Hold Me Tight: Callin' from Tobe Hooper's THE FUNHOUSE

"Hold Me Tight: Callin' from Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse"
by Hunter Bush



It wasn't until my second time watching Tobe Hooper's breakthrough horror flick - 1974's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - that it dawned on me that it was nearly a perfect movie. Everything in it works to achieve its ends. In under 90 minutes, Hooper & co. had codified an entire subgenre of horror in such a way that the landscape would never be the same and also created a character in Leatherface (played by Gunnar Hansen) who, though slightly less prevalent in our cultural lexicon than his slasher cousins Freddy, Jason & Michael, is assuredly of their caliber.

That's when I decided I wanted to watch all of Hooper's flicks. I'd seen Poltergeist (though I wasn't at that time aware of the rumors surrounding it which would follow Hooper for the rest of his career) but I wanted to see more. Over the years I've checked a few off of my list, but The Funhouse eluded me. Until now.

PUFF Postscript - 2020

Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival
PUFF Postscript 2020

by Hunter Bush


With the news that Cineworld would be shuttering their theaters until 2021 coming out over the weekend, digital film festivals are looking more and more like the new status quo as opposed to a stop-gap solution. To that end, I sincerely hope you took advantage of the PUFF 2020 screenings over the weekend because things like PUFF - the Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival - are important for filmmakers who don’t have studio backing. If you didn’t, you missed out on some great stuff, but we are trying our best to regularly cover similar fests here at Moviejawn.

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN, Vol. 20 - October 2020

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
Vol. 20 - October 2020

by Hunter Bush


“Oh hello. I didn’t see you there.”

I love when infomercials have that bit in them, don’t you? But it’s literally true in this case, because I’m actually writing this at least a week before you’re laying eyes on it, because that’s how writing a timed monthly column works sometimes. If you were somehow under the impression that this was shipped over to the internet “hot off the presses”, I’m sorry to ruin the illusion for you.

I’m personally in a very weird place right now. On one hand, I’m extremely pleased that the weather is turning cooler and it’s almost time to carve pumpkins, but on the other hand, as the great sages in Smash Mouth foretold in the infinitely memeable wisdom of their 1999 hit All Star “My world’s on fire. How ‘bout yours?”. Things are bad all around, folks (Please vote in November) but that’s not what we’re here to talk about.

PUFF 2020 - PUFF Preview

Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival
PUFF Preview 2020

by Hunter Bush



Last year, I was privileged to go to the 4th annual Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival with my partner Allison Yakulis and interact with a great group of people who were all passionate about genre films great and small. From the festival organizers to the filmmakers on hand to the audience members. I was even introduced to what ended up being my favorite movie of last year, The Invisible Mother. It is currently, to the best of my knowledge, sadly unavailable (but if you’re reading this Shudder, it’d be right up your alley) but I digress. My experience at PUFF was fantastic! I saw a dozen different pictures (and twice as many shorts), met and interacted with some wonderful people and got to explore a part of the city I’m otherwise rarely in.

Obviously, due to *gestures at viral pandemic* all this, PUFF was forced to go digital this year and has a smaller roster of films at hand, but I’m sure they’re no less interesting. Let’s take a look at the available trailers and see if we can’t find my next favorite movie of the year!

"12 HOUR SHIFT" (2020)

12 Hour Shift (2020)
Written and directed by Brea Grant
Starring Angela Bettis, David Arquette and Chloe Farnworth
Running time: 1 hour and 26 minutes
Unrated: contains drug use, organ harvesting, violence and brief rear nudity

by Hunter Bush



Horror comedies are tough to pull off in a way that satisfies both types of fans. It's even harder to manage with comedy this dark. No one ever really talks about "the hilarious world of black-market organ harvesting", ya know? But writer/director Brea Grant largely pulls it off. Not all the time, but many times I found myself chuckling or out-right laughing at some of the comedic beats here.

12 Hour Shift follows Mandy (Angela Bettis of May) on one disastrous shift at the hospital where she works (guess how long the shift is). We meet a bunch of her co-workers and eventually co-conspirators because, as we quickly learn, Mandy isn’t just a regular-degular nurse, she’s also one of a few middle-women in an organ harvesting scheme for some local criminals. Bettis is fantastic at walking the line between the two genres, at times leaning a little heavier one way or the other to make a joke land or to ratchet up the tension.