Lucky Big Gay Horror Fan grabbed a moment with the glorious Jill from Lix Online for this recent video interview!
Check it out and then visit www.lixonline.com —
and be sure to get your Horrorificly fun Hump Day Wednesday bulltin, every week, by following Big Gay Horror Fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/BigGayHorrorFan
Until next time —
SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Oh, the roles Big Gay Horror Fan has undertaken – lackey, man servant to the leather crusted nuns of devilishness, tormented vixen of his own id. But – glorious Kandyse McClure, she of the quivering doe eyes, luscious lips and grandly passionate stance, has taken on two iconic roles of the feminine persuasion in a couple of modern remakes – and has still come out swinging.
Granted both these projects 2002’s Carrie and 2009’s Children of the Corn have encountered valleys of passionate opposition, but in the former, McClure’s Sue Snell (originally successful embodied by the glorious Amy Irving) rings with visible compassion and it may have been worth some painful growing pains to see the unique, heart filled Angela Bettis on the weekly, as this 4 hour NBC movie broadcast was rumored to be considered as a series, if successful.
Later, turning from sweet to sour, McClure took on Linda Hamilton’s Vicky with her role in Children of the Corn. Brimming with barely contained malice over a marriage gone wrong, McClure simmers here with fury and rage, looking unimaginably beautiful, and giving this remake a quirky edge.
Granted the primary antagonists lose their bizarre edge, here, without the participation of the irreplaceable John Franklin (Isaac) and Courtney Gains (Malachai). But, director/writer Donald P. Borchers’ decision to make Vicky’s husband, Burton (as raggedly played by Vampire Diaries’ David Anders), a former Viet Nam vet who uses his training to take on the volatile infants and to give ‘He Who Walks Behind the Rows” an ultimate, truly evil presence might work in this version’s favor for some. The ending is definitely bleaker and more in keeping with King’s original story, as well.
Meanwhile, McClure whose credits include a regular gig on Battlestar Galactica, Darren Lynn Bousman’s recent Mothers Day reimagining, Smallville and Return to the Cabin By the Lake continues to shine as a genre goddess.
You can dive into the corn by watching the trailer for The Children of the Corn reimagining here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrJMWyHHd7Y
Check back each Monday for a throat socking woman of horror!
And until the next time – Sweet love and pink Grue.
Best known to genre freaks as “Lori” in Clive Barker’s seminal Nightbreed, stunningly eclectic actress-writer Anne Bobby is definitely more than a one scream wonder. From the stage (Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing with Jeremy Irons, the acclaimed 1994 revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along)to television (cult series Cop Rock and the delightful trio of Bride films featuring Rue McClanahan and Kristy McNichol) to books (including a notable collection focusing on her love of dogs), Bobby is simply a multi-faceted creative wonder. Thankfully, Big Gay Horror Fan was able to stop swooning long enough to have a reasonably minded chat with this generous performer on the eve of her appearance on Friday, July 13, 2012 in Chicago at Terror in the Aisles 11 (http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/224106554368445/)to celebrate the more in depth Cabal cut of Nightbreed.
BGHF: What a cool life you have led. Lori in Nightbreed, appearances in films by Todd Solondz and Ted Demme and you are the voice of Brigid Tenenbaum for the Bioshock games!
Anne: Well, what I say about my voiceover work is there is only one other profession where you can go into a dark room and come out a half hour later $200 richer.
BGHF: (laughing) That is so awesome!
Anne: Honestly, they have given me so much freedom. I’m able to do theater and my volunteering and undertake so many other projects because of them.
BGHF: And you have a bunch of appearances lined up to celebrate this restored version of Nightbreed, as well. You must be having a blast with the fans of the film!
Anne: Well, I am a Twilight Zone fanatic. I can guess the episode within the 1st or 2nd frame. I always rejoice when I discover there are a few more moments to be had – you know, those few extra seconds with George Takei or what have you. So, I can totally understand the joy of the fans of this film.
BGHF: Well, as a fan of the film, myself, I have often wondered about your take on Lori. It seems like she may have some doubts about Boone’s innocence at certain moments in the released film. Was that something that you wrestled with as an actress?
Anne: Lori never doubted Boone for a second. She just simply believed he didn’t do it and went about trying to prove that. It’s very clear in this version.
BGHF: Interesting. Was there a moment that you were less clear of in the film? Something that made you take a jump back?
Anne: Well, I love snakes. In one scene I had to descend a flight of stairs, have a brief scene and then run up the stairs again – which were covered in snakes! I was trying so hard to be careful, but I slipped and landed on top of an albino python. I let out the biggest scream because I absolutely believed I had killed the snake.
BGHF: You didn’t, of course!
Anne: He finally revived himself – and all was well.
BGHF: Good! Tell us about Cop Rock! It was such a unique show – police officers breaking out into song. Way ahead of its time!
Anne: I loved it! It was the forerunner to a lot of things. It took the pressure off. “Don’t worry, Glee! Cop Rock started it all!”
BGHF: Did you perform the songs to tracks or were they done live?
Anne: Most of them were recorded beforehand and we played to tracks. Some of the quieter ones we did live and those were lifted on set. We were all singers from Broadway or bands, so we were able to do what was required.
BGHF: And you have some recordings out there, correct?
Anne: I did the first revival of Merrily, We Roll Along and that soundtrack is readily available.
BGHF: You’ve written plays, as well.
Anne: I did a solo show about journalist Rebecca West. It ran Off Broadway and toured the Netherlands with none other than Xaviera Hollander producing it.
BGHF: That is beyond cool. The Happy Hooker! And she is someone whom I am sure has definitely seen her share of bad press!
Anne: I think she saw the journey as a very important one. She’s a remarkable woman, Xaviera… with an amazing bed and breakfast.
BGHF: Well, you are amazing, too! A one woman show!
Anne: I think every actor should do a one person show– once! For over 80 minutes, I went from playing practically a 90 year old to 16 and then aging back to the 80’s again.
BGHF: It’s something I would have loved to have seen. Was that your favorite theater project?
Anne: You know, I think my favorite project is the play I am working on, right now. It’s a play about a very fascinating actual historical figure that I discovered in a used bookstore in New Orleans after Katrina.
BGHF: How about a film project? Is there one that sticks out in your head?
Anne: Film wise, there are those occasional projects where you say, “I’ll do anything – hire me!” Like Todd Solondz’s Happiness, when I read that script it was just something I had to do. I did something I had never done before — I went in and begged to be in the film. (Laughs) “I’ll do anything! Let me do this film!”
BGHF: Well, you keep me in awe, my friend. Singing, writing, voiceovers, acting! Amazing!
Anne: Well for me, Occupation: Artist is the way to go.
BGHF: Brilliant! Occupation: Artist! Let’s leave it at that!
So, while I recover from my encounter with scintillating Bobby, I wish you Sweet love and pink Grue,
Until the next time,
Big Gay Horror Fan!
“Welcome to my vampire boudoir…” Not even Big Gay Horror Fan can refuse such an invitation from the succulently versatile Vanity as voiced on Flipping Out, the first track on her 1984 Motown album, Wild Animal. On top of the erotic bloodsucking images from that number, the LP also includes the deliriously fun title track in which Vanity, in seeming homage to Tanya’s Island; the nudity strewn ape frolicking B-movie that began her career, makes very descriptive love to King Kong. Yep, refusal resistant, in my world!
And while the divine Vanity (aka DD Winters), best known to many music lovers as an early Prince protégée, graced the screens in everything from slashers (1980’s Terror Train) to action flicks (1986’s 52 Pick-Up, 1988’s Action Jackson) and small screen terrors (making a bone chillingly efficient appearance as an assassin in 1990’s Memories of Murder with Nancy Allen), her most unusually interesting horror offering occurred on an 1989 episode of Friday the 13th, The Series entitled Mesmer’s Bauble.
Appearing as successful pop star Angelica, the sultry Ms. Winters essentially was playing herself, here. But, viewers expecting a simple tale of a stalked and endangered singing queen found something else beneath the surface of Bauble – an ultimately haunting tale of transgendered confusion.
The particular tale centers on a gawkily unattractive record store clerk named Howard (sensitively played by Martin Neufield), whose obsession with Angelica leads to murder when he discovers that the titular trinket allows him to better his physical appearance with each offered death. Quickly gaining direct access to his idol, it seems at first, that Howard’s main goal is to bed her. But when that situation ultimately presents itself, he stumbles upon the realization that he doesn’t want Angelica – he wants to actually be her.
Taking over Angelica’s skin fills him with delight (and Vanity very willingly portrays this duality with joyful passion), but of course all is destroyed when the series’ resourceful leads snatch the bauble from Angelica/Howard’s neck, mid-performance, and he begins to transform, grotesquely, back to his former self in front of a passionately frightened audience.
The episode is bookended with Vanity’s subtly performed version of the haunting classic Nature Boy, a perfect complement to the episode’s themes. The lyrics (“There was a boy. A very strange enchanted boy. They say he wandered very far, very far. Over land and sea. A little shy and sad of eye. But very wise was he.”) and Vanity’s sweet tones create a sensitive undercurrent to Howard’s sympathetic need, allowing us to care for his character long before thoughts like transition and reassignment surgery were more readily acknowledged or understood.
The opening scene from Mesmer’s Bauble, containing Vanity’s version of Nature Boy, can be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsGTuJOdF8M
Memories of Murder, which was written by John Harrison, of Creepshow and Tales from the Darkside fame, can be seen, in its entirety at:
http://media.allisvanity.us/play.php?vid=85
Be sure to check back each Monday for a Pulitzer Prize worthy Goddess of Horror!
And until the next time –
Sweet love and pink Grue,
Big Gay Horror Fan
Rich, beautiful, traumatized. Big Gay Horror knows – well, nothing about those. Except for maybe that last one. But as for beautiful sophisticates Barbara Parkins, Lori Saunders and Kathleen Beller? Well, they all played nervous monied lasses whose family and loved ones tried to drive them just a bit bonkers in the below, wild and wacky heiress horrors!
In 1971’s A Taste of Evil, Parkins returns home after nine years of therapy, to find herself haunted by visions of a stalking mad man. Is it a ghost – or is it momma? For her part, Parkins plays comatose fear well, and Barbara Stanwyck glowers with vain evil as her jealous mother. What is most interesting here is how issues of rape and pedophilia are addressed without ever being expressly stated.
Shimmeringly gorgeous Saunders is another lovely returning from the asylum in 1973’s Visions of Evil (AKA So Sad About Gloria). Described as featuring “the romance of Love Story with the terror of Psycho” – this film obviously compares to neither of those classics. 
But, it does contain a grainy, low budget drive-in vibe and Saunders looks positively glorious being emotionally abused by her ‘concerned’ husband.
Lastly, Beller plays a sculptress whose evil stepmother tries to drive her crazy – and out of her fortune in 1981’s No Place to Hide. Containing plotline twists that closely resemble A Taste of Evil, this telepic features a mysteriously ominious ending and was, perhaps, most notable for the sunny Mariette Hartley, best known then for a series of cherry camera commercials with James Garner, playing a very twisted and manipulative matriarch.
For those interested, A Taste of Evil is available in it’s entirety at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz0h3UNbELE !
Otherwise, watch out for you bank accounts and your sanity, sweeties!
And until the next time –
Sweet love and pink Grue,
Big Gay Horror Fan
While Big Gay Horror Fan cringes at all the shrieking children and pouting lovers that he encounters on a daily basis, he imagines if you actually lost one or the other that you might get a bit cranky. Hence, honors for Girl Heroes of the week go to the gorgeous and glorious Anika Noni Rose and the always incandescent Cynda Williams for their portrayals of some pretty nasty revenge seeking spirits.
In the 2011 television mini-series Bag of Bones, Rose brings a powerful sensuality and glorious rage to her ghostly jazz and blues singer, Sara Tidwell. Raped by a group of well-to-do cads in a small town, Rose’s Tidwell is forced to listen to the last gasping breaths of her drowning daughter before having her skull bashed in. Pretty, no? And with the help of skilled director Mick Garris (who actually seems to feel the loss of Pierce Brosnan’s primary widower character), Rose (whom, brilliantly, recorded an EP as Tidwell to promote the film) allows a simmering brutality to seethe throughout her curses and within the poltergeist like actions she uses to carry them out. You understand and fear her, all at once.
Meanwhile, in 1996’s Spirit Lost (http://xfinitytv.comcast.net/movies/Spirit-Lost/47944/597232111/Spirit-Lost/videos), Williams’ love sore Arabella conjures up some major sheet stained magic on the frequently shirtless Leon. Abandoned to die, years before, by her white slave trader lover, Arabella eventually finds comfort in a reverse Entity scenario when Leon and wife purchase the house in which she haunts. Radiating with a moist fervor, Williams is beautiful and deadly, a perfect role model for those who like a little vengeance with their heartbreak.
Be sure to check back every Monday for a new Girl Hero.
And until next time –
Sweet love and pink Grue,
Big Gay Horror Fan
The world knows Big Gay Horror Fan loves his presents – so screw Christmas in July – Here’s Christmas on the last day of June with a bunch of cool offerings.
All around awesome, horror loving dude Billy Renner has a new band, Billy3(above). His tunes embrace the rockabilly aspects of fandom including a lot of horror and Science Fiction references, so be sure to grease ‘em up and check him out at:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Billy3/431565293532770
StrangeHouse Books has an awesome compilation out – Strange Sex: A Strange Anthology. I was supposed to review the actual book, but lost the link in a fit of uncontrolled email deleting! (Blonde fingers, y’all!) But, I am doing my part by pushing this throbbing, sensuous and truly grotesque sucker (with some incredible cover art) here!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/strangehousebooks
Hormonal Activity is a new queer horror short with tons of gay and bi actors/characters, so check it out at:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2378283/
And if you aren’t out of breath, give another horror film, Make Believe Time, an FB ‘like’ here:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/MakeBelieveTimeFilm
Until next time, Sweet love and pink Grue, Big Gay Horror Fan
How wretchedly Big Gay Horror Fan remembers the day when, shrieking, he watched as his younger brother axed a maniacal, never stopping killer in the head!
Wait. I am confusing myself with this week’s fabulous Girl Hero, Kimberly Beck from Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Again!
And while she may be best known to blood fiends as Trish in that seminal slasher sequel, Beck’s career actually began as a youngster and includes an appearance in Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie and a hit pop single as a teen in Australia.
Beck, whom for awhile was actually Paris Hilton’s aunt by marriage, also claims further genre credits with such films as the cult hit Massacre at Central High and the Wings Hauser vehicle Nightmare at Noon among her many accomplishments. She has, also, collaborated with such as directors as Luc Besson (The Big Blue) and her co-stars haved included Linda Blair (Roller Boogie), Anthony Perkins (In the Deep Woods), Jimmy Stewart (The FBI Story) and Morticia herself, Carolyn Jones (the soap opera Capital).
Most impressively, she has, also, made a series of cameo appearances sing with pep – whether it is a screaming mother in the blockbuster Independence Day or a perky secretary in mid-range horror flick Playroom.
Most gloriously, her appearance as Piety Beecham (LOVE –THAT – NAME!) in the Charles Bronson epic Messenger of Death is to die for! Dressed in her frontier best, Beck gives her all as a member of a religious sect whom, eyes blazing in terror, enters the opening scene and is immediately assassinated! Role – – done! But — who wouldn’t want to say that they played the equivalent of a religious martyr in an over-the-top Chuck flick?!? That is why we freaks love these movies — and is a prime reason why Kimberly Beck IS the Girl Hero for ALL ages! I researched!
Be sure to check back for a new Girl Hero every Monday!
Sweet love and pink Grue,
Big Gay Horror Fan
As Big Gay Horror Fan browses through the constant internet updates of friends and (more often than not) complete strangers’ successes and seemingly upwardly personal advances, he often wonders why he feels so out of rhythm with everyone else.
Of course, this lament of otherness is pretty common for all of us and a poignant reminder of why the passing this week of two genre icons is so important to celluloid worshipping freaks everywhere.
Susan Tyrrell (who died on June 16th, 2012 at the age of 67) and Richard Lynch (who died on June 19th at the age of 72) were of ‘the extraordinary’. Filled with unique energy and undoubted magnetism, these two were definitely not members of the Hollywood beautiful set. Hence, their quirky roles in multiple genre films truly appealed to outsiders everywhere.
Just the thought of the white glare in Lynch’s eyes can still send the fright rate on my pulse line racing. But, the subtle art of his talent, also, allowed him to find the compassion even within a role like Art, a demented weekend killer, in the 1974 shocker Open Season.
Tyrrell, meanwhile, gave every fiber of her DNA to such roles as a crazed aunt in 1983’s delirious, gay themed Night Warning, an inquisitive reporter in 1987’s The Offspring (AKA From a Whisper to a Scream) and as an outrageously costumed bartender/musician in 1990’s Rockula.
It almost seems unfortunate that despite their grand valley of unusual credits (Tyrrell: The Forbidden Zone, the Angel series, Cry Baby; Lynch: Bad Dreams, Necronomican: Book of the Dead, Halloween (2007), the upcoming Lords of Salem) that I can find no evidence of them having worked together. Both were a part of the New York theatre set, each marking stage appearances with Al Pacino within a year of each other in the 70’s. Not an unexpected discovery, considering the range of their work.
So, take a walk across the boards one last time and celebrate two very original and compelling voices. Ones that will never be silenced as their totally essential, often goofy (Alligator 2: The Mutation or The Demolitionist anyone?) work lives on.
Sayonara, my other worldly ones!
And until next time – Sweet love and pink Grue,
Big Gay Horror Fan!
There are days when Big Gay Horror Fan feels like he wants to give all the stray dogs of the world a hug and a spritely pink walk and others, when just like Charlize Theron’s evil Huntsman monarch, he wants to give this wretched world the queen it truly deserves. But – then I wake up.
Lucky Euro-starlet Lara Wendel, however, got to show both sides of those equations, cinematically, with two of her early appearances.
As Daria in 1979’s ludicrously fun Ring of Darkness (aka Satan’s Wife) the then 14 year old Wendel brings a snidely vengeful quality to her true daughter of the Devil. As her frightened mother (almost Hollywood powerhouse Anne Heywood) tries to save her from luscious destruction, Wendel connives, murders and — showers with preternatural abandon. While the copious amounts of skin that Wendel shows may rightfully bring about debates of child exploitation versus European sensibility, she ultimately grounds the film with a snotty menace and a compelling presence.
Three years later as Maria, in Dario Argento’s seminal Tenebrae, Wendel’s victim provides a memorable mid film appearance fighting off an almost supernaturally vicious Doberman while ultimately discovering the identity of the film’s killer. Her backyard end is bloodily memorable and proof that celluloid payback can truly be a major pain in the gut.
Wendel went on to play student-scientist types in 1988 in Umberto Lenzi’s Ghosthouse and Zombie 5: Killing Birds before disappearing from the screen in 1991, but her memorably brief cinematic legacy will forever mark her as one of the brightest Girl Heroes ever in Big Gay Horror Fan’s book.
Be sure to check back for a new Girl Hero each Monday –
And until the next time –
Sweet love and pink Grue,
Big Gay Horror Fan
Big Gay Horror Fan 