Review: Looky-loo

Published May 3, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

I know not to make contact with the delirious, searching eyes of the unfortunates on my early morning train rides. Disaster assuredly lies there. It’s probably why I can’t stand watching true crime broadcasts. Something bad really can happen to me at any moment in time and I, for one, don’t want to dwell on my imminent demise unless I truly have to.

In an artful way, Jason Zink’s Looky-loo takes us into the heart of this fear. A feature length travelogue of a serial killer’s journey throughout the neighborhoods of a city, done entirely through their point of view, this experimental exercise reminds viewers of how vulnerable they really are. What is especially interesting here is how Zink allows the everyday objects this stalker comes into contact with – a welcome mat, bathroom products, kitchen utensils – to really come to life here. The heightened colorization and savage utilization of these ordinary items really illustrates a true invasion of personal space, resulting in visual takes that remain in the consciousness long after the film ends.

Zink should also be commended for always taking risks with his art. While 2014’s Night Terrors celebrated more traditional horror. his 2019 feature Straight Edge Kegger was a gritty, punk infused exploitation flick. Looky-loo, which might be more at home in a museum of contemporary art than a movie theater, continues that determined evolution with varied, almost Warhol-ian results.

Learn more about Zink and his work at https://www.facebook.com/weirdontoppictures.

Hopelessly Devoted to: Lynn Anderson

Published January 8, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

Ten years before Crystal Gayle was nearly killed by Another World‘s Sin Stalker, another country music legend perfected her own version of the final girl dance on an 1977 episode of celebrated detective show Starsky and Hutch. That offering’s terrified canary was multi hit making Lynn Anderson, in her one major acting role. But lest one discount the macabre charms of this vibrant blonde entertainer, Anderson’s connections to the genre are multi-fold. Her songs have been utilized in such fin-tastic genre projects as Jaws, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged and (the less amphibian) Zodiac. (If those aren’t scary enough for you, Anderson’s other major television credit that year was an appearance on the notoriously belittled The Brady Bunch Variety Show.)

Here, the Rose Garden singer is Sue Ann Grainger, an on-the-rise Honky-Tonk chanteuse. Luckily for Sue Ann, series regular Hutch (David Soul) is a big fan. As the creepy calls she’s been receiving for months turn deadly, the sun tossed officer and his partner Starsky immediately get in line to help save the day. In between confidently performing songs from Wrap Your Love All Around Your Man, her current LP, Anderson does an admirable job of acting out her character’s path from casually confident to completely frightened. With that latter emotion in full display, the best sequence occurs when Sue Ann’s tormentor (a raspy, shifty eyed Joshua Bryant) traps her in a recording studio, taunting her maniacally from the booth. Veteran television director George McCowan, who also helmed Frogs (with Ray Milland & Joan Van Ark) and the television terror Murder on Flight 502, does a skilled job with this scenario, using reflective surfaces and layered angles to cinematically capture his heroine’s traumatized actions.

Ultimately, like many a Laurie Strode wannabe, Sue Ann decides to take her fate into her own hands, confronting her attacker in an abandoned warehouse. Thankfully, with the help of the series’ titular duo, she lives to produce another backwoods love ballad or two. Anderson herself continued with her musical career throughout the decades, even earning a Grammy nomination in 2005 for a Bluegrass effort, before her untimely death of a heart attack in 2015. (Girl Group sound enthusiasts, meanwhile, are encouraged to check out her late ’60s recordings on Chart Records – an era that many vinyl connoisseurs determine to be her best.)

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

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Chaka Khan

Published December 1, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

There is probably one scene in 1981’s The Fan that queer horror freaks remember even more than all those glorious Lauren Bacall production numbers. Of course, that is the moment when Michael Biehn’s twisted Douglas Breen picks up a similar looking man (Terrence Marinan) in a gay bar. While problematic, showing another instance of society’s perception of the homosexual male as a victim, it also truly resonated with a generation who wasn’t used to representation of any sort on the silver screen.

Playing, perhaps ironically, in the background as this deadly seduction occurs is the Junior Walker & the All Stars’ version of How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You). H-m-m…maybe not, Michael! But there is one thing we can all probably agree on. Chaka Khan’s version of the song, famously performed by everyone from Marvin Gaye to James Taylor, is truly killer – in the best possible way!

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

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