Teacher, writer, dancer, actress, cult heroine! – Big Gay Horror Fan’s head is still spinning listing all of amazing, incredibly kind Debra De Liso’s (Kimberly Clark from seminal slasher Slumber Party Massacre) accomplishments. Watch the video interview, below, and your world with be whirling with joy, as well!
Filmed by Dustin Moravick at Cinema Wasteland, April 2013 (www.cinemawasteland.com)
Julie Andrews may have her “Baubles, Bangles and Beads” but this year’s C2E2 (Chicago’s homegrown comic con) beat her out with stabbing health care professionals, sexy role players and the mighty Sugar Gamers! Excited? View on!
Wherever he goes, Godzilla rules! Even on the C2E2 floor!
Need to nurse your Silent Hill obsession? Look no further!
Miss the sassy, always dapper folks from Alley Cat Comic? No worries. They’re always meowing in Chicago’s Andersonville!
He’s always got you in his sights!
Could it get cuter than this – ever?!?
Clare conquered the New Pepsi Challenge. Did you?
The fabulous women of Sugar Gamers!
Fabulous theater actress Kate Harris enacts some witchy wonders in a reading of Kill Shakespeare!
Best for last?!? – There is no one cooler than Keisha, founder of Sugar Gamers and star of Sy Fy’s Robot Combat League!
Keep up with C2E2 at www.c2e2.com.
Sugar Gamers, who are devoted to the art of gaming for strong women are always sparking at www.sugargamers.com.
Alley Cat Comics are on the continual art stained prowl at www.alleycatcomics.com
Big Gay Horror Fan is always screaming with love at https://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan, as well!
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Brass Beds, Brass Monkeys, Brassy Dames! Big Gay Horror Fan will take the latter, thank you, especially if it is the grand, larger-than-life goddess of stage and screen, Marcia Lewis (1938-2010).
Lewis made her Broadway debut opposite such powerhouses as Phyllis Diller and Ethel Merman in a production of Hello, Dolly! Their combined magnificence obviously gave her a clue on which coat rack hook to hang her professional personality. Lewis became best known for belting out the goods as the comically evil Miss Hannigan in Annie (appearing with Jason Goes to Hell’s Allison Smith) in the 80’s and as a superior Big Mama Morton in the award winning 90’s revival of Chicago.
Ice Pirates
Terror and thriller enthusiasts were also glazed over with happiness when Lewis appeared in a couple of horror influenced offerings in the late 70’s, as well.
In 1977 television film The Night They Took Miss Beautiful, a handful of glamorous pageant contestants are kidnapped by a group of ruthless, politically charged outlaws. Suffering from roulette style degradation and aggression, these pretty ladies (including genre regular Rosanne Katon, Dallas’ Victoria Principal and Karen Lamm from Ants, AKA It Happened at Lakewood Manor, and The Unseen) soon find their worst enemy just happens to be Lewis’ drippingly sweet, completely savage Mrs. Barrett. As mother to Lamm’s sweet Cindy Lou, Lewis is a wicked wonder. Lewis’ Barrett is so determined that her daughter escape with youth intact, that she offers her up, willingly, as a sexual conquest, to one of the amorous vigilantes. When Lamm/Cindy Lou finally rejects her mother in the telefilm’s final moments, Lewis shows shocked vulnerability yet a steely determination to go on – it is a bravura performance (worthy of a Tennessee Williams’ subplot or two) in an enjoyable yet unsubstantial suspense offering.
In 1982’s Night Warning (AKA Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker among others), which was filmed in the late 70’s, Lewis brings an appropriate yet over-the-top charm to her nosey Margie. As best friend to Susan Tyrell’s increasingly unhinged lead, Cheryl, Lewis radiates with personality. She hits the nail on the head as the much seen housewife who truly wears the pants in the family. It’s a theatrical performance, but one grounded in reality. Concerned yet sneaky, Margie soon faces down the psychotic Tyrell with an emotional resourcefulness brined in great fear. Incidentally, Night Warning has become a deserved cult classic due to it modern take on the Gothic esthetics of hag horror, it’s even keeled treatment of gay characters and subtle looks at the venomous effects of racism.
Here is a fun clip of Lewis trying to manipulate the legendary Phil Silvers in The Night They Took Miss Beautiful:
Be sure to check back often as Big Gay Horror Fan (https://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan) frequently looks at the magical majesty of women in horror.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Of his multiple, life altering heroes few rate higher in Big Gay Horror Fan’s book than exquisitely eclectic musician-composer-man of the hour Les Baxter.
Well known to the swinging bachelor pad compilation listener, Baxter actually scored tons of amazing genre flicks throughout the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Titles such as Pharaoh’s Curse, Voodoo Island, Black Sunday (US Version), Corman’s The Pit and the Pendulum and Cry of the Banshee grace his vastly appreciated repertoire.
Here Baxter imagines what love with “Robby” set might be like with this spritely track:
Then, with seemingly ease, he produces an atmosphere of mystic foreboding with “The Gates of Annam” from his superior work Ports of Pleasure. Ports features many compositions that entice and terrify, alternatively, making it the perfect background muse for your homegrown horror efforts.
Stylin’ Les!
After spending several years being raised by those feral Amazonian mountain women there is nothing Big Gay Horror Fan appreciates more than a flame haired goddess with a gun! Thus the image of the ever eclectic Felicia Day as Red in 2010’s Red: Werewolf Hunter is the perfect way to start off every Friday for me! Well, especially, Friday, April 26th – which marks the beginning of Day’s three day appearance at Chicago’s hope grown geek delight C2E2 (www.c2e2.com).
Of course, the powerful, all too human Red was just another color notch in Day’s already rainbow hued talent. Whether she is sweetly singing as a hopeful human rights activist in Jess Whedon’s fan favorite Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog or providing mischievous escape in her own delightful project The Guild, Day provides vulnerability and excessive quirk – just the right combination for many a discerning viewer.
One of her most recent roles, the recurring character of Charlie Bradbury on the popular spook show Supernatural should ensure Day’s place as a queer icon (if she isn’t already), as well. As the gay Bradbury, Day is an amazing combination of goofy brightness, timid determination and crafty wonder. Sam and Dean need this lady at their side, at all times!! (Or if they don’t – I do!)
Be sure to keep up with all of Day’s zany musings and insanely awesome projects at www.feliciaday.com!
Meanwhile, Big Gay Horror Fan is always worshipping all that is auburn at https://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan, as well.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan
Slumber Party Massacre‘s dedicated original maniac Michael Villella talks with Big Gay Horror Fan about his true passion – theater (a guy after my own heart — or whatever body part he can slash at the easiest!!!) – and his surprise at the eternal legacy and fandom surrounding Slumber Party Massacre.
Be sure to keep up with the eclectic Villella at the Official Slumber Party Massacre Facebook page:
“Bing! You’re a freaking homo!” – She Wolf Rising
Big Gay Horror Fan COULD live by scream queens alone – especially as evidenced by brand new trailers for She Wolf Rising starring Tiffany Shepis, Debbie Rochon and Tina Krause…
…and the truly dramatic and spooky looking The Hanover House featuring Nightbreed‘s singular Anne Bobby
Keep up on the hairy pulse of She Wolf Rising at https://www.facebook.com/Shewolfrising.
More ghostly conjuring can be had for The Hanover House at https://www.facebook.com/TheHanoverHouse, as well.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan (https://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan)!
Brinke Stevens! Big Gay Horror Fan!! Chatting on film!!! At Cinema Wasteland!!!! Need I say more?
World wise sexuality and courageous resolve – No, I am not talking about the hunchbacked warrior goddesses that raised Big Gay Horror Fan, but New Wave rocker, author and actress Christina Amphlett who lost her fierce battle with breast cancer and multiple sclerosis on Sunday, April 21st (2013) at the age of 53.
As the lead singer of Divinyls, Amphlett brought strength and sexuality to the fore in the mid-to-late 80’s with hits such as “I Touch Myself” and (the even more tantalizing) “Pleasure and Pain”. More than anything, perhaps, it was her image as a woman who would take no guff (one Divinyls’ LP was entitled “Temperamental”) that endeared her to the more pin sharp music lovers of the MTV age.
Teens who grew into their terror tights during the reign of Freddy and Jason, also, fondly remember Amphlett as one of the horror soundtrack queens. Divinyls’ songs decorated the background atmosphere of such notable flicks as The Stepfather and (the original) Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Most iconic was her seductive, smoke drenched warbling on “Back to the Wall”, a track that was featured, prominently, in Nightmare on Elm Street 4.
After the Divinyls’ short reign of hit making was over, Amphlett spent the 90’s as a guest vocalist on recordings by legendary folk artist John Prine and appeared on the stage in her native Australia. (She gets extra pink points for portraying Judy Garland in a production of Boy From Oz.) A (hard-to-find) memoir about her battles with disease was published, as well, proving that not only was she one of rock’s most ferocious beauties, but one of its most eclectic, as well.
R.I.P. to one hell of a “Sleeping Beauty”!
Best known to scare enthusiasts for providing thrills of the evil incarnate variety as The Master on the Buffy, the Vampire Slayer television series, serious character actor Mark Metcalf found himself naked and on the other side of the terror-giving in (1981 lensed, 1983 released) slasher The Final Terror.
As Mike, the kind chaperone of a group of wayward teens (including Grease 2‘s Adrian Zmed and soon-to-be superstars Daryl Hannah and Rachel Ward) on a wilderness outing, Metcalf makes the unfortunate decision to relax with a quick skinny-dip while searching for one of his wards.
Surprised by his girlfriend Melanie (played by the adorable Cindy Harrell), Metcalf is soon bearing his lean booty for crafty cinema-goers as the two prescribe to a little forest loving.
Of course, anyone with their horror stripes knows that even consensual copulation means a horrible death in early 80’s horror flicks. Therefore, Metcalf/Mike’s howling orgasm turns into yodels of pain as the film’s mountainside maniac does him in with a crafty sickle in the back.
Thankfully, Metcalf’s death is one of the film’s more memorable ones and his rump bearing, itself, is notable in a genre that frequently fetishizes the feminine virtues and not the male’s.
Check back here frequently and at http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan as Big Gay Horror Fan often celebrates the sensual, butt shaking dudes of horror.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan
Big Gay Horror Fan 