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Music to Make Horror Movies By: The Smiths

Published November 3, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

Despite his reputation as the ultimate vegan curmudgeon, Morrissey must have developed a sense of fun somewhere along the line. This thought is most clearly laid out by the inclusion of Panic, a kinetic track from the dour troubadour’s classic The Smiths days, in the ecstatically rambunctious horror romp Demons 2.

Simon Boswell, the film’s composer and music coordinator, has recounted in interviews how his request to the illusive singer was framed around the film’s mild condemnation of media and consumerism. Still, as the project’s title so steadfastly reveals its true nature, one can certainly hope that this very British gentlemen is just as turned on by humor-stained gore as the rest of us.

Indeed, Boswell’s more gothic instincts gives the soundtrack, as a whole, a dark wave of jubilance. But none of the other cuts – including fun tracks by everyone from The Cult to Peter Murphy – quite give Sally’s birthday party, where the music here takes zombie-blooded root, the shot of adrenaline that is contained within this early take on social blandness from the one and only Master of Mope. 

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Be My Bai-by: Mega Ape (2023)

Published October 27, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

(A new column dedicated to the projects of the truly singular Bai Ling)

Much like the multi-layered Irwin Allen disaster flicks, Mega Ape‘s writer and director Dustin Ferguson introduces us to multiple characters and plot points in the quick 72-minute running time of this furry feature. (Amusingly, 10 minutes of that is actually devoted to the pre and post action credits – so you’ve got just a little over a television episode’s worth of stuff here.) To wit, briefly beheld, there are a group of animal activists, a hysterically gesticulating mad scientist (Ling), a woman scorned, a rambling duo of conspiracy theorists and multiple hikers in danger. 

Following the usual path of these things, our titular beast is unwittingly released by some overzealous puppy loving civil servants. Soon, ever growing and growing ever angrier, it is on the warpath. Death and mayhem, naturally, ensue. Interestingly, it seems that the power of this creature is also linked to the subconscious and soon the whole world may be one Empire State Building away from Kong-ing out.

As a creator, Ferguson is obviously having a blast here. Working with a visibly miniscule budget, technology, it seems, has finally allowed him to make one of his dream projects  –  an ambitious, leveled monster flick. Of course, the cheese and wacky humor practically ooze out of this celluloid sandwich – with our favored goddess being a huge part of that.

While it appears as if Ling’s scenes were all filmed in one spastic afternoon, her appearances are, thankfully, scattered out amongst the project’s complete length. As it stands, as Dr. Li, our heroine generally works only one emotion – mania. But I, for one, wouldn’t have it any other way. Her shining exuberance is the flowery bow on an already very colorful present. 

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Shark Bait Retro Village: The Sex Symbol

Published October 20, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

Let’s get this out of the way, right off the bat – it is super creepy watching legendary producer William Castle, always a naturally congenial presence onscreen, play Jack P. Harper, a sleazy Golden Age movie mogul in the 1974 television film The Sex Symbol. A fictionalized, ridiculously exploitive look at the life and times of Marilyn Monroe, this greasy bio-pic stars silvery Connie Stevens as the luscious, deeply troubled Kelly Williams. Granted, there are several evocatively disturbing components here. For instance, the screenwriters seem obsessed with the rumor that Monroe veered towards the asexual side in the bedroom, remitting countless scenes of a barely clothed Stevens bemoaning her lack of interest in the carnal as her partners smoke, hazily, in rumpled bedrooms. But Castle’s supporting role, as the executive who helps create Williams’ translucent aura, hits the hardest when he rapes the titular character in a fur-stained boardroom. We’re a long way from the innocent charms of the original 13 Ghosts here, folks!

Almost as a counterbalancing routine, we get a bit of Sapphic intrigue occurring throughout this perfumed reimagining, as well. To that matter, the exquisite Madlyn Rhue is on hand as Kelly’s trusted secretary, Joy Hudson. Hudson, an obvious stand-in for Monroe’s lesbian acting coach Natasha Lytess, spends her screen time glowering at anyone who dares disturb Williams’ autonomy on the celluloid baby-voiced diva market. Of course, whether she is drying her charge’s never ending tears or, lasciviously, giving her an oily rubdown, Rhue excels with a hardened demeanor and sultry essence of control.

Nicely, even though the premise, a flashback laden journey as Williams teeters on the brink of alcoholic immobilization, is an often exhausting one, Stevens is surprisingly good in the project, too. She offers up a raw and truthfully connected pathway to her character, showing both heart and watery persistence in equal measures. 

To balance out Steven’s pert femininity, perennial bad guy and 70s horror icon William Smith makes the scene as (the Joe DiMaggio-esque) Butch. Although, the most wickedly inspired casting here might belong to the laidback Don Murray, as a randy politician on the rise, and the overbearingly camp Shelley Winters, essaying a outwardly flowery yet intrinsically vengeful gossip columnist. As many celluloid fans are aware, Murray co-starred with Monroe in Bus Stop while Winters was her roommate, once upon a glistening Hollywood memory, when both women were young starlets. 

Horror Hall of Fame:

While Stevens has her share of cobweb strewn credits – Two on a Guillotine (a personal favorite, btw) & Tales from the Darkside, for instance, it is Winters who is the true horror maven here. Her credits include Who Slew Auntie Roo?, What’s the Matter with Helen?, Tentacles, Witchfire, The Tenant and The Visitor. Check ’em out!

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Hopelessly Devoted to: Rhoda Gemignani

Published October 12, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

Often playing smaller and supporting roles, the divine Rhoda Gemignani floated throughout the background scenes of many a cinema buff’s childhood. Terror tykes might know her best, though, for her portrayal of the Real Estate Agent in the original Ghostbusters film. 

Nicely, in the mid-70s, Gemignani was given the chance to play a character of dramatically gothic proportions on The Forgotten Room, an episode of the classic detective show Kojak. There, as a lusty widow named Katrina Patropoulos, she embraced all of the desperate, almost Southern characteristics of the role. Obviously inspired by Anna Magnani’s Serafina from Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo, Gemignani shines like a diva personified throughout the various mechanics of the straightforward plotline. Short-handedly here, the long ignored Patropoulos falls into a passionate affair with a handsome stranger (George Pan Andreas) – one who has an unfortunate propensity for killing prostitutes. 

As many of Williams’ female characters seem to be the prototype for the troubled divas of such films as Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? & their ilk, career-wise, it would have been nice to see Gemingnani go full throttle in a celluloid escapade of that caliber. As that was not to be, her work in this primetime caper will have to be the dreamy stand-in for all that could have, wonderfully, been.

Until the next, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Va-Va-Villainess: Deborah Dutch

Published October 4, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

I’m forever crawling on my hands and knees in thrift store aisles, hoping to uncover hidden multimedia gems. This past Saturday, I was biking to a film event and stopped at Green Resale, a huge, four roomed oasis of the not-so-badly used. There I found a cheap set of DVDs from (the almost forgotten) Brentwood Home Media, entitled Toga Party. Even though a couple of the discs were missing, there were still many treasures to be found inside.

The era of film where my nostalgia hits the hardest is that late ’80s, early ‘90s late night cable era. Sexy shows reigned on cable stations then and the word Bikini was an oft used/featured thing. (For example: Bikini Drive-In, Bikini Med School, Bikini House Calls, Bikini Car Wash, Bikini Summer, Bikini Summer 2.) Nicely, the Toga Party collection included a number of episodes of a flash n dash show from that period of time called Divorce Law.

There, the prime defense team, played by such titans of this fare as Jay Richardson and Monique Parent, work together to throw the book at very naked varieties of nefarious conjugal schemers. My favorite 30-minute sequence involves my good buddy (and late night cable stalwart) Deborah Dutch. There, as a French charmer named Brigitte Dubois, she convinces a handsome attorney (Christian Noble) to marry her for her Green Card. When he discovers her lesbian lover hovering nearby and tries to divorce her, she drops a pregnancy bomb on him. Of course, her plans are waylaid when a stolen sample of her pee reveals the truth. Barren as the desert and momentarily penniless, she returns to Paris and the sexy charms of her female paramour.

Dutch is obviously having a giddy time being so mischievous here. The role is definitely a change of pace from her more charmingly comic parts in such cult fare as Hard to Die, Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds and 976-Evil II, making it recommended viewing for her devotees and for anyone who loves the material popularized on USA’s Up All Night all those magically star struck years ago.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Murder Ballads: Diva Style

Published September 13, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

I feel like my life has been an uninterrupted study of film facts and yet…I am constantly surprised, as I sit in various nostalgia screenings, to discover performers I have never even heard a whisper about previously. I am also continually uncovering facets of careers that I thought I had known, backwards and forwards.

As one of the great European movie divas of the ‘50s & ‘60s, Sophia Loren, dutifully, committed some kittenish vocalizing to a number of vinyl recordings. Evidence of these minimal offerings have shown up on such compilations as the Pin-Up Girls series and Rhino Records’ cult-worthy Va-Va-Voom in the mid-80s.

A recent dusty knee LP bargain hunt, at Reckless Records in Chicago, unveiled a previously unknown treasure, though. To promote The Millionairess, their 1960 feature film, Loren and Peter Sellers recorded a cute, off the cuff album together.  Among the cutesy duets and novelty numbers, Loren actually made like a professional cabaret chanteuse and committed a couple real live numbers to wax. One of these was Rodgers and Hart’s To Keep My Love Alive, perhaps the most literary murderous ballad ever committed to theatrical life via the use of pen and paper.*

Loren’s simple yet funny reading of the song actually brings out the humorous plot points with a precision that more classical takes on the material have sometimes failed to uncover.

Of course upon further reflection, the fact that Loren, whose career has included literary achievements along with a string of big budget action films in the ‘70s, is so eclectically motivated should surprise absolutely no one.

*The song was written as a character study of the villainous Morgan Le Fay for A Connecticut Yankee, a Broadway musical.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Lola Albright

Published August 24, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

“Now, remember. I don’t want you to touch anything that you don’t recognize.” – Lola Albright, Ms. Barrett, The Monolith Monsters

Thankfully for the male persuasion, the smooth, eternally cool Lola Albright definitely didn’t need to heed her own warning.  The first cut from her debut album, Lola Wants You, certainly confirmed that she was worldly wise and definitely familiar with the opposite sex:

Often singing a sultry tune on the jazzy private eye show Peter Gunn, Albright also played into the lives of monster-kids everywhere. Her sympathetic school teacher in Universal’s (above mentioned) Atomic Age horror The Monolith Monsters made her a highlight for Scary Monsters readers everywhere. Nicely, Albright, who died at the age of 92 in 2017, also indulged in some mature suspense movement on several episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and a long lost 1975 television film called The Nurse Killer.

Gay Magic: Colorfully, Lola began her career as a featured actress at MGM. Her credits include smaller roles in two Judy Garland films – The Pirate and Easter Parade.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Va-Va-Villainess: Frances Reid

Published August 17, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

She delighted generations as the donut baking Alice Horton on Days of our Lives. But like most of daytime television’s seasoned matriarchs, actress Frances Reid had quite a career before joining the ranks of the ultra-beloved performers in the continuing history of soaps. 

Of special note is her appearance on a season 6 episode of the original Perry Mason (The Case of Constant Doyle) – the show that featured the indomitable Bette Davis, as the titular Doyle, in the steed of an ailing Raymond Burr. Here Davis’ shrewd yet kind lawyer is determined to help the young Cal Leonard (Michael Parks) evade a murder charge. Her investigation soon uncovers that the true killer may be closer to her than she ever thought. 

Amid a character brigade of financial shysters and drunken society ladies, Reid’s proper Ms. Liza Gibney is ultimately a standout. Seemingly prim and proper, she also presents a devious side -making for a complicated character that steals focus with a hysterical breakout when pertinent evidence is revealed about her in Davis’ summation in the show’s final act.

Nicely, besides the participation of Davis and Parks, who both have numerous horror credits in their multifaceted resumes, childhood actress Peggy Ann Garner (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Daisy Kenyon) provides an acerbic, fun appearance as the afore mentioned inebriated, high society wife.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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As The Stab Burns: Kim Coles

Published August 2, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

Proving that the tears of the clown do run the deepest, comedienne Kim Coles’ (Living Single, In Living Color) recent run as Nurse Whitley on Days of our Lives was decorated with both tragedy and laughter…with a good ole dash of psychotic fury thrown in for good measure, as well. 

After Abe (James Reynolds), the show’s mayor and a legacy character extraordinaire, was hospitalized, he discovered one major post-surgery complication – Coles’ overly friendly, extremely deluded healthcare practitioner. Convincing him that she was Paulina (Jackee Harry), his powerful and loving wife, Whitley kidnapped him and held him captive in her apartment – one strewn with colorful stuffed cat plushes and overly cheery paraphernalia. As the confused Abe grew ever leery of her story, Whitley conceived scheme upon scheme to keep him in the dark and by her side. 

With definitive echos of Stephen King’s Misery, the increasingly desperate caregiver even began drugging Abe, eventually finding a way to convince his family that he was dead. Of course, all that begins badly generally ends happily in the world of daytime and, after one last ditch effort to erase herself & her captive from existence, Whitley was caught and brought to justice.

Besides proving that King’s tales should provide more fodder for soap opera stories, this saga gave Coles a delightful way to expand her talent palette. Alternately vibrating with tenderness, confusion and menace, she made the most of this unusual opportunity, ensuring this story was a fun…& historic ride. *

(* – This tale was one of few in the show’s many decades that revolved around and utilized a Black cast almost exclusively.)

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan

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Shark Bait Retro Village: Hardcastle and McCormick

Published July 28, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

Each week the gang on Friday the 13th: The Series tangled with the discovery of yet another destructive, escaped object from their antique store. Similarly, every Sunday night for three years, Hardcastle & McCormick were trafficking in lost items of their own. Of course, this duo’s artifacts were of the human variety – felons and bail jumpers. Sometimes, they even had a special guest or two to help them out.

Inquisitive senior citizens have long played a part in horror – From Olivia de Havilland’s shattered matriarch in The Screaming Lady to the overwhelmed & curious residents of the more recent Bingo Hell. Unsurprisingly, the quirkily divine Mildred Natwick was often found playing investigative elders. In the early ‘70s, she, along with the legendary Helen Hayes, was one of the crime solving The Snoop Sisters. Then in 1985, on the detective show Hardcastle & McCormick, she returned to that familiar territory. This time her co-star was the equally renowned Mary Martin, who joined her as one of the gruff Hardcastle’s (Brian Keith) aunts on the (unsurprisingly titled) Hardcastle, Hardcastle and McCormick episode. 

Ever quick to accuse an innocent gardener of burying bodies, May (Narwick) and Zora (Martin) have a hard time convincing their nephew and Mark McCormick, his ex-con ward (Daniel Hugh Kelly), that they have overheard a murder plot when wrapping up their stay with them. Forcing the reluctant Mark into action, they soon find the intended victim floating in his pool. Of course, this planned one shot kill hits a snag as the curious women uncover more and more and find themselves in the line of the murderer’s fire.

As expected, these seasoned pros – Natwick was nominated twice for a Tony Award while Martin won three – have great chemistry with Kelly, who nicely mixes exasperation and affection when dealing with the overreaching arms of their characters’ curiosity. The ladies, of course, eventually make it out of these dangerous circumstances alive, ending their visit on a note of humor. As both women leave, they affirm that Hardcastle’s promise to come stay with them soon is met on deaf ears – he is way too unpredictable and hard to control for a drawn-out vacation with them! Thus, as Martin’s last acting credit ends, one is filled with a true sense of fun if not artistic significance.

Horror Hall of Fame:

Most of Martin’s work was done on the stage while (series regular) Brian Keith made an appearance in a 1982 television film adaptation of John Saul’s Cry for the Strangers. Natwick, meanwhile, made many appearances on such classic genre anthology shows as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Evil Touch and Suspense. Kelly, whose major motion picture debut film was as the cuckolded husband in Cujo, also has multiple terror credits (The Monkey’s Paw, Devil May Call, Mischief Night).

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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