Hey folks, Harry here... Just in case you thought Butt-Numb-A-Thon is the Ungodly Cool Geek Heaven Ascension Known To Mankind 24 Hour Festival... Well, it is... But others try, like the 20th Annual Ohio 24 Hour Science Fiction Marathon. Sure they have me beat by 16 years, but my programming powers are... supreme. Muhahahahahhaaaaa! In fact let it be known that Butt-Numb-A-Thon 5 is programmed... muahahahhahahahaaaa... *Harry balances on the end of a swaying bamboo tree* Having said all that, I'm insanely jealous to have not seen BEYOND REANIMATOR. But for only 20 or so attendees to survive without sleep... that's just sad. I honor the 20, I shame the rest! Here's UncleFucka!
Drexel Marathon diary from UncleFucka...
Hey, Harry...
If you're uncomfortable calling me UncleFucka, refer to me as Agent 37. The right people will recognize that...
The 20th Annual Ohio 24 Hour Science Fiction Marathon
A diary by UncleFucka
10:00 am
A beautiful, sunny morning here in Cowlumbus. There are about 30 people in line ahead of me.
11:21 am
Found my prime seats, third row center – a bit close to the screen, but just the right distance for heckling and chaos causing (the staff was checking bags coming in, but ignored me…little did they know…)
12:06 pm
Still waiting for things to start. Filled out my hall of fame ballot for Guest of Honor Kevin McCarthy, even though I already heard he’s a no-show…
What, like John Agar had a chance…?
I also found out that Warner Bros. has pulled the Animatrix showing…it was okay until the day before, and then they decided it was too early to give up the goods. I think they even had the canisters ready… Fuck Warner Brothers. Fuck them up their stupid asses.
12:13 pm
Drexel Theaters owner Jeff Franks breaks the bad news… Kevin McCarthy is sick and can’t be here…
He returned from a trip to England with pneumonia. Thought he was getting better, then developed an ear infection and his physician forbade him to travel, lest he totally lose his hearing.
There was a last minute effort to make up for the guest canceling…Marc Hoyt, ex-Drexel employee/ex-Movie Geek on Beat the Geeks/current NuArt manager was dispatched to McCarthy’s house to make a special video greeting, which will play after Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
12:18 pm
Getting close to starting…The “Kick the Can” segment from Twilight Zone: The Movie, has been cut from the lineup. Master of Ceremonies Bruce Bartoo counts us down, and away we go!
“Prologue” + “Segment One” from Twilight Zone are up first…unfortunately, it sounds like a grade school educational film…
As always, the Marathon is plagued by production problems…
12:50 pm
Shorts and trailers play in between most of the movies, this time we get “Duck Dodgers in the 24 ? Century”. Chuck Jones fucking OWNS.
2:04 pm
The person immediately to my left is snoring, but Gamera 2: Legion Attacks still rules. Seeing a kaiju movie on the big screen is just a pure joy moment. MAN IN SUIT!!!
--More projector problems…they stop the movie in the middle of a battle…
2:58 pm
Gamera 2 is over and we’re already a half-hour behind… The costume contest is coming up.
The Nightmare at Studio 35 in October already has Versus and Ichi the Killer confirmed.
4:08 pm Tom Corbet: Space Cadet is over…
We’re assailed by a fucked up cartoon called Quasi in the Quackadero…Very, very TRIPPY. Done by the same person who did the original animation for Twilight Zone (Sally Cruikshank).
Went out and spent time networking with Jeff Franks, Matathon MC Bruce Bartoo, and my buddy Brian Burke from UPN53. Missed the costume contest. I’m kind of upset about that…
4:48 pm
Monster from Mars (better known as Robot Monster…). The audience is in full-fledged revolt…
6:08 pm
The Chubb-Chubbs! Man, this short kicks all sorts of ass. Prodigious sci-fi references peppered throughout this tale of a karaoke-obsessed janitor trying to warn a bar on an alien world about the coming of the Chubb-Chubbs…
It’s cute, it’s funny and it was very deserving of its Oscar.
6:45 pm
“It’s a Good Life” segment from Twilight Zone concludes…(big rounds of applause for Dick Miller, Bill Mumy and Kevin McCarthy) Immediately after, Invasion of the Body Snatchers starts.
8:04 pm
Body Snatchers is over…
They play the Kevin McCarthy video. He holds up Friday’s USA Today to date the viddie. Marc does a good job controlling the interview, but can’t operate the camera to save his life…He was the Movie Geek, not the AV Geek (stole that joke from the guys behind me…). We get to meet McCarthy’s dogs, Porky and Cosmo. (Cosmo spends the interview in McCarthy’s lap)
The whole thing originally came together when Joe Dante (who missed last year’s marathon to sign the contract to direct Looney Tunes: Back in Action) suggested that McCarthy looks GREAT. Oddly enough, he got his role in Body Snatchers because of his fitness…The director had previously worked with him on Anapolis Story, and knew he was very fit. McCarthy has a remarkable memory, and could rattle off names of people he worked with fifty years ago…
Interesting story…the studio didn’t like the film and wanted to cut it. The director and producer stole the film and took it to Long Beach. They recorded an audio tape of the audience reaction to the movie and presented it to the studio head, thus saving the film (for the most part)…Six months after the completion of filming, they filmed the bookends to give the movie a happy ending…
At the end of the tape, McCarthy stared into the camera and gave us a hearty “You’re next!”
8:50 pm
Return of Captain Marvel chapter 12…all everyone has done in the 2 chapters of this serial that they’ve played is shout “Kill Whitey!” since there’s a lameass Indy Jones wannabe named Whitey who pals around with Billy Batson.
Can’t say I disagree with them…DAMN THE MAN!
Then, we get Spaceboy, a weird modern poetry short about a Space Boy and a chick in a sequined body stocking played by Florence Marly from Queen of Blood.
9:40 pm
Not tired at all. Time for Cowboy Bebop. Nearly 90 min off schedule.
A Springer reject in a duster and cowboy hat offered to bring in any felons in the audience. We felons shouted at him to sit the fuck down… Bebop on the big screen is a revelation. It’s ultra-stylish and urban. It feels like hanging out on a New York City street. The fight scenes are better than most live action movies, and the animation is excellent. Yoko Kanno keeps proving to be one of my favorite film composers.
“I love the kind of woman who can kick my ass.” – Spike Spiegel
11:35 pm
Cowboy Bebop ends.
I’m still wired.
Beyond Reanimator is next.
If we can’t have the Animatrix, we should have Jeffrey Combs kicking all sorts of ass.
They have a quickie contest to dole out some more swag…the participants have to go to the front of the theater and pitch Space Boy to the masses…My God, most of the pitches are LAME…
The crowd is getting restless. One marathoner celebrated her 21st birthday, and was serenaded, if you can call several hundred fanboys murdering “Happy Birthday” a serenade…
12:06 am
Beyond Reanimator finally starts. THANK GOD…
The strange thing is…the print has Spanish subtitles, which I keep reading…The movie’s in English, but I keep reading the damn subtitles… It starts off with a blonde chick you know is gonna get the Drew Barrymore-in-Scream treatment by a guy with no lower jaw right in front of her brother Howie. Turns out ol’ jawless is a corpse revived by Dr. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs). Dr. West gets arrested and Howie finds West’s glow-in-the-dark reanimating juice laying in the street.
The movie picks up thirteen years later with West in prison and a new doctor requesting his help in the infirmary…Turns out Howie is all grows up now, and he’s still pining away after Emily, his big sis…Methinks Howie had, well, impure thoughts about his sister… West’s been experimenting on rats, including Ratty, a rodent who’s been adopted by Cabrera, one of the toughs on West’s cell block. Needless to say, Cabrera is not happy about his pet going missing, and he blames West.
We then get introduced to the warden and a reporter named Laura (Elsa Pataky). Elsa’s a piece of ass, but her vocalizations wouldn’t sound out of place in porno. She’s got all the acting chops of a porn star, too. The warden is a sadist, and we know that’s going to come back to haunt our heroes in the very near future… However, Laura is a total moron – she conducts her interview with the warden while sitting in the electric chair. The first reanimation that the new partners work on is a religious maniac named Moses. Moses likes to eat human flesh, and he’s terrified of the warden.
However, West has something new up his sleeve this time. He’s isolated Nano-Plasmic Energy, which is the essential life spark that his previous reanimations have lacked. Well, one thing leads to another, and the warden kills Laura (blaming it on Moses). The intrepid reanimation brigade revives Laura and things quickly go straight to hell.
They’re forced to kill the warden, so they put his NPE into Laura to stabilize her, but instead turn her into a sadistic bitch. Then, West puts the NPE of Cabrera’s little pal Ratty into the Warden. To top things off, there’s a bloody prison riot…
The prison nurse never wears a bra or blouse under her nurse’s uniform in a prison…somehow, this seemed kind of stupid to me. It made for a convenient clothes-ripping scene later in the movie, but c’mon. She works in a prison. And she walks around with her chest hanging out? Don’t think so… Obviously, none of the filmmakers ever watched Oz. Combs still has it, though. He eats scenery with all the mania and intensity you’ve come to expect from a true B-movie deity.
Jason Barry, who plays the older Howard Phillips (get it, Howard Phillips Lovecraft???), desperately wants to be Devon Sawa. He doesn’t quite succeed. Still, compared to Dame Elsa the Non-Wonder Actress, he comes off looking like Olivier.
There are the obligatory references to Arkham and Miskatonic University to place the movie in the Lovecraft canon, a wee little bit of nudity (though the first bit is man ass, dammit), and plenty of goofiness. There are some truly fucked up moments in the movie, including a running gag with a piece of the male anatomy getting dragged every which way. They don’t spare the fountains of blood or truckloads of gore…And if you don’t stay through the credits, you will miss one of the most twisted, hilarious things I have ever seen captured on film.
1:36 am
Beyond Reanimator is finally ending. I haven’t had caffeine since December or January, and I’m making up for all that lost time tonight. I am wired, baby.
2:00 am
Superman starts. The aspect ratio is FUCKED. They’re projecting with the wrong lens…
The guy next to me gets up and gets them to fix the lens…YAY!!! I thought of taking off during Superman, but the print is so damn nice… About half the damn crowd is either dozing or out-and-out sleeping.
KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!! (Terrance Stamp is a supreme badass) I never noticed that baby Kal-El’s swaddling clothes are the colors of the Superman uniform.
I’m starting to feel really tired.
2:40 am
My eyes have started watering. I need more caffeine…
4:10 am
People are dropping like flies…
My eyes droop, but I am strong. I perservere.
5:40 am
Damn, I’m tired.
Eyelids slowly closing.
Must. Not. Fall. Asleep.
I do not want to be a Pod Person.
6:20 am
Kevin McCarthy is inducted into the Marathon Hall of Fame (go figure) John Agar got two votes, though!!!
6:25 am
Eight Legged Freaks starts. It’s a fun crappy movie, just what the few of us who haven’t slept yet needed.
Laughing energizes me. I’m gonna make it!
8:00 am
Eight Legged Freaks is done.
8:15 am
Straight into X-Men. Man, I am so psyched for X2, but my damn friends won’t tell me what show they want to hit, so I can’t buy advance tickets while I’m here…
9:57 am
Still awake, but not totally aware…was looking for my seat in the second row after I got a refill on my soda. Thankfully, my new friends in the seats in front of mine were able to guide me to where I needed to be.
Only about 20 of us haven’t slept yet.
Kevin McCarthy’s website: BodySnatchers.Com
The final segment of Twilight Zone is cut…so, Equilibrium is it…
11:55 am
DONE!!! I made it!
I think that, for those who stayed, Equilibrium became the audience favorite. I went when it was in theaters originally, and couldn’t get anyone else interested in the movie…Word of mouth is gonna sell that baby like crazy on DVD…
I staggered into the lobby and picked up some free swag…posters for Bulletproof Monk and League of Extraodinary Gentlemen, a couple of House of 1000 Corpses stickers, and a Bulletproof Monk comic book. All the free stuff is going to my boy Dave who had to work all weekend, and I am headed home at last!!!
