THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #25: GORGON VIDEO MAGAZINE (1989) ***

(Streamed via B-Zone)

Michael Berryman hosts this horror video magazine from the good people at Gorgon Video.  He’s pretty amusing too.  Dressed in his Hills Have Eyes get-up, Berryman really gets into his introductions and helps make this uneven compilation worthwhile.  

The first segment is a good interview with Wes Craven.  Much of the discussion revolves around Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes.  We also see him in behind the scenes footage of Shocker.  (Wes calls it, “the purest film Wes Craven has ever done”.  LOL.  Sure, Wes.)  Next up is an interview with KNB Effects.  They talk about some of the films that inspired them before taking us on a tour of their studio.  Then, we have a segment devoted to Linnea Quigley.  Naturally, they show her immortal “Dance of the Double Chainsaws” from Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.  There are also scenes from Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout, and the iconic lipstick scene from Night of the Demons.  Next, is a look inside Troma Studios.  Lloyd Kaufman is his usually gregarious self, although he’s slightly more subdued here than he’d later become.  Scenes from The Toxic Avenger, The Toxic Avenger 2, and Rabid Grannies are also shown.

There’s also a review corner that features reviews for Cameron’s Closet, Henry:  Portrait of a Serial Killer, Bad Taste, and Vicious.  Then Berryman talks about drive-in classics like A Bucket of Blood and Attack of the Giant Leeches that turns into a plug for Sinister Cinema.  Things wind down in the end with concert footage of GWAR and trailers for Death Spa, Girlfriend from Hell, and Judgment Day.

As a clip show/horror digest, it’s fun.  It probably would’ve been better as a forty-five-minute video rather than seventy as it begins running out of steam near the end.  It’s not quite up to snuff with the likes of the Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors or Stephen King’s World of Horror videos, but it’s a breezy seventy minutes of blood, gore, and info.  (I especially enjoyed the segments on Craven and Quigley.)