The Honorable Mr. Dean Anderson hit his deadline and completed his half-Nightmareathon in a timely manner (including the elusive “Fade to Black”), while Ben’s trailing behind (he promises to get going here shortly with blogs and reviews after he gets through some stuff).
Feature Numero Two-o: “When Evil Lurks”
The big news about the second feature of the Nightmareathon is that Joe Bob admitted that this film both frightened him (three jump scares, two involving animals) and grossed him out. After watching thousands of films, this surely doesn’t happen very often.
Through the years, journalists have often asked JB if he’d like to make a film. His stock response was he’d like to make Please Don’t Eat Grandma’s Toes. He was amazed when he found that Argentinian filmmaker Demián Rugna had done that very thing, and Joe Bob described the film as a Lifetime family drama if all the family members had permanent brain damage.
Joe Bob also called When Evil Lurks a great film. It’s also a film about demonic possession.
In an aside, he said there are two kinds of professionals who love demonic possession: filmmakers and preachers. Particularly televangelists.
Joe Bob made it clear he is not a fan of televangelists.
He doesn’t like televangelists that are mad, he doesn’t like them if they’re sad. He doesn’t like them when sincere, he doesn’t like them far or near. He doesn’t like televangelists. (He’s not real fond of green eggs and ham either.)
He especially doesn’t like it when they prey on people’s fear of demons in order to solicit money.
On the other hand, Joe Bob does like filmmakers who use the theme of demonic possession to present outlandish special effects, as happens in this film. But to have money for those special effects, the flick’s director Rugna needed outside support. Sam Zimmerman, the film curator for Shudder, sold the streaming service on investing in this film, making it an Argentine/U.S. production. JB notes there are “excellent rotting body special effects” in the movie courtesy of Shudder.
The film had its premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin in 2023 (though Wikipedia says that the debut was at the Toronto International Film Festival). Its theatrical debut was October 6, 2023, and it did not do well. Perhaps it was the title (how much worse could it have done with Please Don’t Eat Grandma’s Toes?) As co-producer, Shudder was able to add the film to their collection.
This film has a different view of possession than the view presented in The Exorcist (though Rugna is a fan of that film). In this film, “God is dead and the time of the churches is ending.” But demons are still quite active, not just taking over people’s bodies, but animals’ bodies as well. The government is in charge of dealing with the “disease,” sending out “cleaners” to eliminate demons. (The film doesn’t make much of an argument for governmental efficiency.)
The film centers on brothers Pedro and Jimmy who try to help their neighbors, but end up making things oh so much worse. One might expect the elderly and children and pets to be safe in most movies. It’s not at all the case here.
We hear there are seven rules to avoid possession, but I was trying to keep track and it seemed there were more rules than that:
- Don’t let “it” in your head
- Don’t use electric lights or appliances
- Don’t get near animals
- Don’t use names
- Don’t use firearms
- Don’t kill a Rotten
- Don’t touch objects near Rottens
- Don’t be afraid of death
- Don’t move a Rotten (a possessed person in the film is a “Rotten”)
So, that’s nine rules. But it seems clear in the film that no one really knows what they’re dealing with.
But as always, we do have a clearer count with Joe Bob’s Drive-In Totals:
The Nightmareathon party was going full tilt in the kitchen, where Darcy was in charge. A rousing game of “Fuzzy Duck” was taking place. (If you don’t know the game, that’s what DuckDuckGo was made for, to track down information like this.)
Dave Sheridan arrived in the kitchen too, bringing schnapps. Energy gummies were freely distributed. There was a concern that Felissa Rose was overdoing it a bit, but we in the viewing audience (and JB) just got glimpses of the party when the kitchen door opened. We also received glimpses of parties going on elsewhere, sent in by the Mutant Fam.
Darcy did keep up her mail duties, bringing a letter from Richard Balin of Graduation Day fame (he played the music teacher). Joe Bob’s joke was, um, there.
Feature Numero Four-o: “Fade to Black”
Joe Bob introduced the fourth film of the Nightmareathon with a question (which he also answered). “How many people do you know that can talk about movies all day long? If you are watching this, probably quite a few people.”
Obsession with movies (particularly of a certain flavor) is practically the definition of the viewers of the Nightmareathon, but Joe Bob pointed out that “if we go back to the 1980’s, and you only talked about movies, you’d be considered a psychopath.”
Joe Bob asked Darcy about her youthful star obsessions, and she admitted her love for Cory Feldman. She would save dollar bills with a “C” or “F” in the serial numbers, calling them “Cory Feldman dollars.” She collected pictures of Cory from film magazines. She ran up hundreds of dollars of phone bills calling the Cory Feldman fan line (which had phone facts such as “Cory likes green burritos from Taco Bell.”) No one can say Darcy doesn’t sacrifice for this show.
The fourth feature in the Nightmareathon, Fade to Black, features a protagonist the Mutant Fam can relate to. Dennis Christopher plays Eric Binford, a film fan who has a hard time separating film fantasy from reality. He was doing cosplay long before our Mail Girl made it cool. Eric says at one point, “I know a lot of movies, it’s my thing.”
I mean, really, it’s a Mutant Family thing.
The film was produced by Irwin Yablans, who had success a couple of years before with a little independent film titled Halloween. Yablan had financed that 1978 John Carpenter classic with $300,000 and it took in $70,000,000, becoming the highest grossing independent film of its time. He wanted to keep the horror gravy train running and in 1979 released Tourist Trap. It was a financial flop (but would be a part of the debut of the first The Last Drive-In marathon on Shudder.)
For his next horror film, Yablans hired writer/director Vernon Zimmerman, whose previous work included Deadhead Miles and The Unholy Rollers. Zimmerman was quite open to collaboration with his cast and crew, making for less disciplined work at times.
It was quite a coup at the time to hire Dennis Christopher for the starring role. He had received great acclaim for his work in Breaking Away, been nominated for Golden Globe and Bafta awards.
He came into the film with his own ideas for the part. When he was dissatisfied with his mummy make-up and costume, he refused to leave his trailer until something better was provided. It was his idea for his character to meet his end at a movie palace.
This was the first major role for Linda Kerridge as Marilyn O’Connor. She was cast for her resemblance to Marilyn Monroe and that was the basis of her early career. The film also features young Mickey Rourke as Eric’s bullying coworker.
The film avoids the use of much gore as Yablans was an advocate of the “It’s what you don’t see that is really scary!” philosophy of horror.
Joe Bob and Darcy do not subscribe to that theory.
Fade to Black did not do well at the box office. Perhaps John Lennon’s assassination by a “fan” hurt its box office appeal. Yablans faced another financial obstacle when the estate of Hopalong Cassidy sued for the use of the actor’s likeness in a scene where Eric shoots a co-worker.
Joe Bob gave a partial list of other films referred to in this film: Public Enemy, White Heat, Kiss of Death, Casablanca, Psycho, 99 River Street, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Cry of Battle, Dracula’s Daughter, Little Caesar, Mary Poppins, Sound of Music, Reefer Madness, Stagecoach, The Big House, The Big Sleep, Broadway Melody, Maltese Falcon, The Seven Year Itch, The Princess and the Showgirl, and Night of the Living Dead. If all the rights holders from those films had sued, Yablans would have never crawled out of the financial wreckage.
Editor’s note: Fade to Black’s Drive-In Totals have been supressed because of a rights issue, but we’ll update em when it comes back!
And of course, as the film played, the party went on.
Robin Sydney, a previous guest from the screening of The Gingerdead Man, showed up ready to help Darcy paint Joe Bob’s toenails, because that’s a slumber party thing to do.
Rhonda Shear of USA’s Up All Night also joined the party. She had stories to tell of fans and stalkers from her days of stand-up comedy and movie hosting.
Darcy introduced the slumber party ritual of “Bloody Mary” where you repeat that name in front of a mirror and Mary herself would appear. Joe Bob tried it but ended up conjuring a bloody version of a Sky Bar. Perhaps more horrifying.
Darcy brought Joe Bob a letter that at least didn’t make him weepy. It read, “You’re awesome, your cosplay game is strong, you keep Joe Bob in check.”
Joe Bob closed this feature with some blonde jokes (I assume in homage to the Marilyn Monroe lookalike in the film.)
Feature Numero Final-o: “Galaxy of Terror”
Joe Bob introduced the last film of the night with a word about Roger Corman.
“I should say something about Roger before we start this movie. He was 98 years old and had an incredible career. He was a fan of this show and every show I’ve ever done. He kept the Hubbie I gave him on his desk. Until he traded the Cadillac Hubbie for the Chevy Hubbie.
“We were the last big tribute before his death. This Nightmareathon is in tribute to Roger. He was a great man. I rarely say that about anybody. We will have a moment of silence.”
One could tell Joe Bob was getting a little choked up. “I shouldn’t do this after all these hours,” he tried to explain.
“I will only make my Galaxy of Terror comments about Roger Corman.”
After making a Star Wars ripoff with Battle Beyond the Stars, he made an Alien ripoff with Galaxy of Terror. In those days, Corman was working out of his studio in an old lumber yard on Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles. He appreciated that science fiction allowed to work with miniatures and small casts. And he had a newly discovered asset: a young art director by the name of James Cameron. (Yes, that James Cameron. Who a few years later would rip off elements of Galaxy of Terror in his big-budget epic, Aliens.) Cameron worked on matte paintings, in-camera effects, designed and built sets, and did creature effects.
Corman certainly did things the drive-in way with this film. Sure, there’s too much plot and it gets in the way of the story, but the big words distract from the cheap sets. Corman insisted on “above the waist nudity”, particularly in a scene where a woman is raped by a giant maggot (Cameron operated the maggot puppet. Joe Bob insisted such things “could happen in real life.”) And the film had an exploding head. No horror film in the eighties was complete without an exploding head.
As for those Drive-In Totals:
The slumber party carried on. In an old slumber party tradition, “Light as a Feather and Stiff as a Board,” Joe Bob and Darcy tried to levitate John Brennan, but were unsuccessful. (Sharp eyes might note that a bottle of Lone Star did float in the air.)
It was time for the party to be over, but Darcy insisted the party would go on. Just as “The Drive-In will never die”, the party, she said, would not end.
So Joe Bob, Darcy, Yuki, and John gathered around the campfire singing The Last Drive-In theme song. Dogzilla wieners roasted over the fire completed the night for all of us.