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Peek-A-Boo

Published March 1, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

I had made up my mind that it was never going to happen.

But Channel 59 was playing a Saturday October afternoon marathon of neutered horror flicks – Halloween 2, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Carrie – all interrupted, periodically, with brightly announced ads for local car dealerships along with speaker exploding reminders about the playtimes of long cancelled network shows and newly produced syndicated sitcoms. “See Mama’s Family every Saturday night at 7:30!” and – “Go back to a simpler time every afternoon from 3 to 4 with the Ingalls Family and Little House on the Prairie! Unsurprisingly, that Little House time slot was a favorite at Eden Heights, the old folk’s home that I volunteered at every Wednesday afternoon with several other eager, socially minded classmates. One of the beleaguered yet incredibly feisty residents – she once spat at a visiting Bishop and threw the rosary that he offered her back into his mighty, quickly reddening face – was a particular fan of the show. Every time that I entered the home with my fellow ambassadors of conscientiousness, I could hear her bellowing from her bed, “1,2,3, 4! The kids are here! The kids are here! I’m gonna kiss ‘em then I’m going kill ‘em. I’m gonna kiss ‘em then I’m gonna kill ‘em. Then, 1-2-3-4, I am gonna make ‘em sit ‘n watch Little House on the Prair-r-r-ie!” She, quite simply, was my heroine.

Her outrageousness seemed on the same Zen-like plane as Patti Smith, a squawky voiced punk priestess whose LPs I had begun discovering in cut out bins, after school, at mid-range department stores like Fisher’s Big Wheel. Most recently, I had found her 1976 recording Radio Ethiopia shoved into a tightly packed, impulse buy side rack at a grocery store checkout lane in Salamanca, New York. I loved the incongruity of finding an LP that featured a song called Pissing in a River, which I was surprised to discover was a fairly mournful ballad about the fading embers of youth, in a supermarket that catered to grade school moms and the hopeful, soon to be tenured teachers at the nearby academy of higher learning.

That afternoon, unsurprisingly, Lou also had his own ideas about further education- in this case, my own. Gathered together in his living room to watch the previously described, mostly bloodless terror-thon, he nestled against me, leaning his head on my shoulder, breathing words of hysterically inept seduction.

“You can take me like Rod takes Tina, stud,” he whispered in my ear, referencing A Nightmare on Elm Street’s doomed couple.

I chuckle nervously.

“That didn’t end so well, Lou.”

“True.” Beat. “You’re no fun,” he purrs with a cattish pout. He’s a round, bald bastardization of Ann Margret in Bye, Bye Birdie, a film that my brother and sister and I have recently watched in this very room while my parents were visiting, gossiping about church business into the long hours of a small town Saturday night. Now, on a kittenish roll, he begins rubbing at my crotch in long, incredibly cloying circles. I shift away from him, decidedly uncomfortable, a fact that he just as decidedly ignores.

“Take me now, Brian, and I’ll buy you a flower and bring you to the prom like Tommy did with Carrie.” His eyes twinkle, a comic counterpoint to a statement that is not only desperately silly, but almost unknowingly cruel. It hits too closely upon desires that I have long harbored in secret. I would love for some handsome young athlete to proudly escort me to a school dance. Often I have longingly stared at schoolmates driving off from Homecoming mixers in cars with their college age sweethearts. How, I wonder each time, did they pull off such a seeming impossible, totally desirable coup? Even my dreams at night are filled with images of me on dinner dates with ripped n ready soap opera studs…and the fact that Lou so assuredly crowns himself as being superior to them in desirability pushes at me with a fiery force.

“Fine,” I say. “Let’s do it!!”

“What?”

“Show me what you got!”

For the first time ever, I grab at his pants. Leering my fingers at his belt, I jerk at it with awkward revulsion…pawing at him, almost claw-like, the way my mother must do with certain objects. I have watched her make the motions I am now making 1000s of times. Her right hand withered by a childhood bout with polio, I have had to help her open cans, latch the buttons of her girdle, reach for out of place objects since the early days of my childhood. Now, I am, momentarily, afflicted like her, the physical cause of my distress not some relentless virus, but the seemingly unstoppable sexual overtures of Lou.

For the first time, Lou seems a bit nervous, if agreeable.

“Let me do it,” he squeaks. Then, in what is probably mere seconds, but feels like a film-roll eternity, his black tweed pants are down and bunched at his thighs. I almost laugh at what their unbuttoning reveals. Lou’s underwear is luminously grandfatherly – large, white cotton briefs with majestic give. Standing there, momentarily knock-kneed, he hardly represents the “underflair” highlighted in actor-model Jack Scalia’s highly provocative ads for Eminence briefs.

Still, pent up annoyance rallying me forth, I reach for their elastic band below Lou’s smooth, rounded gut. Maybe he has an amazing cock? It almost might make this worth it, but…

No.

It is stubby and short – a thin 4 and a half inches. But I’ve started this and, as with the other awkward encounters I’ve had with older summer stock actors, I believe I’ve begun this, so I have to see it through. I don’t want to suck it, though, so I cup my palm around it – squeeze it once, twice, three times. Lou gasps as tiny drools of ejaculate start to leak from the tip.

Suddenly, a car door slams and the sound of crunching gravel echoes closer and closer to the back entrance of the rectory. It is my father coming to pick me up.

Lou’s eyes flare with mortified adrenaline. He hikes forward, dragging his pants up his nearly hairless legs, hitching his fingers into his underwear and pulling them towards his belly almost simultaneously. Boisterously calling out “Hello,” my father enters through the kitchen, as Lou scatters up the stairs to change.

I wipe my thankfully clean hands down the sides of my jeans as I turn towards the television. Jamie Lee Curtis, clad only in a hospital nightgown & what I can only assume is a very bad wig, hobbles down a long & winding corridor – a dankly lit path that does not seem to end. I sigh, as my father swings his head into the room and waves at me. I nod, my thoughts elsewhere. I am concentrating on Jamie and the path she jaggedly weaves down. I think that if she can make it out alive, maybe so can I.

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.)

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Nik Kershaw

Published January 4, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

Growing up in a small town, I often had to rely on acquaintances from bigger cities to introduce me to interesting music. One of the girls I met at a theater audition was from a nearby metropolis and, while I tried to emotionally navigate around the crush she had on me – compounded by my own mild confusion as to whether I was ever going to wake up one morning and discover that I liked both girls and boys, she filled me in on some of her favorite artists. Nik Kershaw was one of them – and within a year or two, I figured out that there was a reason why I would so often longingly gaze at his profile on his second LP, The Riddle. I wasn’t ever going to like any Becky…or, as in this particular case, any Camilla, as well.

Cheekbones aside, I also really dug Wouldn’t It Be Good, perhaps Kershaw’s biggest hit. Driving that point home, it was included on both his first and second album, and has also been featured in many film & television projects. One of the more interesting uses was in a Body Snatchers style television film called The Annihilator. Featuring Catherine Mary Stewart as a flesh and blood reporter turned into a mindless, assassinating robot, Kershaw’s tune was definitely in good company in this project. The other featured song was David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes.

Nicely, Kershaw, who is now working some silver daddy magic, is still creating music and performing live. More information is able at https://www.nikkershaw.net.

Re-examining Prom Night 2008

Published January 16, 2016 by biggayhorrorfan

Prom_Night A number of years ago, I grabbed a huge movie theater size poster of the 2008 Prom Night remake off of the swag table at a film event. Now, I couldn’t tell you if I still have that poster, rolled away, in some corner of my ever expanding memorabilia filled closet…but I can tell you that I will never forget the look of pure surprise that came over a dear friend’s face when he saw me snatch it off that stack of terror filled goodies. There was no derision in his glance, as best as I can recall, just pure shock.

Recently, I was reminded, again, of how disdained that reimagining was upon reading Rue Morgue’s look at the Golden Age of Canadian horror, Horrorwood North. The original Prom Night, featuring Jamie Lee Curtis, filmed in 1979 in Toronto, is considered one of the original slasher classics, and, naturally, is covered, lovingly, in the volume. On the other hand, the 2008 version was mentioned at the end of that cherished terror’s profile as being “much despised”.

The original film, as many know, focused on the revenge fueled slayings of a group of high school students who had, unwittingly, killed a young girl through their cruel bullying, years before. Alongside the expected sex, drugs and…disco, the film also spent some time exploring how the young girl’s death had affected her family – particularly her extremely fragile mother and her sensitive older brother, who had actually witnessed her death throes and, eventually as the film’s dance fueled finale reveals, become’s the film’s vengeful (yet sympathetic) killer. These layers have endeared the film to horror sophisticates for decades. prom night 2

The 2008 version told the tale of Donna (a sweetly effective Brittany Snow), a teenage girl whose family had been slaughtered by her (Hollywood handsome) teacher, Richard Fenton, three years previously. Now living with her uncle and her aunt, she, hesitantly yet happily, prepares for her senior prom with her adorable boyfriend, Bobby. But, after Donna and her friends settle into their hotel rooms and begin to celebrate, Fenton emerges and begins to slaughter them. Donna is rescued by the police and taken home, but the ever resilient Fenton tracks her down and murders Bobby, who is trying to protect her. After a final battle with Donna, Fenton is finally dispatched, leaving the young woman safe but further traumatized, echoing the devastating emotional fate of Kim Hammond, Curtis’ character in the original.

Despite its critical drubbing (with extremely low ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic), this revamped tale took in nearly $57,000,000 on its original release, ultimately making it the 16^th highest grossing slasher. Perhaps, more importantly, there are a couple of elements in its plotline that speak directly to the homosexual heart. (Well, at least, mine!)

Reflecting on the film’s appeal to me, an image popped into my mind of myself at 16 or 17 watching a popular girl, at the small Catholic school I attended, arriving with her handsome, college age boyfriend for a Homecoming Dance. I remember wishing with all my might that I could do the same. But, I definitely wasn’t of the “in crowd” and there was no way that a guy was going to ask me to a dance in mid-80s farm country. Thus, I believe a thread of appreciative sorts is formed by myself with the reimagining’s heroine, Donna, who is doing exactly what I always dreamed of doing. (The fact that her relationship is ultimately thwarted is, perhaps, even another reminder of all those young crushes and sexual dreams that never quite played out, as well.)

prom night 3 Even more so, queer men (including myself) have notoriously been preyed upon by older men – whether in the form of teachers, clergymen or family friends – adding another layer of understanding and connection to this character. While, thankfully, many of the predators who shaped our younger selves were not as murderously insistent as Fenton, they have still left their mark. This bittersweet resonance is something that especially connects me (and possibly others) to the vulnerable Donna as the film fades to its jauntily strained credits.

On a purely fan boy level you, also, can’t fault the film for its cast, many of whom are besotted with genre pedigree. Firstly, we have the preternaturally attractive Jonathon Schaech who essays the evil Fenton with a black intensity in his eyes. Schaech who had, sexily, burst onto the scene with Gregg Araki’s gonzo The Doom Generation, has also made a name for himself in such spooky fare as The Forsaken, Living Hell and The Washingtonians episode of Masters of Horror. Linden Ashby, who brings a kind glow to Donna’s uncle, is familiar from such projects as Werewolf, The Perfect Bride, Night Angel and Resident Evil: Extinction, as well. Meanwhile, Jessica Stroup, who flamboyantly fills in the shoes of the film’s doomed sexpot, is most familiar to terror enthusiasts as the female lead in 2007’s The Hills Have Eyes II, but her other roles include ingénue parts in Left in Darkness, Pray for Morning and Vampire Bats (with Lucy Lawless). Most importantly, perhaps, in one of the film’s best scenes, The Blair Witch Project’s Joshua Leonard appears as a hotel bellhop who is slaughtered as part of Fenton’s vicious revenge campaign. Fun! prom night 4

But more than that, Prom Night 2008 shows that even the most reviled celluloid can resonant as art and fulfill viewers emotional needs when viewed in the right context. Or, more simply, as another friend has stated, “There are no guilty pleasures. Just pleasures!”

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