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Oh man the early 90s horror scene was so odd. The slasher subgenre was dying. And if you listen to some fans horror was shit in the 90s until Scream. Which of course is wrong. There was good horror all through out the 90s.
When cable finally reached the rural ass hell southern town I grew up in,tail end of 1990,I paid out of my pocket for Showtime and TMC. Which where the only MOVIE channels our cable offered. Sure I wasn't making much at my part time after school job. But 20 bucks a month went to making sure I had Showtime and TMC. And at least another 30 a month went to buying blank VHS. Cause I was recording any horror movie that aired on Showtime or TMC. It was late 1991 when I saw that Showtime was airing Popcorn a bunch of times the next month. I had wanted to see Popcorn. But something else came out the same weekend as it. And we all went to see that. The next weekend Popcorn was gone. I had hoped to rent it. But no video store in the area carried it. But Showtime was showing it 5 times in one month. First time airing it at the oddest hour of 2am on a Wednesday.
Sure I had a VCR in my bedroom by this time. And I could have just set my VCR recorded it and watched it Wednesday evening after school and work. But nope I stayed up all night to see it. And I fucking loved it.
A group of college kids are hosting an all night movie marathon at a soon to be demolished theater. This is a fund raiser for their drama club IIRC. Thanks to Ray Walston,who runs a film merch shop,they get some great gimmicks to go with the three films they show.
Those 3 films are Mosquito,a throw back to the 50s giant insect flicks. And this movie is in 3d. Loved the one scene we see from this film where a giant mosquito lands on a car roof. And shoves it's sucker through the roof and into a yokel's head. Then sucks his brain and everything else out. They have a great FX of the head collasping on itself that I still think looks amazing.
Another of the films is Attack of the Amazing Electrafied Man,which like the Tingler has seats in the theater wired up to a board and whoever is at that board can give the people in the seats a nice shock. This reminds me of all the 40s era films where dudes get powers through accidents.
Last up is The Stench,filmed on SMELL O VISION. Like Polyester from John Waters.
While going through the lot of stuff Walston brought they find a 4th film. Titled Possesser. So the students screen it and it shows stuff similar to what our lead Maggie has been dreaming. Odd stuff with fire and death. Seems the director of this thought lost film killed his family before he could shoot the final scene. And set a theater on fire where he was showing what he had shot of his film.
So while these films are airing to a packed house. Someone is not only killing off the students. But is a master of disquise.Which we learn when people we saw die show up in later scenes.
We find out who the killer is. Our lead Maggie ,played by the great Jill Scholen who yall might remember from the original Stepfather film,gets captured by the killer and we learn who they are and why they are doing what they are doing. I know this isn't a film lots of have seen so I am not gonna full spoil the film.
Overall the film is just fun. But is is one I forgot about. Sure from 91 until 2010 or so I had that VHS I had recorded it on,same tape also had Subspecies 2 on it. And I would watch it maybe once every 5 years.
I had really just forgotten about the film until I saw Code Red announce they were releasing it to DVD. FOund out there was a previous DVD release that was out of print,and IIRC it was 4:3 instead of OAR. I figured it was time to replace my well worn VHS tape. And since Code Red hinted it would be out soon I gave that tape away to a friend.
Then I keep hearing that some fan has the DVD rights to the film and is putting out a ULTIMATE FAN EDITION. Also claiming that Code Red doesn't have the rights. And it started this online war of words that lasted what felt like 40 years.
Finally in the past 5 years,IIRC,Synapse finally released the ULTIMATE FAN EDITION. I think there is a blu ray release. But the cost of it was stupid high. So I passed.Figuring there would be a cheaper DVD release and I would get that. Plus not long after the blu ray got out someone sent my a rip of the film off the blu. I ain't seen a cheaper dvd release of the film so far. But Shudder has Popcorn and holy hell I think I might just drop that 35 or 40 bucks and get the blu ray. Cause this print on Shudder looks great. Way better than I remember it ever looking.
Popcorn is a nice meta slasher horror film. I like how it has ties to Deathdreams,in that they wanted Bob Clark to direct this but he turned it down so the guy that worked with him on Deathdreams directed this. Well he stared directing it and was firedd a few weeks into filming. Where he got replaced by one of the lead actors from PORKYS! Yep no joke. Just like Jill Scholen,she wasn't the original actress cast to play the lead. But when the director got replaced she did too.
Popcorn gets a B+.
