A Horrorthon, Watchin' Movies In 35mm

The 6th Annual New Beverly Horrorthon went down on Saturday October 19th at the New Beverly Cinema. Six horror movies, all in 35mm running from dusk til dawn, 12+hours of movies, trailers and fun, oh my!

It was my 6th New Bev Horrorthon and it was an absolute blast! Yup, I've been to every New Beverly Horrorthon, from beginning to end with eyes glued on the screen. I just love watching movies. This year the line up was solid and of the movies first presented I knew I'd have at least 3 new never seen before flicks added to my watched list!

My guy Dave and I lined up at 5pm. We were joined by Dave's niece Hailey (celebrating her 17th birthday!) and her cousin Andy. This was their first time at the New Beverly and their first time at a movie marathon!

This all night show brings out a lot of New Beverly regulars, and though many of us don't get to hang out throughout the year, we know we can catch up at the Horrorthon! My dad was in attendance too!

Me and My Dad!

So once the doors opened we filed in, found our favorite seats and got comfy cozy to last the whole night. It was a sold out show and the theater was packed!! Yup!

We've Been To Every Horrorthon!

Brian Quinn, programmer of the Bev's GRINDHOUSE FILM FESTIVAL came on down to get the show started with some "Thank You" shout outs; for the one who programmed before him and to those who helped him get prints and trailers. Brian was very excited for his lineup to get started!!

There's Brian!!!

Around 7:45pm the trailers started rolling; THE VAMPIRE'S COFFIN, ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY (in Hypnoscope), GOLIATH & THE VAMPIRES, THE BLOOD DRINKERS, BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRES, THE BRIDES OF DRACULA, DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, Frank Langella in DRACULA, BLACULA, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN (Vampires, No Interview!)

VAMP (1986) was the first film of the night, and one film that my friend Eric and I had been asking for over the last few Horrothons. VAMP features two wanna be frat pledges AJ (Robert Rusler) and Keith (Chris Makepeace) who set off to the big city for a Stripper. What they find is a whole bunch of Vampires! It's a bro-mance, it's horror, it's comedy, but the most important thing about VAMP is that it features GRACE JONES as Katrina the feature attraction at a night club. She dances, gets her hands on some easy victims and doesn't have to say a word. After Katrina does her big dance the New Beverly audience all cheered along. 

After a quick break the show continued with trailers for; SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM, DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS, PSYCHO 2, FRIDAY THE 13th 2, EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN, THE EXORCIST 2: THE HERETIC, AMITYVILLE 2: THE POSSESSION, CREEPSHOW 2 (HORICK UNIVERSITY!!!), and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2.  

Universal's DRACULA'S DAUGHTER was next! This is one of my favorites of the Universal monster classics. Though there's no Lugosi, it's a great vampire story. Here we have Dracula's Daughter, the Countess Marya Zaleska who's hoping to escape from her curse now that Dracula has been destroyed by Van Helsing. The Countess is a seductive woman, pained by the evil life she leads and believes psychiatrist Jeffery Garth can offer her salvation. It was only the second movie of the night and I caught more than a few dozing folks. I though, had long waited for the chance to see this movie on a big screen and couldn't have been happier! It was a lot of fun, The Countess does deliver a "weird feeling" indeed! 

Next up we got a THREE STOOGES short called WHO DONE IT? The Stooges are detective and called into solve the mystery of a gang going after rich folks. There's a hot pursuit through a big house with lots of bumps and gags. The Bev audience laughed right along, yup!

DEATH SHIP began, the movie that delivers on the title, Death, and a Ship. It all starts out big with a cruise liner out in the ocean with a big party celebration going on. George Kennedy is the bitter Captain who just wants to be at sea and hates having to play with his guests. Next in command Richard Crenna can't wait to take over! But disaster strikes when an old big ship crashes into the liner! Only a handful of folks survive and somehow board the Ghost Boat. It was gross and weird and pretty sloppy. I learned you never eat old candy, there is no way to escape a bloody shower and beware of crazy captains like George Kennedy. This was a new movie for me, the first new movie of my night! 

It was raffle time after the third movie of the evening. Brian had lots of goodies to share and he set up the rest of the night, reminding us that the last two movies would play back to back. I sadly did not win anything at the raffle, but am happy to report that CLU GULAGER did! 

The mystery movie of the night was about to screen. Brian says it's usually just the last movie he booked, but promised it was a good one. And actually before I continue I will give props to Brian for doing his best to program films that hadn't been shown in quite some time, he really went the distance for his Horrorthon!

The next 17 minutes continued with trailers! A reel of films that were from 1988, celebrating their 25th anniversaries! NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4, CHILD'S PLAY, BETTLEJUICE, HELLRAISER 2 (a trailer featuring audience reactions, yup an audience from 1988!), FRIDAY THE 13th PART VII, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 2, ASSAULT OF THE KILLER BIMBOS, NIGHT OF THE DEMONS, and another NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4.

And with that, we got the mystery movie, Brian warned it was a bad print, the worst of the night, but it was a film he loved...And it was...Wes Craven's THE HILLS HAVE EYES! Another re-see for me and I had seen this before in 35mm! (heee!) I'm glad it was playing once again! In THE HILLS HAVE EYES, a family making their way to California get stuck on a road and become the prey of some mountain folk. No one in the family is safe, not even the dogs, Beast and Beauty. SPOILER WARNING: One of my favorite things about THE HILLS HAVE EYES is Beast and dog revenge! It's an intense movie, and still has tough moments to watch. I ducked away, you can all guess when and talked to my pals working at the concession stand. It was the only time I left the theater all night long. The crowd really dug HILLS and everyone was ready for more! I'm happy to say the crowd stayed pretty strong all night long.

The next two films I had never seen before and was pretty excited from the buzz I got from my fellow horrorthon pals. I was still awake and ready for whatever was going to come!

TRAILERS: SCREAMS OF A WINTER LAKE, THE BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT, GALAXY OF TERROR (oy vey!), TERROR, LAST STOP ON THE NIGHT TRAIN ("Their future isn't going that far." - eeep!), and HORROR EXPRESS.

NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR is ridiculous! Yes, ridiculously awful! Ok well it starts amazingly with an 80's band ON A TRAIN, singing a song called EVERYBODY BUT YOU, and the catchy little tune..."Everybody's got something to, everybody but you!" plays throughout the film. NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR is an anthology where God and MR. SATAN are watching little vignettes to see who gets to visit Heaven or Hell. The story about this movie is a bunch of unfinished horror movies got pieced together for this terror train trip. Richard Moll is in a few of the stories. None of it really makes any sense. The only thing I can rave about is the musical number and of course someone on the internets went an put all the music segments together into one video! ENJOY! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUHsLZ5t5w8

And then last, but certainly not least came my favorite movie, my favorite of the night, THE FINAL TERROR. I'm surprised I had never seen it before! This film had an amazing cast! So many familiar faces, even a guy from THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY, John Friedrich! But the other big names (especially in my movie world), Adrian Zmed, Darryl Hannah, Joe Pantoliano, Lewis Smith (PERFECT TOMMY!), Mark Metcalf (he was a lover without any cares of Pledge Pins!) and Rachel Ward! The films a slasher flick in the forest where a few training Forest Rangers and some gal pals head on out to do some clean up. Of course things don't go as planned! These kids are slackers, they screw around and do whatever they can to piss off their bus driver Eggar (Joe Pantoliano). As a few are killed the survivors have to find a way out of the forest. It's an intense situation, I really dug it and would call it a gem among the slasher genre.

Once those credits to THE FINAL TERROR ended the 6th ANNUAL HORROTHON came to a close. We all gathered up our stuff and said goodbye to the New Beverly, already pumped to do it again next year. It was strange to exit the theater into a morning mist, usually it's always so sunny and bright! I can't thank Brian and the New Beverly enough for making my October awesome with movies, friends and more movies! Yup! Till Next Year!! YUP YUP YUP!!!

THAT'S ALL FOLKS!!!!
See you next year!