Music to Make Horror Movies By: Pointer Sisters

Published November 11, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

Pointer sisters group

Sibling rivalry does its thing. My sister’s love of Beauty and the Beat by The Go-Go’s meant that I was unable to truly worship at its punk-pop greatness until nostalgia hit me in my mid-40s. Meanwhile, my brother’s love of Madonna and Olivia Newton-John left their charms eternally foreign to me. Another of his favorite records, the Pointer Sisters’ Contact, also came under my powers of derision. But a recent pick-up from a dollar bin has uncovered its darker, smoky charms to me. The popular Dare Me, for example, seems like the perfect background music to the violent cat and mouse face-offs that exist between such supernatural slasher icons as Freddy and Jason and their (often ingeniously) wily targets, Nancy Thompson and Laurie Strode.

Thankfully, The Pointer Sisters are still spreading their rich magic – one of their songs was even used on Ryan Murphy’s short lived Scream Queens – and showing the world how their blend of pop, rock, soul and (even) country music made them one of the world’s truly under-sung super groups. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/The-Pointer-Sisters-Official-131523497289/ –

pointer sisters contact.jpg

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

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Margaret Whiting

Published January 28, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

Margaret Freak

If Stevie Nicks musically dominated the third season of American Horror Story then, in a fair world, the brilliant Margaret Whiting would have been the focus of the show’s powerful and controversial fourth season. Whiting, who indeed had a song featured on the Freak Show arc, was a multi-generation hit maker with songs charting in the pop, country and easy listening markets throughout the decades.

In fact, her album Wheel of Hurt, featuring her last big hit, owes as much to the sound of Nancy Sinatra as Rosemary Clooney. The World Outside Your Arms is one of that offering’s most poignant expressions.

Whiting’s queer connections, meanwhile, extend to her longstanding relationship (and eventual marriage) with gay porn maverick Jack Wrangler. She also provided the singing voice for Susan Hayward’s proud Helen Lawson in the camp classic Valley of the Dolls.

Margaret Capital

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

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Horror, She Wrote: Alice Krige

Published November 17, 2017 by biggayhorrorfan

Alice K 1

Horror, She Wrote explores the episodes of the ever-popular detective series Murder, She Wrote, featuring Angela Lansbury’s unstoppable Jessica Fletcher, that were highlighted by performances from genre film actors.

Show business is full of complications…professional jealousies, Napoleon complexes, cold blooded killers. The sweet Nina Cochran (Alice Krige) definitely discovers this to be true on Murder in the Afternoon, a second season episode of Murder, She Wrote.

The niece of the series’ stalwart Jessica Fletcher, a mystery writer who continuously finds herself solving real crimes, Cochran is accused of offing Joyce Holleran (Jessica Walter, Play Misty For Me), the evil head writer of the soap on which she appears. Of course, Cochran isn’t the only suspect for doing away with this callous doom bringer. Holleran has threatened the jobs of many of the show’s beloved cast, including the indulgent, adulterous Bibi Hartman (Tricia O’Neil, Piranha II: The Spawning).

Capped by a double red herring, this episode, nicely, allows Krige to display a full range of emotions. Fear and anger, naturally, figure prominently here. But true movie buffs may delight most to Krige’s sweet scenes with Lansbury and golden age character actress Lurene Tuttle (Psycho, Niagara, Don’t Bother to Knock), who plays Krige’s devoted grandmother with a daft charm.

Krige, who gave sophisticated and passionate performances in such horror offerings as Ghost Story, Sleepwalkers, Silent Hill and Stay Alive, also works well amongst the vindictive environs of Walter and O’Neill. She, wisely, plays off their characters’ inherent selfishness with a firm and determined resolve of her very own. …and while that surely doesn’t provide much love in the afternoon, as those daytime ads in the flashy ‘80s always proclaimed, it most certainly allows for plenty of delicious, lightweight fun!

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

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