Miss Hannigan: Stefanie Londino’s Villainous Triumph

Published November 30, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

As a theater loving grade schooler, I spent many a weekend afternoon spinning my Annie Original Broadway Cast album. Unbeknownst to me, those tunes must have found a way into the fabric of my soul.

Decades later, when a river of nostalgia carried me to a downtown Chicago theater to witness the 2023 touring production of the show, the lyrics of those songs came, instantly, back to me in waves of sonic glory. I was also surprised to rediscover how sharply humorous and grimy some of the show’s most celebrated numbers are. It’s A Hard Knock Life and We’d Like To Thank You Herbert Hoover, for instance, contain some truly black imagery.

Even more surprisingly, I had forgotten that Miss Hannigan and her criminal cohorts planned to kill Annie as part of their plan to abscond with Daddy Warbucks’ reward money. Thus, Hannigan’s comic villainy is shadowed throughout with a truly dark core. This revelation led me to further reevaluate the show and led me back to the theater when it returned to Chicago this winter.

Nicely, actress Stefanie Londino, who has played the role in the last two tour settings, also adds a bit of rock ‘n roll heart to the character, playing her with a combination of Patti Smith grit and Dorothy Loudon grease paint pizzaz. Her take is definitely a little leaner and meaner…and sexier than such former portrayers as Marcia Lewis and Alice Ghostley. One can even believe that Bundles, the laundry man who is part of a pivotal orphanage-based plot point in this show, would have gladly taken Londino’s Hannigan for a clean sweep across his sheets – a rather new factor for audiences, experience-wise.

Indeed, by adding a bit of saucy modernity here, Londino helps leaven the show’s occasional sentimentality. That bite is sure to appeal to people unfamiliar with it and its seemingly too sweet legacy as this production winds its way across the US until the spring of 2025.

More information on Londino and the tour, itself, is available at https://annietour.com/tour/.

More on this eclectic performer, who also fronts a band called West Side Waltz, can be found at http://www.stefanielondino.com/, as well.

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

The Witching Hour: Joan Fontaine

Published November 23, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

One of my favorite anecdotes about Joan Fontaine, one of my cherished golden age of celluloid greats, involves an opinion given by her only sister and bitter rival, Olivia de Havilland. After Fontaine published a memoir called No Bed of Roses in 1978, de Havilland supposedly sniffed, “No Bed of Roses? More like No Shred of Truth!”

That assessment is perhaps not surprising, though. Years before, in her only Hammer Horror film, Fontaine certainly proved that being an unreliable narrator was one of her cinematic strengths. As the vulnerable Gwen Mayfield in 1966’s The Witches, this Academy Award winning performer is filled with a whispered hesitancy. Naturally, the slight skittering in her tone indicates the fear that Mayfield has of losing hold of her sanity, post-nervous breakdown.

Cunningly, this underlying dread is taken advantage of by a powerful familial branch in a small English town. Hired as the head mistress of the local school, Mayfield is actually being manipulated for their nefarious means. Of course, as is the game plan, no one believes her once she tries to reveal the truth and it is back to the rubber room for her.

Thankfully, as ever resilient heroines before her, Mayfield grows sharper as the runtime expands. As waves of black magic mist around her, she eventually stops all rituals and pert sacrifices – just in the nick of time.

Nicely, as a bookend to Fontaine’s compelling presence here, there is famed British actress Kay Walsh as bestselling author and possible nemesis Stephanie Bax. Understanding this type of potential antagonism well, Fontaine is at her best when these two distinguished femme thespians go throat-to-throat.

One hopes that even Olivia might have recognized the beautiful symmetry in that.

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

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Va-Va-Villainess: Carrick Glenn

Published November 9, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

Before she played quirkily luscious victims in a duo of slasher flicks of varying pedigrees, actress Carrick Glenn paid an interesting visit to psycho street.

In an effort to boost ratings, The Doctors, a once popular, long running soap opera, began to embrace natural disasters, mad science and unhinged divas in the late ’70s and early ’80s. To that effect, Glenn joined the show as a short-lived character with diminishing mental returns. As Laura Young, a disgraced nursing student, she spent the winter of 1980 terrorizing the program’s longstanding heroine Dr. Maggie Powers (Lydia Bruce). Kidnapping Powers after a tornado wreaked havoc onscreen, Young was determined to prove to the powerful medical administrator that her chops as a caregiver were as keen as her clear-cut fashion sense.

Thus, labored scenes of a perspiring Powers, growing ever nearer to death, pleading with a resolute and ever more delusional Young were a staple that long January. Once discovered by Powers’ concerned friends and family, Laura went the way of most sympathetic nut jobs – the psycho ward.

Glenn, herself, went onto to delight many a horror fan as Sally in The Burning and Kathy in Girls Nite Out. Girls Nite Out, of course, is an enjoyable romp, where Glenn energetically enacts a typical coed college casualty. The Burning, on the other hand, due to Tom Savini’s special effects and several interesting cinematic angles (including Brian Matthews’ Final Guy), has become something of a modern classic in the genre. Glenn also gives her character discrete depth. Torn between wanting to maintain her virtue while also finding herself intrigued by the thuggish Glazer (Larry Joshua) and his efforts to bed her, Glenn practically vibrates with lusty indecisiveness. Her interactions are always charmingly honest, adding real life layers to an exploitive extravaganza.

Girls, though, turned out to be Glenn’s last major credit. (A short film, according to IMDB, marked her last onscreen appearance) While I managed to track down a pre-The Doctors wedding announcement, surprisingly little other information is available about her online. That several of her major roles are readily available for consumption may be the one saving grace of that tiny mystery. *

*Glenn’s The Doctors episodes are available for viewing at It’s Real Good TV.

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

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Halloween Heroine: Mary Carlisle

Published October 31, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

Fresh as golden brass, actress Mary Carlisle was a ’30s Ginger Rogers type, enlivening many a movie musical with a zestful attitude and an ebullient sense of pep. Nicely, Carlisle also utilized this charisma in a few creaky gothic extravaganzas, as well.

1935’s One Frightened Night found her playing (The Second) Doris Waverly, a sassy vaudeville-style actress who pays a visit to her long-lost millionaire grandfather. Her arrival signals the murder of another femme claiming to be Doris and soon everyone is not only in danger…. but a potential suspect, as well.

This fun throwback is further notable for the casting inclusions of Hedda Hopper as hopeful heir Laura Proctor and Charley Grapewin as the curmudgeonly Jasper Whyte. Hopper went on to become one of Hollywood’s most celebrated/dreaded gossip columnists while Grapewin would find celluloid immortality as Uncle Henry in MGM’s classic The Wizard of Oz.

In celluloid coincidence, 1934’s Murder in the Private Car, a more comic take on the formula, also featured Carlisle as an abrupt blonde who discovers that she is an heiress…with equally dangerous results, as well.

Surprisingly, after marrying James Edward Blakely in 1942, Carlisle made only one more film. Thankfully, for celluloid junkies, this feature was the oft-circulated Dead Man Walk. Featured on multiple, cheaply made horror DVD compilations, this spooky yarn features Mary as the potential victim of horror king George Zucco. Interestingly, not only was this programmer filmed in only 6 days, but it also has the unique distinction of being released on Valentine’s Day in 1943, as well.

Happily married for decades, Carlisle became a favorite of autograph collectors in her final years. This was a role that she, seemingly, embraced, leaving behind many heartbroken admirers upon her passing at the truly impressive age of 104 in 2018.

Hopelessly Devoted To: Lisa Zane

Published October 29, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

Many believe that a skilled singer can create visual tableaus via pure sonics alone. If that is so, then the atmosphere conjured by Lisa Zane definitely involves candle strewn nightclubs and back of house stages swathed in red velvet curtains. Due to her lilting continental flair, a Mediterranean breeze may also be an unsurprising guest once her voice begins winding it’s way out of your stereo speakers.

Indeed, Zane, best known to celluloid scare junkies for her measured and defiant performance in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, has often proven she is, creatively, much more than just Krueger kin. Her 3 recorded releases, containing many of her own original songs, are all unique and exotic affairs.

Val D’amour, my favorite, is not only filled with classic cabaret vibes, but gritty, street smart rock n roll, as well.

Track-wise, her take on the classic If You Go Away (Ne Me Quitte Pas) provides an almost rapturous start to the proceedings while the quietly slinky You Are A Mystery to Me eventually morphs into a propulsive banger. These opening tracks brilliantly clarify the rest of the proceedings.

To single just a few others out, Sweet and Rotten is lusciously sexy while Hello Lover is an honest look at sexual dynamics between two beautifully flawed human beings. La Paloma, meanwhile, plays best to Zane’s multicultural strengths while Good Night ends the affair with the perfect shade of content solitude.

Overall, a magical aural journey, Val D’amour is highly recommended.

This and Zane’s other recordings are available on multiple streaming services or can be ordered from her website – http://www.lisazane.com

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

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The Last of Connie

Published October 19, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

Leave it to Jada (Elia Cantu). She finally got a couple of clues and realized it might be uber-perky Connie (Julie Dove) that was behind all the disappearances and deaths that had been happening in Salem all summer long. Of course, for drama’s sake, Days of our Lives‘ finest detective was always a step or two behind everyone’s favorite, truly demented personal assistant.

As a capper to her previous crimes, which included murdering Bobby (Blake Berris) and stabbing Rafe (Galen Gering), Connie deposited Melinda (Tina Huang), her long held hostage, in the lower-level vaults of the DiMera Mansion. After confronting Gabi (Cherie Jimenez), her mortal enemy, in that estate’s ostentatious living room, she added her to the cobweb strewn larder. Ever the amateur explosives enthusiast, she then tried to blow both of her captives up with a homemade bomb.

It was then onto the Brady Pub to eliminate Ava (Tamara Braun). With that bloodthirsty deed ultimately interrupted by the heroic Stefan (Brandon Barash), the demented damsel was finally intercepted by (the now exhausted) Jada and soon sent packing to the luxuriously padded walls of Bay View.

Overall, a fun, months-long jaunt, accentuated by Dove’s compelling eccentricity, this story’s long-lasting effects seem like they will be centered on the romantic contingent. Gabi now appears to be drawn to EJ (Dan Feuerriegel), the former business rival who saved her from the blast’s deadly effects. This puts Stefan, Gabi’s formerly ardent husband, into the orbit of Ava, the woman he protected and, much to Gabi’s chagrin, previously bedded.

It seems that Connie, whose truest aim was to permanently upend the lives of Gabi and Stefan, achieved her heart torn victory, after all.

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

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Hellraiser at Leather Archives

Published October 18, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

There Are No Limits!!! —- But ONLY for every sharp-faced Chicagoan who JOINS US this SATURDAY at the Leather Archives & Museum for the Hellraiser Double Feature!!!

Attendees not only get to see 2 Clive Barker classics in the kinkiest body positive venue in town, but more surprises await them, as well – including a special Barker memorabilia exhibit & a between films visit from the doppelgänger of Kirsty Cotton herself!

Intrigued? Then check out the link to the event, below!

Fetish Film Forum – Hellraiser (1987) and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) Double Feature

Hope to see you there – and until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE,

Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Halloween Highlight: Slumber Party Massacre II

Published October 14, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

My favorite fall feature in (the late, lamented) Soap Opera Digest was their round-up featuring the performers talking about the horror movies that they had starred in. All these years later, I’m still thrilled whenever I discover someone known for their work on daytime in a terror project.

I grew up watching the CBS soaps, the channel my mother loosely watched as she went about her daily tasks. One of the plotlines that I most remember involved The Young and the Restless‘ then bad boy Paul (Doug Davidson). As many serial cads before him, he had gotten a mousy lass named April (Cynthia Eilbacher) pregnant. After she refused to bow into his pressure to abort the child, the two entered into a brief, unsuccessful marriage. Permanently rejected, soon thereafter, the quiet, downtrodden girl left town.

Flash forward: My senior year in college, I moved into an apartment with access to multiple cable stations and I was soon taping late night horror movies, left and right. One of my favorite discoveries was Slumber Party Massacre II. A zany, rock n’ roll infused cartoon, it also gave a nod to the complicated factors involved with burgeoning female desire and almost worked as a parody of the (even then) often by-rote practices of the traditional slasher film.

To my extra hyphenated delight, Eilbacher even popped up, in a series of frenzied flashback sequences, as Valerie, the first film’s now very traumatized heroine.

Earnestly, this past weekend, while prepping to interview Deborah Brock, the film’s writer and director, onstage at a film event, I mentioned how much the presence of one of my favorite former soap actresses in the film meant to me. Gregariously, Brock let me know that Eilbacher was a true professional and a great actress to work with. In fact, as a practitioner of The Method style of acting, she got so worked up in her audition that she ran from the room, crying. Brock followed her into the hall and assured her that everyone in the room had been very impressed.

On set, Eilbacher’s intense commitment continued. She would often rock, rhythmically, by herself in the corner or crawl under the set’s bed to prep for the emotional scenes that were soon to follow. A number of crew members, concerned about her mental state, were soon placated by Brock, who informed them that the actress was just getting into character and was totally fine.

Thus, the next time you view the film – hopefully sometime this Halloween season – keep in mind that Eilbacher truly dug deep, allowing you to experience the true depth of Valerie’s longstanding torment, adding a vital component to the cult film’s long lasting, overall enjoyment.

Or, thanks to Brock (pictured, above, at Laurie’s Planet of Sound in Chicago), you can forgo that serious look at thespianism and just focus on the film’s manic, guitar infused fun!

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

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Queer Horror: The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

Published October 5, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

After a 9-year publishing odyssey, Queer Horror: A Film Guide is finally a reality. For a variety of reasons, not all of my pieces made the final cut. I will share some of those unpublished essays here, from time to time. A link to purchase the book is featured, below, as well.

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

Writer: Rita Mae Browne, Amy Holden Jones (uncredited)

Director: Amy Holden Jones

Cast: Michelle Michaels, Robin Stille, Michael Villella, Debra De Liso, Andre Honore, Joseph Alan Johnson, Pamela Roylance, Brinke Stevens, Pamela Canzano

Beginning life as a script entitled Don’t Open the Door, director Jones heavily reconfigured writer Browne’s original work while still retaining that legendary lesbian author’s humorous, feministic intent here.

The plot, unsurprisingly, is typical ‘80s slasher fare. A notorious killer (Villella) escapes from the psycho ward, descending upon a group of momentarily parentless teens who are imbibing beer and pot while indulging in sexual antics. Yielding his drill like a phallus, the killer makes his way through the hard-partying population until the final act when the very pretty, very unpopular girl next door (Stille) puts a decisive end to his days of murderous marauding.

Low budget even by typical grindhouse standards, this film ingratiates itself by smartly emphasizing the real-life fear of losing one’s virginity with almost every death sequence and by broadening the perspectives of its feminine protagonists. Led by the subtly assured De Liso as Kim, the female teens here are more knowledgeable about sports stats than their male counterparts and gender stereotypes are subverted with all of the film’s maintenance support staff being played, nonchalantly, by women, as well.

Despite Browne’s involvement, the Sapphic action is ultimately understated here. Reversing expectations once again, the girls’ kindly coach (Roylance) is decidedly soft spoken. Only Canzano in her short scene as a carpenter gives off a decidedly gay vibe with her fun, efficient characterization.

Queer Horror

My Sweet Psycho: B & B’s Luna

Published September 14, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

In the last month or so, the crazily unstoppable Connie (Julie Dove) has murdered Everett/Bobby (Blake Berris) and kidnapped Melinda (Tina Huang) on Days of our Lives. Her reign of terror in Salem, the show’s homebase, has now stretched across the many weeks of summer – and with Rafe (Galen Gering), one of her first victims since returning to the canvas, still recovering from the effects of a coma, it looks like she may be sticking around for a while longer.

In a surprise move, The Bold and the Beautiful entered into the psycho femme sweepstakes at the cliffhanger-end of their Friday, August 23rd episode, as well. Then, the impossibly sweet Luna (Lisa Yamada) was not only revealed to be a twisted schemer, but a murderous one, as well. Upon discovering Luna kissing Bill (Don Diamont), a man who was assumed to be the young woman’s father for months, the show’s popular anti-heroine Steffy (Jaqueline MacInnes Woods) confronted her — and found herself drugged and locked in a cage. Many viewers, understandably, assumed that they were going to be treated to months of Luna furtively keeping Steffy hostage.

Surprisingly, the Bold scribes worked quickly here. Almost immediately, during her macabre conversations with the desperate Steffy, Luna revealed that she had murdered two men – crimes that she had pinned on her wayward mother Poppy (Romy Park). She was now planning to let Steffy die in the condemned building that she had trapped her in & then eventually convince the macho Bill to marry her.

Steffy’s devoted husband Finn (Tanner Novlan) proved to have some previously undiscovered Columbo in his blood, though. Almost instantaneously, he figured out what was up and had rescued his bone dry, mighty bedraggled wife within days. After a facedown with her angry Aunt Li (Naomi Matsuda), Luna was arrested and confessed all to her very teary, totally shocked mother.

Of course, Bold has made a practice of stretching out the storylines of the equally psychotic Sheila over the years. But sadly, weekly previews seem to indicate that Luna may be off the canvas for a while now. Still, the fun of watching Yamada, Matsuda and Park go for broke will linger in fans’ minds for many years to come. The powers-that-be should also be sent notes of appreciation for focusing, so dramatically, on their Asian cast members. It is still a very white, homogenized world on the soap opera format, and it was nice to see a little much needed diversity at play during this very fun, juicily gothic romp.

Let’s hope that there are more such stories on the horizon…and soon!

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

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