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!
Bill Hayes’ joy in performing was infectious. In fact, this legendary nonagenarian truly seemed happy with whatever bits and pieces that the powers-that-be at Days of our Lives, his creative home for over 5 decades, would give him to perform over the past 15 years. But Hayes, who died at the age of 98 this January, virtually (and literally) glowed with enthusiasm throughout the late fall of 2021. That was when his kind, long standing character Doug was possessed by the devil. Current head writer Ron Carlivati had long wanted to revisit long term heroine Marlena’s late ’90s encounter with the red horn trickster. Thus, when he was finally given the go ahead, he inventively involved one of Salem’s sweetest legacy characters. Hayes was obviously having a blast portraying Doug as he locked his wife Julie in a meat cooler and strategically flirted with townswomen half his age.
Nicely, he was prepped for this sinister undertaking due to his participation in another one of the show’s macabre plotlines – 2003’s Salem Stalker outing. There, Doug, along with other series’ notables like Maggie & Caroline, was “killed” off – supposedly by a brainwashed Marlena. In a grand twist, though, all were revealed to be alive and living in Melaswen (IE: New Salem).
Renowned for his musical proclivities as well as acting, Hayes was recognizable to the general public for his appearances on variety television (Your Show of Shows) and Broadway (Me and Juliet), while his recording of The Ballad of Davy Crockett spent 5 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1955. Most importantly, his decades long partnership with Susan Seaforth Hayes, his loving spouse and frequent co-star, will go down in history as one of the most endearing celebrity romances.
His was a life definitely well led.
Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Being cinema obsessed and growing up in a small town without movie theaters was pretty bad. The fact that my parents weren’t horror lovers made it even worse. Thus, on one rare celluloid outing as a family, we were treated to the diminished (if nonexistent) delights of the big screen adaptation of Annie as opposed to John Carpenter’s The Thing which was released the same summer. Thus, I took my genre hook-ups where I could find them – usually on my favorite television programs.
Thankfully, the character of Nikki, as enacted by the now legendary Melody Thomas, on The Young and the Restless was always a reliable source of the luridly suspenseful. Throughout my preteen years, she faced down one psychopath after the other. The most significant to me was the obsessive Edward, as subtly and powerfully played by actor Paul Tulley. At first creeping anonymously, Edward purposely drove away Casey (Roberta Leighton), Nikki’s protective sister. This allowed him free access to his true target – her supple, younger sibling, who (at the time) was making her living as an exotic dancer. Edward eventually became so obsessed that he shot paternal restauranter Jonas (Jerry Lacy), Nikki’s kind confidante. (This episode was particularly thrilling for me. Jonas, Cash (John Gibson), Nikki’s sleazy employer & a fellow stripper, and the matriarchal Katherine Chancellor (Jeanne Cooper) were all presented as possible targets during the show’s pre-credits. Jonas wasn’t revealed as the shootee until the show’s final act. Thankfully, he survived – only to be written off the show soon thereafter. A common soap indignity.) Naturally, upon being discovered, Edward acted dramatically – blowing himself up, offering a fiery end to his reign of terror.
After surviving harassment (and baby-napping) from the mother-in-law from hell, the very disapproving Alison Bancroft (Lynn Wood), Nikki was next set upon by the charming yet deadly Rick Daros (Randy Holland). A revealed wife killer, Rick eventually took Nikki to St. Croix to complete his latest dastardly deed. Besides offering a fabulous location shoot, this plotline also served as a great catalyst for future story. Daros revealed that Nikki’s daughter, the previously stolen Victoria, was actually (mainstay businessman) Victor’s. After helping to rescue her from Daros’ water logged clutches – he was trying to drown her – Victor (the commanding Eric Braeden) and Nikki became the serial’s most popular, albeit off and on, couple.
Fast forwarding to the ’90s, during a downtime in that tenuously long partnership, Nikki’s marriage to a physician named Joshua Landers (Heath Kizzier) was seemingly going strong. That is, until it was sabotaged by the unwieldly, psychotic Veronica (Candice Daley). The ex-wife of Landers, she brought a hail of bullets down upon the spouses after they discovered who she really was. Nikki, un-alarmingly, survived while her betrothed did not. The escaped murderess eventually confronted Nikki in her estate’s stables – leading to a showdown that ended with Veronica perishing on the topside of a pitchfork.
Over twenty-five years later, a recent (on going) storyline has found Nikki facing off, diva-to-diva style, with As The World Turns‘ iconic Colleen Zenk. Zenk, as the crazier-than-thou Jordan, not only abducted Genoa City’s grand matriarch, but she also sadistically put her, as a recovering alcoholic, on a vodka drip during her imprisonment. Nicely, their ultimate showdown in an abandoned barn, involving a very shaky Nikki, not only brought back memories of the Veronica-era, but provided plenty of delicious scenery for the two pros to chew on, as well. As Jordan is still lurking around the canvas, it looks like there may be even more delicious savagery in the future.
Surprisingly, as pertinent as those past storylines are to me, I actually found there were very few mentions of those gothic rundowns online. Thomas does describe Tulley’s niceness behind the scenes as contrasted with his believably demented presence onscreen in her memoir, 2020’s Always Young and Restless. But it was impossible to track down any photos or significant mentions of that particular scary arc in the show’s admittedly very rich, decades long history.
Thankfully, my own scrapbook of memories is still intact. To the shock of no one, that Edward storyline made me a huge fan of Thomas. Very hopefully, I wrote her that summer (of 1981) and, to my grand surprise, she quickly responded. Over the next few years, our correspondence was a vital part of my existence. As an impossibly awkward gay kid in a small farm town of 600, corresponding with a glamourous actress in Hollywood was practically a lifesaver. What was also incredibly thrilling to me was that Thomas’ onscreen adventures were not limited to the daytime airwaves. As a young actress her film credits included The Car, wherein she was the blackly ravenous vehicle’s first victim. She also played Amy Irving’s confident schoolgirl friend in The Fury and one of the lead camp counselors in Joe Dante’s classic original Piranha. Of seeming cinematic import, she was also enacted the murderous young version of Tippi Hedren’s character in Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie.
As if you even had to ask, I saw none of these cinematic wonders in a movie theater. They were all discovered, akin to those long-ago Y&R adventures, on our small black and white TV, my very own wonder box of artistic discovery.
Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Ten years before Crystal Gayle was nearly killed by Another World‘s Sin Stalker, another country music legend perfected her own version of the final girl dance on an 1977 episode of celebrated detective show Starsky and Hutch. That offering’s terrified canary was multi hit making Lynn Anderson, in her one major acting role. But lest one discount the macabre charms of this vibrant blonde entertainer, Anderson’s connections to the genre are multi-fold. Her songs have been utilized in such fin-tastic genre projects as Jaws, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged and (the less amphibian) Zodiac. (If those aren’t scary enough for you, Anderson’s other major television credit that year was an appearance on the notoriously belittled The Brady Bunch Variety Show.)
Here, the Rose Garden singer is Sue Ann Grainger, an on-the-rise Honky-Tonk chanteuse. Luckily for Sue Ann, series regular Hutch (David Soul) is a big fan. As the creepy calls she’s been receiving for months turn deadly, the sun tossed officer and his partner Starsky immediately get in line to help save the day. In between confidently performing songs from Wrap Your Love All Around Your Man, her current LP, Anderson does an admirable job of acting out her character’s path from casually confident to completely frightened. With that latter emotion in full display, the best sequence occurs when Sue Ann’s tormentor (a raspy, shifty eyed Joshua Bryant) traps her in a recording studio, taunting her maniacally from the booth. Veteran television director George McCowan, who also helmed Frogs (with Ray Milland & Joan Van Ark) and the television terror Murder on Flight 502, does a skilled job with this scenario, using reflective surfaces and layered angles to cinematically capture his heroine’s traumatized actions.
Ultimately, like many a Laurie Strode wannabe, Sue Ann decides to take her fate into her own hands, confronting her attacker in an abandoned warehouse. Thankfully, with the help of the series’ titular duo, she lives to produce another backwoods love ballad or two. Anderson herself continued with her musical career throughout the decades, even earning a Grammy nomination in 2005 for a Bluegrass effort, before her untimely death of a heart attack in 2015. (Girl Group sound enthusiasts, meanwhile, are encouraged to check out her late ’60s recordings on Chart Records – an era that many vinyl connoisseurs determine to be her best.)
Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
As with many physical media collectors, my stacks of films are ever growing and sometimes years will pass before I watch something that I purchased at some dusky garage sale or found for supercheap online. Naturally, my bounty was further enhanced with the unfortunate decline of neighborhood video stores. I, for one, could not resist even the shoddiest looking homegrown horror flick if it was only going to cost me a buck or two. One night, while at my restaurant gig, one of my tables commented on whatever movie related t-shirt I was wearing at the time. We started chatting about films and I discovered one of them had appeared as an extra in one of the low budget terror extravaganzas that I had recently picked up. “I was the girl who pukes at the frat party in Terror at Baxter U,” she informed me, somewhat sheepishly. Photo ops, naturally, ensued.
Due to that encounter, I sped up my timeline for viewing this particular oddity. I found it to have its own set of weird, low budget charms – the most significant being the strange reveal of a May-December romance between an aged professor and one of his male pupils, resulting in a kind of extreme take on the Billy-Stu dynamic from the original Scream. Furthering the story, I was asked, soon after, to be one of a several essayists for an encyclopedia style book about queer characters and themes in horror films. Naturally, Baxter found itself a major place in my writing for that.
Flashforward almost 10 years and that book is finally almost ready for release. Thus, I send a word of thanks out to my very own hipster-restaurant Regan and, wherever she may be, I hope she is proud, in her own way, of the literary conduct that she inspired.
Meanwhile, more information on Queer Horror: A Film Guide is available from the publisher at:
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!
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!
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!
On a daily basis, I can fall down endless media based rabbit holes. One article or show can send me on an all consuming spiral, but thankfully, the landing is usually sweet. Sometimes, it can even make me quite contemplative.
A cursory examination of The Video Dead, an ’80s horror cheese fest, this past Sunday led me to reappreciate the stunning Jennifer Miro, a pioneer artist in the LA punk scene, who appears, briefly yet magnificently, in that film. The porcelain skinned Miro was the frontwoman for the many incarnations of The Nuns, a goth-punk outfit with notable achievements and a large fan base, who never quite crossed over into the mainstream.
But Miro, who also doubled as a successful fetish model, probably never would have accepted the stereotypical molds that the major labels would have wanted her to exploit. She truly seemed at home in the world of indie exploitation, also appearing in projects like Nightmare in Blood, Dr. Caligari and Jungle Assault, and her live performances, particularly in her band’s final form, were reportedly highly sexualized affairs.
Even in her death, she navigated a different course. Battling liver and breast cancer for years, she kept her diagnosis a private thing and rejected traditional therapy methods. Relying on the assistance of a kind next door neighbor, Miro faded away, at the age of 54, in December 2011. According to her obituary notices, it would be a month or so before her former colleagues and friends were even aware that she was gone. Thus, those final years seemed to be an exercise in independence – a closing performance for an audience of one.
Hence, my mindful state. As a single gay man in my fifties, dying while walking a solitary path is one of my biggest fears. But, perhaps, Miro found a grace in distancing herself and dealing with her illness without the emotional distractions of others. There might even be a sort of purity in that…a grace there that I can latch onto as I navigate my remaining years, presumably alone.
Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Days later, after I stop by Lou’s to chug a root beer & grab some licorice at the mid-point of a Saturday afternoon jog, he tells me that he told off his sister Luann earlier in the week. Both Lou’s sisters are nuns and the three of them seemingly share some weird sort of ecumenical magic. “I don’t think I told you she was here last Friday.”
“No.”
“Well, I don’t know what the hell she left behind, but I finally had to call her on Sunday and tell her to cut it out! I mean, my phone’s whizzed and popped for awhile after one of her visits. But that? The bumping and scratching & weirdness?”
“I know.”
” Especially after that disappointing Eastwood flick!! Not a bare chest in sight! So, I couldn’t take it! I called her and screamed BITCH! She just laughed and hung up and… minutes later, it finally stopped.”
Catching his breath, the switch, as it so often does, clicks in him and he now eyes me, flirtatiously. “& to think, I thought you were making things up,” he fake-pouts, his voice oozing with Baby Jane cuteness, “just to get a little comfort from me!” He reaches out his arms, like a clumsy Toys R Us baby doll in need of perpetual attention, and I, reluctantly, let him hug me, damply, for a bit and then, after faking a coughing fit, I move to the kitchen table and sit.
Indeed, when Lou and Sherry had first returned that evening they had, dubiously, listened to my ghostly tale. The boys, who I had (somewhat) properly sent to bed, began calling for her, almost immediately.
“They were really scared” She grunts, noncommittedly. “They might try to come down if you don’t go up!”
Indeed, their whimpers of “Mom, mom,” sonically, seem to move ever closer as speak. “You stay right there! & In that bedroom – not the hallway!” she commandingly screams up to them as she shakes her head at me and, disapproving, climbs the stairs to the guest room where they are nervously pacing.
Earlier, we three, unsurprisingly, had found nothing upon exploring. Post incident, both Lou’s bedroom and the room that the boys were set up in were minus any deities – menacingly corporal or otherwise. Despite that seemingly calming discovery, their nervous energy squiggled about in uncontrollable bursts throughout the rest of the evening. I had hoped the continued lack of spiritual congress would eventually put them at ease. But as their prescribed bedtime rolled ever nearer, they grew increasingly nervous, begging to stay downstairs with me.
Naturally, I was desperate to avoid any kind of maternal disapproval. Sherry did not strike me as someone to mess with. So, I ordered them back up the stairs when their bedtime arrived. My caveat being that I would go with them as a form of mild, foolhardy protection. So, I sat by them for an hour, chatting as the lay, still too mortified to sleep. At the sound of shooting gravel in the rectory parking lot, they shot up, immediately, whipping off lightly draped blankets. But before their feet could hit the ground, I corralled them into remaining still for the moment. “Do you want to be the one who explains to your mom why you’re not in bed at 11 pm?” They both shake their heads. “Smart. Stay & I’ll send her up right away.”
Now Sherry emerges from the upper level, not a child peeping behind her, just as my parents, merrily, arrive. The five of them settle in the kitchen while I take coverage in the living room. My mom and dad seem less than convinced of our paranormal adventure, as well, and I sink into the recliner in the furthest corner, wanting to be at a far remove from the disbelieving adults. Time passes and I am just beginning to contemplate dozing off. My mom and dad tend to settle in for these gatherings and hours will pass by before the thought of leaving begins to even tickle at their consciousnesses. Keeping with the established flow of the evening, though, there have been consistent whispers on the floorboards and minor moans of wind against the windowpanes since this particular stop-by has begun. But the mature element has written them off as mere weather induced tragedies. Thus, I have not uttered a peep of awareness. But suddenly it seems as if these minor aural presences amplify – the creaks feel deeper, as if they are rocking the heart of this doggedly noble structure from within it’s oaky marrow. The conversation in the other room stops for a moment. I rouse from my slumber-aimed stupor…and listen to them listen. The chatter eventually begins again…but throughout the rest of this prolonged encounter, there are significant pauses in the flow of their words. The noises eventually, as if mocking them, begin to take on the shape of speech. They have the feeling of mini-monologues about them, as if some former inhabitants and their long ago guests, are trying to communicate their past stories through the shifting bumps and bark-stained titters. What secrets are they sharing? Lou’s voice rises even higher now, a quivering tone of strained combativeness entering his exchanges. He is trying to outgun the unknown’s invisible, sensory alarm.
Finally, Sherry rises, mentioning a need for sleep if she wants to be at early mass in the morning. The group ascends into the room, drawing nearer, almost as one, embarrassed smiles creasing their features. They believe us now, I can tell. And I, who will spend decades doubting myself even in the most affirmative circumstances, am strangely confident here. I never second guessed for a moment what we’d seen. It felt as real, as part of this atmosphere as all the unwanted gestures, the lingering caresses of a man possessed by some other affliction than charitable duty and public service.
Note: (My first horror movie buddy was a priest named Lou Hendricks. Several years ago, Hendricks was named by the Western New York Catholic diocese as one of their most unrepentant predators in the ’70s and ’80s. Thus, I grew up watching monster movies with a monster – a man who was like an uncle to our family. Over the next few months, I will be sharing some of my stories from that period of time.)
Big Gay Horror Fan 