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14th Annual Coolidge Corner Horror Marathon Report

By Generoso Fierro

As I sat there watching Ghoulies, sometime around 7:30AM, I got a gentle whiff of the dried peanut butter that my wife had rubbed into my beard during our fourth failed attempt at winning the costume contest at the Coolidge’s Horror Movie Marathon. You see, we were dressed like a chocolate bar and jar of peanut butter for our nostalgic play on the infamous “peanut butter in my chocolate” commercial of my youth (gulp, sometime in the 1970s), a gesture that I think about nine people in the audience got and henceforth, we were shown to our seats early.

So, for the many devotees of vintage and grindhouse horror that packed the Coolidge sometime around midnight on October 25th, the films and surprises presented by marathon curator, Mark Anastasio, may have been enough, but it’s that damned costume contest that sets off my night.

And no matter how great the films were (and they were quite good this year), I am always thinking, “Damn, we lost to some gal dressed up like Rowdy Roddy Piper! Another pop culture reference bit us on the ass!”

Alright, so petty costume contest bitching aside, the fall here in Boston would not be complete without this marathon, now in its 14th year. Early in the 1990s, I attended a precursor to this marathon, a twelve hour vampire film spectacular at the Coolidge that introduced me to the likes of Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark and Andy Warhol’s Dracula, and since then I have been hooked to the notion of endless hours of screaming and blood but now with a delightful variety of horror subgenre gems.

The evening began with Mister Reusch, the creator of many of the marathon’s posters over the years, menacingly prancing about in an epically constructed Frankenstein Monster costume of his design. Truth told, I have always been a fan of his work as an illustrator but this outfit just blew my wife and I away.

Satan/Mark Anastasio opened the evening by introducing the opening films and teasing the audience with the threat of two “opening film quality” surprises for later in the evening.

Mark then gave props to our projectionist, co-curator, and sometimes invisible host of this marathon, Nick Lazzaro, who prior to the film boasted to us about his favorite acquisition for the evening, The Incredible Melting Man, a film that Trace Beaulieu, of MST3K once called “the worst film I have ever seen,” but as Nick said, “Hey, Rick Baker created that melting effect, and it’s awesome!” You can’t argue Rick Baker, I say, so why not?

Then there was the aforementioned costume contest that we lost. Oh, did I write that again? A few rounds of audience voting whittled down the field to Cynthia from The Rugrats, Rowdy Roddy Piper and Dr. Alan Grant from Jurassic Park, the eventual and OK, I can admit it, the best costume up there (that was bought in a store!) We made ours!

Alright, enough of that whining.

As for the films, what truly sets this marathon apart is its annual choice of exclusively screening just 35mm prints of all the films, which in past years has given us a few pinkish screenings, but that really does add to the overall spookiness of the evening. Here, I am thinking specifically of a vinegar print screening of The Exorcist two years ago that had the eerie ability to override the dated effects of Linda Blair’s spinning head.

This year’s collection of films was fairly free of the vinegar print, especially from the get go. A beautiful print of James Whale’s Frankenstein started the screenings this year. It had been some time since I’ve seen Karloff in big screen form, and it still holds quite the punch for a shocker that is over eighty years old. Though there were a few laughs at odd times, the audience stayed fairly reverent throughout this watch, which is a huge departure from years past, when Coolidge crowds would give the films their own MST3K treatment. I don’t mind a well-timed cut at the screen, but sometimes these things can get messy.

Next, before everyone’s favorite 80s vampire movie, The Lost Boys, Mark tried to bring the spirit of the departed Corey Haim through a séance and a Parker Brothers Ouija Board to the Coolidge Corner but instead, got us a feisty Tupac from beyond the grave. Tupac had few words, and then it was off to Santa Carla, California for bloodsucking and Bon Jovi hair.

One of the “opening film quality” surprises happened next as Evil Dead 2 hit the screen, which got a huge roar out of the horror faithful that stayed past the first two announced flicks. The next film would be something that I almost shamefully admit that I have never seen: a rare screening of Tobe Hooper’s post-Texas Chainsaw Massacre offering, Eaten Alive, an low-rent homage to Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Eaten Alive is what Rik from The Young Ones would call a “video nasty.” Longtime Hollywood heavy, Neville Brand, plays a sleazy motel owner who, unlike his Bates motel counterpart, would kill without a nifty backstory. Glad I saw it as Mr. Hooper will forever hold a spot in my heart for so many of his under-viewed gems like Funhouse, but this is some pretty messy nihilistic stuff here.

Donned in Twin Peaks costume, Erica from the Coolidge described the villains of our next film as “nasty pieces of poop” and so now I think you all know that we are talking Ghoulies. Those ancient little stool colored monsters that wreak havoc, á la Gremlins, but with a more Satanic bend.

Released a year after the previously mentioned and much more successful Joe Dante classic, the producers of Ghoulies claim that they came up with the idea first. We can argue about that, but you cannot argue with pesky toilet demons. After the grim Eaten Alive, we all needed a bit of Hollywood rip-off silliness so thank heavens for Ghoulies. Given that this was around 9AM, this watch was really appreciated by one of the largest crowds that I have ever seen after the fifth film of the night. Hearty, these horror fans are here at the Coolidge.

Admittedly, and with apologies to Nick Lazzaro, we only made it to the beginning of The Incredible Melting Man before we ran out of gas. Sometime around 8AM, I began to finger-dip into the jar of “Hershey’s chocolate spread” that I smeared all over my wife’s face, which gave this Type 2 diabetic a trip to slumber land.

 As we waddled out of the theater in our costumes towards the broad daylight of Brookline, I was stunned to see how many of the Coolidge staff had made it through the night, still standing, wide-eyed and feeling happy about the event. And well, they should.

See you next year dressed as something ironically 1980s.

Since 1996 Generoso has been the longtime host, along with his wife Lily, of The Bovine Ska and Rocksteady, a Jamaican music show that focuses on recordings from 1955-1975, on WMBR, 88.1FM Cambridge. A co-curator of the European Short Film Festival here in Boston since 2006, Generoso has also directed three full-length documentaries, including the award-winning Lynn Taitt: Rocksteady, about the legendary Trinidadian guitarist who invented rocksteady, the precursor to reggae. In his spare time, Generoso enjoys chewing on root beer barrels (not the candy) and really loose shoes. 
 Read more of his work at Lily and Generoso 4ever.

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