Review: Honey

Published November 25, 2016 by biggayhorrorfan

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Is there such a thing as domestic bliss? Well, when you are brilliant artist-cartoonist Corinne Halbert there is!

Honey, Halbert’s latest comic details the adventures of the world’s happiest couple. Who cares if one of them just happens to be dead? And…well…rotting?!? Often hilarious, completely twisted and surprisingly sweet, this work just might prove to be Halbert, known for the savagely cool Hate Baby, at her best.

Imbued with her love of horror and the sexually bizarre (or is that normal?), Honey is available for purchase from Halbert at http://corinnehalbert.bigcartel.com/

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

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Joi Lansing

Published November 20, 2016 by biggayhorrorfan

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Nobody messes with a woman who can play a character named Boots Malone. …and nobody can replace the silky magic and larger than life pin-up appeal provided by the actress and singer known as Joi Lansing. Lansing, who played Malone in the ridiculously bad horror comedy Hillbillies in a Haunted House, had such presence that even her cameos in classic films such as Easter Parade and Singin’ in the Rain held maximum impact. Of course, she also graced such cult fare as Queen of Outer Space, Orson Welles’ well regarded Touch of Evil and Bigfoot, providing silky star power to those efforts, as well.

Always a lady, with reports that she vehemently objected to efforts to mar her appearance after her character was kidnapped by the titular beast in Bigfoot, Lansing definitely provides smooth and sophisticated sensuality as she warbles Web of Love, a classic Scopitone that contains many elements of ‘50s exploitation efforts, as well.

Be sure to visit www.joilansing.com – a site dedicated to honoring Lansing’s memory – and until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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My Facebook

Published November 19, 2016 by biggayhorrorfan

“That sounds fancy…”

Horror shorts are a variable bunch – some have great effects, others have a great concept. Many don’t come together as one delicious whole, though.

But with My Facebook, written, directed, edited and scored by the openly gay Carl Kelsch, viewers soon discover that something that starts with a fairly traditional opening can, ultimately, contain some gruesome, comic gold.

Acted with winking restraint by Christina Marie Thokey and Laurence Thokey, Jr., this tale of a first date overrun by one participant’s social media obsession is fun, clever and contains an ending that will make your very follicles bristle with delight.

Be sure to check it out at:

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

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Stalking Ilan

Published November 17, 2016 by biggayhorrorfan

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Aw…all he really ever wanted was love. Indeed, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, best known as Wyatt, part of the awkward duo that helped create a magically scintillating temptress in the popular science fiction comedy Weird Science, ended his quest for the perfect woman with his final acting role on a steamy episode of the syndicated series Silk Stalkings.

The television version of the straight-to-video thriller that clogged the HBO and Showtime airways throughout the ’80s and the ’90s, Silk Stalkings was a weekly Femme Fatales magazine come to life. Featuring gorgeous women who plotted and connived and/or who were often the victims of savagery and twisted sexual domination, Stalkings, as with much exploitation fare, also featured a tough, take charge female at its heart. Here it’s in the form of Mitzi Kapture’s razor talking police sergeant, Rita. Kapture often narrated the episodes with a ’40s gumshoe vibe and successfully got away with the show’s most humorously sarcastic lines.

mitzi_kapture_001 In this particular episode, entitled Men Seeking Women, a bevy of beauties are being viciously annihilated, with their fingernails being pried off during the death throes. Rita and her partner Chris, played by the unbelievably handsome Rob Estes, soon determine a serial killer is at work, targeting females who have posted in a singles magazine. Rita sets herself up as bait and, unwittingly, allows Mitchell-Smith’s nervously quiet Gabriel Evans access to her home address. Indeed, playing against expectations (but without any real surprises), it is the meek Evans who is the culprit here and Rita is soon fighting for her life, with Chris, eventually, rushing in to aid her in her desperate battle. ilan-2

What is surprising is that, despite top guest billing and the fact that his character is the focus of the proceedings, Mitchell-Smith is absent from most of the episode. He appears in two brief scenes – his first meeting with Rita and his attack on her. Instead, much of the episode is devoted to Chris’ budding romance with an exotic dancer and his struggles to deal with her profession. It does, perhaps, add a bit of ironic appeal – contrasting the tough-ass too sensitive to accept his girlfriend’s exhibitionism with the meeker underling who makes a more violent display of his discontent. Still, Mitchell- Smith radiates essential goodness in his first appearance and a more pathetically destructive essence in his final moments, allowing fans to wish that he had continued in the profession a bit longer.

Currently, a professor of Medieval Literature and an enthusiastic gamer, Mitchell-Smith’s tweets prove him to be a fun and honestly liberal presence, deserving of following at www.twitter.com/IlanMS.

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

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Movie Review: Murder for Pleasure

Published November 15, 2016 by biggayhorrorfan

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The only time I care about cereal killing is on those mornings when I wake to find that my box of generic Frosted Flakes is empty. Writer-director Derek Braasch’s early hours, however, find him more interested in the mind of a surprisingly vicious serial killer named Victor in his latest feature film, Murder for Pleasure.

What is, perhaps, most gratifying about this bloody dive into the mind of a sadist is how Braasch, and his co writers Anthony Pellizzeri and Mike Miller, capture, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the mindset of an unbending patriarchic male with their lead character. Victor, quietly and thoroughly played by Nick Bender, attacks his victims for their supposed sins – promiscuity, homosexuality, lack of romantic interest in him, abortion – with the fervor of the religious right. It is a portrait of unchecked masculinity that is surprisingly representative of our current and often violent, misogynistic culture.

Beneath the copious amounts of gore and symbolic torture porn, Braasch also supplies some truly striking visual moments – a scene of watery child abuse is potent and a dream sequence that spells the end of Victor’s latest, unrealistic coupling is full of languid purpose, as well. In fact, Braasch works with a nightmarish quality throughout the film’s running time, creating an almost unreal universe where Victor’s crimes are never punished.

A bit too meandering at times, with major characters and motivations sometimes revealed far too late in the proceedings, Murder for Pleasure is still an ambitious project that lovers of cinema about unrepentant murderers will probably find very enjoyable.

https://www.facebook.com/Murder-for-Pleasure-535499069797697

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

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Leif Garrett

Published November 13, 2016 by biggayhorrorfan

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He spent more time with a staple in his belly, as a teen centerfold pin-up, than your ever average Playboy bunny. More importantly here, Leif Garrett, that prime representative of androgynous, messy blonde boyhood, also graced such horror epics as Devil Times Five, Cheerleader Camp, Party Line and The Whispering, throughout his decade’s long acting career. deviltimesfive

He was also, as so many male idols before and after him, a pop star of questionable yet, temporarily successful, note. Although, his vocals were often more layered than a Patti Page novelty number, his recordings are so fun and indicative of a certain era that they are, perhaps, enjoyable for reasons beyond nostalgia.

Indeed, his biggest hit, I Was Made for Dancing, is propulsively catchy and the video below shows he can wear a pair of black stretch pants like nobody’s business, surprising no one, that he effectively enacted drag scenes, not only as a child in Devil Times Five, but as an adult in Party Line, as well.

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

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Zine Review: Aversion

Published November 12, 2016 by biggayhorrorfan

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If famed exploitation filmmaker Jess Franco had been a young, queer Midwest writer then Aversion: A Zine of Therapeutic Vignettes may have been something that he might have dreamed up. But it is the talented Aaron Eischeid who actually offers up the first chapter of a very spooky and hallucinogenic world here.

In the first segment of this ongoing series, Eischeid introduces us to Owen, a confused youth who finds himself encountering a possibly lethal librarian type, a monstrous eye, a dead deer and an extremely invasive therapist. Presented as a stream of consciousness study of the horrors of conversion therapy, Eischeid finds wonderful details to concentrate on here – a fascination with a mother’s pearls, for example. The sudden surprise of Owen being caught in a sexual encounter with a classmate is delivered both with real life poignancy and bit of the fantastic, as well. All these elements add up to something original while retaining the bizarre and dreamlike structures of the Euro cinema of Franco and so many others.

Featuring potent yet simple artwork by Oats Redding, this first installment is printed out almost diary style, in what seems to be Owen’s own handwriting. Creative touches such as these should make readers of this newfound adventure eager for new chapters.

Aversion is available for purchase at:

https://paradigmshiftprods.wordpress.com/

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

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Jackey Neyman Jones: Bonding with the Daughter of Manos

Published November 10, 2016 by biggayhorrorfan

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Jackey Neyman Jones may rival Troll 2’s Michael Stephenson as the child actor in the worst film ever made. As Debbie in Manos: The Hands of Fate, one of the most popular spoofed movies on Mystery Science Theater 3000, Neyman Jones found herself encountering long desert drives, lost pets, billowing cult members and overwhelming gray couches in one of the most notoriously awful (yet quite enjoyable) cult films ever made. Appointing herself Manos’ official historian, she has recently published a book, Growing Up with Manos: The Hands of Fate, about her adventures on the film and how it has impacted her life. Nicely, in a move that proves the enduring legacy of the film, Neyman Jones is also readying the world for the decades-in-the-making sequel, Manos Returns.

How did you get involved in Manos, Jackie?

My dad was doing community theater in El Paso. (Manos director) Hal Warren was a supporting actor in a number of plays. My dad often played the lead. At that moment, he was playing the lead in Henry IV. Hal was in it and John Reynolds (“Torgo”) was the stage manager. I believe William Bryan Jennings (“Cop”) was in it. That’s where Hal got his cast and some of his crew. They were all from that particular play. My dad came home, after he agreed to be in Hal’s movie, and they needed a little girl. He asked if I wanted to be that little girl. That’s how I got involved because I always wanted to be with my dad. I wanted to be where he was.

Cool. I did my first professional show in summer stock with my dad, too.

Oh, is that right? How old were you?

It was between the summer of 2^nd and 3^rd grade. I had always wanted to act. So we both got to perform with our fathers. That’s cool.

That is cool. A little later, when I was 9, my dad was the male lead in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. The theater director had raised funds and brought Julie Adams (Creature from the Black Lagoon) in to play Jean Brodie.

I love her!

Me, too! I got to meet her, in person, at Crypticon. I told her that she was in my book. I bought her book and that experience was in her book, as well.

I thought I had read about that in her book. So, you were in the show with her?

Yeah, I was one of the schoolgirls. That was the second time that I got to be a part of something that my dad was a part of. All my life, I wanted to act with my dad. Now, with Manos Returns, it’s pretty exciting. I got to pull him into that project. jackey-newman

Was the infamous Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode the first time that you realized that Manos had a cult following?

Manos was something that I held onto and nurtured. I told stories to my sons. But it was gone. We didn’t have a copy of it. We never saw it again after the premiere. Nobody wanted to talk about it – (Laughs) except maybe me. So, 27 years go by, and my dad calls me. He lived in Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast at that time. I was in Northern California, married with a young child. He called me and said, “You’ll never believe what I just saw on television!” It was January 1993 and it was on Mystery Science Theater 3000. He was a big fan of the show. He watched it every Saturday. There he was, dozing off, and he heard something familiar. He opened his eyes and was just astounded.

Naturally!

Even then, I had no idea that there was a cult following. Since I missed seeing it that day, I did some investigating. I knew it was on Comedy Central. I knew there was a 1-800 number on the screen. I called that number. The guy that answered said that he was at the HBO offices in Manhattan. I told him that they had just shown a film that my family was involved in and that I had been looking for it. Now, after all these years there it was and I wondered if there was any way that I could get copy. He asked me what the name of the film was. I said Manos: The Hands of Fate. There was this long pause and he says…”Oh, my god! Are you Debbie?” (Laughs) That was literally the first time that I realized that anyone knew anything about this film, but me. From there… the internet was just beginning, we were still on dial-up…but I got online and kept running across little things about it. So, I began looking for things and started to set up my position as the person to kind of clean up all the Manos mythology. (Laughs) There was a lot of it. No one knew anything. They thought all the cast and crew were dead. Nobody knew anybody was alive. They didn’t bother to look for us. I started putting it out there. We were very much alive –

…And thriving!

Right…and thriving! I started cleaning that stuff up. Then I wrote a blog for awhile, just to see if anybody was interested in what I had to say. I also had to see if I could write, sustainably, and not just in little bursts. I ended up getting a pretty big fan following. I was surprised. I was getting about 3000 readers a month. Then I decided to write my book. That took me 16 months. So, I just focused on that. I couldn’t write the blog, too. manos-debbie

Now, there’s a sequel in post-production, as well. I love that the project is being created, pretty much entirely, by women. There’s you, Rachel Jackson and amazing indie film director Tonjia Atomic.

She’s amazing. It really is the will of Manos with the way that the right people have come together. They have passion and respect for each other and talent. It’s remarkable. I love Tonjia. We’re so thrilled about how this came about. Along with Rachel Jackson, we wrote the script. Well, mostly, they did. (Laughs) They keep giving me first billing which isn’t fair. I love Manos Returns. I love the story. I love the angle. Tonjia and Joe Sherlock, the director of photography, have both been making independent films for awhile, but with zero budgets. We were so excited to give them a budget, as small as it is. It’s just incredible. I know there is a lot of people out there who think that we are intentionally making a bad film. But I, honestly, think we are going to get a lot of notice because our budget is so tiny and yet it looks and sounds so good. That’s all because of the passion and how much talent that people willingly brought to the table.

It’s all part of an incredible and unlikely legacy!

I was born to be Debbie in Manos. The fan base for the film has the coolest people. They are really awesome, intelligent, innovative and creative people. I just couldn’t think of a better place to be. I want to do more of it.

If you are located in the Midwest, be sure to join Jackey this weekend in Chicago for two incredible events. On Friday, 11/11/16, she will be at the Music Box Theatre for a screening of Manos and on Sunday, 11/13/16, she will be appearing at a book signing at Bucket of Blood. More info follows, below:

https://www.musicboxtheatre.com/events/manos-the-hands-of-fate-actress-jackey-neyman-jones-in-person and https://www.facebook.com/events/981307258645825/

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

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: The Pixies

Published November 6, 2016 by biggayhorrorfan

The weather is unseasonably warm…still dry leaves skitter down streets with a desolate gasp…and lonely paper skeletons, corners frayed from nightly winds, dangle, discontentedly, from the trees where they were hung, many moons before, in childlike celebration. Halloween has been over for a week, yet it still feels like anything could happen. – Something mysterious, something sad, something otherworldly…and as always, in times like these, the Pixies are the perfect background soundtrack.

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

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Review: Zombie Broads

Published November 5, 2016 by biggayhorrorfan

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Ladies and gentlemen, I know you’ve been a bit worried, but at last…my butt has been fully restored. Yes. After sitting through countless half-assed productions, often scribbled out by established playwrights, at such venerable institutions as The Goodman Theatre and Steppenwolf –Be honest. How many times have you thought to yourself, “Now, why the fuck did they spend all that money to do…that?!?” – I have been posteriorly redefined by some good old fashioned, gnawingly eviscerating storefront theater.

Factory Theatre’s latest production is a horror comedy that goes by the name of Zombie Broads. The title is a reference to a book club featuring many of the show’s female characters, but it is also indicative of the fact that playwrights Corbette Pasko and Sara Sevigny have focused the mayhem here around a series of powerful and resourceful femmes. It’s a nice contrast to The Walking Dead, World War Z and other popular forms of undead entertainment that, granted, contain some awesome female characters, but are seemingly more focused on the male perspective in times of apocalyptic crisis.

Here, former cosplayers turned survivalists, Maxine and Marco, are bringing up Shelby, their exasperated daughter, in a shelter style environment. Shelby, certain that a ghoulish uprising is out of the question, just wants a cell phone, a normal job and to be able to spend some less secretive time with her boyfriend, Alex. But sometimes the folks are right, and when Shelby finds out the dead actually can have real bite, she is glad for all the preriquisite training. If only she weren’t feeling so strange… zombie-broads

Nicely, all of Maxine and Marco’s battle minded compatriots are women and the involved and inventive fight choreography by Matt Engle shows these actresses and, therefore, their characters off to strong intent. Indeed, the audience emotionally connects with all of them.

But if I must choose a favorite…I have decided that I want the divine Haley Rice to be my best friend, in real life, forever! Her subtle, slightly bored take on Isabel, the saucy custodian who starts off the crisis, is comic gold. I! Love! Her!

Granted, the second act does lose some of the zippy breeze established in the first, settling into much more nihilistic vibe. Tone-wise, it’s a bit jarring, as is the semi- cliffhanger ending. But the uniformly enjoyable cast is always a treat and it would be damn hard to find original scripting as zanily courageous and heartfelt, amplified by Janice L. Blizt’s flinty direction, as this anywhere else.

Zombie Broads runs at The Factory Theatre in Rogers Park in Chicago through November 26^th. More information is available at https://www.facebook.com/factorytheater/ and www.thefactorytheater.com.

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