T-Fest ’05

T-Fest Diary (2005)

First of all, let me nod in the direction of Sandy Petersen, author of the RPG game Call of Cthulhu and the Father of T-Fest. By which I mean, T-Fest was the adolescent who wanted to have a good weekend and asked his Pop to whip out his wallet and pay for it. Sandy provided funds for the hotel room and other expenses. Meanwhile, Chris Holland of Stomp Tokyo and Freeman Williams, a.k.a. Dr. Freex of the Bad Movie Report, did the bulk of the logistical work, and Chris handled all the tech stuff and so on.

My role, such as it was, was rather more modest. I had been exchanging notes with Sandy for quite some time now. He had been hoping to come in for B-Fest last year, but a work emergency forced him to jettison his plans. Instead, knowing Sandy lived in Texas (Dallas, to be exact)—admittedly, a fairly large state—I passed along the contact info for Freeman (Houston) and Chris (a recent transport from Florida to Austin). I had hopes a get together might be arranged.

Specially, many of us had for a while talked of finding a replacement for NOWFF, the New Orleans Film Fest. That yearly bad movie fest was propitiously run in July, just about exactly between the annual B-Fests in January where many of us in the B-Masters Cabal would get together. NOWFF afforded us all another such opportunity, and when they stopped running the event, much sorrow was felt in the land.

Anyway, being a bit more energetic than yours truly, Sandy, Freeman and Chris quickly decided to set up just such a get together. Initially it was to just be held in Freeman’s living room, but they eventually decided to make it bigger so as to allow us to invite more people. In the end, it was decided to rent a hotel meeting room for a day and screen the movies there.

In order to toss me a bone and make me feel like I was contributing something, I was put in charge of programming the movies. There really wasn’t much to this. In order to leave wiggle room, we decided to show but eight movies. Sandy, as official fest sugar daddy, got to pick two of them, and the rest of us one. The others were sponsor slots, so in theory there wasn’t much for me to program. However, only Chad Richard (Ambrose Bierce on the Jabootu message board) elected to sponsor a film. I myself gladly grabbed the other spots, so that I could actually pick more movies. I was mad with power, I tells ya!

Meanwhile, we invited attendees to ‘sponsor’ a movie if they wished, so as to defray Sandy’s outlay. We invited a good amount of people, hoping to get maybe 30 or 40 people, but ended up falling quite short. However, I know of numerous people who wanted to go to this and couldn’t for whatever reason, so if we try it again next year, I think we’ll be more successful in that regard.

So I booked my flight to Houston and arrived at Hobby Airport on the afternoon of Friday, July 22^nd. Freeman kindly came and picked me up and I was soon teleported to his quite lovely home, where I was glad to renew my acquaintance with his wife Lisa. Lisa, I should note, is the Sweetest Woman in the World. Seriously. I’m not exactly known for my personal skills, but Lisa is one of those people who you meet and immediately feel like your old friends. Sadly, Lisa had contracted chicken pox recently and so couldn’t attend the show.

Well, maybe ‘sadly’ isn’t the right word, at least from her perspective.

I also met the family pug, Mavis, who’s snorting language I quickly picked up. Mavis appears pretty spoiled by Freeman, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more contented creature in my life than Mavis when Freeman at one juncture scratched her back with a miniature rake. The family also has three cats, but out of deference for my slight allergies, they were generally kept inside one of the bedrooms.

Chris and his wife Christina and Stomp Tokyo partner Scott Hamilton—having himself flown in from Florida—arrived that evening after driving in from Austin. We went out for dinner at a local Mexican place that Freeman promised had burritos “as big as your head,” but sadly these proved but 66% as large as any of our craniums. After that, we headed over to the Sugar Land Marriott where the show would be held, and where Sandy was ensconced with three of his comrades. Everyone who knows me knows my brain is organically damaged and can’t remember names, and of course in two seconds I didn’t remember who his friends were, but they were all good chaps.

It was great to finally meet Sandy, who has sent me notes on a mind-boggling range of topics whenever I actually have posted an article. (He’s also so generously donated to the site’s tip jar that I had to ask him to no longer do so, as I was feeling guilty for taking so much of his money.) Seriously, he’s a genuine polymath, and sometimes I’ve literally laughed at the array of topics on which he’s been able to hold forth on in an apparently impromptu manner. In person, Sandy was much the same, and often tends to speak in a manner that suggests he must quickly issue forth the high-pressure stream of the ideas in his head lest the pressure build up and his bean explodes.

Anyway, we all gloried for a while in that weird feeling of being Amongst Our Own, before calling it a night to grab some z’s before the fest the next day. We then returned to Freeman’s house and hit the hay.

Up early on Saturday and we all went to the local Panera Bread for breakfast and to meet up with Sandy and his posse. A few cinnamon buns and croissants later, we required to the hotel to get set up. I was made greeter, which amounted to handing out a program sheet, a souvenir ‘ticket’ to the event, and 3-D glasses. Chris was in charge of the shorts to run between every movie, and the glasses were required for one of them. It says something about the attendees that everyone lit up when they saw the 3-D specs.

As I said, attendance was lighter than we had hoped. I myself knew over half a dozen people who had hoped to attend but couldn’t for whatever reason. In the end, aside from Chris, Christina, Scott, Freeman, Sandy & the Three Amigos and myself, I am happy to say that the Jabootu message board was well represented. Chad Richards (Ambrose Bierce) was the show’s first sponsor—Historians of the Future, take note!; Kirk “kdraut’ Draut, a Houston resident, came in with his lovely wife Patty (who unexpectedly wasn’t there as a Nerd Widow, but instead as an enthusiastic participant, and a quite funny one at that—also, I really hope I got that name right, if not, SORRY!, but really I need to start writing that stuff down), and Ken Schaefer, who was able to come in at the last minute. We were glad he did.

By the way, people who make a hobby of mocking bad movies have often been accused of being petty, bitter sort of people. (See Bill Warren’s remarks to his effect in the Robot Monster chapter of his otherwise essential Keep Watching the Skies.) I suspect some of this is grounded in the fact that pioneer bad movie popularizer Michael Medved went on to become a well-known conservative commentator, but anyway.

Well, let me tell you, that idea couldn’t be further off the mark. I have never met a mean spirited bad movie buff, and sure enough, Sandy, his friends, Chad, Kirk and Patty, and Ken Schaefer proved to be about the nicest folks one could hope to meet. Kirk, for instance, is a Houston local, and volunteered to drive people around if needed. It wasn’t, but damn, that was a nice offer. And even after the show, when they had every reason to hate all of us (especially me, as the sponsor of Double Agent ’73), they offered to put people up in their house next year. Whatever else, T-Fest was meant as a way to get together with friends old and new.

Mission accomplished.

Nor did the small number of attendees hurt the actual movie marathon. We had fifty chairs set up, but had enough room for everyone to spread out, and everyone was extremely vocal. We ‘filled’ the room, and in no way did we seem undermanned. Everyone called out japes throughout, and I believe we all of us had a grand time. If anything, the small crowd allowed for everyone to have a bit more presence in the proceedings, so it wasn’t really a bad thing.

We opened, as we waited for folks to arrive, with some MST3K shorts and ‘music videos’ culled from various bad movies. The theme song to Mistress of the Apes caused the expected incredulity and hilarity from those who hadn’t seen the movie.

I wasn’t really paying attention the time, but we stayed pretty much on schedule throughout, and will assume the noted times are roughly correct.

10:30 Gamera vs. Guiron

Sandy provided a nifty English subtitled and letterboxed Japanese DVD of this classic, featuring those two space chicks (and hot ones!) who plan to eat the brains of the Kenny and his Caucasian sidekick buddy. As immortalized on MST3K, the Kenny has an obsession with traffic accidents, which I was amused to learn actually originated in the original script rather than the American dubbing. This is classic sci-fi fare, with giant monsters, a Kenny, a space ship, travel to another planet, teleportation devices, the whole smear. Guiron is a giant reptilian dog monster with a huge knife for a snout and the ability to shoot ninja stars. To show how monty he is, we first see him effortlessly slicing apart a rampaging ‘Space’ Gaos, which is a guy in a Gaos suit that’s been painted silver. (Gaos was a laser-firing pteranodon-type from an earlier movie who really gave Gamera a lot of problems—he’s probably the most famous monster in the Gamera stable.) There’s a comic relief goofy cop and an annoying kid sister to boot, and this is just great stuff. By the way, maybe Sandy thought of this film because the English distributor of these in the States was Sandy Frank. Can you prove it didn’t happen?!

12:00 Chamber of Horrors (1966)

Freeman chose this fun gothic horror movie with an interesting production history, a movie I’d been well acquainted with as a kid from its once regular TV showings. While a youngling I’d always loved the show Wild, Wild West, and Chamber of Horrors had a very similar vibe. Set (apparently) sometime in the late 19^th century in Baltimore, the movie follows an early, elegant serial killer named Jack Cravatte (played by Patrick O’Neal, who has a lot of fun with the Vincent Price-esque part). Just so we get that he’s nuts, Cravatte is introduced forcing a justice of the peace to marry him and his fiancÈe, a woman he’s freshly killed for cheating on him. With this hint of necrophilia established, we watch as the baffled police—including a young detective played by Wayne Rogers (!)—are finally forced to call on the skills of amateur sleuth and ultra-suave ladies man Anthony Draco (the continental Cesare Denova), the proprietor of the city’s House of Wax, an institution famous for its sensationalistic tableaus of famous and gruesome murderers. The sculptor of these figures is the elderly, puckish Harold Blout (Wilfrid Hyde-White, best known as Pickering in the film My Fair Lady), himself a crime historian of some note. Draco quickly learns of a man frequenting an upper class brothel, who’s quirk is that he has his professional paramour play dead. The police are alerted, and Cravatte is duly apprehended. There follows a very expressionistic trial scene, during which Draco is given much credit for Cravatte’s capture. The villain is sentences to hang, but escapes as he is transported to prison, although this requires he hack off one of his own hands. Cravatte, presumed dead, eventually returns to town with an attachment on his shortened arm on which he can fit any number of malign devices, including the inevitable hook. He then begins killing those who were responsible for his imprisonment, and constructing a ‘body’ from the parts he takes from them. Draco figures he’s on the list, and the hunt is on. Chamber of Horrors is an extremely fun film, and it’s a shame it’s not officially available as of yet on either video or DVD, something which can be said of dozens of interesting television movies of the ‘60s and ‘70s. CoH had a more interesting history however. After being filmed as a telepic, and being judged too gruesome (I’m sure that necrophilia angle didn’t help), it was recast as a theatrical film. To spice things up, the film was given a couple of William Castle-esque gimmicks. As an opening crawl reveals, at four points of “extreme horror” during the film, the audience is warned of approaching carnage by the use of the Fear Flasher (the screen turns red) and the Horror Horn (a distinctive note is heard). This doesn’t really do the movie, which is really a nice and surprisingly sumptuous piece of work for a TV movie—kudos to director Hy Averback—any favors, but the gimmicks were heavily featured in the film’s advertising, and probably remain what it is best known for. This is a great piece, and the knowledge that the television series it was meant to be a pilot for never materialized saddens me greatly. Trivia note: Hyde-White again played the role of sidekick to a European investigator of the macabre in a matched pair of pilot films, Fear No Evil (1969) and Ritual of Evil (1970), starring Louis Jourdan as a modern day psychiatrist who tends to bump into cases of the supernatural. These as well sadly joined the line of great TV pilots featuring investigators of the occult (The Norliss Tapes, Dark Intruder, Spectre, etc.) that never were made into series.

1:30 The Giant Claw

This was the one movie we all instantly decided we need to show, and since we were short of slots, I took it was my official pick. And why not, it was, after all, the first movie reviewed on this site. (You’ll notice that Jabootu was well represented at the Fest, with three of the entries old-time review subjects.) As such, I don’t have overmuch to add here, but I will say the small contingient of Jabootu message boarders in attendance were ready. Most notably, they immediately started shouting the number of each use of the work ‘battleship,’ of which there are more than several. The giant buzzard marionette didn’t look any less goofy projected up on a screen, and I got to enjoy some of my favorite moments, including the plane that while crashing to earth pauses during its plummet and even moves backward for a moment (the model plane having become briefly caught up on its guide wire), and the bit where ‘flaming debris’ is dumped quite nearly right on star Jeff Morrow’s head, and there’s a quick cut where he undoubtedly jumped up and punched the prop guy in the face.

3:00 Death Race 2000 Chad Richard has earned his niche in history be becoming the first sponsor of T-Fest. After musing several titles, Chad eventually opted for a film that would play well for an audience, and certainly Death Race 2000 achieved that. A satirical piece by cult director Paul Bartel, the movie is set in a future, humiliated America (since everyone who worked for producer Roger Corman at the time was of the type who assumed America was on its last legs—ah, the ‘70s) run by a fascist Mr. President. To assuage and distract the masses, Mr. President has inaugurated the Death Race, a bread-and-circuses affair that, as no doubt several college dissertations have maintained, foresaw (to some extent; let’s not overplay this) the modern TV reality series. The race features teams of drivers and navigators who drive across the country and rack up points by running over civilians. The more helpless the target, the higher the points. Bartel ably meets Corman’s market requirements—lots of gore and nudity—while crafting a film full of witty and blackly amusing incident. The nation’s hero is Frankenstein (David Carradine), a driver who’s been nearly killed so many times that nearly his entire body has been reconstructed. Other drivers include a Chicago gangster-type played by a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone, and a cowgirl played by Mary Woronov, who was the longtime Elaine May to Bartel’s Mike Nichols. Meanwhile, a resistance movement is trying to kill all the racers, and kidnap Frankenstein so as to force Mr. President to implement reforms. Smart, loud, funny and gory. Great stuff.

4:30 Dinner Break

Since we didn’t have a lunch break, we decided to go with an early dinner break, and scheduled an hour and a half for it. Moreover, a quick web search indicated that a place called the Baker Street Pub was near the hotel (in fact, it proved literally next door), and we designated that as our dinner spot. One advantage of the small size of our group was that we were all able to sit together at a large table, where I sat between Sandy and Chad. The Baker Street (duh) had an old English theme, and dinner selections ranged from my bacon cheeseburger to ‘bangers and mash’ (sausages and mashed potatoes) and fish and chip. The gigantic hunks of fish looked great, and being a slob, I was able to glom onto Chad’ second piece after he barely finished the first. Getting some actual conservation time was great, and we’ve already decided that next year we’ll expand the dinner break to two hours rather than rush through it. One disadvantage of moving the Fest location next year—and there are several reasons for doing so—is that we’ll have to hope to find so convivial and convenient a spot for dinner. Depending on the size of the group next year, we might have to grab a private room somewhere.

We ran slightly over the dinner break—we didn’t want to nag our guests—and the delay was exacerbated when it took about twenty minutes for someone on the hotel staff to show up and unlock the screening room. At this point, we were maybe half an hour off-schedule, and by the end of things, were closer to an hour off. However, that was our biggest snafu, so I think on the whole things went pretty well. In theory, we should do even better next time.

I wasn’t really keeping track of the various starting times, so these are estimated.

6:30 1,000 Year Cat

Sandy provided this typically weird Chinese flick featuring (I think) a space princess, a gross Lovecraftian monster that kills in numerous highly disgusting ways, mega-violence, and tons of martial arts and John Woo and Terminator-inspired gunplay. The movie’s highlight was a protracted and quite riotous martial arts battle between a dog and a cat. (!!) I have to admit, I’d never seen that before. Other than that, as usual, I had a lot of trouble figuring out what was supposed to be going on. That just reflects my Western bias towards linearity, however. Sometimes you just have to let Art wash over you.

8:00 Double Agent ‘73

The idea is that there would be eight movie slots. Sandy would have two; Chris, Freeman and I one. Then three would be left for sponsors, so as to defray expenses. Due to the scheduling tightness, I took Giant Claw as my choice, and Chris took the T-Rex slot (since we named the affair T-Fest, we decided we should have a movie with a T-Rex movie in it every year). In the end, however, Chad took one sponsor slot, leaving two. As the Programming Czar, I glommed on the two remaining sponsor slots so as to get to choose more movies. I was mad with power, I tells ya. Easily the best buck I spent this weekend involved sponsoring this movie, which brought a constant parade of horrified shrieks and groans from my fellow attendees, most of whom had never seen this ‘film.’ The amazing thing is that the movie is horrifying even when Chesty Morgan isn’t topless, or kissing someone with those liver-like lips of hers. Her clothes are so bad that when she’s naked, you yell, ‘Ugh, get dressed!’; and when she’s dressed, you’re like, ‘Ugh, take those clothes off!’ And the hideous, ‘70s dÈcor…seriously, this movie is a litany of visual horrors. I ate the pain of my fellow attendees like sweet, sweet candy. However, once the movie was over, I immediately realized I would never show anything that great at T-Fest again, even if we run it for another twenty years. By the way, when Kirk wrote on the board that his wife was attending, I gave him a head’s up on the Double Agent ’73 showing, because not every woman wants to sit through a film chock full of almost human nudity. Plus, of course, it’s just a horrible movie. “We’ve seen worse,” he responded. “Worse than Double Agent ’73?!” I thought. Sure enough, Scott later reported that Kirk and Patty had revised their opinion on that after sitting through the movie. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

9:30 Four Skulls of Jonathon Drake

This was my flyer. I kept going back and forth on this one, but finally I was like, screw it, you’ve got to take a chance now and then. (Moreover, programming is the fun part of the show, so I’m not sure I’ll be getting another crack at it next year, as someone else might want a chance.) Four Skulls is a very fun voodoo film featuring a curse that sees each male member of the Drake family decapitated at the age of 60. This film has a fun William Castle vibe, as the film abounds in shrunken heads and skulls and the living dead, and is available on a strikingly good transfer on one of the MGM Midnight Movies double bill discs. Another advantage was that I was pretty sure that no one other than maybe Freeman would have seen this one before. On the other hand, it was perhaps a tad too slow. I don’t think anyone in any way disliked the film, and it probably provided a nice respite after Double Agent ’73, but it was a roll of the dice that perhaps did not completely pay off. There were moments, though, when the rest of the attendees seemed to enjoy the film to the same extent I do. Anyway, I have no regrets! Any fan of old horror movies, though, should seek this one out. It’s a lot of fun. My favorite moment was when a bed-ridden Jonathon hallucinates a bunch of floating skulls, and Freeman started doing Michael Caine from The Swarm: “Look, Jonathon, there’re no skulls here. I promise you. There’re no skulls.” Damn, I wish I’d thought of that one.

11:00 The Last Dinosaur

Hopefully one trademark of the Fest, should it continue on for a while, would be to wrap things up with a T-Rex movie. Sandy is not a fan of this film, and Chris considered showing Tammy and the T-Rex instead, but in the end, we went with this. I love this movie, so I had no problems with it. Ah! The great theme song, the ‘world’s greatest tracker’ who can’t hit a giant T-Rex with a spear, the ninja triceratops, and so, so much more. Aside from Sandy, I think this was a pretty popular choice.

After that, we oldsters were pretty trashed, and as it was 1:00, decided to call it a night. However, me made plans to get back together at Panera the next morning for a farewell breakfast. Meanwhile, Scott and I went back to Casa Freeman, where we examined the amazing Williams Video Library, and watched a Peter Cushing BBC Sherlock Holmes episode. Thus it was about 3:00 when I hit the hay.

The next morning we blearily roused for the breakfast appointment, and got together with the Petersen Party and Chad. Kirk and Patty had already made plans for the day, sadly, and Ken couldn’t make it either. Anyway, after a final chat, Sandy and his posse headed out. We bid farewell to Chad, and then the rest of us headed back to Freeman’s place. Eventually Chris, Christina and Scott headed back to Austin (from where Scott would catch his flight back home), and then Freeman gave me a ride to Hobby Airport for my return flight.

And that was that. It was over way, way too fast.

Having now done one of these, we will have to figure out what changes to make next time. Amongst the things we’ve already talked about:

I want to thank everyone for the chance to have such a great time, with a special thanks to our own Medici Prince, Sandy Petersen, and the delightful Jabootu board crew; Chad, Kirk, Patty and Ken. Guys, I really enjoyed meeting you, and look forward to seeing you all again.

Attendee Kirk makes some ‘a Draut’ comments (seriously, I have no self-respect whatsoever) about the show. But he stopped half way through!! His public must clamor for more!!

Saturday morning, my ever-supportive and long-suffering wife and I ventured down to Houston’s southwest side for T-Fest. We met the High Priest himself, Ken Begg, along with Freeman “Dr. Freex” Williams, the Stomp Tokyo boys, Sandy Petersen, Ambrose Bierce, and a small but enthusiastic group of b-movie fans.

As veterans of such films as The Van, Delinquent School Girls and Rolling Vengeance, we thought were ready. We were so wrong… (Note: The battery in my Palm was fading, so my notes became increasingly cryptic and abbreviated as the night went on.)

First up: Gamera vs. Guiron. An old favorite of mine, this was my first chance to see the unedited fight between Guiron and the Gyaos.

Short – Teenage Mother Movie trailer for one of those “educational” cautionary films from the 1960s. Teenage girl hangs out with the wrong crowd, has sex, gets knocked up.

Short – ?????????* I didn’t catch the title, some kind of claymation japanese show. The hero looked like a cross between Homer Simpson and an octopus. Watch the wacky hijinks as he is attacked by monster who look like Grimace after a hard night’s drinking.

Chamber of Horrors A fun little horror film that began with a warning of the horrors that we were about to see. Each of the 4 “shock points” would be preceded by the Horror Horn and the Fear Flasher so that we could avert our eyes. If only Double Agent ’73 had employed such a system…

Short – Rejected Animated chaos from Bitter Films.

The Giant Claw A giant anti-matter buzzard terrorizes the northeast.

Meanwhile, Chad, a.k.a. Ambrose Bierce, forwarded these essential suggestions: