Hopelessly Devoted To: Gwen Verdon

Published March 9, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

One-of-a-kind Broadway diva Gwen Verdon’s work was, primarily, centered around her graceful onstage antics. Thankfully for devoted fans everywhere, she occasionally engaged in performances of the celluloid variety as well.

Most importantly, genre-wise, she gave a sexy yet sorrowful performance in 1973’s Deadly Visitor, part of ABC’s very popular The Wide World of Mystery film series. Based on a story by Fitz James O’Brien, a 19th Century fantasy author from Ireland, this particular episode focused on a young writer named Jamie (Perry King) who discovers that his room at a boarding house is haunted by a mysterious presence.

As Mrs. Moffat, the landlady of the specter ridden establishment, Verdon smartly uses her considerable training to sensitively illustrate the monologues she delivers to King’s Jamie. Widowed and lonely, she seduces the lad with a heartfelt need. Of course, when the driven & curious Jamie manages to capture and begins to experiment on the invisible entity, her character’s hysteria slowly builds. Like many a frightened heroine before her, Verdon excels in these moments of increasingly nervous activity, as well.

Interestingly, this teleplay was produced by Jacqueline Babbin, an entertainment juggernaut who gained fame for her work on All My Children. She is joined, behind the scenes, by another powerful woman, Lela Swift, who directs. Swift, who made a name for herself as one of the top directors of the original version of Dark Shadows, surely knows the atmosphere needed to make this story successful and several of the scenes here are truly chilling. In particular, Swift should be commended for the visceral moments where the audience can actually see the ropes, which are wrapped around the titular invisible creature, move up and down as it breathes.

Of course, fans of musicals probably aren’t too surprised by Verdon’s success here. As Lola in 1958’s Damn Yankees, she is the slippery incarnation of lustful evil. There, as the devil’s favored assistant, she tries to lead a troubled baseball player to the dark side forever.

Continuing this trend in the ’80s, but at a slight angle, she played a number of attention-stealing, nearly evil mothers in episodes of such shows as Fame and Hotel.

Of course, even though the theatrical lights dimmed, deeply, with her death at the age of 75 in 2000, she lives on in her excellent work, happily viewable with the simplest (yet incredibly effective) google search.

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

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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!

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The Last of Connie

Published October 19, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

Leave it to Jada (Elia Cantu). She finally got a couple of clues and realized it might be uber-perky Connie (Julie Dove) that was behind all the disappearances and deaths that had been happening in Salem all summer long. Of course, for drama’s sake, Days of our Lives‘ finest detective was always a step or two behind everyone’s favorite, truly demented personal assistant.

As a capper to her previous crimes, which included murdering Bobby (Blake Berris) and stabbing Rafe (Galen Gering), Connie deposited Melinda (Tina Huang), her long held hostage, in the lower-level vaults of the DiMera Mansion. After confronting Gabi (Cherie Jimenez), her mortal enemy, in that estate’s ostentatious living room, she added her to the cobweb strewn larder. Ever the amateur explosives enthusiast, she then tried to blow both of her captives up with a homemade bomb.

It was then onto the Brady Pub to eliminate Ava (Tamara Braun). With that bloodthirsty deed ultimately interrupted by the heroic Stefan (Brandon Barash), the demented damsel was finally intercepted by (the now exhausted) Jada and soon sent packing to the luxuriously padded walls of Bay View.

Overall, a fun, months-long jaunt, accentuated by Dove’s compelling eccentricity, this story’s long-lasting effects seem like they will be centered on the romantic contingent. Gabi now appears to be drawn to EJ (Dan Feuerriegel), the former business rival who saved her from the blast’s deadly effects. This puts Stefan, Gabi’s formerly ardent husband, into the orbit of Ava, the woman he protected and, much to Gabi’s chagrin, previously bedded.

It seems that Connie, whose truest aim was to permanently upend the lives of Gabi and Stefan, achieved her heart torn victory, after all.

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

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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

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!

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