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Music to Make Horror Movies By – Keely Smith

Published April 8, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

Has there ever been a voice as elegantly smooth as the one that poured out of the divine Keely Smith? I think not.

In fact, Smith’s was the one instrument that broke up my continued playback of Nine Inch Nails, The Crow soundtrack, Nirvana and Liz Phair one summer. The months encapsulated by those early ’90s heat waves were dominated by those indie rock forces and the Capitol Records Spotlight On compilation of Smith’s greatest work. Indeed, I found her take on Fools Rush In to be simply grand. Even more so, her commanding performance of Sweet and Lovely was almost indescribably beautiful to me. 

Nicely, in recent years, even the horror and creature community has discovered this irreplaceable songstress. Her tunes have been used in the reimagining of Stephen King’s The Stand and Marvel’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage. 

All I can say is…better late than never…and let’s hear some more!

Fun Facts:

Smith co-starred with Robert Mitchum in Thunder Road, one of the first films to embrace an outlaw, rock ‘n roll spirit. Also after years of playing the professional straight man to Las Vegas dynamo Louis Prima, Smith defiantly took control of her career, determinedly performing her music in the style and vein that she appreciated and preferred for the remaining decades of her career.

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

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Ruthless – Two Genre Credits of Ruth Gordon

Published March 29, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

The people I really want to meet at conventions are often long gone. Here and there, someone like Shirley Jones or Russ Tamblyn will pop up at a show, but the magic of old Hollywood is often only present in a secondhand way. This does have its certain charms, though. Last weekend, for example, I was able to ask two celebrity attendees at Days of the Dead in Chicago about their experiences working with legendary actress-writer Ruth Gordon. 

“I don’t think she liked kids.” – OR, Don’t Go to Sleep

Oliver Robins, there to highlight his work as Robbie in the Poltergeist films, appeared with Gordon in Don’t Go to Sleep (1982), often described as one of the creepiest television films of all time. In keeping with her role, a wizened mother-in-law mourning the loss of her favored grandchild, Robins recalls that the celebrated performer kept to herself, arriving on set to only do the one or two takes needed to get her scenes with him completed. Age, Robins reasons, surely paid a part in this professional curtness, as well.

Despite that un-familial remoteness, Gordon, beloved for her Academy Award winning work in Rosemary’s Baby, turns in a complex performance in the project. Her scenes with Valerie Harper and Dennis Weaver, her adult co-stars, ring with the layered sadness and regret of Bernice, her character in this ghostly piece. In particular, she and Weaver go forehead-to-forehead in an emotional confrontation at the film’s mid-point. Each blame the other for the death of their beloved Jennifer, the specter haunting the proceedings, both emotionally…and, seemingly, physically. Ned Wynn’s script is often brutal, killing off core characters imaginatively and ever the trooper, Gordon even finds herself looking down the beady eyes of a mischievously placed iguana named Ed.

As an aside, Robins did have a wonderful memory of the connection that Steven Spielberg and Weaver had due to their work on Duel, another seminal television horror project. Spielberg sent a note to Weaver on the DGTS set urging him to “Be nice to Oliver!”

“She thought I was her assistant.” – CS, Voyage of the Rock Aliens

Craig Sheffer, booked to celebrate his work with Clive Barker in Nightbreed, appeared with the pint-sized super star in the bizarre, early ’80s musical Voyage of the Rock Aliens. The first day that they met, she asked him to go get the shoes that she needed for the upcoming scene…and then continued to have him run errands for her throughout the shoot. Sheffer found the whole experience amusing, though. Hell, if you’re going to be a go-fer, it might as well be for a charismatic character actress of certain renown. 

Gordon, who invested her full energy into Voyage‘s diminutive conspiracy-believing sheriff, also appeared in such genre projects as Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby, Isn’t It Shocking? and Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice? throughout the years. Outside of her work in Rosemary’s Baby and Harold and Maude, the cult film that endeared her to a generation of film buffs, her most prominent artistic achievements occurred with her playwright husband Garson Kanin. Their scripts for Pat & Mike and Adam’s Rib gave Katherine Hepburn, whose many against the grain characterizations provided the prototype for a host of scattered, nervous lasses in horror, two of her most noteworthy mid-career roles.

Viva la Gordon…and thanks for the memories, guys!

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

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Brinke Stevens: Slumber Party Memories

Published March 25, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

Known for her strong willed and authentic performances in such cult horror hits as Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity, Nightmare Sisters and Sorority Babes in the Slimeball-Bowl-O-Rama, Brinke Stevens actually spent the early part of her career appearing in such well-regarded ’80s mainstream features as Body Double, Three Amigos, The Naked Gun and This is Spinal Tap. Luckily for film freaks everywhere, she shared her memories with me about this rare time in celluloid history at this past fall’s popular Chicago based film festival, The Massacre.

Also acknowledging that her most popular film (in her 200+ oeuvre) is Slumber Party Massacre, her first significant voyage into celluloid madness, she spends ample time recounting her memories of that slasher classic here, as well.  

Still working continuously, you can keep up to date with this rightly celebrated queen of fright at http://www.brinke.com/.

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

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Be My Bai-By: Circle of Pain (2010)

Published March 8, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

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

In 2010’s Circle of Pain Bai Ling seems to follow the path laid out by her frequent social media posts and other recent roles in low budget B films. She attacks her character of Victoria Ruolan with a frenzied exuberance that ultimately spins her off into a totally different stratosphere than her frequently staid, one-dimensional co-stars. That Ruolan, a crooked manager of a fight league, is the piece’s villainess only seems to egg her on to more elaborate heights of defiance and sexuality. Seemingly basing her portrayal on controversial sports criminals like the WWE’s Vince McMahon, Ling is obviously enjoying commanding her stable of jock scene partners into all sorts of action here – including the very carnal kind.

Naturally, the plot itself follows the traditional filmic sports beats laid out by Sylvester Stallone in 1976’s Rocky. A retired, slightly disgraced boxer named Dalton Hunt (Tony Schiena) decides to challenge the current champion in an impossibly quick amount of time. When he resists Ruolan’s offers of assistance, relying instead on his own motley crew of trainers, violence and other serious pitfalls to winning quickly come his way. Of course, all that enforced resistance is for naught and, in a paint-by-numbers move, Ling gets to react to the disgrace of losing all that her guise has worked so hard to create in the final moments of this stereotypical yet fun presentation.

In fact, the only thing that might excite liberal B-Movie lovers more than Ling’s antics is watching real life Right Winger Dean Cain, playing one of Hunt’s defenders, get a parking lot beatdown that finds him relegated to bedridden pontifications for the middle part of the story.

Oh, well… We all know that Ling is the true super-person here, anyhow…right?!?!

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

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The Bat – An Appreciation

Published March 1, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

1959’s The Bat is often lumped in with Vincent’s Price’s other mid-period, lower budget horror extravaganzas. But, unlike many of those efforts, Price actually takes on more of a supporting role here. His Dr. Malcolm Wells plays into the proceedings in an ancillary way and he ultimately emerges as more of a red herring, disappearing from the proceedings for major periods of time. Nicely, this means that the fourth adaptation of Mary Robert Rinehart’s The Circular Staircase, a popular mystery, finds the singular Agnes Moorehead in the foreground – resulting in a old school film with surprisingly feministic overtones.

Seemingly based on Rinehart herself, Moorehead plays world famous Gothic writer Cornelia van Gorder. As the show opens, van Gorder has just rented a summer home, known as The Oaks, in a small town. Long rumored to be the site of multiple horrors, The Oaks soon becomes a true crime spot. Money from a recent bank heist may be hidden in the house, with the notorious and blood thirsty Bat soon targeting the manse in his hunt for the fortune. Naturally, this puts the distinguished author and her devoted maid (and de facto personal assistant) Lizzie, portrayed by the divinely funny Lenita Lane, in his jagged crosshairs, as well. But as spooky nighttime invasions increase in frequency and bodies begin to pile up. Cornelia and Lizzie refuse to be frightened out of their temporary lodging.

Joining forces with two determined local women, Dale (Elaine Edwards) and Judy (Darla Hood), the quartet eventually smoke out the assailant. Willing and, perhaps, even eager to put themselves in danger, it is definitely the viewer’s joy to watch this firm foursome take control of the situation. In the decades to follow, other celluloid divas would add psychotic color to the proceedings with a variety of classics. But those projects would emphasize femme hysteria and unbalance. The Bat, thankfully and needfully, concentrates on Susan B. Anthony-style rabble rousing instead.

Long the dominion of public domain screenings, The Bat can be readily found for viewing, in various states of quality, online.

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

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Va-Va-Villainess: Ann-Margret

Published February 23, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

Often playing sultry and seductive in her far-flung career, the incomparable Ann-Margret’s first attempt to break away from her initial sugar-pie image resulted in her appearing in the camp classic Kitten with a Whip. There, as the hotly homicidal Jody, she terrorized John Forsythe’s staid weekending businessman with pout worthy aplomb. Ridiculed at the time, the film eventually inspired many bad ass female musicians and young gay men who vowed, much like this B-Movie’s title character, to not take life’s homogenized shit lightly. Going down in a blaze of glory, Jody, despite her maniacal fixations, was a heroine to many of society’s lost and lonely & seemingly set the framework for the vengeful biker chicks in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! KIll!, another femme-strong cult classic.

Going forward though, this career gal’s man-eating characters were often imbued with a comic voluptuousness, Jody’s razor-sharp anger was not to be found in such schemers as Laurel in Bus Riley’s Back in Town, Jezebel Desire in The Cheap Detective or Charming Jones in The Villain. But the experience of playing those humorous variations on evilness, did seemingly allow her to add texture and depth to a variety of her performances, resulting in a part in the early ’90s that contained truly effective strokes of gray.

In Our Sons, one of several early television films taking on the AIDS crisis. this layered pro assumed the role of Luanne Barnes, a small-town mother who is, vehemently (at first), unaccepting of her dying son’s homosexuality. Course and nasty, Luanne eventually succumbs to her instinctual maternal nature and embraces her ailing child before he succumbs to the darkness. Acting most directly against fellow legend Julie Andrews, as a fellow mother, and Željko Ivanek, who effectively played her terminal offspring, this is a scorched earth performance. While Luanne is presented as the ultimate villain, having disowned her son due to his sexuality, she is also as achingly human, a masterful undertaking for A-M and a far, far cry from Kitten with a Whip’s steely yet fun one dimensionality.

Horror Hall of Fame:

While she does make an appearance in 2006’s mind-twisting (little seen) Memories, featuring the dashing Billy Zane, A-M’s most popular genre undertaking is 1978’s Magic. This dark tale of puppetry and madness gave her a chance to play sweetly passionate Peggy Ann Snow opposite future Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins.

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

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Kasey Chambers

Published February 16, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

Q: Name a song that was used in definitive synchronicity with a character in a modern horror movie.

A: Kasey Chambers’ Pretty Enough in The Loved Ones. It perfectly fit the demented mindscape of its female lead, Lola/Princess (Robin McLeavy)

Arriving on the scene towards the tail end of the Torture Porn era, Australia’s The Loved Ones (2009) is a visceral high school horror with one spectacular difference. The prolonged scenes of often animalistic violence were performed by, or done at the exquisite behest of, a teenage girl. Indeed, while some might cry hard earned tears or emotionally self-flagellate when their preferred beau rejects them, here Lola and her devoted father take a different tact – they kidnap the boys, gruesomely flaying away at them until they emerge into mindless monsters.

Nicely, director-writer Sean Byrne and McLeavy also give this femme-demon a sonic heart. Despite her majestic barbarism, Lola is also relatable – a person with true hurt in her heart and a vivid bouquet of beating insecurities. These sympathetic qualities are expressed best when she listens to her favorite song, Chambers’ Pretty Enough. Nicely, while a huge hit in Australia, Chamber’s masterful tune is merely familiar to American audiences – giving it an added reverence and soft poeticism here. It helps make the film a true experience for any viewer lucky enough to be sucked into its shimmeringly odd vortex.

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

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Review: When the Trash Man Knocks

Published December 22, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

Combining a bit of arthouse drama with a slasher motif, writer-director Christopher Moore has emerged with When the Trash Man Knocks, his fifth horror film in seven years. Importantly, as with most Moore efforts, there is a concentrated effort to look at terror through the queer lens here. Scarred by a violent trauma in his past, Justin (Moore) lives with his mother while, sheepishly, trying to navigate the advances of a concerned, handsome co-worker (an appealing David Moncrief) and a demanding boss. Of course, the return of the titular baddie soon hands his already fragile emotional state a one-way ticket into the land of nightmares and psychological chaos.

Nicely, this mixing of traditional holiday bloodshed, with this offering taking place during Thanksgiving festivities, and Bergman-esque reflections works well for viewers looking for a bit of meat on the bones of their eventual victims. In that latter category, Moore delivers with a fun opening sequence involving a flirty homeowner and a randy real estate agent. It is also enjoyable to see the vibrant Meredith Mohler, a regular in these productions, resurface as one of the festively doomed party girls. 

This film’s significant charm reveals itself in the opposite of that type of character, though. The agoraphobic Caroline, Justin’s tormented mother, eventually takes pertinent focus, plot-wise, and this project is all the better for it. As embodied by the powerful Jo-Ann Robinson (Scalps, The Devil’s Dolls), Caroline proves, once and for all, that The Final Girl moniker should be eradicated forever and replaced by the more triumphant category of The Last Woman. Effectively elucidating all of Caroline’s inner workings, Robinson, who deliciously played the maniacal Mary Esther in Moore’s Children of Sin, proves her versatility here, ultimately setting up audiences with a satisfying ending and the hope for more to come from her and the triumphant woman she portrays.

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

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Va-Va-Villainess: Margaret Tallichet

Published December 16, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

You can never accuse Charles Laughton of not having good gut instincts. Jonathan Reynolds, his multi-millionaire character in 1940’s It Started with Eve, distrusts the seemingly perfect Gloria Pennington from the start. Indeed, Pennington, enacted with innocent calculatedness by the almost forgotten Margaret Tallichet, is decidedly after his son’s hand in matrimony – or is that his fists full of money? Well, unsurprisingly to old school film lovers everywhere, it is definitely the latter. That Tallichet so capably plays her fake concern for Robert Cummings’ gullible Johnny is one of this cute venture’s prime joys, though. She provides the plot’s sweet-flecked oiliness while Deanna Durbin, as the true heroine, gives it a rambunctiously musical heart.

Indeed, this character provided this short-lived movie queen with a nice turnabout. In her other picture that year, the horror thriller The Stranger on the Third Floor, she found herself in the trembling protagonist’s shoes. Dreadfully antagonized by Peter Lorre’s devious titular character, this refined beauty earned her terror stripes and then some.

Despite these promising breakthroughs, though, family life seemed to be her primary focus. A marriage to acclaimed director William Wyler, resulted in four children. With her last screen appearances occurring in 1941, this devoted mother died in 1991 at the age of 77. She remains ever present, though, to those oft beguiled celluloid fans who stumble across her everlasting essence, eating buttered popcorn while streaming YouTube in the dark.

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

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Debora Iyall

Published November 27, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

Creating an oft copied, iconic style of vocalizing, the singular Debora Iyall is the epitome of a New Wave queen. I remember Romeo Void’s Never, Say Never, one of the songs most famous for featuring her synonymous delivery, being played at a freshman orientation dance-off. It was my first week at college in a big city and somehow that oft heard tune made me feel both at home and like I was on the path to brand new adventures. 

Of course, RV, the band that brought her into the public’s consciousness, is frequently featured on film soundtracks such as Dodgeball and The Wolf of Wall Street. But what many may not know is that Iyall, as a solo artist, has a cinematic pedigree of her very own. Her fun and perky number, Dizzy Tonite, is featured, pink bedroom style, in the low budget ’80s horror romp The Video Dead. That song is reminiscent of many of the songs on Strange Language, her debut solo album. The title song is one of my favorite tracks there.

Now living, happily, in New Mexico, this unforgettable artist is, thankfully, still creating music and conquering the world in her individualistic way. Hopefully, as she does so, she carries all the heartfelt blessings sent to her by the many quirky teens, much like my long ago self, whose lives she, unknowingly, changed for the better.

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

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