GRINDHOUSE AT THE NEW BEVERLY (”Orgy!?”)
Another satisfied (and Jack Daniels-soaked) night at the Grindhouse.
Tonight started in typical Grindhouse fashion - waiting in line outside, chatting with the natives about Bob Clark-this and Herschell Gordon Lewis-that, defending myself from an incredulous New Yorker who couldn’t quite comprehend how it was I’ve never seen Clark’s 1974 classic Black Christmas. I promise him that when it plays next month with Silent Night, Deadly Night, a personal Grindhouse favorite, I will right this great cosmic wrong, and will most definitely be there. He then starts talking about his porn collection, and how he’s running out of places to hide it; at this point, I bury my nose in an LA Weekly…
Once inside, our hosts started their traditional raffle of fabulous prizes, this time including everything from a signed Andy Kaufman documentary to a Ramones poster to…yes, VHS porn. My friend Melodie’s raffle ticket number came up, and she won a signed John Waters poster. And knowing how much I respect and love John Waters and his early films, she saw fit to give it to me.
Right on. Thanks again, Melodie.
Needless to say, she was then welcome and encouraged to imbibe as much of my Jack Daniels as she pleased. She didn’t seem to hit the bottle much, though… The couple behind us, though - they were fond of Jack. Throughout the second movie, we did the tap-on-the-shoulder, hand-back-the-bottle act about four times. But I digress…
There were about six or seven trailers, all of them fabulous and schlocky and campy and mostly narrated with that stern cautionary voice of bloody 70’s exploitation. One of them was for this movie Harlequin, which just looked fucking ridiculous.
Another was for Satan’s Cheerleaders, which looked as fantastic as the title would suggest.
I fucking love the trailers they run when they do Grindhouse nights. At the next scheduled Grindhouse, they’re aiming to run at least an hour’s worth of trailers and shorts - this may sound like hell to some, but it’s bliss and heaven to me.
Finally it was time for The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires and The Vampires’ Night Orgy. And look - the flicks were fantastic. The crowd was rad - that perfect balance between rowdy and reverent - and the movies were entertaining and campy as hell.
…but if you’re going to promise me an orgy, you better deliver…
I think the rest of the audience was with me on this one - as the second movie drew to a close, and it became increasingly clear that this film might end sans its promised orgy, a dude towards the front simply cried out “ORGY!?!” It was a sad cry, like a small boy hopelessly calling his dead hamster’s name as he pokes it with a pen; this was the end of the movie, and we weren’t going to get our orgy. As the credits rolled, many people booed, a rare experience at the New Beverly and Grindhouse screenings; I don’t think it was a judgement call on the evening, however, or on the films themselves.
It was the wail of the orgy-denied.
I take comfort in the fact that the people behind the Grindhouse screenings will be doing a 70’s porn series in the months ahead - tonight they promised to try to line up a live appearance by Marilyn Chambers, and a screening of The Opening of Misty Beethoven.
We’ll have our orgy yet.
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