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This movie kicked off the atomic age Giant Insect Horror Sci-F genre. It was immediately followed up by another of my favorites Tarantula (1955). Them!'s influence can be seen in one of last years selections, Tremors (1990). I think this is the purist version in that you take an insect, have it manipulated by human science run amok, it becomes gigantic and starts killing humans. This is an Atomic age warning to risks nuclear energy. It's a call for nuclear non-proliferation and a stop to the cold war. It's also fun to watch giant ants smash homes and eat people.

This movie marks the return of celebrated indie director Richard Stanley who made an incredible sci-fi horror movie with Hardware (1990) and was last seen being a secret extra in Island of Dr. Moreau (1996). He was the original director but was famously railroaded by his insane lead actors, one of which, pressured the studio to fire him. It's a wild ass story that was made into the documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau (2014).
I think this is a totally fleshed out and faithful in tone adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's "Colour Out of Space." I think this is a very effective psychological body horror film. It also stars our man, our hero, Nicolas Cage! Cage has been the perfect compliment as of late to these great indie horror gems. A marathon of Mom and Dad (2017), Mandy (2018), and Color Out of Space (2019) would be fantastic. I would tack on Vampire's Kiss (1988) for good measure.

First off, I have to be clear about my bias here, I am emotionally and physically in love with this movie. It does what Cannibal Holocaust and Green Inferno tried to do if the makers of those films weren’t blinded by racism, one upmanship and in trying to make the most shocking or gruesome film possible. I believe that every shocking bit here is worth going through the trauma for, in order to better understand our bodies and our culture. Specifically how we view Life and Death.
Ari Astor has written and directed a transcendent horror film. It could have read as a shock or exploitation film but Ari chose to put in the work. To inject anthropology into his film, and to try to truly understand a culture that doesn’t adhere to our Judeo-Christian modern western values. I would argue that there are no easy villains in this story. There is no boogeyman. There is no shadow of literal darkness. It all takes place under an endless sun with one culture's exaltation being another’s nightmare.
The villagers show extreme empathy for our hero. Mourning when she mourns. They show compassion for their elderly. They have a well thought out life cycle and value the community as a whole over the individual. I find it extremely condescending when reviewers of this movie refer to them as a cult. All of the depictions here are rooted in real rituals that took place in pagan communities throughout Europe. I find that referring to them as a cult is being dismissive of a way of life the writers choose not to fully understand.
I’ve thought a lot about aging and death in the last few years. I’ve witnessed the pain and helplessness of old age. In our culture we made choosing your own mortality illegal and then conversely gave everyone the illusion that we have a choice as to what happens to our body after we die. We allow people to be buried with embalmed organs just in case they need them in the afterlife. We treat death like it’s something to be feared and staved off for as long as possible despite quality of life. Our teens sing along to pop music motifs like, “I’m gonna live forever!” The fear audiences feel while watching Midsommar are these ideas reflecting back at them.
Midsommar is beautiful movie, and fucking horrifying. I’ve been waiting to watch the 170 minute director’s cut for this event but, if I’m being totally honest, I’m afraid of this movie. I don’t think I could have chosen to watch this at home on like a weeknight, like, “Sure! Let’s order a pizza and watch the three hour cut of Midsommar.” It pushes boundaries in a similar way I felt when I first saw Full Metal Jacket or Requiem For A Dream. I believe this movie to be just as culturally relevant.

Basket Case rulez.
I love director Frank Henenlotter’s whole fucking thing. His whole oeeeeeeuvre. He wrote and directed Brain Damage (1988), Frankenhooker (1990) and all three Basket Case movies. All of which are great and truly weird as fuck. I usually avoid using the word weird because it’s overuse has diminished it's meaning, but Basket Case is a weeeeird ass movie. It has a 70’s grindhouse feel and is very creative in its low budget effects. Henenlotter is using all the tools of the low budget auteur even incorporating stop motion animation. When you see that scene, you’ll realize that he is doing whatever he can to get his script, his vision, onto film.
I always love seeing New York City depicted in the 70’s and 80’s. With its porno theaters in Times Square and just general griminess. This movie has a Taxi Driver (1976) quality to it. I can hear Travis Bickle saying “All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal...and now Basket Cases”
I have a lot of empathy for our lead characters. I think it adds depth to the story that feels similar to The Elephant Man (1980).
It’s grindy, gross fun and oddly touching. We'll be watching this one on glorious VHS!

No Spoilers! This is a very easy to spoil movie so I’m only really gonna write about context. This movie was essentially a student film. It was the product of an acting and directing seminar final, based out of Tokyo, with most of the cast and crew paying to work on the movie. It was made on a reported $25,000 budget which was partially crowdfunded. It originally only got a six day run at a small theatre in Tokyo, it was then invited to the Udine Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy where it became a major success. From there, it gained wider exposure and was re-released in Japan. It earned a worldwide box office gross of 30 million dollars! Basically, This is a student film, on a micro budget, that through it’s sheer excellence of craft became a worldwide success.
It continues to grow in popularity being shown on The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs via Shudder most recently. That’s how I originally saw it and I highly recommend you watch that episode of the show. It had lots of great insight into the film and a passionate Joe Bob speech at the end of the show about the merit of making art despite a lack of resources or conventional wisdom, that had me tearing up.
This movie is extremely clever and fun as fuck. We’ll just have to leave it at that. Luke Bob Bergkoetter says, “Check it out.”

“THEY CHARGE AN ARM AND A LEG” is the delightful tagline for Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers. Do the sex workers give them the sex and then chainsaw off an arm and leg for payment? Do they only take one arm and one leg or do they mix it up? Do they bandage these guys up and send them on their way, services rendered? Well, we’ll all just have to find out!
I’ve never seen Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers but judging by reputation and the title, we are in for a real treat. Fred Olen Ray directed this cult classic (to some). He has made over 150 films and counting and has used 30 plus pseudonyms. All low to medium budget movies; lots of action, sci-fi, horror and lucrative soft core porn made for late night subscription cable. A couple of my favorites movies of his are Cyberzone (1995) and Biohazard (1983) but looking at his IMDB page is mind blowing. I counted 17 movies with Bikini in the title, my favorite being Bikini Frankenstein (maybe a future Feast Fest movie). He also has 14 movies with the word Christmas in the title to balance out his career. This guy also owns an independent wrestling federation called ACW where he wrestles under the name “Fabulous” Freddy Valentine. He also loaned Quenten Tarrentino a 16mm camera to make one his first film, My Best Friend’s Birthday (1987) to which was never finished. He is a true Hollywood industry weirdo.
The stars of this movie are Indie horror royalty. My favorite scream queen Linea Quigley stars in this movie. She is best known for her portrayal of the morbid punk who does a naked striptease on a gravestone in The Return of the Living Dead (1985). She has been in 125 movies and counting, mostly B-movie horror. Some of my favs of hers are Night of the Demons (1988) and Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988) and Silent Night Deadly Night (1984). Gunnar Hansen also stars in this movie as the cult leader. He is famous for his portrayal as Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Gunnar was an interesting guy that preferred writing to acting. He also turned down the role of Leatherface for the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003 citing that it was offensive to remake the film. I agree bud.
I’ve been waiting to watch this movie for Feast Fest after it took me so long to acquire a copy on VHS. It is by far the most expensive tape I own because of its rarity and cult status especially amongst VHS collectors which is driven by horror fans. After a long struggle with a dickhead on Ebay who would put his copy up for bid, but then when he wouldn't get the price he wanted, would bid on it himself with an alternate account, and then repost it minutes after the auction ended. After winning the auction several times and then losing to the seller who consistently refused to sell to me, I posted my frustrations to a VHS Horror collectors group I’m a member of on Facebook. A guy seeing my cries for help agreed to sell me a copy for the fair price of 275 dollars. This is by far my most valuable tape. Collectors are out of their fucking minds but, now everyone gets to see the magic of Fred Olen Ray’s Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, on the medium is was meant for, glorious VHS!

This movie is fun as fuck! It’s my favorite in the Child’s Play franchise. After the huge unexpected success of Child’s Play (1988) the producers got a bigger budget which meant more animatronic Chucky on screen. That sometimes hurts a horror movie because you wanna build monster suspense but not this movie, no fucking way. Every minute Chucky is on screen, voiced by the incomparable Brad Dourif, is a fucking delight!
The animatronics and character designs are really creepy and a lot more effective than the modern CGI remake. The new version uses CGI to render Chucky to look like a robot as opposed to building an actual robot. How great would it look if they had a major studio budget to build a modern Chucky doll?! I also want to point out that Don Mancini, the man who wrote all of the Chucky movies and directed the last three, with the most recent one being Cult of Chucky in 2017, was not involved with nor interested in the remake in 2019. He is still actively building the Chucky mythos and I think it's fucked to reboot a franchise that is still active, especially with it’s original creator still involved.
Just like a lot of horror franchises, the villain becomes the star. Brad Dourif as chucky rulez. He is incredible in One Flew Over The Cookoo’s Nest (1975), Dune (1984) and HBO’s Deadwood (2004-2006). He was also the villain in a little known insane sci-fi horror movie, Death Machine (1994), to which I can not recommend more.
My little brother had a My buddy doll right around the time this movie came out and I scared the shit out of him by just detailing the plot of this movie. That My Buddy doll ended up being donated to a salvation army just to haunt some other kid.
I’m so stoked to watch this movie again. It’s one of my personal favorites. This movie is big, gory, colorful and hella funny.

I’m excited to revisit this old favorite. I saw this the first time at the Art Theatre in Champaign sometime in like 2004. Anyhow, The owner of Lix, a former horror/goth boutique shop in champaign, was hosting a series of horror movies. I ended up going to the by myself. I remember that detail because the host Jill sat next to me when she saw that I was by myself. It may have been a pity sit or she was into me, who knows. I am embarrassed to report that I was a little drunk and I fell asleep so I pretty much blew it. Whatever “It” may have been, which is the story of my early adult life. Anywaaaay, I later rented the movie and fell in love.
This is director Dario Argento’s most popular movie and probably the most famous Giallo film. Giallo translates to yellow in Italian which is a reference to the pulpy paperbacks sold at that time. The genre is generally described as kinda trashy horror psychological thrillers that usually involve a mysterious slasher killer. I think Suspiria elevates the genre to more of a high art status with its creative use of color and avant garde directing. I love Giallo movies. They counterbalance the typically cold American slasher with a more romantic European flair. They tend to be more erotic versus just like topless coeds being murdered in a lake or something. Don't get me wrong, 80’s American slashers are my favs, but it’s nice to add a little opera, a little melodrama to the genre.

I haven’t seen this movie since I was a teenager and I’m really curious to revisit it for Feast 11! It was one of the few tapes my mom owned and with hindsight It makes sense that she really loved it too. Of the dozen or so tapes she had, A League of Their Own (1992), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Stevie Nicks: Live at Red Rocks (1987), The Freddie Mercury Tribute: Concert for AIDS Awareness (1992) and of course Death Becomes Her (1992). I watched all of these tapes a bunch of times. She was definitely seeking out movies that focused on women dealing with the patriarchy and gay issues. I think it is also important to note that for the late 80’s and most of the 90’s my mom was in a lesbian relationship. Anyway, I’m giving all this context because I think Death Becomes Her is thematically similar to those other movies.
The movie was made during the cosmetic surgery boom and is a direct commentary on the cult of youth. It has to do with the pressure and unrealistic expectations put on women, especially celebrity women. What makes this movie super entertaining is taking this conflict to its logical extreme. This plays out like sketch comedy sometimes does; Start with a premise and take it as far as it can go to get laughs.
Robert Zemekis directed this movie around the same time he was also working on HBO’s Tales From The Crypt series. I think you can easily read Death Becomes Her as a Tales From The Crypt movie. A morality tale shown through the lens of Horror Comedy.
There are huge performances here from Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Bruce Willis and Isabelle Rossalini, with Meryl and Bruce’s characters being way off brand.