Shark Bait Retro Village: SST: Death Flight (1977)

Published May 22, 2015 by biggayhorrorfan

Mad, mad, mad Maharis!

Never piss off a gay man! Or more importantly, never piss off a character being played by a gay man!

In his eclectic life, George Maharis has been a television actor, a singer, a Playgirl model and a celebrity whose homosexuality was publicly rumored at in a bygone era. In 1977’s SST: Death Flight, one of the many television films made in the wake of the popularity of the Airport series and such disaster flicks as The Towering Inferno, he also plays Les Phillips, a disgruntled engineer who sabotages a new-fangled high-powered aircraft. To make matters worse, a doctor played by the distinguished Brock Peters, who gamely played gay in the 1962 British drama The L Shaped Room, has brought a sample of a toxic flu onboard. Due to Les’s machinations, the virus is leaked and the deadly traumas facing the varied cast are doubled.

Milner and Strasberg

Besides Maharis, such boob tube stalwarts as Martin Milner, Bert Convy, (the notoriously closeted) Robert Reed and Lorne Greene appear here. Early appearances are also logged in by Billy Crystal as a kindly flight attendant and John De Lancie as a one part of a young couple. Of course, Broadway baby Susan Strasberg, whose genre credits include The Manitou, Bloody Birthday and Sweet Sixteen, brings taut nobility to the proceedings while a sexy stewardess, played with feminine focus by Tina Louise, reacts sensitively to the possibility of a renewed romance.

Convy and Rowe

The best soap opera plotline here, though, involves Hee Haw’s baby voiced Misty Rowe, who also appeared in such schlock as Meatballs II, Goodbye, Norma Jean and Double Exposure, and Convy, who must decide whether to keep the child she is carrying. The womanizing Tim Vernon (Convy) doesn’t want to settle down while the softly determined Angela (Rowe) hopes to change his mind.

Will facing near extinction make Tim-Convy appreciate the glories of new life? Will Les-George pay for his sins? Will disaster stalwart Burgess Meredith steal the show from all the other performers with his wrinkly antics?

The answers: yes, yes and yes!!!

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

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The Backside of Horror: Hide and Go Shriek

Published May 19, 2015 by biggayhorrorfan

Let’s face it, half the fun of horror and exploitation is seeing some hot bodies frolicking around in the buff. And while I worship the female form, I believe exploitation definitely veers into the exploitive when only gorgeous women are on display while their male counterparts remain chastely buttoned up. Therefore, The Backside of Horror salutes the filmmakers and actors whom even up the score a bit by showing us instances of hot and juicy male flesh in their bloody celluloid fantasies.

Underwear. You want them on when a fire breaks out in your apartment (and you have to get away quick) and, according to 1987 slasher Hide and Go Shriek, they are also the perfect accessory for a death scene.

Here, both boy faced lothario Shawn (Scott Fults) and macho John (Sean Kanan) meet their maker in their skivvies. John even, in full on protector mode, chases the killer throughout the furniture department store in which film takes place, in nothing but his under-roos. I guess this proves that dusty pair of boxers may be good for some divide and conquer tricks, as well.

Featuring a queer killer, Hide and Go Shriek, also, gives the boys and girls something to squeal about with a quick glimpse at Kanan’s healthy posterior while Brittain Frye, as wild and sexually adventurous Randy, takes a withdrawal out of the bubbly flesh bank, as well.

Slashers: Catering to the masses, y’all!

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

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Review: Hole in the Wall

Published May 15, 2015 by biggayhorrorfan

During a panel at 2015’s C2E2 this past April, comic creators Tim Seeley, Mike Norton and Joshua Williamson, the forces behind such books as Revival and Nailbiter, asserted that horror stories that take place in the wide open spaces of rural communities are twice as scary as those that take place in urban settings.

Bearing this out, Rabid Child Films’ indie horror anthology Hole in the Wall perfectly captures the tree whistling creepiness of small town madness and mayhem over 7 different pieces, skillfully edited by producer Derrick Carey and all directed by Wisconsin based writers and directors.

While the focus here is on graphic horror, often revolving around serial killers types, such pieces as Carolyn Baker’s Siren and Greg Johnson’s Last Dance, also, add a little arty flair and John Waters’ style perversity to the mix.

Johnson, known for his passionate contributions to Cory Udler’s Incest Death Squad series, also, appears across multiple segments here, handling his many acting duties with humor and wild eyed finesse. He is, ably, supported by the enthusiastic Draven Wagner whose curious Eli provides the linchpin to the telling of many of the tales. Of course, terror purists will thrill to the inclusion of Night of the Living Dead’s Judith O’Dea in Udler’s Ed Gein D.D.S. O’Dea is riveting in her brief bit as Gein’s mother, applying all her velvety theatrical power to her short spot, here. Indie horror queen Heather Dorff, also, offers up some flair in the same segment, bringing passionate focus to the expected girl-in-jeopardy quotient.

The entire film, which visually revels in its attempts to disgust, particularly in Rob Michels’ churning Scumbag segment, is given a huge opening boost via the presence of Georgia based filmmaker Andrew Shearer, as well. Playing a William Castle style showman, Shearer welcomes you to the gruesome festivities with an ingratiating yet slightly demented smoothness. He provides a great start to a truly twisted DIY ride.

Be sure to keep at eye level with all of Hole In The Wall’s screenings at https://www.facebook.com/GORYHOLE and/or purchase it for download at http://rabidchildfilms.storenvy.com/.

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

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Sharkbait Retro Village: Face of Evil (1996)

Published May 14, 2015 by biggayhorrorfan

Even horror’s most notorious femmes seem to have motivations that revolve around men. Friday the 13th’s Mrs. Voorhees killed for the love of her son while Hellraiser’s Julia succumbed to the depths for her lover Frank.

This phenomenon is precisely what makes the character of Darcy Palmer in 1996 television terror Face of Evil so engaging. Every betrayal she enacts and every murder that she viciously engages in is done in the sole pursuit of her own artistic agenda.

After stealing his money and skipping town on her shady, but totally devoted fiancée, Palmer accidentally kills and then takes over the identity of Brianne, a soon-to-be college freshman and musician. Planning to immediately disappear, Darcy is waylaid by the sweet, well off Jeanelle Polk, Brianne’s dorm mate. Determined to rob Jeanelle and escape at her first chance, Darcy/Brianne soon becomes enraptured with the university’s art program and decides to stay.

Of course, to do so, she must brutally injure her own hand (thus avoiding the real Brianne’s music classes) and permanently blind the counselor who, initially, interviewed Brianne and would recognize her ruse. Darcy/Brianne then sets about seducing Jeanelle’s lonely father Russell in hopes that his wealth will further her success as a painter. Indeed, just as she is granted her own show, Jeanelle’s suspicions warp into overdrive and Quinn, her very angry ex, shows up. Naturally, further murder and sexual manipulation are soon placed, fully, on Darcy/Brianne’s plate, once again!

Directed with skill by Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary, The In Crowd, Urban Legends: Bloody Mary) who surely must have understood the main character’s frustrations and ambitions, if not her mania, Face of Evil is perhaps best recommended for the zeal with which the two female leads attack their roles. Best known for being a television darling, Growing Pains’ Tracey Gold attacks the role of Darcy with a slow burning ferocity. The calculation in her eyes is truly chilling, at times, and watching her go for broke as a performer is truly entertaining. Shawnee Smith, who would go on to play Saw’s demented Amanda, also shines as she expertly conveys Jeanelle’s exuberant awkwardness and her eventual retaliation.

Screenwriter Gregory Goodell (Grave Secrets: The Legacy of Hilltop Drive, Human Experiments), meanwhile, deliciously revels in Palmer’s lurid activities. His set-up is great, but things, ultimately, do rush too quickly (and simply) to their conclusion here, making the absurdity of the plotline all the more apparent. Still, the zeal with which Lambert and her performers attack these circumstances makes Face of Evil a true un-guilty pleasure!

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

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Review: Bite Radius

Published May 8, 2015 by biggayhorrorfan

I’ve forgotten the name of an undead trick or two after an adventurous night on the town. Unlucky Peyton, the title character in Spencer Parson’s incisively graphic short film Bite Radius, one up’s me, though. His evening debauchery results in a dead body in the bathtub.

Thankfully (or not), Peyton’s friend Nicole has a twisted idea of how to deal with Kelsey, the unfortunate lass who breathed her last behind the shower curtains of her career girl apartment. This involves a machete, a hand saw, fire and lots and lots of blood flying around. Naturally, this all ends a bit badly for everyone involved.

Here director Parsons, best known for 2013’s truly enjoyable (and highly recommended) Saturday Morning Mystery (AKA Saturday Morning Massacre) completely catches how this Age of Kardashian effects certain twenty-something’s with either Peyton’s numbed self indulgence or Nicole’s media thrill seeking. It is fine work that shows he is capable of many colors as a director not just the fun throwback vibe of SMM.

He is complemented, fully, by his go for broke cast. One of Chicago’s most inventive and enthusiastic stage performers, Trevor Dawkins brings a charming otherness that draws audiences to Peyton despite his misdeeds. Sophie Traub, meanwhile, supplies an infectious energy that tempers Nicole’s ingratiating madness with a childlike mystique.

Nicely, in a genre that exploits the female form above all else, almost the entire cast here, with Dawkins and Traub leading the charge, revels in the naked abandon of their aggressively careless characters, bringing this piece a gritty reality and honest equilibrium all at once.

Bite Radius is showing this weekend at the Maryland Film Fest

http://www.md-filmfest.com/festival/film-schedule/300

and will, also, be showing at CUFF on May 16th in Chicago

https://m.facebook.com/events/976318255714642.

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

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Heiress Horror: Sudden Fear (1952)

Published May 5, 2015 by biggayhorrorfan

Heiress Horror explores that subgenre of terror wherein sweet moneyed lasses find their lives threatened by evil spouses and duplicitous family friends. For shame!

That bully Alexander Grumpface always stole my lunch money in the fifth grade. Did that mean that he secretly wanted to marry me?

Well, if the example of Joan Crawford in 1952’s classic noir-thriller Sudden Fear is any indication then maybe he did. Here, Crawford plays Myra Hudson, the benefactress of a large San Franciscan fortune, who, also, just happens to be a wildly successful playwright. Having fired the cleft chinned David Blaine, played with smooth charm by Jack Palance, from her latest production for not being matinee idol handsome, the regal Hudson soon finds herself charmed by this rebuffed gent, on a long train ride to her hilly mansion home. Soon, they are married and, naturally, both the other woman (a pouting, perfect Gloria Grahame) and his ulterior motives soon appear. Things turn decidedly deadly when Blaine and his cutie discover that Hudson is handing her inherited fortune over to charity and, mistakenly, conclude that he will be left in the lurch.

Naturally, since Madame Crawford is ever powerful, Hudson soon discovers, in a neat plot twist, everything that her supposedly loving spouse is up to. Once she gets over the shock of the duo’s murderous intent, this creative mogul soon rallies with a plan to turn the tables on them. But will her need for deadly retaliation ultimately melt beneath her expansive humanity? Of course, it will! But as always, Joan-Hudson has the last shot – as in close-up – as she regally faces life without her two timing gent, a silk scarf drifting gently from her hands and tears streaming down her face.

Accented by Elmer Bernstein’s moody score and Charles Lang, Jr.’s appropriately dusky black and white cinematography, Sudden Fear is, ultimately, the leading actors’ show. Both, Crawford and Palance, deservedly, received Academy Award nominations for their work. Most notably, as in her other 50s pictures such as Female on the Beach, Crawford telegraphs every emotion with a perfected movie goddess technique that is as grounded in artifice as it is in natural emotion. She is a wonder to behold.

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

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Bad CGI Fridays: Cerberus (2005)

Published May 1, 2015 by biggayhorrorfan

What if the hair of the dog that bit you actually has three heads? Well, then you might end up with a crazily CGI ridden opus like 2005’s Cerberus.

When Attila the Hun’s prized sword is stolen by a group of mercenaries, including a hard hearted soldier of fortune portrayed by television favorite Greg Evigan, the famed marauder’s deadly Cerberus, a three headed dog with a snake for a tail, is unleashed upon a tiny, confused Romanian village. (Perhaps, part of their confusion derives from the fact that the Cerberus is, primarily, considered an offspring of Greek mythology, but I digress…)

Thankfully, gorgeous museum director Dr. Samantha Gaines and the roguish Jake Addams are on hand to stop the computer generated madness from ending everyone’s life.

Directed with energy by John Terlesky, whose own acting credits include such action ventures as Deathstalker 2 and Damned River, this toothy timewaster is perhaps most notable (to queer kids who love their horror gals) for the involvement of eclectic genre goddess Emmanuelle Vaugier (Saw 2, Ripper, House of the Dead 2, Return to the Cabin by the Lake, The Fear: Resurrection).

Lovely, isn’t she?!?

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

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The Backside of Horror: Dreamaniac (1986)

Published April 29, 2015 by biggayhorrorfan

Let’s face it, half the fun of horror and exploitation is seeing some hot bodies frolicking around in the buff. And while I worship the female form, I believe exploitation definitely veers into the exploitive when only gorgeous women are on display while their male counterparts remain chastely buttoned up. Therefore, The Backside of Horror salutes the filmmakers and actors whom even up the score a bit by showing us instances of hot and juicy male flesh in their bloody celluloid fantasies.

I must admit. The soiree that was thrown to get me into Sister Rosario’s Leather Tutorial when I was 18 was totally and regrettably forgettable.

Thankfully, Pat’s party to help get her sister Jodi into a sorority, in 1986’s totally bad yet achingly fun Dreamaniac, comes complete with bitchy backstabbing, death by electrocution, an alluring succubus and lots and lots of male nudity.

Yes, unlike his current 1313 offerings, which feature plenty of gym boys whose underwear remains firmly on, director David DeCoteau actually fills the frames here with plenty of bouncing male ass cheeks! This includes a deliciously long opening intro featuring male lead Thomas Bern, playing the most unlikely heavy metal rocker ever committed to the screen, walking naked, in light strewn languidness, down a never ending dream corridor. When Jodi’s antagonistic rival Frances beds Brad (Brad Laughlin), the object of the other’s affections, more fleshy global goodness is soon on display, as well. Of course, tough guy Ace (Michael Warren) does give a very homoerotic take on DeCoteau’s favorite celluloid subject – the trussed-up jock in tighty whities. So, there is something for everyone, here!

Filled with rancid performances, with future adult film star Ashlyn Gere, here billed as Kim McKamy, giving the only fairly decent portrayal as the determined Pat, and super silly dialogue (with “There’s no phone? What if I have to call my broker? Mondo bad planning, Jodi!” and “I’m a Lionel Ritchie girl” among the winners), Dreamaniac eventually succumbs to the delightful. Well, that is, if like me, you enjoy the cheese on your bread a bit on the burnt and moldy side.

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

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Hopelessly Devoted To: Ashley Laurence

Published April 28, 2015 by biggayhorrorfan

Ashley’s Investment in Death

Best known to terror mavericks as the feisty and determined Kirsty of the Hellraiser film series, the graceful Ashley Laurence’s eclectic resume includes turns in comedy (Suddenly Susan), soap operas (Capital), crime-action (Felony, Stranger By Night) and, of course, other horror offerings (Lurking Fear, Warlock III: The End of Innocence, Mikey, Chill).

But a couple of 1989 television appearances by this well travelled beauty, who also logs in time as an artist of some acclaim, ultimately show her true versatility.

As the privileged Erica in the Investment in Death episode of the longstanding detective series Hunter, then in its 6th season, Laurence radiates with motherly concern and determined support as she learns of the assassination of a college friend. But, as Erica discovers that her wealthy boyfriend (Stephen Eckholdt) might be holding the keys to that murder, Laurence, also, shows levels of finely distressed confusion.

Granted, if one wants to view the role in a social context, in many ways, Erica is a typical accommodating girlfriend type. Laurence, though, invests everything she has in her and even adds subtle touches that clue us into the character’s financial status and background without the benefit of dialogue. Subtext, thy name is Laurence!

Laurence’s Jodie in The Match Game, a first season episode of Monsters, though, is a perfect illustration of why many fans are drawn to horror due to its show of strong female characters. The infectious ringleader of a quartet of friends, Jodie, is definitely the most powerful character on display here.

Orchestrating the group’s annual ghost story marathon, Laurence shows Jodie’s significant terror when their imagined tale starts to come true. But, she is also the one who, wisely, discovers how to reverse the deadly circumstances, making her character a truly strong and well rounded one.

Featuring a cast that, also, includes a pre-90210 Tori Spelling and genre favorite Sasha Jensen (Halloween 4, Ghoulies II, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), this episode is truly one of the most effective in the Monsters universe, featuring honest ghost house spooks along with Laurence’s truly effective emoting.

Ashley n Tori: Scared!

Be sure to keep up with Laurence at http://www.ashleylaurence.com and http://www.twitter.com/1ashleylaurence.

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

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Hobo With A Trash Can Charity Event!

Published April 24, 2015 by biggayhorrorfan

Compassion thy name is Grindhouse!

Clare “Fluff” Llewellyn, one of the visionary forces behind the anthology Hobo With A Trash Can, wherein a homeless man discovers stories of horror among the refuse, is planning a blowout charity event and food drive for the film’s premiere.

The film, featuring scary segments from Llewellyn and 7 others including Christopher Kahler, Steven Grainger, Lloyd James Emmons, Kyle Leonard, Mark Charles Adams, Vincent Marshall and (Big Gay Horror Fan favorite) Tonjia Atomic, will make its debut in Chicago on June 14th, 2015 at the Patio Theater. More information is available at: https://www.facebook.com/events/974440952568158/.

Llewellyn, who is still looking for raffle items and other forms of event assistance, can be contacted at http://www.twitter.com/trashanthology. Meanwhile, the film’s official site is http://hobowithatrashcan.wix.com/hobowithatrashcan.

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

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan