Strength

All posts tagged Strength

Sybil Danning on Double Page Spread

Published September 1, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

Sybil PS

So…I haven’t won that Pulitzer Prize for writing…and I don’t have a happy husband and a house full of tumbling, peanut butter stained kids. But…I have been “sandwiched” by Sybil Danning and Wendi Freeman on a popular podcast. Thankfully, in my world, that makes me the winner.

Danning, of course, is the action goddess who appeared in such cult classics as Battle Beyond the Stars, Howling II, Chained Heat and Hercules. Freeman, meanwhile, is the friendly presence behind Double Page Spread, an entertaining look at the comic book industry.

On a recent episode of DPS, I was lucky enough to join Wendi as she and Sybil chatted about fitness, the power of positivity, Danning’s favorite films and her most recent project – Ruger, a comic based upon L.A. Bounty, one of the movies that established Danning as the female heir to Clint Eastwood and that ilk.

Sybil Duo

You can listen at the link, below, and help me decide which kind of bread I should be – white, rye or a good ole 8 grain wheat!:

Double Page Spread ep 219- Sybil Danning

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

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Sybil Guns.jpg

Get Out: A Femme Appreciation

Published March 2, 2017 by biggayhorrorfan

Catherine Keener (right) in Get Out

Maniacal and brimming with steely intent, Diane Salinger’s Mrs. Darrode in 2009’s Dark House, an entry in the short lived Fangoria Fright Fest series, is truly a compelling horror villainess. In fact, the well trained Salinger, who began her career with 1985’s Creature, commands with such intensity that Darrode would have been a worthy character to build a series around. Yet, disappointingly, the character, itself, is another in a long line of bad mother archetypes seen so frequently in genre films. Here, a foster mother who murders almost all of her charges in a fit of religious ecstasy, the unstoppable Darrode returns, as the film progresses, to get at the one girl who escaped her bloody crusade.

Salinger in Dark House

Nicely, the damaging expedition that the primary female characters in director-writer Jordan Peele’s brilliant horror satire Get Out engage in has nothing to do with lousy parenting or with romantic obsession, another common femme terror archetype, but with a more sinister agenda. It ties in with the film’s brilliant look at race and culture in society and is also a refreshing change to the nasty lady ghosts and vicious spirits that have inhabited such films as Ouija, Lights Out and many others, as of late. Granted, a strong feminine antagonist is always appreciated, but here it is nice to have them in the flesh and blood, slowly stirring the plot and keeping you guessing as to their true intents.

get_out_2017_poster Therefore, Peele, who is justifiably being praised for bringing a strong sense of social commentary and compelling, layered minority characters to a genre that doesn’t necessarily always welcome them – except, so often, as Victim #1 – has also done right by his female characters, as well. It’s a profound achievement and, while these fictional women may not go down in the terror history books like Betsy Palmer’s magnificently protective Mrs. Voorhees (Friday the 13^th) or Clare Higgins’ love possessed Julia (Hellraiser), they are the contemporary anti-heroines that we truly need in this period of time. Let’s hope there is more like them on the way.

Get Out is currently playing in movie theaters, nationwide.

https://www.facebook.com/GetOutMovie/ https://twitter.com/GetOutMovie

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

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Unsung Heroines of Horror: Jo Ann Sayers

Published February 23, 2017 by biggayhorrorfan

jo-ann-sawyers

Granted, the elegant Jo Ann Sayers shared a strong professional association with one of the grand dames of cinema, Rosalind Russell. Sayers not only co-starred with Russell in the bright 1939 mystery Fast and Loose, but she also originated the title role in My Sister Eileen, a popular comedy that would bring Russell continued success in later years. Sayers, perhaps, showed her greatest sense of fortitude, though, in her final major screen role. As the determined Judith Blair, a skilled nurse and the favored companion of the investigative Dr. Mason, Sayers brings a sense of true spunk to the 1940 Boris Karloff thriller The Man With Nine Lives and proves that the women of those early horror programmers were often just as vital and adventurous as their male counterparts. jo-ann-sawyers-2

Following the determined Mason (Roger Pryor) to a deserted island, Sayers’ Blair is a magnificent trooper. Even after falling through loose flooring, she helps her curious companion pick away at a wall of ice and assists him in reviving the slumbering Leon Kravaal (Karloff), whose work has kept him (and several other unfortunates) secreted away in a coma for 10 years. Mason is thrilled when Kravaal awakens because, separately, the two have been trying to regulate the use of elongated deep freeze to cure patients of terminal disease. Soon Kravaal realizes that he has accidentally perfected his formula, but the antagonism of the three companions who have been trapped along with him proves to be disastrous. After a one of the men is shot, the unhinged Kravaal kidnaps everyone, determined to perfect his work on them.

Soon Blair is serving as cook, conscience and companion to all. As their numbers dwindle due to Kravaal’s psychosis, she even allows herself to be the mad doctor’s final guinea pig in order to spare Mason. With dignity and poise, Sayers enacts mother, heroine and dignified pin-up here – while the men are often regulated to simple emotions such as fear and anger. Sayers also foreshadows the popular final girl characters of the early 80s when Blair survives Kravaal’s tinkering and lives to work another day with Mason. man-with-nine-lives

Naturally, Karloff, sporting a dusty beard, is magnetic here, portraying a handsome and soft spoken genius eternally teetering eternally on the brink of madness. Visually, cinematographer Benjamin Kline also captures the icy set design with a taut arctic sweep, offering up a nice alternative to the moors and shadowy corners of the day’s popular Frankenstein and Wolf Man pieces. But the most impressive piece of cinema elegance here may be Sayers’ lovely cheekbones and expressive eyes, making her take on Blair a force of celluloid nature in every sense of the word.

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

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

jo-ann-sayers-headshot

Review: Housesitters

Published February 10, 2017 by biggayhorrorfan

house

I’m a little jealous. In my stints as a house and dog sitter I found some weird things – homemade porn, leopard print sheets scented with perfume. I even got shown around one apartment by an owner who made no effort to hide his early morning boner. But, I never sat at a place with a creepy pentagram strewn basement and its own personal demon!

Best friends and eternal wisecrackers Angie (Annie Watkins) and Izzy (Jamie Jirak) hit the jackpot in director-writer Jason Coffman’s truly fun horror-comedy Housesitters, though. Left a credit card and enough 80s/90s fashions in one closet for an effective musical montage, all they need is a couple of hot, trouble making dudes to make their first house sitting adventure a total success. That’s where Greg (James Timothy Peters), a pizza delivery guy, and Zach (Peter Ash), Izzy’s boyfriend, come in. Zach, in a nonverbal apology for eating all of Angie’s brownies, also brings along her current crush, Mark (Ben Schlotfelt).

But soon Greg and Mark are attacked by a miniature green creature and disappear. The appearance of Zach’s friend Dan (Jay J. Bidwell) singles more mayhem. Unable to leave the house due to their benefactor’s devilish dealings, the group venture to the basement to try to resolve their problems. The wounded Dan, though, emerges as something a bit more demonic and life between the bosom companions will never be the same again.

Smartly utilizing one location, haunted by Dustin Wayde Mills’ ravenously adorable monster-puppet, Coffman wisely builds the relationships between his main characters here. In fact, Watkins and Jirak are so natural and spontaneously goofy that they become the highlight of this tight yet carefree production. As the closing credits roll, it is obvious that they were allowed to riff on and improvise a large part of their material, making “Broad City Meets Monster Movie” a hoped for trend in the near future.

The duo’s male co-stars, Ash, Schlotfelt, Peters and Bidwell, also key into their low-key, naturalistic vibe. They all deliver believable and slightly ironic performances, surely a product of their seeming theatrical groundedness. Their skill, coupled with the surprising twists that Coffman provides for their characters in the film’s final moments, ultimately make Housesitters a truly entertaining celluloid outing. That it is also one filled with femme powered horror amusements is probably its greatest strength and joy. Let’s hope this really is a trend!

Note: This review was done on a work-in-progress version of the movie as it gears up for festival submissions. To be sure to join Angie and Izzy as they party their way to different events, follow https://www.facebook.com/HousesittersMovie/.

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