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!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

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!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

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!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

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!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

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!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Troll Terror 101: Godsend

Published March 22, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Somewhere in my media strewn apartment, there is a DVD of Raging Bull. I’ve had it for years, with every intention to watch it, but…

Of course, you can bet I if stumble upon my copy of 2004’s Godsend, featuring Robert De Niro’s other greatly acclaimed modern performance (lol!), all bets are off. That sucker is going in the player!

Before you judge me, though, let’s consider something. At the beginning of the 21st Century, after years of often stellar projects, De Niro seemingly made a purposeful creative decision to begin branching out into his (highly enjoyable) Troll Terror years. He did this via taking roles in projects like (the above mentioned) Godsend, Hide and Seek (2005) and Red Lights (2012).

Naturally, he was no stranger to the genre, having made appearances in the noir-ishly violent Cape Fear (1991), Kenneth Branagh’s pompous, sweat-tastic take on Frankenstein (1994) and the psycho thriller The Fan (1996). But it was with the poorly received Godsend that I think many critics and fans began to question his choices a bit.

A Mary Shelley-style Bad Seed knock-off, this film found De Niro in (spoiler alert) mad scientist zone. Playing genetics expert Richard Wells, he initially reads as kindly and benevolent. But things take a turn after he helpfully clones the dead child of Paul (Greg Kinnear) and Jessie Duncan (Rebecca Romijn). Upon entering his grade school years, Adam (Cameron Bright) starts to exhibit severe personality disorders while also beginning to act out with deadly intent. After some investigating, the Duncan’s discover that Wells has also imbued their child with DNA from his own psychotic, deceased offspring.

Bleakly impossible, the project wound up with a 3% Rotten Tomatoes score. But Bright, who visited similar territory in the bizarre arthouse adventure Birth, is actually truly effective as the psychologically twisted, less than originally named Adam. De Niro also subtly portrays the deep shift in Wells, bringing a chilling honesty to the scenes where his evil plan is revealed.

The fact that Kinnear, who was nominated for an Oscar, and De Niro, an honoree with multiple acting statuettes, both found this project worthy also speaks to its effectiveness. Wouldn’t any parent do anything they could to resurrect their suddenly departed offspring? A parent himself, De Niro surely responded to that aspect of the script, making this good kid-gone bad enterprise a repeat watch for me…and, hopefully, plenty of others.

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

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Genre Perspectives: The Sandpiper

Published March 1, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Its no surprise that acclaimed horror directors like John Landis have contributed enthusiast commentaries to profiles on such visually stunning old school creators like sparkling dance king Busby Berkeley. Horror films are often defined by their morbid style and atmospheric palette, and it is no wonder that its prime practitioners recognize the impressive work of those who came before them.

Director Vincent Minnelli is another of those lush golden greats that contemporary maestros often rhapsodize about. His pictures always radiate with deep color and intense style. There is also probably nothing more spookily evocative than the Halloween scene in his classic Meet Me In Saint Louis. There, he carefully conjured up dread and youthful excitement all at once. In fact, the cheering mob like quality of that sequence almost dominates & supersedes the frenzied crowd work supplied by David Gordon Green in some of his recent seasonal epics.

Nicely, Minnelli’s vivid hues and auteur style elegance are still present in his latter, less critically recognized works. Even in The Sandpiper, a chest heaving soap opera from 1965 featuring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, his visual flair dominates the proceedings. Taylor, whom he had worked with twice before in the original Father of the Bride comedies, is also crowned with the loving, saturated camera work that he provided such luminaries as Judy Garland, Katherine Hepburn and Lucille Bremer in their heyday.

Interestingly, Taylor’s against the grain artist character also finds parallels with many of the imperfectly singular horror heroines we have seen of late. As Laura Reynolds, a freewheeling bohemian who refuses to bow down to traditional expectations, Taylor seemingly finds all the strands of her own singular power and displays them, passionately, onscreen. Thus, astute viewers can find echoes of everyone from XXX‘s Maxine to Heart Eyes‘ Ally McCabe in Reynolds’ fiery resistance to conformity.

Now, one can only hope that younger (and even older, blindsided) horror fans will eventually discover all the wonderful genre coincidences that lurk within popular cinema from decades ago.

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

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Hepburn’s Flame

Published January 11, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Nervous, against the grain types were often Katharine Hepburn’s specialty. Unsurprisingly, the fluttery traits of the quirky spinsters she played have also found emotional root with the awkward titular characters in May, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, Rosemary’s Baby and a host of other femme focused terror fests.

Chronic terror viewers also know that secrets and murderous deeds often beat at the heart of many a gothic vixen. These attributes are something at least one of Hepburn’s characters was very familiar with, as well.

Working alongside frequent collaborators like director George Cukor and actor Spencer Tracy, Hepburn brought the high toned Christine Forrest to life in 1942’s Keeper of the Flame. As the widow of a revered public servant, Forrest presents a shifty figure. Trying hard not to detonate the image of her revered politician husband, Forrest keeps to the shadows, praying to remain illusive as possible after his sudden death. But the attention of Tracy’s Steven O’ Malley, a skilled reporter, endangers this.

Once O’Malley discovers that the calm diplomat had turned into a megalomaniac racist with thoughts of world domination – sound familiar, anyone?!? – he also soon realizes that Christine might have cottoned to this radical switch over, as well. Even more importantly, one very storm swept night, she might have decided to do something very definitive about it. A washed-out bridge is always very convenient for an accidental death, right?!?

Although, filmed lushly and with a sense of overheated (occasionally damp…. see above) drama by Cukor, the production of this all-star vehicle was apparently very troubled. The script was constantly rewritten – with Hepburn, who was devoted to Tracy, even demanding that the traits of her character be strengthened while his be weakened, as was apparently true to the source material the screenplay was based on. Executives and reviewers alike were also dismayed at the bad light the story brought to American officials and their often-questionable policies.

The fact that her character partook in a form of vigilantism also, seemingly due to the ever-present Hayes Code, found Hepburn’s counterpart in hot fire in the project’s final moments. This jarring sense of patriarchal morality, thankfully, is something we no longer have to forcibly experience as our celluloid femme fatales can often sin without death reaching out its hands for their proudly upright necks.

But, on second thought, (check Rosemary) is a devil baby clamping on their nips really all that much better?!?

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

www,facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

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!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

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