It’s Friday…
Ahem…I mean Frightday…
And I have some recommendations for you to enjoy this weekend…
Okay…This Frightday’s theme is…
We Miss Going to the Movies.
When I was a kid…
I saw a creepy little black and white film on TV…
William Castle’s 1959 cult classic…
The Tingler…
It starred Vincent Price, as a mad scientist…
Who believes that we all have a creature inside of us…
One that feeds on our fears…
He decides to test his hypothesis…
On the unwitting patrons of a packed movie theater…
The horrors that occur inside this theater…
And the theaters on this list of film recommendations…
Just might…
In some small way…
Help to ease the pain…
Of not being able to go to the movies…
Either by letting you savor the flavor…
Of a tiny taste…
Of just what it is…
That we miss so much…
About going to the movies…
Or…
By scaring so much of the ever-loving shit outta you…
That it makes you…
Not miss going to the movies…
At all.
So, let’s take a chronological look at the best, most frightening, and possibly even unknown to you, Missing Going to the Movies Movies…In the years following The Tingler.
Fade to Black (1980) – My friend, P.J. Ames turned me on to this film…Hell…He has turned me on to so many…That I could probably do a year’s worth of lists just on those films…But anyway…He put this absolute gem on my radar, and I can’t thank him enough…In this twisted and utterly brilliant little trip to the movies…We meet Eric Binford, played to perfection by Dennis Christopher…And to refer to young Mr. Binford as a film buff…Or even a cinephile, for that matter…Would be a grievous understatement…You see…Eric is a man obsessed…And…He feeds his obsession about old movies by working at a film distribution warehouse in Los Angeles…But…When he meets an Australian model…Who happens to be the spitting image of Marilyn Monroe…His obsession grows…Turns dark…And begins to completely transform him…Man…Let me tell you…This tale of a kid who was kicked around his whole life…And the only comfort he could find…Was buried deep in the escapism of watching films…Made me identify and even sympathize with the character…Well…Up to a point…And as far as films that feed my jones for going to the movies…This one really does it…Hell…It even has a legendary rooftop finale that takes place at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
Demons (1985) – In this film from Lamberto Bava…We get to go back to the movies again…By way of some free passes to a Berlin cinema called the Metropol…Once there…The two students who received the passes are subjected to a nightmare that closely resembles the one showing on the screen before them…When a prostitute enters the theater and receives a scratch from a mask…An apparent movie prop, on display in the lobby…All hell…Literally breaks loose…Bava does something completely different here…In this film…He takes demonic possession…And parades it around like an infectious outbreak of a zombie virus…It is a delightfully gory…Deliciously cheesy…Completely rewatchable classic…And the third and final act…Probably looks like what theaters would have looked like…Had they not been closed during a global pandemic…So perhaps you should consider this film…A wee bit of research…On how one should prepare for their eventual reopening.
Dead End Drive-In (1986) – Who’s up for a little Ozploitation on this list…Me…Me…Oooh…Ooooh…Over here…ME!!! If you couldn’t tell…I am a sucker for some good old fashioned extra sharp Aussie cheese…And this film reeks to high heaven from it…The probable cause of the stink…Is the man in the director’s chair…The director behind many of my all-time favorite Ozploitation films…Especially…1982’s Turkey Shoot (a.k.a. Escape 2000)…Brian Trenchard-Smith…In this one…He takes us to a dystopian nightmare where maladjusted youths get rounded up and put into makeshift concentration camps…That just so happens to be a chain of former Drive-In theaters…Now I know that Drive-Ins have been popping up everywhere in an attempt to fill the void left behind by cinemas…But this film still serves as a way of comforting a soul that is wounded by not seeing things on the big screen.
Anguish (1987) – In this meta-horror from Spanish director, Bigas Luna…We are given the movie-going experience by way of watching a bunch of folks visiting The Rex theater…As they enjoy a horror film called, The Mommy…Now this film within a film stars the ever-creepy Michael Lerner, as a surgeon who commits horrible murders at the telepathic behest of his psychotic mommy…And…Mommy is played by the ever-creepier Zelda Rubinstein…And as the events taking place in the film come to a head…And the surgeon reeks havoc on a theater full of moviegoers…The patrons of The Rex are subjected to horrors inspired by those seen on the big screen…And as the film moves into the final scenes…It becomes a film within a film within a film within a…Shit…I’ve lost track…Anyway…It made me crave going to the movies at least three times as much as most of the films on this list.
Popcorn (1991) – Here it is…That rare 90’s horror that I am willing to recommend…In this one…We are taken back to the big screen at the hands of a bunch of film students…Who decide to put on a movie marathon to raise funds for their university’s film department…The films are all schlocky, gimmicky, sci-fi-horror films that use effects like 3-D, to enhance their cheesy contents…Even some long dormant techniques like Odorama, and buzzers in the seats…Like the ones used in the aforementioned film, The Tingler…Are deployed to enhance the experience…The film…Much like the other films on this list…Comes to a head when the movie marathon is underway…That is precisely when the dreams of our protagonist, Maggie, played by scream queen, Jill Schoelen…Begin to become a reality…This film is a ton of fun…And is loaded to the gills with great scenes within the walls of that place that I am longing for…The cinema.
All About Evil (2010) – This entry on the list…Is a big, fat, raunchy hunk of B-Movie cheese…And I loved every stinky second of it…I mean…Not only did it contain Dreamlanders alum, Mink Stole…And Elvira herself, Cassandra Peterson…But, the damn thing was directed by legendary drag queen, Peaches Christ a.k.a Joshua Grannell…See what I mean? No? Well…If you watch this one…You definitely will…And as we take this particular journey back inside a movie theater…We meet Deborah Tennis…Played by the always entertaining, Natasha Lyonne…A damaged and disturbed young girl who takes over her father’s cinema…When she loses her shit one night…She discovers a penchant for two things…Serial Killing…And making movies…When she decides to host a premiere of her feature film debut at her cinema…That’s when she goes a little extra crazy…And, as the buckets of blood in this instant cult classic starts getting spilled…And all of the dead bodies start piling up…The folks who visited this particular theater are going to be jealous of us…Stuck at home…Doing the recliner rumba…While we Netflix and chill.
The Last Showing (2014) – Although it received abysmal reviews…I enjoyed this intense little film from across the pond…In it…Robert Englund turns in a refreshingly understated performance as a projectionist, working at a cinema in England…Who is being forced out of the booth and behind the concession stand…This injustice…Mixed with his disdain for what has become of the film industry…Causes him to turn his passion for film…Into a nightmarish attempt at creating one of his very own…He then traps two patrons, played by Finn Jones (Iron Fist), and Emily Berrington (Humans), inside the theater…And unbeknownst to them…He has cast the two of them in this psychotic production…Of a horror film that he is creating…Using a handheld camera, and the CCTV’s all around the interior of the cinema…And with these…He captures all of the torture that he subjects this couple to…They are forced to endure a nightmare in the cinema…Almost as bad as the time I saw Caddyshack II on the big screen…Well…Almost.
The Final Girls (2015) – I adore this one…I have recommended it in my 80’s Throwbacks list…And my Horror Fans in Horror Movies list…But this time…It got onto this particular list…Because of the fact that the movie theater featured in this one…Actually transports Max, played by Taissa Farmiga, and her friends…Directly into the movie that they are watching…That movie…Camp Bloodbath…Is an 80’s slasher starring Max’s recently deceased mother, played by Malin Akerman…Now once there…The story veers away from the theater…But keeps you immersed in the wonderful world of a cheesetastic 80’s slasher…It’s about as meta as you can get in a meta-horror…It is side-splittingly hilarious at times…And somehow through all of the tongue-in-cheek nods to us horror fans…And all those great throwback kills…This film somehow manages to retain a big ol’ heart right at the center of it.
Nightmare Cinema (2018) – Now not only is this a perfect fit for this list…But this one here…Is a horror anthology done right…And for the folks that stumble into the Rialto theater…Each of them must endure watching their worst fears come to life on the big screen before them…Get ready, folks…Because I am about to name-drop my ass off…Okay…Here goes..The first one…Is directed by Alejandro Brugués, the man behind, Juan of the Dead, one of my all-time favorite zombie movies…And it is a delightfully unconventional slasher short…The next one feels like a warped episode of The Twilight Zone…And it comes to us from the man behind The Howling, and Gremlins...That’s right...Joe Freakin’ Dante…The next blood-soaked installment is the nastiest thing to happen to catholic school girls since Britney Spears…And comes from the man behind the crazy, kick-ass zombie/samurai film, Versus…And the adaptation of Clive Barker’s short story, The Midnight Meat Train…Ryûhei Kitamura...The next piece is a black and white tidbit of mindfuckery from the director of Hard Candy, and 30 Days of Night…David Slade…And then the whole thing wraps up with a segment from horror legend, Mick Garris…Who ties up the loose ends normally left hanging in these anthologies…With a little help from The Projectionist…Played by none other than…Mickey Rourke.
The Video Store Clerk 