Starring: Allan Berendt, Hope Stansbury, Patricia Gaul
A howlingly-good time awaits this October on THE DEUCE – when gutter-auteur Andy Milligan’s monster-mash-up BLOOD spills across the screen – eliciting more laughs than screams – as it did with the scuzzballs at Times Square’s Selwyn Theater in 1974… or was it 1976? Or both!?!
With 1970s Staten Island doubling for “1930s London” – the Wolfman’s son and Dracula’s daughter live in less-than marital bliss and spend their time raising blood-sucking plants!?! While blood-thirsty bats turn townsfolk into cannibals!?! With real-estate chicanery and philandering leading to multiple murders!?! And then come even more plot improbabilities to make your mind spin! Mad scientists with deformed lab assistants, vampires, and man-eating plants are just the beginning – but there’s seemingly no end to the hatred spewed by and at everyone involved!!
Yet again Milligan cobbles together his usual mix of over-the-top theatrics and acting (with muse extraordinaire, Hope Stansbury in a stand-out performance), paltry period costumes, and a non-stop barrage of bitter dialogue – sprinkled with some cut-rate gore and skin-crawly “sex” to pander to the perverts of his Times Square “audience” – and fashions what may be the best of his singular, stridently demented, lunatic dreams… it’s actually atmospheric!
Starring: Claudia Jennings, Sam Gilman, Douglas Dirkson
Sink your teeth into a Cajun feast of fury this November when THE DEUCE serves up a hot-plate of back-woods revenge with Beverly and Ferd Sebastian’s everglades-exploitationer GATOR BAIT – heating it up as it did the denizens of Times Square’s Harris Theater in the sweaty summer of 1974!
Like a bayou bobcat, ‘Desiree Thibodaeu’ has a ferally fine time supporting her siblings by poaching from the bounty of the swamp she calls home… until some slack-jawed rednecks and a long-standing family feud lead to a bout of brutal barbarity that pits our gutsy gal of action against a putrid patriarchy of psychos, sickos, and prejudiced scumbags who soon discover they’ve bitten off more than even a gator could chew… when they become the hunted at the hands of the hillbilly hell-cat hell-bent on revenge!
With the verdant setting evocatively lensed by Ferd and a screenplay by Beverly that strikes a stridently feminist note, it’s still the incomparable Claudia Jennings – in her second film with the husband-wife Sebastian directing team – igniting the sun-scorched steamy swamp as ‘Desiree’ – and dishing out some well-deserved comeuppance on everyone who done her and her family wrong – that sets this no-budget exploitation actioner on fire!! And you won’t stop singing her theme song, “Desiree,” to yourself either… yes-sir-ee, I gar-run-tee!
Generation Queer spotlights short films made by emerging LGBTQIA+ filmmakers.
These unique works challenge, subvert, and twist the boundaries of independent cinema. A portion of ticket sales from Generation Queer will go to the Centro Comunitario LGBT de Puerto Rico.
Curated by Lio Mehiel and Erica Rose
FRAN THIS SUMMER – Dir. Mary Evangelista
Teenage love birds spend slow and tender summer days shacked up at home while one begins her transition. (9 min)
SELL YOUR BODY – Dir. Jaanelle Yee
A millennial horror-comedy about a med school dropout suffocated by student debt who swipes a wild couple on a dating app to make some fast cash.
DAUGHTERS OF WOLBACHIA – Dir. Ariel McCleese
In the wake of a feminist bacterial apocalypse, three women fight to secure domination over man once and for all.
NI DE AQUI, NI DE ALLA – Dir. Carlos Valdivia
Jose’s financial aid runs out a week before a prestigious interview that puts his future in jeopardy.
GIRL TALK – Dir. Erica Rose
20-something Mia explores the disparity between emotional and physical intimacy, coming to a head when she meets an intriguing couple.
Starring: Regina Baff, Mildred Burke, John C. Becher, Annie McGreevey, Jane O’Brien, Sierra Pecheur
This September, THE DEUCE is gonna grab you by the throat and hit ya BELOW THE BELT… the low-budget, shot-in-1974, all-female wrestling romp that walloped the weirdos of Times Square’s Selwyn Theater when it finally hit the screen in 1980!
Bored with her going-nowhere job, NYC waitress Rosa Rubinsky decides to take a career turn into the wrestling ring – reinventing and redubbing her Polish persona into “The Mexican Spitfire”! Tedious travelling between two-bit towns and trying to survive on bout-to-bout bounty take the forefront in this gritty behind-the-scenes slice of a subculture in its pre-TV glitter days… Low on glamor and glory but brimming with gusto – these gutsy gals give it their all as real actors mix it up with real wrestlers – like the dirty-dealing, mostly toothless Jane “Tommy The Terrible” O’Brien!
Engagingly adapted from Rosalyn Dexter’s semi-autobiographical novel To Smithereens by Sherry Sonnet and director Robert Fowler, BELOW THE BELT is a scrappy ride with a real feel for time and place and a real care for its characters… A rarely seen road movie of camaraderie and choke-holds that takes a wild ride with some amazing women… BELOW THE BELT hits the spot! We have a winner!!
Starring: Dora Madison, Tru Collins, Rhys Wakefield, Jeremy Gardner, Graham Skipper, George Wendt
A brilliant painter facing the worst creative block of her life turns to anything she can to complete her masterpiece, spiraling into a hallucinatory hellscape of drugs, sex, and murder in the sleazy underbelly of Los Angeles.
Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Maika Monroe, Kyra Sedgwick, Jeffrey Donovan
Mickey and Jules are lovers on the run, headed southbound for a fresh start in the Sunshine State. When their car dies after a gas station robbery, they break into a nearby house looking for a new set of wheels. What they find instead is a dark secret, and a sweet-as-pie pair of homeowners who will do anything to keep it from getting out.
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer
Three small-town friends, Alexandra (Cher), Jane (Susan Sarandon) and Sukie (Michelle Pfeiffer), each having lost the man in their lives, are feeling unfulfilled — until a furtive stranger, Daryl Van Horne (Jack Nicholson), arrives and begins courting each of them in turn. Eventually, Daryl tells them that they are witches. But as the three friends spend more time at his mansion, enjoying themselves and learning about their powers, they begin to worry about Daryl’s ultimate intentions.
Starring: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs, Hermione Gingold, Ernie Kovacs
John Van Druten’s stage comedy Bell, Book and Candle starred Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer on Broadway. The 1958 filmed version stars James Stewart and Kim Novak, fresh from their successful teaming in Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Novak plays Gillian Holroyd, a genuine, bonafide witch. Falling in love with publisher Sheperd Henderson (Stewart), Gillian casts a spell on him, obliging him to dump his fiancee and rush to her side. All of this goes against the grain of Gillian’s mentor Mrs. De Pass (Hermione Gingold), who does her best to counterract the love spell. Meanwhile, Gillian’s wacky warlock brother Nicky (Jack Lemmon) courts disaster by coauthoring a book on black magic with pompous, bibulous novelist Sidney Redlitch (Ernie Kovacs).
Starring: Chad Webber, Robin Kohn, Stephen Shea, David Carey
This second feature film based on Charles Schultz’s charming, unpretentious Peanuts comic strip is a vast improvement over the first film, A Boy Named Charlie Brown (it doesn’t have the Rod McKuen music, for one thing). Snoopy, Come Home centers upon the adventures of Charlie Brown’s pet beagle, Snoopy, and his tiny, yellow pal, Woodstock. When Snoopy’s original owner Lila is hospitalized, the two take-off to comfort her. Back home, Charlie Brown is being ribbed by his friends because of the revelation that Snoopy had a previous owner (“You’ve got a used dog, Charlie Brown!” one child cries). All of this leads up to a fateful decision for Snoopy — which owner will Snoopy choose to live with?
