The Last October

So ends another October -- and so begins the brief depression I always fall into after Halloween. It only lasts a couple of days and then I'm re-energized for Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's. But this time it's a bit different, a growing anxiety has joined the race and it might even beat out my blues. How that works out is -- well, I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyway, here are a couple of horror movie marathons I attended during the month:

On Saturday, October 4th, I went to Brain Dead Studios in L.A. for They're Here, a six-movie assortment of horror films with a haunted house theme, presented in 16mm, the titles of which would be kept secret until seen on-screen.

In the Before Times, the movie marathons I've attended started in the evening and ended the following morning. But most of them have adjusted their schedules to more reasonable middle-aged-friendly hours. They're Here, for example, would start at 2pm and end at 2am, which is fine for this particular old-head because the days of staying up until 6am and sleeping in until 2pm are over for me. Because nowadays, my body insists on waking up around 7am no matter what time I went to bed. Going to bed at 6:30? See you in 30 minutes, bitch. (That's what my body says to me.)

Before the first film, our three hosts Mike Williamson of Secret Sixteen, Bret Berg from the Museum of Home Video, and Josh Miller from Killer Movies came up on stage. Williamson told us about haunted house movies being his favorite horror sub-genre. He then offered hints about our first film, by telling us that its part of possibly one of the worst horror franchises around, in that the number of installments are disproportional to the success and quality of the first film.

But first, a pre-show consisting of trailers for The Legend of Hell House from 1973, the 1999 remake of House on Haunted Hill, and 1988's Poltergeist III.

We then watched a short about the making of the original Poltergeist. Directed by the film's co-producer, Frank Marshall, this seven-minute promo piece probably gives unjustified joy to those who insist that writer-producer Steven Spielberg really directed the movie. We watch as he, uh, supervises a couple of the special effects sequences, while Tobe Hooper is only seen in very brief glimpses and is never interviewed while Spielberg does most of the talking. 

I still believe Hooper directed the film, by the way, albeit in a production that ol' Stevie had a tight leash on; his brief appearances in the short show him to be on set, at one point actually directing one of the actors. Even if didn't really direct the movie, it doesn't matter, because Tobe Hooper sure as hell directed Lifeforce -- and Lifeforce is better.

The first film was 1982's Amityville II: The Possession, directed by Damiano Damiani, which sounds like an evil name, and written by Tommy Lee Wallace, which doesn't sound evil at all, even though he did go on to write & direct Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which some people might find evil on account of kids wearing masks that causes their heads to cave in and bugs and snakes to crawl out of. But not me. I find that charming, actually.

And if you like incest, you'll find this movie charming. And I know you're like, "yeah, but what if your sister looked like Diane Franklin, the actress who plays the sister in this film?". The answer is still no, dude, because Diane Franklin or not, she'd still be my sister, and that would be gross and wrong. Now if I had a cousin who looked like Diane Franklin, well, that's a horse of another color.

So this movie is a prequel to 1979's The Amityville Horror, the one where Lois Lane and Thanos' dad move into a haunted house. See what happened was, the previous residents were a family who got offed by the eldest child, and that's what *this* movie expands on. 

We watch as this family moves into the soon-to-be-infamous abode; Burt Young plays the father, acting very much like his Pauly from the Rocky movies. He's a real cigar-chomping asshole, with a total pushover of a wife who looks like an older Miranda July who's always praying to the aloof God who indifferently watches all of this bad shit happen, because mysterious ways and all that other horseshit.

Then you have brother and sister Sonny and Patricia (Jack Magner; Diane Franklin), and I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by them eventually fucking, considering how they were discussing their parents' sex life earlier in the film. It's like, the Devil must've realized he didn't really have to do much in possessing Sonny, he just had to give the kid a little push in the direction he was already headed. As for Patricia, she was clearly just a freak from the start.

Eventually. General Franklin Kirby from Commando shows up as the local priest, doing too little too late before a fully-possessed Sonny shotguns his entire clan. The second half of the film is pretty much an Exorcist riff with Father General Kirby attempting to save Sonny's immortal soul from the flames of Hell and his sweet tight ass from his prison cellmates.

In his intro, Williamson called this movie "ill" and "weird", and I agree. The idea is supposed to be that the family is gradually affected by the house's evil, giving in to their worst instincts, but the problem is that they're shown to already have such a casually strange and off-putting dynamic before all of that. It made me question the filmmakers' sensibilities, morals, and sanity, and the entire film feels kinda diseased -- which I mean as a compliment.

Based on the audible reactions from the crowd, I wasn't alone. There were plenty of disgusted groans and laughs of disbelief throughout the movie, practically turning to each other to give a "the fuck?" look. What I would've given to have seen this at a 42nd Street grindhouse during its original release, overwhelmed by the smell of cheap booze, surrounded by drunken winos, passed out addicts, and some mohawk'd punk getting head from a skeevy hooker.  

Williamson told us that he was really excited to show us the second film, because it was the rarest one of the day, a made-for-tv movie that was never released on any home video format. One could find bootlegs of this film streaming online, but not at the beautiful quality of this film print we were about to watch.

That film turned out to be 1972's Something Evil, directed by Steven Spielberg, who was following up his very well-received tv-movie Duel with this story of a very 70s couple named Marjorie and Paul (Sandy Dennis; Darren McGavin), who along with their two young burdens have just moved into the kind of sun-dappled country home you might see in a commercial on 70s television. And if you haven't, you will, because later in the movie it is used for a commercial. (Paul works in advertising.)

Soon enough, the spooky stuff begins with Marjorie (and the audience) plagued with the non-stop sounds of a mystery baby mewling its little head off somewhere on the property. She later tracks down the source and finds it not to be a baby, but a jar containing what appears to be the Pepsi to the Coca-Cola that is the weird Antichrist liquid from John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness. Marjorie freaks out, but I'm like, what did you expect, lady? You spend all day painting pentacles and making pentacle necklaces, you didn't consider that it could possibly serve as an invitation to something...evil? 

Marjorie begins to unravel as she continues to investigate these happenings, and it doesn't help that her neighbor is 1) kind of an expert on weirdo supernatural things and 2) Randolph Duke. Worst of all, at least a couple times she ends up calling her husband while he's at work in the city. Dude's got something like a two-hour commute both ways, and now he's expected to drop everything and go all the way back home just because of her bullshit?

This movie is further proof that Spielberg always had it going on, our boy shoots the shit of this tv-movie, employing slow-motion, creatively composed shots with overlapping dialogue, long one-shot takes, split-diopters, and Richard Rush-style rack focusing. If they weren't going to give him a feature film to make after this one, it was never going to happen. But luckily it did, and people like me got Jaws, and weirdos like you got Hook.

But it's not just the Spielberg visual style, it also has some of his pet themes that would fit this film very well among the rest of his work; Marjorie is not unlike Richard Dreyfuss' character from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, following an obsession to the point of estrangement from the family. (Not for nothing, the son in this film is named "Steven".)

Overall, it's decent and Sandy Dennis is really good in it, but Duel was far more effective. This one just doesn't match in scares what it has in style. I'll put the blame on the screenplay, which was by Robert Clouse, best known as the director of Enter the Dragon and the China O'Brien movies; maybe if Clouse had written in some scenes with Randolph Duke jump-kicking Satan in the face, then maybe it would've been better. I'll take a remake with Cynthia Rothrock, except Clouse is dead now, so I guess I'll direct that one.

The third film of the day was Poltergeist II: The Other Side, from 1986. In this one, the Freeling family from the first film are now living in Arizona, living off the generosity of the wife's mother. Soon, the old lady passes away, but before they can turn grandma's bedroom into a man cave and declare party time inheritance-style, some creepy old man named Kane begins to intrude on their lives.

Kane's an evil spirit looking to use their youngest daughter, Carol Ann, for evil spirit shit. Somewhere along the way, the Chief from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest shows up to help the Freelings out, at one point taking the dad (Craig T. Nelson), on one of those sweat-lodge vision quests they used to take White people to in movies, you know, in order to help them strengthen up to fight back against evil martial artists or big oil companies.

Nelson appears shirtless quite a bit in this, and it made me wistful for the good ol' days when leading men could just be in good normal guy shape. It's like, I look at Coach over here and believe that I can have a body like that, if I just cut down on carbs and workout 20 minutes a day. Nowadays, even the middle-aged beer-drinking fathers in movie have Hemsworth-ian bods, and that's just one of many reasons movies are going down the toilet -- the skibidi toilet, with these kids today.

In his intro, Williamson told us that despite not being as good (or coherent) as the original, he felt this was scarier and more mean-spirited, and Berg admitted to being "kindertrauma'd" by some of the sequences in this film when he saw it back in the cable days of his youth.

Cable days of youth is also the last time I saw this, and while I wasn't traumatized by it, there were certainly a couple of parts that have remained imprinted in memory; one was the part where the little boy, Robbie, has his braces grow out of his mouth, expanding more and more until he's completely wrapped up in them. Then there's the part where Coach gets drunk on tequila and starts acting like a man for once, rather than a simp, forcing himself on Jo Beth Williams and getting violent -- director Brian Gibson went on to make What's Love Got To Do With It -- before vomiting out a giant worm. 

While it doesn't manage to come close to matching the intensity and sweaty-toothed madness of Tobe Hooper's original -- yeah, that's right, Tobe Hooper's original, go fuck yourself Frank Marshall, with your Congo -- it does work it's way up to an impressive out-there climax and some of the creature designs are pretty whacked-out too, as expected when you have H.R. Giger designing them. So while it's not as good as the first, and it feels a little sluggish here and there, it still has its moments and its worth a watch. Also, it warmed my heart to hear the word "retarded" being used in a movie, and to hear the audience laugh and applaud in response.

After the film, Berg said that he felt Poltergeist II was about as perfunctory as a Police Academy sequel, which led to Williamson telling an anecdote about seeing Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol on his birthday -- he loves Police Academy 4, by the way, as do I. I love all of them, actually, except for Mission to Moscow. They then hinted to us that the fourth film would be the most recent and the most classical of the haunted house movies in this marathon, and it would be screened from one of perhaps only ten existing 16mm prints in the world.

It was The Others, from 2001, written & directed by Alejandro Amenábar, and starring Queen of AMC Nicole Kidman as Grace, a mum who lives in a big house somewhere in the Channel Islands, and she's like the 1940s equivalent of the kind of higher-income stay-at-home moms of today who home-school their children and insist that they suffer from some fakakta condition and I'm sure they're not vaccinated either.

In Grace's case, she claims her children will become deathly ill if exposed to sunlight, which makes sense because vampires have the same  deadly allergy, and what are children if not vampires by another name, these creatures who drain others of their life force -- to say nothing of dreams, physical attractiveness, spare time, and bank accounts. 

Because Grace's husband still hasn't come home from fighting the Kraut bastards -- and probably never will -- she hires a family to help with the housekeeping. Nevertheless, she's still all kinds of fraught and a shade traumatized after dealing with the alt-righters who had been occupying her land during the war. (You see, kids, we called them "Nazis" back then.)

On top of all of that, there's now the strong possibility that there are ghosts hanging around, talking to her daughter, and playing piano in the middle of the night as if they were inconsiderate neighbors who don't have jobs and don't need jobs because they're living off their mom who has no clue that their precious son is huffing nitrous oxide on a nightly basis and tossing the empty canisters into the alley behind our houses and it's just a matter of time before I hear the screams from that waste-of-space's mom when she finds him dead with a stupid look on his face, surrounded by a bunch of empty N2O chargers on the floor.

This was my second time watching the movie and it held up over the years. Not only does it have some genuinely good jump scares and a legit surprise ending, it's also a beautifully made film with atmosphere up the ass. The indoor sets are sumptuously designed and given a candle-lighted look, while the outdoor scenes have a fitfully chilly and foggy appearance. Regardless of what time it is during any given scene, the whole film looks and feels like it takes place in the very early morning hours. 

It's also exceptionally well-acted; I forgot how stunning Kidman is -- and how stunning she looks -- in this movie, and I forgot how this was in the middle of a hell of a good run for the actress. She had Eyes Wide Shut and Moulin Rouge before this, and then she had her Oscar-winning role in The Hours not too long after. Also really good are the actors playing her children, with the daughter as a cool skeptic type and the son as a little bitch-ass mama's boy. I also forgot that one of the Doctor Whos is in this as Kidman's husband; there's a scene where they're in bed together, and he's sleeping on his side while she's curled up behind him, whisper-singing into his ear. I love that moment because it reminded me of my ex; she would do that to me, that whisper-singing in my ear thing. We're no longer together; she has her story, I have mine. What was I supposed to do, not sleep with her sister?

Anyway, the first time I saw this movie was on Saturday, September 15th, 2001. It was the first weekend following the terrorist attacks on September 11th, and my friends and I decided that maybe we could take the edge off that awful week by meeting up for dinner & drinks, followed by a trip to our local cinema to catch a screening of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 70mm. So we ate, drank, and tried to be merry, but when we got to the theater later that night, we were informed by the staff that the screening had been canceled, on account of restricted air space preventing the transportation of the film print for the showing. One of my friends then turned to me and said gravely, "I've now been personally affected by the tragedy of 9/11". 

So we ended up seeing The Others instead, and we were all pretty bowled over by it. Rather than watch an old favorite, we watched a new classic, and I'd probably have never watched it were it not for that cancelled Indiana Jones screening. So...thank you, Al-Qaeda?

Williamson warned the audience that the fifth film was "the hardest" of the marathon, and that it would make some in the audience *very* uncomfortable. Upon finding out that we were about to watch 1982's The Entity, I thought to myself "no fucking shit this will make people uncomfortable". Because it certainly made me uncomfortable when I first watched it at the Dusk-to-Dawn Horrorthon at the Aero Theatre, back in 2016. 

Directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring Barbara Hershey, this harsh tale begins with a typical day in the life of single mom Carla Moran, as she works by day, goes to night school by, uh, night, and then comes home to see that neither one of her three kids took the time to wash the goddamn dishes. It's tough enough to deal with that shit but on this particular night things go from typical to Jesus Christ Please Let This Be A One Time Thing when she is sexually violated by an unseen force -- an Entity, if you will.

Unfortunately this does not turn out to be a one time thing as Moran is repeatedly attacked by this entity, anywhere and anytime, at home, in a car, at a friend's place, even in front of her family. They're rough, these scenes, as they should be, Furie clearly understood that, unlike say, Michael Winner, who was probably jerking his stubby little English pee-pee while editing the rape scenes in his movies.

Of course, the idea of being raped by something as intangible as an entity is a tough one to get through to other people, this could very well be a mental health issue, so Carla goes to see a psychiatrist played by Ron Silver. In between the horror of the rape scenes is a lot of talk between these two, but the talk -- at least for me -- had my full attention. What also had my full attention was the way Ron Silver speaks in the film; as with his other performances, Silver sounds like he could really use a glass of water.

I'll admit that the second time around, I couldn't help but notice that some of it is kinda male gaze and exploitative. Not that I'm accusing Furie and writer Frank De Felitta of having dubious intents behind making this film. In fact, I don't doubt their sincerity or good intentions in telling this tale. But they have (or in the late De Felitta's case, had) dicks, and as wonderful as it is to have a dick, they can also sometimes get in the way of having total clarity of a situation. For example, I can't see things clearly because of my giant cock blocking my view. And that's why I feel a woman should've made this film, I think having a female perspective in telling this story would've helped in avoiding those cock-shaped road bumps.

But enough about my incredibly large penis. Let's talk about how fucking phenomenal Barbara Hershey is in this. She totally sells it as an ordinary woman (albeit one who looks like Barbara Hershey) being forced into an extraordinary situation, and having to maintain her sanity, while fearing the possibility that she's losing it. Or worse, that this unexplained phenomena is actually happening to her. Because at least if she's crazy, she knows she can go get professional help. But how do you explain ghost rape?!

You can pull many moments from Hershey's performance throughout this film and make Oscar-worthy clips from them. My favorite takes place after Carla's friend tells her that she witnessed one of the attacks; the way Hershey responds with a mix of hope, relief, and utter exhaustion left me in tears during both viewings.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that unless it's Dan Aykroyd getting a supernatural blow job, ghost rape is never funny.

For the marathon's conclusion, the hosts told us that they wanted close out with a fun one, and so the sixth and final film of They're Here was 1985's House, starring William Katt as Roger Cobb, a writer of horror novels who has inherited the titular domicile from his late aunt. Cobb, who was about to get started on writing a new book about his experiences as a soldier in the Vietnam War, packs his suitcase, puts on his best Garbage Day sweater, moves into the house, sets up his computer, and proceeds to find every excuse possible to not write.

At least they're good excuses. For one, there are strange things happening in and around the house, and so Cobb orders up a bunch of surveillance equipment, hoping to record some paranormal activity. We're not talking about some chairs moving and the lights turning on and off either, Cobb's dealing with honest-to-goodness monsters in the closet and various other creatures causing chaos. 

I would just hire a hoodlum to burn the whole place down, collect on the insurance, and move the fuck on with my life. But I suppose goofy & gooey apparitions can't faze a man who's not only been in The Shit over in Nam, but who's gone through some shit back home. His son disappeared and his marriage has fallen apart, and I suppose if Cobb can't find his child or get his wife back, at least he can figure out how to cleanse his aunt's place of all its unholy freakishness.

If its not the apparitions in the attic keeping him away from the keyboard, it's his nosy neighbor, played by George Wendt -- and you can bet your sweet tight ass that the audience pretty much all went "Norm!" when he walked in. They must've shot this movie near the NBC studios during summer hiatus, because in addition to Wendt, Richard Moll (aka Bull from "Night Court") shows up in Cobb's Nam flashbacks as the Animal Mother of his platoon. 

I first saw House back in 2008 at the New Beverly Cinema during their 1st Annual All Night Horror Show; one of the films scheduled to be shown that night was Piranha 2: The Spawning, but it got pulled at the last minute -- probably by Mr. King of the World himself -- and so we got this movie in its place. I understand this has a cult following, and well, I hate to be that guy, but are you sure we're not talking about the 1977 Japanese film of the same name? Because that one I could understand having its fans.

It's weird, because on paper, the whole premise and plot synopsis sounds like it should make a pretty cool movie -- a horror-comedy with the occasional touching moment. And yet, it doesn't play out that way, the movie itself doesn't work as horror, comedy, or drama. Instead, it's a shapeless, tone-deaf, slog of a picture.

I'll give it points for the performances by Katt, Wendt, and Moll, and I also got a kick out of the Vietnam flashbacks with Katt and Moll shooting it out against Charlie. In fact, I tried to make lemonade out of this lemon of a movie by imagining the Nam scenes as being what Katt's character from Big Wednesday had gone through. That helped a little.

The story is credited to Fred Dekker, the director of Night of the Creeps and The Monster Squad, which like House are horror-comedies, except those are actually fun and exciting. So I'm going to assume that between script and screen something got lost, and the wrong director found it: Steve Miner, who did a better job with his previous films Friday the 13th parts 2 and 3D. He just couldn't get it right with this one. But that's OK, Miner made up for it with his next film, which is quite possibly his best work as a horror director: Soul Man, starring C. Thomas Howell. 

They're Here ended around 2am, with everybody going outside Brain Dead Studios to pose for a picture, while I went across the street and took pictures of them, indulging the creepy stalker in me. It was a good night.

Two weeks later on Saturday, October 19th, it was time for another secret-six horror movie marathon -- Orange County-style -- at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana for their annual Camp Frida. Like Brain Dead's marathon, this also went from 2pm to 2am, and this year's theme was "British Invasion", featuring films from our friends across the pond, those lovely people with their universal health care and strict gun laws. But what's the point if I can't use one to take advantage of the other? Here in the land of guns and medical bills, I want to be able to accidentally shoot myself and/or my annoying neighbor in his stupid fucking nitrous-sucking face, and then we can go get patched up without stressing the ol' bank account. 

Upon arrival, I was greeted with the delicious scent of tacos and music blasting from the Halloween-themed street festival, with a giant inflatable Michael Myers and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man on each end of the block, and within it there were pop-up stands selling t-shirts, caps, pins, patches, stickers, all that stuff. 

At the Frida, I got in the line designated for both VIPs and Super VIPs; both get entrance an hour earlier, get reserved seats, free coffee all day, and some snazzy pins to take home, but the Super VIPs also get a t-shirt, a parking pass, and 2 slices of pizza during the dinner break. (I opted for the regular VIP.)  We were let in around 1pm, and the place was decorated in what I'd call 28 Days Later chic, with tattered distressed Union Jacks among the flames and cobwebs, and the two auditoriums renamed "Bloody Hell" and "Haunted Manor". 

Most of the staff and volunteers were in costume, with each member of the Spice Girls represented, as well as an undead Austin Powers, a lady made up as Ringo Starr who wished us all "peace and love", and Mia Goth's Pearl complete with an axe. Trevor Dillon, the Frida's programmer and host of tonight's event helped reserve my seats in *each* of the Frida's two-screens by placing blue tape over them.

The pre-show and interstitials on-screen consisted of old PSAs from the U.K., advising people not to buy used condoms, to dispose of glass bottles rather than leave them on the beach for children to step on, and to avoid placing a rug on a polished floor. There were also some horrific/awesome car crash and train accident PSAs, as well as one featuring the voice of Donald Pleasence as the spirit of dark and lonely water, wishing for kids playing around his pools to fuck around and find out. 

Around 2pm, Dillon came out and asked us to stand for the British National Anthem. After that, he gave shout-outs to the staff and volunteers of the Frida, and gave first-timers a heads-up on how Camp Frida is a Choose Your Own Adventure deal where both auditoriums will be opened up and during every break, we'll be told what the next set of films will play in each room. 

But first, we'd all sit in Bloody Hell to watch the first film together: Ghostwatch, a narrative presented in the form of a live broadcast of a tv-program in which Meg Ryan's favorite interviewer, Michael Parkinson is joined by a paranormal expert who has been in close contact with a family who claim that their house has been often visited by a spirit named "Mr Pipes". Meanwhile, correspondent Sarah Greene and a camera crew stay the night at the house with that family, looking to capture evidence of ghostly activity.

I've known of this TV special and how it originally aired on the BBC during Halloween 1992 and caused a stir with many viewers convinced that what they were watching was real. I watched it earlier in October and really enjoyed it. I was surprised that even after decades of harder and more extreme found footage flicks and mockumentaries, Ghostwatch still held its own as a fun and creepy viewing. 

But I'll admit that I was a little disappointed to be re-watching it so soon -- at first. Because it turned out that despite being intended to be viewed on a small square box in the comfort of one's home, this actually played very well on the big screen in a packed theater. I got a kick out of hearing the audience's reactions to the sightings and audio evidence of Mr Pipes, as well as the many laughs brought by Parkinson's skeptical reactions to his studio guest. We also had a good laugh every time a reference was made to the house's "glory hole", which evidently has a different meaning in the U.K. than it does here in the States -- either that or the Brits are a far more openly and casually kinky bunch.

After a break, we all returned to the Bloody Hell auditorium, where Dillon asked the audience what movies we'd hope would play at the marathon, before playing a loop of Austin Powers dancing to Quincy Jones' "Soul Bossa Nova". This loop revealed the next set of films that would play in each auditorium: 2011's Kill List would play in Bloody Hell, and 1973's The Legend of Hell House, would play in Haunted Manor.

I always go with the movie I haven't seen, but since I hadn't seen neither of the two, I picked Hell House simply because I'd seen the trailer for it at They're Here two weeks ago. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was directed by John Hough, who's Dirty Mary Crazy Larry I recently re-watched at the New Beverly Cinema, and that the screenplay was by Richard Matheson, a genre writer so legendary, his novel, "I Am Legend" could very well be referring to him.

The film opens with a most amusing statement by a Tom Corbett, credited as a "psychic consultant to European royalty", in which he basically says that this movie is fiction, but everything in it could very well happen in real life...maybe even to you! DUN DUN DUN. He didn't actually say that last part about it happening to you and dun dun dun, but it's implied. Anyway, I'm sure Mr. Corbett was well-compensated for that folderol. 

So this rich old guy wants proof of life after death, so he hires a team to go to the "Mount Everest of haunted houses" to confirm whether or not such a thing exists. This group consists of a physicist (Clive Revill), a couple of mediums (Roddy McDowall; Pamela Franklin), and the physicist's wife (Gayle Hunnicutt) because he's either one of those whipped dudes who has to bring his girl with him everywhere or because he wants to show off his hot wife to as many people as possible, or both. Either way, they have about a week to use their scientific know-how and extrasensory perception to find an answer before December 25th -- which I guess qualifies this as a Christmas movie.

The original owner was a man named Belasco, and this guy did so much De Sade-ian partying in this house that the place earned the name "Hell House". At one point McDowall lists the various offenses committed in this house by Belasco: drug and alcohol abuse, sadism, murder, mutilation, bestiality, vampirism, necrophilia, cannibalism, the use of many sexual devices. Lady and gentleman, it took all my energy not to get a boner in the theater right then and there. I'm telling you, this Belasco makes P. Diddy look like Levar Burton. Now I'm hoping it doesn't come out that Levar Burton has been up to some reprehensible shit, or this is gonna age as poorly as my review of Public Enemies. (Don't look that up.)

Anyway, the house begins to do its thing, mostly to Franklin's character, because the ghost is a dude and she's a pretty girl, and making life difficult for women has been one of Man's favorite sports since time immemorial -- even the boundaries of life and death can't get in the way! I couldn't help but make an unfortunate comparison to The Entity in regards to something that happens to Franklin later in the film, but her case she doesn't fight back against her assailant. Still, it's just as disturbing as what happened to Barbara Hershey's character in the other movie.

Far easier to watch was the scene when a black cat enters Franklin's bedroom, to which the audience rightly responded by going AWWW. The cat is cool with her at first, but then it attacks her, because you know how fickle those felines be. I wondered if this was the inspiration for a scene in Scary Movie 2, where Anna Faris' character has a similar throwdown with a black cat. Both scenes are equally hilarious though. In the end, Franklin locks herself in the bathroom, and we see the kitty's widdle paws scratching the floor, oh Franklin, let da widdle baby in.

I liked this movie, despite not finding it scary at all. But just like one of the movies I mentioned earlier, The Others, this one is overwhelmingly atmospheric -- and that goes a very long way for me. The look of the film is matched by an eerie electronic score that would make good background music for a Spirit Halloween store. Also it's fun to watch how the house affects the other members of the team; for example, it turns the physicist's wife into a horndog who gets all up on McDowall with his serial killer glasses. I also enjoyed the all-out climax, which leads into a delightfully silly denouement. I won't get into spoilers, but I will say that Richard Matheson was 6'2 and might've been prejudiced against short people. 

For the next block, we had a choice between The Descent from 2005, and The Blood on Satan's Claw from 1971. Having never heard of the latter, I went with the latter.

This folk horror tale directed by Piers Haggard takes place sometime in the 18th century, where a farmer happens to come across a mutated-looking skull on his field with an eye still on it as well as some fur. This turns out to be a quite the omen for the evil shit that is about to befall this village, mostly involving the town children, who start acting all smug and withholding and as if they were all in on some private joke of which you are the punchline. In other words, they start acting like regular kids.

But I guess back then kids knew how to act right, so this more modern type of behavior they're beginning to exhibit has to be the Devil's work. They're led by the ironically named Angel (Linda Hayden), who takes them out to the woods to play some rather Midsommar-ish games. It's not just the kids, some of the adults have found themselves misplacing their sanity after having visions of some kind of clawed creature. Both the adults and kids also start sporting patches of fur on their bodies, and begin to introduce a touch of the murderous during their cult gatherings.

I'll be honest. In the early going, I thought I was watching the worst film of the marathon. But somewhere along the way, this became my favorite. I never knew where it was going, or how it was going to go about it. I was never able to settle in and get comfortable with this flick because there isn't really a main character to center on. The movie often teases you with the possibility of a lead, only to then cruelly dispatch of them in one way or another -- it's almost as if the film itself is on the side of the bewitched. 

At one point, I thought, OK, maybe it's one of those movies where you're supposed to be on the side of the bad guys, to enjoy as a kind of wicked pleasure. But then there's a long and drawn-out scene where Angel and her gang torture and rape a very innocent girl -- again, for a little while the movie fooled me into thinking she might be the film's focal & moral center -- and none of that was fun to me, because as I said much much earlier, I don't have the Michael Winner gene in me.

Once I figured that this movie appeared to be on some pro-Satan shit, I was finally able to sit back and take in all the bad shit happening to good people and trip out on it -- only for the film to finally reveal it's morality cards to us by reintroducing a character from earlier. He's the town's judge (Patrick Wymark), and at the beginning I thought they were setting him up to be the equivalent of Mayor Vaughn from Jaws, you know, just dismissing everything and refusing to listen to reason. Well, he is that way at first, but when he returns, oh man, my dude is born again hard and he becomes the de facto ass-kicker for the lord during the film's climax and it is hilarious. As it turns out, this movie is not pro-Satan -- it's pro-Salem Witch Trials!

It's pretty wild, this one, and long drawn-out rape scene aside, I had a really good time with it. My only other complaint is that I couldn't stand the overly intrusive music score, whoever was in charge of that needed to take it the fuck easy, it's like the composer was getting paid by the minute. But if you have a woodwind fetish, well, you'll have an eargasm by the end of the first act, I'm sure.

Following a 30-minute dinner break, Dillon revealed the next block of films: We could go to the Haunted Manor to watch the 1973 film Theatre of Blood, or stay in Bloody Hell to watch...well, I can't tell you, I'm sorry to say. Dillon explained that for legal reasons, the Frida wasn't actually allowed to screen this particular film, and so he implored us not to share the name on social media. All I'll say is that it's a film from the early 00's, there's a sequel (or sequels) currently in production, and I had already seen it, so I went with the older film starring Vincent Price and Diana Rigg instead.

Directed by Douglas Hickox, Theatre of Blood stars Price as Edward Lionheart, an actor who faked his own death, and is now dishing out chilled servings of revenge with extreme prejudice to the group of critics who denied him the acting award he so richly deserved. Well, the award he believes he so richly deserved. He's aided by an entourage of homeless drunks, and maybe gets assistance by his daughter Edwina? 

Oh come on, of course she's helping him. I have no choice but to assume that the filmmakers know that you know, I mean, there's a very feminine-looking bearded guy in sunglasses helping Lionheart who sounds a lot like Diana Rigg. And at the end of the film, when that man pulls off his wig, beard, and sunglasses, revealing himself to actually be Edwina, nearly the entire audience made the most sarcastically dramatic gasp. That's the kind of shit I go to the movies for. 

In a way, this kinda reminded of another Price film, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, which would probably make a nice double feature with this. There's just something about watching Vincent Price own motherfuckers that makes me happy, and so I found this very black comedy to be lots of fun. All the kills are based on deaths from the works of William Shakespeare; for example, the first victim is stabbed to death on some "Julius Caesar" shit. The murder methods become increasingly nutty, reminding me yet again that ol' Billy Shakes had such a violent imagination that I'm willing to argue that he could qualify as a Master of Horror alongside guys like Argento, Romero, and Carpenter.

Because the critics in this film are such stuffy snobs who enjoy the smell of the printed farts that they pass as reviews -- something I would know absolutely nothing about -- the movie makes it really easy for one to sympathize with Price, even during his most diabolical act, which I won't reveal, but it's based on "Titus Andronicus", and boy oh boy is it wrong. 

Price is a blast in this, and I can easily imagine him having had fun playing this role, because there's so much for him to do. Not only does he get to deliver various Shakespeare monologues, but because he has to be in disguise during most of his missions, he gets to play in character as a surgeon, an effete hair-stylist, and an amorous massage therapist, among other over-the-top stereotypes. Logic was politely told to go fuck off by the filmmakers, and so you're expected to accept how easy Lionheart is able to pull off and get away with these murders. If you can't accept it, well, that's your problem.

Anyway, it was nice to be taken back to a time when critics actually mattered enough for someone to give enough of a shit to make a movie about how awesome it would be for an artist to kill them. 

During the break, I went outside to have a smoke -- I'm not proud of it, but every once in a very long while -- like during a movie marathon -- I'll need a pick-me-up, and non-filter Lucky Strikes are easier to score than Adderall. So anyway, I was puffing away when some dude wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and a look of absolute obliteration stumbled up to ask me what street he was on. He explained "It's because my homies left me, bro" and "I don't know where I am, bro". I told him where he was, and he bummed a cigarette from me and asked what was playing and I explained to him about the marathon and the secret movies, and he understood it about as well as someone absolutely fucking blitzed on alcohol and god-knows-what-else would. I then excused myself and went back inside. 

Dillon asked the crowd for their favorite British word or phrase, which was met with a waves of raised hands. He then added that if it was something really bad, he would kick them out. The waves immediately crashed down. He then introduced two people from HorrorBuzz.com -- their favorite phrase was "brilliant", by the way -- to talk about their upcoming screenings and to announce the next block of films: In Bloody Hell, Lair of the White Worm from 1988, and in Haunted Manor, Dracula from 1958. I hadn't seen either film, but because of my previous aborted attempt to watch Dracula a couple years ago, I decided to take care of unfinished business with the bloodsucker in Haunted Manor.

Re-titled Horror of Dracula in the States, this Hammer horror production (directed by Terence Fisher) is a nice little rejiggering and streamlining of the original Bram Stoker novel, introducing the character of Jonathan Harker as an undercover vampire hunter visiting the Count under false pretenses. Of course, Harker ends up taking a huge L, and Harker's partner/mentor Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) comes to town in search of him. 

I've seen a couple of the other Christopher Lee/Hammer/Dracula joints, but hadn't gotten around to this one until Camp Frida. It's a very short and simple film, and I don't want to give too much away, so I'll keep it short and simple: I really enjoyed it! It's a lot of fun to watch Lee effectively cuck every dude in this movie; if you have a woman, and he doesn't, he's gonna take her, man. That's just his thing. 

Also his thing: Being a total asshole and absolutely owning it, none of this woe-is-me shit with him. He's pretty miserable and he's gonna make everybody else miserable, an attitude not unlike your average commenter on social media. Except he has the courage of his convictions while the people on social media are nut-less cowards deserving of fire extinguisher beatdowns right out of Irreversible. Also, based on the red eyes he's seen sporting every once in a while, I think Drac likes to wake-and-bake as soon as he gets out of his coffin.

Speaking of red eyes, those reds and the crimson goodness coming out of the victim's bitemarks look great in eye-popping Technicolor. It's a beautiful looking flick, right up there with The Others and Legend of Hell House. It's god-tier spooky season viewing overall, the best of the Christopher Lee Dracula films I"ve watched so far, and if you like watching women getting some sense slapped into them, this movie will definitely scratch your Connery itch. (He's right, by the way.)

By the way, both Lee and Michael Parkinson from Ghostwatch are featured on the cover of Paul McCartney and Wings' album "Band on the Run". I don't know if I'd get some kind of trivia prize from the Frida for knowing that, but I do know that I should.  

Back at Bloody Hell, Dillon asked us we thought of the last 2 films, and concluded that the Haunted Manor crowd came off more enthusiastic, despite watching more old-fashioned fare. He then asked if any of us had stayed in one auditorium the entire time; I was among those who cheered in response, it just worked out that every movie I wanted to see was in Haunted Manor. He then told us that unlike previous Camp Fridas, where we'd all come back to watch the final film of the night in the same room, we would be given another set of films to choose from. 

But before revealing the final block, the audience was invited on stage to pose for a group "I Survived Camp Frida" photo. Usually, this is done at the end of the night, but because one film was going to be significantly shorter than the other, Dillon wanted to give those of us who chose that movie to be able to go home, rather than wait for the other film to end to take part in the photo. Again, I took pictures of the pictures getting taken.

After our brief photo session, Dillon then revealed the final two films of the night: 2002's Dog Soldiers and 1982's Xtro. I've actually seen Dog Soldiers at the 2nd Annual All-Night Horror Show at the New Beverly Cinema back in 2009, and I've wanted to watch Xtro ever since seeing the box art of the VHS way back in my video store childhood. Somehow over the years, I never got around to it, but it worked out for the best,  about to get to finally Xperience Xtro -- on the big screen, no less. 

Written and directed by Harry Bromley Davenport, this sticky and surreal fever dream of a movie starts with a little shit named Tony playing outside with his father Sam, when suddenly the day turns into pitch black night and his dad disappears. A few years later, Tony's mom Rachel is now shacked up with Joe, one of those Americans who sounds like a British actor trying his best to sound like a Yank, and Tony seems comfortable with the situation, doing his little shit activities such as playing with toy soldiers and making annoying machine gun sounds that go EH EH EH EH EH EH EH. This little fuck actually has his toy soldier walk on top of a stick of butter on a kitchen table, which I would've responded by giving him an alternative meal of my belt across his fuckin' face. And now you know just one of my many reasons why I don't want kids. You wouldn't want me to have kids. 

I don't recall ever seeing Rachel sneak off with a glass or two or four of wine, but I sure wouldn't blame her. She certainly looks like someone who knows her way to the end of a bottle. So I decided to pull from my flask of bourbon and drink for the burdened lady.

Anyway, things get less comfortable when Sam unexpectedly returns, although any discomfort felt by Rachel and Joe pale in comparison to what was felt by the poor lady who gives birth to a fully grown Sam. Yeah, you heard me -- she gives birth to a grown-ass man, and all which that entails. It's pretty goddamn gnarly and pretty goddamn impressive, that special effect -- and this movie is full of them.

We're not even sure if he's the same Sam who was whisked away by the you-foes or just some alien facsimile. At least I wasn't sure, and I will only blame part of my inability to recall those details on my getting increasingly tipsy from the aforementioned flask of bourbon. Because the movie itself is never too concerned about making sense to the viewer, it appears to share the same philosophy given by that basket case on wheels David Lo Pan: You were not brought upon this world to get Xtro. 

So yeah, Sam is back, he's some kind of alien hybrid (maybe?) and he's making phones melt, he can move things with his mind, and I suppose the scene where he bites his son's shoulder and proceeds to spew little ball-shaped things into him is the deadbeat alien dad version of giving the little tyke a hug and saying "I love you." 

There's so much gross and off-putting imagery in this weirdo movie, and even the normal stuff feels kinda diseased -- not unlike how the normal stuff in Amityville II: The Possession felt kind of infected with Something Wrong. It sorta feels evil too, which is a big honkin' plus for a horror movie. Some of the stuff here is so goddamn random, they feel like came out of nightmarish entries from a little boy's dream journal, and I was either laughing at it or feeling genuine unease -- or both. I mean, I certainly wasn't expecting to see a black panther show up at one point -- I'm talking about the animal, not the Black Power organization.

In his review, Roger Ebert called this movie "ugly, mean-spirited, and despairing". I agree, except his was a negative review while I'm coming from a positive perspective. I'm saying that those feelings are exactly what Davenport intended to generate with this nasty and nihilistic piece-of-work -- which does work. It was around midnight when we started watching this, the right time for a movie like Xtro, but I bet it plays even better around 4am, when you're bleary-eyed and not all there. But whichever hour you decide to watch it, bring alcohol -- to enhance your viewing, and to help work back up the appetite that this film will most likely take from you.

After the film, I went over to Bloody Hell to catch the final 15 minutes of Dog Soldiers, and then we all stepped out to the lobby, where we were given Camp Frida: British Invasion stickers, and on our way out, we helped ourselves to sweet treats provided by Zombee Donuts, which I had written about in my last post about Camp Frida.You should check that out, if you haven't already.

It was one of my better Octobers as far as going to watch horror movies at the cinema. I didn't even talk about the "Dismember the Alamo" marathon I attended at the Alamo Drafthouse in L.A., where I saw Blade, Pieces, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and Phenomena. Well, I guess I just did.

Anyway. it was a good month, one that I wish never ended. I'm a couple days into November as I write this, and I don't look forward to joining my fellow Americans for the real horror marathon that's about to begin on Election Day. I don't know how it's going to turn out, but either way, I'm certain we'd all have better chances with ghosts, vampires, aliens, chainsaw killers, and a cigar-chomping Burt Young in a wife-beater over what 2025 has in store for us. Still, I remain optimistic. Because as long as I have access to drugs, alcohol, and a 12-gauge shotgun to stick in my mouth, I will always have hope. 

Oh, and movies too. That's also a nice thing, I guess.

Right over there

It was a dark and stormy night in Santa Ana, California. No, really, by the time I arrived at The Frida Cinema, on the night of October 15th, what started as a drizzle had become a full-on cats & dogs shower with thunder and lightning. Which was all right with me, because warm weather in October bums me out, we shouldn't be sweating during this time of year, we should be in sweaters, and besides, rain is horror-friendly weather.

I carefully walked down the soaked sidewalk to join the small crowd of fellow VIP ticket holders for tonight's event: Camp Frida 6: Holiday Horrors all-night horror movie marathon, with films that took place on or around days of leisure and/or celebration.
 
In exchange for paying a little extra for our VIP tickets, we were allowed early entry, giving us ample opportunity to find and claim a seat, and more time to get to know our fellow attendees. Or, if you're an antisocial loner with a blog, it allows you time to mill about the theater, silently judging everybody else for not being as big a loser as you.

At the check-in table, we had our tickets scanned, and we were given a wristband to identify us as VIPs, and those who intended to drink alcohol during the night were given a second wristband. We were then given a Camp Frida t-shirt, along with a goodie bag filled with, uh, goodies. Mine had some candy, a couple stickers, and a couple pins, one of which was a glow-in-the-dark Camp Frida logo. There was also a blank Christmas ornament inside, which one could decorate at the table containing markers, stickers, and strings.

 

The Frida is a two-screen theater, and the tradition during Camp Frida is to different films in each of them, allowing attendees to choose their own movie-watching adventure throughout the night. The screens are each given a name that goes with the whole summer camp motif, and so for that night, screens One and Two became the Fire Lodge and Mess Hall.

We were directed to the Fire Lodge, where the stage had been decorated with cobwebs, balloons and jack-o-lanterns, while music by Goblin, John Carpenter, and Jerry Goldsmith, among others, played on the sound system. A volunteer went around offering to tape off seats in the Mess Hall for us, that way, should we decide to watch a movie over there, we'd already have a reserved spot.

I wanted to hug this volunteer, but I figured if I was going to hug anybody, it was going to be the pretty blonde volunteer who was done up like Florence Pugh's May Queen from Midsommar (minus all those flowers). Alas, I never did work up the courage to step up and spit mad hugging game to her. Not because I was afraid of being turned down, but because I was afraid of her saying Yes, and next thing you know, I'm wearing a bear's skin -- and all that that entails.

Some time after that, we were joined by the rest of the attendees, including a large group of friends with at least two married couples in the rotation. They were all very chipper and I sensed they were longtime pals, and it was nice to see that there were a couple of single men among them, because that meant that the wives in the group didn't force their husbands to only fraternize with other married friends. But upon seeing the two single men in the group turn to give each other an intimate smooch, I realized, nope, they’re all married.

One of the straight husbands excused himself, and his wife looked over to the others, as he walked away, and casually declared "He has a very small bladder!", to which another wife responded with "Oh really? I have the best bladder in the world" and I almost piped in with "...for a woman, maybe", but I didn't want to ruin their fun. Because I actually enjoyed watching them, it reminded me of my younger days when I was the third wheel to my married friends, interrupting them every time they were about to kiss.

There was an intro by the Frida's projectionist -- whose name I didn't get, I’m sorry to say, I believe it was Don, but don’t hold me to that -- and he brought down the Frida Cinema's founder, Logan Crow, the director of programming Trevor Dillon, and various volunteers, giving each of them their time to shine as we applauded them all.

Then he handed the mics over to the two ladies who would be our camp counselors for the evening: Becca and Isa, who are the social media director and volunteer coordinator for the Frida. They broke down the details of the evening, in regards to the schedule and the breaks between films, as well as a polite request for us to be considerate with our trash. 

Then, it was on to the marathon proper -- which started off a little too scary for us, as the first film appeared very yellow on screen, forcing the projectionist to stop the movie and fix the situation. One quick bathroom break later, all was well again, and from that point forward, it was smooth sailing all night.

 

Now you kids might want to sit up close and listen to this oldhead tell you about a period in the late 90s when Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson brought back the teen slasher with their surprise hit Scream. Hollywood wanted in on that sweet, sweet money, so along came a bunch of horror films starring a bunch of pretty faces, rather than the more relatable, attainable types that starred in these kinds of movies back in the 80s.

Among these cash-ins was the 1997 slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer, directed by Jim Gillespie, and also written by Williamson, who adapted the novel by Lois Duncan. This was the first film of the evening, which takes place in a seaside North Carolina town, where we’re introduced to four friends celebrating the 4th of July, all of them recent high school grads with plans for the future.

By the way, for any designated drivers reading to this: Tie up your drunks. Tie them up or knock them out, because there is still the possibility that one of these intoxicated assholes is going to do something that will take your attention off the road for one second, and that's all the time needed for some sad-assed fisherman to stumble onto your speeding vehicle's path. That's what happens to our quartet, and rather than do the hard but correct thing in calling the cops, they instead dump the body in the ocean, swearing to take this secret to their graves.

A year later, one of them, Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) comes home from college and it's clear that the weight of that man's death weighs heavily on her soul, as it does on the souls of her ex-boyfriend Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.), and her friend Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar). As for the fourth of their guilty party, Barry (Ryan Phillippe), he's an overly pumped-up, rage-filled jock, and therefore has no soul, so he just continues to be his usual aggro self, and all of us in the audience found his very extra behavior very entertaining to watch.

Soon, our group begins to receive anonymous notes with the title of the film written on them, which brings out major scared & paranoid vibes in the entire gang. They want to know who is the I in question. Is it the goofy-ass nerd from The Big Bang Theory? Or maybe it’s creepy-ass Anne Heche. There’s also a strong possibility that it’s one of them. But my money is on the scary hook-wielding figure in a rain slicker, and I have to give this dude some serious props for his excellent handwriting and his top-notch hook skills, he probably uses the same hand for both.

The audience seemed to appreciate Julie's use of a very 90s Internet to search for clues, as well as her very 90s hair bangs, while I also got a kick out of the killer's very supernatural ability to show up and disappear anywhere, as well as his ability to transport dead bodies in record time -- in broad daylight, no less.

My apologies for what might have come off as an insensitive comment regarding Anne Heche's character, and to be real with you, due to her recent passing, her tragic and unsettling role carried with it a tragic and unsettling air that obviously wasn't there in my previous viewing.

But rather than dwell on that sad truth, I will dwell on a possibly sadder one. This viewing took me back to when my friends and I saw this at the cinema back in '97; we had a good time and then went to grab a bite at In-N-Out Burger where we had a serious discussion about which of the actresses in the film we'd most want to bang. One friend was all about Hewitt, having been into her since Party of Five, while my other friend was a big Buffy fan, and so that's where his penile loyalties lay.



As for me, I was the outlier who preferred the actress who played Helen's sister, Elsa (Bridgette Wilson), because it was my understanding that dat Veronica Vaughn is one piece of ass, and on top of that, her character wore glasses, and as some of you might already know, the only thing hotter to me than one pair of tits are two pairs of eyes. Of course, each of us would then accuse each other of lying about wanting to fuck any of the ladies, because clearly he was gay -- except we used a different word, because the 90s were a more innocent time for hate speech.

An even sadder post-script to that anecdote: Ten years later, I met up with one of those high school friends. It had been a while, so we caught up, reminisced about the old days, then went to see Transformers. At the end of the night, as I drove him back home, he tried to get nostalgic by making those humorous assumptions about my sexuality again. As per usual, I told him, Yeah sure, I'm totally gay, and you're all I want, you big hunk, you. Except, this time, he kept going, and so again I jokingly said Yes. But he would continue, and eventually it got very uncomfortable because it didn't sound like he was joking anymore. It sounded like he was seriously trying to get me to admit that I was gay. So I seriously answered him No. 



But that wasn't enough. He still wouldn't let up. This went on for way longer than it should've gone. I told him this wasn’t funny anymore, and frankly it was getting annoying. And so he asked again.



I had enough. I slammed hard on the brakes and pulled the car off to the side, nearly colliding with a parked PT Cruiser. It got real quiet, and you could smell burnt rubber in the air. I looked over at my friend and saw fear in his eyes as I began to roll up my sleeves. Then I reached over, angrily unzipped his fly, furiously pulled out his cock, and violently sucked him off. After we both finished, I wiped my mouth and told him "Listen, you son-of-a-bitch, a gay man wouldn't have given you such a bad blow job, and a straight man wouldn't have stayed hard -- let alone gotten hard in the first place!" That shut him up. Then I took him home, wished him well, and dropped him off. I never heard from him again, although I did get an anonymous text the following year that read "I know what you did last summer”, but I ignored it.



Anyway, it held up for me, the movie, I mean. It's a solid slasher, and it's a lot more beautifully shot than I remembered — props to cinematographer Denis Crossan — this is definitely from a time when movies used to look like movies. I enjoyed it just as much as I did the last time, even if all the scares weren’t as strong the second time around. But it was fun to watch others jump up and scream every once in a while. It also warmed my heart to hear the entire audience burst into a rapturous cacophony of applause, cheers, and laughs after Hewitt delivered quite possibly the most iconic line of dialogue of her entire career. 

That's not the only moment where the audience reacted as such; during the intro, we were asked to cheer any time the holiday of the film was said out loud. In this film's case, we cheered every time someone mentioned the Fourth of July. 



But what I thought to be the worst part of the movie back then, remains the worst part today; there's a scene where Helen comes back home after a long day, and she goes into the kitchen to grab a soda, and it's so awkward and unnatural the way she stands over her kitchen table, pouring her drink into a glass in the most assholish way -- with the glass standing straight up, so that she gets 90 percent foam and 10 percent soda -- taking a couple sips from the glass in a manner more befitting someone with a gun to her back. Then she takes off for her bedroom, with both the half soda can and the half empty glass still on the table. I guess she figured the killer who just crept into her house might be thirsty as well.

After a break, we returned to the Fire Lodge, where the hosts announced that both theaters were opened. Then they invited Mikey Aguirre, the gentleman behind See It on 16mm, on stage; normally he tours to various cinemas to screen films on 16mm, but that night he was there to pitch his selection for the night, the 1989 Spring Break/Easter slasher, Nightmare Beach, which would play over at the Mess Hall. The hosts then told us that those who were going to see Aguirre's choice would also have the bonus of participating in an Easter Egg hunt before the film, where we could find eggs containing movie passes and various other goodies.



The hosts then tried something new for Camp Frida; a wheel appeared on screen, divided into sections, each section representing a different film. The wheel was spun, and whichever film the arrow settled on would be the one that would play right there in the Fire Lodge. Among the films were New Year's Evil, the 2006 remake of Black Christmas, and 1995's Day of the Beast (also a Christmas film). Unfortunately, it landed on 2001's Valentine, which I saw back then and never wanted to see again. So it was an easy choice for me -- and apparently most of the audience, as many of us ventured next door, some of us going to our saved seats.

I was so busy settling into my new seat, that I forgot about the Easter Egg hunt until an overzealous gentleman swooped over to my lonely section and grabbed all the eggs surrounding my oblivious ass, and all I could do was laugh.

Nightmare Beach starts off in true 1980s Spring Break style: With a serial killer being executed by electric chair. Diablo is his -- was his name, and he was the leader of a particularly crime-happy biker gang, but he continued to swear his innocence in the murders almost up until the moment of his execution, where he then swore that he would return to exact his revenge. One crispy convict later, we're treated to a credit sequence montage of college beach bodies having fun up and down the Florida burg of Manatee Beach, before settling in to introduce the various potential victims and killers.

Our main doofus is Skip, a college football player who recently fucked it up for his team during the Orange Bowl and is understandably forlorn about it, despite attempts by his horndog teammate Ronny to cheer him up by reminding him that they are indeed there for Spring Break! and all which that entails.

While Ronny employs the "Ask a hundred women to sleep with you, and one will say Yes" technique of scoring, Skip prefers the company of Gail, a local bartender who is almost as much an Eeyore as Skip -- but she has a much better reason for her down syndrome. You see, Gail's sister was one of Diablo's victims, and she was there for his execution, so there's both fear and uncertainty over what she witnessed, and what she was told -- feelings that grow even stronger once it's revealed that Diablo's body has disappeared from its grave.

Perhaps not too coincidentally, a mysterious leather-clad biker -- identity hidden by helmet -- is driving around town in his souped-up motorcycle, complete with electrified passenger seat for unlucky hitchhikers. But since hitchhiking was becoming less of a thing by '89, he supplements his murder-cycle by going on foot, killing people by electrocuting them or burning them with exposed live wires or big furnaces that shoot out flames at lengths that defy logic.

But you know how it is with these Italians, logic has about as much place in a horror movie as a Negro in their sister's bedroom. Oh, yeah, about the filmmakers; during his intro, Aguirre credited the direction of this eye-tie production to Umberto Lenzi, who among various gialli and Euro-crime films, is probably most infamously known for the grindhouse fave Cannibal Ferox -- aka The One Where A Chick Gets Hooks Through Her Breasts. But Lenzi claimed to have quit the production before shooting began, only sticking around at the request of replacement director James Justice (who co-wrote the screenplay), in a position that I can only speculate as being the Obi-Wan to Justice's Luke Skywalker.

Either way, this ultra-goofy, terribly-acted movie was so much fun to watch with a crowd. When not being entertained watching the killer turning people into crispy critters, we were equally entertained by the scenes featuring the most Floridian of men and women. There is so much WOOOO! going on, most of it coming from this random dude who keeps popping up to scream "Go gators!", he always popped up when you least expected it, and it never failed to make many of us in the audience crack up. There are also plenty of scenes involving wet t-shirts and oiled up bodies, and it's all equal opportunity as we watch both sexes get reduced to eye candy, because that's the America that I believe in.

Speaking of America, this movie features quite possibly the most realistic cinematic portrayal of high ranking officials and civil servants -- at any level -- that I've seen. They are all so incompetent and self-serving; as the body count rises, the mayor and the chief of police decide to cover it up by burying the bodies in a salt mine, and they have a doctor to help them falsify the records. The mayor doesn't want to look bad, and the chief is just a power-tripping asshole, and it's heavily implied that the doctor uses Bill Cosby tactics to satisfy his Kevin Spacey tastes.

I'd hate on the chief and the doctor, except they're played by John Saxon and Michael Parks, and they were never not awesome, regardless of who they played. And while you never see Parks do any of the abhorrent things he's accused of, you do see him hilariously pull out a flask every single time he gets or gives bad news, and the audience always cheered whenever that flask come out.



Also included in this assortment of assholes is a pervy hotel manager who goes into a supply closet that also happens to have a hole drilled into it, allowing him to spy on a hooker in the next room who has a great racket going. She hooks her johns by giving them a sob story about being a student short of cash. I think this is a very smart ploy, because it allows dudes who are too proud to pay for it to sleep with a woman who is totally out of their league. As far as they're concerned, this hot chick was totally into them, and so, sure, here's a couple hundred bucks to help her with that other thing.



There's also a prankster, who among his heee-larious pranks, goes around pretending to be a shark on the beach, freaking everybody out. Man oh man, do I fucking hate pranksters. Do you wanna know why? Because these motherfuckers -- you know what? For your eyes sake, and for the sake of my high blood pressure, I'm gonna move on. Suffice it to say, motherfuck a prankster.

After the break, we all returned to the Fire Lodge, where someone came out to to give us the bad news -- it was last call for alcohol -- and the good news -- they would be serving pizza after the film. Then the hosts returned to announce the next film playing in that theater: The first of two Jamie Lee Curtis movies that take place on a train during New Year's Eve, Terror Train. Then they spun the wheel to reveal the alternate feature: the 2009 zombie flick Dead Snow. 

Having already watched Terror Train during the Camp Frida live-stream in 2020, I decided to go with the other film, which I had never seen. So off I went, back to the Mess Hall, with my large cup of Cherry Coke that I didn't finish during Nightmare Beach.

Easter is this Norwegian film's holiday, and so we watch how kids over there do Spring Break: Somewhere in some snowy hinterland, up in some mountain cabin. So we're going to not going to see a bunch of exposed skin, which is for the best, because we're not talking beach bods for most of this crew. But I get it, in the cold you're gonna want some extra layers of warmth.

So anyway, we've got seven of them; four dudes and three chicks, and you'd think the tubby movie geek of this funky bunch would be the odd man out. Wrong. He actually ends up being the first -- the only one! -- to score, with a rather attractive woman, despite their being nothing particularly alluring about him, visually or personality-wise. 

Again, let me remind you, he's a movie geek, and as you, me, and the rest of the movie geeks know, movie geeks are the absolute fucking worst, that's why we have to find another movie geek if we wanna fuck, and that just makes two of the fucking worst, who are also the worst at fucking, getting together to fuck, and if two of the fucking worst who are the fucking worst at fucking end up fucking, that means some of the fucking worst end up having fucking kids -- and their kids are the fucking worst.

They usually grow up to be pranksters.

So back to this fat fuck and his hot chick. He leaves the cabin to go take a shit in the outhouse, and after dropping a deuce and wiping his ass, this lady just steps right into the outhouse with him, and it's like, if being in a small space that reeks of shit isn't going to cool her jets, then I suppose she'd be turned on by the piece of shit sitting before her. He doesn't even have to make the first move, instead, she picks up his hand -- the same hand he used to wipe his shitty Norwegian ass with -- and begins to suck his fingers. 

Lady and gentleman, it was at this point, that the jaded black-hearted cynic who has watched real death videos and who found A Serbian Film kinda dull, this garbage human whose words you are reading, began to feel something approaching the temptation to faint. 

But instead I took a deep breath, picked up my cup of Cherry Coke and sucked on the straw as if it were my old friend's cock -- strengthening my resolve. My eyes rolled back down from my head, and I was able to continue watching as this poor damaged woman rode this chunky cowboy into an orgasmic state of fecal-scented bliss. 

It was here that I felt I was truly watching a horror film. And so I was relieved when the zombies finally arrived.

And who are these zombies? Nazis. You see, back during World War II, a bunch of these SS scumbags had occupied this part of Norway, and they did their thing, raping, pillaging, murdering the villagers, because that's what one does for their country. But eventually the villagers fought back and killed most of them, but some of them escaped and froze to death. 

Well, here they are, back from the dead, and ready to reich and roll. The survivors are left to fend these zombies off, using their wits and what little weaponry they have at their disposal. I enjoyed this absurd splatter flick featuring creative kills, and filled with blood, entrails, severed body parts, and various viscera, even though this is definitely more of a movie geek joint that takes stuff from fondly remembered genre films and gives them its own spin. It's less about reinventing the wheel and more about redecorating it.

The movie openly references its cinematic inspirations, particularly the works of Sam Raimi, specifically Evil Dead II, and so, it has that same kind of horror-comedy blend, albeit a much darker form of comedy. I also appreciated some of the nasty turns and surprises it takes along the way, and it plays no favorites when it comes to its characters, regardless of what you'd expect based on their types.

This was directed by Tommy Wirkola, who also co-wrote the screenplay, and he went on to direct Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, which I'm now interested in checking out because I'd like to see what he turned out on a big Hollywood scale. But I'm also left thinking that if this guy, an obvious movie geek himself, intended on painting such an unflattering portrait of one, as he did in this film, or was this in fact, some kind of wish fulfillment.

Like, I can imagine some super nerd who jizzes over movies and comic book properties and movies about comic book properties, working up the kind of fear and resentment towards the opposite sex, and so that ends up mixing in with his passion to just be able to, you know, actually kiss a girl. And the larger that fear and resentment grows, the more toxic that mix becomes, until eventually that nerd goes from thinking "Man, I wish a nice girl would let me take her out for a chocolate malt" to "Man, that sexy slut should hunger for my four inches so bad, she's willing to smell my shit to get it." 

It was during the following break that the pizza arrived, and me being overly assumptive, assumed that it was as complimentary as the coffee for VIPs. Two slices and seven dollars later, I returned to the Fire Lodge, where trailers for holiday-themed films played in the background, including Thankskilling, Bloody New Year, Gremlins, Eyes Wide Shut, Jack Frost, and Uncle Sam. 

Then the hosts returned to announce the next film playing in the Fire Lodge: the 1987 Thanksgiving body-counter Blood Rage, which was introduced by a gentleman whose name I can't recall, but he's from the website HorrorBuzz. He talked about how this movie was a favorite with everyone from HorrorBuzz, and that they've screened it twice for their Horror Movie Nights at the Frida. He talked about what a wild film it was, and I agree, as it is an annual viewing for me every November.

But as much as I would have loved to experience a nutty flick like Blood Rage with a rowdy sleep-deprived crowd, I made the difficult decision to instead go with the wheel's choice for the Mess Hall: 1986's April Fool's Day, a film I always meant to watch. So off I went, but not before stopping for a cup of my free VIP coffee, of which I took two sips before tossing it in the trash, where it belonged, then I silently wept for those who had to pay for that disgusting brew. 

Only a handful of people chose to watch this film, and the projectionist stuck his head out from the booth to thank us for giving this movie a chance, because he felt it was a pretty good movie worth a watch. He also warned us that the movie would begin in a strange aspect ratio, but not to worry, that's intentional on the film's part. Then someone in the crowd douche-ily ordered the projectionist to "roll film!" and the projectionist mumble-responded some appropriately snarky comment about how he was going to get the film print ready, as if this entire evening's slate wasn't being presented digitally.

So yeah, the film opens with a narrower aspect ratio, because we are watching footage from someone's video camera, introducing our cast of college cutups, as they travel by ferry to visit their friend Muffy at her island residence for the weekend during Spring Break. The most recognizable of the group is Kit, played by Amy Steel, who is best known as final girl Ginny from Friday the 13th Part II, and Arch, played by Thomas F. Wilson, who is best known as one of cinema's greatest bullies, Biff Tannen, from the Back to the Future trilogy. 

As for Muffy, she's played by the Valley Girl herself, Deborah Foreman, who gives a very interesting performance as someone who comes off both very friendly while also vaguely creepy. It's like she's not quite all there, and despite her sweet face and lovely smile, there's something possibly sinister brewing underneath -- and that's when the film connected the dots for me, when she is shown setting up various pranks all throughout her property. 

I knew it -- a prankster! And on the weekend of April Fool's Day, no less! Oh, she's having herself a blast messing with her guests, placing whoopie cushions on their chairs, or setting the same chairs up to fall apart, she's screwing with the light switches, jacking up the water faucets, and worst of all, she serves them franks & beans for dinner. Not that I dislike franks & beans, but c'mon, that house screams Chateaubriand, man, you gotta class up the cuisine for your guests.

But on the other hand, they deserve it. They really are all a bunch of assholes, when you get right down to it, the best kind of privileged White people that Reagan's America had to offer. All they do is goof around, make gay jokes, work out, kick soccer balls, try to fuck each other, and wear sunglasses because their future is so bright. And so I couldn't get too upset once they start disappearing, only to reappear at room temperature, in various states of Dead.

So it leaves a viewer wondering if this is all Muffy's doing as well. As mentioned before, she carries a faint air of psycho killer, and the opening credits even show us a flashback of Muffy's childhood, where she receives a jack-in-the-box but a scary monster doll pops out instead. You hear her scream, and it's the kind of prank that might seem minor in retrospect, but come on, man, the only thing kids have in common is that they are all little shits, otherwise they are each unique and different in every way, and so some kids handle scary stuff better than others. And while some might give a quick yelp and move on, and some might go crying for their mommies, others end up becoming Psycho Freaky Jasons. You just never know.

It's like this one time that I saw a friend put on a monster mask and hide behind a couch as his two-year-old toddler came stumbling into the living room. His mother and I protested against this, but he was dead set on having his fun. As so out he popped, going "Rraawwgh!" at his baby boy -- who then gave out the most ear-piercing scream, dropped to his knees, and I'm sure tears weren't the only liquid he excreted that moment. His mother then started yelling at my friend, practically beating on him, while their son fell onto his back, crying for some kind of comfort. I immediately bid farewell and walked home, choking back the lump that was growing in my throat, wiping away the pesky moisture forming in my eyes, because that's the kind of pussy I am. 

The last time I saw that child, he was a preteen, wearing a shirt featuring a drawing of a farting dog with the words "Blame the Dog" under it, but I couldn't tell you if that was a sign of trauma or not. But his mother is no longer in the picture, and the father is a big Trump supporter, so clearly there was some damage done. Anyway, I think the important lesson to be learned here is don't get a girl pregnant at 15 years old.

While this is lumped in with other slashers of the era, April Fool's Day is more in the spirit of an Agatha Christie mystery; we watch these characters hang out, and on occasion, a body will pop up. And on the rare occasion that we are shown a victim's final moments, the film cuts away before things get bloody.  The violence is pretty tame, and the film's R rating is more about the language and sexual situations. Because of that, I can easily recommend this to people who otherwise stay away from these kinds of movies.

I can also easily recommend this to people in general, because I felt this was a pretty good movie. It's a good mystery featuring well-executed scenes of suspense, which shouldn't surprise me, considering this is from Fred Walton, the director of the original When a Stranger Calls. But despite these guys not really being my kind of guys, I actually enjoyed watching them. Some of it feels improvised, rather than scripted, and it all feels natural. I not only believe that these characters were friends, but it wouldn't surprise me if the actors themselves already were friends, or became friends during the shoot.

Even though this movie is over 30 years old, and is probably most known for its ending, I'm still going to keep mum on the conclusion, for the sake of anybody out there who hasn't seen it. But I really liked the bold choice that this film made, and I can imagine many who saw this back in the day found this film to be a breath of fresh air, and I can imagine many others being pissed off by it.

But it's greatest accomplishment is that it's a film featuring people playing pranks on each other, and somehow I was left smiling by the end of it! Because I fucking hate pranksters!

I'm sorry, I held back while talking about Nightmare Beach, but forget it, I'm going both barrels right here and now. You wanna know why I hate pranksters? In my experience, pranksters love to prank but absolutely hate it when they get pranked, which proves to me that pranks are really just some screwed-up and cowardly way to be hostile to others, while laying all the responsibility on the victim. Because if you get pranked, and don't find it funny, then you are the asshole. wHaT's WrOnG? dOn'T hAve A sEnSe oF hUmOr? is the defense these absolutely worthless cunts pull out like badges from the Twat Police, after assaulting you. 

Tell a prankster that you do not like pranks, and they'll accept it as a challenge that was never given, and so they will proceed to prank you. There's a word for that kind of person, who will insist himself on you, despite your request that he doesn't -- and pranks are just another way to insist.

I swear to god, if I become King Dictator of the World, I'm having all pranksters executed; put 'em on their knees, give 'em two to the back of the head, and bill the bullets to their families, China-style. The bodies of the executed will be cremated, and the ashes will be sent to their loved ones, and when they open the urn to scatter the ashes, a wacky spring-loaded snake will jump out at them. What's wrong? Don't have a sense of humor?

Back at the Fire Lodge, we were told that instead of the wheel, they would name films and the two that got the most applause from the audience would play next; the winners were The Return of the Living Dead from 1985, and Night of the Demons from 1988, which I had already seen at a previous Camp Frida, and thought was OK, so I instead stayed put for the zombie flick, which I've seen on the big screen a couple times already, and wouldn't mind watching again.

The 4th of July is mentioned at the very beginning, but never mind that, we're not here for fireworks, we're here for zombie mayhem, and that's what we get during this film which mostly takes on the 3rd. Still, I'm surprised that throughout this entire film, not one early firework is seen or heard in the background. I don't know about the film's setting of Louisville, Kentucky, but over here in Southern California, you can't stop someone from lighting fireworks before the 4th. They usually start as early as April, and they don't stop until late September, if we're lucky.

I don't think you even have to be from SoCal to recognize that this supposedly Southeast location is obviously Los Angeles. So we should be catching glimpses of the occasional errant firework set off by some overzealous cholo, because it's always a cholo flaunting the off-season fireworks. I don’t know why, maybe it’s a requirement of the lifestyle.

Anyway, everyone knows that George A. Romero's 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead is a work of fiction. What this film presupposes is, maybe it's not?  That's what Frank, a senior employee at a medical supply warehouse tells the new hire Freddy, that the film was based on a real incident and that the zombies were sealed into airtight containers by the Army, and that one of those very same containers is stored in the warehouse's basement. 

Of course, curiosity gets the better of the two, and off they go to check out the formerly living corpse, which results in them getting sprayed with zombie gas -- while bringing back the dead, for good measure. The two call in their boss, Burt, to help them deal with the walking corpses that just won't stay dead. Even worse, these things all have a hankering for human brains.

Meanwhile, Freddy's punk friends are killing time at the neighboring cemetery, waiting for him to clock out from work. They're unaware of what's going on, and so when one of them, a pink-haired chick named Trash, openly admits to fantasizing about being eaten alive, she has no idea how soon that fantasy will become terrifying reality.

The rest of the film is just one long chain of fuck-ups, ranging from colossal to monumental to apocalyptic. Written and directed by Dan O'Bannon, who up until this point was known for writing Alien, Blue Thunder, and my favorite Tobe Hooper film, Lifeforce, his directorial debut is a top-notch entry in what I like to call the "Everybody's Fucked" sub-genre. Because no matter what these characters try to do to contain the situation, they're all fucked. It is a nihilistic work, but it's also good times, because O'Bannon is able to balance out the doom with an overall sense of fun -- and it never stops being tense and exciting. He knows the right tone for any given scene; when to make things funny, when to make them scary, when to make them disturbing, and when to make them tragic.

O'Bannon is strongly supported by a pitch-perfect cast, including the late great trio of Clu Gulager as Burt, James Karen as Frank, and Don Calfa as Ernie, the undertaker from the mortuary next door (and who might also be a secret Nazi, but I already talked about those assholes two movies ago). Then on the punker side, you have a bunch of those assholes, so I'm just going to point out Thom Matthews as Freddy, Beverly Randolph as Freddy's girlfriend Tina, and Linnea Quigley as the aforementioned Trash, who despite her limited screen time, arguably leaves the biggest impression on a viewer, at least she did on me.

There's also Spider, played by Miguel A. Nuñez Jr., whose previous film was Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, where he played a victim taking a shit in an outhouse, but unlike those filthy Scandinavians in Dead Snow, he and his paramour don't fuck on the toilet. Instead they sing to each other while she waits for him outside the shitter, like a normal human being.

Overall, I really enjoy this movie, despite half of the soundtrack being comprised of non-stop screaming. It doesn't matter if it's comedic screaming or screams of genuine terror, screaming's screaming, man, and it can get grating. Most of it comes from Frank and Freddy, who scream at how badly they fucked things up, at the sights of melty reanimated bodies clamoring for braaaaains, and from the agonizing pain as they slowly die from exposure to the gas, becoming zombies themselves.

But the other half of the soundtrack is a mix of cheesy 80s synth score and a bunch of boss tunes by bands like 45 Grave, T.S.O.L., and The Damned, sounds that never get old -- unless you're young, then that stuff is old by default. But they're bad jams, nonetheless.

While I prefer Romero's original Dead trilogy over this one, as far as zombies go, I have to give it to O'Bannon, because I find his version of the undead to be horrifying. It has nothing to do with Romero's zombies being slow and O'Bannon's being fast, because they're both equally scary for their own reasons. No, it's because Romero's zombies can be killed; one shot to the brain will do 'em dead. But it doesn't work that way with O'Bannon's zombies; you can brain 'em, decapitate 'em, dismember them, and they’re still moving.

To add pain to injury, it hurts to be a zombie in O'Bannon's world. They need to consume human brains to take away from the pain, they’re like junkies desperately fiending for a fix. So you gotta look at it like this: If you die and become a zombie in Romero’s world, well, your non-life involves slowly walking the earth, chowing down on the occasional human, and stopping at the neighborhood mall every once in a while. It doesn't seem like a bad existence, I mean, I don't hear them complaining. And once someone separates your brain from your spinal cord, its lights out, and any possible suffering you might have had as a zombie, is finally over.

But become a zombie in O'Bannon's world, and you're fucked forever. You are in everlasting pain, save for those brief moments of relief that come from cracking open a skull and diving in for some delicious brains. But that won’t last, and there you are, running in search for more relief. And if someone shoots you in the head, it does nothing. Hell, it might actually hurt more. And if someone machetes your head off your body, you are now burdened with yourself, having to carry your head around with you -- provided you can find it. And if you get chopped up into pieces, there will never be relief.

Should you decide to suicide, well, that's one way to solve your problem in Romero’s world. But suicide is not an option in O'Bannon's world, not unless you want to throw yourself into an incinerator, but if you also happen to be infected with zombie cooties when you burn, well, congratulations, you've just infected the air with your self-made zombie gas, further spreading the pain, you inconsiderate asshole.

Anyway, I really dig it: gory, funny, scary. The ending’s a bit odd, it feels like they ran out of money and scrounged something up in editing, but that's a very minor complaint towards a major accomplishment. I also forgot that the movie begins with a disclaimer informing the viewer that what they are about to see is all true, using real names and real places. So take that, Fargo.

 
Everybody was happy to find donuts waiting in the lobby, while I was happy they were free; I grabbed a glazed twist and stepped outside to enjoy my sugar rush with some fresh air. Then, we all gathered at the Fire Lodge for a final spiel from Trevor Dillon about the history of Camp Frida, and then the various volunteers were shouted-out for their hard work in putting this night together and working this night together, and we all gave them a round of applause. Then Becca and Isa came back out to reveal the final film of the night: 1988's Maniac Cop, which features a climax that takes place during St. Patrick's Day.

Somebody is killing innocent people on the streets of New York City — somebody with a badge — and perhaps if you’ve never heard of the Maniac Cop series, you might have actually been surprised when it was revealed not to be Bruce Campbell’s brief red herring of a character, but instead a bigger man with a bigger chin, played by Robert Z’Dar. And perhaps if you've never heard of the Maniac Cop series until now, my apologies for spoiling it for you.

But that's part of life. The way I see it, everybody takes a beating sometimes, and everybody gets at least one movie spoiled for them; back in 2019, I was walking towards the Vista Theater to watch Avengers: Endgame, and two kids from the previous showing were walking the opposite direction, loudly recounting who died in the end. I wanted to push the little bastards into oncoming traffic, but nobody was driving at that moment.

Back to the movie, in which I can only guess writer/producer Larry Cohen wanted Whitey to understand the fear that Blacks and minorities feel in the presence of our local Officer Friendlies — and make a profit while he’s at it — and so here’s another example of why I feel genre films were the best and remain the best at social commentary, compared to, say, your usual Oscar bait claptrap that prefers to ladle it all over until every crevice is coated in Message.

For the especially thick-headed types in the audience, there’s a man-on-the-street interview where a Black guy mentions three of his friends having been shot by cops -- and you know he’s not talking about our Maniac. That's just common behavior by the pigs in blue, who know a paid vacation is worth the risk of being that one in a million who gets made to be an example. Hell, that's better odds than your average criminals gets when they commit murder.

William Lustig was the perfect guy to tell Cohen’s story; his B-movie action/horror chops are on full display here. When I first saw this on cable, my 4th grade mind was blown when the identity of the Maniac Cop was revealed, and our leads found out how much of a scary indestructible force they were up against. Speaking of which, I love how the movie switches protagonists on us with only a half hour left to go. I really wish more movies would continue to surprise us this way.

I forgot Tom Atkins starred in this, as the lieutenant investigating these murders. He's the one who introduces the idea that the killer is a police officer, and so, the fact that we have a policeman who wants to hold another policeman accountable for violent acts against helpless, unarmed, law-abiding citizens means that if you have trouble finding this movie in either the Horror or Action category of your preferred streaming service, well, you'll probably locate this under Fantasy.

Or perhaps you'd find this under Documentary, if one were to go by the shitheel captain, played by William Smith, and the shitbird commissioner, played by Richard Roundtree, the latter having broken my heart. I mean, look at you, Shaft, your ass used to be beautiful, you used to be the man who would risk his neck for his brother man, and now here you are, standing up on behalf of The Man. 

Going back to Atkins, he’s been in plenty of films over the years, but I kinda wish he would have a Robert Forster-esque resurgence, where you’d see him pop up in bigger movies more often. Maybe if we can take Tarantino’s attention away from some wannabe starlet’s feet for two seconds, we can tell him to hook Atkins up with a role in his next project.

Also, I don’t know if this is a hot take or whatever the kids call it these days, but I’m not a fan of 80s-era Bruce Campbell. No no no, I don't mean as an actor, I mean his look. I think he started looking more manly in the 90s, when he started gaining some age on his face and some meat on his bones. Or maybe I’m projecting, as the years creep up, the doughnuts take their toll, my hair loses volume, and I begin waking up sore for no reason -- and I'm no Bruce Campbell to begin with. Either way, I like my Bruce the way I like my beef: aged and thick.

My only real issue with the film is more of a budgetary one, in that I can easily tell the scenes that were shot in Los Angeles and the ones that were shot in New York. I recognized quite a few downtown L.A. locations here and there, plus a palm tree or two where there should be zero.

But hey, at least they could afford to film in both cities! If you were to make this movie today, I bet you would have the leads mixing it up with actors who have Eastern European faces and who speak East Coast slang with vaguely Borat-esque accents, driving on cobblestone streets around 19th century architecture lined with creepy dry-branched trees, with everything looking blue and severe. Welcome to New York, everybody!

Props to Sam Raimi, by the way, for appearing in a cameo as a news reporter, and for saying "St. Patrick's Day" a bunch of times during his brief scene, causing us in the audience to break out into cheers and applause every few seconds. It was pretty funny; in my sleep-deprived state-of-mind I imagined that Raimi was performing his scene live, and he knew that saying the name of the holiday would induce this Pavlovian response from the crowd, and so he toyed with us, the way he toys with his actors, particularly his favorite punching bag, Campbell.

Anyway, I don't have as much to say about this one as I would if we were talking about the sequel, which I remember being even better. But this first film will always be remembered as the one where Larry Cohen and William Lustig displayed their courage, by speaking up to declare that All Zombies Are Bastards. 

 

After the film, the hosts came out to wrap up, and we all gave each other a round of applause, before going onstage to take a photo together. I took part in posing with everybody else, while making sure to stand in a place that would keep me hidden -- the best of both worlds for someone like me. And so, a little before 8:00am, Camp Frida 6: Holiday Horrors ended with those of us who made it through the night stumbling out bleary-eyed onto the wet streets. 

 

 

I ended up stopping in Fullerton to grab some thematically related breakfast at Zombee Donuts, where all their delicious pastries were decorated like coffins, eyeballs, snakes, spiders, monsters, and of course, zombies. They weren't making them look legitimately scary, they were made up to look cute and cartoonish, and that's probably why there were plenty of little kids there. They tasted just as lovely as they looked. The donuts were pretty good too.