Scream and Scream Again

Meyer is also the godfather of the monthly “Brew and View” 35mm
series at Eastwood’s Palace Theatre, 2384 James St., and he has screened
a treasure trove of hard-to-find cult flicks. Meyer has nothing slated
until a Halloween-timed showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show
and Day of the Dead on Oct. 29, however, which is sad news for
sicko cinema fans. But if Meyer is slowing down, at least he’s going out
in style. This year’s Luu Fest, running Saturday, June 12, at the
Palace, fields perhaps the loopiest collection in its six-year history.

But first, something for the young at heart. An all-ages program
begins at noon on Saturday with 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple
of Doom, the second in the Steven Spielberg franchise, with a
somewhat nasty, go-for-the-gusto approach to its action sequences and
violent set pieces that pushed its then-PG rating to the maximum. It
scored a mammoth $179 million during its initial release. At 2 p.m. is
1987’s low-budget thriller The Gate, involving kids who discover a
doorway to hell in their back yard. The headlines back then chortled
that The Gate almost topped its opening weekend’s competition,
the $55 million Dustin Hoffman-Warren Beatty flopperoo Ishtar,
which went on to a mere $14 million in returns, whereas The Gate
earned $13 million on its minuscule budget. Admission to this matinee is
$8. 

Star Search: Harrison Ford (above) is the biggest lure
at Saturday's Shaun Luu Horror Fest, as Indiana Jones and the Temple
of Doom is featured with the drive-in flicks Death Race 2000,
The Evil Dead, The Deadly Spawn and Louis Tripp in The
Gate. 

The heavy artillery comes out for the evening attractions, starting
at 4:30 p.m. with Death Race 2000, director Paul Bartel’s
futuristic car-crash comedy classic that stars David Carradine and hammy
scene-stealer Sylvester Stallone in one of cost-cutting producer Roger
Corman’s best efforts. That’s followed by the creepy Henry: Portrait
of a Serial Killer, director John McNaughton’s disturbing 1990
examination of a slovenly psychopath (played by Michael Rooker). 

At 7:45 p.m. comes the festival’s highpoint: a screening of 1987’s Street
Trash accompanied by a live commentary from writer-producer Roy
Frumkes, who will wax nostalgic about his goofy plot concerning winos
who experience major meltdowns after quaffing a toxic substance. That’s
followed by the grisly medieval idiocy of 1970’s Torture Dungeon,
a shoestring costume epic from Staten Island gay auteur Andy Milligan.
Flavored with a 42nd Street grindhouse griminess, this masterwork
features bons mots such as, “I’m not a homosexual. I’m not a
heterosexual. I’m not asexual. I’m trisexual: I’ll try anything for

pleasure!” 

 

The rest of the films start unspooling after 10:15 p.m. A new
restored print is promised for 1981’s The Evil Dead, the
precocious drive-in horror hit that jump-started director Sam Raimi’s
career and launched the B-movie resume of antic actor Bruce Campbell.
There’s a smaller fan base that still appreciates 1985’s Weird
Science, writer-director John Hughes’ dual riffs on The Bride of
Frankenstein and EC Comics that involves hormonally rampant lads
(Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith) who somehow create the
perfect woman (Kelly LeBrock), although what still lingers in the mind
after all these years is Oingo Boingo’s catchy theme song. 

And if you’re still awake, make room for Halloween 3: Season of
the Witch, the 1982 offshoot of the franchise that’s only
tangentially connected to the Michael Myers mythos, this time concerning
a mask-manufacturing factory and some planned bad times for kiddie
trick-or-treaters. The fest concludes in the wee hours with 1983’s The
Deadly Spawn, shot on the cheap (a reported $25,000 for the
original 16mm production) and loaded with ungodly gruesomeness in its
saga of an alien invasion and the teens who must stop it.

An all-day admission to the 2010 Shaun Luu Horror Fest is $20. For
more information, call 436-4723.