Women

All posts tagged Women

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

Great Performances: Sybil Danning

Published April 7, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

l.a. bounty poster

A stern look from someone in real life can sometimes stop you dead in your tracks. Silent expression is also an efficient tool to communicate emotion on film. This is often difficult to pull off, though, as it must be done subtly to be truly effective.

Thankfully for genre fans, one of the most exciting performances to utilize a bare minimum of dialogue and rely almost entirely on facial fluidity, is Sybil Danning’s commanding and efficient Ruger in the beloved cult favorite L.A. Bounty.

l.a. bounty 1A former cop turned determined bounty hunter, Ruger here is dead set on taking down Cavanaugh, a vile criminal who murdered her former partner and who has recently kidnapped Mike Rhodes, a handsome mayoral candidate. Much of Ruger’s time is spent protecting Mike’s uncooperative wife Kelly, a woman whom Cavanaugh wants decidedly dead. As Ruger tries, mightily, to protect this innocent bystander, she systematically works her way through Cavanaugh’s associates. Growing ever more stern and calculating, when she finally gets to the man, himself, even the plot’s fun twists and turns will not deter her.

Nicely, with a simple yet powerful presence, Danning outguns even the most treasured male action icons here. She is cool yet obviously emotionally conflicted, delivering a classic performance – truly one of the best in the exploitation medium and beyond. The rest of the cast is also impressive with Wings Hauser oozing blistered menace as Cavanaugh and the underrated Lenore Kasdorf (Guiding Light, Missing in Action) bringing nervy grace to Kelly Rhodes. Drive-in enthusiasts will also cheer to the contributions of such esteemed participants as Henry Darrow and Robert Quarry.LA-Bounty-3

But it is Danning’s heart that truly provides the significant pulse of this piece. Granted, the action beats, including the anticipated shotgun blasts and deaths by torture and electrocution, are exciting. But she truly imbues this make believe world with its soul. Not surprisingly, a look at the credits shows that she wrote the story and also produced this emotional slice of mayhem… a true tribute to feminine power and the bad-assery of women everywhere, if there ever was one.

l.a. bounty 2

L.A. Bounty merchandise, including a new comic book based upon the exploits of Ruger, is available directly from Danning at www.sybildanning.net.  Be sure to follow her at https://www.facebook.com/Sybil-Danning and https://twitter.com/sybildanning, as well.

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

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

 

Failing Grace Trailer

Published February 16, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

failing grace

The official trailer for Concept Media’s upcoming thriller Failing Grace has been released. Rumored to be inspired by director-writer Ryan Stacy’s first year of sobriety, this intense peek into the film has a compelling, queer friendly vibe and makes one intrigued for more information about this soon to be released project.

https://www.facebook.com/failgrace/

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

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Hilary Shepard

Published February 4, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

american-girls

There were a number of ‘80s girl groups featuring actresses. The Pin-ups, Lisa London’s (The Naked Cage, Sudden Impact) group, had a minor hit with Just About a Dream. Big Trouble, fronted by Bobbie Eakes (The Bold and the Beautiful, All My Children), were produced by the legendary Giorgio Moroder and had a song featured on the Over The Top soundtrack.

American Girls, highlighted by the co-lead vocals of Hilary Shepard, was probably the most musically diverse of the three. With layered musicianship, their single album release on IRS Records was compared to The Go-Go’s, their label mates. But their songs, while pop, were actually a bit more complex than the fun New Wave stylings of their more famous counterparts. This can be evidenced in the harmonic structures of American Girl, which also found a place in celluloid-verse, being featured in the Anthony Michael Hall feature, Out of Bounds.

The striking Shepard, meanwhile, may be better known to genre fans for committing some aggressive antics in Scanner Cop, one of several sequels to David Cronenberg’s horror classic, Scanners. She also made notable appearances on the A Cup of Time episode of Friday the 13th, the Series and Anthony Perkin’s lone directing credit, the horror-comedy Lucky Stiff.

hilary shepard Scanner-Cop-06

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

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Soska Sisters on The Core

Published January 23, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

Soska The Core 2

If you needed any more reasons to love the Soska Sisters, their appearance on the fun Shudder series The Core will give you an ample supply.

Here, the lively, genre twisting twins spend their segment happily discussing their favorite castration sequences in horror films. They even end their time on the show in front of table that is laden with prosthetic cocks. Seemingly reveling in the (possibly humorous and uncomfortable) reactions that might arise from horror’s extreme bro culture, the filmmakers are again subverting the parameters of the world of terror.

Just as with films like Dead Hooker in a Trunk and American Mary, this appearance helps to carve out alternative, namely queer and feministic, creative territory. One might even propose that by putting a focus on violence against men, particularly on where they are most vulnerable, they are altering an entertainment landscape that has balanced too long upon the subjugation of women, both physically and emotionally. Hopefully, in 2018, with their help, we will be able to prove that, however you identify, we are all in this together and that we can put the final nail in the coffin of the thought that torturing a half naked female for an hour and a half qualifies as proficient genre cinema.

Stranger things have happened, no?

Soska Sisters The Core

https://twitter.com/twisted_twins  www.twistedtwinsproductions.net  www.shudder.com

https://www.facebook.com/shudder/

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

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Hopelessly Devoted to: Mary Wickes

Published December 1, 2017 by biggayhorrorfan

Mary W2.jpg

Mary Wickes was well known for adding a bit of dour (and occasionally judgmental) hilarity to many television shows and classic films. Her appearance as a frustrated, world renowned choreographer on The Ballet, a first season episode of I Love Lucy, for example, helped make that show one of the legendary series’ most hilarious offerings. Mary W4

Best known to many modern audiences as Sister Mary Lazarus in the Sister Act movies, cinema sleuths drawn to the darker side may be fonder of her quirky appearances on such shows as Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, though.

The Baby Sitter, a first season AHP episode, actually found Wickes in familiar comic territory. As Blanche Armstaedter, the best friend of Thelma Ritter’s love lost Lottie Slocum, Wickes adds plenty of humorous appeal. In fact, as she offers up tempting ice cream treats to Lottie, Wickes often comes off as a monument to devilish frivolity. Her delight in the fact that her fondest companion may be a cold blooded murderess makes Wickes’ Blanche the story’s standout, with this one of a kind performer  stealing scenes from her co-star, the well seasoned, virtuosic Ritter. Mary W6

Toby, on the anthology show’s second season, provided a more somber character for Wickes to attach her skills to. Working with a bit of a Tennessee Williams’ vibe, this production concentrates on the arrival of a fragile old maid type to a rambling boarding house. As Edwina Freel, the land lady of the establishment, Wickes provides plenty of heart and weathered kindness here. She seems to know that the romance between this crumbling flower and a long term resident is doomed to failure and her scenes resonate with both wearied hardness and a bit of tender concern.

Nicely, her tart edge is in full effect again with They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be offering on The Night Stalker. As Dr. Bess Winestock, a zoologist that Darren McGavin’s always curious Kolshak interacts with, Wickes delivers her lines with a tangy twist, often providing laugh out loud results. This particular venture is more science fiction in nature than some of this iconic show’s more horrific offerings. But Wickes does get to reveal the truly chilling fact that the bone marrow of the animals in her character’s care has been devoured then rejected by the hungry aliens that dominate this output’s proceedings here.

Mary W1Exposed as an often rigid and uncompromising force in Steve Taravella’s well researched biography I Know I’ve Seen That Face Before, these three varied appearances (among so many others) prove that Wickes will forever be one of the world’s premium actresses of any (and every) variety.

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

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Horror, She Wrote: Alice Krige

Published November 17, 2017 by biggayhorrorfan

Alice K 1

Horror, She Wrote explores the episodes of the ever-popular detective series Murder, She Wrote, featuring Angela Lansbury’s unstoppable Jessica Fletcher, that were highlighted by performances from genre film actors.

Show business is full of complications…professional jealousies, Napoleon complexes, cold blooded killers. The sweet Nina Cochran (Alice Krige) definitely discovers this to be true on Murder in the Afternoon, a second season episode of Murder, She Wrote.

Alice K2The niece of the series’ stalwart Jessica Fletcher, a mystery writer who continuously finds herself solving real crimes, Cochran is accused of offing Joyce Holleran (Jessica Walter, Play Misty For Me), the evil head writer of the soap on which she appears. Of course, Cochran isn’t the only suspect for doing away with this callous doom bringer. Holleran has threatened the jobs of many of the show’s beloved cast, including the indulgent, adulterous Bibi Hartman (Tricia O’Neil, Piranha II: The Spawning).

Capped by a double red herring, this episode, nicely, allows Krige to display a full range of emotions. Fear and anger, naturally, figure prominently here. But true movie buffs may delight most to Krige’s sweet scenes with Lansbury and golden age character actress Lurene Tuttle (Psycho, Niagara, Don’t Bother to Knock), who plays Krige’s devoted grandmother with a daft charm.

Alice K3

Krige, who gave sophisticated and passionate performances in such horror offerings as Ghost Story, Sleepwalkers, Silent Hill and Stay Alive, also works well amongst the vindictive environs of  Walter and O’Neill. She, wisely, plays off their characters’ inherent selfishness with a firm and determined resolve of her very own. …and while that surely doesn’t provide much love in the afternoon, as those daytime ads in the flashy ‘80s always proclaimed, it most certainly allows for plenty of delicious, lightweight fun!

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

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Curse of the Hag

Published November 17, 2017 by biggayhorrorfan

Curse of the Hag

My buddy Jared insists that witches should be the next big trend in horror films. Now, if he’s talking kick-ass, feminist spellcasters – and I’m sure he is – then he just might be right on track.

For…massively awesome director Carolyn Baker has just unleashed the trailer for her latest Wisconsin based DIY effort Curse of the Hag…and it looks spooky, atmospheric and full of tough, complicated women.

The film, which is currently being submitted for festival circuit, can be followed at https://www.facebook.com/CurseoftheHag.

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

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

 

 

 

Brooke Bundy Fan Page

Published November 4, 2017 by biggayhorrorfan

Brooke Charlies

She played Elaine Parker, the mother that you love to hate, in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series, but true celluloid buffs know that the versatile Brooke Bundy played a wide variety of roles throughout her career. Like her doomed Diana on General Hospital, whose murder has long been considered one of the greatest crime mystery plotlines of the golden age of the soap operas, many of these credits took place on a variety of popular television shows.

Perhaps most notably, the first season of Charlie’s Angels found Bundy interacting with Farrah and crew as an ex-street walker turned Las Vegas chorus girl wanna-be. Her character, filled with both a sense of street smarts and sweetness by this layered performer, was even romanced here by David Doyle’s goofily lovable Bosley. Brooke Chips

Of course, Parker was not the only troubled mother in Bundy’s arsenal. Not as famously, perhaps, she played another matriarch on the final season of CHiPS. Here, as the emotionally unstable parent of a young girl played by Halloween’s Kyle Richards, she nicely shows a lot of subtlety and depth even though she is only featured in a couple of scenes. The quiet seriousness she adds also brings a bit of believability to this jump the shark episode that focuses on a space alien that is trying to bring Richards back to its home planet.

Brooke Circle of Fear

Bundy also appeared on a variety of interesting yet more obscure television shows, as well.  A 1973 episode of Circle of Fear, an unusual and short lived horror anthology series, found her playing a member of an artists’ colony who is suddenly sucked into an ancient bottle by a vengeful group of pagan gods and goddesses. That same year, her sensible character was unable to save her man from the sensual lure of Lesley Ann Warren’s vampiric succubus on the Death on a Barge entry of Night Gallery, a vignette that was directed by none other than Star Trek’s most legendary Vulcan, Leonard Nimoy.

Nicely, now you can celebrate all of these interesting credits and so many more at Bundy’s recently created fan page: https://www.facebook.com/brookebundyfanpage/. Her activities, such as con appearances, will be noted there, as well.

So, as the shout of “Kristen!” whistles through your brain…until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Great Performances: Linnea Quigley in Night of the Demons

Published October 6, 2017 by biggayhorrorfan

.

linnea night

All horror fans bemoan the lack of respect that their favorite performers receive in the world at large. For every Frederic March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Kathy Bates (Misery) and Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs), there are hundreds of wonderful performances overlooked.

What is even more amazing is when one of these incisive portrayals comes from an unexpected place. One may expect a lot of fun and vibrant energy emanating from the young actors in Kevin S. Tenney’s beloved original Night of the Demons, but for the sharp eyed, the legendary Linnea Quigley actually gives a masterful, dual toned performance as the flirty Suzanne here.

Quigley, in her mid-twenties at the time of her casting, has admitted to feeling uncomfortable with playing another teenager – especially as she was surrounded by cast mates that were barely out of high school themselves. But in this tale of a group of friends encountering demonic mayhem at a Halloween party, Quigley delivers with confidence and a surprising duality. In fact, her reluctance in playing another stereotypical sexpot actually gives her work here an almost Meta quality.

She hits all the right comic notes, for sure. Her flirtatious dialogue is delivered with aplomb. But her heightened real life awareness also brings a sense of commentary to her work. She does everything the role requires while giving it a wink. She seems to know that her lines are ridiculously sexual and that, while her character is the ultimate, over-the-top male fantasy, she is not buying into herself. Thus, she almost delivers a dialogue on the predictability of the role while staying true to it, as well. It’s a remarkable feat and one she, seemingly, accomplished unknowingly. She simply followed the mark of her true instinct and natural artistry.

Nicely, those in Chicago will be able to experience this phenomenon on the big screen on Friday, October 6th. Quigley, herself, will be present for a showing of the film at the Davis Theatre in Lincoln Square at midnight. More information on the free event is available at https://www.facebook.com/events/1418103908296624.

Naturally, I hope to see you there…and until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE,

Big Gay Horror Fan!

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan