What is better than a human heart fried in Chianti? Why, an exclusive interview with Hannibal‘s divine Katharine Isabelle, of course!
This fun, down-to-earth horror princess (Ginger Snaps, Freddy Vs Jason, American Mary) recently took a moment to chat with me – and the results, as you can see, were just fabulous!
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Ever since being ostracized from Mrs. Applebaum’s Talent Cotillion, after deciding to belt out Patti Smith tunes while waving around a loaded nail gun (in my effort to win that much lauded kiddy show crown), I have felt a special kinship with all vagrant strewn outsiders and everyday freaks! As such, my favorite performers have been such against-the-norm characters as Skelton Knaggs, Laird Cregar, Rondo Hatton, Sydney Greenstreet, Victor Buono, Lock Martin and (of course) Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Thus, while the celebrity strewn skies have been crying wildly, as of late, over such falling stars as Robin Williams and Joan Rivers, my true sadness occurred this week, with the passing of Richard Kiel (1939-2014).
House of the Damned
Best known for his indelible etching of Bond villain Jaws, in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, Kiel played everything from cavemen (Eegah) to circus performers (House of the Damned) to space creatures (The Phantom Planet). Granted, his forte was henchman and baddies. But the fact that he played these roles in everything from major motion pictures (Silver Streak) to classic television shows (Thriller, I Spy, The Night Stalker, Twilight Zone) is surely evidence of the committed skill and enthusiasm that he brought to such roles. Nicely, comedies such as Happy Gilmore gave him a chance to show his gentler, sunnier side, as well.
W/Julie Newmar in horror comedy Hysterical
So, thanks for that, Richard. You were one of kind and truly will be missed.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Horror, She Wrote explores the episodes of the ever-popular detective series Murder, She Wrote, featuring Angela Lansbury’s unstoppable Jessica Fletcher, that were highlighted by performances from genre film actors.
I swear I never hit Aunt Agnes over the head to steal her aging Southern beau! But, at least, I am not alone when being falsely accused.
Indeed, on My Johnny Lies Over the Ocean, a first season episode of Murder, She Wrote, the divinely scrumptious Lynda Day George finds all eyes on her as the series’ grand dame Jessica Fletcher (winningly acted by the legendary Angela Lansbury) wonders if her character, Diane Shelley, might be gas lighting her fragile niece on a rocking ship of horrors.
Of course, with roles in such films as Mortuary, Pieces, Beyond Evil, Day of the Animals and Ants, George is definitely one of the high priestesses of horror for certain generations. Here, as in most of those films, she is, once again, a victim of circumstance. Her quietly gracious Shelley is merely escaping a bad love affair hence her mysterious appearance as this boat’s latest purser. 
Slightly reminiscent of Cruise into Terror, the 78 television film she starred in, George is joined on this outing by her Animals’ co-star Leslie Nielsen. As Jessica’s grieving charge, one of many relatives of the mystery loving maven that would be introduced over the years, actress Belinda J. Montgomery (best known to terror fiends for starring in sleazy 84 slasher Silent Madness) is on the receiving end of this story’s horror archetypes (shadowy attacks, ghostly callings and shaky pleas of sanity). She handles these chores with a liquid grace. Still, one wonders what would have occurred if she and George had switched places. Reimagining, anyone?
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Naturally, Night Gallery Vamps explores the eternal magnificence of the amazing actresses who enlivened Rod Serling’s haunting anthology series Night Gallery (1969-1973).
While British actresses such as Ingrid Pitt and Eileen Daly have seemingly cornered the market on the sensuous vampire due to Hammer and its latter day ilk, luckily, lovely New York-born performer Lesley Ann Warren graced the small screen with Hyacinth, her truly erotic creature of the night, in the steamy 1973 episode of Night Gallery entitled Death on a Barge.
Languishingly lounging on a candle strewn barge, Warren’s unearthly creature soon earns the undivided attention of a small town clerk. His consistent nocturnal visits eventually make his girlfriend (played by Nightmare on Elm Street 3 & 4’s Brooke Bundy) curious. When her encounter with the fang bearing Hyacinth almost leaves her dead, she determines that her beau’s mysterious new obsession is, indeed, a vampire. Will a jealous co-worker and a possessive sweetheart soon mean the end of the gorgeous Hyacinth or vice versa?
This episode (written by Halsted Welles via Everill Worrell’s story and directed by Leonard Nimoy) definitely reinvents some of the bloodsucker rules. Hyacinth hasn’t fed for over a year and is watched over by her human father. Yet the gothic Tennessee Williams’ vibe that Nimoy indulges in here is enchanting and the fetching Warren, whose other genre appearances include the CW enhanced Teaching Mrs. Tingle and 2001’s very interesting Wolf Girl, glows within its tragic overtones. She is magnetic, frightening and sympathetic. It’s a bravura performance in (a mere) 22 minute teleplay.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Best known to terror fiends for her door melding appearance in A Nightmare on Elm Street, the versatile Ronee Blakley proved why she earned an Academy Award nomination (for her subtly anguished Barbara Jean in Robert Altman’s Nashville) with her layered work as Cassie Pines in The False Prophet, a first season episode of the acclaimed anthology series Tales of the Darkside.
Arriving at a bus station in a small Texas town, the spiritually obsessed Pines tells the counter woman how her advisor informed her that she would find her true love that day. After the roadside employee unveils Horace X, an astrological fortune machine, Pines soon finds herself in a bind. Horace X urges her to remain at the desolate stop while Pines is eager to continue on her journey. The arrival of a handsome preacher (a magnetic Justin Deas) complicates matters further. As Pines and the stranger find themselves compelled towards each other, Horace X, shockingly, reveals his jealous nature.
Working with frazzled energy and a sweet sense of natural comedy, Blakley’s Pines wouldn’t be out of place in a latter day Tennessee Williams’ production. Blakley makes her truly endearing whether she is frantically consulting her tea leaves or, breathlessly, informing a newfound companion that she only travels with quarters so she is on the ready for any fortune telling devices. It is, ultimately, compelling and truly enjoyable work, a testament to Blakely’s multiple skills as a performer.
Be sure to keep up with all of Blakely’s projects and activities at http://www.roneeblakley.com.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
The disgruntled, time biding killers of slasher classics like Prom Night and Terror Train have nothing on the very creepy, incredibly patient Justin Oates of 1973 telefilm Isn’t It Shocking? 45 years after his then girlfriend humiliated him during a naked tumble with another gent, Oates returns to his small home town to enact his revenge – using a jacked out defibrillator that causes quite a jolt!
As enacted by veteran tough guy Edmund O’Brien (DOA, The Killers), Oates is a sweaty, candy inhaling freak. O’Brien’s commitment to this odd creature, ultimately, helps secure Oates’ place as one of the more notable villains of the small screen’s golden age of TV movies.
Working with quaint and quirky charm, director John Badham (Dracula, Blue Thunder) ekes pleasantly effective performances from his entire cast, though. Granted, many of the feature’s older generation end up on the cold end of a slab. But as the beleaguered and bewildered sheriff, Alan Alda cuts a completely sympathetic figure and he blends effortlessly with the perkily unusual energy of Louise Lasser, playing his efficient, crime solving secretary.
Ruth Gordon as the saucy Marge, the last name on the madman’s list, supplies the expected zesty fabulousness, but true pleasures are, also, derived from Dorothy Tristan (Suspended Animation) and Will Geer as a daughter-father doctor team who help Alda and Lasser solve the case. These two are so unexpectedly enjoyable that they almost steal the show from the rest of the very, very fine cast.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Horror, She Wrote explores the episodes of the ever-popular detective series Murder, She Wrote, featuring Angela Lansbury’s unstoppable Jessica Fletcher, that were highlighted by performances from genre film actors.
Oh, paranoia! If you are anything like me, then you are eternally certain that when that office door closes, your managers are always talking about you.
In the 7th episode of Murder, She Wrote’s first season, We’re Off to Kill the Wizard, poor Kim Darby (Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Halloween 6, Teen Wolf 2, Circle of Fear) actually does have a boss that is out to get her. In one of that initial season’s best episodes, Darby plays Laurie Bascomby, the quivering secretary of the maniacally mean Horatio Baldwin, enacted with confirmed gusto by beloved character actor James Coco. (While mostly known for comic fare, one of Coco’s last roles was as a kindly, if misguided, social reformer in the 1988 prison based horror flick, The Chair.) While imbued with the trembling mousiness that viewers often expect from a Darby role, this veteran actress also supplies some layers of spine and a mild sense of humor to her role, here. Her character, ultimately, connects with the series’ grand dame Jessica Fletcher, who gladly assists her when her character is accused of murdering Coco’s.
Taking place in a haunted theme park, owned by Baldwin, this quickly moving story has plenty of shadowy encounters – and one of the best set pieces of the entire series, a huge prop head of Coco as a grinning vampire. One can only hope that item is still floating around the storage vaults of Universal Television!
On an interesting side note, this spooky jaunt also features a young Joaquin Phoenix as Fletcher’s great-nephew – but this show truly belongs to the sensitive Darby and the devilish Coco, who appears to be truly having a blast being so incredibly nasty.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
While, in reality, far too many women are still being sex shamed – I do believe if your nanny is a satan marrying, husband seducing bad-ass with a fake accent then maybe she deserves all the names that you can call her!
Sneaking on Marcy!
Such is the case when (former) soap opera diva Marcy Walker (playing Kate, a harried businesswoman) and the nubile Olivia D’Abo (as the pouty mouthed mistress of the devil) come face to face in 1992 television film Midnight’s Child. As D’Abo’s manipulative, murderous Anna lures Kate’s husband away from her while simultaneously making plans to turn her young daughter into the dark master’s newest conquest – Walker unleashes her verbal fury and is soon teaming with Anna’s distraught father in an attempt to bring the horn loving minx down.
Leaving the fire behind!
Of course, since this was made for the Lifetime Network, the more lurid aspects of the plot are played down here to concentrate on Kate’s guilt (as a woman having it all) and Anna’s sharp eyed plotting. Action sequences are, also, infrequent. Although, the opening moments efficiently portray a murder and an explosion at Anna’s Swedish convent school, helping to establish the sinister motives at play. Lovers of dark soap opera antics and devilishly infused plot lines should find that things move quite quickly and enjoyably despite the severe lack of bloodshed, though.
If anything, Midnight’s Child may even help raise social awareness- reminding employers to check the scalp lines of their potential in home employees to get the 666 on whether things are bound to have a distinctly fiery end.
The End?
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
The Gorilla!
The Andrew!
Of course, Shearer, known as one of the forces behind popular compilation Faces of Schlock , has plenty of amazingness to offer up at http://www.gonzoriffic.com/ and he is sure to be posting UAN airdates (and the like) at https://www.facebook.com/gonzorifficfilms, as well.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
(Exploring the horror film actors who, happily, dominated episodes of Murder, She Wrote, the show that featured everyone’s favorite 80s/90s female detective, Jessica Fletcher.)
Even when covered in pink frosting and wearing a strawberry tutu on my head, I aim for a regal nature. Funny, somehow it never quite works out.
Maybe I should take some lessons from that magnificent theatrical dame known as Piper Laurie (Ruby, Possession, Dario Argento’s Trauma and Twin Peaks). Playing the distinguished Peggy Shannon on the first season Murder at the Oasis episode of Murder, She Wrote, Laurie practically drips with royalty. Unlike her more famous counterpart, Margaret White in 1976’s Carrie, Laurie/Shannon also beams with understanding compassion for her children, here, each thought to be responsible for their aggressive comedian father’s murder.
Said children are, also, played by actors with a number of terror credits to their names. Most fun is Linda Purl (Visiting Hours) who clearly is relishing playing the seductive and willful Terry, a lass who dates bad boys (such as Saturday Night Live’s Joseph Cali) just to anger (her soon to be dead) poppa. Supernaturally handsome Joseph Bottoms (The Intruder Within, Blind Date) counters Purl with more sensitive instincts as a musician who never quite got the needed paternal seal of approval.
With a cast of supporting Rat Pack like characters and obvious nods to Frank Sinatra’s nefarious dealings, the episode, as a whole, is a mildly enjoyable one. Although, a little bit more involvement from the distinguished Laurie (who virtually disappears in the second half of the proceedings), would have definitely helped this one along.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Big Gay Horror Fan 