Tom McLoughlin Lives: A retrospective of the polymath horror director
Director and writer Tom McLoughlin is one of those super interesting people in horror who have created so many cool projects in his lifetime, you almost can’t believe he’s mortal. Bow down to his legacy!
McLoughlin, a creative tour-de-force, is well-known for writing and directing Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives in 1986, resurrecting Jason from the dead (skipping right past Part V) with a bolt of electricity – creating a supernatural, zombified Jason. McLoughlin’s Friday the 13th is the first one to add cheeky, self-aware humor to the series.
According to IMDB, the director owns Jason’s headstone featured in the opening of the film, resting in McLoughlin’s backyard. Apparently, it’s so creepy looking that a delivery driver refused to enter his backyard because he was afraid it was a real tombstone. And I thought my pink 1990s Ouija Board for Little Girls from Toys “R” Us was a weird possession.
JAson Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI — Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
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McLoughlin created some of the most unique TV shows of the 90s, such as She-Wolf of London, a series about a feisty intellectual who is attacked in the Moors by a werewolf, while studying abroad.
She-Wolf is an absolutely delightful show — truly ahead of its time, a supernatural, comedic rom-com, with hints of X-files, which it predates. Randi, the nerdy but aggressive werewolf student falls for the straight-laced, bow-tied, erudite Professor, and together they investigate paranormal crimes, such as the case of the homicidal Bog-Man, who returns from the dead.
She-Wolf of London is available on DVD at Amazon, although with any luck, the series will be rereleased on a streaming platform, because it’s still a fresh show with a woman lead, plus a cast of excellent, classically trained character actors.
McLoughlin also created They Came from Outer Space, a sci-fi comedy series about fraternal alien twins, who take a road trip through California in a 1959 classic red Chevrolet Corvette. It’s a nutzo, early 90s TV show about ‘Croutonians’ — human looking aliens who like pizza and women.
If that’s not enough cool stuff, McLoughlin was also the lead singer of the garage band The Sloths, performing on Sunset Strip in the ’60s, opening for The Doors, The Animals and Pink Floyd. The Sloths resurfaced in 2012, releasing an album, ‘Back from the Grave,’ on Burger Records in 2015. The Sloths are working on a new album and the band will perform at South by Southwest in 2019.
McLoughlin is still going strong, creating projects with original premises — his most recent project, ‘An Unusual Story,’ is a short about Ouija boards and possessed electronics; and he posts horror-comedy bits on the web for fun, such as: Tom McLoughlin’s MICHAEL MYERS EXPERIENCE with MIKE the MIME. McLoughlin also studied mime, featuring these skills in a brilliant, 8-minute sketch called, ‘MIKE GETS INTO ‘SHAPE’.
Horror fans who loved Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives should check out the rest of McLoughlin’s work. He is an inspiring reminder that creative people keep on creating, no matter what. Don’t sweat the haters. Unless they’re Jason.
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Are you a fan of Tom McLoughlin? Are you gonna see The Sloths play? What are your favorite moments of Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives? Let us know in the comments!