But for all those things that happened, there was one thing, times two, that didn’t happen. I didn’t go to B-Fest. So fuck all that stuff, except the bunnies. Since your weekend probably sucked, and you need to live vicariously through me, here’s what I did with my B-Fest 2007 weekend. Bevare! (If you really want to write to me and tell me what your weekend was like, I’ll listen. But don’t except me to press my nipple against my computer screen.)

5 a.m. - Wake-up, shove off (you shove off!) – The best thing about this B-Fest, mine and Ragnarok’s fourth, was that it was the first B-Fest that we weren’t wretchedly poor and didn’t have to worry about running out of money. But because I’m still in school and had to work Thursday night, we still couldn’t work a way to leave for Evanston the night before, like most people do. I’ll take the blame for this, because I’m the only one that couldn’t spare vacation time to leave on Thursday night. Sorry dudes, I’m saving my vacation for this summer when I have this brutal 5-week stretch of school/work. It might actually kill me.

Anyway, so with everybody crusty-eyed fully hating me, we (that’s me, Brother R and this one guy we know named Bob who we know from … actually, I don’t know how we know him. I think he’s a Mormon televangelist who hit us up for money one day and won’t leave because we aren’t following Heavenly Father’s plan) crawled out of bed for a 6 a.m. departure by car. We got some excellent donuts, left for Evanston, went back to Bob’s because I forgot my wallet, and soon we were on the road for Evanston. The trip there went by really fast, even though I had to get some work done in the backseat and we only had two working speakers. For me, the trip’s highlight was being introduced to the wonderful world of Deinonychus, an awesomely terrible one-man band who sounds strikingly like what Quam would sound like if he did black metal. The lowlight: Bob ripped this one fart that smelled like a mix between ass-fumes and Savory Pot Roast vomit. I can’t even begin to describe how awful it was, not even Tolkien had the words to illustrate this one.

We arrived in Evanston, that oh-so-wonderful suburb of Chicago, at about 4 p.m. While Brother R found all these dudes he knows and started talking with them, I let responsibility get the best of me and started working. Advantage: I got to put some of this trip on my time card. Disadvantage: I had to type up bowling scores for the agate section of my paper. Every time I get full of myself and start to consider myself a legitimate journalist, I realize I have to type up bowling scores and fall swiftly back to Earth with a bowling ball-heavy thud. After two hours of weeping bowling-pin sized tears for my pitiful plight, it was time to start the B-festivities.

6 p.m. – Introduction: Hi everybody! Hi Dr. Nick! RATING: 4 (out of 5 – with a point docked because someone sitting near me beefed and it was really gross and I almost gagged on my heavily salted snack treat.)

6:05 p.m. – The Brain That Wouldn’t Die: It seems like I saw this one somewhere before. Of course, this was the first of three “MST3K” movies to be shown that the MSTiest B-Fest I’ve ever been to. If you’ve seen the movie, you know it is worthy because it has a lot of fun scenes of watching creepy Dr. Cortner leer at unsuspecting (read: stupid) females as he tries to find the right body to steal and attach to the severed head of his girlfriend.

But there were problems that couldn’t be forgiven. For starters, it was nearly unwatchable because of focus problems. I could only watch it if I looked at the corners of the screen and sensed what was going on (luckily, I’ve seen this one several times so I could still enjoy it). But the worst problem of all was the print, which was apparently edited because all the good gore was excised. For a cheesy, boring 50s AIP movie, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die has some pretty cool gore effects. My favorite scene is where Dr. Cortner’s assistant, Kurt, gets his arm ripped off and runs all around the house Jerry Lewis-style, dragging his stump along the wall. There’s also a cool scene where Dr. Cortner gets his neck ripped open, but we got none of that at B-Fest. Next time, don’t get your movie prints at Wal-Mart.

RATING:

7:30 p.m. – The Beastmaster: The story of a man, his 80s pin-up love interest and his ferrets. I usually hate these kind of Sword & Sandal movies (see: Krull), but watching Mark Singer wander around the forest with two ferrets as his closest companions and searching for evil king Rip Torn makes for a pretty cool B-Fest experience. I guess I don’t have much to say about it otherwise. If you really care that much, let your fingers be your guide (but wash up before touching your keyboard again).

RATING:

9:30 p.m. – Mystery Short #1: It was a cartoon about a frog who likes a girl … and drives a car … or she does … and some other stuff. Whatever.

RATING:

9:40 p.m. – Revenge of the Creature, in 3D: This would have kicked ass, if only I could have been able to see what was going on. Apparently there are different kinds of 3D movies, and this was one of the bad ones. Ask Brother R, he knows more about the cheesy art of 3D motion picture than I do.

Anyway, even with 3D glasses, I absolutely couldn’t see what was going on. Crestfallen, I accepted the fact that I would be deprived my God-given right to watch John Agar movies and went for a walk to save my eyesight. The three of us took a little stroll around campus, which is something I wanted to do badly this year because I’m looking for a graduate school and I’m considering Northwestern – if they’ll have me. I fall in love with that school every year I go, and it actually doesn’t have much to do with B-Fest. After a spirited debate on the merits of Blue-Ray/HD-DVD, we got back in plenty of time to sort-of see the end of the movie, which is actually pretty cool if you ever get a chance to see a coherent version.

RATING:
for the movie
( if you can see it)
for the walk.

11:05 p.m. – Raffle for Door Prizes: They had some kick-ass prizes this year, but I didn’t get any of the really cool ones. For making the second-furthest Friday trek to B-Fest (can that be right?), we got a small pack of prizes. I took home the DVD version of Santa Claus. The raffle is still cool, even if you don’t get the prizes you want. It’s fun to watch people slink up to the stage in shame when they get a booby prize they don’t really want. Maybe next year we’ll donate some copies of the Quam demo for people’s enjoyment.

RATING:

11:45 p.m. – The Wizard of Speed and Time: It’s the B-Fest institution that won’t die. Personally, I never quite figured out why this was supposed to be cool, but people enjoy it so I won’t complain. My favorite part is when the Wizard slips and everybody gets to yell WOOOOOAAAAAHHH like Type O Negative when they do “Kill All the White People” or “I Like Goils”.

RATING:

Midnight – Plan 9 From Outer Space: For all the bitching that goes on about being tired of this movie, this year’s Plan 9 was the best one yet for me – I’ve never had such uninhibited fun throwing paper plates around. That might sound like a limited thrill, but it’s pure magic when you can get into it with the crowd. To date, I’ve seen Plan 9 five times on the big screen (all five showings were midnight showings, in case you were wondering), plus another 5-9 times on my own, and I still have fun with it every time. Still, (whoever decides what movies are played at B-Fest, are you listening?) I’d love to see some other Ed Wood movies at B-Fest, particularly Bride of the Monster, The Sinister Urge or Orgy of the Dead. If Plan 9 must be sacrificed for this to happen, rip it up like one of those thick fucking paper plates I get hit on the head with every year..

1:30 a.m. – Mystery Short #2: It’s the harrowing tale of a midget and his love of sitting down somewhere, anywhere. BOOORING!

RATING:

1:45 a.m. – Savage Sisters: In the annual blaxploitation time slot, we’re sort-of treated to Savage Sisters, a movie that can’t decide if it’s violent exploitation or lame drama. It dances up to violence and nudity numerous times, but it backs away like a Jewish guy when asked to chip in on a restaurant check (in case you were offended by that, go ahead, make any drunk Irish jokes you want). So actually, this movie sucks. It did have Sid Haig as a crazy insurrectionist, which was pretty cool. By the way, has anyone had as varied a film career as Sid Haig? This guy has gone from Lambada, The Forbidden Dance to The Devils Rejects and everywhere in-between in his career. But back to Savage Sisters, well, it sucks, and it bums me out because the blaxploitation is annually one of my favorite slots. It’s a long, hard tumble from The Monkey Hu$tle, my friends.

RATING:

3 a.m. – Invasion of the Star Creatures: Ugh. Every B-Fest has at least one movie so bad it makes choking down a Hot Karl at gunpoint from Tank Johnson (ah, topical humor!) sound refreshing. Ladies and gentlemen, Invasion of the Star Creatures! Brought to you by annoying Corman School of Shit graduates Jonathan Haze (the wormy guy) and Bruno VeSota (the fat guy)! I couldn’t even begin to tell you what happens in this movie, it was too dreadful to digest in long chunks (long as in 45 seconds), but here goes. Two unbearably not-funny Gomer Pyle imitators team up to fight alien babes, who want to take over the world. (?) But what that plot synopsis doesn’t cover is an unrelenting tirade of awful, annoying antics and pratfalls from our intrepid heroes. Just painful, painful stuff.

For the first time, I’m glad we left in the morning on very little sleep, as I was able to escape from this steamer by descending into sleep. Someday I’ll make it through a B-Fest without sleep, unless they show Invasion of the Star Creatures again. I’d spoil the ending for you if I could, but I was asleep, and I probably couldn’t have followed without sacrificing IQ points to the point of possibly liking “CSI”, Saw, and/or Rob Schneider movies. I know you wouldn’t want that. WARNING: THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS EQUATED WATCHING THIS MOVIE TO WATCHING 26 STRAIGHT HOURS OF “F-TROOP”.

RATING:

(and just a glowing walnut away from being the worst movie I ever saw at B-Fest.)

4:45 a.m. – Street Trash: ZZZZ (though I was told that this one was a lot of fun, so read Brother R’s journal for the skinny).
RATING: ZZZZ

6:15 a.m. – The Hypnotic Eye: ZZZZ.
RATING: ZZZZ.

But as far as sleeping on the floor of a crowded theater goes, my nap was top notch. If you ever get the chance, fall asleep with music going and wake up to Tenacious D’s “Fuck Her Gently”. It’s a reaffirmation of the wonder of life.

NAP RATING:

7:45 a.m. – Krull: If I was pleasantly surprised by The Beastmaster, I got just what I was expecting, a bloody, throbbing asshole, from Krull. I’ve never liked this kind of thing, so it was a godsend when they opened the cafeteria early. I had a ham, cheese and mushroom crepe, which was pretty good, and an iced tea.

BREAKFAST RATING:

(good, but not quite worth the $7 pricetag.)

Anyway, back to Krull, some aliens invade Earth, and only rejects from the Renaissance Festival can save the beautiful princess. That leads to a lot of wandering around and completing dopey quests. Everything gets worked out in the end, and I’m wishing I’d stayed asleep. Instead, I was sitting all groggy with a Krull-sized colon crater and cursing myself for not staying out in the cafeteria to watch ESPN. I understand Krull is often compared to Star Wars, but actually I think this is one movie that would have benefited from having Jar Jar Binks. Isn’t it just like me to bring up Jar Jar when most people would have been wallowing in nostalgia for the real Star Wars? I’m such a bitch.

RATING:

9:45 a.m. – Tarantula: Finally, we get back to lame ‘50s black-and-white horror! This was one of my favorite movies at this year’s B-Fest.

Straight from the “Bert I. Gordon wishes he did it” files, Tarantula offered the B-Fest audience another chance to drink in the awesomeness that is John Agar, which was especially appreciated because I couldn’t even tell which guy was him in Revenge of the Creature. Basically, a doctor creates a super growth food serum that causes things to grow huge (including himself after being injected by an angry mongoloid test subject). It also makes humans look like Robert Z’Dar, but science hasn’t found a way to make this useful yet. After some testing on bunnies and other animals (my blood boils with anger at the thought of animal testing. There’s a special place in Hell for you fuckers who test on animals, and I hope they beam it up to Heaven via satellite so Jesus, Joseph Smith and I can sit around and watch you suffer), a giant tarantula breaks out and starts killing people and leaving huge white piles of spider flop all over the Arizona desert. Eventually, John Agar, a woman scientist named Steve and some napalm take car of this giant spider invasion. This film was made in 1955. Later, Arizona’s greatest suffering would come when they are invaded by a pack of even more terrifying creatures: the Arizona Cardinals. I’m sure Arizona residents would love to see Bill Bidwell stuffed up the butt of a giant spider. Am I right, people? And what’s the deal with airplane peanuts?

RATING:

11:10 a.m. – Lunch Break: I don’t remember a thing about lunch. But I’m pretty sure I brushed my teeth, which was a joyous experience, I’m sure.

RATING:

11:40 a.m. – Invasion U.S.A: Or, under its alternate title, Chuck Norris saves the whole world from Communism. Chuck Norris has made some dreadful movies (according to IMDB, he’s acted in 38 of them, produced eight and written five), but this vanity project is just unbelievable.

So basically, the commies invade the gross part of Florida and terrorize the area with random acts of violence. The cops are unable to stop them, and so is Billy Drago. The only hope for peace is Chuck Norris, who destroys all the communists in the whole country a few at a time with his bottomless arsenal of explosives, snide looks and terrible one-liners. Chuck wrote the screenplay for this steamer himself, so naturally he kept all the smartass lines for himself. Richard Lynch co-stars and wishes he hadn’t. Though he kills all the bad guys, Chuck fails, in that his awesomely bad movie doesn’t scare real-life communists into our way of thinking. Two months later, Sylvester Stallone officially ends the Cold War by knocking out Ivan Drago and giving his world-changing “If I can change, you can change” speech. Communism falls, yet Rocky is still fighting 21+ years later. Damn it, Communism.

RATING:

1 p.m. – Teenage Doll: This boring proto-Corman teen delinquency movie was a backbreaker to the B-Fest crowd, so it was pretty somber in the theater for the rest of the day. Still, I had fun with Teenage Doll.

A cute, sweet girl (June Kenney, who earned her bad movie stripes in “MST3K” fodder such as Bloodlust! and Earth vs. the Spider) gets mixed up in a girl gang and accidentally kills a member of a rival girl gang. From there, she spends the movie ducking away from the cops and the vengeful gang, all the while finding out that life as a teenage delinquent isn’t quite as noble as fighting Communism and buying domestic cars.

Eventually, she turns her self over to the cops to get away from her rivals. Because she’s white and blond, the cops don’t mind that she killed someone, as long as she repents and promises to follow the spiritual teachings of Ike. They give her a copy of “Ladies’ Home Journal” and send her on her way. There’s lots of other stuff going on too with the other gang members as they handle their everyday business, but it’s not important and I don’t remember it. So, on to the next feature, which I’m sure to remember a lot better.

RATING:

SIDE NOTE: My favorite part of the Teenage Doll experience was a particularly filthy discussion with Brother R in which I explained to him what a Latino Heater is. The story stems (or steams) from an allegedly funny story a friend told me about a co-worker. He hyped his story way up, and it flopped like Bob Dole’s penis with a 10-pound dumbbell tied to it. So, to exercise the demons caused by his tragically unfunny story, I made up this funnier story. Anyway, this guy allegedly calls himself Latino Heat because a) he’s probably Latino, and b) his penis burns with such testosteronic intensity that he brands women inside with it. See, not funny. Here’s a funnier story. Actually, he got his nickname because the first time he experimented with doling out a Cleveland Steamer, he got really nervous and his stomach was a wreck because of it. So when the time came, he squeezed one out but it came out all lumpy and runny like a pile of watery refried beans you’d get at a Mexican restaurant. So his legend for having runny, steamy poop sex grew, and he was dubbed Latino Heat. Fucking hilarious. As I was telling the story and getting some very impressive laughs, Brother R pointed out a couple of kids about 10-years-old or so who were sitting just a couple rows in front of us. I instantly felt terrible for corrupting the minds of America’s impressionable youth. In fact, I felt so bad, later that night I dropped a Latino Heater on some poor prostitute and had to apologize profusely for ruining her fur coat and also had to leave an extra $5 tip for the mess she left when she threw a handful of poop at me. Sorry, Evanston.

2:50 p.m. – Mystery Short #3: I absolutely don’t remember what this short was or anything about it, or even if it actually happened at this time slot or any other.

3 p.m. – The Incredible Melting Man: Normally, I try my hardest to go into B-Fest without any prior knowledge of what will be playing. But when Brother R let it slip to me that we would be seeing one of my favorite B-movies, The Incredible Melting Man, I hit the fucking roof with excitement. In fact, I was so excited that I set out to actually (I’m serious) track down Burr DeBenning, the guy who played the irrepressible Dr. Ted Nelson in the movie, to see if he would come as a B-Fest guest of honor. I’ve always wanted to meet the guy. Unfortunately, I didn’t get long into my search before I found out that DeBenning died in 2003 at the age of 67. It’s kind of depressing, but I always forget that actors who were middle-aged in the 70s are going on 70 or 80 today. Even if he was alive, he probably would have a) either forgotten about the role entirely, or b) told me to fuck off because he’s tired of being heckled. But Burr, if you’re up there (in fact, I saved his apparition a seat in front of me in the theater just in case), I want you to know that I actually enjoy the movie and really liked your performance. No fooling. The spirit of Dr. Ted Nelson lives on in my heart.

The Incredible Melting Man has my distinction of being the funniest “MST3K” episode ever, just because its ridiculously over-the-top special effects, stupid story and wooden characters are perfect fodder. The story is a classic: Some astronauts go to Saturn, but their shuttle explodes (?) and somehow they get back to Earth (I think, it’s pretty incomprehensible). One of the astronauts survives, but he’s melting and pretty pissed off about it. So he kills a porky nurse and escapes because he wants to wander around and melt, apparently. So the government hires the only man for the job, Dr. Ted Nelson. Dr. Ted Nelson (I refuse to shorten his name) hunts down Steve (the melting man), mostly by wandering around a field and saying “Steve, it’s [Dr.] Ted Nelson. I want to help you.”

He eventually finds him, but not before he melts, kills some old people, melts and kills, not necessarily in that order. The movie’s unforgettable climax takes place at a power plant, where Steve incinerates a sheriff on power lines, and saves Dr. Ted Nelson from falling to his death. The plant’s plucky security guards come to the scene and shoot Dr. Ted Nelson in the head for no apparent reason, other than maybe he forgot to sign in at the front desk. The end of the movie is even cooler, as Steve melts into a puddle and a mildly annoyed janitor scoops him into a trash barrel. There’s your movie, folks – a puddle of our monster getting scooped into a garbage can.

As I previously stated, I love this movie, and I love Dr. Ted Nelson. He would have been perfect for Raymond Burr’s character in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Nobody ever stared blankly into the face of danger and blinked with greater conviction. Unfortunately, the B-Fest crowd was pretty solemn throughout this one, as I just don’t think the spirit of Dr. Ted Nelson flows through them. Oh well, it’s their loss.

RATING:

4:30 p.m. – King Kong vs. Godzilla: When Freddy vs. Jason was finally green-lighted, I was scared to death of the cartoonish atrocity it had the potential to become, and I have King Kong vs. Godzilla, the stupidest collaboration in movie history before Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys seized the throne, to thank for it.

This movie has the distinction of being the first shown on DVD ever at a B-Fest. Was it a worthy opener to a new B-Fest era? I’d grudgingly say yes, thanks to a hefty heaping slab of extreme idiocy from our friends from Japan. As you may have surmised, I’m not at all a fan of giant monster movies, with the exception of an occasional Bert I. Gordon masterpiece. But, even for me, it’s worth it for the fight at the end between a terrible-looking King Kong and Godzilla, who would have to be considered a heavy favorite considering King Kong has no powers except for being big. The only hope for King Kong would be for Godzilla to laugh himself into incapacitation after seeing how lousy the King Kong kostume looks. Oh, wait, the brilliant minds at Toho decided to give King Kong the ability to gain strength from electricity – so, the Japanese poke fun at OUR intelligence, eh?

The WWE-style final battle is worth it (though not as cool as the epic Godzilla/Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon/Gigan tag team match for the Seatopian Tag Team Championship that was yet to come), but getting to it is a taxing experience. Somehow Godzilla is freed from his prison, and the nation of Japan’s solution to this is to bring King Kong over to fight him off. Forgiving the fact that King Kong would be no match for an even-bigger, more powerful radioactive lizard, they get him over there and somehow the giant ape wins enough to get Godzilla to go away. But this was deemed too complex for American audiences, so some genius decided to interject two ridiculous U.N. “newscasters” to recount the events of the movie every few minutes, just in case we couldn’t figure out what was going on in the stupid threadbare plot. If it was an instructional book, it would be called “Dumb Fucking Monster Movies for Even-Dumber Fucking Dummies”. The American version also removes all hints of satire (Brother R says the undubbed Japanese version explores Japanese consumerism, or something) and pretty much lessens an already terrible movie.

The only question that needs to be answered: Whose fault is this? Did Americans do this because they thought they had to Americanize the movie to get anyone to see it? Or did the Japanese do this because the cocky fuckers thought Americans were too dumb to comprehend their stupid shit? I’m sure the answer is out there, but I’m not going to bother looking because I’ve already devoted too much time to this ridiculous movie. Do I hate this movie? Absolutely. But it was fun with a crowd who seems to get into this kind of thing, so it wasn’t a total waste. Now if we could only put an end to the stupid “USA, USA” chants, we’d have ourselves a B-Fest.

RATING:

That night/shove off (you shove off!): We went back to our hotel, had much-needed showers and met some people for dinner at a pub across the street. I had the buffalo wings; they were good but not extraordinary. After dinner, we went to a giant Barnes & Noble down the street, where I finally got my hands on a copy of “Crystal Lake Memories”. It was even more beautiful than I dreamed it would be.

The trip back home was fun and mostly uneventful. It was kind of a bummer to have to work instead of just basking in the awesomeness of the trip, but what can you do? So, overall, it was a good, though not really great, B-Fest this year. The movie selection was good (apparently much, much better than last year’s) but not as good as the first couple years I was there. We have high hopes for next year, as I’ll actually take vacation that week so we can go Thursday night and get some sleep.

B-FEST RATING:

See What Ragnarok Had To Say About B-Fest 2007

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