review

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Review: Resurrection

Published December 14, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

While the character of John Harper in Resurrection (1980) sternly resides in a small country town, he has little in common with portrayer Roberts Blossom’s best-known role, Ezra Cobb. In 1972’s Deranged, Cobb, is a backwoods denizen of a different sort – , a fan favorite psycho, based on serial killer Ed Gein. There, Gein’s exploits are proffered up in bloody, documentary-style detail, efficiently essayed by a wild-eyed yet blisteringly natural Blossom.

In contrast, Harper, while cold, is extremely pious and soft spoken, a direct opposite of Cobb. Indeed, Blossom most excels here in the moment when Harper’s long gestating rigidness dissolves into tear stained joy, proving the true versatility of this distinguished poet and performer.

Interestingly, this film, revolving around a woman named Edna (Ellen Burstyn), who discovers she has healing abilities after a near death experience, features multiple performers, such as Blossom, who are known for their genre credits. 

Most significantly, Burstyn was nominated for an Academy Award for her committed performance in the now classic The Exorcist. As she, powerfully, finds the nuances of Edna’s transformation from a crippled accident victim to peaceful wonder-maker, she was also, rightfully, nominated for her work here. 

Meanwhile, among the story’s relatives and friends, Madeline Sherwood and Lois Smith both give effective characterizations. Sherwood, a distinguished Broadway performer, had significant roles in such projects as The Changeling, often referred to as the most effective ghost story of all time, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Haunted By Her Past (previously covered here). Smith, also acclaimed for her stage work, appeared in the killer child flick Twisted and essayed one of her most recognizable roles, Adele Stackhouse in True Blood, decades after her appearance here. 

As Edna’s powers are never truly explained, there is a mysterious, almost science fiction essence working, plotline-wise here, as well. Interestingly, scenes in which Edna is examined in a series of college labs, definitely have a kinship to the sequences in which Regan (Linda Blair) is experimented on in Exorcist II: The Heretic, a film Burstyn seemingly made a decided effort not to be involved in. 

Thus, if one is in the mood for something quiet and mystical or even just looking for a break from overwrought bloodshed, this might definitely be a movie well worth seeking out.

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Strange and Unusual: Ethel Griffies in Castle in the Dark

Published December 6, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

As Madame Saturnia in the murder-mystery Castle in the Desert, the distinguished Ethel Griffies definitely steals the show. The last Charlie Chan film produced by 20th Century Fox Studios, this adventure finds Chan (then Sidney Toler) investigating a poisoning at the titular establishment. Beckoned there by a note that no one claims to have written, Chan is soon joined by his overeager son (Sen Yung) and Saturnia.

While Griffies, as previously reported here, has such projects as The Birds and Stranger on the Third Floor on her resume, Saturnia is probably her most horror-ready role. In commune with the supernatural elements, she spends the majority of the picture popping around a ruinous basement facility. Seemingly completely off kilter, she actually accurately predicts what is about to happen as every shady plot twist comes to life. 

Giving fully into the wily witchery of the role, the actress is a perfect foil for Toler and one wishes that these two characters had been brought together more often.

Nicely, while Griffies had often played up the archness of her persona in other projects, here she is all heroine – although a perfectly strange and completely unusual one.

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

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Shark Bait Retro Village: Children of the Night (1985)

Published November 15, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

A bit more serious in nature than many of the women-in-peril tele-flicks that populated the primetime airwaves, Children of the Night, first aired in the fall of 1985 on CBS. 

A fictionalized look at the life of Lois Lee, a doctoral student who founded the titular organization to help teen sex workers get off the streets, the dangers facing the young cast here are definitely nerve chilling. They hue closely to a sense of very grimy reality.

While rarely physically graphic, the screenplay here does talk of, and acutely show, the aftereffects of, the emotional, physical and sexual abuse the teens face. These are the circumstances that Lois, played by the reliable Kathleen Quinlan, is determined to save them from. Eventually forming a tight bond with the street-smart Valerie (Lar-Park Lincoln), Lee is soon housing her and other runaways. Facing off against a handsome pimp (Mario Van Peebles), she eventually gets through to Valerie, who as the credits start to roll, is shown joining her in her work.

As gritty as this exercise gets, there are still elements of TV Movie of the Week expectedness here. In the last arc, Quinlan’s journey to a darkened crack house is full of horror film jump scares. The script also doesn’t allow Peebles, who gives his Roy Spanish a quietly intense hue of evil, much leeway. Thus, Spanish is reminiscent of many of the smooth-talking villains that were seen on shows of that era like TJ Hooker and Matt Houston. 

But horror fans, in particular, will be thrilled that The New Blood‘s Lincoln, who sadly passed away from breast cancer in 2025, gives a nervy, full-bodied performance here. It is probably one of the best roles that she received in her Hollywood career and she, proudly, executes all the varied tones and stumbling triumphs of the young girl that she plays. Nicely, Marta Kober, another Friday the 13th film series veteran, provides a true sense of lived-in sass in the smaller role of Linda, as well. 

Indeed, the cast as a whole, including Nicholas Campbell (The Hitchhiker) as Lee’s devoted yet wavering boyfriend, has a sparkling sense of genre pedigree. Quinlan has appeared in everything from the apocalyptic disaster-horror Warning Sign to the 2006 reimagining of The Hills Have Eyes. Peebles, meanwhile, has lit up the cinemas in such cult oddities as Jaws: The Revenge and the cult werewolf flick Full Eclipse. 

Importantly, for those who chronicle the rise of LGBTQIA representation in media, the trio of screenwriters (William Wood, Vickie Patik, Robert Guenette) give a full sense of expressiveness to Marty, the gay hustler that Lois takes in. Painted as both razor sharp and exceedingly vulnerable, actor David Crowley takes this wise and human material and brings it to full, blood flowing life. In that era, when our community was still being painted, on shows such as The Streets of San Francisco and Matlock, as schizophrenic cross dressers, this well-rounded portrait is a rare and important thing.

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

Flashback Interview: Debbie Gibson

Published November 8, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Often as a journalist, particularly with online pieces, you discover that your writing has been archived or has vanished completely. Thus, I thought it might be fun to, occasionally, revisit some of my favorite work that was done for other publications. The below interview with the iconic Debbie Gibson was conducted for the Horror Society site in 2009. As the fall of 2025 saw the release of her truly inspiring memoir Eternally Electric, now seems the perfect time to revisit this sparkly blast from the past. First released in conjunction with this maverick singer-songwriter’s leading role in the initial Mega Shark film for the Asylum/Sy Fy Network, it is a joy to discover how present and exciting this quick interview still seems. 

There are probably few people as unique as Debbie Gibson. As a teen, she wrote, composed and produced a wide range of top charting, unforgettable pop hits. Then refusing to accept the teeny bopping princess pigeonhole of a one faced music industry, Gibson slowly began to conquer the theatrical stage with a series of compelling appearances in popular Broadway shows and touring companies. Now, combining all of the above activities with her social activism (with particular concern given toward the security of female youth) and movie appearances (including roles in the horror-comedy Soulkeeper and in the deliriously fun sci-fi scare epic Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus), Gibson is entering a new era of entertaining with a renewed enthusiasm and a grand sense of humor. Thankfully, Gibson recently took time out of her busy schedule to answer some electric questions for Horror Society. Rest assured that once you’re through reading, it is bloody well guaranteed that just like everyone else who encounters her, you’ll never be able to shake your love for the grand and ever eclectic Debbie Gibson!

Brian: Who were your first performance influences – Barbra Streisand commanding that there be no rain – David Bowie showing off his blue jeans – A trumpet playing, tap dancing aunt?

Debbie: Babs for sure! Hello gorgeous!

Brian: Back at you! LOL! -One of the things that I am really curious about deals with performance. As an actress do you approach a song the same way as you do a role – i.e. create a character – or do different things apply due to the circumstance-at-hand?

Debbie: Great question! Sometimes I’m naturally going through something in my life that applies and emotions just flow. Other times, I get into character. It’s easier when I’m performing a theater role I’ve done 8 times a week because it’s like sense memory – I hear the intro and I’m back in the character’s shoes so to speak!

Brian: Naturally! – Having conquered so many different show business avenues, is there a type of character that you prefer to play – the waif, the strong determined ingénue, the woman of the world who can ultimately save the world from fang-hungry disaster?

Debbie: My fave was Sally in Cabaret! I love her for her bravery and for the fact that she is totally unapologetic. She is who she is and has no edit button, no filter. The common thread between all characters I love to play is spirit and spunk. Everyone from Belle to Éponine to Rizzo to Velma had sassiness!

Brian: Very true. – What has surprised you as being relatively easy to achieve in your career and what was something that took you aback because it was much more difficult than anticipated?

Debbie: The “transition” into theater came naturally to me. It wasn’t “easy” but, it was effortless in the sense that it was a part of my history. What I didn’t anticipate as being difficult is the politics of the music biz. For instance, after “Summertime”, New Kids had no radio hits off their current album. And, there are 4 other smashes on it…..but, radio play can be next to impossible. This has always surprised me – that the music being great is not always why a song gets played. And, the flip side – there’s plenty of mediocre music on the radio!

Brian: Don’t we know it! – Now onto the horror! When performing in Soulkeeper did you find yourself longing to branch out and play one of the nasty beasties as opposed to just playing yourself? Or did your enjoyably humorous take on yourself qualify as fun enough for you?

Debbie: That was fun enough! I love doing tongue in cheek kitschy stuff where I get to mock my own image!

Brian: You do have a great sense of humor! Having done several films, is there one on-set experience that stands out in your mind as being unique and special?

Debbie: Working with Dom DeLuise in what was once called Wedding Band. He was genius.

Brian: Love him! He was so funny in Haunted Honeymoon! – How did you approach your role in Mega Shark? Did you spend a lot of time trying to get under the skin of your character or did you just decide to go for a very natural and honest approach without a lot of background work. (Both very legitimate options.)

Debbie: There was no time for background work! I got less than a week’s notice so; I just put tongue firmly in cheek and had fun!

Brian: Well, I think you did a great job! – What was the most unusual and/or enjoyable part of your time on the Mega Shark set?

Debbie: Working without ever seeing so much as a picture of the shark! Just reacting to nothing!

Brian: That’s definitely a tough one! – Now, do you find any fears you might have had of colossal bridge chomping beasts has been eased after your Mega Shark experience. Also, due to the tremendous interest in the film, do you think you would return for a sequel or for a similar project? 

Debbie: I’m now afraid more than ever to swim in the ocean! What if there’s a giant lobster? Seahorse? Speaking of…..I do hope there’s a sequel! Maybe I’ll go method this time and do some submarine training so I don’t look like I’m playing a video game when my hands are at the controls!

Brian: Debbie, thanks again! It’s been a thrill!

Gibson, of course, went on to appear in two other nature-wild extravaganzas – Mega Python Vs, Gatoroid (with Tiffany) and Mega Shark Vs. Mecha Shark. One of the early chapters of Eternally Electric also confirmed that she portrayed the birthday girl during one of Rick Moranis’ slapstick-charged scenes in the original Ghostbusters film. If she already wasn’t a legend…

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Review: Babysitters Vs. Vamps

Published October 31, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

John Carpenter may have made babysitters fighting evil a classic horror trope with 1978’s Halloween, but young women have been banding together to confront monstrosities & other forms of injustice long before Michael Meyers was seared into our consciousness. Whether it was Irene Dunne & Jill Esmond trying to figure out who was targeting Thirteen Women in 1932 or Lee Remick & Stephanie Powers facing down a criminal mastermind in 1962’s Experiment in Terror, female empowerment in exploitation has been an entertaining must-have.

Nicely, in Babysitters Vs. Vamps, gay indie horror director-writer Brian Dorton focuses his tale around Lana (Scarlett Freeman) and Michelle (Cameron Dorton), two longtime best friends, who find themselves trying to outwit a body chopping cult in a small Southern town. Utilizing a quick running time and a sharp sense of humor, Dorton seemingly utilizes mostly local talent to create a fun and gory, feministic story here. Although nothing truly overt occurs, the gruesome gang at the center of the action is also decidedly bisexual, an important & diverse touch.

Documentary-style interviews, meanwhile, set the background. It seems something deadly has been brewing for years in this providence, with rumors swirling about a possible vampire cult. Unsurprisingly, it is one of the girls’ potential dates, an amorous young man, who leads Seth (Dorton) and his vicious crew to the house where the girls are ensconced for the weekend, watching over a newborn. Soon a nosy neighbor (Heather Harlow) and a potential hook-up are in Seth’s sights, with Lana and Michelle being prepped for his final course. 

Highlighted by some impressive splatter and gallons of spewing blood, Dorton brings a quiet menace to Seth, acting-wise, while Harlow, a blossoming indie horror queen, brings the surest sense of timing to the obnoxious antics of her overbearing Deena, making her performance a standout.

As with many micro-budget productions, audiences need to have a forgiving spirit with certain aspects, production-wise. It also may strike some as odd that the titular creatures share little of the expected bloodsucking attributes of their more famous kin, ultimately coming off as more Manson like than supernatural. 

Still, this is a solid example of the independent grit and artistic tenacity that it takes to make something fun and juicily violent out of very, very little.

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

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Second Look: The Eye

Published October 25, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Almost inoffensively middle-of-the-road, The Eye, one of the countless remakes of popular Asian horror films that began to saturate the American celluloid landscape at the beginning of the 21st century, definitely has more to offer than its low critical rating & Razzie nomination might suggest. 

Centering around the nightmarish results of a corneal transplant given to a blind musician played by Jessica Alba, the film contains one truly great visual twist at it’s midpoint. Locked as we are in the assault of Trump’s prejudiced America, the story’s residual look at how women of color are treated, especially when they are saddled with a further sense of otherness, is surprisingly resonant, as well.

Alba, whose performance was widely mocked, is also much better here than might be anticipated. Visually lush in presence, she was seemingly made for the silver screen. But she also took this assignment seriously, studying for months with sight impaired adults. Thus, she gives her Sydney Wells a quiet legitimacy. 

She is anchored, cast-wise, by a young and bright Chloë Grace Moretz as a cancer-stricken youth. Parker Posey, meanwhile, as Sydney’s sister isn’t given much to do besides act protective, but she definitely adds glamour and pedigree to her all too brief scenes. Total Recall‘s Rachel Ticotin factors in, nicely, as well. Showing up, as other established talents like Betty Buckley and Faye Dunaway have done, in an explanatory cameo, she registers with professional pathos & helps lead the story to its bus burning climax.

DP Jeffrey Jur also adds some romanticism to the Pang Brothers’ original, fairly simple concept. With the determined nuance of a storyteller, he brings out all the rich fantasy inherent in Sydney’s career as a violinist in a major city. 

These small touches may make this quiet reimagining a perfect rainy-day sleeper for those who like their horror with a gauzy, understated quality. 

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

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Night Gallery Vamps: Diane Keaton

Published October 19, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Sweetness and light sometimes mask untoward savagery. Thus, as a skilled purveyor of the harmless and quirky, the iconic Diane Keaton was the perfect choice to play a character with hidden layers.

While the prime example of this is probably her well thought out turn as the promiscuous schoolteacher in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, a wise producer took advantage of this celluloid anomaly earlier in her career, as well.

As the brisk and efficient Nurse Frances Nevins in A Room with a View, a first season episode of Night Gallery, Keaton initially is all soft eyes and the queen of modest answers for her prying, bedridden employer. But soon the crafty gent gets Nevins to admit to a history of jealousy and violent rages – especially when it concerns the hunky chauffeur who has promised to marry her. Knowing that his young and beautiful wife also has eyes for the man, the ailing codger sets up the unstable RN, allowing his darkest fantasies to come to life without even having to raise one finger. 

Keaton’s effortless friendliness plays well here, naturally, but she wisely adds a studied steeliness to her characterization as Nevins admits to her less than wholesome reactions when under emotional stress. She is also perfectly paired opposite Angel Tompkins’ less than faithful bride. Tompkins, known for her work in such exploitation and horror films as The Bees, Alligator and The Naked Cage, equals Keaton here with a duality of agreeability and sin. 

Assuredly, the horror environment was far from Keaton’s hallmark. But for fans of the genre, it is nice to know that she had one small credit in that field before her sad passing at the age of 79 in the fall of 2025.

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

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Hopelessly Devoted To: Ruth Roman

Published August 10, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

Brash yet sophisticated, Ruth Roman was a dynamic celluloid broad. She lit up such nourish pictures from Warner Brothers as Strangers on a Train, Three Secrets, Lightning Strikes Twice and Tomorrow is Another Day. Whether sporting a sassy blonde wig (Tomorrow) or emanating patrician airs (Strangers), she always registered with a definitive presence.

Unsurprisingly, this aura continued to resonate throughout her latter-day credits, including a number of significant terror film projects. Her bombastic take on an overprotective mother in 1973’s truly weird The Baby is an important piece of exploitation history. Her roles in The Killing Kind (also 1973) and 1977’s Day of the Animals were less significant but were still filled with her patent gregariousness.

Meanwhile, one of her more interesting ’70s credits had her intersecting with two other queens of horror. As Adele Arnold, a retired big band singer, in The Disco Killer episode of Police Woman, Roman shared potent scenes with both Angie Dickinson (Dressed to Kill, The Maddening, Circle of Fear, Pretty Maids All in a Row) and Taaffe O’Connell (Galaxy of Terror, New Year’s Evil).

Convinced by Dickinson’s Pepper, the titular police woman, to take part in an undercover operation, Roman supplies Adele with a tough outer core underscored by a nostalgic, bruised heart. Portraying a character reeled into the mayhem in order to protect her estranged daughter (O’Connell) from a trio of trigger happy mobsters, Roman happily revels in being this story’s primary focus.

For those, like myself, who enjoy analyzing the background connections of various performers, the fact that Roman and O’Connell both expired at the hands of various monsters (both natural and unnatural) in their various celluloid outings makes them seem like natural co-conspirators as mother and daughter. That Dickinson was also a contract player for Warner Brothers makes her various scenes with Roman sing with a potent naturalness, as well.

Probably logged in as nothing more than a normal workday for all involved, I would still, time travel permitting, love to visit that set – if only for a brief moment or two.

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

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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!

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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!

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