The summer
I turned 15 we, finally, got
cable in my small Western New
York town. Of course, my parents
kept us on the restrictive
package. This only gave us,
legally, the local station
affiliates, WGN in Chicago and a
couple of other unappealing
options. Still, My brother and
sister and I discovered, one
evening, with wide eyed pleasure,
that due to some kind of faulty
reception in our old beaten up,
ugly red paneled, black and white
12 incher in our family room (the
color TV was in the living room),
we got bootleg HBO.! Of course,
there were often solid static
lines, streaking through the
middle of the miniature screen,
but they were a small price to
pay for such beautiful bounty
and, by no means, diminished the
joy of our watching, especially
during those first hot few months
of that unexpected entertainment
oasis. Crouched around that tiny
bright blob, gave me my first
sense of unbridled joy and
quenched my long boiling desire
for everything B-Movie and
horror! This is something that
late night Fridays and occasional
Saturday evenings on CBS had only
partially filled. And what
summers that first and the
others that followed - those
were! There werent many
options, actually, but the ones
given where played over and over
again! Months of Morgan Fairchild
in The Seduction, Susan Dey as a
model in Looker, Malcolm McDowall
in one of my favorites, the
brilliantly creative, Time After
Time, Susan George in The House
Where Evil Dwells, Phyllis Diller
and Cathryn Hart
(Fairchilds sister) in Pink
Motel, Perry Lang and the
adorable, Steve Bassett in Spring
Break and most
importantly, becoming my personal
favorite and my geeky gay boy
salvation - there was the oft
repeated Friday the 13th,
Part 3. This better than
average sequel, starred a lady
who still brings swift admiration
and giddy, swooning joy to my
heart - one of my favorites of
all time Dana Kimmell!
Kimmell
later went on to a quickly recast
role on Days of Our Lives (as a
prostitute named Diane), and
appeared, I am told, as
Blairs bitchy cousin on Facts
of Life. She, also,
co-starred in Lone Wolf McQuade
with Chuck Norris, another
bastion of cable, and had another
genre credit with Sweet Sixteen
which I did not discover
until many years later, post
college. So it is truly her role
in Friday the 13th that endears her so
greatly to me.
Kimmells,
heroine, Chris never seemed
virginal as is the
stereotype- to me. She just
seemed quiet, a step out of place
with her friends (Much as I was
in high school) and disturbed by
a life and traumas she did not
quite know how to handle yet.
(Again, probably, much like
myself, at the time that I first
saw the film. Although, as far as
I know, I was never attacked by a
monstrously unstoppable serial
killer as a teen. Unless, of
course, you count portly balding
priests under that frightening
equation! J!)
Anyhow, I
totally and completely related
to, what I still find to be,
Kimmells sensitive
portrayal. In fact, Kimmell
and two others- Jamie Lee
Curtis (Cause of Halloween,
natch) and Melody Thomas (Young
and the Restlesss Nikki
and star of such B films as
Piranha, The Car
and The Fury) can be
credited with my abiding love,
fascination and goofily sincere
respect for all things Scream
Queen and B-Movie. Kimmells
Chris was awkward and not, by a
long yard, the most popular
yet she survived! With
heart and gusto! And that was
something for me to aspire to. It
gave me hope. And, though, I have
recently read that, perhaps,
because of religious beliefs,
Kimmell has distanced herself
from her most popular works, I
will forever respect her, for all
the inspiration that she,
unknowingly, gave me when I,
seemingly, needed it most.
Friday
the 13th,
Part 3. She speaks! She,
finally, speaks!! Kimmell
provides commentary for this
horror classic on the October
2004 DVD Box Set release, Friday
the 13th:
From Crystal Lake to Manhattan.
Along with co-stars Paul
Kratka (Rick), Larry
Zerner (Shelly)
and Richard Brooker (Jason), Kimmell
seems to, joyfully, reminisce
about the making of this bloody
cult entertainment. (There has
long been speculation, something
I was unaware of until recently,
that Kimmell was not happy
about appearing in this film. In
fact, in interviews with her
co-stars on The Friday the 13th
Website, questions about Kimmell being difficult are asked
frequently. This is something
that they deny. In her
commentary, she seems to have
enjoyed her co-stars and grumbles
only once about the multiple
takes she had to endure for a
certain scene. It does seem,
though, at the time she had a
burgeoning career on television
and might have regretted her
association with the film,
career-wise, once they got
filming. But that is neither here
nor there, now.) Anyhow -
nostalgia dictates that I can
find little wrong with this fast
paced gore fest it would
be nice to see a little more
character depth in the
writing silly to ask, I
know - especially from the
pregnant character, Debbie,
played zestfully and skillfully
by Tracie Savage, but it
is what it is. (The commentary
makes note of the fact that the
script changed, frequently, as it
was filmed.) Anyhow, there are at
least two amazing deaths- both,
centered around the
characters eyes or eyeballs
and the trademark Jason hockey
mask is introduced for the first
time in this installment
filmed, originally and
difficultly, as noted in the
commentary- in 3D for the movie
theaters! There is, also, I
believe, some of the best acting
in the series (fro m a cast that,
for the majority, is no longer
working as performers) and some
truly amusing sequences including
a confrontation with a biker gang
at a rural grocery store.
Besides, the girls, especially Catherine
Parks, are mindbendingly
beautiful and the guys,
specifically Jeffrey Rogers,
are droolingly hot- so what else
can you ask for from a quick
moving timewaster besides some
buttery popcorn and a nice cold
Coke? (Well, a Dana Kimmell autograph, perhaps but
that may be asking for way too
much.)
Sweet
Sixteen. I really enjoyed
this quirky and vaguely
mysterious horror offering from
1983. The cast is excellent,
first of all. Its one of those
low budget offerings featuring
established and steadily rising
stars, filmed a few years before
these offerings actually created
their own celebrities. Susan
Strasberg gives a refined and
elegant quality to the
proceedings, but then again, I
could watch her drink water and
enjoy it. Dana Kimmell is
spunky, energetic and commands
attention as a wannabe girl
detective, Marci, who learns a
few hard truths of life by the
movies end. Bo Hopkins
is her dad and is believable as a
decent and kind small town
sheriff. One of my favorite (and
supposedly openly gay) crushes, Steve
Antin, plays Kimmells
brother - preparing his way for
future roles in teen and schlock
fare such as The Last American
Virgin and Penitentary III. Sharon
Farrell (of Its Ali ve, The
Premonition, Night of the Comet
and The Fifth Floor among others)
offers solid comic relief as a
love hungry associate of Hopkins and my favorite genre
actor of all time, Michael
Pataki shows up as a powerful
childhood nemesis of Strasbergs.
Only The Avengers Patrick
Macnee seems out of place,
but he gives his role enough
sputtering bluster to be
incredibly enjoyable to watch,
all the same. Aleisa Shirley plays
the wild and mysterious, Melissa,
whose upcoming birthday bash
gives the movie its title. Shirley is exotically beautiful and
appeared in a bunch of stuff in
the mid-80s The
Hitchhiker cable series,
Spacehunter: Adventures in the
Forbidden Zone and the Hollywood
Wives miniseries before
disappearing from the
entertainment industry. Shirley has plenty of nude scenes that
give this movie a vaguely
pedophilic quality. She is
obviously in her 20s, but
her charact er is only 15 for
3/4ths of the film and the
excessive nudity is vaguely
unsettling, but this also gives
it some distinction, perhaps,
another reason to make it a
bit more memorable than similar
offerings. There are some clunker
scenes, obviously, but there is
enough mood, texture and
enjoyable acting to make this
worthy of a viewing and,
along with Friday the 13th,
this is definitely Kimmells
most significant screen work, and
probably, in all honesty, a
better role for her than
Fridays Chris. Plus, the
movies theme song has
to be heard, at least once, or
your genre life is totally
incomplete!
Lone
Wolf McQuade. I
havent seen this in awhile,
but I always found it kind of
boring. Kimmell plays the
daughter of Chuck Norris
and Sharon Farrell. The
best scene occurs when Kimmells
character is terrorized. She is
out parking, with her boyfriend,
and some of Norris
enemies happen by and give Kimmell
another chance to prove that
she had some of the best lungs in
80s genre flicks. Barbara
Carrerra slinks around trying
to seduce Norris, who has
to scare us all by taking off his
shirt for a boxing scene. In my
book, Kimmell, Carrerra
and Farrell
genre veterans all-are the only
reasons to even think about
sitting through this thing again.
Besides that, this is just a very
standard Chuck Norris getting revenge for a murdered
buddy
timewaster.
By
the Dawns Early Light.
Kimmell appears, briefly, in
this 1990 HBO film that deals -a
bit fantastically, of course, -
with the real life horror of
atomic warfare. Its a bit
heavy handed and a tad bit too
long, but there are some decent
plot twists and with the current
political climate in fact,
I watched this on Election Day
2004 which made it all the more
creepier- the events almost come
off like a chillingly possible
reality. Besides, there are truly
strong performances from Rebecca
DeMornay, Darren McGavin
and Glenn Withrow as a
pilot gone crazy with grief. It
was, also, fun to play find the
horror type genre veterans in the
cast while I lay, curled up on my
tiny couch. Of course, there is Kimmell
(billed as Kimmell Anderson)
whose brief scene is with, both, Withrow,
whom was one of her co-stars in
Sweet Sixt een and appeared in
Roger Cormans Lady in Red
and the space horror antics of
Nightflyers, and Danielle
Von Zerneck, of teen comedies
My Science Project and Under the
Boardwalk (with T and A perennial
Elizabeth Kaitan) and the
animals gone deadly TV doings of
Deadly Invasion: The Killer Bee
Nightmare. McGavin,
obviously, will always be known
as Kolchak of the Night Stalker
series and, also, appeared in the
recently DVD-ized Happy Hell
Night. Annabella Price,
whom plays a nurse in this,
appeared in the bizarre 80s
horror offering (and one of my
goofy, sentimental favorites)
Silent Scream. Scott Trost-
who taught my make-up class in
theater school- appears as a
soldier and went on to be a minor
semi-regular on Star Trek: The
Next Generation and appeared in
the Traci Lords
thriller, The Killing Club. (She
binds him up and throws him in
the trunk of a car!) Steve
Eastin is in a ton of horror
flicks including Nightmare on Elm
Street 2, Night Warning, The
Hidden, Nightmare on the 13th
Floor and Charles Bands
Robot Wars with Barbara
Crampton of ReAnimator fame.
Coolest, perhaps, though is the
appearance of character actor, Jon
Cedar. He was featured in
Foxy Brown, Day of the Animals,
Kiss Daddy Goodbye and wrote and
starred in the horror craziness
of The Manitou with Susan
Strasberg. Of course, I am
sure I have, probably, missed
some too cool for school genre
folks - so, I guess, it is up to
you to rent or buy this sucker
($5.99 @ Best Buy) and find them
on your own!
Night
Angel. Well, Dana
Kimmell is listed as a model
in this slick and atmospheric
little number but I could
find little to no evidence of her
presence. I am assuming she
appears, made up to be almost
unrecognizable, in some of the
photos that grace the office
walls of Siren
the magazine around which most of
the action of this spiffy shocker
takes place. As for the movie,
itself, I truly love the
legend of Lilith, so I am
thrilled that there is a film out
there featuring her as the main
character. Unfortunately, not
much motivation is given for her
characters actions and what
could have been a truly haunting
piece turns into nothing more
than a minor, enjoyable
timewaster. Still, there are some
nice gore effects from Steve
Johnson, Karen Black
does her stereotypical sexually
repressed freak-out and gives us
some lesbian action with Isa
Andersen as Lilith. I
didnt really buy Andersen as Lilith, but s he is truly not
given much to explore and the
truly embarrassing dance floor
routine she has to perform, at
one point, almost renders her to
the point of ridiculousness
but she is, eventually,
able to redeem herself- saying
something about her talents, in
the long run. Male genre vets Gary
Hudson (Scanner Cop,
Camerons Closet, Mind
Twister) and Linden Ashby (Wild Things 2, The Perfect
Bride, Mortal Kombat, The
Slaughter of the Innocents, Into
the Sun) are on hand and
as far as Ashby is
concerned- on butt, also. Hudsons
death is truly fun and gruesome
and 227s Helen Martin
has some fun moments as a zealot
out to destroy Lilith. It is also
a hoot to watch Twink Caplan,
the sweet teacher that is set up
with Wallace Shawns
character in Clueless, go
ballistic, in slow motion,
none-the-less, with an axe on Ashby
and his pretty female co-star, Debra
Feuer. All in all, this movie
is as slick and stylized as the
fashion magazines it is centered
around, so, perhaps director Dominique
Othenin-Girard truly
accomplished some artistic
purpose with this femme-centered
feature, after all.
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