Although this film has been out for about three years, i don’t think it’s well known by most people due to it’s limited release, which is a shame as it highlights a favorite part of many people’s childhood. American Scary chronicles and examines the American phenomena of the local TV Horror Host, those colorful and sometimes goofy people who would come on every week to introduce horror films and crack jokes, usually at the movie’s expense. Using Elena Watson’s book, TV Horror Movie Hosts as a guide, filmmaker’s John Hudgens, Sandy Clark and Michael Monahan fashion a loving tribute and insightful look at a beloved but often overlooked aspect of pop culture. Combining interviews of the hosts with clips from their shows, along with known celebrity fans like Tim Conway, Tom Savini and Neil Gaiman, American Scary introduces the audience to the likes of Zacherly, Vampira, Chilly Billy, Ghoulardi, Svengoolie, The Ghoul and Big Chuck & Lil’ John as well as such nationally broadcast cable characters like Sir Cecil Creepe, Commander USA, Joe Bob Briggs and Joel Hodgson, not mention the biggest horror host of all time, Elvira. Though not told in chronilogical order, it highlights many of the above mentioned as well as others in a poignant look at a form of entertainment that is disappearing from from TV as local stations are continually swallowed up by conglomerates like Clear Channel, yet is also hopeful as some like Dr. Gangrene appears on public access while others are like Count Gore De Vol, who moved his show intact to the internet. If there is any complaint it is that a 90 minute movie is not enough time to really do justice to an art form that has been in existence for almost sixty years. If they could have gotten the backing of some PBS contributors they could have had an awesome multi-part film like Ken Burns’ Jazz or Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues, for despite the many people highlighted, there were hundreds more not even mentioned (why is Superhost continually overlooked?). It does prove something that all we Ohioians have known for years, we are the mecca of horror movie hosting with more horror movie hosts in more cities than any three states combined. The extras on the DVD include the wedding in full costume of two horror hosts from Defiance, let’s see New York or Los Angeles top that.
Archive for April, 2009
I saw a trailer on Reelz Channel recently for a remake of Fame. It got me thinking. With everyting coming out on DVD, is there any point in doing remakes? Remakes use to make sense in the past, you didn’t have access to older films, you might catch a favorite movie occasionally on TV, so remaking Thunderball as Never Say Never Again could make money and people would want to see it. But nowadays with the movie Fame and the TV show readily available on DVD so that you can see it any time you want, remaking it doesn’t seem to be a viable option. I know some would argue that there is still worth to be found in remakes as the artists would put there own spin on it like The Goo Goo Dolls did with their remake of Supertramp’s Give a Little Bit. Maybe, but how many people are stil listening to the Goo Goo Dolls’ version compared to Supertramp?
I have been watching a lot of Hulu lately, Alec Baldwin and Seth McFarlane can eat my brain if they want, especially old episodes of that sometimes great, sometimes hokey show Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. As the new Star Trek revamp is approaching, the old show has been on my mind quite a bit and I began to notice many similarites between the two shows. Number one, all of the Seaview crew wore different colored uniforms depending on their station, red for engineering, blue was for the bridge crew, while the command crew wore military kahki, ie yellow. Number two, every time the Seaview is attacked everybody gets tossed back and forth around the bridge while large sparks erupt from most of the equipment, obviously the idea of a circuit breaker never occured to anyone. And number three, only the most important members of the crew are to be used on missions, Admiral Nelson, Captain Crane and either executive officer Lt Morton or Chief Sharkey. Now compare this with classic Trek. Red tunics are enginieering and security, blue is science and medical, while yellow is for comand crew, the same spark flying, people tumbling scenes are used when ever the Enterprise is attacked, and the away teams are always made up of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and sometimes chief engineer Scotty. Since Voyage was a top twenty show at the time Roddenberry was creating his “space wagon train” it doesn’t seem too far fetched that he might have “borrowed” some things from a popular science fiction program. I know it is blasphemy to even suggest that Trek was not completely original, but nothing is ever created in a vacum.
