OKAY!!! I’m FINALLY starting my Spook Show reviews for 2020!!! For anyone who is new to the Spook Show concept, I’m going to TRY to review 31 spooky shows before Halloween, so that folks have a different spooky thing to watch every day of October. This is my THIRD YEAR trying to do 31 spooky reviews before my favorite holiday, although I’ve only managed to do TEN per year. (I’m a terrible procrastinator.) THIS year, however, I’ve started my reviews in April!!! (I wanted to start in January, but I failed in my attempt. My time management is HORRIBLE…) Let’s hope that seven months is enough time to review 31 shows. Let’s hope… Meanwhile, here’s this year’s first review!
[This is a photograph that I took of the actual DVD that I watched. The image is included for review purposes only!]
American Scary is a 2006 documentary about HORROR HOSTS. For folks who aren’t quite sure what I mean by “horror hosts,” these were people who usually made low-budget television programs, often dressed as weird characters---with names like Svengoolie, Vampira, Commander USA, or Elvira---who would play old horror movies, usually late at night, and either talk directly to the camera (the viewers) about the movies, or they would do strange, humorous skits before, after, and sometimes during the movies. I used to love watching Saturday Night Dead with Stella and Hives (it came on AFTER Saturday Night Live), Commander USA, Joe Bob Briggs, and Elvira (although, truthfully, I only watched Elvira’s shows on VHS tapes that I would rent from the local video store.)
Although late night television is the realm of the informercial now-o-days, it used to be the exclusive domain of monsters, ghosts, blobs, aliens, and mad scientists. As a chronic insomniac, I used to LOVE late night t.v., with all those vampires, werewolves, and zombies crawling all over the screens, and the horror hosts, who (if you were lucky) introduced and commented on these monsters’ movies and brought a bit of humor to the horror (or, in most cases, to the SCHLOCK.) I loved these experiences, and as they mention in this documentary, the hosts were often the STARS of the show. The movies were mostly trash (and these types of shows are where I learned to LOVE crap like Frogs or Invasion of the Saucer Men), but the hosts were so much fun, you’d sit through a rubber monster or a tedious slasher film just to hear Joe Bob making fun of it!
This documentary, which is a BEEFY 92 minutes long, is jam-packed with interviews, clips, and commentary, and it’s damn funny stuff. Many of the interviewees are in their costumes, (especially the folks who are STILL doing horror hosting today---primarily online now!), and the directors even managed to interview some LEGENDS of the horror genre, Neil Gaiman, Len Wein, Forrest Ackerman, Maila Nurmi (aka Vampira), John Zacherley, Joel Hodgson, Tom Savini, Tim Conway… (If you don’t think Tim Conway belongs on a horror list, then you’ve never seen Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again or The Shaggy D.A.!) Many of the folks they interviewed have since slipped away, so this documentary came along just in time to get these brilliant folks’ takes on this topic. (They all seem to agree that horror hosting was the best time of their lives.)
If you’re already familiar with horror hosts, this will be a fantastic trip down memory lane, and if you’ve never really HEARD of this weird phenomena before, there isn’t a single source that could be BETTER at explaining what it was all about. The DVD has an extra commentary track, some bonus footage and interviews, and a great punk-rock soundtrack. If you love horror movies, especially OLD, black and white, CHEESY horror, this show is going to be a real treat. I’ve watched it dozens of times---several times a year---and it never fails to make me smile and want to throw some terrible horror film on the t.v. and pretend I’m six-years-old again! Highly recommended!
So that’s my first Spook Show review of 2020. Hopefully, this DVD won’t be too difficult to find, if you’re into this kind of thing, and HOPEFULLY, I’m not going to wait two months to do my NEXT Spook Show review! I’m REALLY REALLY going to try to get 31 reviews done this year before Halloween. If you’re wondering what my previous 20 movie recommendations were, you can see the list HERE! If you have a specific film that you’d like me to look at, let me know in the comments. If I have it, I just might consider giving it a review!
Okay? We cool? Alright! Stay SPOOKY!!! (Cuz, for me, everyday is Halloween! Just like Ministry said!!! (That’s a band, by the way…)) Later!!!
[This is a detail from the back of the DVD case!]
---Richard F. Yates
(Primitive Thoughtician and Holy Fool)
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