My first impression of NOWFF 2001, the eleventh annual event, one shared by many of my fellow B-Master companions, was that it was a jinxed event. First we had a number of last minute dropouts. Andrew Borntreger was first, with duty to his country taking precedence over duty to Bad Movies. Then a real-life, honest to goodness near-tragedy struck. Days before the show, we learned from Apostic’s wife the appalling news that the noble proprietor B-Notes had gone into the hospital. There it was determined that he required a five-way heart bypass operation. All went well, and Apostic made it home over the weekend. Our thoughts and prayers remain with him and his intrepid spouse during what will hopefully be an eventless recovery.
On what is thankfully a rather more minor note, my pal Andrew Muchoney, aka Andrew w/a Blazer, rather severely screwed up his hamstring and proved at the last minute unable to attend. (This after Andrew B. also suffered a leg injury, although that wasn’t what kept him from joining us. In fact, I’m sure we’d have all seen the fresh, oozing scar during breakfast, accompanied by a relentless relating of its probing and stitching, had he been able to make the show.)
Then there was the downgraded hurricane Allison, which although renamed a tropical storm ended up flooding much of New Orleans in the days before the Fest. This didn’t prove to impact us greatly (although I guess the Sunday I left early a lot of rain fell afterwards), but it threatened to, and given all the other bad omens I started to get paranoid. I mean, in movies this is the kind of situation where I’d be yelling at characters “Hello! How many clues do you need, you morons! Get out of there!”
In the long run, though, everything else went pretty well. My flight to New Orleans left on time Friday evening. I even had the seat next to me stay empty, since Andrew M. wasn’t using his ticket. After an uneventful trip lasting only a couple of hours, I arrived in New Orleans. Walking to another concourse, I but a short while for Jeff “Filmboy” Stanford and his charming companion Loren to arrive. Jeff, of course, is with the Stomp Tokyo boys. As you might have noticed, with the dropouts this year I was the only non-ST Cabal representative. Which didn’t really bother me, especially after I jammed a chair under the doorknob of my hotel room later than night.
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Chris Holland and his charming lady Christina and Scott Hamilton were themselves due in shortly. Their flight ran a tad late, but everyone was assembled – except for those who arrived earlier that day and were already at the hotel – by about eleven o’clock. Then it was to car rental booth, where I was blest by the fact that Jeff and Chris were both renting cars, so that I didn’t have to. This was fine with me, as driving isn’t one of my favorite activities, especially in unfamiliar cities.
Then to the Crescent on Canal (Street) Hotel. This was a nicely decorated but aging hotel which some of our party had heard bad things about. And, indeed, they had to send a guy up with me to show me the secret way to open my room door, since it proved to be somewhat off-kilter in its frame. I guess maybe the guy expected a tip, but I didn’t give him one because I didn’t think I should tip a guy for revealing the secret Mason rites required to get me into my own hotel room. I did give the cab driver who took me to the airport on Sunday six bucks, though, just so you don’t think I’m cheaper than I am.
Once in, my room was fine. It was clean, free of wildlife, the A/C and lights worked and there were clean towels ready. The only weird thing was that the room lacked a clock, but since I requested a wake-up call this didn’t matter much.
Some of the others had problems with their showers, but I can’t say I did. Maybe I had enough hot water because I take short and generally tepid showers. Anyway, after a pleasant if not exorbitant night’s sleep I met the others in the lounge downstairs, where a less-than-spectacular continental breakfast (with a strict two donut minimum) awaited. There every time someone was mentioned they would appear, like on a TV show. And so did we all assemble:
- Chris and Christina
- Scott
- Jeff and Loren
- Joe Bannerman, proprietor of the Opposable Thumb Films site and International Man of Mystery
- Jennie, a personable young lady who, like Your Humble Author, hails from Chicago(land). I had met her at B-Fest last year yet still can’t remember her last name, mostly because I’m especially an idiot with names. In any case, it was pleasant to see her again.
- And last but certainly not least, Freeman “Dr. Freex” Williams and his wife Lisa. Not to denigrate the other charming ladies joining us, but while it would be an exaggeration to say that Lisa is the sweetest women in the world, it would be impertinent to suggest that she wasn’t in the top ten. As a couple they are about the nicest people one could hope to meet, and the photos and tales of their young son Max suggests that they have ably passed these traits on to the next generation.
(In case I sound too critical about the hotel, it was fine for me, especially given the inexpensive rates. I paid only seventy bucks for the night, and might have gotten a one-bed room cheaper, except that I though Muchoney was going. I also learned that suites, like the one that Freeman and Lisa got, were only ten dollars more than that. So I was more than satisfied. Actually, all I want in a hotel is a clean, quiet, vermin-less room with working A/C, and I got that. The staff was also very nice and helpful. I’d be happy to go back there if that’s the consensus, or to return to the Ramada on Gravier Street where we stayed last year.)
It was about 9:30 in the morning when we all assembled, with NOWFF set to begin at noon. A bit later, generally unimpressed with the free provisions and needing fortification before the Main Event, we headed out in the light rain — Joe and I being those who neglected to bring a bumbershoot — towards the CafÈ Du Monde. There, we were told, we could get food that was cheap, fast and good. And so we could of, if, after walking to the establishment for twenty or thirty minutes, we did not see a long line of waiting patrons snaking out onto the sidewalk in front of it. This invoked much jocular conversation about the group’s perennial problems finding a breakfast joint, which had plagued us the year before as well.
Luckily, the River’s Edge restaurant across the street was less busy. The food was good, the service somewhat inept but genial. I had the Pain Perdue (French toast) with a side of bacon and it was quite good. As there were ten of us we had to split up, and Joe, Jennie, Jeff and Loren ate at what we in the majority quickly dubbed the Children’s Table. We at the Adult’s Table attacked a pre-meal basket of gratis biscuits like a swarm of piranha fish, only afterward noticing that the others hadn’t been served any food yet at all. Of course, this provoked some gloating at their expense.
By this time we were running late, a big deal especially for Chris and Scott. As the overseers of the Stomp Tokyo conglomeration they had brought their standard high quality plastic promo cups to hand out at the Fest. These, however, were supposed to be handed out when people bought their tickets before the show. So we started leaving in groups. Those who were driving headed off in the first taxi, the idea being that since it would take a few minutes to have their cars retrieved from the hotel parking garage they should go ahead.
Cabs were plentiful, in fact, and we were soon back at the hotel ourselves. I ran to my room, grabbed my bag, checked out – I wasn’t planning to stay Saturday night, which I’ll get into in a bit– and procured a ride with the Freexes (or does ‘Freex’ also work as the plural form?) to the high school where the event takes place. Freeman and Lisa, it should be noted, had driven into town from Texas through the pouring remnants of Tropical Storm Allison. Having arrived Friday afternoon, they were nice enough to pick up the canned goods that the rest of us required for admission to the show. Aside from seven bucks you need to bring food, because NOWFF is a charity events with food and money going to a local food bank. And God bless ‘em.
Unsurprisingly, we were a little late at this point, by about maybe twenty minutes. When Christina asked what movie was currently showing (that we were missing) I snootily pointed to her out that Galaxy Invader was listed in large letters on a nearby chalk board. Then I explained that I had seen this only seconds before she asked, whereupon I thought it would be funny to act all superior when she raised the question. Sadly I was mistaken in this assumption, but she smiled kindly in that fashion you use with babbling children and refrained from rolling her eyes and saying “What a maroon!” until I was safely out of hearing range.
I should note the surroundings. As indicated, NOWFF takes place (at least the two times I went) in a high school auditorium. This features wooden slat seating which is apparently discomforting to those with lesser butts than myself. Scholars of the Cabal will recall that I had been deemed the champion of Ass Stamina at the previous year’s event. Wishing to keep my title, I disdained to bring a pillow like most of my fellows, and also skipped a dinner break later in the show. Dammit, I came to watch movies, and I wasn’t leaving my post.
While my newly christened “Iron Butt” technique made the seating of little consequence, I am sorely afflicted at NOWFF by my poor hearing. (Cripes, and I’m not even forty yet.) This isn’t helped by what isn’t the world’s best sound system, either. Next year, as an experiment, I’m going to try moving back a couple of rows. The front row, my natural environment, is directly under the speakers, and I think the sound might be better further back. In fact, I kept planning to move to the third row, mostly to hang out with Scott and Joe and Jennie for a movie or two, but I was so charmed by sitting between the Freexi and Chris Holland – busy making his obsessive palm pilot notes for his trademark definitive Fest review – that inertia took it’s course and I stayed put. Next year, though, I’ll put my theory into practice.
In any case, I had more success at hearing the films then last year. Then I couldn’t make out much of anything for the majority of the movies. This, needless, to say, diminished my enjoyment of things. This year, I’d say, I got a good 40-50% of what was being said, and this made it much easier to follow the action. Next year, as I’ve noted, I’ll sit a bit further back and see if I can’t increase this ratio.
I was a little annoyed at missing the beginning of Galaxy Invader (1985), as it was one of only two films appearing there that I hadn’t seen before. It proved as poor as its reputation, and frankly was one of only a couple of truly bad movies on display this year (in my rather picky opinion). Basically, an alien had arrived in Redneck Country. He was armed with a BB gun spray-painted white and a white ball. Well, let’s call it an ‘orb,’ since that sounds more science-fictiony. The ‘weapon’ shoots sparklers, and frankly didn’t seem any more powerful or deadly or accurate than a regular handgun. Despite this, the Bad Characters kept chasing after the gun, although living in Redneck Country they undoubtedly already owned long arms that were more efficient weaponry.
Anyhoo, the Slutty Girl gets killed (surprise), as do the Evil Guys. And the alien gets killed, which is meant to be tragic, because he was peaceful. It’s one of those endings where you’re supposed to be moaning “Oh, the humanity!” So all the good guys throughout the film keep helping the alien to escape. However, I guess he doesn’t have a functioning spaceship or something – I missed the beginning, remember – and so the hour I saw involved the bad guys capturing the alien or his gun and losing them again and then capturing them again and so on.
Aside from that, highlights included the main bad guy’s carefully ripped T-shirt (of course, I yelled “Stella!!!”, although to little humorous effect); the amazing variety of beer brands on display; a couple of ‘fight’ scenes where the participants literally moved in slow-motion to avoid hurting each other; some very ‘80s clothes; Slutty Girl’s big mole up on top of her cleavage, which provoked much audience discussion; the sequence where the filmmakers dug a little ditch in the ground and the characters pretended it was the edge of a cliff; and what is probably the single worst Falling Dummy effect I’ve ever seen in my life. Also notable, as Joe pointed out, was that it was scenes from this movie that were used as the unconnected credit footage in the Pod People episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. So that question’s answered.
Next was a very slow little stop-animated short with a Toy Story-esque Jack-in-the-Box assembling some moving wooden alphabet blocks into correct order. Here I had sport with school teacher Lisa, who mistakenly said ‘Y’ when the ‘W’ block was shown. That’s just the kind of person I am, I guess.
The next feature was Equinox (1970), aka The Beast. This is a little cheapo horror flick made in the ‘70s that’s quite similar to The Evil Dead. Sci-Fi writer Fritz Leiber has a small role in it. Four college kids go into the woods and find The Necronomicon. A demon-possessed forest ranger named Mr. Asmodeus (oh, bru-ther!) calls up some of Jim Danforth’s lesser stop-animated Monsters to kill them. Their only protection is to fashion some branches into one of the various symbols of protection in the book. Despite the fact that one of these is a simple cross, they for some reason choose a much more complicated design to follow.
Highlights: One of the kids is played by Frank Bonner, who was Herb Tarlek on WKRP in Cincinnati, inspiring a variety of Loni Anderson jokes; the goofy monsters, one a giant beast the kids manage to kill with a sharpened stick – oooh, awesome; the line were the one guy, a student of the occult, notes, “I just remembered! Asmodeus is a name for the Devil!” Why do the Forces of Evil always picks such obvious aliases? This inspired me to imagine the following scene, where I meet a Sinister Guy in some secluded locale:
Ken: “Hi, I’m Ken.”
Sinister Guy, slyly: “You can call me…Mr. Scratch.”
Ken: “Isn’t that a folklore name for the Devil?”
SG, flustered: “Uh, no, I meant…Mr. Dark.”
Ken: “Isn’t that another Devil name?”
SG: “Uhm, uh, how about…”
Ken: “Look, if you say Beelzebub or Asmodeus or Sargoth or something I’m out of here.”
SG: “Uh, the name’s Smith.”
Let’s see, other stuff: The awesome Kentucky Fried Chicken cameo, back in the days before it was KFC; the way the guys examine this purportedly ancient and valuable book whilst eating fried chicken and presumably getting grease all over it; when the newly possessed Herb comes back from The Other Dimension — entered through an invisible wall you disappeared into, much like one in Journey to the 7th Planet, which played later in the bill — with black mascara all around his eyes and his friend doesn’t notice; the way the guys keep saying, “Well, the girls can’t do that,” to things like climbing a hill; the one useless girl who keeps letting the others walk out of her line of sight; the ranger’s silent ninja horse; the yucky almost rape scene, the second such in two movies.
The funniest thing was that the film was broken and ended about a minute early. Now, I’ve seen the film – admittedly a long time ago – but you didn’t exactly have to be Nostradamus to see where things were heading. (Let’s just say that things didn’t look too good for the lone survivor.)
Even so, we all good-naturedly made comical complaining sounds. Which Al and Crystal, the main organizers and hosts of NOWFF, took way too seriously. They popped up on the stage and heatedly noted that the quality of the print wasn’t their fault and that they were going to give their distributor what-for come Monday. Frankly, those interested in weird little films like they show here are undoubtedly used to glitchy prints and such. So I doubt if anyone in the audience was really all that concerned. While I appreciate Al and Crystal’s passion, I can honestly say, guys, don’t worry about it.
Next was a short on Highway Driving. Uh, don’t merge from a stop, and if you want to know how much space you need should the car in front of you brakes, conduct an experiment with two cars tied together with a fifty-foot length of rope. Or something. Oddly, if I was following this, while your car takes time and distance to come to a stop the vehicles in front of you come to a halt instantly, radically reducing the time and space you need to do so. That’s the way it seemed, anyway. Oh, and attractive blonds get more help on the highway when their cars break down. I don’t think that was the message of the scene, but we generally agreed that this was so.
Now we headed into our third film and the fest’s big draw, the legendary killer rabbit epic Night of the Lepus (1972). Actually, except for its nominal menace this is a rather typical ‘70s eco-horror flick. Man’s disregard for Mother Earth has gone too far and Nature strikes back. There’s a strong B-Movie cast, including Stuart “Demonoid” Whitman, Janet “Psycho” Leigh (mother of Jamie Lee Curtis), Rory “Motel Hell” Calhoun and DeForest “Bones” Kelley. Or, as he was mistakenly introduced before the film, Forest DeKelley.
Like I said, putative monsters aside, Night of the Lepus is a fairly typical genre flick. But, oh, what a ‘monster.’ Yep, in this film humanity is plagued by giant carnivorous rabbits, which join the long list of meat-eating creatures that kill humans left and right without bothering to eat them. Frankly, I’m not sure you could come up with a less frightening animal to king-size, and certainly no other non-comedy has tried to do so. For despite all the macrovision close-ups and red paint applied to their little buck teeth, rabbits just ain’t that scary. Even when filmed in slo-mo to suggest their now immense size. (They are numerously referred to in the film as being ‘wolf-sized,’ but seemed closer to horses to me.)
Drawing especial attention to this problem is the scenes where the human characters examine some giant rabbit holes. Since these apertures call to mind the similar openings of the giant anthills in Them!, you tend to compare the films. Given that Them! is probably still the best giant monster film ever, save King Kong, the comparison doesn’t work in our present subject’s favor. Oh, and giant ants are intrinsically more frightening than large rabbits. Just in case you were wondering.
Highlights include, of course, the attempts to make rabbits look scary; some really bad matte and miniature work; the slow-mo used futilely used to suggest the rabbits’ size; perhaps the most obnoxious kid actor in history, who not only plays the brat responsible for the whole mess but who also gets to foreshadow the memorable “There’s no bee here!” scene from The Swarm; Leigh wielding a road flare at one point, inspiring a discussion of how road flares and fire extinguishers are the weapons of choice in sci-fi and horror movies; the hilariously gross scenes where the bunnies fly through the air spurting fake blood to suggest them being shot; and, of course, one of the great bad lines in Bad Movie history, when a sheriff gets the patrons of a drive-in theater to evacuate by grabbing a bullhorn and warning “There’s a herd of killer rabbits coming this way!”
Freeman, meanwhile, will no doubt remember this movie as being when he most wished I had missed the show. I was waiting for this movie and was merciless with the puns. Beaters chasing hundreds of rabbits before them created a “receding hare line.” Whitman lifting a rabbit from a crate was a “hare raising sequence.” Special guns were used because they had a “hare trigger.” Even through his disgust, however, this patriarch of the Cabal marshaled himself and, when I somehow missed the line, gleefully noted that a near-attack on the little girl was the result of a “bad hare day.” Damn you, Freeman Williams! I’ll get you someday!
Next was a stop-animated cartoon warning of what would happen if you ate an apple without washing it. Basically, zany stop-animated germ cells would battle your immune system, represented by little soldiers. Or something. I frankly couldn’t hear much of this, not that it probably mattered all that much. Anyway, it was hosted in bookend segments by William Shatner (!), whose appearances took place in a darkened room whilst standing behind a glowing white bowling ball. When I suggested that this object represented his ego it was pointed out that it was too small.
Next a guy introduced a film that he provided for the fest. It was The Twonky (1953), and the guy declared that it was the worst film ever, in his opinion. He couldn’t even tell, he said, what it was supposed to be. Well, wonder no longer, sir, The Twonky is a comic allegory about the dangers of watching television. Hans “5,000 Fingers of Mr. T” Conried stars as a snooty professor whose wife buys him an unwanted TV set. (Its realistically sized ten-inch screen inspired numerous japes that it represented the ‘50s version of a widescreen television.)
The appliance isn’t a TV, however, but a Twonky. This is a robotic device sent from the future or something (I didn’t quite catch this part) that for whatever nefarious purpose takes over its owner’s life. For instance, it won’t allow you to do small tasks, like light your own cigarettes, but does it for you with this rather adaptable cartoon beam it shoots out. However, its main purpose is to keep you from becoming mentally stimulated. (Just like TV!! Get it?!) Therefore it keeps its owner from listening to Mozart and from drinking coffee. It can even erase your thoughts if it chooses too. This all presented in a concrete form the fears of Oboler, and many others who worked in radio, that television was a tool of the Devil created to make people dumber. And, now that I think about it, they were pretty much right.
The Twonky was one of a handful of films written and directed by Arch Oboler, the creator of radio’s oft-brilliant Lights Out program. Oboler was sort of radio’s Rod Serling. Unfortunately, he often proved more ham-fisted in ramming home his ‘messages,’ thus limiting the success of his handful of films. His most popular attempt at Serling-esque moralizing was Five, about a handful of people who are the only survivors of a world-wide nuclear holocaust. Despite this, no one’s learned anything. One survivor, for instance, is black, resulting in the specter of racism rearing its head again. Some will find this a tad obvious, some gripping. Roger Corman remade/ripped-off Five with the typically economical Last Woman On Earth. Also along these lines are The World, The Flesh and The Devil and, although less so, the more action oriented yet still interesting Panic in the Year Zero.
After The Twonky Oboler’s film career went downhill fast. His next picture, nine years later, was the preachy One Plus One. A blathering message piece in favor of sexual freedom and honestly, it stands today as a creaky laughfest. Basically it’s a square’s version of The Harrad Experiment. (To be fair, it was also considerably bolder, having been made all the way back in 1961.) I imagine I’ll be getting around to that one someday.
Oboler also directed the first 3-D movie, Bwana Devil, starring Robert Stack and based on the same man-eating lion episode that inspired the recent The Ghost and the Darkness. Meanwhile, his last film, produced six years after One Plus One, was a very late 3-D picture, The Bubble, which is available on DVD via Rhino. This one I haven’t seen.
Despite the introduction provided by the man who owned the print, The Twonky isn’t a bad little movie. Although you can fairly say that is overlong and, like much of Oboler’s film work, somewhat obvious. And yet, as one of our party of attendees pointed out (Jennie, I think), its message is somewhat defused by the fact that the Twonky is seldom actually used as a TV.
Next up was a collection of comedy sketches by Reno, Nevada horror host Zomboo, pronounced ‘Zom-bow,’ who was pretty funny. Unlike some of the hosts I’ve seen at NOWFF, this one I could live with. (Although I’ll still stick with Chicago’s Svengoolie, thank you very much.) Those interested in Zomboo can access his nifty website at Zomboo.com.
Here it was about 6:30 in the evening and the rest of our party left to grab Chinese. As indicated, I remained behind and watched Bert I. Gordon’s Village of the Giants (1965). This film was introduced with a live appearance by Texas horror host Prof. Griffin, a rather good example of the breed. He boned up (hee, hee) on the film and gave a notably good intro. As he had last year for Attack of the Crab Monsters, a presentation that netted him this year’s Golden Slushie award, a statuette the NOWFF people give out each year to those who help make the event successful.
Bert I. Gordon, or “B.I.G.”, of course, had a thing about large people and animals. Thus made he Beginning of the End, Empire of the Ants, Food of the Gods, The Cyclops, The Amazing Colossal Man, Earth vs. the Spider and War of the Colossal Beast. (He also made Attack of the Puppet People, but the mad scientist in that was a giant to the shrunken remainder of the cast, so it still fits.)
Village of the Giants is his comic take on such material. Little Ronnie Howard, playing the precocious Genius, accidentally invents a Food of the Gods-like substance he calls Goo. Eat it and you grow real big real fast, although I’m not sure where all that extra mass is supposed to be coming from. Eight bad teens, lead by Beau Bridges (!), eat the Goo and take over the town. They are opposed mostly by good teens Tommy Kirk, an actor who should definitely be hitting our site sometime soon, and Jimmy “Rifle Man” Crawford. Crawford ends up hanging onto a plaster mock-up of one of the giantess’ boobs (covered by a giant homemade bra, of course) as she dances.
Other highlights include a credit to H. G. Wells (!), since this is *cough* inspired by his story Food of the Gods; a giant spider, a giant dog, a giant cat, two giant rock n’ rollin’ ducks (no one seems too surprised by their appearance at a rock club), which are later turned into giant barbecue; busty giant chicks dancing in slo-mo; an appearance by the Beau Brummels (lot of Beaus in this movie); occasional, if only occasional, attempts to actually deal with the logic of the situation, as when the giants confiscate the town’s guns rather than pretending that big people would be bulletproof; some none-too-convincing plaster giant legs; and an actor named Jim Begg who plays “Fatso” (must be a relative). For those that are interested, the DVD of the movie just came out and sells for ten or twelve bucks.
The next short was a repeat from last year. It was a marionette dealie featuring a mix of human and Dr. Moreau-type animal people puppets, which was oddly disturbing. Basically we learned that vandalism is wrong, via a bad puppet named Sneaky who convinces others to vandalize stuff. Soon his entire neighborhood is trashed, in a manner that oddly foretells influential criminologist James Q. Wilson’s Broken Window Theory of urban decay. We also learn that replacing one broken window costs as much as 300 crayons, and a desk is worth a 1,000 carton of milk or some such. Then there’s a nauseating song. Yuck.
Our next feature was Sid Pink’s Danish space epic Voyage to the 7th Planet (1962). The leader of the expedition was the guy who played the general in Reptilicus, another Pink production. Crew Member #1 was played by, inevitably, John Agar. Astronauts go, as you might have gathered from the title, to Uranus. This kicked off, and I’m not kidding, twenty or more solid minutes of people – especially Jeff, Loren and Joe — laughing themselves silly by ending each and every sentence spoken in the film with the phrase “…on Uranus.” For one example out of hundreds, an astronaut might note, “Something’s growing there,” and then Jeff or Loren would yell “…on Uranus!!” and laugh until I thought they’d choke themselves.
As this droll fusillade continued, Freeman and I discussed, like many others, the fact that the film’s plot was ripped bleeding right out of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. In this case from the segment where Earth astronauts find that Mars is just like their respective home towns, even with their old girlfriends and stuff, only to learn that telepathic aliens are preparing to kill them when their guard is down. That’s basically the story here.
One great scene, reminiscent of Equinox, is when the crew finds the barrier that separates their weirdly livable section of the planet from the frigid normal part. The captain is content to insert a stick through it, finding it frozen solid when he pulls it back. Whereupon one of the crew has the brilliant idea of jamming his arm through the barrier to see what will happen!!! Actually, funnier than that is that his arm is fine once he pulls it back out and thaws it a bit. Yeah, I’m sure that sticking your arm into the equivalent of a bucket of liquid nitrogen wouldn’t cause fatal shock or anything, much less permanently damage your arm.
Anyhoo, there’s a giant space brain, and it’s raiding the crewmen’s minds for stuff to think up, and since the brain materializes copies of their old girlfriends for them to have sex with they decide they better destroy it. Since the brain never bothers them when they aren’t actively hunting it – quite the opposite, in fact, it was making their stay as pleasant as possible — I was never sure why they were intent on killing it. Luckily they eventually explain that the brain is evil and intends to take over the world or some such, traveling there in the body of one of the earthmen. And yes, it is odd that John Agar is facing being possessed by yet another giant space brain.
Since these guys carry the silliest and most useless rayguns this side of the Galaxy Invader, they need a superweapon to kill the Brain. Especially as since the being can create silly looking claymation monsters and NOWFF 11’s second helping of giant macrovision spiders (stock footage from Earth vs. the Spider!!) from the crew’s subconscious minds. One creature looks very silly, and only later does one guy admit it’s supposedly a “Rat-Thing” monster taken from his private (and quite goofy) fears.
In case you’re wondering, their superweapon is, and I kid you not, a Frozen Nitrogen sprayer. In other words, it’s basically a souped-up fire extinguisher. Oh, and one guy looked like Bob Hope from a certain angle, so I made Freeman laugh by saying, “Hey, how about that Loni Anderson? She’s wild, isn’t she?” Which makes two different movies in one twelve-hour period that provoked Loni Anderson jokes. And she didn’t star in either of them. What are the odds?
The following short explained the elaborate hundred-step process for threading film through a film projector. It went on so long that even Joe Bannerman, who works as a projectionist, was crying out for mercy. Apparently they showed it so that about eight people in a row could mention that in order to watch a film on how to a run a film on a film projector you’d need to run the film on a film projector to watch it. Get it? This immediately occurred to everyone, which didn’t stop a parade of folks from commenting on the idea like it was new.
Next was Stomp Tokyo’s big moment, as they were sponsoring the last movie, the film adaptation of (H.R.) Pufnstuf. This retells the origin of an English lad with bad ‘70s hair who is finds himself in possession of a magic talking flute (no phallic imagery here, by gum) and is hunted by the dreaded Witchipoo on the island where everything’s alive. Whoever worked on this took a lot of drugs, as indicated by the giant smoking mushroom that winks at us at one point. Martha Raye and Mama Cass (!!) had roles. And there was a comical Nazi rat-guy sidekick thing who periodically did Nazi salutes, which was very disturbing. And two teeny Hamburgler-like cops were played by the all-star midget team (poor Andy Borntreger, missing this!) of Billy Barty and Angelo Rossitio. Mr. Rossito, who played Grazbo the Dwarf in Dracula vs. Frankenstein, must have been well in his seventies or even older when this was made.
It was all indescribably weird and marvelous, more so because Dr. Freex himself introduced the film with a very entertaining soliloquy on the subject. He was even nice enough to mention the Jabootu site, which was a freebie for me given that Stomp Tokyo laid out money to be a presence there. But that’s just the kind of people they are.
After that we ended with the traditional showing of Duck Dodgers in the 24 Ω Century, featuring Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Marvin the Martian. This classic cartoon is, I guess, to NOWFF what The Wizard of Speed and Time is to B-Fest. Great stuff, in any case.
In summation here I’d just like to thank the NOWFFers, Alfred Richard and Crystal Guillory in particular, for working their hearts out to put on a great show. It’s easily worth the trip down there if you can make it. We all look forward to attending next year, and you should too.
As I mentioned earlier, I was leaving New Orleans roughly eight hours after the midnight end of the Fest. That’s because, when I bought my very reasonable tickets on the Internet, I moronically placed a reservation on a plane returning to Chicago in the morning rather than that following evening. This was tragic, since it way cut down on my face time with my fellow B-Masters. (Well, it was tragic for me, anyway.) Since I was too cheap to pay for a hotel room I’d have used for like four hours, I was planning to just head out to the airport when we returned to the hotel, circa maybe one a.m. This mostly because I’m not one for liquor, crowds and strippers, which is what the French Quarter offers late on a Saturday evening.
Needless to say, this would have sort of sucked, and Lisa Williams, who I might have mentioned is a medallist in the Sweetness Derby, offered me the couch in her and Freeman’s suite. (See what an extra ten bucks gets you?) She even set the alarm clock for me, while not even pointing out that she was probably doing so because she’d noticed I was a completely inept and quite useless doofus. Anyway, local Chicago “Superstation” WGN was on the limited cable TV offerings, and they just happened to be showing the goofy Jim “Equinox” Danforth monster fest Jack the Giant Killer, a fairly uninspired Harryhausen/Sinbad knockoff. So we used that was wallpaper for some further hangout time, with Scott coming up to join us.
While I missed the Andrews and, of course, Apostic – especially given the circumstances – it was great to spend more time with the ST boys. It was especially nice to yak more with Scott Hamilton. Of course, time is short, and you always wish you could of hung out more with somebody, so I’ll nominate Joe Bannerman for that spot this time around. Hopefully I’ll see him more at next year’s B-Fest.
Thus a pleasant hour or so went by. About 2:30 everyone broke up, and I grabbed three much needed hours of sleep. At 5:30 I rose — I like to get to the airport early, which paid off on the first leg of my journey, since the plane left at 6:35 rather than the 6:50 posted on my e-mail invoice — and headed to the lobby, where the friendly lady at the counter called me a cab (yes, that’s very funny), even though I was no longer a paying guest. So that was nice. Then it was to the airport, and at about eight o’clock my plane left and I was headed home.
There was one further screw-up, as I had asked Andrew M. to pick me up at O’Hare. I waited outside for about forty-five minutes before electing to grab the El train to the nearby Rosemont CTA station. There I caught the hourly bus that ran past my house and was home about fifteen minutes later. As I entered Muchoney was calling, and it turns out that rather than meeting me in the outside Arrival area, he limped out of his car and to the gate where my flight was due. Since he got there about ten minutes after the plane arrived, I was already outside. As you can see, both I and my friends share a certain degree of mental acuity, so I guess we’ll have to be more precise with such plans in the future.
About three in the afternoon I ran out of gas, went to bed, and woke up at 2:30 in the morning. Luckily I took today (Monday) off of work, so I stayed up and spent four or five hours perusing my newly arrived Magnificent Seven DVD and all its various geegaws, like the commentary track. Then I spent the rest of the day writing up this report, and then posting it, typos and bad writing and all. And that ends my story.
Until NOWFF 12. See you there.
