New TT calendar! Such good movies! Oh man! Dang! Wow!

Yo, everybody.

So here it is: the first Terror Tuesday calendar ever. For many very feasible and logical reasons, we're moving Terror Thursdays from Thursdays at midnight to Tuesdays at 10-ish (check online each week for exact times, but always between 9:30 and 10:30). Some people have bellyached a whole bunch about it because they don't have more pressing, real concerns in their lives, but the counter-argument is available. Just email me at zack@originalalamo.com and I'll send you the lowdown.

Hey, I hate change too, especially Ipods and new architecture and all that shit. But keep in mind a few things about our new Tuesday night home:

- No more trouble finding parking. And those police barricades won't be up neither, nope.

- No more post-bar crowd to wade through after the show. Maybe you're a fan of that delicate mixture of vomit and cleavage. Me? Not so much.

- No more getting sleepy during the show, and better yet, no more being too tired for both a Weird Wednesday and Terror Thursday in a single week. Now, if you choose to (and you should), you'll be able to enjoy a top notch horror movie at Terror Tuesday, be in bed by midnight, get a full night's rest, get your brain whammeled by Weird Wednesday at midnight and have had a full and enriching week before Thursday morning even hits. Is this not paradise?

- Less shows in the little theater. Over the summer, we had to move into the small room several times as blockbusters and crummy Jack Black fart comedies took the big screen for their big Thursday midnight premieres. Well, no more.

- Better alliteration. Terror TH-ursday? Come on.

...But let's move on to the meat. We've got so many good titles in the new calendar that you're gonna punch your face off before your eyeballs reach February. Take a gander, cap'n:

HOWLING 2: WEREWOLF BITCH
with star Sybil Danning LIVE IN PERSON!
Jan 6, Free, Dir. Philippe Mora, 1985, 35mm, 91 min, R
There is NO BETTER MOVIE IN THE GODDAMN WORLD to kick off Terror Tuesdays than this ferocious assault on the human skull, and no better guest to experience it with than The Queen of the Werewolves herself: horror/exploitation film legend SYBIL DANNING! Here, this unstoppable powerhouse performer masterfully portrays lycanthropic overlord Stirba, a supernaturally canine annihilator with a sharpened sweet tooth for human carnage. Witness her firing black magic lazerbeams from her eyes, indulging in three-way werewolf boot-knocking, battling fearless monster hunter Christopher Lee and howling at a pitch that makes a dwarf’s eyeballs explode! The last time we played HOWLING II, the audience had so much fun that the governor’s mansion got set on fire! Now, with the Ultimate Wolfwoman loose in the theater, it’ll most certainly mean the total extinction of all life on this planet. Special thanks to Reb Hibbert.

DEMONS
Jan 13, Free, Dir. Lamberto Bava, 1985, 35mm, 88 min, R
Italians are a hateful and bloodthirsty race. This inarguable fundamental aspect of their species is apparent in everything they touch, but is possibly best executed in this unchallenged masterpiece of rabid, hellish possession. Co-written by iconic eurosadist Dario Argento and directed by the son of Italy’s apocryphal horror auteur Mario Bava, DEMONS is an unrepentant vomit-geyser of torn digestive tracts and anti-human plague sewage. A panorama of stereotypes - punks, preppies, the pimp and his stable - are trapped in a run down cinema by a man with a metal face, and soon the ungodly events unspooling on the silver screen erupt into a maniacal graphic harvesting of shrieking mutilated victims. The demon virus spreads through the theater like a lightning bolt with a switchblade, and no opportunity for repugnant gratuitous violence is left untaken. Actually, just watching this movie is a second degree felony.

NIGHTMARES
Jan 20, Free, Dir. Joseph Sargent, 1983, 35mm, 99 min, R
The four stories in this deeply unhinged horror anthology were originally shot as individual episodes for eerie TV series DARKROOM, but were deemed too intense and/or ridiculous for broadcast. Fortunately, they were later souped up with new, more offensive footage and released to capitalize on the success of CREEPSHOW. If you’re looking for a movie with giant super-powered rats, lunatic gas station slashers and Satan in the form of a 4-wheel-drive monster truck bursting out of the desert and attacking a fallen priest, NIGHTMARES should be among your top 10 choices. Did I mention punk rocker/video arcade addict Emilio Estevez going one-on-one with digital demonoid The Bishop of Battle? Ai yi yi. Be here, and leave your attention span on the bus.

INVASION USA - SPECIAL TERRORIST TUESDAY SCREENING!
Jan 27, Free, Dir. Joseph Zito, 1985, 35mm, 107 min, R
Like air, water and food, Chuck Norris is essential to life. In his 68 years walking among lesser men, the iron-fisted action deity has appeared in 30 films, backed multiple charities, cured cancer and delivered a baby on board a burning airplane. His immense love for mankind earned him the honor of being named “The Better Jesus” by Pope John Paul in the early ‘90s. But if there’s one thing that Chuck Norris hates, it’s terrorism. So when horribly scarred character actor Richard Lynch unleashes a Christmastime plot to invade and enslave the American people, who do you think is going to be there with his shirt torn open, clutching an uzi in each hand and delivering white-hot retribution to anyone who’d dare compromise the comfort and happiness of our fellow citizens? I’ll give you a hint: it’s CHUCK FUCKING NORRIS. Though this rocket-launching battle cry against injustice doesn’t feature a single mummy, Frankenstein or sea monster, its heroic unrelenting all-American violence will you have the entire Terror Tuesday audience weeping red, white and blue blood in a blazing frenzy of patriotic rage! NO OSAMAS ALLOWED!!!

MAUSOLEUM
Feb 3, Free, Dir. Michael Dugan, 1983, 35mm, 96 min, R
Some horror movies came to being solely to prove that true entertainment has NO RULES. Dig to the bottom of the ‘80s terrorbarrel, and beneath all the latex disfigurements and blood-soaked lingerie, you’ll find this sparkling gem of low-budget filth. A woman (professional naked lady Bobbie Bresee) is infected with some of that no-good Satanic darkness upon visiting her mother’s grave, and she soon embarks on a logic-defying spree of telekinetic head-burstings, sexual mutilations and high-octane unholy transformations, including one memorable segment where her breasts become carnivorous goblin heads. This inevitably leads to some stress in her relationship with her husband, played by notorious screen dud/former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner, as well as SANFORD & SON’s wisecracking LaWanda Page as the maid who won’t take shit from demons or anyone else. Throw in one crazed gardener, Mephisto-spawned lazerlight and a brutal disregard for all rational motives or dialogue, and you’re in for the best sub-zero-intellect cinematic aneurysm of your life.

DEVIL TIMES FIVE
Feb 10, Free, Dir. Sean MacGregor, 1974, 35mm, 88 min, R
CHILDREN...it’s high time that we exterminate these horrifying vermin. Everything about them is disgusting: the way they’re conceived, their parasitic sustenance-draining “embryo” state, and of course that unspeakably hellish moment when the shriveled creature bursts out of its mother’s vagina in an agonizing fountain of reeking, plasmic organs. And - as evidenced in DEVIL TIMES FIVE - it only gets worse from there. In this cautionary tale from writer Sandra Lee Blowitz (THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF ZORRO), five pre-adolescent psychopaths (including tiny Leif Garrett!) escape their padded confines and take refuge in an unwitting winter vacation community. It’s not long before each of the wee nutballs find a way to showcase his or her particular talent for homicide, ranging from decapitations to arson to pretty much everything else. Exceedingly brutal, lascivious and crude, this is the movie that will at last convince you to take a steak knife to your genitals for the greater good of mankind. (Zack)

BLACULA
Feb 17, Free, Dir. William Crain, 1972, 35mm, 93 min, PG
We’re living in progressive times. A black president, a gay Sean Penn...but these certainly aren’t the first bold pioneers in America’s history. Way back in the golden ‘70s, undead bloodsucking African prince Mamuwalde finds himself exhumed in Los Angeles, and his search for vengeance, romance and boiling hot blood remains the true pinnacle of blaxploitation horror. No one is spared from the elegantly feral wrath of “Dracula’s blood brother”...cops, cabbies, morgue attendants and even interior decorators find themself on the pointy ends of Blacula’s vicious rampage. Towering, booming lead actor William Marshall (later known as The King of Cartoons on PEE WEE’S PLAYHOUSE) eschews the limits of low-budget exploitation and tears into his role with fearless power and conviction, instilling the film with more nigh-Shakespearean dramatic respectability than would ever hit drive-in screens again. But don’t be intimated by quality performances and Transylvanian formalwear; BLACULA is a high-caliber lowbrow masterpiece that entertains you from the guts up. So join Terror Tuesday in celebrating Black History Month 2009 with this enduring cinematic triumph from the director of DR. BLACK AND MR. HYDE. “He’s black...he’s beautiful...he’s BLACULA!!!”

MAKO: THE JAWS OF DEATH
Feb 24, Free, Dir. William Grefe, 1976, 35mm, 91 min, PG
In 1975, JAWS became the first film in Hollywood history to break the $100,000,000 mark. Its success inadvertantly spawned a crushing abundance of man-eating knockoffs, many of which aped the blockbuster’s title as well as premise. Aquatic threats loomed in DEVILFISH, GREAT WHITE and DEEP JAWS, and even land-lubbin’ creatures like bears and snakes tried to cash in via similar-formula campestral epics like GRIZZLY and JAWS OF SATAN. Of this staggering bumper crop of flesh-ripping fauna, one deep water holocaust holds strong based on sheer straightfaced inanity: MAKO! Longtime exploitation maverick William Grefe’s contribution to Jaws Fever is unquestionably the most bizarre shark movie ever made. This is largely due to the grim, boiling intensity of the great Richard Jaeckel as Sonny Stein, a hateful man with a mystic amulet that allows him to telepathically communicate with the lords of the seas. Stein’s obsession with sharks is almost sexual in its severity, and he uses his mental magic to have the beasts eradicate any human that he perceives as a threat to their happy home. Also starring Harold “Odd Job” Sakata and Milton “Butterball” Smith as shark lunches.

...that does it. As always, lemme know what you think. We live to serve you.

Stay blood, now and forever -
Zack

It's been a while.

Sorry. Things are so often incredibly, incredibly busy around here.

But in the meantime: