feature films. All three episodes are packed with guest appearances and cameos by many great actors and horror directors. Performances in all of them are excellent and each episode has a different tone and style. The first is somewhat of a slasher. The second is a bizarre comedy with sci fi elements. Both of those were directed by John Carpenter. The third is the darkest and is directed by Tobe Hooper. Body Bags has a lot of actors that are very talented, but very underrated that normally don't get to do this type of stuff like Robert Carradine and Mark Hamill. Stacy Keach is always excellent as well and does great here. As far as I am concerned the Tales From The Crypt series on HBO is the best anthology horror there is. Body Bags would have made a good series and could have been able to compete with it if it could maintain this sort of quality. John Carpenter is the host of this show and has the right delivery and the right hair to keep up with The Cryptkeeper.

Directors John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper bring you a made for cable horror anthology known as...BODY BAGS.Hosted by an amusing John Carpenter as a cryptkeeper like host. He's a lively corpse himself and delights in the torment of the other bodies in the morgue. So he's going to tell you about them...(well three of them, anyway).Story One finds a young college student being stalked in a desolate gas station by a menacing killer. Watch for Carpenter regulars Buck Flower, Peter Jason, and Robert Carradine as well as cameos from Sam Raimi and Wes Craven. Not a very good story but much better than the other two that follow Story Two finds a balding bachelor (the always watchable Stacy Keach) desperate for a cure to his thinning scalp. He finds one, thanks to an eccentric doctor played by David Warner. The cure works a little too well...This one is a little corny but fun.Story Three is directed by 'guest' Tobe Hooper and is unfortunately the weakest story. Professional baseball player Mark Hamill is distraught after losing his eye in a car accident. That is, until another creepy doctor offers him a transplant...from an executed serial killer. Nothing bad could possibly happen, right? Overall, the films wraparound segment proves to be more entertaining than the segments themselves as it feels like an old EC comic but the film isn't without it's positive points. The first story has decent suspense and all of them have their tongue planted firmly in cheek.Seek out this one out!