July 2019/Issue 1 The First Last Drive - In Marathon The Joe Bob Briggs Fanzine 2 Artwork by Casey Jones — twitter.com/SchlockV 3 Cover illustration by Cal Slayton / calslayton.com Table of Contents “In 1956 there were 12,000 drive - ins in America. 95 percent of those are dead. And yet, there are native Indians, the Crankaway Indians of Texas, who believe there is a spirit that lives on in these decayed temples where Americans once worshipped. They call it ‘Whiska - bana - ha,’ or the Spirit of Blood, Breasts, and Beasts. Or The Three Bs. What you are about to witness is a summoning of that spirit, a return to a part of the American heritage that has all but vanished. It’s a heritage of drive - in movies, controversial movies, groundbreaking movies – the weird, the offbeat, the strange.” 1 - Cal Slayton artwork 2 - Casey Jones artwork 4 - Joe Bob intro 6 - Welcome back, Joe Bob! 8 - Tourist Trap 9 - Sleepaway Camp 10 - Rabid 11 - The Prowler 12 - Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl - 0 - Rama 14 - Daughters of Darkness 16 - Herschell Gordon Lewis 17 - Blood Feast 18 - Highway 183 Drive - In 19 - Basket Case 20 - Re - Animator 21 - David Gale 22 - Demons 24 - The Legend of Boggy Creek 26 - The Legend of Boggy Creek song lyrics 27 - Stump Joe Bob 28 - Hellraiser 29 - Pieces 30 - John Zacherle 34 - Love Letters from the Mutants 36 - Stop Fiddlin ’ With Your Phone! 39 - Bloody Good Horror 42 - Joe Bob ’ s Jokes 44 - Joe Bob ’ s Farewell 45 - Letter from the Editor 46 - Drive - In Totals 59 - Credits and Thanks 60 - Ben Dale artwork Editor’s Note : This is a reprint. It’s basically the same as the original, but there are a few minor changes (updated URLs and such). Enjoy! Copyright © Paddy Jack Press, 2019. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photo- copying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews. For permission requests, write to the publisher at paddyjackpress@gmail.com. Reprinted articles and interviews belong to their respective owners and those persons or publications should be contacted for permission. All of Joe Bob Briggs ’ quoted passages belong to Joe Bob Briggs and should not be reproduced without his express written per- mission. Thank you. 4 “ Have y ’ all ever seen The Beast Within ? 1982. That ’ s the one about the woman in Mississippi who gets raped by a giant cicada. What we used to call a katydid. So, this woman gets katydiddled, and then seventeen years later her mutant son starts chewing up fat guys in spaghetti - strap tee shirts and suckin ’ blood and eatin ’ guys named Kerwyn. He ’ s kind of a combination vampire, zombie, katydid. Interesting plot point – he only eats guys named Kerwyn. Anyway, Paul Clemens was the actor who played the tortured high school student with insect issues. So, um, giant carnivorous katydid zombies only come to life every seven- teen years. This is a scientific “The Last Drive - In 24 - hour Joe Bob Briggs marathon of horror ONLY on Shudder. One weekend only. If you miss this, you’re going to always regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon, and for the rest of your life. That’s actually from Casablanca. We will not be showing that.” — Joe Bob Briggs’ first words at the opening of the first Last Drive - In marathon RULES OF GREAT DRIVE - IN MOVIES: (as stated during Tourist Trap ) 1. Anybody can die, at any moment. 2. When a girl says, “Who needs a bathing suit?” you must deliver the groceries (if you know what I mean, and I think you do.). 3. Chuck Connors... TRIVIA: What style of cowboy hat does Joe Bob say he prefers to wear? A: A Dwight Yoakam hat fact. You can go to Nat Geo, verify that. You want to know the spooky thing? Every seven- teen years, I start a new show. I have katydid DNA. ” 5 “ We ’ re startin ’ with Tourist Trap , see, because we want to impress you with just how seri- ous we are about this stuff. Be- cause, if you ask a horror fan to name his favorite movies of 1979, he might say [ The ] Ami- tyville Horror , he might say Al- ien , he might say Salem ’ s Lot , but he probably will not say Tourist Trap Tourist Trap was the first real 80s slasher, even though it came out in the 70s. It was pre - 80s. It was ahead of its time. It even has Tanya Roberts in it and that ’ s about as 80s as it gets. By the way, what is it with 80s nostalgia? I was there in the 80s. There was a whole lot of crap - ola in the 80s. Is it the big hair?They like the big hair, don ’ t they? Big hair. We used to call that ‘ State Fair Hair ’ in Texas. Big boobs. Big hair on the guys too! Hair bands. All about the hair. Anyhow the other thing you need to know is that, as usu- al, whenever I do a marathon, we ’ re gonna be printin ’ up some “ I Spent the Night with Joe Bob ” tee shirts, which we will explain later. And, by the way, if you ’ re gay, bi - sexual, multi - sexual, trans - sexual, tri - sexual, quatro - sexual, or you live at Warren Jeff ’ s house, you can still wear the ‘ I Spent the Night with Joe Bob ’ tee shirt and I will embrace you, and embrace your diversity. I will not literally embrace you. Or maybe I will! You know, you can use any restroom here in the trailer house. There ’ s only one bathroom actually, so we ’ re al- ready transgender - friendly. See, we ’ re ahead of the game. Okay, lets get to it! ” Here we go! 6 Photo by MG Marshall Headshot Photography/Dallas, TX “ The network asked me to do this. When they first came to me, I said the same the same thing I ’ ve been sayin ’ for seventeen years which is, ‘ The network canceled me, so now the people must suffer. ’ But then, y ’ all begged. And, as some of you know, it had a profound effect on me. I can ’ t stand to see a grown man beg. Also, even though I would never do any- thing that violates my personal and professional principals, I would do anything for two hun- dred bucks. So, a deal was made. And the basic idea was that the nation is in the mood for horror. We proved that by having the first all - horror election, with horror icons nominated by both parties, and a re - enactment of Night of the Living Dead virtual- ly every day since then, com- plete with actual dead people serving in the cabinet. So, they finally appealed to my patriot- ism. I needed to serve my coun- try, and explain what the holy heck is goin ’ on and, as you know, we do that through the medium of movies. So, I ’ m going to do it one last time . I actually made that vow back in the 90s. One last time. Showtime had me hostin ’ that damn Emmanuelle marathon – you know, we had both the double - L Emmanuelle movies, and the single - M, fake Emanuelle movies. And I said, ‘ Okay, one last time, ’ because there ’ s only so much softcore lesbo hippie porn with Vaseline smeared on the camera lens be- fore you go, ‘ Whoa, this is gonna make my penis fall off. I can ’ t do this forever. ’ But my point is, I survived the 80s hosting every 7 Michael Scott design by KalonGraphics movie that Showtime networks bought at the Cannes film mar- ket, the Milan film market, and the rural upstate New York film market that they would bring home and they would say, ‘ What is this movie? I didn ’ t buy this movie. Did you buy this movie? What ’ s a West German sex comedy? And so I hosted all those. Stuff like She ’ s Nineteen and Ready , when she was forty - five and she was never gonna be ready. You didn ’ t really want her to be ready. Anyhow, that ’ s how far back I go. I actually remem- ber the now - vanished genre called the West German sex comedy. And I embraced it, be- cause that ’ s what we do here. We embrace movies. I didn ’ t ac- tually embrace that German skank in the movie, I was being metaphorical. So, after you begged, I said, ‘ Okay. I ’ ll do one weekend. Dusk to dawn to dusk to almost dawn , because we ’ re going twenty - four hours, plus a little extra, and we ’ ve got... (looking off camera) ‘ How many movies have we got? ’ We ’ ve got, like, ninety - seven movies. And we ’ re not going to announce the titles until we show them. So, it ’ ll be a surprise. And we ’ re actually gonna interrupt the movies, just like back in the old days. Com- mercial breaks, only they ’ re not commercials, they ’ re Shudder breaks, or Joe Bob breaks. And if that annoys you, and I can ’ t im- agine that it wouldn ’ t - it would annoy the hell out of me – then you can watch these same mov- ies on Shudder without looking at me or listening to me, but this is how we did it before and so, by God, we ’ re going to continue to do it the pitiful way . And then, throughout today and tomor- row, we ’ re going to have all the usual stuff. Guests will be drop- ping in. Some of ‘ em are half - ass famous. We have mail girls – in fact, if you want to keep up with what ’ s on, what ’ s coming on, what might be on if we don ’ t forget to spool it up, you can go to the official Joe Bob ’ s Last Drive - In horror - thon mail girl Twitter feed and the mail girl will take your requests, as long as they ’ re legal in any country besides Thailand. And that ’ s actually the only way to keep up other than just to watch the dang show. ” “You know, we should have before - and - after pictures for this marathon. Here’s your brain. Here’s your brain on Shudder after watching The Last Drive - In marathon. Because that picture is not gonna be pretty. It’s gonna look like somebody who played middle - linebacker for The Raiders for seventeen years.” - Joe Bob Briggs TRIVIA: Which version of Frankenstein did Joe Bob once say (on TNT ’ s MonsterVision ) was his favorite? A: The 1992 version starring Randy Quaid as the monster. 8 Tourist Trap “Can you tell I’m a Chuck Connors fan?” “Who makes a slasher with not one, not two, but three girls skinny - dippin’ under a waterfall, and we have zero breast - count? Is this man insane? He’s a Texan too, so I don’t get that.” “ Look at that first - moment close - up on Chuck Connors. Talk about a guy who can fill up the screen and change the pace of a film just by his presence. He really does overpower every other actor in every scene. ” “Did you notice [Chuck Connors is] carryin’ a rifle in that first shot? Inside joke, because Chuck was best known for a TV series called The Rifleman .” “ Tourist Trap . This is the old story of the road - trippers who have car trouble and they have to pull into a broken down, roadside attraction cowboy wax museum run by Chuck Connors and his bipolar brother, who likes to put a little extra juice in the mannequins. In my opinion, one of the most underrated flicks of all time. I think maybe, possi- bly, because of the title. It sounds like Parent Trap , which was that stupid Hayley Mills movie made by Disney and then, because they can ’ t just leave it alone, remade by Disney as an even incredibly stupider movie starring Lindsay Lohan. So, if you loved Parent Trap , you ’ re gonna hate this movie , which goes in such odd directions that I don ’ t really want to summarize the plot since we ’ re likely to have some first - timers with us tonight. ” Illustration by Shane Murphy & Aaron Crawford/Available as a limited edition enamel pin at dailydead.com “ Whoa! You know, if I had to make a list of the top ten most disturbing scenes in horror history, I think I would have to include that one — Tina being waxed to death by Davey. ” This film will always hold a special place in Mutant hearts as the opening feature of Joe Bob’s revival marathon. Tourist Trap , we salute you. This issue of The Joe Bob Briggs Fanzine is hereby dedicated to the great Chuck Connors in Joe Bob’s honor. 9 The momentous conversation that led to Felissa Rose becoming The Last Drive - In’s ‘Mangled Dick Expert’ Joe Bob: Was your dick deformed? Because that dick looks weird to me. Felissa: It was cold. I was in the water. What do you want from me? AND I was 13! Joe Bob: I thought maybe it was horribly mangled in the boating accident. Okay, back in the first scene — follow this, follow this — your dick is horribly mangled in the boating accident back in the first scene so they raise you as a girl because you have a mangled dick. Felissa: I think you just recreated what the real Sleepaway Camp was supposed to be. All about my mangled dick. “The movie tonight is Sleepaway Camp . The great, the legendary, 1983 slasher flick set in upstate New York where little 13 - year - old Angela first goes off to summer camp with her cousin Ricky, not realizing that just about everybody at the camp is a pedophile or a pervert of one sort or another.” Sleepaway Camp Illustration by Jason Edward Davis/jasonedwarddavis.com “ I like how, when summer camp devolves into all - out, free - for - all fist - fighting, the counselors just stand by and let ‘ em go at it. Apparently, upstate New York has more in common with West Texas than you might expect. ” “ Sleepaway Camp It ’ s a cult classic. If you haven ’ t ever seen it before, I ’ ll give you the same warning I gave 30 years ago. Be sure you watch the first scene very closely, and be sure you watch the last scene very closely. Because, otherwise, you ’ re gonna be in a world of confusion. This is one of those movies where there ’ s a serial killer in the summer camp , and the serial killer is a point - of - view camera. And, apparently, none of the teenagers know that cameras can kill, because the camera keeps showin ’ up in the cafeteria, in the dorm, hidin ’ behind tree branches. So, they just go about their business, you know. ‘ Dum - dee - dum - tah - tee - tum. Until suddenly, ‘ Oh my god, not YOU! ’ ” 10 “ Rabid is the story of a woman who ’ s tossed off a motorcycle, burns up and gets taken to the nearest hospital, where the doctor is known as the ‘ Colonel Sanders of Plastic Surgery. ’ So, he takes her thigh skin and grafts it onto her face and chest. Pretty soon she comes down with something that looks like rabies, only it ’ s about 10,000 times worse, and has this little bloody roto - rooter that comes out of her armpits and slices people up so she can feed on their blood every six hours. She turns most of Montreal into zombies before her boyfriend catches her munching on a mutual friend, and let ’ s just say it damages the relationship. ” “ Finally we get the close - up of the armpit roto - rooter. At first it looks kinda like an anus. And then it looks kinda like a vagina. And then that THING comes out of it, that deformed penis. So, it ’ s like every kind of sexual organ known to pimps in Bangkok. But it ’ s deadly. A typical Cronenberg image. Because it ’ s all about some- thing people think they want, but that ’ s really, really bad for you. Anything done for pleasure in a Cronenberg film kills you. ” Rabid Illustration by Max Brown / www.orangeyear.com “Everything we’re showing is all sexed up. This is supposed to be a horror network. We’ve got more aardvarking than they have over on the Norwegian Street Meat channel. You know all those channels up in the 400s that cost an extra $3.95 if you click on ‘em? Juicy Fat Girls. Locker Room Boys. Jock - strap Butt Dancin’...” “Cronenberg is a strange duck. He actually studied to be a biochemist at the University of Toronto. And he was fascinated with the human body and with disease and especially with how sex and disease are related. So, he kind of invented his own genre. I call it ‘venereal horror.’” “You don’t really want to see pastel, slow - motion, spurtin’ jizz.” “I learned the hard way that sex and horror go hand - in - hand. Jesus Christ. You know, it always seems like such a good idea at 10pm; always seems like such a bad idea at 3am — if you know what I mean, and I think you do.” 11 “ The Prowler deals with the sensitive social issue of what happens when you go off to fight a war and your girlfriend dumps you and starts sleeping with a guy named Roy. That post - traumatic stress syndrome can get nasty, especially if you ’ re developing a fetish for pitch- forks. This is one of those mov- ies that was made at the height of the slasher craze in 1981. When the aesthetic question on everybody ’ s mind was, ‘ How many ways can a body be im- paled that we ’ ve never seen be- fore? ’ You don ’ t get a lot of poi- sonings in slasher films. Hence the name. One interesting thing about this movie is that it has virtually the exact same plot as My Bloody Valentine , which came out the same year. My Bloody Valentine was made in rural Nova Scotia. The Prowler was made in rural New Jersey. Both of them involve the old prom night plot about the killer who comes back to even the score. And both of them feature ‘ that guy ’ character actors. You know ‘ that guy ’ character actors are people who appear on screen and you go, ‘ Oh yeah, it ’ s that guy. I ’ ve seen him before. I think I have, maybe not. Yeah, let me see him again. Yeah, it ’ s that guy. ’ And so the ‘ that guys ’ in this are Farley Granger and Law- rence Tierney. ” “ That ’ s our heroine, played by Vicky Dawson, being groped by Lawrence Tierney in a wheel- chair. You don ’ t really wanna be groped by Lawrence Tierney, but if you are gonna be groped by Lawrence Tierney, you want him in a wheelchair. One of the mysteries of The Prowler is the decision of director Joseph Zito to use Lawrence Tierney in a non - speaking part, especially since Lawrence Tierney was renowned for gettin ’ drunk and not showing up when he had lines to memorize. So, this was like sayin ’, ‘ Hey Lawrence, free Scotch and please sleep in! ’” “One of the things this movie is famous for is lingering on the kill shot to an almost unbearable degree. In other words, Joseph Zito and Tom Savini are both sick bastards and we appreciate it. ” The Prowler Illustration by Mamidshi/deviantart.com/mamidshi 12 “ Okay, we ’ re moving from the early 80s East coast graphic slasher movement to the late 80s West coast bubblegum slasher movement. What we have is pretty much the ultimate 1980s direct - to - video L.A. movie. L.A. director, L.A. actors, L.A. locations, L.A. philosophy. In other words, brain candy for the dimwits . And we love that here on the Last Drive - In mara- thon. We live for that. I ’ m talkin ’ about Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl - O - Rama , featur- ing one of the nastiest perfor- mances ever given by Linnea Quigley , our number one scream queen in the 80s. Linnea just loves playin ’ a bitch, and this was one of her foul - mouthed, punk queen classic roles. Excellent movie... in the hundred dollar budget range. I ’ m Joe Bob Briggs and we ’ re now heading into the Iron Man portion of the dusk - to - dawn - to - dusk - to - dawn horror marathon on Shudder. It ’ s my swan song, my farewell to movie - hosting, my affection- ate tribute to the greatest scary movies of my generation, your generation, and our grandpap- pies ’ generations. So, you ’ re probably wondering, ‘ Why are so many of these movies from the 80s? ’ And, that ’ s because, after careful analysis of all the movies in horror history, these were the cheapest ones. But, also because in the 80s there were a handful of directors in L.A. who Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl - o - Rama “Since this is a Dave Dakota movie, there will be absolutely no plot to get in the way of the story. This thing’ll move like lightning, slowing down only for nekkid breasts and butts, and the occasional bloody head.” decided, ‘ You know what? I ’ m not gonna fight this new video thing. I ’ m just gonna embrace it. ’ So, they started turning out movies, like, one a week. There were suddenly hundreds of hor- ror - action - scifi - sex comedy flicks coming out. It still happens out there today but it ’ s not as much fun. L.A. people, in general, are not that much fun anymore. ” “ How many times did Babs hit the butts of Michelle Bauer and Brinke Stevens in that scene? Enough times to draw blood. And apparently way too many times for the United Kingdom Movie Classification Board because all that hiney - paddling was cut out of the British re- lease. In Great Britain, where they actually do that as school - girl punishment, hitting bare - nekkid female asses with a giant stick is no laughing matter. ” “So, radiation pulses through the security camera and zaps two random sorority girls and turns them into she - demons... or something.” 13 This was an instant cult classic when it came out in 1988. It ’ s directed by Dave Dakota, who, of all the 80s directors, he ’ s directed more movies than any of them. He ’ s directed like 27,000 movies. It ’ s the old story of a jive - talking mutant demon who lives in a bowling trophy and likes to turn sorority girls into raving sex - maniac lasagna - faced zombies. Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl - o - Rama , star- ring Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens, and Michelle Bauer — the ‘ big three ’ of 80s scream queens This is the movie where, you may recall, Linnea has her famous line, ’ What is this, the midnight wimp bowling league? ’ “Charles [Band] likes Dave [Dakota] because Dave shoots ‘em hard, fast, & dirty. Hard, Fast, & Dirty should be a movie title. Or a nickname for the three scream queens. One of them’s hard, one of them’s fast, one of them’s dirty. I know all three of ‘em and I’m not saying which is which... I’m thinkin’ it though.” “The point of this movie is six hot babes and three nerds, combined in occasionally nekkid ways. Notice that ratio, because that’s the whole secret to this movie. Filmmaking 101. You’re welcome.” “ Okay, it ’ s time for the thrilling, organically - connected, logical conclusion to Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl - O - Rama Let ’ s go. You know, it ’ s the word ‘ slimeball ’ that doesn ’ t belong in the title. Because who ’ s the slimeball? There ’ s no slimeball. The Imp? You wouldn ’ t call him a slimeball. He ’ s just a little midget bitch demon. You know? We need to call Dave up and ask him, ‘ Why slimeball? Who you callin ’ a slimeball? ’ Because no- menclature matters in these things. ” “You have the symbolic sexual imagery of a bowling alley. You have balls. You have pins. And you have lanes. And you have gutters. We’re going for the gutter.” “Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl - O - Rama [is] evidence that in the 80s you could basically write a script on Tuesday, film it on Wednesday, and have it in the video store by Thursday.” 14 “ I just had a quick, gluten - loaded breakfast. I told ‘ em to add extra gluten, to the pancakes and the sausage. I ’ m Joe Bob Briggs. Coming up next is the most artsy - fartsy horror movie ever made, Daughters of Darkness I love this movie, and I can ’ t even tell you why I love it. It comes from the lesbian vampire era of horror, which ran from about 1970 to 1975, but it ’ s sort of in a class by itself. I think it ’ s the only Flemish movie that I ’ ve ever hosted. Wait, is it Flemish or Belgian? Or is that the same thing? Well, we ’ ll figure all that out in a minute, after the thick, syrupy gluten settles down into my pores and I can think clearly. People think gluten makes you fat. You know, listen to me people. Gluten has nothing to do with being fat. Unless you have celiac disease, just shut up about gluten, okay? And how many people have celiac disease? Seven - tenths of one percent of the Western population. Not the world population, the Western population. And you know why they say it that way? Because ‘ widespread adoption of the Mediterranean Diet ’ has led to all these gluten problems. If we didn ’ t eat all that Mediterranean food, we wouldn ’ t be sickly and frail — like the Roman legion, the Spanish conquistadors, the Spartan warriors, and the Egyptian dynasties. You know, all those lethargic civilizations around the Mediterranean that were overrun by the Canadians. Daughters of Darkness Anyway, in case you haven ’ t been subscribing to the ‘ Gluten is Satan Gazette, ’ there ’ s another more basic reason that they say we ’ ve all become poisoned with these Cream of Wheat toxins. You know, because we gave up the hunter - gatherer diet and we adopted the agricultural diet. When we were hunter - gatherers, we consumed different species and varieties of food. Once we became farmers, that number shrank to about 30 types of food and what we didn ’ t know was we weren ’ t supposed to eat the wheat. We were supposed to eat the raw Latvian boar and the Pyrenees muskrat, stuff like that. And that ’ s why our guts are all pukey and disgusting. Of course, there ’ s that statistical problem, mainly that the last hunter - gatherers, after all those millions of years of hunting and gather- ing, had a lifespan of 35 years for men and 30 years for women. But I guess that ’ s a good trade - off because if we all go gluten - free we ’ ll end up dying off in our 30s like the cast of Logan ’ s Run , but we ’ ll have impressive bowel movements our whole lives. ” 15 Illustration by Terri Affleck “ This is one of those movies — see, it ’ s hard to explain this movie, because — it ’ s one of those movies that, when you say, ‘ So, how was the movie? ’ people start using words that they nev- er use in regular life. You know when people do that? ‘ It was mesmerizing, Joe Bob. Mesmer- izing. ’ ‘ It was surreal. ’ Oh really? Like Salvador Dali or some- thing ’? ‘ Hypnotic, Joe Bob. It was hypnotic. ’ You know, you want to say, ‘ Well, do you remember any of it, since you were under hypnosis and mesmerized and everything.. ‘ Joe Bob, it ’ s a psycho - sexual fever dream .’ A guy really said that. And it was a guy that you don ’ t want to think about him being psycho - sexual. Plus, what is psycho - sexual? I think it means you watch so much porn they have to give you electroshock .” “You see what I mean about Delpine Seyrig stealing every scene? One interesting thing that Harry Kumel, the director, did with her is that he dressed her in the colors of the Nazi party. So, she’s always in red, white, or black, which is a very European thing for a very European director to do, by the way. This movie just drips with arthouse pretention, but it’s one of the few European horror flicks of this era that I can stand to watch.” Darcy: Everyone is loving the marathon so far. Joe Bob: Everyone? Darcy: Well, there’s this one dude who didn’t like Daughters of Darkness and thought it was kind of slow. Joe Bob: It is. It’s slow as fuck. So, that’s okay. “ We ’ re gonna watch Daughters of Darkness now. And all I can say is this may be the greatest vampire movie ever filmed in Ostend. Ostend is a town in Belgium on the Baltic Sea where, evidently, nobody lives because the streets are empty, the store- fronts are empty, the beach is empty, even the hotels are emp- ty. Ostend may be the creepiest place I ’ ve ever seen in a movie, partly because the architecture is so monumental. You have these buildings that look like Mussolini put them up, or maybe they ’ re art museums or the European Parliament or some- thing, but they ’ re empty except for the five or six characters wandering around in this movie. So , Daughters of Darkness is the old familiar story of a beautiful Hungarian countess and her lesbian assistant who arrive at a grand hotel in Ostend in the middle of the night and notice a newlywed couple that look like they could be ghoul - meat. But, since this is Europe, and since this is an arthouse film, it all gets worked out through witty conversation and rough sex. ” 16 “ Herschell, wherever you are, this next one is for you. And, now, if you ’ re never see Blood Feast , I gotta get you ready for this. It ’ s a bad slasher flick, like painfully bad. But it ’ s the first slasher flick written and di- rected by my friend, Herschell Gordon Lewis. Herschell died in late 2016 at the officially - announced age of 90. But he was always hiding his age and he al- ways looked 50, so I wouldn ’ t be surprised if the real number was ten years higher. He was a tall, elegant, urbane, intellectual guy with a sharp wit, who would ’ ve been amazed and flattered that the New York Times, of all plac- es, took note of his death and published a long obituary. And I was amazed by that as well. And pissed off! Because that ’ s the newspaper that ignored his ex- istence during the years when he was making films, years when even a negative review would ’ ve Illustration by Tony G. Campagna Herschell Gordon Lewis helped his box office. So, now that he ’ s safely dead they ’ re giv- ing him credit for inspiring John Carpenter, influencing Wes Cra- ven, influencing Quentin Tar- antino, which means they ’ re just proving what idiots they are all over again. Herschell Gordon Lewis had about as much influ- ence on Quentin Tarantino as the inventor of the three - pronged pitchfork had on Friday the 13th If Wes Craven ever watched any of Herschell ’ s films, it was most likely to use them as a horrible warning not to over- saturate the screen with phos- phorescent blood. John Carpen- ter is a superb craftsman. Her- schell was a businessman. He had trouble understanding cine- matic principles unaltered since the time of D.W. Griffith. So, I have to wonder if that obituary was some kind of weird Times ’ cleansing ritual. You know, they were trying to awkwardly deal with a pop culture hero in some way that wouldn ’ t offend the ballet critic. ” - Joe Bob Briggs His genius was the ad campaign. All of Herschell’s films were bait - and - switch. They never quite delivered whatever the lurid poster promised. And his greatest achievement was the release of Blood Feast on July 19, 1963.” “I see filmmaking as a business and pity anyone who regards it as an art form.” — Herschell Gordon Lewis 17 “A great deal of the movie’s cult value, in my opinion, is created by the yin - yang effect of the beautiful Connie Mason’s deadpan non - acting with the slimy - haired Mal Arnold’s delirious over - acting.” “ Blood Feast is an accident of history. We didn’t deliberately set out to establish a new genre. Rather, we were escaping from an old one. Blood Feast is like a Walt Whitman poem. It’s no good, but it’s the first of its type.” — Herschell Gordon Lewis TRIVIA: In the tongue - ripping scene from Blood Feast , what did Joe Bob say the tongue is made of? A: A sheep ’ s tongue, marinated in stage blood, strawberry preserves, and minced cranberries. “ Blood Feast is the sensitive story of Fuad Ramses, who ’ s collecting female body parts so he can stir up a cannibal stew in honor of Ishtar the Goddess, which looks suspiciously like a department store mannequin that ’ s been spray - painted gold. ” “Gouts of blood! Gallons of blood! Spurting blood, gurgling out of bodies in extreme close - up!” Illustration by Andrew Barr/moviemonstars.blogspot.com “Frank Henelotter dedicated [ Basket Case ] to Herschell Gordon Lewis , who nobody had heard of at that time in history.” Blood Feast 18 “ I would like all of us to take a moment of remembrance for the Highway 183 Drive - In in Irving, Texas. Gone, but not forgotten. We were all there, right? We remember the barf stains on the speaker poles like it was yester- day. We remember how they always sweeped up the condom wrappers so the children could play on the teeter - totter. We remember Gerald, the security guard, who was released on weekends to work there and would always have words of drive - in wisdom like, ‘ Never walk up on a baby blue El Camino with two men inside unless you wanna see things described in the Old Testament. ’ That was Gerald, and that was the Highway 183 Drive - In, which was named after a road, like God intended. All great drive - ins are named after transportation corridors. Now, if you ’ re from out of state, then you may not know that the 183 was right across from Texas Stadium, which was the greatest football stadium in the world that fea- tured a hole in the roof that blinded the eyes of the quarter- back. And if you went about five minutes down the Airport Free- way, and looked behind the world ’ s largest stack of cartop carriers, that was the 183. We had statistics at one time show- ing that more babies born on welfare were conceived at the 183 than any other venue in the Southwest, and that includes the Tonight Motel in East Tulsa. But there was one night, back in 1982, when the eyes of the world were on the 183 — and no, it was not the night that Lonnie Stebbins clubbed Animal Barker with a deer rifle. The media got that whole thing wrong anyway. They said Lonnie pistol - whipped him. But I witnessed the weap- on. It was a Remington 740. Ani- mal got rifle - whipped. Because all the time it was happening, I was thinking, ‘ The autoloader is never gonna work again on that rifle. ’ So, no. The event I ’ m talk- in ’ about is the world premiere of Basket Case .” “The 183 Drive - In was opened in 1950. It screened The Great Locomotive Chase in 1956, and a re - release of X - 15 in 1961, and the 1962 movie Tales of Terror in 1964. The concession stand was a substantial cinder - block structure, which had a seating area, maybe four rows of ten seats, that face the screen through a picture window. The 183 Drive - In was operating until 1983. The location is now a freight depot for trucks. — cinematreasures.org/theaters/23696 Highway 183 Drive - In 19 Basket Case “ Basket Case is the sensitive story of two Siamese twin brothers, and one of ‘ em looks like a squashed octopus and lives in a picnic basket that his brother carries around while feeding him Big Macs in a Times Square hotel room. Whenever anybody opens up the basket they get their face chewed off. So, a romantic comedy for the 80s. Because these Siamese twins weren ’ t separated at birth, they were separated at 12, so the smaller sexually - deviant Siamese twin — when separated from his more presentable brother, in a graphic surgical procedure that doesn ’ t quite work — is now having some parental hatred issues, not to mention fraternal jealousy when a female with giant garbonzas enters the picture. ” Illustration by Scott Roller — deviantart.com/scottroller “It’s a combination of Frankenstein and Porky’s, in a sense. But we won’t over - analyze it, because if we do, we’ll puke.” “‘Where you from?’ ‘Upstate.’ ‘What’s in the basket?’ ‘Clothes.’ That’s a brilliant script!” “ Everybody that worked on this movie was kind of scarred for life by it. Like, Beverly Bonner — who was in both of the sequels, by the way — she was so obsessed with this movie that she wrote a play called Casey 30 Years Later ; Casey being the name of her character in Basket Case . And, in this play that she wrote, Casey is running a bar in the East Village and she ’ s managing a team of hookers, all of which are age 50 or over. Because, you know, who says a hooker has to be young? This is the 21st century. They got Botox, they got good lighting, and you ’ re drunk anyway. Not that I approve of that lifestyle. ” “ Always keep your scalpel drawer tidy, in case a deformed ex - patient wants to shove your face into it. But that ’ s not even the creepiest moment so far. That moment where you see Belial inside the basket, breathing heavy as he fondles the orange panties; this is why Frank Henenlotter said in an interview, ‘ I am a strange little person. ’ And then, just when you think the movie has gotten as kinky as you really want it to get — uncomfortably kinky — it goes to a whole new level. ” 20 the evil Dr. Hill knows he ’ s got these guys, so he goes over to the secret brain juice laboratory and he tells Herbert West that he wants all the records so he can win the Nobel prize, and Herbert West ’ s answer is shovel through the neck. And then Herbert West thinks, ‘ Well, what the hey? No- body ’ s ever juiced separate body parts before. And, from there on out, the good doctor tries to get himself back together, carryin ’ his head around in a slime tray, doin ’ laser lobotomies on all the other corpses and, pretty soon, gettin ’ up his own private army of walkin ’ mutant corpses. Of course, we all remember the sce- ne where he straps the dean ’ s daughter down to the autopsy table, holds his head in his hands ... still a classic after all these years. ” “ This is the 100th anniversary of Lovecraft ’ s nervous breakdown, in that sad house where he lived in Providence, Rhode Island. So, we can say, ‘ Thank you, H.P. Sucks for you, but we appreciate it. ’” “You know what Stuart Gordon’s number one memory of filming [ Re - Animator ] was? ‘My shoes stuck to the floor the whole time.’ That’s what he said. Now, in the world of drive - in movies, we call that your baseline. You start with that. You expect that. If there’s not blood and slime on the floor, your feather - beddin’.” Re - Animator “I didn’t do any spoilers, did I? I only told the whole fuckin’ plot. It’s not what happens. It’s how it happens.” “This is headless man meets bottomless man, in clueless biology premise.” “[ Re - Animator is] the sensitive story of a nerd - face, space cadet med student who starts messin ’ around with secret formula juice the color of urine after you ’ ve had nine bottles of Gatorade — that color — and finds out he has the power to bring somebody ’ s brain back to life after it gets smushed under an 18 - wheeler. So, he goes up to Massachusetts where they have an over - supply of dead brains and he moves in with a med student who ’ s sleep- in ’ with the dean ’ s daughter. And the first thing he does is he pumps so much juice into a dead cat, he almost gets his face clawed off. And, sure, we ’ ve seen that before. But have we seen it with this level of detail? I think not. Next thing, these two guys sneak into the morgue and start juicin ’ up stiffs, until Arnold Schwarzenegger's stunt double gets outta ’ hand and they have to ram a bone saw through his back to make him stop breakin ’ down doors, and — whoops! — killin ’ the dean. So they look at the dead dean, they look at each other, and then, no problema, they juice him up and pretty soon he ’ s standin ’ up, waving ’ his arms and slobberin ’ all over everybody. They do have to put him in a rub- ber room and watch Dr. Carl Hill do a laser lobotomy on him. But, other than that, he ’ s fine. Now