The Night God Screamed.

Dir: Lee Madden. Cast: Jeanne Crain, Alex Nicol, Daniel Spelling, Michael Sugich, Barbara Hancock, Dawn Cleary, Gary Morgan & Stewart Bradley. 1971

Never underestimate the power of nostalgia. 

As a 1970s Monster Kid, The Night God Screamed is just the kind of retro horror I eat up. I must have come across images of its skull masked stalker when I was a kid through the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland or in a book like Denis Gifford's A Pictorial History of Horror Films. Certainly, I was familiar with the film's lurid poster. Whatever the case, that creepy rubber mask was known to me, even if I had no real context for it. All I knew was that it was from a movie I wanted to see. It took me until 2025 to do so. 

Academy Award nominee Jeanne Crain (Elia Kazan's Pinky) has convicted a Charles Manson like cult leader and two of his followers to death row. One night sometime later, while caretaking four teenagers, the remaining cult members lay siege to the house, terrorizing Crain and her charges. 

The first act of the film focuses on the then relatively current Manson Murders Mania, but then, post-conviction, the caretaking scenario comes into play, setting up the rest of the film. What follows, for me and my nostalgia addled synapses, is a tense and satisfying showdown between caretaker and teens, and crazed cult members. 

The Night God Screamed was written by Gil Lasky, who co-produced along with Ed Carlin. What this means to a trash raccoon like me is that it possesses a thoroughly enticing pedigree. Lasky also wrote and co-produced with Carlin an even more nostalgic and even more lurid favourite of mine entitled Blood and Lace, and it shows. Most of the hallmarks of that flick are present here, including its sickly atmosphere, a real feeling of threat, weird surprises, and moments that just may have influenced John Carpenter's classic Halloween.

All in all, The Night God Screamed was a perfect night in at the movies for me.   

Shitkid and the end of music.

Shitkid is (was?) Åsa Söderqvist (at one point it also included bassist Lina Ericsson), a Swedish musician whose music you'll either love... or you won't. From her first Shitkid EP in 2016 though to 2023's "Rejected Fish", Söderqvist's music has sounded just like she's wanted it to sound, even as that has shifted from project to project.

Personally, Shitkid's music has come to sound like the end of music, like it's the last word in contemporary music. I can't put it any better than that. I think that's pretty amazing. 

You can check out Shitkid at Bandcamp. 

A first.

Gazing over at my to-read stack recently, I noted that it was comprised entirely and incidentally of gay material. The thing that hit me about this is that, for the first time in 60 years of living on this planet, three gay publications were available to me and I'd chosen them at random and without purpose beyond entertainment. It may not seem like anything to some, but it was absolutely noteworthy to me. 

Maxxxine

It’s hard to write about Maxxxine as a fan of X and Pearl, the proceeding films in Ti West’s X Trilogy, without sounding like I’m trying to convince myself that I liked it. That’s absolutely not the case. 

The thing is, Maxxxine needs to be looked at two ways: As the end of a trilogy, and as a standalone film in its own right. In this light, I found it much more successful as the latter. That’s not to say that Maxxxine doesn’t do its job as the final chapter in the trilogy: It continues the storyline, and it closes this chapter in the life of Maxine Minx; it also carries with it thematic and technical aspects from the other films: It’s as different from Pearl as that film was from X, it features a terrific performance from Mia Goth, it subtly (and sometimes less subtly) references elements from its predecessors, and it further explores the various interpretations of “X Factor”.

This time, West is evoking the vigilante films of the 1980s (with a little bit of Argento inspiration added), and my take away is that in this case, the X Factor is Maxine Minx's ability to survive. This is one of the things that I find most fascinating about this trilogy, this exploration of the X Factor. For the three characters that Goth has played in this series, and I would assume for most of the audience, the X Factor means star quality. West, however, knows that there are other aspects that make people stand out. For Pearl, it was her insanity, for Maxine, that survival instinct is her true outstanding quality. 

Taken on its own merits, Maxxxine is a highly entertaining flick that, for fans of X and Pearl, may not provide the emotional connection to character that the previous films hold, but is still a satisfying experience. Could it be that the films it evokes are just not as fertile an inspiration as those that inspired X and Pearl? I guess I need to go see it again. 

Godzilla Minus One

Uncertain whether or not Godzilla Minus One would make it to a screen in my province, my husband, two friends and I drove the 164+ kms to Moncton to see it on the big screen, and I’m glad we did.

I’ve made the trek to M-town to see a movie exactly four times now — to see The Devil’s Rejects, to see My Bloody Valentine 3-D (before we had 3-D capability here in Charlottetown), to see The Witch, and now for G-1.

I’ve been a lifelong Big G fan — He’s my favourite movie “creature”. I think that he was borne out of Japan’s need to work through the radioactive trauma of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is both heartbreaking and fascinating. My Chinese Zodiac sign is the dragon, and although Big G is a version of a dinosaur, he’ll alway be closely associated with dragon mythos in my mind. When I was diagnosed with blood cancer, I quickly settled on Godzilla as my symbol for my fight against this disease. He has been tattooed on my body — twice.

As a kid I “thrilled” (yes, that’s the right word) to Saturday matinee screenings of Godzilla flicks. I enjoy the campy later Showa Era Godzilla movies, taken on their own terms. I’ve enjoyed watching his evolution (and sometimes de-evolution) both as a character and in creature design.

All that to say that I probably react more intensely to a Godzilla flick than the causal viewer. With that in mind, Godzilla Minus One gave me all that I hope for in a Big G flick, and more — Characters to care about, honestly felt emotion — it’s possible that as a gay person, the concept of “found” or “chosen” family hits harder, awesome” (in the true and original sense of the word) mayhem, unobtrusive nods to the original 1954 Godzilla flick, suspense, social commentary, original themes neatly explored, a master class in how to use CGI, and this — the filmmakers were able to make Godzilla scary (no mean feat, as I’ve never found giant creatures a particularly upsetting notion).

Much, if not all of the film’s success can be attributed to Takashi Yamazaki who wrote, directed and provided the visual effects for G-1. Leave it to the Japanese to give us the best films about “their” creature. I think they understand Big G’s appeal, history and fluid meaning, and the weight (no pun intended) that he carries best.

As we were leaving the theatre, one of my travelling companions and I had a discussion about an occurrence that takes place towards the end of the film that he wasn’t sure how he felt about. I get where he’s coming from, but for me, there’s this — If you don’t live, you don’t know what you’re missing, no matter how improbable. In coming to terms with Japan’s notion of death as honour here, it makes perfect sense to me.

More Favourite Horror Flicks, Alphabetically: Phantasm

Phantasm

Dir: Don Coscarelli. Cast: Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, Kathy Lester & Angus Scrimm. 1979

Phantasm, the little movie that could. This indie flick is such a shaggy dog that I think horror fans either find it too all over the place and goofy to be a cohesive horror classic, or embrace its everything-but-the-kitchen-sink storytelling. Clearly, I fit into the latter category. 

Reduced to brass tacks, Phantasm is the story of something weird going on at a small town mortuary that involves tiny robed creatures from another dimension, a flying bloodsucking orb, and the iconic Tall Man played by Angus Scrimm. It also, significantly, involves a teenager dealing with the death of his parents, and the off-kilter world that he finds himself in in the wake of that loss. And that, for me, is the key to Phantasm. 

Never a fan of “other dimension” horror tales, Phantasm, much like Jack Woods’ 1970 indie flick Equinox (to which Phantasm seems to owe a small debt, much smaller than say Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead does), director Coscarelli doesn’t go down that particular portal in very much depth, which suits me just fine. Instead, Coscarelli focuses on the bizarre world of Morningside Cemetery and the uncertain and unstable nightmare that teenage Mike (Baldwin) is trapped in. 

More Favourite Horror Flicks, Alphabetically: Pearl

Pearl 

Dir: Ti West. Cast: Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, Matthew Sunderland, Emma Jenkins-Purro, & Alistair Sewell. 2022

As much as I love X, I was unprepared for how much I would fall for Pearl. Set 61 years earlier than X, Pearl gives us the backstory of my favourite murdering granny, set in the era of the influenza pandemic in rural Texas. 

I love how West and co-writer Goth revisit and payoff themes, elements and incidents from X here. I love that they draw a connection between the height of the COVID pandemic with the earlier influenza pandemic. I love that Goth has an opportunity to really own her character here, to inhabit her, to write her, to co-create her. I love how Pearl’s parents know they are housing a psychopath in the making, and that this, to them, is Pearl’s true X-Factor. I love that West took the movie in a different direction than its predecessor by drawing inspiration from movies like The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. I love Goth’s performance here (she should have been handed an Oscar), and that of the other actors. I love the world this movie creates, I love its atmosphere. I love that, for me, it evokes the filmography of Curtis Harrington. I love that we get to see the spark in the young Pearl that, by movie’s end, is just starting to be snuffed out, only to be replaced by something much more lethal and sad. 

 

West and Goth have just wrapped shooting on MaXXXine as I write this, the third and final film in the X trilogy. It follows Pearl’s mirror image Maxine from the first film as she tries to make it big in 1980s Hollywood. I, for one, can’t wait to see what they’ve got in store for us.