By U.R. Stuckhere
Staff Enter-detain-ment Writer
Since
the beginning, grindhouse movie theaters all over America have shown low-budget,
“B” movies with ramped-up violence and gore to compete with big budget, “A”
pictures that are otherwise beyond competition. Now, a group of ghouls from
Transyl-vein-ia is upping the stakes by introducing the most real experiences
you can hope for in a theater -- actual blood, guts, ghouls and gore right there
in audiences’ laps.
Filmmaker
and showman William Castle (1914-1977) brought fake skeletons to the theaters
and floated them over moviegoers for his 1959 film “House on Haunted Hill.” He
put buzzers in the seats for his next project, “The Tingler,” of the same year.
Pictures shot in 3-D brought crowds closer to the action, and gimmicks like
Rumble-Rama shook theaters to add more life to the experience.
“Then
there was the grindhouse cinema of the ‘70s, which was so visceral that it
mentally scarred audiences,” said movie showmonster Cecil B. DeShrill, who’s
responsible for a new terror coming to grindhouse theaters all over the U.S.
“That’s all great, but we wanted to take everything that’s been done in the
past and bring it to the next level. So we got a few hundred ghouls together and
we’re entering these American grindhouse movie theaters where people want more out
of their buck-fifty for a double-feature, and whether they’re watching a couple
of horror movies or not, we’re literally going after them for their lives.”
You
can imagine the horror on audience members’ faces and the joy on the faces of
the ghouls when people find out it isn’t a gag.
“I
never was so scared,” said one moviegoer in Detroit, MI, who now
travels with DeShrill’s ghouls following his demise at one of the earlier
ghoul visits to these theaters. “The gore was all real and I literally ran out
of the building for my life. This thing
coming after me chased me out into the park across the street until I couldn’t
run any further and I finally succumbed to the evil force. I’m quite happy living
as a ghoul now. I’m exacting my revenge every night on other poor souls who
happen to go into these theaters for a cheap, new and amazing movie-going
experience. There’s really no escaping, and people are really digging it.”
Last
night, at a theater in the Catskills, young Dr. Frankenstein and his Creature
performed a song-and-dance number of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” before going after
the audience. To the Creature’s great fortune, the crowd attacked him with
torches, and later burned the whole place down.
“This
is the kind of thing you just don’t get in Hollywood,” the Creature said as he
put out the flames on his back after fleeing the blazing structure. “We’re
hoping to keep this going all the way through to Halloween.”
Grindhouse
theaters have always offered a fairly high degree of danger. DeShrill and his
ghouls are blowing the top off each and every venue they visit.
For
a list of theaters near you, go to GrindhouseGhouls.mon.
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