In keeping with my usual tradition of reporting cool things that happen long after everyone has finished talking about them, I’ve decided to finally get round to writing about THE MAD MONSTER PARTY horror convention I attended nigh on two months ago. So much happened at the convention that I’m spreading my adventures there over two or three posts.

Since Dark Entries: Goth Radio (podcast found here) is on summer hiatus, I’m going to have a lot more free time over the next several months to post more frequently. So, consider this just the first of hopefully many things to come before we all get geared up to put together some shitty costume at the last minute by buying a dodgy mask at a CVS minutes before we have to drive to a Halloween party. Yeah, like I’m the only person who’s ever done that.

I’ve made no bones about my love of all things Clive Barker and Hellraiser. It’s hands down my favorite horror film of all time and Barker himself, as well as Doug Bradley, have always been at the top of my bucket list of horror icons I’ve always wanted to meet. So when I found out that Doug Bradley would be in attendance this year, well, Jesus wept if I wasn’t jazzed beyond belief. I’ve been to the Mad Monster Party every year since its inception and each year there is always one name that stands out a little more than the others. They’re my own personal BIG NAME – The one person I’d make that drive to see even if no one else was there. This year, Bradley was the guy.

So, after waiting line for an ungodly amount of time to get in, I made a bee line straight for his table and promptly nearly lost my shit when after years of fan worship and Pinhead doodles in all my school notebooks, THIS FINALLY HAPPENED.

And this…

AND THIS…

I’m thinking about hanging it in the bathroom.

Next up was a guy who was my BIG NAME for the first one of these I ever went to, STEPHEN GEOFFREYS. I’m also an enormous Fright Night fan and I’ve met and had my picture taken with him before, but this year, the convention offered the chance to have your picture professionally taken with several stars in full costume. In the case of Geoffreys, it meant buying a ticket ahead of time for $75 and the makeup was provided by Steve Johnson himself, who was responsible for it in the original film. Speaking as a kid who actually entertained the idea of going into practical makeup effects as a career, even just meeting Johnson himself was a huge thrill.

Here is a sentence 8-year-old-me never thought he’d ever type: Here’s a picture of me standing next to Evil Ed in full makeup! Unfortunately, it also happens to be the most unflattering, horrible picture of me ever captured on film. I’m afraid my nerves got the worst of me in the last second and instead of talking him into doing the cool pose with me that I had planned ahead of time, well, it turned out to be this disaster. Is it too late for Jerry Dandrige to find me in an alley and make me cool?

Shortly after that was taken, I headed into the Fright Night panel. Stephen was a little late showing up because he had to get the makeup taken off, but once he got there, it turned into a great one. A lot of great stories were told and Steve Johnson was on fire. That guy’s a character. Here’s the only decent pic I could get.

I think that’s enough for one post. When we return, we’ll meet the surviving cast of Fright Night and have a guest appearance by another amazingly cool blogger and friend. I’m not naming names, but he’s famous for macabre vegetables. I’ll leave you with some of the best cosplay I saw all weekend. THIS GUY:

It’s time again to take a look at another issue of Everyone Needs a Hobby: The Tim Burton Fanzine with a Sense of Humor.

This time it’s Vol. 1, No. 2 – The Fall/Holiday Season Issue from 1994. As far as I know, there never was a 2nd volume. I own three issues of this and like I said when I reviewed the first issue, all three just magically appeared in my possession somehow and I have no memory of how they got there.

A couple pages in, we get this cool little cartoon. These things might actually be my favorite part of the fanzines. No, who am I kidding? The poetry is the best part, but we’ll get to that in a bit. But first, there’s this set of quotes, which I got a real kick out of:

As embarrassing as it is to admit, I was so a Timmy back in high school. I even remember drawing pictures of Edward Scissorhands in everyone’s yearbook one year. The whole thing is just entirely unfortunate.

The bulk of this issue is devoted Ed Wood, which had just recently been released. There is also quite a bit of Tim Burton news and sightings, some of which directly relates to him, and some of which is only tangentally connected. However, one of my favorite pages is this:

It’s written by the man himself and displays his love for Vincent Price films, which is no secret to anyone who knows anything about him. But, the real standout here is the note at the bottom discussing the rumor that he’d be making an adaption of “The Fall of the House of Usher”. It’s not the only time in the issue when that’s mentioned. Obviously, that didn’t happen, but I’m surprised he hasn’t tackled something Poe and/or Price related by now.

But fear not! After we suffer through another Alice in Wonderland film (scheduled for 2016), the sequel to Beetlejuice is coming right behind and I can’t think of many things coming up in the next few years that have me so incredibly jazzed. Now, let’s just see how much of the original cast we can get to show up. Of course, if so, they’ll have a little ‘splainin’ to do. Apparently, ghosts age quite a bit. I wonder if Otho is currently in the waiting room, holding a long number. R.I.P., Round Boy.

Alright, let’s get to the REAL reason why you came. THE POETRY PAGE!

This time, we’re treated to two. As with the last issue, the first one is essentially an ode to being so incredibly goth that If I still had long hair, I would have brushed it away from my face in a most dramatic fashion as I read it.

And because this was the “Fall/Holiday” issue, the second poem was of course devoted to All Hallow’s Eve. As I write this, it’s about the middle of March, but my black little heart is always intrenched in October (only seven more months away!). To get yourself in the full mood as you’re reading it, I recommend listening to this:

And finally, let’s check out the back cover. It’s a little cartoon of what I assume is supposed to be Ed Wood’s head on the body of Jack Skellington, carrying the head of what appears to be Stewie from The Family Guy after he got transformed into a pumpkin demon.

Let’s just stop right here. Thanks for reading and helping me to celebrate Halloween in 1994.

As a kid, when it came to steakhouses, you had your Outbacks and your Longhorns, but for the after church crowd, there was only one game in town. Quincy’s. These days, there are only a handful of locations left (none around here), but back in the day they were all over the southeast. The thing everyone remembers most about them is their “big fat yeast rolls”. They were DELICIOUS and the other thing everyone remembers about them is the commercials.

There was a time, at least in my neck of the woods anyway, when that guy was as recognizable as Ronald McDonald or the Kool-Aid Man.

Around the same time, my dad worked at the advertizing firm who handled all of Quincy’s advertizing. Sometimes he would take me to work with him, and being that I was an aspiring artist, he’d let me hang out with all the conceptual artists there. These were the guys who invented the big fat yeast roll! It sounds like a really stupid thing to get worked up about, but as a kid, it was a pretty big thrill. It was like that time I got excited about meeting James O’Barr and having him autograph my trade paperback of The Crow. No, actually, it was nothing like that. James O’Barr was a dick. Also, I remember the offices in my dad’s building all looking like this:

At least that’s how I choose to remember it anyway.

The name of the advertizing firm was Henderson Advertizing. His tenure there resulted in two things: I ate a lot of Quincy’s growing up, and a had a lot of Henderson Advertizing stationary and office supplies around the house. I hung on to some of them over the years and put them to strange use.

Also at around this time, I got into collecting trading cards. I started out with baseball, but transitioned into slightly nerdier stuff later on. I’m guessing this happened somewhere in my early teen years, that sweet spot where your first taste of disposable income isn’t incumbered with things like taste or good decision making. My card collecting dovetailed with the comic book collecting, and since horror has always ruled above all of that, well you’ll see what happened:

I’m calling this the horror trading card notebook, even though you’re going to see a lot of nerdy comic book stuff too. Lay off. I was 14. Let’s open this thing up.

First off, THE INSIDE COVER! Bordering somewhere between nerdy fandom and a porn stash, you can see I’ve always had a thing for both girls and ghouls.

First page: X-Men. I was crazy about the X-Men trading cards back then, especially the ones designed by Jim Lee. I don’t think these are those, but I do have that entire set, complete with all the hologram cards separately.

Sorry for the state of this blurry one. I had to include it because the death of Superman in the early ’90’s was one of the biggest news stories of the decade. Also, note the “Holly Daye” cheesecake to the right.

Next up, proof that this notebook was ’90’s as all shit, The Crow and The Barbi Twins on the same page! I’d actually completely forgotten who the Barbi Twins were (or that I had one of their cards), but this brings back a ton of memories. They were everywhere in the ’90’s from Playboy to commercials to mugs. Most of their merchandise was the type of stuff you’d only find in Spencer’s, but lord, was there a lot of it.

Being a huge fan of both comics and spooky stuff, Vampirella hit home with me pretty hard. Needless to say, I have this entire set of cards. There are a lot more than this in the notebook, but I’m featuring this page mostly for that one on the bottom left. If that existed as a t-shirt, I would have been the weirdo at school who always wore that very t-shirt.

I also remember this model showing up a lot in Wizard and making the convention circuit. These are the backs of certain cards, thus encouraging you to buy more cards in hopes of getting the middle boob one.

Now we’re getting to the good stuff. I love Universal Studios and all its monsters. I have this entire set. See the one in the top left? That also came with the set in the form of a poster that hung on my bedroom wall all through high school. Yeah, I uh… spent a lot of time alone as a kid.

The last page is just one of long cards. I’m only featuring it because they were oddly shaped and I really liked the top 3 because, surprise, I was also way into Sandman.

I know, it’s a major shocker that the nerdy, quiet goth kid also was (is) a huge Neil Gaiman fan. #walkingstereotype

And now the payoff. At the bottom, you can see a female Freddy Krueger and in the top right, Roxy from Gen 13. But, they’re obviously not the stars of the show. If you’re big enough of a horror fan, you’re know who you’re seeing here, but for those of you who don’t, that’s Angela from Return of the Living Dead 3. That one still holds a big place in my heart and I used to watch it once a week or so on VHS. I think it’s the only time I’ve ever had a crush on a zombie. I believe I took this from inside an issue of Fangoria. I used to have a subscription and am thinking about getting another one.

Thanks for reading all of this, all three of you. That was a long way to go to get from yeast rolls to a half naked zombie, but I’m glad we did it. I feel like it brought us closer together.

I’m going to make this a quick one because I’ve got a proper, longer post coming up in a day or two. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I had to run to the landfill this past weekend and discovered a few things about myself in that trip:

1) I (no longer) own a LOT of old computer parts.
2) Making a landfill run takes a lot longer than you think it’s going to.
3) Magazines are heavy, you guys. Really, really heavy.

Anyway, the place I went had a remote section designated for electronics that was comprised of mountains of scrap metal, PC’s, printers, and televisions. I had quite a few PC’s and printers to unload, so I was making a lot of trips back to the large moving truck I’d rented. When I came back to Computer Mountain for the last time, I spotted this:

I swear I didn’t notice that tricycle there before and there was no reason for it to be sitting among all the printers and PC’s.

I couldn’t hightail it out of there fast enough. I’ve already seen how this movie ends.

I’m gonna start this post off with a quick update on one I wrote a while back. Just before Christmas, I wrote a review of Death Game, a great little cult home invasion flick from 1977 that’s just been remade by Eli Roth under the title Knock Knock. Earlier this week, Roth put out a teaser trailer for it. It’s not much, but you can get the general feel of what he’s going for, which is pretty much exactly the same as the original. I hope that its release will result in a new found interest in Death Game. Just remember, you heard about it here first (maybe). Check it out:

On to tonight’s post. Valentine’s Day is coming up in less than two weeks and while Halloween staked its claim on being the scariest of all the holidays a long time ago, anyone who’s ever been single in mid February knows that you don’t know hopeless dread until Feb. 14th rolls around and you don’t have plans. I’ll take a million spook houses, chainsaws, and Vincent Price movies over department store hearts and candy any day.

So, it’s a little surprising that there is somewhat of a shortage of Valentine’s Day themed horror out there. Sure, there are the standards that everyone goes to, but they are just a handful. Taking that one step further, one must cast a slightly wider net and look for horror that centers around couples and relationships in general. In the next two weeks, you’ll no doubt see quite a few articles about the best couples in horror. I’ve long contended that Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum’s characters in David Cronenberg’s The Fly are my favorite horror couple, but a new student film has been making the festival rounds lately that introduces a couple new contenders.

A filmmaker by the name of Ben Aston has just made a fascinating film as his graduation project from the London Film School titled He Took His Skin Off For Me.

Clocking in at just over 11 minutes in length, it tells the story of the stress a relationship finds itself under when a man removes all of his skin to please his girlfriend. What starts out as a pleasant fantasy soon turns into well, just a hassle when it becomes apparent that he’s just going to leave traces of blood everywhere, he can’t land any decent clients at work, and dinner parties suddenly become incredibly awkward.

In terms of tone, it’s closer to the body horror themes of Cronenberg, but it’s impossible to watch it without evoking Frank and Julia Cotton from Hellraiser and Hellraiser 2 respectively.

Clive Barker may very well have cornered the market on images of skinless humans, but Aston and his special effects team have done a fine job here of using that particular surreal image, especially when inserting it into such mundane and sometimes humorous surroundings.

Since its release, the film has made the festival route and has won a TON of awards. Seriously, check out the film’s site. You’ll also find a very detailed step-by-step tutorial on how the effects were created, which is something I would like to personally thank the crew for. THANK YOU for making an effective little horror film with striking imagery that relies entirely on practical, in camera effects. There’s not a shred of CGI in this thing and I hope that more filmmakers follow Aston’s example.

CHECK IT OUT!

While I’m still shaking off the remnants and extra weight of Christmas, my buddy Bill over at Veggie Macabre is actually getting something done. A while back I had the pleasure of heading up to Winston Salem to hang out with Bill, Brian from Review the World, and Ben from Juggernaut’s Cave. We ate a lot of weird food and did a lot of weird stuff. And cousin, when I say weird food, I’m talking some weird ass food.

However, I got into town a little later than Ben and Brian that fateful Friday night, and thank Baby Jesus I did. Bill’s taken it upon himself to post a vid detailing the jump start they got on the fun. And by fun, I mean eating some disgusting looking pickled eggs. I don’t even like regular eggs (I know, I know, go ahead and give me grief about it. Still not gonna eat them though), much less these pink abominations. We shot a lot of video that weekend, so hopefully more of it will trickle out as Bill gets round to editing it. In the meantime, have it, fellas. Better you than me.

One of my favorite podcasts that gets me through the workday is Killer POV . It’s comprised of three incredibly rad horror industry insiders – Fangoria’s Rebekah McKendry, FEARnet’s Rob Galluzzo, and Inside Horror’s Elric Kane – who have turned me on to a lot of cool films in the last several months. I can’t recommend it enough.

In a recent episode discussing Christmas themed horror, they had AJ Bowen on as a guest, who said something to the effect of being somewhat jealous of anyone who has never seen Black Christmas, considering its classic status and importance and influence on the genre. I can relate, as I’ve personally had the experience of sitting down with someone who had never seen Halloween or Halloween 2 and introducing the franchise to them for the first time. Watching them see one of my favorites through fresh eyes was a major thrill.

So, it is with this post that I can say to AJ Bowen, today, you have reason to be jealous. I’ve been a life-long horror fan and I like to think I’ve been around the block a little bit, but there have been a few classics, cult or otherwise, who for whatever reason, have fallen through the cracks for me. I can’t explain how or why, but I’ve just never gotten around to seeing some of them.

I’ve decided to do something about that, starting here and now. So, with this post, I’m creating a new feature on the site — HORROR CLASSICS THROUGH FRESH EYES. The purpose of this will be to apply what I’ve learned through 20+ years of horror fandom to not only catch up on some stuff I should have seen a long time ago, but to also make a few observations that hopefully, once in a blue moon, may be somewhat fresh – or at the very least, interesting for folks who are already well familiar with this material.

With Christmas being less than a week away, let’s not waste any more time on the preamble and get down to it for the first edition with something I finally had the pleasure of sitting down and watching today for the first time ever: Black Christmas.

Of course, I’ve heard quite a bit about this over the years, but only knew the bare bones — slasher film, takes place on Christmas, lots of pretty girls. Literally, that’s all I knew. It wasn’t until the credits rolled just a few hours ago that I found out that Margot Kidder and and John Saxon were even in it. So, this thing was full of pleasant surprises all around.

I’m not going to waste too much space here summarizing plot. I’m going to guess anyone reading this is already familiar, and if you’re not, I’d recommend watching it before you read this. I might get a little spoilery before it’s over.

I’m basically just going to hit some highlights and discuss some observations that hit me as I went along. First off, the language. And by that, I mean, the fact that the characters weave obscenities like a fine art. I’m not usually taken aback by a few adult words, but I did chuckle a little at th­­­­e fact that the first words of dialogue spoken are, “Who left the goddamn door open?” You just don’t expect that kind of language from Lois Lane.

Just when you get used to it, the girls get their first call from the killer. After Multiple Miggs gets finished discussing how he’d like to get to know them, the virginal one of the group, Clare, heads upstairs to become the first victim.

I particularly enjoyed her death and it was the first time in which I noticed how the film makes creative use of diegetic sound, punctuating her appearance in the frame with the sound of both the killer singing and a church bell in the next scene. It wasn’t groundbreaking, but was incredibly well done.

Probably the best use of creative diegetic sound came later in the film in this shot, when the group is looking for Clare, who’s been missing for quite some time by this point.

In the preceding shot, Peter, distressed about the trouble in his relationship with Jess, smashed the inside of his piano, the sound of the struck strings vibrating into this shot. You can’t hear what’s happening on the inside of the house, but what you do hear is an effective combination of those strings, a dog barking, and a distant siren. The combined effect really works to help build the dread and intensity regarding the hunt for Clare.

It also somewhat breaks the rule that we’ve all become used to of the sweetest, virginal girl in the bunch ending up as the Final Girl. At this point, all bets were off, and while I was guessing it was going to end up being Margo Kidder’s character, Barb, I still had no clue.

I certainly didn’t expect it to end up being Jess, played by the unbelievably beautiful and talented Olivia Hussey. I thought early on that her storyline with Peter would only be a minor subplot, and I kind of liked it that way. I like that this serious, adult pregnancy drama was woven into what could easily be written off as a slasher film that just also happened to have a lot of genuinely funny comedy worked in. The revelation of this painting made me laugh a little more than I probably should have.

There is so much going on in this thing. Jess and Peter’s storyline kind of felt like it could have easily been its own movie, and one that I wouldn’t have mind seeing.

She really stands out here and has an exotic, otherwordly quality. I looked her up, thinking that there had to be something I’d seen her in or eventually would, and I wasn’t disappointed. I then remembered her from the old Romeo and Juliet production that everyone was required to see in high school and was pleasantly surprised to see that she also played Norma Bates in Psycho IV: The Beginning. I’ve only seen the first one, and I’m thinking I need to tackle the series for a future review. Robert Galluzzo, of the aforementioned Killer POV, actually directed a celebrated documentary on the series, The Psycho Legacy. I’m looking forward to catching that as well.

A few other points of interest: I found the cinematography to be very smooth and economical. Not a shot was wasted, but at the same time, Reginald H. Morris (also responsible for Porky’s and A Christmas Story) really knows how to stylishly move the camera. He effectively takes our attention where he wants it with a dash of flash, without it trying to seem flashy, if that makes any sense at all. I’m also seriously digging the composition in shots like this.

Another highlight is John Saxon, playing Lt. Ken Fuller. It’s fun to go into this blind – for one, not knowing he was even in it, and for two, not knowing he’d play such a similar part as he does in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series. Seeing all the influences and genre conventions this sets up at this point in the game makes me look at what came later in a whole new light.

And now we’re most definitely getting into the territory of discussing something about the film that I’m sure has been discussed by a million times before I decided to tackle it, and I’m sure much more thoroughly. I don’t have much new to add here, but I’m going to mention it anyway:  The obvious example of Black Christmas‘s influence on John Carpenter’s Halloween. An argument could be made that without this, films like When a Stranger Calls and Halloween may not have even existed, or at least not in the way that we know them. Even after only seeing this once just this afternoon, it was a lot of fun to notice where Carpenter drew from it in terms of the POV device, plot structure, cinematography, and oh yeah, AHEM:

Bottom line: I’m glad I finally knocked this one out, and I think it was a good way to kick off this new feature. I haven’t read good things so far about the remake, but I’m still going to see it soon anyway. From what I understand, Andrea Martin (Phyl) actually has a small part in it. I can only dream that she still has that damn haircut. God, I love the ’70’s.

If you’re reading this and you have any suggestions for any horror classics, cult or otherwise, that you think I may not have seen and would like for me to take a stab at, let me know in the comments. You’d be surprised what’s fallen through the cracks. It gets a little embarrassing.

I mentioned a couple posts back that I was going to try squeeze as much content as I could in between now and Christmas, and tonight, I’m vowing to do just that. THE BIG DAY is less than a week away, people. We’re in the home stretch. Don’t pretend that it didn’t sneak up on you too.

I’m waiting on one last present to show up in the mail (this year was a major online shopping one for me) and as soon as that’s here and under the tree, I will officially be done with all my shopping, which brings me to the topic of tonight’s discussion.

PRESENTS! Surprising no one, my penchant for the spooky started early. If there was a weird or creepier version of something, that was the one I always gravitated toward. Castle Greyskull? Sure, it’s cool, but Snake Mountain was where it was at. Judy Bloom? Try Goosebumps. The Monster Squad over Goonies (I still stand by that), and if I was a young girl now, you better believe I’d be all over those damn Monster High dolls.

So, when it came to some of my Christmas presents, my parents knew which way I swung and how to inject some horror into the holidays. Look, I’m not going to pretend that someone else doesn’t do this a lot better, but I’m giving it a shot anyway. Imitation and flattery and all that crap. So, here are some of MY FAVORITE SPOOKY CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.

CARNIVAC

Carnivac was part of Transformers’ Pretenders Line. Launching in 1988, later in the Generation 1 run, it was a time when Hasbro was willing to throw just about anything at the wall to see what would stick. The Pretenders were comprised of a tough outer shell that served to trick humans into believing that what they were looking at was a tall human in a space suit instead of a robot basically hiding inside of a giant metal overcoat. Next, they took things a step further and introduced the Pretender Beasts. One of those was Carnivac, a Decepticon that transformed from a robot mode to a wolf mode inside of ANOTHER WOLF MODE. Well, wolf shell, but you get my meaning.

Yeah, I could have asked for Wheeljack or Huff that year, but come on. It’s a double-wolf-robot killing machine. Keep in mind, the purpose was to blend in with the Earthlings, so of course it’s bigger than any wolf in existence, talks, and wears what appears to be a saddle with a giant damn gun mounted on it. Great job, fellas.

MY PET MONSTER

There isn’t much I can say here that hasn’t been expounded upon by better bloggers than me all over the internet. If there’s anything that will get your nostalgia boners going, it’s this little guy. He was technically meant to appeal to both boys and girls, and I guess he did, but I’ve always seen him as basically an acceptable reason for a boy to sleep with a stuffed animal, but be respectable about it. No one can accuse you of being a baby if the toy you’re sleeping with has fangs and breakaway handcuffs.

I have a specific memory attached to this guy and it involves me slightly cheating here. I’m going to fess up and say that even though this is a Christmas centric post, I actually got him on Easter. In fact, he’s solely responsible for me (quick, cover your kids’ ears) figuring out that there was no Easter Bunny. Every year, EB would leave me an Easter basket laying on the living room floor in front of the TV to find when I came downstairs. One day, I hit the jackpot and old Monsty was propped up inside of it. I LOST MY SHIT. You have no idea how long I’d been asking for one. EB had finally come through. I’ll admit, I was kind of playing along for that last year or so, waffling on whether or not I still believed in him (Santa had not quite been ruined for me yet), but this one restored some hope.

Until I found his box and receipt in the kitchen trash about 8 minutes later. Real smooth, Mom. Real Smooth. I’ve long since lost him (the handcuffs probably disappeared about 42 minutes after first picking him up), but he’ll always be one of my favorites, and probably one of yours.

MAD SCIENTIST DISSECT-AN-ALIEN

Oooooh, this is a good one, and a little more obscure. I can’t remember when I first found out about it or even asked for it. I only remember somehow being aware of it and dying to have one. The Mad Scientist line is fantastic and I never understood why it didn’t get more attention. It’s still kicking today and churning out some good stuff, mostly involving slime, but not quite with the charm of allowing me at the age of 8 to be a certified surgeon.

The premise was simple. You lay out a plastic mat full of loads of cool illustrations of body parts, pry open his chest, and remove plastic organs covered in slime for innards and blood. What is not to love about this? I have a very specific memory of sitting at the kitchen table and my mother threatening me with certain death if I got one drop of that crap on her table spread. It would have been absolutely worth it.

DISCLAIMER: PLOT SYNOPSIS AND MILD SPOILERS AHEAD

‘Tis the season for gift giving and this is the story of how I found a fairly obscure one. Back in the days when all we had to rely on was a TV Guide to tell us what we were watching, I grew up with a handful of scenes in my head from movies I caught on TV a few times as a kid, but I couldn’t tell you the names of any of them. I lived for the chance to maybe catch that one weird cult film I saw on a Saturday afternoon once…you know, the one with the black car that drove out of the desert and killed people, magically repairing itself whenever it was damaged? Turns out it was just The Car. But, it took years for me to find that out.

And that’s what brings us to Death Game . This time around, it wasn’t me doing the searching; it was my dad. For years, I’ve been listening to him describe some wild movie he caught on TV once and he could only loosely remember the plot and one key scene. He didn’t have a clue about the title or who starred in it, but said he wouldn’t rest until he found this thing again. Recently, after quite a bit of searching online, I finally managed to find it, buy it, and watch it. I can’t wait to see his face light up when he unwraps this next week.

Let’s dive in. Death Game is a fun little Grindhouse-y home invasion film released in 1977, directed by Peter Traynor and starring Seymour Cassel, Sondra Locke, and Colleen Camp. Cassel stars as George, a man left home alone in a fairly nice two story house on the good side of town who is left alone one weekend on his birthday when his wife and kids are suddenly called away to tend to some other family business.

In one of the better introduction scenes of an antagonist that I’ve seen in a while, we first meet Locke and Camp’s characters (“Jackson” and “Donna” respectively) when they arrive on his doorstep during a rainstorm. The cinematography, cutting back and forth from him lounging inside to them lurking around outside, combined with a couple flashes of lightening, giving us brief glimpses of them, works perfectly to set them up as being an exterior predatory threat. The brief ominous mood is paused when he invites them in to dry off and warm up. There’s quite a bit of light, playful conversation wherein they say they’re lost on their way to a party. At some point, they both make their way into the bathroom and after being in there for a while, he checks on them only to find both of them nude in the tub.

It’s at this point that this thing makes a hard left turn into the nearly x-rated. What follows is essentially a Skinemax level threesome in the tub, complete with the grooviest, most 70’s porno soundtrack you’ve ever heard in your life.

The next morning, the three settle down for an awkward breakfast wherein the girls start to engage in slightly odd behavior, changing their story about where they’re trying to go, and somewhat taunting George. Realizing last night was a BAD IDEA, he drops them off somewhere out of town. It’s during the breakfast scene, ensuing argument, and drive out of town that we get the first real glimpse that these girls are, at the least, a touch unhinged.

Upon returning home, George finds that the girls have somehow BROKEN BACK INTO HIS HOUSE. The third act then kicks in, with an extended torture sequence lasting the night involving the girls killing a delivery man, tying George to a bed, destroying the house, and staging a mock trial.

While cult favorite Colleen Camp is as stellar as usual, Sondra Locke, IMO, stole the show here. Her large eyes, wide smile, expressions, and severe features further exemplified her predatory nature. She looked and sounded like a crazed hyena on the hunt, while oozing insane sexuality. She is incredibly striking and firing on all cylinders here.

Her performance actually reminded quite a bit of Sheri Moon Zombie’s Baby Firefly from The Devil’s Rejects to the point that I wonder if Death Game was an influence. I haven’t found any research to suggest that she or Rob Zombie were directly inspired by it, but I have to believe they are at least aware. Even her shrill giggle is pure Baby through and through.

The film opens with a graphic mentioning that it is based on a true story, and while there is no hard evidence to back that up, it does have many echoes of the Manson murders, which occurred only eight years before the film was released. In addition to Baby, I picked up a few traces of Susan Atkins (as portrayed by Nancy Wolfe in 1976’s Helter Skelter) in Locke’s performance.

The film’s not perfect by any means. It was shot with a meager budget, has some unnecessarily long sequences that just feel like padding, and nearly all of Seymour Cassel’s dialogue was obviously redubbed, sometimes poorly and out of sync. The transfer I saw was from the one basic DVD release that it’s been given, but the graininess only supported its Grindhouse feel, so I didn’t mind. Films like this aren’t pretty and aren’t meant to be seen in high def.

If you’re looking for a good, rainy night in with a fun, low budget home invasion flick, I recommend Death Game. For a double bill, I’d pair it with Helter Skelter, or hell, even Spookies if you want to stay low budget and just go into a different direction, further into the absurd.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Because Hollywood just can’t help itself, Eli Roth is actually remaking Death Game into a new film titled Knock Knock, slated for an October 2015 release. It stars Keanu Reeves and will also feature Colleen Camp (presumably in a much smaller role this time). She also shares a producing credit. Now that I’m officially a Death Game fan, I will definitely be staying on top of the Knock Knock news and post some updates here. In the meantime, check out these screen grabs from Knock Knock. Enjoy!