Music to Make Horror Movies By: Billy Idol

Published June 15, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

At 17, I really knew nothing about the gay community. I was growing up in a small farming town, surrounded by shit kicking, flannel shirt wearing earth outlaws. But somehow, I instinctively knew that the leather jockstrap sported by Billy Idol on the January ’85 cover of Rolling Stone was part and parcel of the queer male experience. I already had multiple crushes on all the smooth soap opera hunks from my favorite shows, but never before had I been quite so unabashedly titillated.

I probably would have been even more turned on if I had been aware of Idol’s connections to the horror community in that era.

As a fan of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist, he himself hired director Tobe Hooper to helm the post-apocalyptic video for Dancing with Myself. A couple years later, his music swirled out from celluloid bound speakers, accentuating the splattery action of Lamberto Bava’s Demons. Perhaps even more importantly, as the decades have flown by, many music critics have reassessed Rebel Yell, his second album, finding it to be one of the significant Gothic New Wave records of that era. This is unsurprising if you consider that the haunting Eyes Without A Face, one of that LP’s focal points, was influenced by the influential French horror movie of the same name.

Catering to that trend, in the years since, songs like Rebel Yell and White Wedding have worked their way onto the soundtracks of such projects as Bride of Chucky, Scream Queens, American Horror Story and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The inclusion of that latter song in 2025’s Fear Street: Prom Night, which became the Number One film on Netflix within a day of its release, has surely introduced him to a bevy of younger terror loving fans, as well.

Who knows? Maybe some quivering twink in some remote village will even discover that long ago magazine image for the first time and find himself as transformed as I was all those years ago.

What the hell! For his sake….

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Backside of Horror: Henry Golding

Published June 8, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Another Simple Favor has been described as a black comedy-mystery film and a comedy crime mystery thriller by various online sources. Personally, I would describe it as a gorgeously filmed, diva-licious, Agatha Christie style horror romp.

Continuing the adventures of friends/rivals Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) and Emily (Blake Lively), this recent release finds the latter getting out of jail and rushing headfirst into a lavish wedding ceremony in Capri. Of course, a deadly secretive narrative hides beneath the overwhelming joy of the occasion.

Manipulated into attending, along with a bevy of other guests including Emily’s ex-husband (Henry Golding), Stephanie soon finds herself the primary suspect as people begin to be brutally murdered.

Obviously knowing their target audience, the prelude to one of the film’s most gruesome killings features a long (and very revealing) shower scene with Golding’s Sean.

Nicely, this fleshy act of cleanliness is the welcomed contrast to the other reason to watch this sequel – Lively’s incredibly glamourous costumes.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan

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The Missed Queering of Speak No Evil

Published May 27, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

I’ve got more years behind me than before me. I don’t have enough time left on this planet to watch yet another film or limited television series where a powerful white man terrorizes a woman (either solo or with family in tow) for an hour and a half. This realization came to me when I was about halfway through 2024’s Speak No Evil, the Americanized version of a popular Danish horror film. The fact that it took me two or three months to finally finish it speaks to my weariness.

Don’t we live in a world where that kind of POS has been granted far too much power, anyhow? I don’t need him as the primary figure of my entertainment orientated escapes.

Granted, the more salacious side of my gayness wickedly sparked at this project’s midpoint visual of a beefed up James McAvoy stripping down to his black briefs for a swim. Sitting through the demented machinations of his character was another story altogether, though.

Of course, I might have taken more interest if the hinted at attraction between McAvoy’s Paddy and Scoot McNairy’s Ben had been more fully realized. While calculatedly setting a trap for Louise (Makenzie Scott) and her daughter, Alex (Alix West Lefler), Paddy makes off with the patriarchal side of that family unit, driving him into the woods for some manly bonding.

The song that Paddy chooses to accentuate their macho excursion, though, is The Bangles’ ultra-romantic Eternal Flame. That tune becomes a central sonic focus of the project, making viewers – or at least this one – wonder if director/co-writer James Watkins was subtly hinting at something a bit more lavender in Paddy’s nature.

But, ultimately, this twisted celluloid excursion soon does a forward freefall into Paddy’s deliriously violent attack upon Louise, Ben and Alex. All subtle nuances in character are swept aside for red faced, eye bulging mania.

The corporate, common line quality of this filmmaking is frustrating in it’s predictability. We definitely don’t need a mainstream, studio supported look at a dangerous homosexual – particularly in this politic climate. But turning Paddy into a sexually fluid manipulator of all who come into his path would have definitely given this film a fresh boost of life, turning a tried and true maniacal monster into something a little more joyfully perverse. This would have also taken some of the heat off of the basic, misogynistic notion of a woman and her child facing danger from yet another deluded, over privileged man.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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The Backside of Horror: The Killing Kind

Published May 18, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Outside of Joe Dallesandro’s work with Paul Morrissey in Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein and The Blood of Dracula, the exploitation films of the ’70s were not usually an advertisement for the male physique.

Gay director Curtis Harrington, though, definitely cast a loving camera eye onto the young, very fit John Savage in 1973’s The Killing Kind. Often shirtless and/or running around in tiny swimming trunks, Savage’s unstable Terry Lambert is lingeringly obsessed over by his mother (Ann Sothern), a female roommate (Cindy Williams), an uptight neighbor (Luana Anders) and his former lawyer (Ruth Roman).

Often shrinking from their fevered gaze, Lambert’s hesitancy to their affections is truly understood in one mid-act scene. There, Sothern’s Thelma incestuously sneaks into the bathroom while he is showering and, giggling with coy abandon, takes many a steamy photo of him.

Harrington’s lens, meanwhile, is almost as lovingly obsessed with Savage’s rare masculine beauty as the plotline participants. This makes this offering the rare proto-slasher with plenty of sensuously photographed scenes of skin of the red blooded and increasingly bare variety – all reaching a head (or buttock as the case may be) with that daring wet, bathing shot.

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Alberta Hunter

Published May 11, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

As with many female blues and jazz singers, the indomitable Alberta Hunter spent the middle portion of her life solely entangled with the 9 to 5. Rediscovered in her senior years, she ultimately received even more respect and critical acclaim than during the fragrant bloom of her earlier career.

Part of that rediscovery included the use of one of her earliest tracks, You Can’t Tell the Difference After Dark, in the mutated monster sequel Mimic 3: Sentinel.

Hunter, for all LGBTQIA history archivists out there, was also a very private, yet steadfast lesbian. She was involved for decades with a woman named Lottie Taylor, the daughter of a famous comedian.

Determined, with a rich personal history well worth exploring further, Hunter, who died in 1984 at the age of 89, is definitely one of our eclectic forebears who helped give our community its rich diversity and overall cultural impact.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Ann Sothern: The Triumphant Kind

Published May 5, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Gay director Curtis Harrington was the George Cukor of the horror set. With filmic grace, he guided such pedigree blessed superstars as Gloria Swanson, Simone Signoret, Gale Sondergaard, Piper Laurie and Joan Blondell to blood curdling glory in such projects as Games, The Killer Bees, Ruby and The Dead Don’t Die.

Of course, his greatest achievement among the diva set just might be 1971’s What’s The Matter with Helen? That cult favorite, featuring the dueling frames of pert Hollywood sweetheart Debbie Reynolds and robustly complicated Academy Award winning Shelley Winters, did not, initially, set the box office on fire. But critically praised as one of the best post-Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? imitations, it has become a favorite among discerning terror lovers in the decades since.

But running a close second, in my opinion, to that lauded project is 1973’s gloriously sleazy The Killing Kind. This celluloid smudge features not only Ann Sothern, at her matriarchally pouty best, but the whiskey soaked Ruth Roman and catlike character actress Marjorie Eaton (The Time of Their Lives, The Snake Pit, Zombies of Mora Tau).

Revolving around Sothern’s blowsy Thelma and her often shirtless, sexual deviant son Terry (John Savage), the movie definitely fixes an unwavering gaze on Savage. Just released from prison due to participation in a gang rape, Terry is oddly juvenilized by Thelma, who forces chocolate milk and lipstick stained kisses upon him in abundant measure. Thelma is not alone in this kind of overindulgence. A spinster librarian (Luana Anders), a wanna-be starlet (Cindy Williams) and even Terry’s former lawyer (Roman) & an aging tenant (Eaton) of Thelma’s, all drip around him with moist concern and occasionally aggressive interest.

In particular, Louise, Anders’ character, fantasizes about him sadistically violating her. Meanwhile, Rhea, played by Roman, seems more distressed over losing Terry’s case due to sexual affection for him than any career-style woes.

The plus side of these and other incidents is this is the rare exploitation outing that concentrates on male beauty, happily embroidered by a juicily femme cast. The psychology here, though, may leave something to be desired. The screenplay seems to suggest that the reason the deeply violent Terry erupts on a journey of uncontrollable revenge is all due to the fawning, overly needy women in his life and not extreme mental imbalance or some other layered factor.

Still, as the lead-in paragraph indicates, Harrington works wonders with the female cast. Roman crams a variety of emotional flavors into her one scene while Anders brings a successfully bitter, almost acidic, texture to her characterization.

Magnifying them, Sothern sinks her teeth into every neurotic tic of her character, creating a childishly odd but truly believable human. Supporting roles would follow for this veteran actress, but in this, her last leading role, she and Harrington absolutely eek every morsel of strange goodness that there is to be found in the circumstances at hand.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Riskless Revenge: Barbara in Asylum

Published April 27, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Any gay person who grew up with a overbearingly possessive mother knows the torture of having your every move dictated and the lack of freedom such attentions often bring with them. Such individuals may find much to relate to in the character of Barbara from the Lucy Comes to Stay segment of Asylum, the classic Amicus horror anthology film.

Recently released from a mental institution, Barbara (Charlotte Rampling) is immediately facing a different prison upon returning to her family home. Her brother George (James Villiers) has hired a softspoken yet dominating nurse (Megs Jenkins) to take care of her. Thus, she is forced into bed and given a sedative before she even has a chance to reacquaint herself with her ancestral surroundings. In a few moments, it is apparent to the audience that this is how she is going to spend most of her future days – with no sense of self-control or true freedom.

Rampling so expertly conveys the panic-feeling of her character’s entrapment that it is no real surprise when Lucy (Britt Ekland), Barbara’s seductively blonde alter-ego, appears to assist her. Playing her role with an almost gleefully sly sense of humor, Ekland’s Lucy has soon disposed of both of Barbara’s antagonists, momentarily freeing her to live fully and without apparent restraints.

Of course, things don’t end exactly as anticipated in the quick segment, with Barbara eventually ending up in the titular establishment again.

This short scenario ultimately encapsulates, though, why genre film is so important. It allows us, as viewers, to, voyeuristically, watch someone act out against the fictional representations of things that have harmed and/or subdued us.

This riskless revenge, in turn, ties us emotionally to the performers and films that allow us this psychological escape – proving, as always, that art of all forms is truly worth its weight in metaphoric gold.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Psychotic Women: General Hospital’s Kristina

Published April 18, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

General Hospital‘s Kristina Corinthos-Davis (Kate Mansi) has been acting like a case study out of House of Psychotic Women in recent episodes of the 62 year running show. That tome, Kier-La Janisse’s emotionally charged exploration of trauma, exposed the nervy, emotionally warped femmes of genre cinema and this longstanding soap character definitely would fit, perfectly, within its pages.

After losing the baby she was carrying last summer, Corinthos-Davis has definitely been at odd ends. The murder of her beloved sister Sam (Kelly Monaco) in the fall furthered that tremulous descent. That the dewily manipulative Ava (Maura West), the person she holds responsible for the death of her child, was still constantly underfoot, demanding cash and excessive favors from her family, provided this beleaguered character’s final push into murderous instability.

Sure that Ava was out to steal her younger sister away from her crime lord father (Maurice Bernard), Kristina cut the brakes to the car that was in her parking spot. Staying true to the dramatics involved with the daytime pedigree, the vehicle actually belonged, instead, to Rick (Rick Hearst), Ava’s lawyer and the father of Kristina’s other sister, Molly (Kristen Vaganos).

Thankfully, Rick and Elizabeth (Rebecca Herbst), his passenger, survived the crash that impetuous act caused, but now Kristina is sure to be driven even further into cascading unpredictability. Lucky (Jonathon Jackson), Elizabeth’s ex-husband and current paramour, quickly realized that she was to blame and Ava and Rick weren’t far behind him.

Now, Ava is blackmailing Alexis (Nancy Lee Grahn), Kristina’s mother, and once Molly finds out who injured her beloved parent, worlds are definitely going to be rocked. This will surely keep this nutty heiress in emotional crosshairs for the months to come.

It might even be conceivable that, despite Alexis’ fervent efforts, she winds up in Ferncliff, the serial’s mental institution, bringing even more exploitation goodness to the canvas. Last utilized when the trusting yet gutsy Sasha (Sofia Mattson) was drugged and locked up by the evil Damon Montague, a little misadventure at the hands of an unstable doctor could definitely make Corinthos-Davis redeemable again.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Va-Va-Villainess: Ann Savage

Published April 13, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Its hard to believe that in the 6 years that I’ve been writing this particular column that I have never profiled the divinely acerbic Ann Savage. For in Edgar Ullmer’s classic, very low budget Detour (1945), Savage (very convincingly) plays Vera, truly one of the evilest femme fatales ever brought to celluloid life.

Significantly, unlike many of the other deadly dames of film noir, Savage gives Vera no seductive grace. Instead, she imbues the character with a poisonous snarl and a devastatingly calculated manner. These qualities do not de-escalate for even a moment throughout the picture’s incredibly taut running time.

Indeed, as she traps the seemingly hapless Al (Tom Neal), a down on his luck piano player, in her never ending schemes, Savage uses an almost relentless sharpness. Nicely, the acidic energy provided by this less than typical choice assured Savage and the character a place in cinema history.

The fact that Detour, long ago, became a readily viewable public domain title surely helped a bit with this notoriety. Currently, it is available on a variety of free streaming services. There is even a colorized version to peruse, if so desired. Criterion, meanwhile, has also produced a restored, extras heavy version in recent years, as well.

Unfortunately, despite her brilliance, Savage remained a staple of the B-Movie set-up throughout her career, notching appearances in a number of sequel outings to such publicly entrenched, cheaply shot series as Blondie and Jungle Jim. Registering on a much more glamourous scale, she also was cast in such horror adjacent comedy-thrillers as Scared Stiff and Midnight Manhunt.

Thankfully, her work in Detour eventually made her a favorite of cinematic scholars and movie buffs, worldwide. She, gratefully, spent the last decades of her life attending festivals and screenings, embracing a much deserved, late-in-life success that had previously alluded her.

Further Viewing: Savage plays with a more traditionally catlike vibe as the honorary dame-up-to-no-good in 1951’s Pier 23. This noir quickie, which is stream-able on YouTube, may provide passing interest to Golden Age television lovers, as well. Hugh Beaumont, best known as the understandingly normal patriarch on Leave it to Beaver, stars as the typical money motivated PI here.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Review: it’s been ten years…

Published April 3, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Move over, Regina George! It’s now Alexis Queen’s Betsy that may just be the most manipulative ex-schoolgirl to ever breathe, creatively.

Indeed, this former cheerleader, one of the main characters in Cesario Tirado-Ortiz’s it’s been ten years since everyone died. a play about final girls is not only seductive, often destroying the hearts of her fellow survivors, but she just might be hiding one of the juiciest secrets to ever hit the stages, as well.

To be specific, the stage in question here is the Open Space Arts in Chicago, where Ortiz’s deeply psychological, yet truly fun horror piece is running until April 6th. As directed by Teri Talo, Queen imbues this love letter to our magnificent heroines of terror with an edgy sweetness that always makes you wonder just exactly what Betsy is truly hiding.

With the show’s major plot points taking place at a deserted psychological retreat in the woods, – nothing bad is going to happen there, right?!? – Queen is, unsurprisingly, joined by a strong group of castmates – Julia Toney. Noah Hinton and Alex Marusich. Nicely, the majority of Ortiz’s remaining characters are nonbinary and transgender, giving the show a very DIY, LGBTQ+ energy.

Naturally, our favored genre can only benefit from this type of exciting inclusivity and one hopes that there is more to come from Ortiz and their ilk.

For those living in or visiting the Midwest, be sure to check out https://openspacearts.org/ to find out more about this love letter to slashers and the powerful, sometimes deeply damaged women who make them so relatable.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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