The Supreme Reign of Batty Connie

Published July 31, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

Nothing makes me happier than a femme identifying slasher as the primary character in some ghoul stained epic. Horror has a number of them – with Pamela Voorhees from the original Friday the 13th, naturally, leading the top of the list. More recent additions include the titular subjects in projects like Lisa Frankenstein, Abigail and MaXXXine. These cinematic vixens have been completely unafraid to shed a little blood to get exactly what they want. 

Nicely, soaps have also given us a few of their own twisted ovarian baddies over the past couple years. 

Currently, the legendary Colleen Zenk has been careening her way across Genoa City on The Young and the Restless. After burning down a prison and pushing a recovering alcoholic (played by talented soap hopper Brian Gaskill) into the path of a moving vehicle, her demented Aunt Jordan has wound up with a huge casualty list. On that other network, Alley Mills deservedly won an Emmy for enacting Heather Webber’s latest reign of terror on General Hospital. As the poison wielding The Hook, she carved her way through both day and contract players alike with a Michael Myers sized abandon. 

Days of our Lives has not been idle either. In 2023, comedienne Kim Coles threw a dramatic twist into her resume by playing the murderously delusional Whitley King. King kidnapped the show’s longstanding hero Abe Carver (James Reynolds), nearly killing him and his beloved daughter (Sal Stowers) before she was apprehended. This summer, meanwhile, Julie Dove’s zany Connie Viniski is striking fear into the hearts of male Salemites, in and out of Horton Square. While Connie had made a couple minor appearances previously, recent surprise plot revelations have placed her squarely behind the knife that killed the suave Li (Remington Hoffman) over six months ago. 

Joyfully, her reign of terror has just begun. In order to keep her dastardly secret, Viniski recently stabbed the show’s (hopefully) resilient police commissioner Rafe (Galen Gering) in the back. That this crime took place over an open grave in a cemetery only added to it’s delightful macabre intensity. Now Connie seems to also be targeting Robert Stein (Blake Berris), her wicked co-conspirator, and Gabi (Cherie Jimenez), Rafe’s manipulative businesswoman sister. Of course, Connie is sure to talk over any plans she might make with her favorite conjured entity. The ghost-like apparition of Li is now a permanent resident at her breakfast table.

Importantly, despite her often-delusionary actions, Dove has added an almost chirpy innocence to Connie’s increasingly malevolent personality here. This little something extra has certainly endeared her to audiences – even as the character cuts a swath through the heart of their favored city. In fact, if Dove continues to add this sense of quirky charm to the role, Viniski will certainly become one of the show’s most memorable modern-day villainesses.  

At the very least, the weeks ahead are sure to be sparkly, bloody fun – particularly for those, like me, who relate to the subtle flourishes of insecurity that percolate throughout Viniski’s vengeful exterior!

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

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Rhonda in the Beyond

Published July 22, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

My boyfriend in Chicago in the early ’90s was best friends & occasional roommates with a talented actress named Rhonda Reynolds. Rhonda and I weren’t incredibly close…horror films made her physically squirm in discomfort…but she once acted in a short play that I wrote, and we had many of the same musical likes. In fact, I still have the L7 shirt that she got for me when she saw them open for The Beastie Boys in Chicago. Her future husband Robb was also a talented bassist. Robb and I spent one Saturday evening, in the Wicker Park apartment that I shared with Kelly – the afore mentioned boyfriend, pouring through my CDs and cassette tapes, listening to the latest Fugazi and other alt-rock/punk gems.

In 1994, Wreck, Robb’s band, released an LP on C/Z Records and they went on tour. I went to the kick off show with Kelly and Rhonda – procuring another band shirt that I had for decades. Rhonda, herself, soon took off for Los Angeles, landing a prominent gig opposite Lloyd Bridges in a sexy TV film about a small-town scandal called Secret Sins of the Father.

Going the way of many first relationships, Kelly and I broke up that fall. We did keep in touch for a handful of years after that, though, and I learned through him that Rhonda was landing other nighttime gigs, here and there. But my ears really perked up when I found out that she secured a job playing a ghost on an episode of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, a syndicated anthology series that was many a young genre fan’s entree into the macabre. I never could figure out when her episode was airing, though, and as the years passed, it became just one of the many interesting factoids that decorated the background of my existence.

Of course, as I age, nostalgia is ever nipping at my heels and, in a flush of newfound determination, I recently found her segment online. As you can see from the photos alone, she played her character, an apparition warning a family against impending dangers, with an ethereal potence. Of course, my viewing was amplified by my experience with her in my theater salad days and my sincere gratitude for having lived a life surrounded by so many uniquely creative individuals. But you can judge for yourself at….

A Spirited Update:

All these years later, Robb and Rhonda are still continuing their artistic journeys  — this time through the culinary arts. Their restaurant Masa, a celebration of Chicago style Deep Dish pizza, in East-Central Los Angeles is a smashing success with both locals and the city’s many visitors. 

https://www.masaofechopark.com/

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Cyndi Lauper

Published July 15, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

The recent announcement of Cyndi Lauper’s final concerts sent me traveling down memory lane.

One summer day in 2002, I discovered that I had some time to kill. As I biked around Lincoln Park, I recalled that Lauper was doing an instore mini concert & signing at the (late, lamented) Tower Records on Clark in Chicago. I decided to fill up a bit of my morning by attending. 

Little did I know that side trip would turn into an all-day adventure. 

After purchasing her (then) new EP Shine – which served as my ticket into the show, I was sent outside to wait. Two hours later, we were led back into the building…and there she was on a hastily constructed stage! It was truly awesome to see her perform in such close proximity. She even broke down & shed tears of joy when some of her hard-core fans began singing along with her on latest ballad called Water’s Edge – probably one of my favorite concert moments of all time. 

We then were put in another long line to meet her. I, honestly, thought about leaving, but I figured I had already put in a lot of effort & time. When I got to her at last, she happily signed my CD….but just as we were about to take a photo, one of her handlers approached her & told her that she could no longer personalize the signatures as they had to leave soon for the United Center (where she was opening for Cher — coincidentally, for that icon’s own never-ending, inaccurately entitled goodbye tour.)

“Oh,” she cried, “I don’t want them to hate me! I have to let them know!” A very sweet notion – & a moment captured forever by the employee who was taking our picture. The first shot here is of her getting the news & the second is of her addressing the crowd. I suppose I could also look at the experience as a lesson in life’s eternal sense of balancing expectations. My photos with her are kind of funky…but I did get the last personally addressed CD!

One song that she did not sing that day, but one that ultimately served as the opener for her set in the 2007 True Colors shows, was Hole in my Heart (All the Way to China). Taken from the soundtrack to Vibes, the bizarre ’80s comedy that saw her playing an eccentric psychic opposite Jeff Goldblum’s equally odd clairvoyant, this number is an underground fan favorite. 

Of course, in this critically maligned offering that phenomenon was played for humor. It would be decades later before Lauper, playing a Broadway musical loving private detective, would fully enter the world of horror in the Sweeney Todd inspired The Horrors of Dolores Roach. 

A Land of Terror Tunes:

Additionally, Lauper’s quiet storm ballad All Through the Night was used to grand effect in the well-regarded Netflix spook show The Haunting of Bly Manor. Her almost 300 soundtrack credits also include spots on such horror adjacent television programs as Ghost Whisperer, Bones and Medium, as well. 

Tom Drake: A Queer Horror Cyclops!

Published July 8, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

1957’s The Cyclops is one of the coolest Atomic Era fright flicks ever made. Definitely influenced by society’s growing fear of radical alteration delivered via a blast from a foreign power, this Bert I. Gordon classic takes place in an expansive Mexican valley where giant lizards, swooping aviary nightmares and a muscular one eyed human Kong rule the land. The distorted, almost ambient nature sounds provided by effects maestro Paul Frees and composer Albert Glasser also aid greatly in giving this piece a strange, spare mood.

Unsurprisingly for this fare, the plot is a straightforward affair. A determined woman, searching for her long-lost husband, teams up with one of his colleagues and a duo of shifty ne’er do wells to track him down. Of course, a forced landing of their plane finds them facing down the afore mentioned giant critters, including one that has a striking similarity to the leading lady’s lost love. 

Bolstered by the presence of celebrated fright femme Gloria Talbott (Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, I Married a Monster from Outer Space, The Leech Woman) as the heroine, the supporting players also provide a celluloid smorgasbord for the happily invested. Lon Chaney, Jr., as one of the nefarious hired hands, hits entertainment gold with one of his animatedly bugged out performances. As his partner in crime, Tom Drake, the eternal boy next door, also shines with booze-soaked gruffness. 

Interestingly, there are several debates, online, about whether Drake was a deeply closeted gay man or a bisexual in real life. (He was briefly married to a woman at the beginning of his career.) Personally, any degree of speculative lavender in a old school matinee idol is good with me and Drake, whose credits include Meet in St Louis (with Judy Garland), Cass Timberlane (with Lana Turner), Mrs. Parkington (with Greer Garson), Maisie Goes to Reno (with Ann Sothern) & Raintree County (with Elizabeth Taylor), was certainly that.

Even though projects like The Cyclops, much to the joy of genre fans, became more of his bread-and-butter fare in the latter part of his career, Drake continued to associate professionally with golden greats. 1971’s House of Black Death found him sharing the screen with Chaney again, along with such terror stalwarts as John Carradine and The Beast with Five Fingers‘ Andrea King. His co-stars in The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe (1974), meanwhile, included Cesar Romero, House on Haunted Hill‘s Carol Ohmart and Robert Walker, Jr. 

Ultimately, those mini-budget epics may not have captured the zany impact of The Cyclops, but they definitely provide interested viewers with a queer genre king for the ages.

Television Horror Hall of Fame:

Drake also guested on episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Project U.F.O. and Kolchak: The Night Stalker. His Night Stalker episode featured two of the show’s recurring guests – monster-in-a-suit maestro Richard Kiel and Piranha’s Keenan Wynn.

Va-Va-Villainess: Jayne Meadows

Published June 24, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

Often revered for her comic antics, the surprisingly creative Jayne Meadows was also a decorated feminist. She often played creative thinkers like Margaret Sanger and Elizabeth Barrett Browning on PBS’ Meeting of the Minds, which was created by her husband Steve Allen, exposing society to important female historical figures. MS Magazine even paid special tribute to her upon her death (at the age 95) in 2015.

The other surprising side to the eternally glamourous Meadows has to be the aptitude she had for playing characters who embraced the underside of society. Emphasizing her youth and looks, many of her first film roles in the ’40s found her playing spoiled society types. There, she threatened the happiness of such stalwart cases as Katherine Hepburn (in Vincente Minnelli’s moody and gothic Undercurrent) and Anne Baxter (in the more lighthearted The Luck of the Irish). The whimsical Enchantment (1948) was a nice detour in that more seductive course. This feature allowed her to play a stern, uncompromising type against David Niven, the project’s charming lead.

A veteran of 6 Broadway shows before her screen debut in 1946, one of her most highly praised early roles, though, was in the inventive noir Lady in the Lake (from that same year). Here, her dexterity with language was revealed, as she often cut away at her dialogue with a clipped antagonism. Her character here was also more of a deadly construct. While her other roles hinted at the possibility of evil deeds, this project found her committing them with vigor and resolve.

Nicely, her latter-day work contained certain diabolical elements, as well. While her kindhearted madame on an episode of Matt Houston (1983’s The Beverly Woods Social Club) was merely rouged a bit around the jawline, her self-involved cosmetics queen on Murder, She Wrote (1986’s Murder by Appointment Only) allowed her to employ her way with a quip and an arched eyebrow. Catty and demanding, she simply steals the show out from under such experienced performers as Robert Culp and even series star Angela Lansbury, herself.

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

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Merle Oberon, Gothic Goddess

Published June 17, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

The gothic femme has had many celluloid idealizations. Off the top of my head, Vampira in Plan 9 From Outer Space, Carroll Borland in Mark of the Vampire, Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice & Fairuza Balk in The Craft all come to mind. My favorite morbid beauty may not be as obvious as those choices, but her classic countenance and illustriously macabre credits make her the ultimate queen of the creaky mansion in my cobweb strewn book.

This divinity is classic movie goddess Merle Oberon. In her multi-layered career, the singular Oberon not only enacted the tragic Cathy opposite Laurence Olivier in the idealized ’30s version of Wuthering Heights, but also faced down moustache twirling types in two popular films from 1944. Dark Waters found her amnesic heiress plunged into damp despair as a middle age grifter couple tries to kill her for her inheritance. Aligning with slightly brighter hues, her pertly happy Kitty Langley faced down Laird Cregar’s Jack the Ripper-like Mr. Slade in the fog strewn The Lodger. 

Interestingly, even one of her more traditionally romantic pictures has a moody patina about it. 1948’s Night Song saw her Cathy Mallory, a distinguished society belle, pretending to be blind in order to lure a sightless composer, Dana Andrews’ bitter Dan Evans, into her heart. Of course, even in post-50s Hollywood, this must have seemed like an ignorant screenwriting choice. Still, Andrews and Oberon give their characters a bit of regal undercurrent, especially as Evans discovers Mallory’s deception and, forgivingly, offers his affections to her in the final moments.

Adding a slight scent of danger to her celluloid allure, Oberon also enacted variations on the noir baddie. Deliciously conniving in 1946’s Temptation, she proved even deadlier ten years later as the seemingly innocent Jessica Warren in Universal Picture’s pulpy The Price of Fear.

Her own life story, though, may be the most tragic component of her artistry. A bi-racial child of rape, she hid her Asian ancestry in order to find success in Hollywood – a fact that only come out after her death from a stroke in November of 1979. The moody internal trauma this denial must have caused her adds to the texture of her celluloid legacy. The sorrow she embodied shows in her greatest performances, a lasting gift to movie lovers everywhere.

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

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Joanna Newsom

Published June 10, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

With her unique viewpoint and sharp, childlike phrasing, celebrated arthouse musician Joanna Newsom seems an unlikely choice to be a horror movie balladeer. But that is probably what makes the inclusion of her delicately punctuated Sprout and the Bean, used in both 2008’s The Strangers and this year’s The Strangers: Chapter 1, so cinematically effective.

In both films the song plays as the heroines of each piece, Liv Tyler and Madelaine Petsch respectively, celebrate a moment of solitude in a secluded home. Thus, the sweetness of the tune functions as a wonderful red herring. It is a calming lullaby that, ultimately, leads to an evening of twisted torture and bloody despair.

With talent running deeper than a knife slash, Newsom’s strange sonic world has definitely developed over three more albums — Sprout is featured on her simpler yet evocative first recording, The Milk-Eyed Mender. As 2006’s Ys and 2010’s Have One on Me are considered by many discerning critics to be modern classics, now seems the perfect time for the uninitiated to take a deep dive into her singular catalog.

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

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Death Becomes…Us!

Published June 3, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

In her 2010 documentary I Am Nancy, actress Heather Langenkamp examined why the male monsters in horror, specifically Freddy Krueger, receive the lion’s share of fandom, including merchandising, while iconic heroines, such as the character she portrayed, are often given short shrift. As a gay horror fan, who definitely feels intense kinship with the sensitive yet thrifty survivors of these bloody epics, I have often felt the same sort of dejected curiosity. It’s definitely a straight ghoul’s world. Even when there is alternative abundance, it is often tempered. As part of the writing team of McFarland’s upcoming Queer Horror: A Film Guide, I excitedly found gay characters and lavender subtext throughout decades of film, but overwhelmingly, the LGBTQIA characters were often not at the forefront of the action.

There are victories, though. 1992’s diva-licious, camp-tastic Death Becomes Her, a favorite among queer horror fans and creators, has recently been adapted into a musical, with a Broadway opening slated for the fall of 2024. It’s pre-White Way try-out in Chicago, garnered enthusiastic reviews & fueled awareness that the book writer (Marco Pennette) and the lyricists (Julia Mattison & Noel Carey) are well attuned to what crowd has kept this thirty some year old cult property in the public consciousness. From the jokes to the musicalized rhymes, this is a show for every queen who worshipped at the fabulously catty altar laid out by Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep in the Robert Zemekis film.

Anyone who feels like they missed out by not witnessing the glories bestowed on the theatrical world by such age-old Tony winning powerhouses as Ethel Merman, Mary Martin and Pearl Bailey will find much satisfaction here, as well. From the opening moments of the show, Destiny’s Child’s Michelle Williams electrifies, bringing a Diahann Carroll meets Eartha Kitt energy to the stage. As Viola Van Horne, a more prominent take on the film’s Lisle Von Rhuman (Isabella Rossellini), she emerges from glittery cocoons and ancient sarcophagi, compelling viewers to follow her every magical move.  Megan Hilty, taking over as Streep’s self-indulgent Madeline Ashton, and Jennifer Simard, doing a crisp take on Hawn’s Helen Sharp, meanwhile, bring out all the delightful, irreverent, vengeful and awesomely (aka DIVA) fun aspects of the script. Their 11 o’ Clock duet, Alive Together, is a phenomenon – easily achieving and/or surpassing the heights reached by similar female-centric songs in shows like Wicked and Side Show.

So, yes, there may be 12 celluloid variations of Friday the 13th without a single fey gent in sight – but we do finally have this potion-perfect example of a musical to call our very own!

More information on the production and it’s upcoming run in New York City can be found at http://www.deathbecomesher.com.

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

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Va-Va-Villainess: Alison Arngrim

Published May 26, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

This took me decades to realize, but it’s so crystal clear now that I am almost embarrassed about my obliviousness. Some aging, glitter flecked homosexual had to have come up with the costume design for Little House on the Prairie‘s drag queen inspiring, all time champion baddie Nellie Oleson. This 19th Century troublemaker looks exactly like the twin to Bette Davis’ iconic Jane in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Sealing the deal, portrayer Alison Arngrim intuitively followed the flavor trail of those tresses and dresses, creating an indelible, much beloved (or is that hated?) character.

This perfect combination gave Arngrim’s rich and spoiled Nellie a nearly 7 year-run as the self-admiring tormentor of House‘s enduring heroine Laura (Melissa Gilbert). Her professional commitment even imbued a number of follow-up credits. Variations on Nellie’s saucy naughtiness can be found in Arngrim’s lingerie clad hooker on an episode of Fantasy Island and as a champagne swilling operetta actress in I Married Wyatt Earp, a 1983 television film. 

Of course, none of those enjoyable gigs hit the delirious brilliance of a manipulative (yet helpless) Nellie bouncing down a hill in a wheelchair, another visually reverential reference to Jane, in one of House‘s most famous episodes.

So, over the past 2 decades. Arngrim has smartly embraced her bewigged past – writing a book and performing a one woman show, nationwide, about her most famous creation entitled Confessions of a Prairie Bitch. With pitch perfect humor and startling insight, she weighs in on how Nellie’s nastiness has ultimately not only enhanced viewers’ lives, but her own, as well. A recent pitstop in Chicago even included a reenactment of her most famous exchange with Gilbert:

For information on further showings of Confessions and any other project announcements, be sure to follow Arngrim at https://www.instagram.com/alisonarngrim/ and/or https://www.facebook.com/AlisonArngrimFanPage,

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

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Shark Bait Retro Village: Strike Force – Fallen Angel

Published May 20, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

After being terrorized by Scott Jacoby’s Bad Ronald, in the cult classic tv film of the same name, one would think that actress Cindy Fisher would be a bit leery around charismatic, misunderstood strangers. I would further assume that this would especially apply to mysterious figures played by actor Judson Scott, a man whose piercing blue eyes and knife sharp cheekbones always spelled imminent and inexplicable celluloid danger. But, hey, a job’s a job…and playing a questioning spirit named Sunset on the Fallen Angel episode of the short lived, early ’80s series Strike Force had to be a fun one.

For those uninitiated, Strike Force, a rare failure for the Aaron Spelling conglomerate, specialized in bringing a sleazier, Dirty Harry vibe to Friday evenings on ABC in the 1981-82 season. Plotlines, over the first few entries, revolved around revenge fueled families who gruesomely decapitated their victims & perverted, low-class charmers who kidnapped, raped and murdered beautiful, unsuspecting women. Led by stern jawed Robert Stack, the regular (crime solving) force also included the prolific Dorian Harewood, former Australian pop star Trisha Noble, the handsome Michael Goodwin (who went onto the even shorter-lived nighttime soap The Hamptons) and favored character actor Richard Romanus, often utilized as the team’s comic relief. 

In accordance with similar outings, Fisher’s moneyed Sunset is sensationally whipped by Scott’s Johnny Lee here, after refusing to take part in a Manson style massacre he orchestrates. Fleeing him and his devoted cult members, she soon holes up with the Stack’s crew on a small farm. As Johnny and his associates wage war upon them, further casualties mount. (The handsome Shannon Presby, best known as the lead in Sean Cunningham’s The New Kids, plays a sadistically reverential follower who is arrested by Noble and Goodwin.) 

Of course, after the bullets stop flying, Sunset and the show’s regulars, unsurprisingly, have survived the opposing onslaught. But as the end credits fade, it remains ambiguous, a la Patty Hearst, to what degree the show’s shamed heiress with have to pay for her initial involvement with these sadistic degenerates. Nicely, the emotional resonance of this question is amplified by the work of Fisher, who brings both vulnerability and edge to her creation. *

* (Fisher would play a more traumatized version of this character a few years later on an episode of TJ Hooker. In Trackdown, a 4th season episode of the show, her young married is captured by Richard Hatch’s sadistic criminal, giving her another showcase role and a place of note in ’80s television entertainment.)

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