The strange story of abandoned horror movie ‘Chunk Blower’
The horror genre is undoubtedly the most fascinating in cinema. The plot, kill counts, terrifying characters or myths surrounding entries that come under this umbrella, for a century now, since F. W. Murnau released Nosferatu in 1922, the horror genre has kept us all interested via many different aspects, often capitalising on our innate need to be frightened.
It is horror that has given us some of the most notorious moments in cinema. From the wholly sadistic plot of Tom Six’s 2009 body horror The Human Centipede to the violent rumours engulfing Cannibal Holocaust or the questions of whether The Blair Witch Project was indeed real, it’s a trend that doesn’t seem to be waning with regards to the advent of streaming websites such as Shudder, which are wholly dedicated to everything creepy and macabre.
Whilst there are many storied movies within the realm of horror, there are very few as intriguing as the classic that was never made, Chunk Blower. The film was created in order to tell the story of a serial killer tow truck driver, played by Bruce Paisley, who murders his unsuspecting victims in the most brutal of ways.
It was the creation of the then-amateur Jim Van Bebber, who later went on to make 1997’s strange exploitation film The Manson Family. Notably, Van Bebber had already quit film school to create 1988’s cult title Deadbeat at Dawn with the loan money he recieved. Not much is known about the movie, but over the next two years, he collaborated with members of the industrial band Skinny Puppy, who were well-known horror fans.
Again, details are scarce, but at one point, the production of Chunk Blower came to an abrupt end not long after they’d shot enough scenes to make an advert. It was then edited into a creepy three-and-a-half minute trailer, and in it, we see Bill Leeb and the late Dwayne Goettel of Skinny Puppy meet their maker in the form of the serial killer as he douses their van in petrol and then sets them on fire. Chunk Blower is the name on the tin, and from the small snippets in the trailer, that’s clearly what it set out to make audiences do.
The trailer is all that remains of the potential film, with it helping to make it one the most intriguing moments in horror history, as many commentators have opined that it had the potential to be one of the best. Added to this sense of brilliance is that Goettel and Skinny Puppy bandmate cEvin Key even scored the film, with Leeb eventually repurposing the footage in his video for his other band Front Line Assembly’s 1990 song, ‘Virus’.
We’ll likely never get to the bottom of what happened to Chunk Blower, but that’s alright; we like the mystery.
