By Michael Varrati

Stepping out of the shadows of the previous generation can be a process for anybody, but when your parents are two of cinema’s most notorious luminaries, there’s bound to be an extra measure of complication.

For Italian actress and filmmaker Asia Argento, contending with famous parents has always been a fact of life. Her mother, noted actress and screenwriter Daria Nicolodi (Suspira, Deep Red), blazed a bloody trail for the women of Italian horror throughout the 1970s and beyond. Similarly, her father, the hugely celebrated filmmaker Dario Argento, literally changed the face of genre cinema forever.

With two titans of terror as parents and various other relatives in the business, Asia’s childhood was one ruled by the movies. By her own confession, she initially turned to acting not to establish her own identity, but because she sought her father’s attention. Read More…

By Michael Varrati

With the imminent arrival of Barry Bostwick to Midnight Mass HQ, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time pondering the phenomenon that is The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Created by Richard O’Brien and directed by Jim Sharman, the film with the longest run in theatrical history has blazed a bizarre, yet unparalleled trail through the history of cinema. Rocky Horror has throngs of fans who still crowd into movie theaters on a weekly basis, shouting and singing along in a fanatical fervor akin to religious devotion. For many creatures of the night, RHPS is more than a movie, it’s a way of life.

Of course, worshipping at the altar of a beloved film is not a foreign concept to me or my boss lady, Peaches Christ.

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By Michael Varrati

Much like Santa Claus, it’s been a whole year since I last saw Lewis Jackson.

However, considering the cause of the filmmaker’s notoriety, that we would be reunited at the holidays is fitting.

To the cult film community at large, Jackson is most well-known as the writer and director of Christmas Evil (aka You Better Watch Out), a prototypical holiday horror film with a turbulent history that laid the foundation for a whole subgenre of killer Kris Kringles.

Long heralded by John Waters as the “greatest Christmas movie ever made,” Jackson’s film has travelled a long, strange journey from its initial release. Disavowed by the studio that produced it, and long held captive by bootleggers, the movie seemed destined for filmic obscurity. However, thanks to Waters’ constant championing and a small, but fervent fan base, the movie was resurrected and rediscovered by horror audiences the world over. Now, Christmas Evil is widely accepted by fans of fright as one of the single best and most important holiday horror films ever committed to celluloid.

For all of the film’s trials and triumphs, Lewis Jackson has lived through each bump in the road. Although the filmmaker admits the journey has been a bittersweet one, he also displays a twinkle of pride for how far his film has come.

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By Michael Varrati

“I just show up and do what I do. And for me it has to be real — anything I do, I don’t care what it is. On Halloween, I can remember, John Carpenter’s first and only real direction to me was, ‘I want people to believe this is a real person.’ All I care about is trying to make anything real — and then because I’m brave I’ll try anything.”

-Jamie Lee Curtis

It’s the Tuesday before Halloween. Perched on the balcony of my apartment, I’ve got a warm cup of coffee in hand and a less than expertly carved Jack-O-Lantern in the chair to my right. There’s an autumn chill, but I really don’t notice. I’ve been too busy musing over the upcoming holiday.

For horror fans the world over, Halloween is something sacred and celebratory. It’s the time when we’re not the minority, but the ruling class. The order of things may return to the squares on November 1st, but for one night, the freaks and beasts run the show. That such mirth also happens to occur amidst the wonderfully atmospheric scenery of fall is just the icing on the cake. Read More…

Cult Filmmakers You Should Know: Bruce LaBruce

By Michael Varrati

As far as I’m concerned, the advent of the internet all but killed legitimate counterculture. That is not to say that things outside the mainstream ceased to exist, but it is now infinitely easier to become “in the know.” That smug sense of inclusivity associated with the knowledge of an obscure band or film was rendered obsolete when it was revealed that the world at large could track down anything with a simple stroke of the keys. You can’t insult Johnny Football now with your favorite Black Flag lyrics, because a quick trip to Google later, and he’ll know the score.

Even more frightening, Johnny Football might even become a Black Flag fan.

With everything in the world being available to anybody at any time, there are many critics who argue that true renegade art exists no longer. While I tend to agree that a certain sense of ambiance that once was the glue of the outlaw community has been lost, I would never presume to definitively state that such things were left to the past. As long as there are social and cultural taboos, there is always the potential for artists to strike a note of discord amongst the moral majority.

With that in mind, I can think of no filmmaker working today who keeps that renegade spirit alive more than Bruce LaBruce. Read More…

By Michael Varrati

For consistent readers of my work, it should come as no surprise that I spent the better part of the early 90s worshipping at the altar of Rhonda Shear. Through Shear’s hosting of USA Up All Night, I was introduced to a plethora of cult treasures and filmic trash, the likes of which helped mold me into the creepy creature I am today. Some of those movies, such as Night of the Creeps and Friday the 13^th took on lives of their own due to their ever-expanding roles in the zeitgeist. Others, like Vice Academy and Nightmare Sisters, had a decidedly delicious late night flair, forever linked to those hours when I would stay up to watch all things filthy and forbidden.

In their way, each of the movies screened on Up All Night were pleasing because they defied convention and bucked the establishment. No matter what Rhonda had lined-up that week, it was sure to be something your parents would look at with utter disdain.

However, of all the films shown during Rhonda’s tenure on that late night institution, I can think of none that were more fresh, unique, or taboo than Vegas in Space.

A Technicolor fever dream of a film, Vegas in Space was the kind of science fiction picture that celebrated adventure stories of a bygone-era. Bold astronauts, colorful villains, and a pastel planet that has to be seen to be believed, the world of Vegas in Space seems to come right out of the Flash Gordon handbook. However, there is the slight difference that, on this planet, everyone is a fabulous drag queen. Read More…

by Michael Varrati

For a generation of horror movie fans, she is the ultimate survivor.

Although his victims and adversaries proved numerous over a multitude of films, it was in Nancy Thompson that the iconic Freddy Krueger first met his match. Though Nancy would ultimately meet her end at Freddy’s bladed fingers in the subsequent sequels, the character’s plucky determination was forever seared onto the collective brains of fright fandom. Nancy, brought to exuberant life by Heather Langenkamp, has persevered as a symbol of goodness across the decades; leaving a mark that many other final girls only dare dream.

For Langenkamp herself, carrying the legacy of Nancy has been a continuous badge of honor. Having played the character in three films, she is easily one of the most recognizable faces in horror. Yet, for someone as mired in the world of dark fantasy as Langenkamp has become, she has never allowed her thoughts on the genre to grow complacent. Langenkamp’s new documentary, I Am Nancy, serves as a personal investigation into the world that horror cinema has created, and seeks to answer the actor’s own unanswered questions about what compels throngs of fans to revel in such blood-spattered entertainment. Read More…