Queer Horror: Rondo Contender

Published March 16, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Blow those jagged, limb-shaped trumpets! Queer Horror: A Film Guide has been nominated for a Rondo Award for Book of the Year!

This is especially cool since we’ve been named alongside such excellent publications as I SPIT ON YOUR CELLULOID: The History of Women Directing Horror Films, by Heidi Honeycutt. This also feels like a congratulatory vindication for Sean Abley and Tyler Doupé , our brilliant editors, who, for almost 10 years, guided this book from various scattered entries into a polished volume celebrating all that is LGBTQIA in fright movies.

Naturally, I’ve attached the link to the ballot here:

http://www.rondoaward.com/rondoaward.com/blog/

You can copy and paste it and send it along in an email to taraco@aol.com, if you’d like to vote. You have the option of marking your picks in all of the categories — or simply limiting it the one or two that you are most aware of and/or most passionate about.

& if brevity is indeed your bag – I have to say that CATEGORY 11 is an incredibly interesting option.

Hint, hint, hint…

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 I will share some of those unpublished essays here, from time to time.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

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

Hipster-Restaurant Regan & the Queer Book of Horror

Published December 31, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

As with many physical media collectors, my stacks of films are ever growing and sometimes years will pass before I watch something that I purchased at some dusky garage sale or found for supercheap online. Naturally, my bounty was further enhanced with the unfortunate decline of neighborhood video stores. I, for one, could not resist even the shoddiest looking homegrown horror flick if it was only going to cost me a buck or two. One night, while at my restaurant gig, one of my tables commented on whatever movie related t-shirt I was wearing at the time. We started chatting about films and I discovered one of them had appeared as an extra in one of the low budget terror extravaganzas that I had recently picked up. “I was the girl who pukes at the frat party in Terror at Baxter U,” she informed me, somewhat sheepishly. Photo ops, naturally, ensued.

Due to that encounter, I sped up my timeline for viewing this particular oddity. I found it to have its own set of weird, low budget charms – the most significant being the strange reveal of a May-December romance between an aged professor and one of his male pupils, resulting in a kind of extreme take on the Billy-Stu dynamic from the original Scream. Furthering the story, I was asked, soon after, to be one of a several essayists for an encyclopedia style book about queer characters and themes in horror films. Naturally, Baxter found itself a major place in my writing for that.

Flashforward almost 10 years and that book is finally almost ready for release. Thus, I send a word of thanks out to my very own hipster-restaurant Regan and, wherever she may be, I hope she is proud, in her own way, of the literary conduct that she inspired.

Meanwhile, more information on Queer Horror: A Film Guide is available from the publisher at:

Queer Horror – McFarland (mcfarlandbooks.com)

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

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan