Offscreen Notes
Bob Clark
A sad day for the film industry with news of the tragic (because utterly avoidable) death of American-born director Bob Clark, best known (at least in Canada) for his valuable contributions to genre cinema at a time when such cinema was rare in Canada. Clark, along with his 22 year old son, were killed in a head-on car collision with a drunken driver. We’ve all done dumb things in our life, but driving a vehicle while inebriated is a needless crime which must be treated much more seriously than it is so tragedies such as this will become rare (they are not). Clark made a key contribution to the horror genre, with his loveable comic horror debut Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, and then three successive minor masterpieces, Deranged, Deathdream and Black Christmas. Click here to read my discussion of Clark’s pioneering contribution to the stalker film in the essay “Documenting the Horror Genre.” Clark also made one of the best films on the Jack the Ripper myth/conspiracy, Murder by Decree, and one of the best holiday films, A Christmas Story.
