B-Fest 2007 Primer, Part 2

The serious weirdness kicks in with Street Trash, a movie about the evils of drinking. Drinking toxic mystery sludge, that is! What is the proprietor of a certain liquor store to do when he finds a case of "Viper" in his store? Why, sell it off cheap to the local homeless of course! Oh, wait -- it melts people? What a great premise for a movie! Watch for writer Roy Frumkes as "the businessman whose face is burned off by the melting bum on the fire escape." (Source: IMDb.) Think that's great? There's even a 2-hour documentary about the making of the film called The Meltdown Memoirs.

The Hypnotic Eye is a personal favorite this year – it's a quiet little movie about a small-town police detective who finds himself investigating a stage hypnotist. The hypnotist, a heavily-accented Frenchman (I think) whose stage presence consists mostly of saying the same words louder and more urgently, may or may not be involved in a series of self-mutilation cases. The only way to know for sure is for the detective to allow his girlfriend to use herself as bait. It's not what you'd call art but it is a tight little low-budget, high-concept drama made ever-so-slightly cheesy by some over-the-top acting and the presence of Allison Hayes as the hypnotist's stage assistant. Sadly, The Hypnotic Eye isn't yet available on legit DVD.

Krull is the second '80s fantasy flick of the bunch, and I'm looking forward to hearing some good jokes at its expense. Lord knows there's not much entertainment value to it otherwise. Read the review of Krull at Stomp Tokyo.



Huzzah! Tarantula is the first giant monster movie in this year's lineup, unless you count the brief appearance of a giant crystal spider in Krull. I don't. This flick is pretty straightforward - mad scientist creates growth formula to help the world, spider gets hold of it and terrorizes mankind. Good stuff.

This year we get a lunch break instead of a breakfast break. The cafeteria will actually be open for business at that hour. Go fig!

Is your tummy full? Are you ready for a nap? Good, because the juvenile delinquent "thriller" Teenage Doll (aka Young Rebels) seems an unlikely candidate to stave off those forty winks. Roger Corman directed this picture about a young woman caught between two rival gangs. It's actually earned some faint praise from a few critics, but c'mon – we know better. Roger Corman was involved.

Feeling refreshed? Then it's time for some Chuck Norris! Invasion USA stars the Chuckster as an ex-CIA agent who returns to duty (I guess) to fight terrorism on home soil. If someone doesn't have Chuck Norris facts written up on posterboard for prominent display at the right moments during the film, I will be deeply disappointed. The only thing I really know about this film is that a defunct shopping mall in my hometown (Decatur, GA) was used for the terror-in-the-mall sequence, and that some of my classmates were extras. Oh yeah, and Richard Lynch is the bad guy. Really, what else was he going to do with that face but play bad guys?

We're rounding the corner with Mystery Short #3, and barreling our way into the home stretch with The Incredible Melting Man. Remember the melting people in Street Trash? Well apparently we get to watch at least one more person reduced to goo. Haven't seen this one (I'm not even sure the product behind that Amazon link is actually a legitimate release), but I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.


The final film of our movie marathon is King Kong vs. Godzilla, quite possibly the greatest giant monster battle ever committed to celluloid. OK, maybe not, but it's certainly the most recognizable. The monster suits are ridiculous and the plot only barely makes sense, but the film is big, fun, loud, and colorful – which is all that matters for the final film of any B-Fest. It's been much too long since a classic Godzilla film sat in the final slot of our beloved film festival. Godzilla '85 rounded out B-Fest 2003 and Godzilla 2000 closed B-Fest 2002, but the screening of Mothra back in 2001 was the last vintage Toho picture to bring down the curtain on a B-Fest. (And let me tell you, until you've seen Mothra projected in 35 millimeter in front of hundreds of sleep-deprived, deranged movie geeks – well, consider your Mothra experience incomplete.) This lack of Godzilla is entirely due to the rapidly vanishing film prints and not any particular desire on the part of A&O to exclude the Big G from the proceedings. Digital projection may come to our rescue, but the fact that B-Fest is no longer exclusively a film event will make that victory bittersweet.

So that's it, kids: B-Fest 2007 in a nutshell. As I type my bags are packed, my iPod charged for the plane, and my nerves all aquiver. Some people dig Christmas. For me, it's B-Fest. I can't wait. See you there.

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