I left my prom dress at home – but the kind cast of Bailiwick Chicago’s production of Carrie, The Musical still allowed me to chat with them after a recent show.
Carrie, the Musical runs through July 12th, 2014 in Chicago at the Victory Gardens Theatre, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue. Further information is available at http://www.bailiwickchicago.com.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Let’s face it, half the fun of horror and exploitation is seeing some hot bodies frolicking around in the buff. And while I worship the female form, I believe exploitation definitely veers into the exploitive when only gorgeous women are on display while their male counterparts remain chastely buttoned up. Therefore, The Backside of Horror salutes the filmmakers and actors whom even up the score a bit by showing us instances of hot and juicy male flesh in their bloody celluloid fantasies.
Sometimes, I look like such a demon upon waking that I even frighten my Incredible Hulk action figures. (And you wonder why I am in my 40s and live alone!!!)
The magnetic Bojesse Christopher, who truly enlivened such efforts as Sleepwalkers, Meatballs 4 and Point Break in the 90s, also rises like a devilish entity in 1996 sequel shocker Sometimes They Come Back…Again. But, soon Christopher’s Vinnie takes on a much more pleasing — and temporarily naked — form.
Of course, the evil Vinnie is eventually dispatched – but not before providing plenty of menace to co-stars Michael Gross and (a young) Hillary Swank…and plenty of eye candy to desirous viewers in the know!
Until the next time…SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan
Oh, if I only had a brain! I’ve sung that to myself so many times that I’ve felt like a small town queer stuck caught in a community theater production of The Wizard of Oz, Sisyphus-style!
But who needs brains when they can experience the terror of Gray Matter?!? This stunning short film is an adaptation of a Stephen King story – and inventive filmmaker Red Clark tells me he only used practical effects (based on some amazing concept designs by Tom A. Denney)! Viva, au natural, baby!!
Check out the gooey, first look trailer, here!:
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
At a recent dinner celebration at the piping hot Godzilla Café, Big Gay Horror Fan’s beloved Aunt Pamela (a vegan witch, naturally) made a charming and pertinent observation. She noted that the art of the appreciator was often neglected in social and cultural importance – IE that the act of appreciating is just as much of an art form as that of the person doing the creating.
Rodney Ascher’s truly engaging, frequently mindboggling documentary Room 237 takes this notion to grand heights. Highlighting the observations of a handful of devotees to Stanley Kubrick’s highly debated 1980 film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining, Room 237 revels in obsessive fan love and features highly detailed theories on Kubrick’s artistic intent.
Creatively, Ascher never shows the faces of his subjects, but uses clips from Kubrick’s oeuvre (including massive segments of The Shining) to illustrate the interviewee’s points. True horror fans are, also, sure to delight in his liberal use of crowd scenes from Italian gore fests Demons and Demons 2 to help augment the situations described, as well.
Some of the theories introduced are fairly ludicrous (making even the most rampaging nerd feel a bit more normal than he or she did before watching the documentary). One interested party is fully invested in the thought that Kubrick used this film to let the world know his part in helping the government fake the moon landing. (That he then goes on question the validity of this claim in the film’s wrap-up makes the concept even more noteworthy.)
Of course, anyone who has seen the subject film (and lusted after Shelley Duvall’s prairie-like yet seemingly eternal costumes) knows that Kubrick obviously ladled on the influences with this one. So the participants in Room 237 that suggest that he may have been working out his feelings on the Holocaust and the treatment of the American Indians may have some valid points. But, was that the entire extent of his focus (or something that he was even conscious of doing in the moment) – well, who the hell knows?!?
Other funny theories about subtle erections, media manipulation and disappearing Disney images – all seem purely accidental, mere mistakes that Kubrick missed with his over-the-top, highly stylistic directing of this glorious piece of cinema.
Ultimately, Room 237 illustrates how much a work takes on the spirit of the viewer once it is released into the world – giving all the detailed summaries an honest validity of sorts. Perhaps most importantly, for anyone whom has ever obsessed over a certain genre, filmmaker or film, Room 237 brings about a sense of kinship and, as my dear Aunt Pamela suggested, the thought that the audience is just as important as those behind the camera.
Further information about Room 237 can be gathered at www.room237movie.com.
Big Gay Horror Fan, meanwhile, is always throwing on his best wide-eyed Duvall shriek at http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan, as well!
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Big Gay Horror Fan 