Each Tuesday, FANGORIA will be presenting Terror Tuesdays on the streaming service Pluto TV, a triple feature of horror films personally selected by a member of the Fango fam. Each week, one of us will curate three titles with a theme of some sort, and the party starts every Tuesday night at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific on the Pluto TV Terror channel. It's all free!
This week we continue the fun with three '80s bangers. The theme this week is a bit looser, sure they're all fun romps from my favorite decade in horror, but the main theme I was going with here was that these are three of my all-time favorites. Consider this one a birthday party block, sort of like I'm inviting you into my living room for a triple feature, because this is very likely exactly how it would go. So while these don't tend to be underseen around these parts, they're three films I love to share whenever I have the chance, and three titles I'll instantly jump on for anyone who hasn't already experienced them.
Motel Hell
The food horror genre has especially freaked me out for as long as I can remember. Something about putting blind trust in the folks who have undertaken the task of feeding us is a bit unsettling, and yet I do it at least three times a day. What's really in that jerky? Motel Hell amplifies that fear ten-fold with the jovial Farmer Vincent (Rory Calhoun), just a good old-fashioned down-home kinda dude who has achieved local notoriety by serving up renowned jerky. But it takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent's fritters, and you may not like some of the items on that ingredient list. The key art for this one is the sort that sticks to you in the video store aisles, follows you home, and never quite releases its hold. It's also one of my favorite FANGORIA covers ever. There are images in this movie you can't unsee and concepts that will remain in your psyche and sneak in occasionally. (I have never looked at gardens the same.) We also get a sticky tagline and all the makings of a stellar Halloween costume in the pig-headed farmer wielding a chainsaw look.
Night of the Comet
Kelli Maroney and Catherine Mary Stewart star as teenage sisters vs. a comet that essentially wipes out human life and transforms folks into zombies. Director Thom Eberhardt cut his teeth on after-school specials, and made his feature debut with this post-apocalyptic jaunt. In an interview for FANGORIA Volume 1 Issue # 40, he calls this "a strange movie" but adds, "I just saw Buckaroo Banzai, not as strange as that." This sci-fi horror comedy imagines an apocalypse through a teenager's perspective, which Eberhardt actually got the inspiration for on the set of one of his aforementioned after-school specials. Maroney's outfit is instantly recognizable, and after sadly being outbid at an auction for the costume, fans raised enough money for the costume to come home to Maroney. Now she' even has a backup to travel with so the original stays safe and secure. Featuring a teenage cheerleader delivering the line, "See, this is the problem with these things. Daddy would have gotten us Uzis.”
Return of the Living Dead
"You think this is a fuckin' costume? This is a way of life!" Also featured in FANGORIA Volume 2 Issue #40, Dan O'Bannon's foray into the zombie sub-genre results in one of the greatest zomcoms ever to grace the screen. The scares are equal to the comedy, and the tongue-in-cheek commentary on the military–industrial complex. And if that doesn't do it for you, we also get a killer soundtrack featuring The Cramps' "Surfin' Dead," punk rockers vs. zombies, and Linnea Quigley with perhaps my favorite bit of foreshadowing in any horror movie. Which is saying a lot.
So I suppose tonight's theme could be "Featured In FANGORIA," "Ripe For Cosplay," "Highly Quotable Horror," as well as "A Tuesday Night In My Living Room." Whatever you'd like to dub it, I hope you have a good time with these three all-time favorites. Tune in tonight at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific on the Pluto TV Terror channel. Enjoy the meal and come back next week for another trifecta of terror!
