Showbiz History: Swanson, John & Yoko, and Freddie Krueger

6 random things that happened on this day, November 9th, in showbiz history...

1931 Diva movie star Gloria Swanson divorces aristocrat Henri de la Falaise and marries Michael Farmer on the same day! (She and Farmer had married three months prior only to realize her divorce hadn't been final... so they had to to it again by which time she was four months pregnant) She was 33 years old and it was her fourth (of six) marriages.

1939 "Garbo Laughs!" Ninotchka has its world premiere in NYC...

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Himbos in Peril: The Boxer-Briefs Horror of David DeCoteau

by Patrick Gratton

Marcus Hobson’s body trembled as he felt an external power take control. “Is this what enlightenment feels like?” Nothing’s been the same since the night he met Jaspen Frasier, the president of Omega Alpha Psy. Marcus never saw himself pledging. But that all changed with a single touch, as Jaspen confided in Marcus the secrets of his success. This holy ointment, was god’s, or the devil’s, gift to man to reclaim eternal power. The veil that set him back had been lifted, everything was within his grasp. Exhilarated, he wanted to be free to possess whatever his will desired. He basked in his beauty. His modesty had withered away, he felt free, free of the confines of his mind and soul. What mind? What soul? Little did Marcus know that those were withering away as well.

This is an excerpt from a synopsis of the David DeCoteau film The Brotherhood VII: The Ascension. Or is it? Does the film actually exist? I might have made it up but does it matter? With a filmography whose imagery and plots are so indistinguishably alike, as to make the audience's mind as foggy as the hunky protagonists, who is there really to say?

As a self-described “Gay Roger Corman”, the prolific DeCoteau has 160+ directorial credits to his name. It’s rare to find a filmmaker with such a large output, delving into so many various genres, with such limited social imprint. Despite his success working with B-Movie Mogul Charles Band, DeCoteau’s name is barely mentioned, even within the halls of the queer horror canon...

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Doc Corner: Oh, the horror! 'Scream, Queen!' and 'Horror Noire'

By Glenn Dunks (who is currently counting down my top documentaries of the decade over on Twitter. Follow along!)

Horror movies are obviously an audience-beloved industry-entrenched part of the movie business. Even if the genre hasn’t always gotten the respect it deserves, horror has been a vital part in the cinematic stories for African American audiences and for queer audiences. These are, after all, viewers that have been ignored by the mainstream industry at large for as long as movies have existed. Minority audiences have often found the catharses and long-documented history of othered subtext of scary movies to be rare portals of release.

How great it is then to see two new documentaries Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street and Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror focusing on these elements and offering glimpses into the complicated realm of what it is like to be a viewer and a creator in these spaces...

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Horror Actressing: Ronee Blakley in "A Nightmare on Elm Street"

by Jason Adams

Marge Thompson is such a weirdo. Less than ten years after her Oscar nomination for Robert Altman's classic Nashville the singer turned actress Ronee Blakley was playing the Mom in a slasher flick. Some might disparage that turn of events -- say she was "reduced to" playing the Mom in a slasher flick. I am not one of those people. Especially when you see the gloriously strange performance that Blakley turned in. There's nothing unmemorable about the final girl Nancy Thompson's momma -- she'll haunt your dreams!

A Nightmare on Elm Street is about the sins of the parents being visited, rather traumatically, upon their children, a symbiotic theme that Craven would come to visit time and again with his horror films...

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The Revenge of April Showers

Seán here, full of the joys of spring and delighted to be helming the reboot of a franchise we all love here at the Film Experience... April Showers! Kicking off the month is a healthy dose of heavy-handed homoerotic horror, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge - what else!

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