Alright guys, I was out the last two weeks due to some personal stuff, and I had planned on following up with my hitman list this week, and this always seems to happen when I put these lists together, but I’ve decided to put the rest of the list on hold. With October coming up, a period in which I’m traditionally inundated only with the Horror genre, I figured that I’d probably rather regroup on the rest of this list in a month or so. Also, it just so happens that the annual Horror marathon that I schedule for myself and my friends happened to get started just a bit earlier this year.
Kid, the next time I say, “Let’s go someplace like Bolivia,” let’s GO someplace like Bolivia.
Also, before I get to the rest of the column, I’d just like to pay my respects to Paul Newman. I mean, there are just some actors that simply towered over everyone else, and along with Brando and Steve McQueen, Paul Newman was always right there when it came to screen actors of the latter half of the 20th Century. The guy just always made you stand up and take notice, no matter what he was doing. Even better than those guys though, you always got the sense of just how impossibly likable Paul Newman always was. You never got that air about Newman that he acted like he was better than anyone else, just that he was one of the guys. Newman was that super handsome, popular guy in school that was just so personable you couldn’t help but like him. He always had so much energy and enthusiasm on screen that you wished he would just keep on acting and acting for another few decades.
Like a lot of people, I think that it was Cool Hand Luke that really got my attention when it came to Newman’s charisma. I know that now its chic to consider The Shawshank Redemption the best Prison movie ever made (though I’m also fond of Rikki-O and The Big Doll House), but Luke just absolutely sings to you when you’re watching it, and there’s this sense of grittiness that comes through in every bead of sweat and every Southern Prison guard we hear speak. The movie is just such a terrific introduction to “Great” cinema and I hope for the next generation to have that same experience that I did when I first got to see it.
Pound for pound my favorite Newman movie may be Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. While this one fights with The Sting for the best reputation amongst his collaborations with Robert Redford, I think this one wins on point simply for its fun factor. This may actually be the most quotable Western ever made. “If he’d just pay me what he’s spending to make me stop robbing him, I’d stop robbing him,” is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the quotable lines, and really when it comes down to it, this one may actually be one of the few movies that can actually compete with Casablanca for one of the most quotable movies ever. The interplay between Newman and Redford is just ridiculously awesome, and I wish they could have just had one more movie together.
Newman would finally win his Oscar after 8 nominations for his reprisal of The Hustler‘s Fast Eddie in The Color of Money, but honestly, the actor was just gold every time out. From Brick Pollitt in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to his final Academy nod for 2002’s Road to Perdition, Newman was never anything less than brilliant. Even movies that should just be blips on other actor’s resumes, such as The Towering Inferno and the immortal Slap Shot, ended up being enduring classics thanks to Newman’s likeability.
It is with great sadness we say goodbye Mr. Newman, but thanks for everything.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming…
I know in past columns I’ve mentioned our local art-house theater, The Kentucky, and my buddy Shaun Stidham, who is, without question the biggest Horror movie fan that I’ve ever known in my whole life. Well recently The Kentucky decided to run a midnight show of the original Friday the 13th, a movie I hadn’t actually seen in a while, and a flick that I figured would be an awesome experience with a crowded theater. Besides, had I not wanted to go, I’m sure Shaun would have somehow made it my legal obligation to attend the screening. So with Shaun and even my girlfriend Erin in tow, we went down to the screening hopeful that my nostalgia for the film would stand up, and to our surprise we discovered…a huge line!
This was actually something that I hadn’t to deal with in some time to be honest. Believe it or not, to be the size that it is Lexington Kentucky has a pretty terrific lineup of multiplexes to choose from, enough that I don’t actually remember the last time I had to fight for a ticket or a good seat, even for a huge blockbuster like Iron Man or The Dark Knight. Needless to say, we were a little anxious about the turn of events, when we were suddenly hit with another surprised that ended up shaping the rest of the weekend.
Turns out, the line was actually not just because the theater was showing the Slasher classic, but because there was actually a Horror movie convention in town called Scarefest, and Cult movie icon Tom Savini was going to do a Q &A before the screening even started! That’s right, Sex Machine was in town and he was going to watch Friday the 13th with us that night! Not only that, we learned that the convention would actually still be going on the next day and that there would be more Horror Icons we could mingle with.
I’ll go back to the movie in a later column, but let me just say that the Q & A and getting to attend Scarefest the next day was an absolute blast. Savini was terrific for the crowd, especially considering that there was this contingent of middle-aged women, who had obviously thrown a few back that night, who were persistently trying to hit on Savini over and over. Fortunately, there were still plenty of Horror geeks who had plenty to ask about the Friday the 13th production as well as hit other exploits in the genre as well. He also got to the speak a little bit about the passing of Stan Winston, and how it was such a blow to those in the community who love and worked with physical effects. It seemed like a really heartfelt moment, especially after the barrage of Cougar antics.
Even for a person like myself, who loves Horror movies but doesn’t consider them a religion like Shaun does, it was pretty awe inspiring for me on the convention floor the next day. I really only had a vague idea of who was actually going to be at the event, so I was ecstatic when I got there and saw Savini was sitting next to Tony Todd (Candy Man, Final Destination), Sid Haig (The Devil’s Rejects, a million other cult movies), Bill Moseley (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), David Naughton (An American Werewolf in London), Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes), Tom Towles (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer), P.J. Soles (Halloween), Adrienne King and Betsy Palmer from Friday the 13th and former Jason Voorhees, Kane Hodder.
Now, you have to take into account that we live here in the sticks of Lexington, KY and celebrities of any sort are pretty few and far between, so to see this many cult figures all in a row was pretty mesmerizing. Also, there’s a mystique about these guys from their films, so its tough not to be completely intimidated by them. You spend an entire lifetime being completely scared out of your mind by these guys, so it’s an incredible experience to find out that guys like Tom Towles, Sid Haig, and Kane Hodder are some of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. When he asked me my name, it was difficult to fight the reaction that Tom Towles was gonna bash my face in, but he just shook my hand instead.
Tony Todd was absolutely fantastic and personable, even asking us to take a picture of him as he posed with a zombie on stilts that was walking around. I even got some footage of him and Savini screwing around as Savini admired an Obama shirt the former Candyman had on. Again, there’s just something surreal about seeing guys that are usually decapitating zombies or eviscerating unsuspecting teenagers, and instead they’re just walking by with a plate of sandwiches or just mingling with fanboys that are worshipping them.
Our favorites were P.J. Soles and Kane Hodder, both were gracious and completely approachable. Hodder’s a powerhouse, but a totally pleasant guy. He’s pretty much the preferred Jason Voorhees these days and if you meet him you’ll probably wish he was still playing the dude behind the mask. It’s funny because he posed for a picture with Shaun, and it looks like Hodder’s strangling Shaun because to some degree, he is. Worse yet, I couldn’t get the camera to take the picture for the longest time, so Stidham said he was blacking out by the time I actually got the picture. Still, getting choked out by Jason Voorhees was pretty much a dream come true for Shaun, so I’m sure he was fine with it.
The best of the best though, was P.J. Soles, as she’s a total sweethheart. She even took note about how Shaun was really nervous to meet her (Halloween is one of his all time favorite movies), and tried desperately to calm him down. Just talking to her for a few minutes, she’s an absolute delight and, if you’re a Halloween fan, and you see that she’s going to be in the area, I’d very much recommend you meet her. While my exposure to celebrities is kind of limited, she’s the most down to earth I’ve ever met, and again I just can’t say enough about how nice she is.
Sometimes its just really good to be a geek. This was one of those days. To be able to just hang out with men and women that have worked on MOST of my favorite Horror movies, hug P.J. Soles, talk politics with Tony Todd and listen to Sid
Haig make fun of the events announcer is just an extraordinary experience, and an incredible amount of fun. Fantastically, Scarefest was such a success that apparently the plan is to have everyone back next year, and to try to add to the guest list as well, with perhaps even a Nightmare on Elm Street reunion possibly in the works. So to everyone at Scarefest and all the Horror Icons that made it to our remote neck of the wood, thanks and see you guys next year.
