Texas Frightmare Weekend 2015: Day One

 

Yes!!! Here we go, horror fiends, with the monster TFW posts! This year was my third time attending Texas Frightmare Weekend and it was just as amazing, wonderful, fantastic as the previous two years. But, this year was maybe a bit bigger and more exciting because Frightmare was celebrating its 10th year in existence, and founder Loyd Cryer really knocked it out of the park with all the amazing guests he lined up.

 

My personal experience was also enhanced a lot more because I not only snagged myself one of the coveted VIP passes, but I was also able to get a room in the host hotel. The previous two years I stayed off-site, so I missed out on the late night parties and other convention shenanigans - but not this year! This year I tried to be there for almost all of it to really get the full TFW experience. Here's some pics of my awesome VIP swag bag.

 

 

Alright, enough of that. Let's get into all the cool shit I got to do.

Friday night I had a photo op and a screening to attend, plus I had to scope out the vendors and make mental notes of what I wanted to buy. I wanted to save all of my more anticipated meet-and-greets for Saturday when things were more exciting, so I just got a few of the "smaller" (for lack of a better term) guests this first night.

First up was director Don Coscarelli. I know he was there for the Phantasm reunion that they were having, but I am sadly not a Phantasm fan! I've only seen the first film. Anyway, Don was an amazing first meet of the convention. I handed him the Bubba Ho-Tep picture I picked out for him to sign, and all I had to say was how much I loved the movie before he starts telling me stories of what Ossie Davis was like on set. We also discussed the odd but awesome tone of the movie. When I told him that Incident On and Off a Mountain Road was my favorite Masters of Horror entry, he said he really appreciated hearing that because he was nervous about being in the company of so many other amazing horror directors for that. No need, Don, your film was amazing! Don was so incredibly nice and he gave every fan in his line a great conversation, and that's the kind of celebrity I always appreciate at cons. Wonderful guy!

 

...and an action shot with the Phantasm ball.

 

 

Speaking earlier of Masters of Horror, my next meet was an actor in my really-close-second favorite entry. I'm sadly not as familiar as I should be with Udo Kier's earlier work, but I have loved seeing him in stuff like Blade and Halloween, etc. One of my favorite horror scenes of all time is in John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns when Udo is feeding his own intestines into the film projector, so I was really hoping that he would have a Cigarette Burns picture at his table. And, lo and behold, not only did he have a picture from that movie, but the picture was of that very scene! Ah, it must be fate. Udo was also a very cool guy. I love his accent.

 

 

I was very undecided this year about what order I wanted to do my meetings because I had SO FREAKING MANY OF THEM to do. So I stopped at my favorite poster vendor - they have the best deal on 11x17 prints at buy 3, get one free - and spent what felt like an eternity trying to pick out the four I wanted. One was a Hellraiser poster, and one was pretty cool because it was a "Stab" poster, in honor of the guests from Scream. The other two are ones that I got signed later, including my next meet and greet with...

 

...Camille Keaton! Very excited and honored to meet this lady, and she was so sweet and conversational. She also liked the sparkly skull earrings that I was wearing, so bonus for me! I told her that she should be so proud of herself, obviously talking about I Spit on Your Grave, and she gave me a wonderful smile and "thank you" for that. I also gave her praise for What Have You Done to Solange? and she gave me a great signature and picture with her!

 

 

 

The two big headliners this year were Neve Campbell and Skeet Ulrich. Neve wasn't allowing pictures at her table because they thought she was going to be too busy, so I got a professional photo op with her and Skeet because he was also going to be wearing the Ghostface costume for the pics and that is just fucking cool. When I walked up to get in position between them, Skeet noticed my Carrie t-shirt and says, "Carrie?!" I'm not sure if that was an exclamation of disapproval or what, but it was still pretty funny. And our picture came out awesome!

 

Time for some food and then the first of two movie screenings I went to this weekend. I was actually strangely excited for Gutterballs 2: Balls Deep, because while the first one was a bit much in some parts, overall I could appreciate the campy craziness of it. Director Ryan Nicholson was there to introduce and talk about the movie, and he told us that we were the first audience to see it and that it was mostly a rough cut (uh oh) and that the last third of the movie wasn't going to make a whole lot of sense (double uh oh) and that it got very nasty and brutal at the end. Oooookay. He was definitely right. The look and feel of the sequel was pretty much the same as it was for Gutterballs in the first part of the film, but yes, there is a point where the movie goes off in crazy direction and then just ends with a lot of sexually brutal stuff. I didn't really hate or love Gutterballs 2 - there were some interesting trippy scenes - so maybe I'll have to see it again when Nicholson is done with it. Gutterballs 3: No Holes Barred (OMG) is apparently coming in 2016.

 

 

Normally this would have been the end of my Friday night, but since I was staying at the hotel this year, I finally got to go to the Friday night party, which they always make some special theme for whoever the guests are that year. This year they had the Phantasm Ball (haha), and because Gutterballs 2 started at the same time as the party, I missed whatever craziness happened at the beginning. I was there for the costume contest, and some guy dressed as the Babadook won. I imbibed a little and danced a little and stayed up way too late even though I knew Saturday was going to be a long ass day. Oh well. It was a lot of fun!

 

 

Oh, but all this isn't even close to the amount of awesome that I would experience this weekend! Saturday was the most amazing day, so definitely stay tuned for that!

 

 

Day Two is now available HERE!

And go HERE for Day Three!

 



Movie Review: What Have You Done to Solange? (1972)

 

So, where are all the bad giallos? I honestly don't think I've come across one yet that I have not thoroughly enjoyed. I might have found this film eventually, but mostly it was added to my queue because of the involvement of one Camille Keaton, who plays the titular character of Solange. The only slight warning here is that you do have to wait quite a long time to actually see her.

Enrico, a professor at a girls Catholic school is out having an affair with one of his students when the two become a part of the scene of a brutal killing of another young girl. More deaths soon follow, and though Enrico is initially a suspect, he becomes determined to find out who is committing these acts and why.

Okay, let me just get this out of the way. The movie was a bit more graphic than I was expecting when it came to the murders. With the first murder by the river bank - the one witnessed by pervy Enrico and his school girl fling Elizabeth - we see the girl running through the trees from the killer... and then comes the money shot. The girl's knees are parted and the black-gloved killer stabs her between the legs with a knife. That was bad enough. But later on, the police - for some ridiculous reason - show the pictures of the corpse to all the professors at Enrico's school, so I had to see that shit yet again. Oh but wait! For some other ridiculous reason, the police decide to show the girl's father the X-ray of his daughter's pelvis with the 7-inch knife all the way up her body. Seriously. I GET IT. Please stop showing me this stuff. I'm not saying it was unnecessary or anything, and at the end we find out why it is symbolic, but my lady parts hurt just thinking about it.

Traumatic female wounding aside, What Have You Done to Solange? is a pretty great giallo film. The plot definitely takes some more twists and turns than previous films I've seen, and it becomes more than just a simple murder mystery. Similar to something like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, the main character starts out wanting to solve the murders in order to clear himself from suspicion, but that changes when the circumstances become more personal. From the title, we all know that this has to do with someone named Solange. However, that name is not even mentioned until 1 hour and 15 minutes into the movie. It's a bit frustrating but effective in making sure that you keep watching until the very end to find out just what was done to Solange and what it has to do with the murders.

The plot is very well paced, and there all of the scenes are important to the next turn of the storyline. There is just the right amount of suspects and red herrings to keep the audience guessing, with new possible suspects and motives being revealed all the time as the mystery unfolded. The film is not terribly exciting in terms of action or suspense really, not even in the murder scenes, but I never minded that. I loved the characters and trying to figure out their secrets, and was never hoping for anything more than what I was given. The murder scenes are sometimes beautiful and very stylized in their execution, usually from the point of view of the killer and never really shows much of their body, so it could be either male or female. The film is bloodless in a beautiful way, able to show the brutality of each act without getting overly graphic. The female nudity - and there's quite a bit - also does not feel that graphic, but rather natural and normal for each situation that it shows up in.

Mostly what I was interested in with What Have You Done to Solange? was the character relationships, and the way they were handled. Most interesting, and somewhat baffling, was the marriage of Enrico and Herta. Enrico doesn't do that great of a job covering up his pervert affair with his student Elizabeth (he even has a sort of fuck pad for the two of them) and it all seems to be the wife's fault because she's introduced as a bitch from the start. Who knows, but to me it kinda sound like she had a reason to be that way. Then, after (spoiler alert) Elizabeth's death, Herta finds out that the girl was still a virgin and suddenly all is forgiven when it comes to Enrico, and the two of them spend the rest of the movie solving the mystery together. Yes, it is a very small relief that he never actually did the teenager, but let's not forget the scene where the two of them were obviously doing some naked sexy things with each other. Every marriage is different, but some things should not be forgiven so easily, I think.

Ah, another awesome giallo experience! There are still plenty more where What Have You Done to Solange? comes from, and though I've enjoyed all my giallos thus far, this is definitely not one to forget. It has wonderful acting from all involved, and a compelling story that makes sure that you stick around for the end. I just hope I never see another knife in a vagina again. Seriously...