It may be hard for all of you to believe, but Big Gay Horror Fan didn’t really fit in with the rest of the cool, shit kicking kids in the small country town that he grew up in. And while, retrospectively, I find nothing wrong with milking cows, chasing Amish buggies and Saturday nights spent at the Moose lodge, I am very happy to be sporting my big city sombrero now.

Still, small town life has informed me in numerous ways, both compassionate (ah, the puppies!) and cheesy (with my lifelong love of backwoods horror as a categorical example, here), and gives me an emotional ‘in’ for quiet terror flicks like Tom Mattera and David Mazzoni’s The Fields.

Released on DVD and Blu-ray disc in April by Breaking Glass Pictures, The Fields explores the inner fears of a youngster named Steven (an untypical Joshua Ormond),sent to live with his grandparents in the Pennsylvania countryside after his parents’ marriage violently unravels.

Taking place in the early 70’s, Steven finds himself under the fearful worldwide sway of Charles Manson as that mad (would be) messiah’s trial becomes a daily media presence. This concern is amplified by his grandmother’s frequent, frantic warnings about avoiding the cornfields behind her home. Soon, he, rightfully, believes that something mysterious and dangerous is occurring around him.

Playing on how the wide open spaces and hollow sounds of rural communities can trouble the imagination, Mattera and Mazzoni work up to a slow boiling creepiness here. They couple this dread by presenting the theory that anything the least unordinary can seem dangerous to the unknowing. This is especially evident in a scene where Steven meets a distant relative’s friendly traveling companion, a boisterous African American man. Working quietly yet powerfully here, they allow patient, undemanding viewers to eventually find themselves as uneasy as young Steven.

There are some minor missteps. A sequence with a car careening through the fields in the film’s denouement and a quickly rushed conclusion mar the quiet reality established, but ultimately don’t do any tremendous internal celluloid damage.

More than anything, though, this film is an actor’s showcase with Cloris Leachman and Bev Appleton doing especially fine work as Steven’s grandparents. In particular, Leachman takes a role that could have been grossly over-the-top in lesser hands and makes an enjoyably living, breathing woman. Whether bickering with her husband, swearing with exasperated casualness or lovingly farting on her grandson at bedtime, Leachman is the heart and soul of the picture and worth the corn stained price of admission, alone.

I would, also, be remiss if I didn’t swoon a bit over tabloid staple (which I care nothing about) and Horror honey (which I do!), Tara Reid (Urban Legend, Vipers, Alone in the Dark) and her natural presence, here, as Steven’s mother. Her scene with Leachman is a winner and she has some tasty chemistry with co-producer Faust Checho, whom plays her hot headed (and just plain hot) husband, Barry. So, Reid Haters – back down or Big Gay Horror Fan may just break out in a rendition of “Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song” Which I assure you – nobody, but nobody wants to hear!

You can find more about The Fields at:
www.thefieldsmovie.com
http://www.facebook.com/thefieldsmovie
www.breakingglasspictures.com

And until next time – Sweet love and pink Grue – Big Gay Horror Fan!

Big Gay Horror Fan worships at the feet of many, but vibrant actress Kelli Maroney holds a special place in my blood red heart. Known for her committed performances in roles both major (Night of the Comet, Chopping Mall, Face Down) and supporting (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Slay Ground), Maroney also rocked the occasional cameo appearance with her special presence. Below, are a couple of my favorites.

Big Bad Mama 2. 1987. Maroney shows up as titular Angie Dickinson’s granddaughter Willie in the very last moments of this spritely period crime piece, adding some giddy joy to the film’s comic denouement. Cruising down a highway in a sleek car, snapping her gum with jolted energy, Maroney’s makes the most of her short moment, here. She establishes a sassy kinship with Dickinson, and gives fans a special boost as she eludes a car of vehemently pursuing police officers and speeds off into the final credits. This fun flick, focusing on the lawless yet justified actions of Dickinson and her saucy daughters, is perhaps most memorable for the appearance of former child actress-future musician Danielle Brisebois. Brisebois, who played a precocious orphan during the final seasons of All in the Family (Archie Bunker’s Place), was known for her swarthy raven looks, but arrives on the scene, here, as a voluptuous blonde. Fun!

Transylvania Twist. 1989. Maroney’s brief appearance here, merely waving at someone on a set within a set, may seem minor to the casual fan, but to the confirmed genre cinephile her moment here establishes her as one of the queens of the exploitation field. Featuring appearances by such spook stalwarts and cult icons as Brinke Stevens, Monique Gabrielle, Angus Scrimm, Forrest J. Ackerman, Becky LeBeau, Robert Vaughn, Deanna Lund and even Boris Karloff (in archival footage), director Jim Wynorski obviously realized that Maroney was a necessary component for maxim fan thrill-age and she delivers in spades!

Maroney will be appearing in Chicago, today (4/28/12) only for the beyond cool Sci Fi Spectacular 6 (http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/165651093547315/). To keep up with her on the regular, check out www.kellimaroney.com.

Until next time – Sweet love and pink Grue, Big Gay Horror Fan!

Fact: Big Gay Horror Fan should be at the gym, burning calories, in the morning. Reality: I am often found on the internet, working out my fingers instead. But, sometimes gold is struck in those meandering hours – as witnessed by these two cool videos.

“The End is Nigh”:

Fact: I think Kaitlin Sacco is just adorable in real life. Reality: She is, also, really talented, as her video combines a little operatic chill with some insight into what it must feel like to have your body slowly transform into something foreign —and undead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9EFlbqqC28&feature=player_embedded

“Silent Hill: Stolen Heart”

Fact: I think karate superstar/model Zenta Ochi is pretty hot. Reality: He appears shirtless throughout this atmospheric homage to Silent Hill, co-created by Paul Leeming and Hamish Downie! This was filmed in an actual abandoned mining town in Japan – which was probably pretty cold. I know I wouldn’t run around Chicago in the winter without my jacket, so Ochi definitely has my admiration. Ochi: If you ever come to the Midwest, I will definitely have a sweater waiting for you, my man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iDncqkBHzM

And if you haven’t checked out my video interviews with the magnetic Shannon Elizabeth (13 Ghosts, Cursed, The Night of the Demons): www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeBvLjBqLHw or the stunning Lee Meriwether (4D Man, Barnaby Jones, Batman, Time Tunnel, Cruise Into Terror): www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD4PfHAAozw now might be a good time to do that, as well!

Until the next time – Sweet love and pink Grue, Big Gay Horror Fan

When Big Gay Horror Fan wakes up screaming in the night because he believes that his body has sprouted copious amounts of fur (a la Chaney Jr.) or is covered in stinking rolls of yellowed bandages (courtesy of reruns of Karloff’s The Mummy), it only brings home the favored fact that we horror fans truly relate to our mutant, eternally haunted and often misunderstood monsters.

Maniac Films latest production, Sloppy the Psychotic, acknowledges this emotional bond while, also, bringing on the twisted humor and unrepentant bloodshed that made their first film, Deadly Detour, such an enjoyable horror ride.

When man-child Mike (understatedly played by co-writer and director Mike O’Mahony) is fired from his job (and life long passion) as a professional clown due to a moment of passionate defense, his world soon unravels. Sex partners, wisdom spewing bums, cocky bosses and eventually a yard full of birthday partiers fall prey to his murderous impulses in shockingly fun displays.

All along this entertainingly chopping ride, though, O’Mahony allows our lonely inner geeks to surface upon, and ultimately truly relate to, Sloppy while allowing our most demented fantasies some filmic reality, as well. Who hasn’t wanted to eviserate (or, at the very least, take a piss on the chair of) a miserably tyrannical employer – or take a gun, gangland style, to a continually screeching child in a restaurant? Here, those darkest wishes come to hilarious life.

In fact, in Sloppy’s most vulgar massacre, everything that is special about Maniac Films comes to bloody light. (SPOILER ALERT). With total disregard for correctness of any kind, O’Mahony and crew slaughter the  participants of a family birthday party with poisonous glee. Children are done away with as heinously as the adults, resulting in a spectacle that rivals the violent antics of the Road Runner cartoons. The sight of a squealing child thrown onto and then entombed in a fired up grill still gives my giggle machine a start every now and then – proving that O’Mahony and Maniac Films are serious contenders in the world of transgressive horror.

To follow the adventures of Sloppy as he travels the convention and film festival circuit, check out:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Sloppy-the-Psychotic/146088812136075

And, until next time, Sweet love and pink Grue – Big Gay Horror Fan!

Big Gay Horror Fan used to dance around his teenage bedroom to such alternative stalwarts as Patti Smith, the Psychedelic Furs and Warren Zevon, imagining life on the verge and supposedly shunning gay stereotypes forever. For Judy Garland, despite her awesome 1939 rendezvous amongst evil flying monkeys and a psychotic green witch, was for bitter drag queens and vengeful alcoholics and Joan Crawford and Bette Davis – even in their hag horror prime – well, the dogs could chew, mightily, on all their ragged celluloid bits, thank you very much! But, as I am entering my own frayed (yet still hopeful) dowager stage, I am finally beginning to understand and fully embrace what were, perhaps narrowly, referred to as the women’s pictures of old.

Now, there is something totally thrilling and gothicly horrific to me about the desperate, murderous measures a still regal Bette Davis descends to in 1946’s opera-esque Deception. (This rich gem, also, features a gloriously elegant turn from The Invisible Man‘s Claude Rains that is worth the price of your soiled panties, as well!)

More specifically, I can also relate to the mind burned dreamer played by Linda Darnell in the much less known This Is My Love from 1954. Living with a vengeful cripple and a glamorous sister, Darnell’s Vida Dove spends her days composing over the top romantic novels while subscribing to a lackluster romance with a devoted blue collar local yokel. Too shy to fully succumb to the advances of handsome stranger, Vida realizes he is her fantasy ideal just as he catches his eye on her luscious sibling and Dove’s world is torn asunder.

Darnell , who was menaced by esteemed heavy Laird Cregar in 1945’s Hanover Square and survived several surprisingly vicious yet imaginative murders at the hands of Rex Harrison in 1948’s Unfaithfully Yours, was still a star when This is My Love went into production but her glory was on the wane. Co-star Rick Jason, a strongly handsome and extremely masculine charmer, was grateful to get the okay from Darnell to appear opposite her and found her charming and beautiful throughout the shoot. Unfortunately, in a recent interview, Jason revealed that the script was often reworked, if not completely thrown out, and that it, ultimately, did not set the box office on fire effectively ending Darnell’s top tier reign. (Although, she did go on to give Karen Black some skilled airport training by playing a pilot’s wife who is forced to take over the controls of a plane in fun 1957 disaster epic Zero Hour.)

The idiosyncratic nature of This is My Love’s script is most felt by the strong change of heart Jason’s character has towards Darnell’s. In the first half he seems too enamored of her to treat her with the callous, manipulative disregard that he sends her way in the second half. Yet, these harsh actions draw us into Vida’s world and make Darnell a recognizable character to the wounded heart of gay men everywhere. Ridiculed consistently by those closest to her, we follow Darnell’s dark path to poison and still love her despite the crimes she eventually commits. In fact, the tangled emotionality that heroines such as Darnell’s produce ultimately provides an alchemy that, while not versed in traditional notions of horror, find much in common with the writing of the Brontës (considered the original horror queens in some literary circles)and Daphne Do Maurier and the more subtly scary films of Hitchcock.

That the film features genre regular Faith Domergue (The House of Seven Corpses, Legacy of Blood, Cult of the Cobra, It Came From Beneath the Sea) as Darnell’s lusty sister is the dark cherry on top of a very crimson cake.

1970’s Tam-Lin (AKA The Devil’s Widow and other various titles) is another rare film featuring a murderous damsel at the helm. A still gorgeous, grandly draped Ava Gardner plays Michaela Cazaret, a mysterious and wealthy woman who surrounds herself with a cult of young mods wherever she settles. When her young lover, played by Ian McShane, falls in love with a sweet local girl, it is soon established that all of Michaela’s swains have met a very deadly end when their eyes (and other rigid body parts) have gone wondering.

Here a Shelley-Byron esthetic mixes with swinging 60’s culture, modest folk balladry and taut horror (particularly in a gruelingly beautiful final act that features McShane being hunted through a swampy grove by Gardner’s drugged and vengeful followers).
Directed with a knowing wink and leveled skill by iconic Roddy McDowall (who seems to place an exaggerated version of himself in the film via Cyril Cusack’s loyal helper), Tam-Lin also features British horror queens Stephanie Beacham (Dracula A.D. 1972, Now the Screaming Starts, Horror Planet, The Nightcomers) and Joanna Lumley (The Satanic Rites of Dracula, The Corpse Bride).

You can catch a peek of the magic of Tam-Lin at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8NGI0lFxOo

And until next time – Sweet love and pink Grue, Big Gay Horror Fan!

Growing up, Big Gay Horror Fan never got over the fact that my younger sister insisted on naming the black cat she got, one Christmas morning, “Midnight” as opposed to something totally cool and much less obvious as – say, “Vincent Price” or “Karloff-as-the-Monster!”! Now, all these years later, the pussies are coming back to haunt me, in the most delightful way, with Lonnie Martin’s smart and sassy horror short Cougars.

Chronicling the teenage disgust that bright student Sasha feels over her sexy mother’s constant bedding down with younger men, Cougars plays with adolescent angst and the humorous potential of its title with a finely tuned sense of awkward sexuality and comedy that soon turns into smoky found liberation. Highlighted by the expressive brown eyes of Rebecca Hausman as Sasha, director Martin’s beautifully shot 15 minute scenario reminds one of such classics as Cat People and recent indie phenomenon Teeth while remaining its own beast, entirely.

Currently entering the festival circuit, this Ningen Manga production, also, features fine performances from Kendra North as Sasha’s rebelliously sexy, extremely youthful mother and Charlie Dreizen as Stuart, the confused teenage boy who finds himself in face-to-claw with the pair’s predatory nature.

To get a peek into the world of Cougars, check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jML8FiFcxw

As always, Sweet love and pink Grue, Big Gay Horror Fan

And, until next time, make sure to avoid immediate contact with any purring Nastassja Kinski look-a-likes!

On Valentine’s Day, the only sweet thing that Big Gay Horror Fan was craving was nutella crepes, so off I went to the local all night diner. Unfortunately, the most memorable part of the whole evening was not the sticky calories I consumed, but the fact that my young waiter kept calling me ‘sir’ with a tone that lingered somewhere between deep respect and quietude. Well, I’ve long learned that feeling 22 and looking 22 are completely different matters – but this kid’s reverence was still a bit much!

Interestingly, Tad, the young lead of Lee Allen Howard’s visceral short horror story Stray views his momentary, 30ish savior in much the same light as my twink server viewed me — although, a bit more bitterly. Which is understandable as the battered Tad believes he is going to have to trick with his companion for bus fare. Of course, what Tad ultimately finds is definitely a bit more animalistic and crueler than some bruised knees and a sore jaw.

Howard’s descriptions of the sour, predatory apartment that Tad is taken to have true moments of brilliance and the erotic bloodshed he depicts is quite original, as well. In fact, Stray leaves one wondering what Howard could do with a longer work of fiction and more opportunity to develop his characters, which is a true highlight of the story’s overall impact and its forceful yet poetic ending.

Stray is available, cheaply (and occasionally offered up for free), in a Kindle edition on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Stray-ebook/dp/B0059BWDEQ/

You can, also, discover more about the inventive Howard at:

www.leeallenhoward.com

Meanwhile, another respected gay author, Owen Keehnen (the Starz series, Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow) is offering his acclaimed debut horror novel Doorway Unto Darkness at half off its cover price of $15. Exploring the emotional torment (and the black humor involved therein) when a man begins to suspect that he’s a notorious serial killer, Doorway is a twisted, quickly enjoyable read.

In fact, I was lucky enough to interview Keehnen about the book and our mutual Karen Black obsession this past fall:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1mOW4_Oil4

To purchase a sale copy of Doorway Unto Darkness, you can contact Keehnen on Facebook or at owenkeehnen@yahoo.com.

And until next time – Sweet love and pink Grue, Big Gay Horror Fan!