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Memphis’ First Monster Con Takes Over the Pipkin This Weekend

Calling all the monsters. ’Tis time for the first-ever Memphis Monster Con, a two-day horror extravaganza happening this Saturday and Sunday. 

The convention will have more than 15 celebrity guests, more than 100 vendors and artists, food trucks, cosplay and cosplay contests, panels, photo ops, and more. 

“Memphis has a good comic con with the Memphis Comic Expo. It’s got a really good anime convention with the Anime Blues [Con],” says Jaime Wright, one of the event’s organizers and co-owner of 901 Comics with Shannon Merritt. “One thing Memphis has never had is a dedicated horror convention, so we felt it’s an itch that needs to be scratched.” 

Memphis artist Cameron Holland made limited edition posters for the con. (Photo: Courtesy Jaime Wright)

Wright fell into horror as a kid who wanted to watch what his older brother and late sister were watching. “I distinctly remember they were watching the movie Phantasm on TV one night in the late ’70s,” he says. “It gave me nightmares, but I had to get more.”

Wright expects others feel the same about horror. “People like being scared,” he says. “They like being taken out of their comfort zone.”

For the horror convention, guests will get to meet Tyler Mane, the now-retired professional wrestler who played Michael Myers in Rob Zombie’s Halloween; C.J. Graham, who was Jason in Friday the 13th Part VI; Brett Wagner, who did the first kill in the 2003’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre; scream queen Felissa Rose from Sleepaway Camp and Death House; and more. “We’re doing a Return of the Living Dead reunion with five of the cast members [Thom Mathews, John Philbin, Beverly Randolph, Miguel Núñez Jr., and Allan Trautman].”

Ken Foree, who starred in Dawn of the Dead and also appeared Rob Zombie’s Halloween, will also be there. Wright calls him a “horror legend.” Like other celebrities at the event, Foree will give a panel talk (Sunday at 1:50 p.m.). “I’m gonna tell stories to the audience and talk about what I’ve been doing,” he says. “I’ll go into Q&A and let them ask questions. I have a great time doing that.”

Other panels include “The King’s Reign: Celebrating 70 Years of Godzilla” with Beale Street Monster Club, “Darker Side of Disney” with the Memphis-based podcast I-Scream Queens, and “History of Horror Comics” with 901 Comics’ Shannon Merritt. 

A full schedule of events can be found at Memphis Monster Con’s Facebook page. 

Memphis Monster Con, Pipkin Building at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, 940 Early Maxwell Boulevard, Saturday, November 9, 9:30 a.m.-7 p.m. | Sunday, November 10, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m., $25/Saturday Pass, $20/Sunday pass, $40/weekend pass, $40/Weekend pass, $100/VIP Weekend Pass. 

Memphis Monster Con Afterparty, Hi Tone, 282-284 N. Cleveland, Saturday, November 9, 8 p.m., $15. 

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Film Features Film/TV

Thanksgiving

Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving carves up a whole lot more than just turkey.

In 2007, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez were at the top of their game. The two directors had come up from the indie underworld at the same time in the early ’90s. Tarantino’s Kill Bill films were critical and commercial successes, and Rodriguez was doing both mainstream blockbusters with Spy Kids and cutting-edge animation with Sin City. They teamed up to make a tribute to the shameless, cheap exploitation films of the drive-in era. Grindhouse was a double feature condensed into a single movie by leaving the middle reel out of each film. Rodriguez’s contribution was Planet Terror, a hyper-violent zombie sci-fi flick starring Rose McGowan as a go-go dancer with a machine gun leg; Tarantino’s was Death Proof, a car chase movie starring Kurt Russell as a murderous stuntman driving a sinister black hot rod.

Tarantino and Rodriguez invited their film bro buddies to make trailers for movies that could never get made which ran before and between the two features. Rob Zombie did one for “Werewolf Women of the S.S.”; Edgar Wright did a hilarious voice-over riff called “Don’t.” But strangely, three of the trailers for films that “could never get made” actually ended up getting made. Rodriguez made “Machete” around legendary Mexican-American stuntman Danny Trejo, and it spawned two successful feature films. (I’m still waiting for Rodriguez to complete the trilogy with Machete in Space.) Then there was the self-explanatory Hobo with a Shotgun from Canadian filmmaker Jason Eisener, who got his slot in Grindhouse by winning a South by Southwest Film Festival contest. And now, there’s Thanksgiving by Hostel director Eli Roth.

The original trailer had to be cut down a bit to avoid the entire film being slapped with a NC-17 rating. Roth’s feature just squeaks under the bar for an R rating, but it is every bit as demented and shameless as the trailer. As the name suggests, Roth’s film is smack dab in the middle of the slasher horror tradition of Black Christmas and Halloween. Like John Carpenter, who Roth is clearly channeling here, the jump scares and arterial spray are flying cover for unsparing social satire.

Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, is like Halloween in Salem — the epicenter of holiday vibe. That’s why it feels so off that RightMart owner Thomas Wright (Rick Hoffman) has decided to open his big box store on Thanksgiving, while he enjoys a greeting-card-worthy Thanksgiving dinner with his family. One of the hallmarks of the grindhouse slasher pics is that almost everyone you meet is an insufferable jerk, so it’s more satisfying when they inevitably get killed. Thomas’ daughter Jessica (Nell Verlaque) is the least unsympathetically portrayed character in the film, but still, she’s the one who inadvertently starts a riot on Thanksgiving when she lets her obnoxious friends into the RightMart before it officially opens at 6 p.m.

For Roth, the FightMart riot is his Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan. Fully feral American consumers tear each other to pieces over discount waffle irons. The security cameras make the rioting shoppers look like rats in a maze driven crazy by some kind of perverse psychological experiment. It’s the first of a series of blistering images Roth conjures using the familiar tropes of Thanksgiving.

A year later, the Wright family business has settled a bunch of lawsuits, and Jessica and her friends are the subject of harassment on social media. Then, a new, much more threatening harasser appears, using the pilgrim name John Carver. I had never really thought of how terrifying the traditional Plymouth Rock pilgrim outfits were until Roth showed me one dismembering people with an axe. Sheriff Eric Newlon (Patrick Dempsey) asks Jessica to help find the killer before he finds them. But there is no shortage of suspects who carry grudges from the FightMart riot, so Jessica’s amateur detectives have their work cut out for them.

The ironic part of Thanksgiving is that it started as a joke about a low-budget exploitation film that was too weird to be made, and now, 16 years later, it’s become a really good low-budget exploitation film. Roth hits that elusive sweet spot between stupid and smart. It’s gross, it’s in shockingly bad taste, it indicts its audience simply by existing, and yet, you can’t look away. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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Film Features Film/TV TV Features

No One Will Save You

The 1970s were the decade where horror came of age. William Friedkin (RIP) made the genre respectable with The Exorcist, Dario Argento brought it to the art house with Suspiria, and John Carpenter revolutionized it with Halloween. But one of the most frightening single scenes of the decade was from Steven Spielberg in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 

Spielberg can do anything, of course, but I have long thought that he is a horror director at heart. In Close Encounters, single mom Jillian (Melinda Dillon) is in bed with the flu in her rural Indiana farmhouse when she notices one of her son Barry’s (Cary Guffey) toys moving by itself. Barry is in the kitchen, where he meets something — we only see his reactions, and the spilt milk that the unseen visitor dropped from the fridge. By the time Jillian makes it downstairs, Barry is chasing his new “friend” outside, where an ominous cloud formation overhead adds to the tense atmosphere. Jillian manages to get her son inside, but the alien visitors, represented by blinding klieg lights, will not be deterred. They try various points of entry, like the chimney, with Barry cheering them on. “Come in through the door!” 

The scene’s climax comes when the aliens slowly unscrew the HVAC vent covers, a moment writer/director Brian Duffield emulates in his new alien invasion flick No One Will Save You. In place of the Melinda Dillon (who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for CE3K) is Kaitlyn Dever as Brynn, who lives alone in her rural farmhouse, surrounded by her crafts and pictures of her deceased parents and BFF Maude (Dari Lynn Griffin). 

One of the things Spielberg understands is how much horror depends on great sound design. In the recent hit A Quiet Place, the sound design takes center stage because the invading aliens are blind, so everyone has to be real quiet all the time. In No One Will Save You, it’s quiet because no one in Brynn’s small town will talk to her, because they hate her, for reasons that the story slowly reveals. There are only about five words of dialogue spoken in the film’s 93 minutes, which makes A Quiet Place seem positively chatty by comparison. Sound designer James Miller fills the space with spooky creaks, far-off groaning, and unintelligible murmurs. 

Kaitlyn Dever stars in Hulu’s No One Will Save You. 

Brynn seems lonely and sad, but fairly resigned to her fate as the town pariah, as long as she is left alone to run her Etsy business selling handmade birdhouses. One morning, on her way to the post office, she notices a burned ring in her yard. That night, she gets her first visitor. Duffield uses deep staging and sleight of hand to avoid revealing his antagonists as long as possible. The aliens appear in bokeh or obscured by lens flares — until they’re right up in Brynn’s face, probing her mind. 

Doing No One Will Save You as a semi-silent film is operating with the difficulty setting on high, and it would not work without an actress as talented and disciplined as Dever. Her endlessly expressive eyes sell Brynn’s resigned despair, her creeping terror, her determination to survive, and, when the alien’s mind probe takes her back to the traumatic incident that made her an outcast, her searing regret. 

Like all good horror films, No One Will Save You plays with your existing fears by mapping them onto some external threat. In this case, it’s fear of the dark, fear of the unknown, social anxiety, and, as University of Memphis film professor Marina Levina is fond of saying, “all horror is body horror.”

The list of Duffield’s influence — Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Under The Skin, Close Encounters, Poltergeist — is solid, but the real test of an artist is how well they synthesize and transcend their influences. The synergy between director and actor elevates No One Will Save You to something greater than the sum of its parts. 

No One Will Save You is now streaming on Hulu. 

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Horror of Our Time

Photo: © 1933 King Kong Promotional Image | Wikimedia Commons

I’ve been something of a monster movie maniac ever since my dad took me, at age 5, to see King Kong (1933) as part of The Orpheum’s summer movie series. As I sat in the gorgeous old theater watching silver-hued stop-motion dinosaurs decimate the landing party, watching Kong, the king of Skull Island, take Fay Wray to his mountain keep, my velcro-clad feet barely sticking past the edge of the seat, something was awakened inside me. From that moment on, I was absolutely mad for monster movies.

I’ve written about it before, I know, though I don’t know if I’ve gone into the inception of my mania. I wrote about the anniversary of the publication of Dracula not long ago. (How did Flyer senior editor Bruce VanWyngarden do this for 20 years and keep his subjects straight? I’ve got respect.) It may be that I’ve mentioned monsters a few too many times in what should be a column for general audiences. But, as Flyer film editor Chris McCoy points out in this week’s film feature, mass media is experiencing a horror renaissance, and one that shows no signs of stopping. It’s touching nearly every element of popular culture — streaming services, movies, novels. Horror is hot right now. Even subgenres are tinged with it. My sister texted me this morning to say her favorite part of the not-exactly-new (but still in theaters) Doctor Strange movie was the “horror overtone.” Stephen Graham Jones’ postmodern Scream-like novel My Heart Is a Chainsaw won a truckload of awards. Oh, and Scream got another sequel last year. Stranger Things is the subscription driver at Netflix. The trend is evident in the artsier world as well, with one of America’s most impressive auteurs, Jordan Peele, apparently committed to the genre. His newest offering, Nope, due later this year, is on all the “most anticipated movie” lists.

I could go on, but why beat a horse with a dead stick? Horror is hot.

Why, though? And why does the trend show no signs of fizzling? Largely, I would argue, because at its heart, horror is about things feeling out of control. Whether it’s the arthouse horror film about processing trauma, the low-budget weekend slasher flick, or Stephen King’s newest bestseller (and they’re always bestsellers), at the bloody heart of the horrific piece of art, there’s something bigger and more powerful than the (usually teenage) protagonists.

And these days, who doesn’t feel at the mercy of something bigger, older, and more powerful than themselves?

The recent decisions from the Supreme Court of the United States are, to put it mildly, cause for alarm. Overturning Roe v. Wade, ruling that states may not pass certain (apparently restrictive?) handgun carry laws, that states may funnel tax dollars to private and religious schools, and, most recently, that school coach Joe Kennedy’s 50-yard-line prayer counts as private and protected speech — all of these are wildly unpopular and out of sync with the majority of public opinion. It almost seems as if SCOTUS is some grim eldritch horror. They’re protected by barricades, deep within some impregnable keep, ruling for life and able to wield powers no common citizen can imagine. Frankly, I think I’d rather be a middle school Dungeons & Dragons nerd facing some betentacled monster. It seems like the conflict with the better odds. Because, though the recent SCOTUS rulings have come with the speed and frenzy of a series of werewolf bites, they’re not exactly out of step with the court’s history. Their ruling that settled the 2000 recount dispute between Bush and Gore was a political act as well.

And that’s just politics. Many pundits far smarter and more politically plugged in than I worry about the future of federal environmental regulations given these recent rulings. From there, it’s not much of a mental leap to conjure the specter of climate change, a seemingly unstoppable spirit that’s haunted public discourse for my entire life.

So, yes, given the larger-than-life threats we must contend with each day, it does seem all too natural for the general populace to have an insatiable hunger for horror. Fiction, after all, is a way of confronting our fears in a safe space, working out what frightens us and why. It’s also a source of strength, at least for some people. If high school-aged babysitter Laurie Strode didn’t quit when faced with the seemingly unstoppable Michael Myers, then neither will we when we’re forced to confront our own boogeyman.

How do we fight these out-of-control monsters plaguing society? For that, I suggest looking for the people — the organizers, the volunteers, the visionaries — who have been doing this work for a long time. They know what they’re doing, and they know how best we can help. Don’t be a hero, be a helping hand. There’s no room for ego, and there are people far better suited than I to be our guides, our Dr. Loomis or Professor Van Helsing.

Maybe, in confronting this monster, we can shift the cultural needle. If it means securing hard-won rights, I won’t mind if the next decade is characterized by a craze for rom-coms or sports biopics. Heck, I’ll learn to love ’em.

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Film Features Film/TV

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

David (Julian Hilliard) wrestles with a demonic waterbed in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.

Ed and Lorraine Warren were a pair of good, old fashioned American hucksters who teamed up as investigators of the paranormal. He was a self-taught demonologist, and she a medium. They ran a museum devoted to occult and paranormal artifacts out of their home in Monroe, Connecticut, which began with a creepy doll named Annabelle, which was allegedly possessed. They made a name for themselves investigating the New York haunted house case that inspired the 1979 frightener The Amityville Horror. 

The ’70s provided the perfect environment for the Warrens’ brand of Roman Catholic-flavored scary stories, thanks to the huge popularity of The Exorcist. One could argue that it was William Friedkin’s 1973 film, not Jaws, that heralded the beginning of the modern blockbuster era. Friedkin’s technique is unstoppable. The arresting combination of the innocent-looking Regan, played by Academy Award nominee Linda Blair, and the deep voice of the foul-mouthed demon who possesses her, is just one example of the tricks that have been endlessly lifted from The Exorcist. But it’s the story’s mining of the deep history of Christian paranoia about demons and witchcraft that helped it resonate so deeply with audiences. 

The Warrens rode the wave of Exorcist-inspired interest in possessions and hauntings to investigate more than 10,000 cases over their career. They achieved another level of fame in 2013 when director James Wan adapted the story of one of their more lurid early investigations into The Conjuring. Wan, who these days is working on his Aquaman sequel, served up watered-down Friedkin to spectacular results. The Conjuring turned into a seven-film, $2 billion franchise for Warner Bros. 

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as freelance demonologists Lorraine and Ed Warren.

The Devil Made Me Do It, the eighth film in the series, is helmed by Michael Chaves, who directed the sixth installment, The Curse of Llorona. The story cold opens with Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) attending to young David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard), who shows all the Friedkin-inspired signs of possession: a foul mouth, horrible contortionist moves, and the classic blood shower. When the young priest arrives and things get heated, the demon causes Ed to have a heart attack. As he’s fading from consciousness, he sees David’s brother Arne (Ruairi O’Connor) implore the demon to “take me instead!” Protip: Don’t say that to a demon, unless you’re willing to take on a new, very messy tenant in your head. 

David is saved, but Arne starts getting mysterious spirited visitors. Then, when partying with his girlfriend Debbie (Sarah Catherine Hook) and his creepy landlord Bruno (Ronnie Gene Blevins), David blacks out and stabs Bruno 22 times. The Warrens insist that David is innocent by reason of demonic possession, an unorthodox defense anywhere outside of the Salem Witch trials, and set out to discover why these pesky demons are making this wholesome white family do bad things. 

The Devil Made Me Do It resembles nothing more than an overly long, particularly lame episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After finding a “witch’s totem” in the crawlspace of the Glatzel home, they consult a former priest named Kastner (John Noble) who went a little crazy investigating the pseudo-satanic Ram cult. Then, there’s lots of standing before Ed’s conspiracy theorist yarn wall looking for connections that can only loosely be called “clues,” before settling onto a hypothesis that involves, you guessed it, a witch. 

Like all the Conjuring movies, this one is allegedly based on a true story from the Warrens’ archives. But what does “true” really mean with unreliable narrators like these? The Warrens’ brand of demon mumbo-jumbo plays into the need for people to have someone else to blame for the evil that men do. It’s not harmless: In the ’80s, the Satanic Panic ruined thousands of people’s lives searching for child-abusing devil cults that didn’t exist. You can see the echoes of it in the pseudo-religious overtones of the Q conspiracists, who paint their political opponents with accusations of devil-worshipping pedophilia. But there’s no need to resort to demonic possession to explain heart attacks, child sexual abuse, or a drunk guy murdering his landlord who he thought he was coming onto his girlfriend. 

Yes, the Warrens made it up, but so what? Made-up stuff makes for good movies, and truth be told, I would be down with all of it if The Devil Made Me Do It wasn’t such a frightful bore. Wilson and Farmiga are phoning it in at this point, and, with the exception of Hilliard, who conjures a few sparks as the young possession victim, they’re the best actors on the screen. The visuals are lazy Exorcist retreads, and why does it seem to be so hard for big budget movies to get a decent sound mix these day? The Devil Made Me Do It is dreadful, but not in a good way. 

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is now playing at multiple locations, and streaming on HBO Max.

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Film Features Film/TV

Shhhh! A Quiet Place Part II is Here

Noah Jupe, Millicent Simmonds, and Emily Blunt battle aliens in A Quiet Place Part II.

Confession time: When I tried to watch A Quiet Place, I fell asleep. It was quiet out there — maybe too quiet. 

The premise of A Quiet Place is familiar: a family trying to survive and stick together in a depopulated, post-apocalyptic world. In this case, the cause of the depopulation turned out to be alien monsters who use only sound to perceive their environment. That means if you stay quiet, you’re safe. But as I sit here, listening to the clicks of my keyboard, it’s obvious that staying quiet is easier said than done. 

The original film was a welcome anomaly in the world of 2018: an original story sold as a spec script and produced with a reasonable budget by a mainline studio. A Quiet Place was a classic genre exploitation formula: a lot of buildup and tension-raising, followed by a (hopefully) action-packed climax, where you spend most of your budget — aka The Jaws Formula. It succeeded far beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, so actor/director John Krasinski got a second bite at the apple. This time, writers Bryan Woods and Scott Beck are out, and Krasinski writes, directs, and acts in the prologue, which shows how the monstrous plague began. 

One reason post-apocalyptic movies are popular is that they are relatively cheap to make. A depopulated world means fewer actors to pay, and you can dress your sets with old junk. Showing the actual apocalypse, that’s gonna cost ya. A Quiet Place Part II’s opening sequence violates all of those rules. The small-town Pennsylvania family from the first film, with Lee Abbott (director Krasinski), wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt), teen daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), and tween son Marcus (Noah Jupe), are attending youngest son Beau’s (Cade Woodward) little league game when mysterious flaming objects start falling from the sky. Soon, the town is overrun with hungry aliens, and the Abbotts learn the hard way that silence is the only way to stay off the menu.

Echolocating aliens want to eat you.

Animalistic space aliens looking to devour humans are one of my pet peeves. So, they have the smarts to develop interstellar spaceships, but once earthside, they suddenly lose language and become wolf-like predators? And just how did they develop a taste for human flesh, anyway? The original alien invasion, H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, got this exactly right: The aliens rode around in high-tech tripods zapping people with heat rays. We were not food, we were pests to be exterminated from their new colony. But the opening scene of the last normal day hits differently after the pandemic. Indeed, A Quiet Place Part II had its world premiere on March 8, 2020. When the film skips ahead from Day 1 to Day 474, we now know how that feels. 

By Day 474, Lee and Beau are dead, and Evelyn is trying to keep her family, which now includes an infant, alive. They have one advantage: Regan is hearing impaired, and she discovered that her hearing aide produces audio feedback that causes the echolocating intruders pain. The family moves on from the burning farm where they were holed up to find other survivors. When they come across Emmett (Cillian Murphy), Lee’s best friend from the Before Time, holed up in an abandoned steel mill, things don’t go as planned. Instead of a welcome mat, Marcus finds a bear trap that almost snaps his foot off. The survivors, Emmett thinks, are “not people worth saving.” It’s up to Evelyn to prove him wrong. 

Millicent Simmonds and director John Krasinski. (photo courtesy Paramount Pictures)

Marcus’ desperate screams of pain set the sonic tone for the film: long stretches of silence pierced by sudden loud noises, which portend doom. Sound design has always been the horror director’s secret weapon, and few films have ever leaned on it harder. White noise like falling water signifies comforting defense, while the aliens’ clicks and whoops raise your resting pulse rate. The unnamed aliens’ loping gait is supplied by Krasinski himself, who was the motion capture model on set. 

Blunt was the heroine of the first film, but this outing is an ensemble piece. Simmonds, who is herself hearing impaired, moves to the forefront as Regan decides it’s up to her to find a way to fully weaponize her hearing aid against the invaders. Breaking the cardinal horror movie rule of “never split up,” she sets off alone on a cross-country trip to find the source of a mysterious radio broadcast, and is soon pursued by Emmett. By the climax, where Evelyn makes the mistake of leaving a teenage boy in charge of an infant, the film is juggling three interlocking storylines. Directed with confidence, and much more relevant than anyone could have known while they were filming, A Quiet Place Part II will keep you awake. 

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Simply Having A Bloody Christmas Time Warp Drive-In

Black Christmas

It’s that time of year again. While everyone is trying to get in the holiday spirit, the Time Warp Drive-In offers spirits of a different kind. Every December, the retro cinema experience from Black Lodge, Mike McCarthy, Piano Man Pictures, and Holtermonster Designs brings the most bizzare Christmas films they can find to the Malco Summer Drive-In. The seventh edition of Strange Christmas features a doubleheader of holiday horror.

The first film is an unlikely classic. 1974’s Black Christmas is an early entry in the post-Exorcist horror boom. The cast is certainly impressive: It stars 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s Keir Dullea, Enter the Dragon‘s John Saxon (who would later make a career out of playing cops in horror flicks), and future Lois Lane Margot Kidder. It was directed by Bob Clark, a former semi-pro football player turned ’70s low-budget auteur. Clark’s unlikely career included both the seminal teensploitation Porky’s and the beloved holiday comedy A Christmas Story. Black Christmas was Clark’s second film, and is now widely recognized by horror aficionados as a foundational slasher flick. It certainly decks the halls with the slasher trappings: A group of teenagers, mostly women (in this case, a sorority house), a remorseless killer whose motives are unclear to the victims, and a devilish creativity in murder techniques. You know how plastic bags are sometimes printed with suffocation warnings? Yeah, that.

Simply Having A Bloody Christmas Time Warp Drive-In

Black Christmas left a long legacy. John Carpenter cited it as an inspiration for Halloween, and it’s been remade twice, most recently last year as a feminist parable by indie director Sophia Takal. One of its most infamous descendants is the second film on the Strange Christmas bill, Silent Night, Deadly Night. Released in 1984 at the height of the Reagan-era slasher fad, Silent Night, Deadly Night was released the same day as A Nightmare on Elm Street. The film’s graphic TV commercials sparked such outrage that it was picketed by the PTA and pulled from release after only six days — but not before it made $2.5 million dollars. It seems the world wasn’t ready for a killer dressed as Santa Claus.

Simply Having A Bloody Christmas Time Warp Drive-In (2)

Tickets to the Time Warp Drive-In Strange Christmas Double Feature are $10, and masks are required for visits to the concession stand and bathrooms. Gates open at 6 p.m., show starts at 7 p.m. 

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: Switchblade Kid

Music Video Monday gets goth-y.

Harry Koniditsiotis jokes that he may be “the gothest motherfucker in town.” This is his time of year. The proprietor of 5 and Dime Recording knows how to create a spooky sound. The proof is in the blood pudding with his band Switchblade Kid, who tap the vein of classic death rockers like The Jesus and Mary Chain and Bauhaus. For his latest song “The Young Don’t Cry,” Koniditsiotis says the discovery of a forgotten film reel led to the creation of a supernatural music video. “My friend Parker Hays goes to estate sales and usually gives me all the 8mm stuff he can’t sell. It’s always old home movies and various film releases. I joke to him that one day I’m going to find stag films or something scandalous in the lot. This time I did find something interesting on an unmarked 3.5 min reel — Hammer Films’ ‘The Vampire of Marrakesh.’”

Hammer was the British film company who produced a string of classic horror films from 1955-1975. Productions like The Curse of Frankenstein and The Mummy, with their spooky, atmospheric production design and straight-faced camp portrayals of monsters and maidens, made stars out of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. ‘The Vampire of Marrakesh’ is a rare short film that was produced as part of a serial called Tom Terriss the Vagabond Adventurer — Quest of the Perfect Woman. “Basically, the plot is, a douche British guy travels to exotic lands to scam on chicks,” says Koniditsiotis.

The serial predates the founding of Hammer in 1935, but the fledgling company is believed to have purchased the rights to the film from a defunct production company and released as a stand-alone short. “Memphis film scholar Matt Martin of Black Lodge believes the film has never been released on VHS or DVD,” says Koniditsiotis. “Oddly enough, ‘The Vampire of Marrakesh’ does have an IMDB review: ‘Incredibly awful film is something that I’d highly recommend to those who love bad movies. So incredibly awful it’s worth watching.’”

If that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is. Koniditsiotis edited the surviving scenes from the 8mm reel together to create a suitably seasonal video for “The Young Don’t Cry.” Switchblade Kid will be hosting a Halloween Death Rock Party at 5 & Dime Studio on October 31st. It will be socially distanced to emphasize the gothic alienation and existential horror of the pandemic holiday. Take a look at the video — if you dare!
  

Music Video Monday: Switchblade Kid

If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com. 

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

They’re Back From The Grave and Ready to Party! Zombies Take the Time Warp Drive-In

Return of the Living Dead

In a year when so much has gone away, there’s one thing you can count on: Horror movies at the drive-in! The Time Warp Drive-In, brought to you by Black Lodge, Guerilla Monster Films, Holtermonster Designs, Piano Man Pictures, and Malco Theatres, had its origins in a Halloween program, and October remains the screening series’ most popular edition. This year’s theme is zombies. Who doesn’t like zombies? Maybe people have a little burnout after a decade of The Walking Dead and its spinoffs, but we’re not talking to them right now. We’re talking to the fans of shuffling doom, of which there are hoardes.

The first film on the docket originated about the same time as The Walking Dead. 2009’s Zombieland is the best kind of horror comedy: one that pokes fun at the genre while also delivering genuinely good action scenes. The cast is absolutely stacked: Jesse Eisenberg, appearing the year before he defined Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network; Academy Award-winner Emma Stone, in her breakthrough role; future tabloid superstar Amber Heard; and a pair of absolute legends in Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray. The self-aware gorefest has held up over the years, if for no other reason than its timeless advice to not skip your cardio workout.

They’re Back From The Grave and Ready to Party! Zombies Take the Time Warp Drive-In

1985 was a great year for zombie pictures, as the Warps’ next two selections attest. Re-Animator was a pioneer in the horror-comedy subgenre. Loosely based on an H.P. Lovecraft story, Re-Animator was the gory debut of filmmaker Stuart Gordon, who would go on to a two-decade career, including writing Honey I Shrunk The Kids. This film, though, is decidedly not family friendly.

They’re Back From The Grave and Ready to Party! Zombies Take the Time Warp Drive-In (2)

The third film, also from 1985, is a collaboration between a pair of horror legends. Dan O’Bannon got his start on John Carpenter’s debut Dark Star, and wrote a screenplay that would eventually become Alien. His directorial debut is The Return of the Living Dead, based on a concept by Night of the Living Dead co-creator John Russo. Made at the height of the west coast hardcore punk movement, the soundtrack features music by T.S.O.L, Roky Erickson, 45 Grave, The Damned, and The Cramps. It’s most significant contribution to zombie-dom is the introduction of the concept that zombies love to eat brains. For my money, Return of the Living Dead has the best tagline ever: “They’re back from the grave, and ready to party!”

They’re Back From The Grave and Ready to Party! Zombies Take the Time Warp Drive-In (3)

And finally, the film that started the modern zombie genre: Night of the Living Dead is one of the most significant indie films ever made. It inspired generations of plucky filmmakers to pursue their dreams, no matter how messed up those dreams may be. George Romero was making industrial training films in Pittsburgh when he got a motley crew together to create an all-time classic. Ironically, many of the crew on Night of the Living Dead went on to help create Mister Rogers Neighborhood. Star Duane Jones, a theater actor who would later become the executive director of the Black Theatre Alliance, was cast because he was just the best guy to come in the door on audition day. But his portrayal of Ben, an unflappable Black protagonist in a day when the screen was dominated by White actors, is now hailed as a major milestone. In the Black Lives Matter era, the ending, which sees Ben surviving the zombie onslaught only to be killed by police, takes on new meaning. Don’t miss your opportunity to see this timeless classic as it was intended to be seen: at the drive-in.

They’re Back From The Grave and Ready to Party! Zombies Take the Time Warp Drive-In (4)

Showtime starts at sundown at the Malco Summer Drive-In. 

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Black Lodge Hosts “Queer Horror” Outdoor Screening Event

CREDIT: Facebook/Black Lodge

This Friday, October 9th, Black Lodge will be screening two favorite queer camp horrors. One is ironically called Sleepaway Camp. It’s covered with the camp stamp. Teen movie — puh-leese. Made in the ’80s —so campy. If you haven’t seen it, here’s the rundown: A killer is at a teen sleepaway camp, and each night another person is found dead. What secrets lie there? The camp is called Arawak. They deserve it just for thinking they won’t get whacked at a camp with that name.

On their Facebook page, Black Lodge urges attendees not to google this sleeper film, “The less you know about this one, the better. The ending is iconic, and any research will pretty much spoil it.”

Facebook/Black Lodge

for you.”

The first movie of the night will be A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, another ’80s film about teenagers. In this film, the Freddy Krueger story continues when the Walsh family moves into a house on Elm Street. That house just happens to be the former residence of Nancy Thompson, the sole survivor from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Jesse Walsh finds himself up against Krueger. You always knew you were being set up for a sequel if someone survived. It’s a slasher film — I’m sure you know what happens. Nevertheless, you’ll want to follow Jesse and his girlfriend as they try to outsmart the dream slayer.

Black Lodge requests no children in attendance due to the adult nature of the films. Bring a friend for emotional support and a chair or blanket, as the screening is outdoors. Soft drinks will be sold, mask-wearing is mandatory, and donations are appreciated. Message the host on Facebook to reserve a space.

Queer Horror Night, Black Lodge, 405 N. Cleveland, Friday, October 9, 7-10 p.m., free.