Podcast appearances and mentions of Jackie Kong

The DFM quartet dives headfirst into the blood-buffet that is this unique 1987 Jackie Kong-directed cult classic. We discuss the film's gruesomely fun kills, over-the-top acting, energetic yet chaotic atmosphere & its punk rock elements. Featuring the peculiar mythology of Sheetar, we touch on the lore building that makes this one such a zany viewing experience. As the chat wraps up, we each rate the film, and suggest some ideal double feature pairings.

“I'm so horny I could fuck a cow.” Things are going from strange to downright bizarre on this week's episode of The Blind Rage Podcast, as we take a look at Jackie Kong's 1987 horror-comedy BLOOD DINER! As children, brothers Michael and George witness the brutal death of their doting Uncle Anwar. 20 years later, they're running a popular Hollywood diner, which serves exclusively vegetarian cuisine. Or so their clientele believes. Using one of Anwar's many absurd rituals, Michael and George are able to resurrect their favorite uncle, only now, he's a talking brain in a jar. With eyeballs. Following Anwar's instructions to the letter, the brothers begin butchering and dismembering the city's most immoral women, using their body parts to bring to life the ancient Egyptian goddess Shetar. Following the blood trail, some local detectives are on the case. Unfortunately for Hollywood's dwindling population, these guys are closer to Inspector Gadget than they are Hercule Poirot.

Flesh Wound Horror Live, with a special Franchise Show on The Godfather Of Gore H.G. Lewis's BLOOD FEAST. We kick it off with the original 1963 drive in classic, followed by the first unofficial sequel, MARDI GRAS MASSACRE, the second unofficial 1987 Jackie Kong directed sequel, BLOOD DINER, the long awaited official 2002 sequel, BLOOD FEAST 2: ALL U CAN EAT, & the 2016 Remake BLOOD FEAST, from director Marcel Walz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMUn5blQjMk #BloodFeast #HGLewis #GodfatherOfGore #BloodDiner #VideoNasty #MardiGrasMassacre #80sHorror #80s #60sHorror #HerschellGordonLewis #BloodFeast2AllUCanEat #Cannibals #CarolineWilliams #Grindhouse #Severin #DriveIn #ArrowVideo #DavidFriedman #WilliamKerwin #MalArnold #Ishtar #Egypt #Vestron #SomethingWeird #42ndStreet #JackieKong #HorrorMovies #RobertRusler #SophieMonk #GermanHorror

This time on More Deadly, we are joined by our buddy Casey of the Bloody Good Horror Podcast to discuss Blood Diner, directed by Jackie Kong. We talk bizarro puppets, cannibal bros, vagina dentata, and the origin story of Ariel and Rachel's friendship — and how it connects to this film and a mummified clown. ... Read More The post The More Deadly Podcast Episode 88: Blood Diner appeared first on The Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast.

This time on More Deadly, we are joined by our buddy Casey of the Bloody Good Horror Podcast to discuss Blood Diner, directed by Jackie Kong. We talk bizarro puppets, cannibal bros, vagina dentata, and the origin story of Ariel and Rachel’s friendship — and how it connects to this film and a mummified clown. ... Read More The post The More Deadly Podcast Episode 88: Blood Diner appeared first on The Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast.

We have Jackie Kong for an interview. If you want some deep info on Night Patrol, it's right here. 

Grab your apron and your dead uncle's brain to join us for the blood feast as we devour Jackie Kong's Blood Diner. Email: WeeklyPodcastMassacre@gmail.com Threads: @WeeklyMassacre Instagram: @WeeklyMassacre Music by Dora the Destroyer --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/weeklypodcastmassacre/message

Welcome to #NIGHTvember where we will spend the month talking about movies with "night" in the title! Kicking off our month of night is the wacky, chaotic comedy by director Jackie Kong, Night Patrol!  Join us on our pursuit of what works in this film, including special shout outs to Linda Blair, the Unknown Comic, and an Erica favorite, - showbiz agent character! We toss out our usual show structure and follow the trail of wherever the night (patrol) takes us! We promise no animals were harmed in the recording of this podcast. For more information about the podcast, go to www.newworldpicturespodcast.com.

Blood Diner is a 1987 American horror comedy directed by Jackie Kong and starring Rick Burks, Carl Crew, Roger Dauer, LaNette LaFrance, and Lisa Guggenheim. It was written by Michael Sonye. The plot follows two brothers setting up a vegetarian restaurant as a front for them to kill women and collect their severed body-parts to resurrect the Lumerian goddess Sheetar. The film was originally conceived to be a sequel to Hershell Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast, but it was then changed to be a standalone film of its own. Although general reception towards the film has been mixed, it has become a cult film since its release. FRUMESS is POWERED by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.riotstickers.com/frumess⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ GET 1000 STICKERS FOR $79  RIGHT HERE - NO PROMO CODE NEED! JOIN THE PATREON FOR LESS THAN A $2 CUP OF COFFEE!! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/Frumess ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Tom and Jenny discuss a Z-grade, ecological monster movie from the 1980s, about a mutated creature stalking a small town in Idaho. It was the directorial debut of Jackie Kong, who would go on to direct the 1987 cult classic Blood Diner, and is also known under the title The Pottsville Horror. Audio version: Video … Continue reading Movie Time: The Being (1983)

Horror icon Jackie Kong is back in studio and ready to dish on her directorial debut THE BEING. She also discusses her new spookriffic comic series, Spend The Night! To wrap up this epic evening, we play a fun game of Kong or Consequences... #supportukraine Forgotten Felines https://www.forgottenfelines.com/support/donate/ukraine/ Nova Ukraine http://novaukraine.org Razom for Ukraine https://razomforukraine.org/razom-emergency-response/ World Central Kitchen https://wck.org Global Giving https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/ukraine-crisis-relief-fund/ VISIT OUR STORE! www.thecultshow.com/store AKA The CULT SHOW Check out the video version of this podcast on Youtube at https://youtube.com/live/4jflB9cBdos Our awesome theme song was written and performed by Quinten T Cohen https://quintentcohen.bandcamp.com Check us out on social: Instagram @thecultshowrocks Twitter @thecultshow_ Facebook @thecultshow Send us an email info@thecultshow.com or catch us online thecultshow.com Thanks for listening! 

SHEETAR!! This week I'm joined by new friends Rachel & Ariel, the hosts of The MORE DEADLY Podcast, to discuss the epitome of 1987 absurdism and excess: Jackie Kong's BLOOD DINER! We also talk about spooky West Hollywood music venues, my spotlight-stealing cat, and my taste in problematic men with hypnotic mind-controlling powers. LET'S GO RICK OR TREATING!PODCAST:www.RickOrTreat.comINSTA: @RickOrTreatPodMORE DEADLY (Guest Hosts)www.zombiegrrlz.comSOCIALS: @zgpodcastsRICKY (Host):MY WRITING:www.Rue-Morgue.comwww.SpoilerFreeReviews.comINSTA: @rickrtreatLESTAT VON MONDLICHT (Music by):Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/@lestatvonmondlichtCRIMSON SOUL:Insta: @crimsonsoulofficialhttps://www.facebook.com/crimsonsoulofficialAFTER DARK (Band):https://www.facebook.com/afterdarkofficialuyhttps://www.instagram.com/afterdarkuyhttps://www.youtube.com/@afterdarkuyDROP BEAT EMPIRE (Electrogoth project):https://linktr.ee/dropbeatempireuy

The first of a two-part series on the short-lived 80s American distribution company responsible for Dirty Dancing. ----more---- The movies covered on this episode: Alpine (1987, Fredi M. Murer) Anna (1987, Yurek Bogayevicz) Billy Galvin (1986, John Grey) Blood Diner (1987, Jackie Kong) China Girl (1987, Abel Ferrera) The Dead (1987, John Huston) Dirty Dancing (1987, Emile Ardolino) Malcolm (1986, Nadia Tess) Personal Services (1987, Terry Jones) Slaughter High (1986, Mark Ezra and Peter Litten and George Dugdale) Steel Dawn (1987, Lance Hook) Street Trash (1987, Jim Muro)   TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   Have you ever thought “I should do this thing” but then you never get around to it, until something completely random happens that reminds you that you were going to do this thing a long time ago?   For this week's episode, that kick in the keister was a post on Twitter from someone I don't follow being retweeted by the great film critic and essayist Walter Chaw, someone I do follow, that showed a Blu-ray cover of the 1987 Walter Hill film Extreme Prejudice. You see, Walter Chaw has recently released a book about the life and career of Walter Hill, and this other person was showing off their new purchase. That in and of itself wasn't the kick in the butt.   That was the logo of the disc's distributor.   Vestron Video.   A company that went out of business more than thirty years before, that unbeknownst to me had been resurrected by the current owner of the trademark, Lionsgate Films, as a specialty label for a certain kind of film like Ken Russell's Gothic, Beyond Re-Animator, CHUD 2, and, for some reason, Walter Hill's Neo-Western featuring Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe and Rip Torn. For those of you from the 80s, you remember at least one of Vestron Pictures' movies. I guarantee it.   But before we get there, we, as always, must go back a little further back in time.   The year is 1981. Time Magazine is amongst the most popular magazines in the world, while their sister publication, Life, was renowned for their stunning photographs printed on glossy color paper of a larger size than most magazines. In the late 1970s, Time-Life added a video production and distribution company to ever-growing media empire that also included television stations, cable channels, book clubs, and compilation record box sets. But Time Life Home Video didn't quite take off the way the company had expected, and they decided to concentrate its lucrative cable businesses like HBO. The company would move Austin Furst, an executive from HBO, over to dismantle the assets of Time-Life Films. And while Furst would sell off the production and distribution parts of the company to Fox, and the television department to Columbia Pictures, he couldn't find a party interested in the home video department. Recognizing that home video was an emerging market that would need a visionary like himself willing to take big risks for the chance to have big rewards, Furst purchased the home video rights to the film and video library for himself, starting up his home entertainment company.   But what to call the company?   It would be his daughter that would come up with Vestron, a portmanteau of combining the name of the Roman goddess of the heart, Vesta, with Tron, the Greek word for instrument. Remember, the movie Tron would not be released for another year at this point.   At first, there were only two employees at Vestron: Furst himself, and Jon Pesinger, a fellow executive at Time-Life who, not unlike Dorothy Boyd in Jerry Maguire, was the only person who saw Furst's long-term vision for the future.   Outside of the titles they brought with them from Time-Life, Vestron's initial release of home video titles comprised of two mid-range movie hits where they were able to snag the home video rights instead of the companies that released the movies in theatres, either because those companies did not have a home video operation yet, or did not negotiate for home video rights when making the movie deal with the producers. Fort Apache, The Bronx, a crime drama with Paul Newman and Ed Asner, and Loving Couples, a Shirley MacLaine/James Coburn romantic comedy that was neither romantic nor comedic, were Time-Life productions, while the Burt Reynolds/Dom DeLuise comedy The Cannonball Run, was a pickup from the Hong Kong production company Golden Harvest, which financed the comedy to help break their local star, Jackie Chan, into the American market. They'd also make a deal with several Canadian production companies to get the American home video rights to titles like the Jack Lemmon drama Tribute and the George C. Scott horror film The Changeling.   The advantage that Vestron had over the major studios was their outlook on the mom and pop rental stores that were popping up in every city and town in the United States. The major studios hated the idea that they could sell a videotape for, say, $99.99, and then see someone else make a major profit by renting that tape out fifty or a hundred times at $4 or $5 per night. Of course, they would eventually see the light, but in 1982, they weren't there yet.   Now, let me sidetrack for a moment, as I am wont to do, to talk about mom and pop video stores in the early 1980s. If you're younger than, say, forty, you probably only know Blockbuster and/or Hollywood Video as your local video rental store, but in the early 80s, there were no national video store chains yet. The first Blockbuster wouldn't open until October 1985, in Dallas, and your neighborhood likely didn't get one until the late 1980s or early 1990s. The first video store I ever encountered, Telford Home Video in Belmont Shores, Long Beach in 1981, was operated by Bob Telford, an actor best known for playing the Station Master in both the original 1974 version of Where the Red Fern Grows and its 2003 remake. Bob was really cool, and I don't think it was just because the space for the video store was just below my dad's office in the real estate company that had built and operated the building. He genuinely took interest in this weird thirteen year old kid who had an encyclopedic knowledge of films and wanted to learn more. I wanted to watch every movie he had in the store that I hadn't seen yet, but there was one problem: we had a VHS machine, and most of Bob's inventory was RCA SelectaVision, a disc-based playback system using a special stylus and a groove-covered disc much like an LP record. After school each day, I'd hightail it over to Telford Home Video, and Bob and I would watch a movie while we waited for customers to come rent something. It was with Bob that I would watch Ordinary People and The Magnificent Seven, The Elephant Man and The Last Waltz, Bus Stop and Rebel Without a Cause and The French Connection and The Man Who Fell to Earth and a bunch of other movies that weren't yet available on VHS, and it was great.   Like many teenagers in the early 1980s, I spent some time working at a mom and pop video store, Seacliff Home Video in Aptos, CA. I worked on the weekends, it was a third of a mile walk from home, and even though I was only 16 years old at the time, my bosses would, every week, solicit my opinion about which upcoming videos we should acquire. Because, like Telford Home Video and Village Home Video, where my friends Dick and Michelle worked about two miles away, and most every video store at the time, space was extremely limited and there was only space for so many titles. Telford Home Video was about 500 square feet and had maybe 500 titles. Seacliff was about 750 square feet and around 800 titles, including about 50 in the tiny, curtained off room created to hold the porn. And the first location for Village Home Video had only 300 square feet of space and only 250 titles. The owner, Leone Keller, confirmed to me that until they moved into a larger location across from the original store, they were able to rent out every movie in the store every night.    For many, a store owner had to be very careful about what they ordered and what they replaced. But Vestron Home Video always seemed to have some of the better movies. Because of a spat between Warner Brothers and Orion Pictures, Vestron would end up with most of Orion's 1983 through 1985 theatrical releases, including Rodney Dangerfield's Easy Money, the Nick Nolte political thriller Under Fire, the William Hurt mystery Gorky Park, and Gene Wilder's The Woman in Red. They'd also make a deal with Roger Corman's old American Independent Pictures outfit, which would reap an unexpected bounty when George Miller's second Mad Max movie, The Road Warrior, became a surprise hit in 1982, and Vestron was holding the video rights to the first Mad Max movie. And they'd also find themselves with the laserdisc rights to several Brian DePalma movies including Dressed to Kill and Blow Out. And after Polygram Films decided to leave the movie business in 1984, they would sell the home video rights to An American Werewolf in London and Endless Love to Vestron.   They were doing pretty good.   And in 1984, Vestron ended up changing the home video industry forever.   When Michael Jackson and John Landis had trouble with Jackson's record company, Epic, getting their idea for a 14 minute short film built around the title song to Jackson's monster album Thriller financed, Vestron would put up a good portion of the nearly million dollar budget in order to release the movie on home video, after it played for a few weeks on MTV. In February 1984, Vestron would release a one-hour tape, The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller, that included the mini-movie and a 45 minute Making of featurette. At $29.99, it would be one of the first sell-through titles released on home video.   It would become the second home videotape to sell a million copies, after Star Wars.   Suddenly, Vestron was flush with more cash than it knew what to do with.   In 1985, they would decide to expand their entertainment footprint by opening Vestron Pictures, which would finance a number of movies that could be exploited across a number of platforms, including theatrical, home video, cable and syndicated TV. In early January 1986, Vestron would announce they were pursuing projects with three producers, Steve Tisch, Larry Turman, and Gene Kirkwood, but no details on any specific titles or even a timeframe when any of those movies would be made.   Tisch, the son of Loews Entertainment co-owner Bob Tisch, had started producing films in 1977 with the Peter Fonda music drama Outlaw Blues, and had a big hit in 1983 with Risky Business. Turman, the Oscar-nominated producer of Mike Nichols' The Graduate, and Kirkwood, the producer of The Keep and The Pope of Greenwich Village, had seen better days as producers by 1986 but their names still carried a certain cache in Hollywood, and the announcement would certainly let the industry know Vestron was serious about making quality movies.   Well, maybe not all quality movies. They would also launch a sub-label for Vestron Pictures called Lightning Pictures, which would be utilized on B-movies and schlock that maybe wouldn't fit in the Vestron Pictures brand name they were trying to build.   But it costs money to build a movie production and theatrical distribution company.   Lots of money.   Thanks to the ever-growing roster of video titles and the success of releases like Thriller, Vestron would go public in the spring of 1985, selling enough shares on the first day of trading to bring in $440m to the company, $140m than they thought they would sell that day.   It would take them a while, but in 1986, they would start production on their first slate of films, as well as acquire several foreign titles for American distribution.   Vestron Pictures officially entered the theatrical distribution game on July 18th, 1986, when they released the Australian comedy Malcolm at the Cinema 2 on the Upper East Side of New York City. A modern attempt to create the Aussie version of a Jacques Tati-like absurdist comedy about modern life and our dependance on gadgetry, Malcolm follows, as one character describes him a 100 percent not there individual who is tricked into using some of his remote control inventions to pull of a bank robbery. While the film would be a minor hit in Australia, winning all eight of the Australian Film Institute Awards it was nominated for including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and three acting awards, the film would only play for five weeks in New York, grossing less than $35,000, and would not open in Los Angeles until November 5th, where in its first week at the Cineplex Beverly Center and Samuel Goldwyn Pavilion Cinemas, it would gross a combined $37,000. Go figure.   Malcolm would open in a few more major markets, but Vestron would close the film at the end of the year with a gross under $200,000.   Their next film, Slaughter High, was a rather odd bird. A co-production between American and British-based production companies, the film followed a group of adults responsible for a prank gone wrong on April Fool's Day who are invited to a reunion at their defunct high school where a masked killer awaits inside.   And although the movie takes place in America, the film was shot in London and nearby Virginia Water, Surrey, in late 1984, under the title April Fool's Day. But even with Caroline Munro, the British sex symbol who had become a cult favorite with her appearances in a series of sci-fi and Hammer horror films with Peter Cushing and/or Christopher Lee, as well as her work in the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, April Fool's Day would sit on the proverbial shelf for nearly two years, until Vestron picked it up and changed its title, since Paramount Pictures had released their own horror film called April Fools Day earlier in the year.   Vestron would open Slaughter High on nine screens in Detroit on November 14th, 1986, but Vestron would not report grosses. Then they would open it on six screen in St. Louis on February 13th, 1987. At least this time they reported a gross. $12,400. Variety would simply call that number “grim.” They'd give the film one final rush on April 24th, sending it out to 38 screens in in New York City, where it would gross $90,000. There'd be no second week, as practically every theatre would replace it with Creepshow 2.   The third and final Vestron Pictures release for 1986 was Billy Galvin, a little remembered family drama featuring Karl Malden and Lenny von Dohlen, originally produced for the PBS anthology series American Playhouse but bumped up to a feature film as part of coordinated effort to promote the show by occasionally releasing feature films bearing the American Playhouse banner.   The film would open at the Cineplex Beverly Center on December 31st, not only the last day of the calendar year but the last day a film can be released into theatres in Los Angeles to have been considered for Academy Awards. The film would not get any major awards, from the Academy or anyone else, nor much attention from audiences, grossing just $4,000 in its first five days. They'd give the film a chance in New York on February 20th, at the 23rd Street West Triplex, but a $2,000 opening weekend gross would doom the film from ever opening in another theatre again.   In early 1987, Vestron announced eighteen films they would release during the year, and a partnership with AMC Theatres and General Cinema to have their films featured in those two companies' pilot specialized film programs in major markets like Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston and San Francisco.   Alpine Fire would be the first of those films, arriving at the Cinema Studio 1 in New York City on February 20th. A Swiss drama about a young deaf and mentally challenged teenager who gets his older sister pregnant, was that country's entry into the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race. While the film would win the Golden Leopard Award at the 1985 Locarno Film Festival, the Academy would not select the film for a nomination, and the film would quickly disappear from theatres after a $2,000 opening weekend gross.   Personal Services, the first film to be directed by Terry Jones outside of his services with Monty Python, would arrive in American theatres on May 15th. The only Jones-directed film to not feature any other Python in the cast, Personal Services was a thinly-disguised telling of a 1970s—era London waitress who was running a brothel in her flat in order to make ends meet, and featured a standout performance by Julie Walters as the waitress turned madame. In England, Personal Services would be the second highest-grossing film of the year, behind The Living Daylights, the first Bond film featuring new 007 Timothy Dalton. In America, the film wouldn't be quite as successful, grossing $1.75m after 33 weeks in theatres, despite never playing on more than 31 screens in any given week.   It would be another three months before Vestron would release their second movie of the year, but it would be the one they'd become famous for.   Dirty Dancing.   Based in large part on screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein's own childhood, the screenplay would be written after the producers of the 1980 Michael Douglas/Jill Clayburgh dramedy It's My Turn asked the writer to remove a scene from the screenplay that involved an erotic dance sequence. She would take that scene and use it as a jumping off point for a new story about a Jewish teenager in the early 1960s who participated in secret “Dirty Dancing” competitions while she vacationed with her doctor father and stay-at-home mother while they vacationed in the Catskill Mountains. Baby, the young woman at the center of the story, would not only resemble the screenwriter as a character but share her childhood nickname.   Bergstein would pitch the story to every studio in Hollywood in 1984, and only get a nibble from MGM Pictures, whose name was synonymous with big-budget musicals decades before. They would option the screenplay and assign producer Linda Gottlieb, a veteran television producer making her first major foray into feature films, to the project. With Gottlieb, Bergstein would head back to the Catskills for the first time in two decades, as research for the script. It was while on this trip that the pair would meet Michael Terrace, a former Broadway dancer who had spent summers in the early 1960s teaching tourists how to mambo in the Catskills. Terrace and Bergstein didn't remember each other if they had met way back when, but his stories would help inform the lead male character of Johnny Castle.   But, as regularly happens in Hollywood, there was a regime change at MGM in late 1985, and one of the projects the new bosses cut loose was Dirty Dancing. Once again, the script would make the rounds in Hollywood, but nobody was biting… until Vestron Pictures got their chance to read it.   They loved it, and were ready to make it their first in-house production… but they would make the movie if the budget could be cut from $10m to $4.5m. That would mean some sacrifices. They wouldn't be able to hire a major director, nor bigger name actors, but that would end up being a blessing in disguise.   To direct, Gottlieb and Bergstein looked at a lot of up and coming feature directors, but the one person they had the best feeling about was Emile Ardolino, a former actor off-Broadway in the 1960s who began his filmmaking career as a documentarian for PBS in the 1970s. In 1983, Ardolino's documentary about National Dance Institute founder Jacques d'Amboise, He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin', would win both the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Entertainment Special.   Although Ardolino had never directed a movie, he would read the script twice in a week while serving on jury duty, and came back to Gottlieb and Bergstein with a number of ideas to help make the movie shine, even at half the budget.   For a movie about dancing, with a lot of dancing in it, they would need a creative choreographer to help train the actors and design the sequences. The filmmakers would chose Kenny Ortega, who in addition to choreographing the dance scenes in Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, had worked with Gene Kelly on the 1980 musical Xanadu. Well, more specifically, was molded by Gene Kelly to become the lead choreographer for the film. That's some good credentials.   Unlike movies like Flashdance, where the filmmakers would hire Jennifer Beals to play Alex and Marine Jahan to perform Alex's dance scenes, Emile Ardolino was insistent that the actors playing the dancers were actors who also dance. Having stand-ins would take extra time to set-up, and would suck up a portion of an already tight budget. Yet the first people he would meet for the lead role of Johnny were non-dancers Benecio del Toro, Val Kilmer, and Billy Zane. Zane would go so far as to do a screen test with one of the actresses being considered for the role of Baby, Jennifer Grey, but after screening the test, they realized Grey was right for Baby but Zane was not right for Johnny.   Someone suggested Patrick Swayze, a former dancer for the prestigious Joffrey Ballet who was making his way up the ranks of stardom thanks to his roles in The Outsiders and Grandview U.S.A. But Swayze had suffered a knee injury years before that put his dance career on hold, and there were concerns he would re-aggravate his injury, and there were concerns from Jennifer Grey because she and Swayze had not gotten along very well while working on Red Dawn. But that had been three years earlier, and when they screen tested together here, everyone was convinced this was the pairing that would bring magic to the role.   Baby's parents would be played by two Broadway veterans: Jerry Orbach, who is best known today as Detective Lenny Briscoe on Law and Order, and Kelly Bishop, who is best known today as Emily Gilmore from Gilmore Girls but had actually started out as a dancer, singer and actor, winning a Tony Award for her role in the original Broadway production of A Chorus Line. Although Bishop had originally been cast in a different role for the movie, another guest at the Catskills resort with the Housemans, but she would be bumped up when the original Mrs. Houseman, Lynne Lipton, would fall ill during the first week of filming.   Filming on Dirty Dancing would begin in North Carolina on September 5th, 1986, at a former Boy Scout camp that had been converted to a private residential community. This is where many of the iconic scenes from the film would be shot, including Baby carrying the watermelon and practicing her dance steps on the stairs, all the interior dance scenes, the log scene, and the golf course scene where Baby would ask her father for $250. It's also where Patrick Swayze almost ended his role in the film, when he would indeed re-injure his knee during the balancing scene on the log. He would be rushed to the hospital to have fluid drained from the swelling. Thankfully, there would be no lingering effects once he was released.   After filming in North Carolina was completed, the team would move to Virginia for two more weeks of filming, including the water lift scene, exteriors at Kellerman's Hotel and the Houseman family's cabin, before the film wrapped on October 27th.   Ardolino's first cut of the film would be completed in February 1987, and Vestron would begin the process of running a series of test screenings. At the first test screening, nearly 40% of the audience didn't realize there was an abortion subplot in the movie, even after completing the movie. A few weeks later, Vestron executives would screen the film for producer Aaron Russo, who had produced such movies as The Rose and Trading Places. His reaction to the film was to tell the executives to burn the negative and collect the insurance.   But, to be fair, one important element of the film was still not set.   The music.   Eleanor Bergstein had written into her script a number of songs that were popular in the early 1960s, when the movie was set, that she felt the final film needed. Except a number of the songs were a bit more expensive to license than Vestron would have preferred. The company was testing the film with different versions of those songs, other artists' renditions. The writer, with the support of her producer and director, fought back. She made a deal with the Vestron executives. They would play her the master tracks to ten of the songs she wanted, as well as the copycat versions. If she could identify six of the masters, she could have all ten songs in the film.   Vestron would spend another half a million dollars licensing the original recording.    The writer nailed all ten.   But even then, there was still one missing piece of the puzzle.   The closing song.   While Bergstein wanted another song to close the film, the team at Vestron were insistent on a new song that could be used to anchor a soundtrack album. The writer, producer, director and various members of the production team listened to dozens of submissions from songwriters, but none of them were right, until they got to literally the last submission left, written by Franke Previte, who had written another song that would appear on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, “Hungry Eyes.”   Everybody loved the song, called “I've Had the Time of My Life,” and it would take some time to convince Previte that Dirty Dancing was not a porno. They showed him the film and he agreed to give them the song, but the production team and Vestron wanted to get a pair of more famous singers to record the final version.   The filmmakers originally approached disco queen Donna Summer and Joe Esposito, whose song “You're the Best” appeared on the Karate Kid soundtrack, but Summer would decline, not liking the title of the movie. They would then approach Daryl Hall from Hall and Oates and Kim Carnes, but they'd both decline, citing concerns about the title of the movie. Then they approached Bill Medley, one-half of The Righteous Brothers, who had enjoyed yet another career resurgence when You Lost That Lovin' Feeling became a hit in 1986 thanks to Top Gun, but at first, he would also decline. Not that he had any concerns about the title of the film, although he did have concerns about the title, but that his wife was about to give birth to their daughter, and he had promised he would be there.   While trying to figure who to get to sing the male part of the song, the music supervisor for the film approached Jennifer Warnes, who had sung the duet “Up Where We Belong” from the An Officer and a Gentleman soundtrack, which had won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Original Song, and sang the song “It Goes Like It Goes” from the Norma Rae soundtrack, which had won the 1980 Academy Award for Best Original Song. Warnes wasn't thrilled with the song, but she would be persuaded to record the song for the right price… and if Bill Medley would sing the other part. Medley, flattered that Warnes asked specifically to record with him, said he would do so, after his daughter was born, and if the song was recorded in his studio in Los Angeles. A few weeks later, Medley and Warnes would have their portion of the song completed in only one hour, including additional harmonies and flourishes decided on after finishing with the main vocals.   With all the songs added to the movie, audience test scores improved considerably.   RCA Records, who had been contracted to handle the release of the soundtrack, would set a July 17th release date for the album, to coincide with the release of the movie on the same day, with the lead single, I've Had the Time of My Life, released one week earlier. But then, Vestron moved the movie back from July 17th to August 21st… and forgot to tell RCA Records about the move. No big deal. The song would quickly rise up the charts, eventually hitting #1 on the Billboard charts.   When the movie finally did open in 975 theatres in August 21st, the film would open to fourth place with $3.9m in ticket sales, behind Can't Buy Me Love in third place and in its second week of release, the Cheech Marin comedy Born in East L.A., which opened in second place, and Stakeout, which was enjoying its third week atop the charts.   The reviews were okay, but not special. Gene Siskel would give the film a begrudging Thumbs Up, citing Jennifer Grey's performance and her character's arc as the thing that tipped the scale into the positive, while Roger Ebert would give the film a Thumbs Down, due to its idiot plot and tired and relentlessly predictable story of love between kids from different backgrounds.   But then a funny thing happened…   Instead of appealing to the teenagers they thought would see the film, the majority of the audience ended up becoming adults. Not just twenty and thirty somethings, but people who were teenagers themselves during the movie's timeframe. They would be drawn in to the film through the newfound sense of boomer nostalgia that helped make Stand By Me an unexpected hit the year before, both as a movie and as a soundtrack.   Its second week in theatre would only see the gross drop 6%, and the film would finish in third place.   In week three, the four day Labor Day weekend, it would gross nearly $5m, and move up to second place. And it would continue to play and continue to bring audiences in, only dropping out of the top ten once in early November for one weekend, from August to December. Even with all the new movies entering the marketplace for Christmas, Dirty Dancing would be retained by most of the theatres that were playing it. In the first weekend of 1988, Dirty Dancing was still playing in 855 theaters, only 120 fewer than who opened it five months earlier. Once it did started leaving first run theatres, dollar houses were eager to pick it up, and Dirty Dancing would make another $6m in ticket sales as it continued to play until Christmas 1988 at some theatres, finishing its incredible run with $63.5m in ticket sales.   Yet, despite its ubiquitousness in American pop culture, despite the soundtrack selling more than ten million copies in its first year, despite the uptick in attendance at dance schools from coast to coast, Dirty Dancing never once was the #1 film in America on any weekend it was in theatres. There would always be at least one other movie that would do just a bit better.   When awards season came around, the movie was practically ignored by critics groups. It would pick up an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, and both the movie and Jennifer Grey would be nominated for Golden Globes, but it would be that song, I've Had the Time of My Life, that would be the driver for awards love. It would win the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, and a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The song would anchor a soundtrack that would also include two other hit songs, Eric Carmen's “Hungry Eyes,” and “She's Like the Wind,” recorded for the movie by Patrick Swayze, making him the proto-Hugh Jackman of the 80s. I've seen Hugh Jackman do his one-man show at the Hollywood Bowl, and now I'm wishing Patrick Swayze could have had something like that thirty years ago.   On September 25th, they would release Abel Ferrera's Neo-noir romantic thriller China Girl. A modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet written by regular Ferrera writer Nicholas St. John, the setting would be New York City's Lower East Side, when Tony, a teenager from Little Italy, falls for Tye, a teenager from Chinatown, as their older brothers vie for turf in a vicious gang war. While the stars of the film, Richard Panebianco and Sari Chang, would never become known actors, the supporting cast is as good as you'd expect from a post-Ms. .45 Ferrera film, including James Russo, Russell Wong, David Caruso and James Hong.   The $3.5m movie would open on 110 screens, including 70 in New York ti-state region and 18 in Los Angeles, grossing $531k. After a second weekend, where the gross dropped to $225k, Vestron would stop tracking the film, with a final reported gross of just $1.26m coming from a stockholder's report in early 1988.   Ironically, China Girl would open against another movie that Vestron had a hand in financing, but would not release in America: Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride. While the film would do okay in America, grossing $30m against its $15m, it wouldn't translate so easily to foreign markets.   Anna, from first time Polish filmmaker Yurek Bogayevicz, was an oddball little film from the start. The story, co-written with the legendary Polish writer/director Agnieszka Holland, was based on the real-life friendship of Polish actresses Joanna (Yo-ahn-nuh) Pacuła (Pa-tsu-wa) and Elżbieta (Elz-be-et-ah) Czyżewska (Chuh-zef-ska), and would find Czech supermodel Paulina Porizkova making her feature acting debut as Krystyna, an aspiring actress from Czechoslovakia who goes to New York City to find her idol, Anna, who had been imprisoned and then deported for speaking out against the new regime after the 1968 Communist invasion. Nearly twenty years later, the middle-aged Anna struggles to land any acting parts, in films, on television, or on the stage, who relishes the attention of this beautiful young waif who reminds her of herself back then.   Sally Kirkland, an American actress who got her start as part of Andy Warhol's Factory in the early 60s but could never break out of playing supporting roles in movies like The Way We Were, The Sting, A Star is Born, and Private Benjamin, would be cast as the faded Czech star whose life seemed to unintentionally mirror the actress's. Future Snakes on a Plane director David R. Ellis would be featured in a small supporting role, as would the then sixteen year old Sofia Coppola.   The $1m movie would shoot on location in New York City during the winter of late 1986 and early 1987, and would make its world premiere at the 1987 New York Film Festival in September, before opening at the 68th Street Playhouse on the Upper East Side on October 30th. Critics such as Bruce Williamson of Playboy, Molly Haskell of Vogue and Jami Bernard of the New York Post would sing the praises of the movie, and of Paulina Porizkova, but it would be Sally Kirkland whom practically every critic would gush over. “A performance of depth and clarity and power, easily one of the strongest female roles of the year,” wrote Mike McGrady of Newsday. Janet Maslim wasn't as impressed with the film as most critics, but she would note Ms. Kirkland's immensely dignified presence in the title role.   New York audiences responded well to the critical acclaim, buying more than $22,000 worth of tickets, often playing to sell out crowds for the afternoon and evening shows. In its second week, the film would see its gross increase 12%, and another 3% increase in its third week. Meanwhile, on November 13th, the film would open in Los Angeles at the AMC Century City 14, where it would bring in an additional $10,000, thanks in part to Sheila Benson's rave in the Los Angeles Times, calling the film “the best kind of surprise — a small, frequently funny, fine-boned film set in the worlds of the theater and movies which unexpectedly becomes a consummate study of love, alienation and loss,” while praising Kirkland's performance as a “blazing comet.”   Kirkland would make the rounds on the awards circuit, winning Best Actress awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Golden Globes, and the Independent Spirit Awards, culminating in an Academy Award nomination, although she would lose to Cher in Moonstruck.   But despite all these rave reviews and the early support for the film in New York and Los Angeles, the film got little traction outside these two major cities. Despite playing in theatres for nearly six months, Anna could only round up about $1.2m in ticket sales.   Vestron's penultimate new film of 1987 would be a movie that when it was shot in Namibia in late 1986 was titled Peacekeeper, then was changed to Desert Warrior when it was acquired by Jerry Weintraub's eponymously named distribution company, then saw it renamed again to Steel Dawn when Vestron overpaid to acquire the film from Weintraub, because they wanted the next film starring Patrick Swayze for themselves.   Swayze plays, and stop me if you've heard this one before, a warrior wandering through a post-apocalyptic desert who comes upon a group of settlers who are being menaced by the leader of a murderous gang who's after the water they control. Lisa Niemi, also known as Mrs. Patrick Swayze, would be his romantic interest in the film, which would also star AnthonY Zerbe, Brian James, and, in one of his very first acting roles, future Mummy co-star Arnold Vosloo.   The film would open to horrible reviews, and gross just $312k in 290 theatres. For comparison's sake, Dirty Dancing was in its eleventh week of release, was still playing 878 theatres, and would gross $1.7m. In its second week, Steel Dawn had lost nearly two thirds of its theatres, grossing only $60k from 107 theatres. After its third weekend, Vestron stopped reporting grosses. The film had only earned $562k in ticket sales.   And their final release for 1987 would be one of the most prestigious titles they'd ever be involved with. The Dead, based on a short story by James Joyce, would be the 37th and final film to be directed by John Huston. His son Tony would adapt the screenplay, while his daughter Anjelica, whom he had directed to a Best Supporting Actress Oscar two years earlier for Prizzi's Honor, would star as the matriarch of an Irish family circa 1904 whose husband discovers memoirs of a deceased lover of his wife's, an affair that preceded their meeting.   Originally scheduled to shoot in Dublin, Ireland, The Dead would end up being shot on soundstages in Valencia, CA, just north of Los Angeles, as the eighty year old filmmaker was in ill health. Huston, who was suffering from severe emphysema due to decades of smoking, would use video playback for the first and only time in his career in order to call the action, whirling around from set to set in a motorized wheelchair with an oxygen tank attached to it. In fact, the company insuring the film required the producers to have a backup director on set, just in case Huston was unable to continue to make the film. That stand-in was Czech-born British filmmaker Karel Reisz, who never once had to stand-in during the entire shoot.   One Huston who didn't work on the film was Danny Huston, who was supposed to shoot some second unit footage for the film in Dublin for his father, who could not make any trips overseas, as well as a documentary about the making of the film, but for whatever reason, Danny Huston would end up not doing either.   John Huston would turn in his final cut of the film to Vestron in July 1987, and would pass away in late August, a good four months before the film's scheduled release. He would live to see some of the best reviews of his entire career when the film was released on December 18th. At six theatres in Los Angeles and New York City, The Dead would earn $69k in its first three days during what was an amazing opening weekend for a number of movies. The Dead would open against exclusive runs of Broadcast News, Ironweed, Moonstruck and the newest Woody Allen film, September, as well as wide releases of Eddie Murphy: Raw, Batteries Not Included, Overboard, and the infamous Bill Cosby stinker Leonard Part 6.   The film would win the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Picture of the year, John Huston would win the Spirit Award and the London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director, Anjelica Huston would win a Spirit Award as well, for Best Supporting Actress, and Tony Huston would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. But the little $3.5m film would only see modest returns at the box office, grossing just $4.4m after a four month run in theatres.   Vestron would also release two movies in 1987 through their genre Lightning Pictures label.   The first, Blood Diner, from writer/director Jackie Kong, was meant to be both a tribute and an indirect sequel to the infamous 1965 Herschell Gordon Lewis movie Blood Feast, often considered to be the first splatter slasher film. Released on four screens in Baltimore on July 10th, the film would gross just $6,400 in its one tracked week. The film would get a second chance at life when it opened at the 8th Street Playhouse in New York City on September 4th, but after a $5,000 opening week gross there, the film would have to wait until it was released on home video to become a cult film.   The other Lightning Pictures release for 1987, Street Trash, would become one of the most infamous horror comedy films of the year. An expansion of a short student film by then nineteen year old Jim Muro, Street Trash told the twin stories of a Greenpoint, Brooklyn shop owner who sell a case of cheap, long-expired hooch to local hobos, who hideously melt away shortly after drinking it, while two homeless brothers try to deal with their situation as best they can while all this weirdness is going on about them.   After playing several weeks of midnight shows at the Waverly Theatre near Washington Square, Street Trash would open for a regular run at the 8th Street Playhouse on September 18th, one week after Blood Diner left the same theatre. However, Street Trash would not replace Blood Diner, which was kicked to the curb after one week, but another long forgotten movie, the Christopher Walken-starrer Deadline. Street Trash would do a bit better than Blood Diner, $9,000 in its first three days, enough to get the film a full two week run at the Playhouse. But its second week gross of $5,000 would not be enough to give it a longer playdate, or get another New York theatre to pick it up. The film would get other playdates, including one in my secondary hometown of Santa Cruz starting, ironically, on Thanksgiving Day, but the film would barely make $100k in its theatrical run.   While this would be the only film Jim Muro would direct, he would become an in demand cinematographer and Steadicam operator, working on such films as Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves, Sneakers, L.A. Confidential, the first Fast and Furious movie, and on The Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lies and Titanic for James Cameron. And should you ever watch the film and sit through the credits, yes, it's that Bryan Singer who worked as a grip and production assistant on the film. It would be his very first film credit, which he worked on during a break from going to USC film school.   People who know me know I am not the biggest fan of horror films. I may have mentioned it once or twice on this podcast. But I have a soft spot for Troma Films and Troma-like films, and Street Trash is probably the best Troma movie not made or released by Troma. There's a reason why Lloyd Kaufman is not a fan of the movie. A number of people who have seen the movie think it is a Troma movie, not helped by the fact that a number of people who did work on The Toxic Avenger went to work on Street Trash afterwards, and some even tell Lloyd at conventions that Street Trash is their favorite Troma movie. It's looks like a Troma movie. It feels like a Troma movie. And to be honest, at least to me, that's one hell of a compliment. It's one of the reasons I even went to see Street Trash, the favorable comparison to Troma. And while I, for lack of a better word, enjoyed Street Trash when I saw it, as much as one can say they enjoyed a movie where a bunch of bums playing hot potato with a man's severed Johnson is a major set piece, but I've never really felt the need to watch it again over the past thirty-five years.   Like several of the movies on this episode, Street Trash is not available for streaming on any service in the United States. And outside of Dirty Dancing, the ones you can stream, China Girl, Personal Services, Slaughter High and Steel Dawn, are mostly available for free with ads on Tubi, which made a huge splash last week with a confounding Super Bowl commercial that sent millions of people to figure what a Tubi was.   Now, if you were counting, that was only nine films released in 1987, and not the eighteen they had promised at the start of the year. Despite the fact they had a smash hit in Dirty Dancing, they decided to push most of their planned 1987 movies to 1988. Not necessarily by choice, though. Many of the films just weren't ready in time for a 1987 release, and then the unexpected long term success of Dirty Dancing kept them occupied for most of the rest of the year. But that only meant that 1988 would be a stellar year for them, right?   We'll find out next episode, when we continue the Vestron Pictures story.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again next week.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

The first of a two-part series on the short-lived 80s American distribution company responsible for Dirty Dancing. ----more---- The movies covered on this episode: Alpine (1987, Fredi M. Murer) Anna (1987, Yurek Bogayevicz) Billy Galvin (1986, John Grey) Blood Diner (1987, Jackie Kong) China Girl (1987, Abel Ferrera) The Dead (1987, John Huston) Dirty Dancing (1987, Emile Ardolino) Malcolm (1986, Nadia Tess) Personal Services (1987, Terry Jones) Slaughter High (1986, Mark Ezra and Peter Litten and George Dugdale) Steel Dawn (1987, Lance Hook) Street Trash (1987, Jim Muro)   TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   Have you ever thought “I should do this thing” but then you never get around to it, until something completely random happens that reminds you that you were going to do this thing a long time ago?   For this week's episode, that kick in the keister was a post on Twitter from someone I don't follow being retweeted by the great film critic and essayist Walter Chaw, someone I do follow, that showed a Blu-ray cover of the 1987 Walter Hill film Extreme Prejudice. You see, Walter Chaw has recently released a book about the life and career of Walter Hill, and this other person was showing off their new purchase. That in and of itself wasn't the kick in the butt.   That was the logo of the disc's distributor.   Vestron Video.   A company that went out of business more than thirty years before, that unbeknownst to me had been resurrected by the current owner of the trademark, Lionsgate Films, as a specialty label for a certain kind of film like Ken Russell's Gothic, Beyond Re-Animator, CHUD 2, and, for some reason, Walter Hill's Neo-Western featuring Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe and Rip Torn. For those of you from the 80s, you remember at least one of Vestron Pictures' movies. I guarantee it.   But before we get there, we, as always, must go back a little further back in time.   The year is 1981. Time Magazine is amongst the most popular magazines in the world, while their sister publication, Life, was renowned for their stunning photographs printed on glossy color paper of a larger size than most magazines. In the late 1970s, Time-Life added a video production and distribution company to ever-growing media empire that also included television stations, cable channels, book clubs, and compilation record box sets. But Time Life Home Video didn't quite take off the way the company had expected, and they decided to concentrate its lucrative cable businesses like HBO. The company would move Austin Furst, an executive from HBO, over to dismantle the assets of Time-Life Films. And while Furst would sell off the production and distribution parts of the company to Fox, and the television department to Columbia Pictures, he couldn't find a party interested in the home video department. Recognizing that home video was an emerging market that would need a visionary like himself willing to take big risks for the chance to have big rewards, Furst purchased the home video rights to the film and video library for himself, starting up his home entertainment company.   But what to call the company?   It would be his daughter that would come up with Vestron, a portmanteau of combining the name of the Roman goddess of the heart, Vesta, with Tron, the Greek word for instrument. Remember, the movie Tron would not be released for another year at this point.   At first, there were only two employees at Vestron: Furst himself, and Jon Pesinger, a fellow executive at Time-Life who, not unlike Dorothy Boyd in Jerry Maguire, was the only person who saw Furst's long-term vision for the future.   Outside of the titles they brought with them from Time-Life, Vestron's initial release of home video titles comprised of two mid-range movie hits where they were able to snag the home video rights instead of the companies that released the movies in theatres, either because those companies did not have a home video operation yet, or did not negotiate for home video rights when making the movie deal with the producers. Fort Apache, The Bronx, a crime drama with Paul Newman and Ed Asner, and Loving Couples, a Shirley MacLaine/James Coburn romantic comedy that was neither romantic nor comedic, were Time-Life productions, while the Burt Reynolds/Dom DeLuise comedy The Cannonball Run, was a pickup from the Hong Kong production company Golden Harvest, which financed the comedy to help break their local star, Jackie Chan, into the American market. They'd also make a deal with several Canadian production companies to get the American home video rights to titles like the Jack Lemmon drama Tribute and the George C. Scott horror film The Changeling.   The advantage that Vestron had over the major studios was their outlook on the mom and pop rental stores that were popping up in every city and town in the United States. The major studios hated the idea that they could sell a videotape for, say, $99.99, and then see someone else make a major profit by renting that tape out fifty or a hundred times at $4 or $5 per night. Of course, they would eventually see the light, but in 1982, they weren't there yet.   Now, let me sidetrack for a moment, as I am wont to do, to talk about mom and pop video stores in the early 1980s. If you're younger than, say, forty, you probably only know Blockbuster and/or Hollywood Video as your local video rental store, but in the early 80s, there were no national video store chains yet. The first Blockbuster wouldn't open until October 1985, in Dallas, and your neighborhood likely didn't get one until the late 1980s or early 1990s. The first video store I ever encountered, Telford Home Video in Belmont Shores, Long Beach in 1981, was operated by Bob Telford, an actor best known for playing the Station Master in both the original 1974 version of Where the Red Fern Grows and its 2003 remake. Bob was really cool, and I don't think it was just because the space for the video store was just below my dad's office in the real estate company that had built and operated the building. He genuinely took interest in this weird thirteen year old kid who had an encyclopedic knowledge of films and wanted to learn more. I wanted to watch every movie he had in the store that I hadn't seen yet, but there was one problem: we had a VHS machine, and most of Bob's inventory was RCA SelectaVision, a disc-based playback system using a special stylus and a groove-covered disc much like an LP record. After school each day, I'd hightail it over to Telford Home Video, and Bob and I would watch a movie while we waited for customers to come rent something. It was with Bob that I would watch Ordinary People and The Magnificent Seven, The Elephant Man and The Last Waltz, Bus Stop and Rebel Without a Cause and The French Connection and The Man Who Fell to Earth and a bunch of other movies that weren't yet available on VHS, and it was great.   Like many teenagers in the early 1980s, I spent some time working at a mom and pop video store, Seacliff Home Video in Aptos, CA. I worked on the weekends, it was a third of a mile walk from home, and even though I was only 16 years old at the time, my bosses would, every week, solicit my opinion about which upcoming videos we should acquire. Because, like Telford Home Video and Village Home Video, where my friends Dick and Michelle worked about two miles away, and most every video store at the time, space was extremely limited and there was only space for so many titles. Telford Home Video was about 500 square feet and had maybe 500 titles. Seacliff was about 750 square feet and around 800 titles, including about 50 in the tiny, curtained off room created to hold the porn. And the first location for Village Home Video had only 300 square feet of space and only 250 titles. The owner, Leone Keller, confirmed to me that until they moved into a larger location across from the original store, they were able to rent out every movie in the store every night.    For many, a store owner had to be very careful about what they ordered and what they replaced. But Vestron Home Video always seemed to have some of the better movies. Because of a spat between Warner Brothers and Orion Pictures, Vestron would end up with most of Orion's 1983 through 1985 theatrical releases, including Rodney Dangerfield's Easy Money, the Nick Nolte political thriller Under Fire, the William Hurt mystery Gorky Park, and Gene Wilder's The Woman in Red. They'd also make a deal with Roger Corman's old American Independent Pictures outfit, which would reap an unexpected bounty when George Miller's second Mad Max movie, The Road Warrior, became a surprise hit in 1982, and Vestron was holding the video rights to the first Mad Max movie. And they'd also find themselves with the laserdisc rights to several Brian DePalma movies including Dressed to Kill and Blow Out. And after Polygram Films decided to leave the movie business in 1984, they would sell the home video rights to An American Werewolf in London and Endless Love to Vestron.   They were doing pretty good.   And in 1984, Vestron ended up changing the home video industry forever.   When Michael Jackson and John Landis had trouble with Jackson's record company, Epic, getting their idea for a 14 minute short film built around the title song to Jackson's monster album Thriller financed, Vestron would put up a good portion of the nearly million dollar budget in order to release the movie on home video, after it played for a few weeks on MTV. In February 1984, Vestron would release a one-hour tape, The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller, that included the mini-movie and a 45 minute Making of featurette. At $29.99, it would be one of the first sell-through titles released on home video.   It would become the second home videotape to sell a million copies, after Star Wars.   Suddenly, Vestron was flush with more cash than it knew what to do with.   In 1985, they would decide to expand their entertainment footprint by opening Vestron Pictures, which would finance a number of movies that could be exploited across a number of platforms, including theatrical, home video, cable and syndicated TV. In early January 1986, Vestron would announce they were pursuing projects with three producers, Steve Tisch, Larry Turman, and Gene Kirkwood, but no details on any specific titles or even a timeframe when any of those movies would be made.   Tisch, the son of Loews Entertainment co-owner Bob Tisch, had started producing films in 1977 with the Peter Fonda music drama Outlaw Blues, and had a big hit in 1983 with Risky Business. Turman, the Oscar-nominated producer of Mike Nichols' The Graduate, and Kirkwood, the producer of The Keep and The Pope of Greenwich Village, had seen better days as producers by 1986 but their names still carried a certain cache in Hollywood, and the announcement would certainly let the industry know Vestron was serious about making quality movies.   Well, maybe not all quality movies. They would also launch a sub-label for Vestron Pictures called Lightning Pictures, which would be utilized on B-movies and schlock that maybe wouldn't fit in the Vestron Pictures brand name they were trying to build.   But it costs money to build a movie production and theatrical distribution company.   Lots of money.   Thanks to the ever-growing roster of video titles and the success of releases like Thriller, Vestron would go public in the spring of 1985, selling enough shares on the first day of trading to bring in $440m to the company, $140m than they thought they would sell that day.   It would take them a while, but in 1986, they would start production on their first slate of films, as well as acquire several foreign titles for American distribution.   Vestron Pictures officially entered the theatrical distribution game on July 18th, 1986, when they released the Australian comedy Malcolm at the Cinema 2 on the Upper East Side of New York City. A modern attempt to create the Aussie version of a Jacques Tati-like absurdist comedy about modern life and our dependance on gadgetry, Malcolm follows, as one character describes him a 100 percent not there individual who is tricked into using some of his remote control inventions to pull of a bank robbery. While the film would be a minor hit in Australia, winning all eight of the Australian Film Institute Awards it was nominated for including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and three acting awards, the film would only play for five weeks in New York, grossing less than $35,000, and would not open in Los Angeles until November 5th, where in its first week at the Cineplex Beverly Center and Samuel Goldwyn Pavilion Cinemas, it would gross a combined $37,000. Go figure.   Malcolm would open in a few more major markets, but Vestron would close the film at the end of the year with a gross under $200,000.   Their next film, Slaughter High, was a rather odd bird. A co-production between American and British-based production companies, the film followed a group of adults responsible for a prank gone wrong on April Fool's Day who are invited to a reunion at their defunct high school where a masked killer awaits inside.   And although the movie takes place in America, the film was shot in London and nearby Virginia Water, Surrey, in late 1984, under the title April Fool's Day. But even with Caroline Munro, the British sex symbol who had become a cult favorite with her appearances in a series of sci-fi and Hammer horror films with Peter Cushing and/or Christopher Lee, as well as her work in the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, April Fool's Day would sit on the proverbial shelf for nearly two years, until Vestron picked it up and changed its title, since Paramount Pictures had released their own horror film called April Fools Day earlier in the year.   Vestron would open Slaughter High on nine screens in Detroit on November 14th, 1986, but Vestron would not report grosses. Then they would open it on six screen in St. Louis on February 13th, 1987. At least this time they reported a gross. $12,400. Variety would simply call that number “grim.” They'd give the film one final rush on April 24th, sending it out to 38 screens in in New York City, where it would gross $90,000. There'd be no second week, as practically every theatre would replace it with Creepshow 2.   The third and final Vestron Pictures release for 1986 was Billy Galvin, a little remembered family drama featuring Karl Malden and Lenny von Dohlen, originally produced for the PBS anthology series American Playhouse but bumped up to a feature film as part of coordinated effort to promote the show by occasionally releasing feature films bearing the American Playhouse banner.   The film would open at the Cineplex Beverly Center on December 31st, not only the last day of the calendar year but the last day a film can be released into theatres in Los Angeles to have been considered for Academy Awards. The film would not get any major awards, from the Academy or anyone else, nor much attention from audiences, grossing just $4,000 in its first five days. They'd give the film a chance in New York on February 20th, at the 23rd Street West Triplex, but a $2,000 opening weekend gross would doom the film from ever opening in another theatre again.   In early 1987, Vestron announced eighteen films they would release during the year, and a partnership with AMC Theatres and General Cinema to have their films featured in those two companies' pilot specialized film programs in major markets like Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston and San Francisco.   Alpine Fire would be the first of those films, arriving at the Cinema Studio 1 in New York City on February 20th. A Swiss drama about a young deaf and mentally challenged teenager who gets his older sister pregnant, was that country's entry into the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race. While the film would win the Golden Leopard Award at the 1985 Locarno Film Festival, the Academy would not select the film for a nomination, and the film would quickly disappear from theatres after a $2,000 opening weekend gross.   Personal Services, the first film to be directed by Terry Jones outside of his services with Monty Python, would arrive in American theatres on May 15th. The only Jones-directed film to not feature any other Python in the cast, Personal Services was a thinly-disguised telling of a 1970s—era London waitress who was running a brothel in her flat in order to make ends meet, and featured a standout performance by Julie Walters as the waitress turned madame. In England, Personal Services would be the second highest-grossing film of the year, behind The Living Daylights, the first Bond film featuring new 007 Timothy Dalton. In America, the film wouldn't be quite as successful, grossing $1.75m after 33 weeks in theatres, despite never playing on more than 31 screens in any given week.   It would be another three months before Vestron would release their second movie of the year, but it would be the one they'd become famous for.   Dirty Dancing.   Based in large part on screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein's own childhood, the screenplay would be written after the producers of the 1980 Michael Douglas/Jill Clayburgh dramedy It's My Turn asked the writer to remove a scene from the screenplay that involved an erotic dance sequence. She would take that scene and use it as a jumping off point for a new story about a Jewish teenager in the early 1960s who participated in secret “Dirty Dancing” competitions while she vacationed with her doctor father and stay-at-home mother while they vacationed in the Catskill Mountains. Baby, the young woman at the center of the story, would not only resemble the screenwriter as a character but share her childhood nickname.   Bergstein would pitch the story to every studio in Hollywood in 1984, and only get a nibble from MGM Pictures, whose name was synonymous with big-budget musicals decades before. They would option the screenplay and assign producer Linda Gottlieb, a veteran television producer making her first major foray into feature films, to the project. With Gottlieb, Bergstein would head back to the Catskills for the first time in two decades, as research for the script. It was while on this trip that the pair would meet Michael Terrace, a former Broadway dancer who had spent summers in the early 1960s teaching tourists how to mambo in the Catskills. Terrace and Bergstein didn't remember each other if they had met way back when, but his stories would help inform the lead male character of Johnny Castle.   But, as regularly happens in Hollywood, there was a regime change at MGM in late 1985, and one of the projects the new bosses cut loose was Dirty Dancing. Once again, the script would make the rounds in Hollywood, but nobody was biting… until Vestron Pictures got their chance to read it.   They loved it, and were ready to make it their first in-house production… but they would make the movie if the budget could be cut from $10m to $4.5m. That would mean some sacrifices. They wouldn't be able to hire a major director, nor bigger name actors, but that would end up being a blessing in disguise.   To direct, Gottlieb and Bergstein looked at a lot of up and coming feature directors, but the one person they had the best feeling about was Emile Ardolino, a former actor off-Broadway in the 1960s who began his filmmaking career as a documentarian for PBS in the 1970s. In 1983, Ardolino's documentary about National Dance Institute founder Jacques d'Amboise, He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin', would win both the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Entertainment Special.   Although Ardolino had never directed a movie, he would read the script twice in a week while serving on jury duty, and came back to Gottlieb and Bergstein with a number of ideas to help make the movie shine, even at half the budget.   For a movie about dancing, with a lot of dancing in it, they would need a creative choreographer to help train the actors and design the sequences. The filmmakers would chose Kenny Ortega, who in addition to choreographing the dance scenes in Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, had worked with Gene Kelly on the 1980 musical Xanadu. Well, more specifically, was molded by Gene Kelly to become the lead choreographer for the film. That's some good credentials.   Unlike movies like Flashdance, where the filmmakers would hire Jennifer Beals to play Alex and Marine Jahan to perform Alex's dance scenes, Emile Ardolino was insistent that the actors playing the dancers were actors who also dance. Having stand-ins would take extra time to set-up, and would suck up a portion of an already tight budget. Yet the first people he would meet for the lead role of Johnny were non-dancers Benecio del Toro, Val Kilmer, and Billy Zane. Zane would go so far as to do a screen test with one of the actresses being considered for the role of Baby, Jennifer Grey, but after screening the test, they realized Grey was right for Baby but Zane was not right for Johnny.   Someone suggested Patrick Swayze, a former dancer for the prestigious Joffrey Ballet who was making his way up the ranks of stardom thanks to his roles in The Outsiders and Grandview U.S.A. But Swayze had suffered a knee injury years before that put his dance career on hold, and there were concerns he would re-aggravate his injury, and there were concerns from Jennifer Grey because she and Swayze had not gotten along very well while working on Red Dawn. But that had been three years earlier, and when they screen tested together here, everyone was convinced this was the pairing that would bring magic to the role.   Baby's parents would be played by two Broadway veterans: Jerry Orbach, who is best known today as Detective Lenny Briscoe on Law and Order, and Kelly Bishop, who is best known today as Emily Gilmore from Gilmore Girls but had actually started out as a dancer, singer and actor, winning a Tony Award for her role in the original Broadway production of A Chorus Line. Although Bishop had originally been cast in a different role for the movie, another guest at the Catskills resort with the Housemans, but she would be bumped up when the original Mrs. Houseman, Lynne Lipton, would fall ill during the first week of filming.   Filming on Dirty Dancing would begin in North Carolina on September 5th, 1986, at a former Boy Scout camp that had been converted to a private residential community. This is where many of the iconic scenes from the film would be shot, including Baby carrying the watermelon and practicing her dance steps on the stairs, all the interior dance scenes, the log scene, and the golf course scene where Baby would ask her father for $250. It's also where Patrick Swayze almost ended his role in the film, when he would indeed re-injure his knee during the balancing scene on the log. He would be rushed to the hospital to have fluid drained from the swelling. Thankfully, there would be no lingering effects once he was released.   After filming in North Carolina was completed, the team would move to Virginia for two more weeks of filming, including the water lift scene, exteriors at Kellerman's Hotel and the Houseman family's cabin, before the film wrapped on October 27th.   Ardolino's first cut of the film would be completed in February 1987, and Vestron would begin the process of running a series of test screenings. At the first test screening, nearly 40% of the audience didn't realize there was an abortion subplot in the movie, even after completing the movie. A few weeks later, Vestron executives would screen the film for producer Aaron Russo, who had produced such movies as The Rose and Trading Places. His reaction to the film was to tell the executives to burn the negative and collect the insurance.   But, to be fair, one important element of the film was still not set.   The music.   Eleanor Bergstein had written into her script a number of songs that were popular in the early 1960s, when the movie was set, that she felt the final film needed. Except a number of the songs were a bit more expensive to license than Vestron would have preferred. The company was testing the film with different versions of those songs, other artists' renditions. The writer, with the support of her producer and director, fought back. She made a deal with the Vestron executives. They would play her the master tracks to ten of the songs she wanted, as well as the copycat versions. If she could identify six of the masters, she could have all ten songs in the film.   Vestron would spend another half a million dollars licensing the original recording.    The writer nailed all ten.   But even then, there was still one missing piece of the puzzle.   The closing song.   While Bergstein wanted another song to close the film, the team at Vestron were insistent on a new song that could be used to anchor a soundtrack album. The writer, producer, director and various members of the production team listened to dozens of submissions from songwriters, but none of them were right, until they got to literally the last submission left, written by Franke Previte, who had written another song that would appear on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, “Hungry Eyes.”   Everybody loved the song, called “I've Had the Time of My Life,” and it would take some time to convince Previte that Dirty Dancing was not a porno. They showed him the film and he agreed to give them the song, but the production team and Vestron wanted to get a pair of more famous singers to record the final version.   The filmmakers originally approached disco queen Donna Summer and Joe Esposito, whose song “You're the Best” appeared on the Karate Kid soundtrack, but Summer would decline, not liking the title of the movie. They would then approach Daryl Hall from Hall and Oates and Kim Carnes, but they'd both decline, citing concerns about the title of the movie. Then they approached Bill Medley, one-half of The Righteous Brothers, who had enjoyed yet another career resurgence when You Lost That Lovin' Feeling became a hit in 1986 thanks to Top Gun, but at first, he would also decline. Not that he had any concerns about the title of the film, although he did have concerns about the title, but that his wife was about to give birth to their daughter, and he had promised he would be there.   While trying to figure who to get to sing the male part of the song, the music supervisor for the film approached Jennifer Warnes, who had sung the duet “Up Where We Belong” from the An Officer and a Gentleman soundtrack, which had won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Original Song, and sang the song “It Goes Like It Goes” from the Norma Rae soundtrack, which had won the 1980 Academy Award for Best Original Song. Warnes wasn't thrilled with the song, but she would be persuaded to record the song for the right price… and if Bill Medley would sing the other part. Medley, flattered that Warnes asked specifically to record with him, said he would do so, after his daughter was born, and if the song was recorded in his studio in Los Angeles. A few weeks later, Medley and Warnes would have their portion of the song completed in only one hour, including additional harmonies and flourishes decided on after finishing with the main vocals.   With all the songs added to the movie, audience test scores improved considerably.   RCA Records, who had been contracted to handle the release of the soundtrack, would set a July 17th release date for the album, to coincide with the release of the movie on the same day, with the lead single, I've Had the Time of My Life, released one week earlier. But then, Vestron moved the movie back from July 17th to August 21st… and forgot to tell RCA Records about the move. No big deal. The song would quickly rise up the charts, eventually hitting #1 on the Billboard charts.   When the movie finally did open in 975 theatres in August 21st, the film would open to fourth place with $3.9m in ticket sales, behind Can't Buy Me Love in third place and in its second week of release, the Cheech Marin comedy Born in East L.A., which opened in second place, and Stakeout, which was enjoying its third week atop the charts.   The reviews were okay, but not special. Gene Siskel would give the film a begrudging Thumbs Up, citing Jennifer Grey's performance and her character's arc as the thing that tipped the scale into the positive, while Roger Ebert would give the film a Thumbs Down, due to its idiot plot and tired and relentlessly predictable story of love between kids from different backgrounds.   But then a funny thing happened…   Instead of appealing to the teenagers they thought would see the film, the majority of the audience ended up becoming adults. Not just twenty and thirty somethings, but people who were teenagers themselves during the movie's timeframe. They would be drawn in to the film through the newfound sense of boomer nostalgia that helped make Stand By Me an unexpected hit the year before, both as a movie and as a soundtrack.   Its second week in theatre would only see the gross drop 6%, and the film would finish in third place.   In week three, the four day Labor Day weekend, it would gross nearly $5m, and move up to second place. And it would continue to play and continue to bring audiences in, only dropping out of the top ten once in early November for one weekend, from August to December. Even with all the new movies entering the marketplace for Christmas, Dirty Dancing would be retained by most of the theatres that were playing it. In the first weekend of 1988, Dirty Dancing was still playing in 855 theaters, only 120 fewer than who opened it five months earlier. Once it did started leaving first run theatres, dollar houses were eager to pick it up, and Dirty Dancing would make another $6m in ticket sales as it continued to play until Christmas 1988 at some theatres, finishing its incredible run with $63.5m in ticket sales.   Yet, despite its ubiquitousness in American pop culture, despite the soundtrack selling more than ten million copies in its first year, despite the uptick in attendance at dance schools from coast to coast, Dirty Dancing never once was the #1 film in America on any weekend it was in theatres. There would always be at least one other movie that would do just a bit better.   When awards season came around, the movie was practically ignored by critics groups. It would pick up an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, and both the movie and Jennifer Grey would be nominated for Golden Globes, but it would be that song, I've Had the Time of My Life, that would be the driver for awards love. It would win the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, and a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The song would anchor a soundtrack that would also include two other hit songs, Eric Carmen's “Hungry Eyes,” and “She's Like the Wind,” recorded for the movie by Patrick Swayze, making him the proto-Hugh Jackman of the 80s. I've seen Hugh Jackman do his one-man show at the Hollywood Bowl, and now I'm wishing Patrick Swayze could have had something like that thirty years ago.   On September 25th, they would release Abel Ferrera's Neo-noir romantic thriller China Girl. A modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet written by regular Ferrera writer Nicholas St. John, the setting would be New York City's Lower East Side, when Tony, a teenager from Little Italy, falls for Tye, a teenager from Chinatown, as their older brothers vie for turf in a vicious gang war. While the stars of the film, Richard Panebianco and Sari Chang, would never become known actors, the supporting cast is as good as you'd expect from a post-Ms. .45 Ferrera film, including James Russo, Russell Wong, David Caruso and James Hong.   The $3.5m movie would open on 110 screens, including 70 in New York ti-state region and 18 in Los Angeles, grossing $531k. After a second weekend, where the gross dropped to $225k, Vestron would stop tracking the film, with a final reported gross of just $1.26m coming from a stockholder's report in early 1988.   Ironically, China Girl would open against another movie that Vestron had a hand in financing, but would not release in America: Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride. While the film would do okay in America, grossing $30m against its $15m, it wouldn't translate so easily to foreign markets.   Anna, from first time Polish filmmaker Yurek Bogayevicz, was an oddball little film from the start. The story, co-written with the legendary Polish writer/director Agnieszka Holland, was based on the real-life friendship of Polish actresses Joanna (Yo-ahn-nuh) Pacuła (Pa-tsu-wa) and Elżbieta (Elz-be-et-ah) Czyżewska (Chuh-zef-ska), and would find Czech supermodel Paulina Porizkova making her feature acting debut as Krystyna, an aspiring actress from Czechoslovakia who goes to New York City to find her idol, Anna, who had been imprisoned and then deported for speaking out against the new regime after the 1968 Communist invasion. Nearly twenty years later, the middle-aged Anna struggles to land any acting parts, in films, on television, or on the stage, who relishes the attention of this beautiful young waif who reminds her of herself back then.   Sally Kirkland, an American actress who got her start as part of Andy Warhol's Factory in the early 60s but could never break out of playing supporting roles in movies like The Way We Were, The Sting, A Star is Born, and Private Benjamin, would be cast as the faded Czech star whose life seemed to unintentionally mirror the actress's. Future Snakes on a Plane director David R. Ellis would be featured in a small supporting role, as would the then sixteen year old Sofia Coppola.   The $1m movie would shoot on location in New York City during the winter of late 1986 and early 1987, and would make its world premiere at the 1987 New York Film Festival in September, before opening at the 68th Street Playhouse on the Upper East Side on October 30th. Critics such as Bruce Williamson of Playboy, Molly Haskell of Vogue and Jami Bernard of the New York Post would sing the praises of the movie, and of Paulina Porizkova, but it would be Sally Kirkland whom practically every critic would gush over. “A performance of depth and clarity and power, easily one of the strongest female roles of the year,” wrote Mike McGrady of Newsday. Janet Maslim wasn't as impressed with the film as most critics, but she would note Ms. Kirkland's immensely dignified presence in the title role.   New York audiences responded well to the critical acclaim, buying more than $22,000 worth of tickets, often playing to sell out crowds for the afternoon and evening shows. In its second week, the film would see its gross increase 12%, and another 3% increase in its third week. Meanwhile, on November 13th, the film would open in Los Angeles at the AMC Century City 14, where it would bring in an additional $10,000, thanks in part to Sheila Benson's rave in the Los Angeles Times, calling the film “the best kind of surprise — a small, frequently funny, fine-boned film set in the worlds of the theater and movies which unexpectedly becomes a consummate study of love, alienation and loss,” while praising Kirkland's performance as a “blazing comet.”   Kirkland would make the rounds on the awards circuit, winning Best Actress awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Golden Globes, and the Independent Spirit Awards, culminating in an Academy Award nomination, although she would lose to Cher in Moonstruck.   But despite all these rave reviews and the early support for the film in New York and Los Angeles, the film got little traction outside these two major cities. Despite playing in theatres for nearly six months, Anna could only round up about $1.2m in ticket sales.   Vestron's penultimate new film of 1987 would be a movie that when it was shot in Namibia in late 1986 was titled Peacekeeper, then was changed to Desert Warrior when it was acquired by Jerry Weintraub's eponymously named distribution company, then saw it renamed again to Steel Dawn when Vestron overpaid to acquire the film from Weintraub, because they wanted the next film starring Patrick Swayze for themselves.   Swayze plays, and stop me if you've heard this one before, a warrior wandering through a post-apocalyptic desert who comes upon a group of settlers who are being menaced by the leader of a murderous gang who's after the water they control. Lisa Niemi, also known as Mrs. Patrick Swayze, would be his romantic interest in the film, which would also star AnthonY Zerbe, Brian James, and, in one of his very first acting roles, future Mummy co-star Arnold Vosloo.   The film would open to horrible reviews, and gross just $312k in 290 theatres. For comparison's sake, Dirty Dancing was in its eleventh week of release, was still playing 878 theatres, and would gross $1.7m. In its second week, Steel Dawn had lost nearly two thirds of its theatres, grossing only $60k from 107 theatres. After its third weekend, Vestron stopped reporting grosses. The film had only earned $562k in ticket sales.   And their final release for 1987 would be one of the most prestigious titles they'd ever be involved with. The Dead, based on a short story by James Joyce, would be the 37th and final film to be directed by John Huston. His son Tony would adapt the screenplay, while his daughter Anjelica, whom he had directed to a Best Supporting Actress Oscar two years earlier for Prizzi's Honor, would star as the matriarch of an Irish family circa 1904 whose husband discovers memoirs of a deceased lover of his wife's, an affair that preceded their meeting.   Originally scheduled to shoot in Dublin, Ireland, The Dead would end up being shot on soundstages in Valencia, CA, just north of Los Angeles, as the eighty year old filmmaker was in ill health. Huston, who was suffering from severe emphysema due to decades of smoking, would use video playback for the first and only time in his career in order to call the action, whirling around from set to set in a motorized wheelchair with an oxygen tank attached to it. In fact, the company insuring the film required the producers to have a backup director on set, just in case Huston was unable to continue to make the film. That stand-in was Czech-born British filmmaker Karel Reisz, who never once had to stand-in during the entire shoot.   One Huston who didn't work on the film was Danny Huston, who was supposed to shoot some second unit footage for the film in Dublin for his father, who could not make any trips overseas, as well as a documentary about the making of the film, but for whatever reason, Danny Huston would end up not doing either.   John Huston would turn in his final cut of the film to Vestron in July 1987, and would pass away in late August, a good four months before the film's scheduled release. He would live to see some of the best reviews of his entire career when the film was released on December 18th. At six theatres in Los Angeles and New York City, The Dead would earn $69k in its first three days during what was an amazing opening weekend for a number of movies. The Dead would open against exclusive runs of Broadcast News, Ironweed, Moonstruck and the newest Woody Allen film, September, as well as wide releases of Eddie Murphy: Raw, Batteries Not Included, Overboard, and the infamous Bill Cosby stinker Leonard Part 6.   The film would win the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Picture of the year, John Huston would win the Spirit Award and the London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director, Anjelica Huston would win a Spirit Award as well, for Best Supporting Actress, and Tony Huston would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. But the little $3.5m film would only see modest returns at the box office, grossing just $4.4m after a four month run in theatres.   Vestron would also release two movies in 1987 through their genre Lightning Pictures label.   The first, Blood Diner, from writer/director Jackie Kong, was meant to be both a tribute and an indirect sequel to the infamous 1965 Herschell Gordon Lewis movie Blood Feast, often considered to be the first splatter slasher film. Released on four screens in Baltimore on July 10th, the film would gross just $6,400 in its one tracked week. The film would get a second chance at life when it opened at the 8th Street Playhouse in New York City on September 4th, but after a $5,000 opening week gross there, the film would have to wait until it was released on home video to become a cult film.   The other Lightning Pictures release for 1987, Street Trash, would become one of the most infamous horror comedy films of the year. An expansion of a short student film by then nineteen year old Jim Muro, Street Trash told the twin stories of a Greenpoint, Brooklyn shop owner who sell a case of cheap, long-expired hooch to local hobos, who hideously melt away shortly after drinking it, while two homeless brothers try to deal with their situation as best they can while all this weirdness is going on about them.   After playing several weeks of midnight shows at the Waverly Theatre near Washington Square, Street Trash would open for a regular run at the 8th Street Playhouse on September 18th, one week after Blood Diner left the same theatre. However, Street Trash would not replace Blood Diner, which was kicked to the curb after one week, but another long forgotten movie, the Christopher Walken-starrer Deadline. Street Trash would do a bit better than Blood Diner, $9,000 in its first three days, enough to get the film a full two week run at the Playhouse. But its second week gross of $5,000 would not be enough to give it a longer playdate, or get another New York theatre to pick it up. The film would get other playdates, including one in my secondary hometown of Santa Cruz starting, ironically, on Thanksgiving Day, but the film would barely make $100k in its theatrical run.   While this would be the only film Jim Muro would direct, he would become an in demand cinematographer and Steadicam operator, working on such films as Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves, Sneakers, L.A. Confidential, the first Fast and Furious movie, and on The Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lies and Titanic for James Cameron. And should you ever watch the film and sit through the credits, yes, it's that Bryan Singer who worked as a grip and production assistant on the film. It would be his very first film credit, which he worked on during a break from going to USC film school.   People who know me know I am not the biggest fan of horror films. I may have mentioned it once or twice on this podcast. But I have a soft spot for Troma Films and Troma-like films, and Street Trash is probably the best Troma movie not made or released by Troma. There's a reason why Lloyd Kaufman is not a fan of the movie. A number of people who have seen the movie think it is a Troma movie, not helped by the fact that a number of people who did work on The Toxic Avenger went to work on Street Trash afterwards, and some even tell Lloyd at conventions that Street Trash is their favorite Troma movie. It's looks like a Troma movie. It feels like a Troma movie. And to be honest, at least to me, that's one hell of a compliment. It's one of the reasons I even went to see Street Trash, the favorable comparison to Troma. And while I, for lack of a better word, enjoyed Street Trash when I saw it, as much as one can say they enjoyed a movie where a bunch of bums playing hot potato with a man's severed Johnson is a major set piece, but I've never really felt the need to watch it again over the past thirty-five years.   Like several of the movies on this episode, Street Trash is not available for streaming on any service in the United States. And outside of Dirty Dancing, the ones you can stream, China Girl, Personal Services, Slaughter High and Steel Dawn, are mostly available for free with ads on Tubi, which made a huge splash last week with a confounding Super Bowl commercial that sent millions of people to figure what a Tubi was.   Now, if you were counting, that was only nine films released in 1987, and not the eighteen they had promised at the start of the year. Despite the fact they had a smash hit in Dirty Dancing, they decided to push most of their planned 1987 movies to 1988. Not necessarily by choice, though. Many of the films just weren't ready in time for a 1987 release, and then the unexpected long term success of Dirty Dancing kept them occupied for most of the rest of the year. But that only meant that 1988 would be a stellar year for them, right?   We'll find out next episode, when we continue the Vestron Pictures story.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again next week.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

Episode 105 is the equivalent of a giant dinner special! Derek and Aaron are joined by Nate Boyd & Tyler McCarty of The Bruce Campbell Podcast and Animorphing Time Podcast and returning guest Heather to discuss 1987's demented horror comedy "Blood Diner" directed by Jackie Kong. They talk about the intentional choices and themes underneath the surface of a schlocky splatterfest. They also get into Jackie Kong's sense of humor, how the movie treats female characters, the through line to Herschell Gordon Lewis, among many other aspects of the flick. Nate & Tyler are the Sons of Sheetar. Aaron and Derek want another daily special. Heather wants you to avoid performing these stunts at home. Nate Boyd's Twitter: @BateNoyd Tyler McCarty's Twitter: @bearnurse The Bruce Campbell Podcast @BruceCPod : https://anchor.fm/brucecpod Animorphing Time Podcast @animorphingtime : https://animorphingtime.com/ Red Bubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/AnimorphingTime/shop?asc=u We are on PodBean, Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, Goodpods, Amazon Music, Google, Stitcher, Spotify, and CastBox. Please rate, review, subscribe, and share our show. Also, check out our Spotify Music playlist, links on our Twitter and Podbean page. Our socials are on Facebook, Twitter and Hive @WatchIfYouDare

What happens when the Atomic Age optimism of the 50s becomes the worn-out, polluted wasteland of the puritanical Reagan era? You get the debut feature of cult director Jackie Kong, that's what! Join us for a discussion of 80s politics, 'Alien' homages, and of all people Ruth Buzzi appearing in a horror movie as we discuss 1983's THE BEING!

Stephen, Dani, and D-rock enjoy Jackie Kong's bloody masterpiece Blood Diner. Come have a laugh as we digest the exploits Tutman brothers. 

#Diner #BloodDiner #onceuponatimeinhollywood Diner (1982) Barry Levinson's feature film debut. The film celebrated its 40th anniversary this year and started the careers of many of it's young cast including: Kevin Bacon, MIckey Rourke, Steve Guttenberg, Paul Reiser, Tim Daly, Daniel Stern and Ellen Barkin. Blood Diner (1987) Blood Diner is a 1987 American horror comedy directed by Jackie Kong and starring Rick Burks, Carl Crew, Roger Dauer, LaNette LaFrance, and Lisa Guggenheim. It was written by Michael Sonye. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Vinyl Soundtrack Unboxing As a special segment. We have a Vinyl Review of Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film's soundtrack. Music credits for episode 2 Main theme: Music: Dar Golan Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb7E... Diner Review Music: “Down with your Getup” Mini Vandals Once Upon a Time In Hollywood Vinyl Review Music Music: Dar Golan Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb7E... Blood Diner Review Music “James River” DJ Williams LINKS - Website: https://www.returnofthedisc.com/-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/returnofthedisc/-TikTok : https://www.tiktok.com/@returnofthedisc- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1suNpWBGZHWDBW8bRZ3qe3-Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/polipictures/id1487564839 For more FULL EPISODES: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbPWwWv1OQDvX7TBMfee_QS-S3mugB2WF

Creepy Kentuckian, Uncle Bill and Garrett from @Born2BeRad Go through the complete first year of Lionsgate's Vestron Video Collector's Series. Mid Show the legendary Michael 'Slipcase' Felsher, special features extraordinaire stops in to give us some behind the scenes information on the making of a lot of the releases.

Boobs, silly gag humor, and the most ridiculous forms of cannibalism are just the tip of this zany masterpiece of 80s Horror-Comedy! Jackie Kong achieved greatness in this packed era of the sub-genre, making what is quite possibly the most ultimate 14-year-old boy movie possible. As a pair of wizened 14-year-old boys, ourselves, we thank her for her contribution. From topless aerobics and fully nude martial arts to Hitler-wrestling, epic projectile vomiting, squirty stump-driving, and, of course, seeing how hamburger condiments would accurately splatter against a farty ass in full moon, this semi-sequel to Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast is a true hidden gem that we're delighted to make our newest episode of Loathsome Things: the Best Horror Movie Podcast!   And buy a copy of Jackie Kong's new comic book: Spend the Night https://www.jackiekongdirector.com/about-6 Use promo code LOATHSOMETHINGS at checkout to support cool artists doing cool things by paying full price! If you would like to recommend a movie, regale us with stories of the time you saw Dino Lee live in concert, or ask us horror movie-related questions, you can do so by reaching out to us on Twitter: @LoathsomePod Instagram: @LoathsomePod Facebook: @LoathsomePodcast Email: LoathsomeThings@gmail.com The Loathsome Things Official Top 10 Greatest Horror-Comedy Movies of All Time List (of those we've reviewed for an episode of Loathsome Things: A Horror Movie Podcast, and rated as a Horror Movie, not specifically Horror-Comedies) (1) Frank Henenlotter's Basket Case (1982) (2) Jackie Kong's Blood Diner (1987) (3) Frank Henenlotter's Basket Case 2 (1990) (4) Jack Hill's Spider Baby (1967) (5) Mercer and Testin's Dementia: Part II (2018) (6) Steve Miner's House (1985) (7) Gabriel Bartalos' Skinned Deep (2004) (8) (9) (10)

Join your host Chris and his special guest Matt from shall I Stream It, as they dig into the fine cuisine that you will find at the Blood Diner, directed by Jackie Kong.Find Matt here:My site: https://shallistreamit.comyoutube: https://youtube.com/c/shallistreamittwitter: https://twitter.com/shallistreamit ♡ Download and use Newsly today at www.newsly.me▪︎ Please our promo code CULTF1LM for a month of their premium service FREE◇ Check out all the fine creators at www.blindknowledge.com ●♧ All title cards by paolinoContact him at paolinoArtworks@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join your host Chris and his special guest Matt from shall I Stream It, as they dig into the fine cuisine that you will find at the Blood Diner, directed by Jackie Kong.Find Matt here:My site: https://shallistreamit.comyoutube: https://youtube.com/c/shallistreamittwitter: https://twitter.com/shallistreamit ♡ Download and use Newsly today at www.newsly.me▪︎ Please our promo code CULTF1LM for a month of their premium service FREE◇ Check out all the fine creators at www.blindknowledge.com ●♧ All title cards by paolinoContact him at paolinoArtworks@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We take a little journey through horror history, with a three-part series focusing on films directed by women. Let's get things started with a psychopathic hitchhiker, a horny desert vampire, a toxic monster, and a denim-clad driller killer!A pioneer in women's filmmaking, Ida Lupino directs a claustrophobic movie set in the wide open desert, that is in truth more classic film noir than horror. What would you do if the guy you just picked up on the side of the road told you that he was going to kill you? It's just a matter of when. Maybe you should at least consider killing him first, in The Hitch-Hiker (1953).Roger Corman disciple, Stephanie Rothman decides to keep us in the desert a little longer, as she directs a film that really wants to be arty and erotic. A couple is invited to the desert home of a mysterious woman who has designs on getting both of them in the sack. But wow, it's a little challenging to get interested in the sexuality when the acting is somewhat lacking, to say the least. But hey, if you're into that sort of thing, The Velvet Vampire (1971) may just become a cult favorite for you.Less than a year after we discussed Blood Diner (1987), we thought that we had better check out Jackie Kong's first feature film. Pottsville, Idaho. They love potatoes, but they will sweep away smut. So don't even think about opening that massage parlor in their town! Radioactive toxic waste is fine, though. Until some kid goes missing and becomes a mutated toxic monster that rips off heads and delivers one hell of a heart punch, in The Being (1981)And how many people would guess that The Slumber Party Massacre (1982), written by Rita Mae Brown, was also directed by a woman, Amy Holden Jones? With an escaped serial killer on the loose, stalking teenage girls (but he likes the boys, too), it's not difficult to figure out what that enormous power drill he carries around is supposed to represent. This 80s slasher VHS rental favorite might be a lot more fun than you expect.

Blood Diner - 1987Director - Jackie KongWriter - Michael SonyeMusic - Don PrestonStars:Rick BurksCarl CrewDrew GodderisRoger DauerLaNette La FranceMax MorrisLisa ElainaTanya PapanicolasFirst they greet you, then they eat you.

W filmie klasy B zawsze można było więcej, a zwłaszcza w latach 80. Nikt nie mógł być jednak gotowy na tak wielosmakowe danie, jak "Krwawy obiad", tym bardziej, że serwowała je dwudziestoparoletnia kobieta azjatyckiego pochodzenia, co w ówczesnym kinie było do tego stopnia niespotykane, że nie pozwoliło Jackie Kong rozwinąć skrzydeł. Więcej o tym osobliwym dziele (na okazję jego trzydziestopięciolecia) i jego autorce dowiecie się z kolejnego odcinka podcastu Nightslime.Rozmawiamy o kultowym "Święcie krwi" Herschella Gordona Lewisa, ojca filmów gore, którego "Krwawy obiad" pierwotnie miał być sequelem; o eklektycznej ścieżce dźwiękowej sięgającej od doo-wopu przez rockabilly po Wagnera; o niedorzecznych scenach, gdzie ot tak komuś miażdżona jest głowa przez lowridera albo grupa dziewczyn uprawia aerobik topless; a także o Jimmym Hitlerze - fikcyjnym nazistowskim wrestlerze inspirowanym faktycznie działającym w latach 50. zawodnikiem, Karlem Von Hessem.Patronami odcinka są:Paweł Jaksik, Jakub Kraszewski-------------------------------------Możesz nas wesprzeć na https://patronite.pl/Nightslime

Prepare for the resurrection of Sheetar!!! It's only been 5 million years since this cult was able to interact with their goddess. With the help of two brothers and the brain of an uncle we might be able to see her come back. Join us as we review the 1987 wacky horror comedy Blood Diner. Written by Michael Sonye, Directed by Jackie Kong,  starring Rick Burks, Carl Crew, Roger Dauer, and LaNette La France. Please share the podcast with your friends on social media to help us grow. Leave us a great review on whatever platform you are listening. Check us out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Slasher. If you would like to ask us a question or make a suggestion for the show, send us an email at horrorscriptpodcast@gmail.com You can write us or record a voice memo of yourself asking the question and we can play it on an upcoming episodeSupport the show by picking up some Horror Script Podcast merchandise, go to: https://the-horror-script-podcast.creator-spring.com or you can buy us a horror movie at the link at the bottom.Special thanks to John Saccardo and Vince Lipscomb for the amazing music. Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/horrorscript)

This week, we go a bit more mainstream with the 1988 update/remake of the Blob, written by Frank Darabont and directed by Chuck Russell. Despite the large budget, this is still a relatively (and surprisingly) subversive film, defying our expectations and twisting the original film's story into a middle finger to the Reagan Administration's military muscle flexing. A gelatinous mass makes a surprisingly frightening villain, aided by some of the best practical special effects of all time. On this episode: nefarious government bureaucrats, motorcycle chases, industrial snow machine repair, hand-melting, face-melting, body-melting, an apocalyptic reverend, ribbed condoms, the horrors of clogged drains, phonebooth claustrophobia, sewer chases, and possible inspiration by Jackie Kong's the Being!

This week, join us as we discuss Jackie Kong's first foray into horror and film - the Being. This is pro-environment, anti-toxic waste amateur hour featuring Kong's husband as possibly the most bored protagonist in movie history. Luckily, he's facing off against a very fast, very slimey, very phallic one-eyed monster that's ravaging the nation's spud capitol. On this week's episode: creepy film intros, a headless chicken, three Oscar-winners, harmless radiation, missing children, big-money potatoes, racist cops, drive-in pranks, slime puddles, Mr. Kong's stunt penis, an elongated climax and the titular Being!

First they greet you, then they eat you! This week, Peaches and Michael have cooked up a delicious dish in celebration of 1987's BLOOD DINER! In addition to discussing the film's brand of unhinged comedy, our hosts explore the trailblazing importance of the woman behind the camera who dared to deliver one of cult's goriest romps. Joining the conversation is the legendary director of BLOOD DINER herself, Jackie Kong, who shares stories of committing to a singular vision and making the movie her way. Then, Matt Desiderio, publisher of BLOOD VIDEO, stops by to talk about his truly fan-tastic journey with this cannibalistic caper. From brains in jars to Franken-goddesses, this episode has it all! Go! 

In this episode, we kick into celebrating Halloween and the month of October with a supersized series of episodes. We will be having one episode a week all month, each one covering a horror film. We've got a secret theme that again developed accidentally but Dustin promised not to oversell it this time so play along and see if you can figure out the connection over the month. Today we're diving into the wonderfully crazy world of Jackie Kong's 1987 feature Blood Diner. A loving tribute to the works of the Godfather of Gore himself Herschell Gordon Lewis, the film pays love to classic gore-filled horror while being every bit the kind of comedy that only the 80s could spawn.  But before we gush about the film, Michael takes his own turn breaking the rules to talk about a bit of horror television. Dustin shares a bit about his experience attending Fantasia virtually. Jason hurls the gauntlet down finding himself underwhelmed with The Green Knight. And so much more!  What We've Been Watching: -Michael: Slasher: Flesh & Blood (2021) -Dustin: Ultrasound (2021) -Jason: The Green Knight (2021) Show Notes: -Blood Diner Trailer -Stream Blood Diner on Shudder -Check out Dustin's review for Ultrasound at the Grimoire of Horror -Check out the Grimoire of Horror's 2021 Fantasia coverage -Related Film: Motel Hell -Related Film: Blood Feast -Related Film: Two Thousand Maniacs! -Related Film: The Wizard of Gore -Related Film: Jigoku -Related Film: The Being -Related Film: Night Patrol -Related Film: Psycho Goreman -Related Film: Murder Rock -Related Film: Frankenhooker -Related Doc: In Search of Darkness II -Related Song: Dino Lee – Stud Pony Next Time: TerrorVision (1986)

Join your horror hosts Jon & Kim on this week's episode of the Nightmare on Film Street podcast in the first of our 12 part investigative series into the dark underbelly of L.A.'s health food industry. JK- we talking about cannibals serving up human meat at a vegetarian restaurant while also trying to summon an ancient Egyptian goddess. Pull up a seat and order off-menu with us as we discuss the horror! the insanity! and the downright twisted humor! of Jackie Kong's cult-classic Blood Diner (1987). This week's episode also marks the beginning of our new release schedule. NOFS is officially a weekly podcast again! Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts for a new nightmare every Thursday. Joinn usss…// SUPPORT THE SHOW // Nightmare on Film Street is a labor of love - and Terror! Join The Fiend Club to unlock frightfully good rewards; like shoutouts on the show and social media, bonus episodes, and much more! NOFSpodcast.com/fiendclub. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sometimes you just have to take a little break from the multi-movie, themed episodes. And when you do, it's time to dive back into the Vestron Video Collector's Series! But which movie do we choose? Well, when you've got two brothers running a restaurant, with the brain (and eyeballs) of their deceased uncle in a jar in the backroom, it sounds like the recipe for a smorgasbord of gruesome delight! And when their uncle demands a cannibalistic feast, to prepare for the resurrection of an ancient goddess, things get a little messy at the Blood Diner (1987)! Wow, even a short episode for us is over an hour. You shouldn't be surprised.

We turn our attention to director Jackie Kong in the cave this week by looking at two films from her career. We start off with her third film, 1987's "Blood Diner" which was originally planned as a follow-up to H.G. Lewis' "Blood Feast". It tells the story of two brothers who have the brain of their uncle in a jar and are being directed, by the brain, to perform a variety of rituals to resurrect an ancient goddess. The cave was divided on this one, but we were more aligned on the second film which was Kong's debut effort as a director. 1983's "The Being" is about a mysterious monster rampaging through Pottsville, Idaho, leaving a trail of dead bodies in its wake. It has some recognizable faces in the cast and some pretty impressive special effects at times. We follow that with our usual discussion of what else we've been watching. Please let us know what you thought of the show, and send us some suggestions for future episodes. You can email us at flickersfrom@yahoo.com or flickersfrom@gmail.com. You can also reach us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Two brothers are entrusted by their uncle to uphold the ritualistic cannibalism of the ancient cult of Sheetar. In order to do so, they have to prepare a feast of sacrifice for the resurrection of their goddess. On this week’s episode… Join the crew as we discuss ancient Lumerian feasts, cannibalistic gods, and Jackie Kong’s exploitation masterpiece, Blood Diner.   Show Notes: Housekeeping (3:14) Back of the Box/Recommendations (10:58) Spoiler Warning/Full Review (19:15) Rotten Tomatoes (80:44) Trivia (86:02) Cooter of the Week (90:18) What We’ve Been Watching (98:17) Hotline Scream (116:38)   Connect with us: Support us on Patreon Website Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube Shop

Direção feminina, nonsense e anos 80. Neste episódio conversamos sobre The Being e Blood Diner, dois filmes da Jackie Kong, uma diretora, roteirista e produtora conhecida pela sua comédia irreverente e terror exagerado. LINKS RELACIONADOS Jackie Kong Film Director https://www.jackiekongdirector.com/ A Noite do Medo 1983 - Dublado https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TZRUbyBP7E Blood Diner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TZRUbyBP7E Grupo no Whatsapp https://chat.whatsapp.com/LXqH4nbxBjj5TJsdixevt5 Conheça a iniciativa Podcasters Unidos https://www.instagram.com/podcastersunidos/ Conheça o Bom Som Web Radio http://bomsom.website.radio.br/ Ouça em Spotify | Deezer | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | Castbox | Anchor | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Breaker | RadioPublic | Youtube

Welcome and thank you for joining my killer crew! This episode is a fun little ditty about Jackie Kong's 1987 film Blood Diner. A hilarious horror comedy about 2 brothers on a journey to resurrect an ancient Egyptian goddess with some craziness along the way. Have a killer time!This podcast is available on all major podcasting platforms.You can also check me out on Instagram & YouTube!Or email me at:Mykillerpodcast@gmail.comIf you are interested in checking out my movie collection, ratings/reviews and fun lists head on over to Letterboxd!Support the show (https://paypal.me/mykillerpodcast)

It's time to get radioactive, maniacs! We continue Women In Horror Month by talking about Jackie Kong's 1983 monster movie The Being, and joining us to chat about the film is Katey from the I Hope You Suffer Podcast! While we discuss our first Idaho-set feature, we also talk about topics such as car ID numbers, the amount of horrible children in the film, and arson for Jesus.

The holidays are upon us, even during a pandemic. This year for our holiday episode the Cultists-three each pull out a favorite non-domestic holiday flick from the vault. We also recommend some great genre fan gifts and a few charities we like to support. Rare Exports https://amzn.to/3a0oZio The Children https://amzn.to/2LiQ7ib Dial Code Santa Claus https://amzn.to/3m6Gj7D Blood Diner Holiday Party in UR Pocket w/ Jackie Kong 12/19 7:30pm https://zoom.us/j/92273093095?pwd=SStoN2kxe Meeting ID: 922 7309 3095 Passcode: KILLERS AKA The CULT SHOW Check out the video version of this podcast on Youtube at https://youtu.be/LamB-sNBdrU Our awesome theme song was written and performed by Quinten T Cohen https://quintentcohen.bandcamp.com Check us out on social: Instagram @thecultshowrocks Twitter @thecultshow_ Facebook @thecultshow Send us an email info@thecultshow.com or catch us online thecultshow.com Thanks for watching us go mad, LIVE on lockdown! Check out our in-studio shows where we are not fighting with internet connection speeds... Stay safe, wear a mask and wash your hands! (Maybe throw a subscription our way if you're really bored)

Originally intended as a follow up to the Herschell Gordon Lewis film, Blood Feast, Jackie Kong's Blood Diner found itself transformed into a near remake of the famous Godfather of Gore's film. Listen to Nigel and Kaitlyn discuss vegetarians, topless aerobics, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, and everything else in this completely crazy film!    Blood Diner Directed by: Jackie Kong Starring: Rick Burks, Carl Crews, Roger Dauer, LaNette La France, Lisa Elaina  Don't forget to hit that subscribe button!  Support us on Patreon at www.patreon.com/ajourneyintofilm   This has been a production of AJourneyIntoFilm.com

Si algo hubo en los años ochenta fueron comedias de terror que iban desde lo más imaginativo a lo más chorra. Fonda sangrienta se encuentra en el límite de la chorrada más descerebrada (pese a que uno de sus protagonistas sea un cerebro en un tarro) con una trama en la que dos inútiles deciden revivir a su tío ocultista e invocar a una antigua diosa pagana para llevar el apocalipsis a L.A. a través de su restaurante vegetariano en el que en realidad sirven carne humana.

Today’s guest is cult filmmaker Jackie Kong, best known for her outrageous horror comedy BLOOD DINER – the charming story of two homicidal brothers who dig up their uncle’s corpse and follow the instructions from his undead brain to kill a large number of people so that they can use the body parts to resurrect… The post Talking Pictures #10: Jackie Kong, Director of BLOOD DINER appeared first on Talking Pictures.

A mutated creature is wreaking havoc in a small town in Idaho. A police chief and a government scientist team up to save their rural town from its menace.

You only get 4,000 characters to type this episode description. That is not nearly enough to describe this movie. It’s Blood Diner from 1987. Available on Hulu Plus. Starring Rick Burks, Carl Crew, Drew Godderis, and LaNette LaFrance. Directed by Jackie Kong. WATCH THIS MOVIE to fully enjoy our discussion because there is so much crazy stuff in this one. Follow us on Instagram at SlashU_Podcast and Facebook.com/SlashUPodcast --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Guida al Cinema Cannibale, tra classici, capolavori, piccoli ed insoliti film, meraviglie da scoprire e schifezze da dimenticare... buon ascolto, anzi, buon appetito.ELENCO DEI FILM TRATTATIIl paese del sesso selvaggio (Umberto Lenzi, 1972)Ultimo mondo cannibale (Ruggero Deodato, 1977)Cannibal Holocaust (Ruggero Deodato, 1980)Mangiati vivi (Umberto Lenzi, 1980)Cannibal Ferox (Umberto Lenzi, 1981)Antropophagus (Joe D’Amato, 1980)Non aprite quella porta (Tobe Hooper, 1974)Non aprite quella porta parte 2 (Tobe Hooper, 1986)Le colline hanno gli occhi (Wes Craven,1977) Society (Brian Yuzna, 1989)Il ristorante all’angolo (Jackie Kong, 1987)Raw (Julia Ducournau, 2017)The green inferno (Eli Roth, 2013)Wrong turn (Rob Schmidt, 2003)Bone Tomahawk (S.Craig Zahler, 2015)Alive (Frank Marshall, 1993)Il cuoco, il ladro, sua moglie e l’amante (Peter Greenaway, 1989)La carne (Marco Ferreri, 1991)Il silenzio degli innocenti (Jonathan Demme, 1991)Hannibal (Ridley Scott, 2001)Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2016)Delicatessen (Jeunet et Caro, 1991)2022 i sopravvissuti (Richard Fleischer, 1973)Zombi (George A. Romero, 1978)

All hail Sheetar! In this episode of Horror-fying My Friends, our friend Josh Heath joins us again for the 1987 cult classic Blood Diner, a hilarious 80s slasher directed by Jackie Kong that's just smarter and funnier than anything we've seen yet.

Husband and wife comedians Mike Bobbitt and Allyson Bobbitt take turns making each other watch a movie the other has never seen. This week, Mike makes Allyson watch Blood Diner! Mike remembers loving the horror/comedy splatterfest Blood Diner, written by Haunted Garage lead vocalist Dukey Flyswatter. He also remembers really enjoying naked kung-fu fighting. Will Blood Diner hold up and will Allyson enjoy it too? Blood Diner (1987) directed by Jackie Kong, written by Michael Sonye aka Dukey Flyswatter, starring Rick Burks and Carl Crew Join our https://www.facebook.com/groups/youmademewatch (Facebook group) for more movie talk! https://www.facebook.com/groups/youmademewatch Logo by Martin Butler. Follow him on Instagram @MartyButtons Theme song by Thomas Medelheim. https://www.fiverr.com/medelheim

Nothing like waiting til the last minute to write a podcast script. Thank you. Thank you very much. This is week 3 of our SUMMER SLASH scary movie marathon that runs, get this, all summer long!!!We screamed with the Scream movies.We slashed our way through a German village with Der Samurai.And now are invited to a blood buffet… TONIGHT WE ARE REVIEWING JACKIE KONG’S BLOOD DINER FROM ‘87.Brought to you by SHUDDER.COM "THE ESSENTIAL SOURCE FOR HORROR" Shudder is a subscription service for the horror, thriller, and suspense genres. Enjoy exceptional originals, movies, TV series, podcasts, and live streaming events. TRY IT FREE FOR 30 DAYS WITH PROMO CODE: BINGEWATCHERSJackie Kong is an awesome indie filmmaker and she shocked the world when she started making horror films and horror comedies in the 80s. A strong female filmmaker in the monster genre and one of the founding parents of horror comedy. HELLO !!! She should inspire a whole new generation of killer filmmakers out there!!! Look her up. She sometimes goes on tour with Blood Diner screenings too. She said she prefers to make monster movies over just straight forward comedies.Before we go deep into Blood Diner, we’re going to talk about Bill and Ted 3, Evil Dead movie happenings, and a little movie called Split Second.Bill and Ted Face The Music mini-discussion. Bill and Ted vs. Wayne’s World?Bruce Campbell is touring drive-ins with Evil Dead screenings. Dave finally kinda watches Split Second. Screenwriter Gary Scott Thompson wrote the original script titled Pentagram in 1988. It included a ritualistic serial killer who has committed five murders every five years for the last quarter of the century, and always leaves pentagram symbols after each death. One of the reasons why changes were demanded is because the script was considered to be too similar to another horror thriller which came out around the same time, The First Power (1990). Creatures designed by Steve Norrington, who did Death Machine and Blade, and did effects on Aliens and Alien 3. People joke Scorpio Demon is like Venom from Marvel, or that is a Xenomorph.Blood Diner discussion with comparisons to original Blood Feast. Blood diner inspired recipes. The episode movies into a discussion of The Fly 2 and how it will mess you up.Next week: TenebraeCredit song:Blame VegasWritten ByAndrew Dean PilandPerformed ByNitroProduced ByNitroSupport the show (https://www.paypal.me/bingewatcherspodcast)

We are still in quarantine, but ready to review some horror! This week’s pick is the 1987 film BLOOD DINER, directed by Jackie Kong and written by Michael Sonye. Plus, a little background on Ancient Egyptian human sacrifice, Kate being the president of the Jackie Kong fan club, and what we’ve been up to in our off time while quarantine turns over one month long, including some actual book reading by Elle and Kate rewatching LEGENDS OF TOMORROW for their sons Leonard Snart and John Constantine. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @HorrorTimePod and the hosts at @dykemadden and @ellemdesigns! We also are on Facebook at facebook.com/stophorrortimepod, and our website is stophorrortime.wordpress.com. If you like what we do, you can rate, review, and subscribe to us on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your favorites. Contact us at stophorrortime@gmail.com for any comments, questions, or movies you would like for us to cover!

Just because we’re doing remote recordings doesn’t mean we’re not going to give you one of our best episodes. We’re joined by writer, actor, and producer Felicia Day. She’s here to discuss the classic horror/ comedy Gremlins. Felicia reveals the secret to being true to herself when creating projects. She discusses how her classic film literacy has influenced her career. And she talks about the creation of her newest film Pooka Lives! Make sure to listen to this episode to hear Felicia’s great story about how she nailed her monologue as a horse grooming psychic in a Hallmark movie.You can watch Pooka Lives! on Hulu nowIf you haven’t seen Gremlins…truly, what is wrong with you?AND, if you want to check out April’s Staff Pick – watch Jackie Kong’s Blood DinerWith April Wolfe and Felicia Day

Horror Movie Reviews ~ We may be in quarantine but we are taking you with us! Join us as we talk one of our fav John Carpenter flicks Big Trouble in Little China, We also check in with Jackie Kong as part of our Lockdown Look-in segment. See what the cult director is up to while sheltering in place in La La land. We are live on lockdown! Coming at you every Friday until they let us out! AKA The CULT SHOW Check out the video version of this podcast on Youtube: https://youtu.be/viWqXKOmV2Y Our awesome theme song was written and performed by Quinten T Cohen https://quintentcohen.bandcamp.com Check us out on social: Instagram @thecultshowrocks Twitter @thecultshow_ Facebook @thecultshow Find us online at info@thecultshow.com  thecultshow.com Thanks for watching us go mad on lockdown! Check out our in-studio shows where we are not fighting with internet connection speeds... Stay inside and wash your hands! (Maybe throw a subscription our way if you're really bored)

On this episode of Talking Terror, your spooky boys are sneaking out of quarantine to get some food at a new diner that opened up down the street from the Talking Terror studio. It might not be a wise decision but the menu at this new diner is enough for them to take a little risk. So, settle into the questionable establishment and listen in as the eerie emcees discuss a fan picked film of the week! (Thank you Brenda!) The Mad Monkey presents the pick, from 1987; "Blood Diner" directed by Jackie Kong. Praise be to Sheetar! Stay scared people, stay scared!

Welcome back to the GGtMC!!! This week Will is in California so Sammy and Todd took it upon themselves to cover Night Patrol (1984) directed by Jackie Kong and Knights of the City (1986) directed by Dominic Orlando!!! Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com Adios!!! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ggtmc/message

Greetings, and welcome back to Horror Business. We have one awesome episode in store for you guys. In this episode we’re talking about creature features with 1983’s The Being and 1992’s Split Second. First and foremost we want to give a shoutout to our sponsors over at Lehigh Valley Apparel Creations, the premiere screen-printing company of the Lehigh Valley. Chris Reject and his merry band of miscreants are ready to work with you to bring to life your vision of a t-shirt for your business, band, project, or whatever else it is you need represented by a shirt, sweater, pin, or coozy. Head on over to www.xlvacx.com to check them out. Also, thank you to our Patreon subscribers. Your support means the world to us and we are eternally grateful for that support. Thanks! We start by talking about what we’ve seen or done lately in the field of horror. Liam talks about seeing the film A Hole In The Ground, and Justin talks about seeing The Possession Of Hannah Grace, I Think We’re Alone Now, and Lords Of Chaos. We begin by talking about The Being. Immediately we discuss how the film was very clearly a vanity project for the produce Bill Osco, who had a starring role in the film. Osco’s “career” is discussed. We are openly befuddled at how a movie that has so many accomplished actors in it can be so bad. We discuss the film’s lack of coherency, poor effects, confusing narrative, and horrible editing. Jackie Kong’s hands being tied during the filming of this movie is discussed. Next up is 1992’s Split Second. We begin by giving a brief summation of the film. Liam argues that the movie is very heavily influenced by the comic book series Heavy Metal. The mixing of genres that the movie uses, be they cyberpunk, neo noir, horror, and sci fi, is touched upon. The movies sense of being very “90s” is discussed. The creature design is touched upon. Rutger Hauer’s innovation of the “hardboiled cop” trope is discussed, in that he brings a sense of vulnerability and fragility to the character.   Kim Cattrell’s acting is touched upon, as is the fact that she is more than just a romantic subplot in the movie, in that she plays the role of anchoring Hauer’s character in reality and sanity. There is more discussion on the similarities with Heavy Metal. Some of the shortcomings of the movie are discussed, and we postulate that this is a movie that could benefit from a remake. As always thanks to everyone and anyone who donated on Patreon, checked this episode out, or shared a tweet/shared a post on FB/gave us love by recommending us to someone. We love you forever for listening. Any questions, comments, suggestions for movies and guests, or if you yourself want to join us for a movie viewing or even an episode, can be sent to thehorrorbiz@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you! Thanks always to Justin Miller and Doug Tilley for their technical contributions and fliers, Mike Smaczylo for the shirts and fliers (you can check more of his work out at here), and also thanks to Josh Alvarez for the theme song, Chris, Brad, Alexis, and LVAC for the support and buttons (check them out at www.xlvacx.com), and a HUGE thank you to anyone who retweeted us or shared something on Facebook that we posted. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @thehorrorbiz666, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/thehorrorbiz66, and remember to rate, review, and subscribe to us on ITunes. In fact, if you write us a review, email us with your mailing address and we’ll send you some free pins and stickers! Check out www.cinepunx.com for more info on some of our other podcasts, some ultra stylish Cinepunx related merchandise, and how you can donate to our Patreon! Until next time…thanks! The post HORROR BUSINESS Episode 56: THE BEING & SPLIT SECOND appeared first on Cinepunx.

Originally conceived as a sequel to Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Blood Feast, the cult classic, Blood Diner, became its own frighteningly unique entity. The New York Times reviewed the film, stating plainly that “this is not a movie; it’s celluloid swill.” The plot is a tale as old as time, two idiots and a talking brain in a jar set out to resurrect an ancient Lumerian goddess. The parallels to Blood Feast are great as both films center around men harvesting the body parts of women to serve as the vessel for their goddess (Sheetar/ Ishtar). The film ambles around that plot interweaving a cast of characters including Little Jimmy Hitler, a devious chef/ ventriloquist, and club bouncer whose head gets bounced on by the wheel of a car. In our continuing celebration of Women in Horror Month, we spotlight Jackie Kong, and her work in the director’s chair. We also highlight the tremendous effects work by Larry Arpin (Maniac Cop, Maniac Cop 2, and Maniac Cop 3), Loraiana Drucker (Friday the 13th Part VII, The Blob), and Michael Hyatt (Leprechaun). Sadly, most of the onscreen talent fell into obscurity, but the bumbling brother, George (Carl Crew) eventually did play Jeffrey Dahmer in The Secret Life of Jeffrey Dahmer. Overall, the film could be the focal point of a five-episode movie review series as there is so much absurdity to analyze, scrutinize, and agonize over. If you have any feeback, please feel free to reach out to us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @slasherspod, or at slasherspod@gmail.com. If you ever have feedback or recommendations on future episodes, please let us know at slasherspod@gmail.com. You can always find us on our social media: Instagram, Twitter, Slasher App: @slasherspod Facebook: /slasherspod Reddit: u/slasherspod https://www.youtube.com/c/slasherspodcast Rick Burks, Carl Crew, Roger Dauer, LaNette LaFrance, Lisa Guggenheim, Tanya Papanicolas, Bill & Ted, Evil Con Carne, Troll 2, horror movie, scary movie, special effects, makeup, trivia, review, collection, cannibalism, cult, occult, sex, orgy --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/slasherspod/support

Aaron & Pete wrap up THE FAMILY THAT EATS TOGETHER, STAYS TOGETHER month with the most peculiar one of the bunch, BLOOD DINER. Jackie Kong (aka, Queen Kong) made this back 80s, it failed to take off, and then was resurrected by a rabid cult of fans thirty years later. Uncle Anwar made a Sheetar demon back in the 50s, it failed to take off, and then was resurrected by a rabid cult of fans thirty years later.

C’est déjà la fin! Quel marathon tout de même! Dans cet épisode, on fait le survole de la dernière semaine en vous parlant de : Justin Benson, Aaron Scott Moorhead, Terence Fisher, Jackie Kong, Stuart Gordon, Tobe Hooper, Lucio Fulci, Alexandre Aja, Larry Fessenden, Mario Bava et Michael Dougherty Remerciements Un gros merci à nos [&hellip

Hey there CAMPERS! Hope you are hungry, because this episode we are serving up the cult-classic-crapfest that is Jackie Kong's BLOOD DINER! Also check out our video version of the show on our YOUTUBE , and make sure to SUBSCRIBE for more content from, The CAMP Fire!

Greetings, and welcome back to Horror Business. We have one awesome episode in store for you guys. On this episode we’re discussing two films directed by women: 1982’s The Slumber Party Massacre and 1987’s Blood Diner. First and foremost we want to give a shoutout to our sponsors over at Lehigh Valley Apparel Creations, the premiere screen-printing company of the Lehigh Valley. Chris Reject and his merry band of miscreants are ready to work with you to bring to life your vision of a t-shirt for your business, band, project, or whatever else it is you need represented by a shirt, sweater, pin, or coozy. Head on over to www.xlvacx.com to check them out. Thanks! We start by talking about what we’ve seen or done lately in the field of horror. We talk about watching 1990’s Demon Wind. Justin talks about attending the Mahoning Drive In Theatre’s fourth annual ZOMBIEFEST and seeing Re-Animator, Return Of The Living Dead II, Pet Semetary, and Tom Savini’s remake of Night Of The Living Dead. Liam talks about the recent Cinepunx hosting of King Boxer at the Frank Banko Alehouse in Bethlehem. Justin briefly talks about the recent trailer for the upcoming Fox TV series The Passage, based on Justin Cronin’s trilogy of novels. Up first is The Slumber Party Massacre. We talk about how this movie might be the most parodied slasher film of all time, in that it was the first film to use the plot of women being attacked at a slumber party. Liam discusses why he chose the film to watch as part of our ‘women in horror’ theme. There is a brief discussion on the theme of castration as the weakening of a male villain. Justin talks about how, despite not being a fan of slasher films, SPM was still quite enjoyable. We talk about the book Men, Women, And Chainsaws: Gender In The Modern Horror Film, and how often times people who enjoy film, particularly men, don’t empathize and identify with the killer but rather with the “final girl”, and how it’s possible that many young men learn to identify with “victims of masculinity” by watching horror films. The unconventional portrayal of the killer in the film is discussed, as is the reversal of convention in making the killer sort of dull and boring and flat instead of the victims in slasher films who are usually women being the dull and boring and flat characters, whereas all of the female victims in the movie are fully formed and fleshed characters. The portrayal of the slumber party as a rather dull and sexless event is discussed, as is the realistic portrayal of women’s views on sex. The concept of “gaze” is dissected. The use of phallic symbols as representations of power is discussed. The cinematography of the film is briefly touched upon. Up next is Blood Diner. Liam talks about the films origins as a sequel to Blood Feast and how the movie began as a somewhat serious horror film but then was turned into something of a satire by director Jackie Kong. Liam describes the film as “beyond tongue in cheek” in contrast to the somewhat serious tone of Blood Feast. The film’s association with late night television is discussed. Justin’s initial exposure to the film is discussed. There is a brief tangent on the somewhat problematic nature of villains in professional wrestling. The concept of the movie as a “pastiche of 80s fads” is discussed, in that the film incorporates many things popular in LA in the 80s (cults, vegetarianism, nude aerobics, flashy chains, cop shows, pro wrestling). Some of the feminist elements of the film are discussed, such as monstrous humans oftentimes being quite attractive people, the horrid nature of all of the male characters, the misplaced adoration of women, and the blatant misogyny of Uncle Anwar’s “simpler times”. The concept of two misogynists demeaning and objectifying women throughout the film in order to create the “ultimate woman” in the end creating a being (the personification of the feminine) that leads to their own destruction is touched upon.

Jackie Kong has directed such films as The Being, Night Patrol and the cult classic Blood Diner. We got the opportunity to sit down with her before a Midnight screening of Diner to talk about her career, the longevity of her films and the struggles of being a female filmmaker in a male dominated industry. Along the way we have a few laughs, hear a few stories and get an exclusive on her ongoing Blood Diner "Insanity Tour". After the interview be sure to stick around to hear us talk about what we've been watching and, while it might not be the best of films, there are giant robots, golf course mayhem, werewolves, and much more! Links to all our web stuff at www.gbwpodcast.com Visit Jackie at https://www.facebook.com/findingsheetar/

Jackie Kong is a director, producer, and screenwriter known for irreverent comedy and over-the-top horror films. In 1983, she made her feature film debut as director with the low-budget drive-in horror film The Being, which starred Martin Landau and Jose Ferrer. In 1984, she followed up by directing and co-writing the breakout comedy Night Patrol, featuring Linda Blair, about a Los Angeles policeman moonlighting as a stand-up comedian. Kong received a Platinum Video award from the RIAA for Night Patrol, which became a college-party film staple. Night Patrol was a major worldwide theatrical success, setting the stage for Kong to direct the comedic cult horror film Blood Diner, released in 1987. Kong added her comedic flair to Blood Diner, changing the traditional horror film into a gore fest with outrageous effects and comedy, ultimately pioneering a new sub-genre of horror film. It is now one of the most beloved horror films of all time. The fact that Blood Diner was directed by a woman blew audience' and critics' minds. She followed that with another comedy, The Underachievers. Kong's films are always irreverent, inventive, shocking, and funny. Weirdly, she enjoyed making the horror films much more than the comedies. "Making a monster movie was actually more fun than making a comedy," she says. "People watched the comedies and because they're laughing, think it must have been so much fun, when in fact that was harder work than making a monster movie. There's something about getting everyone in makeup and costumes and creating a hyper reality, that's so much more fun. Both are tough crowds to surprise."Writer/director/producer Jackie Kong made a handful of enjoyably low-budget pictures throughout the 80s. She was born on June 14 in Hanford, California and grew up in Benedict Canyon above Beverly Hills.  She was recently awarded in the top 10 Women Horror Directors!

It’s the final week of Female Directors month, and we’re diving deep into the 80’s video bin to pull out Jackie Kong’s 1987 horror-comedy BLOOD DINER! Join us as we review the film, discussing the inexplicable wonders of topless aerobics, kung fu sluts, and cannibal goddesses! If you donate $5 or more to one of the following organizations, you will be able to choose a movie we review on the show! ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) aclu.org Planned Parenthood plannedparenthood.org NOW (National Organization for Women) now.org

Welcome back for another episode of the GGtMC!!! This week Sammy, Will and Todd bring you coverage of the Collector's Edition Blu ray releases of Chopping Mall (1986) directed by Jim Wynorski and Blood Diner (1987) directed by Jackie Kong!!! We hope you enjoy the show and Viva GGtMC!!! Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com Adios!!! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ggtmc/message

Ryan Turek is at Sundance these next two weeks, so hosts Rob Galluzzo, Rebekah McKendry and Elric Kane carry on and catch up on all the latest horrors! Both Elric and Rob talk about their "PIECES" party with MTV's SCREAM cast members John Karna and Carlson Young, who got to witness J.Piquer Simon cult classic PIECES for their first time. It was doubled up with the rare VHS "slasher" EDGE OF THE AXE! Bekah talks about THE SIMILARS and MERMAID IN A MANHOLE. Rob checked out Scream Factory's new POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE Blu-Ray, Arrow's HELLRAISER Scarlet Box and AMERICAN PSYCHO. Elric reports back on VIRAL, BEGOTTEN and the New Beverly Cinema's Dario Argento all-nighter, which included all of the masters seminal works! Then the gang welcome on to the show director Jackie Kong! She rarely gives interviews, so it was our humble honor to have her stop by in the middle of her tour for the BLOOD DINER re-release. In our candid chat, she talks about her films THE BEING, NIGHT PATROL and BLOOD DINER, the challenges of finding opportunities for female directors and a bit about her humble beginnings, including a friendship with the great Marlon Brando who bought her her first 16mm camera! She also calls out the modern crop of horror shows from THE WALKING DEAD to SCREAM QUEENS to ASH VS EVIL DEAD for not having enough female directors behind the camera for their episodes. Check out our fun, candid and revealing interview with Jackie Kong! As Elric said after first seeing THE BEING, "Kong Is King."

Paolo and Carrie are joined by Justin Benson to discuss Jackie Kong 1987 horror-comedy Blood Diner. Topics include the allure of nude aerobics & karate, terrible acting, and the skillful art of dismemberment comedy.

The Two Gay Geeks have a few news articles and commentary this week. We also have our birthdays as well as Feedback. In our second segment we talk about Star Trek and an exciting concert going experience we had. As always we welcome your feedback, let us know what you think. Good or bad, we want to know. Thank you for listening, and we really do appreciate you taking time out of your day to spend with us.     Our YouTube channel is Two Gay Geeks (audio only):  Show Notes / Links:Nat’l Geographic presents Mars – A docu/sci-fi about the Red Planet Blood Diner revived by Jackie Kong with Finding Sheeter Screening Tour! UK Trailer gives greater look into the magic of Pete’s Dragon Daredevil’s Foggy Nelson to appear in The Defenders Throwback slasher film Lake Nowhere is coming to Blu-Ray More plans and development between Marvel and ABC Misty Knight confirmed for both Luke Cage and Iron Fist TG Geeks Episode 87 (Interview with Miguel Rodriguez) TG Geeks Episode 89 Featured Podcast Bumper of the Week  Vox Box Star Wars Podcast If you have a podcast or know of a podcast we should be aware of, please use the contact form below and send us the information and we will take a look.   Horrible Imaginings Film Festival – San DiegoHorrible Imaginings Film Festival will take place September 7th through 12th in San Diego at the Museum of Photographic Arts in beautiful Balboa Park. Tickets are on sale at Horrible Imaginings Film Fest & Podcast where you can find out more information including a schedule of events and films showing. The Two Gay Geeks are honored to be sponsoring the LGBT Film Block on Saturday afternoon, come join us in San Diego .   Phoenix Comicon InfoPhoenix Comicon Fan Fest 16 will be October 22nd and 23rd at the Convention Center in Downtown Phoenix. More info at www.phoenixcomicon.com .   Thank You The Arkle Times Post Dispatch News - Social Justice Skald on Twitter @arkle Please have a look at Arkle’s other venture: Incorrect Voyager Quotes Doctor Who Fancast Guide - Dr Who: Talking Who on Twitter @TalkingWho Thank you to The Lookie Show for their continued support on Twitter. @LookieShow Check them out on Youtube as well here We want to give a special shout out to the Facebook Group “The Gay Geek” for graciously allowing us to post our episodes to their page. Look for them at www.facebook.com/groups/thegaygeek. And a special Thank You to Jeramiah Reeves, the moderator, for being such a great guy.   A Special Thank You We want to say a special Thank You to whoever nominated us for a Parsec Award. We are very honored and humbled that someone thinks that highly of us. Thank You, Thank You! Are you a writer?The Two Gay Geeks don’t get to go to every movie that is released. The PR houses have not deemed us “worthy” yet to be invited to press screenings. So, if you fancy yourself as a movie reviewer and wish to write a review of a new film, get in touch with us using the contact us page and use the subject line of Movie Review Options. We can then contact you and work out the details. Thank you.   Support Independent CreatorsAs you may know by now, we have become huge supporters of Independent Creators, not just film, but any kind of creative outlet that is of an independent nature. We know we are always pushing something, but this is what we have become passionate about. We just ask you to take a look at those independent creators that we talk about and others you may discover on your own and give a helping hand. It doesn’t always have to be much, usually as little as five dollars helps in the scheme of things. Please consider supporting Independent Creators.   Social MediaWe can now be found on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Google +, see the links on the right sidebar.   You are Important To UsWe welcome your suggestions. Let us know what you like or don’t like or if you have an opinion or comment on an ar...

Blood Diner is one of those rare movies that succeeds by being bad on purpose. Typically these types of movies don't come across as genuine and create a false sense of so-bad-it's-good. Bad movies that we remember and talk about are never made to be bad on purpose, they are earnest attempts by filmmakers who simply won't back down in the face of people telling them they are insane. These are the true gems of trash cinema and Blood Diner somehow crosses over this line. The Director, Jackie Kong, was certainly aware of what she was making but the final product is so bizzare and disjointed from reality that you can't help but laugh. Most of the dialogue (if not all) seems completely re-dubbed in the ADR booth. Exposition is haphazardly fired off by characters (onscreen and off) talking almost in fast forward. This movie is simply one of the most bizzare spectales you will ever witness.

Welcome to another episode of the GGtMC!!! This week Large William, Koop and Tanny bring you coverage of Close Up (1990) directed by Abbas Kiarostami and Blood Diner (1987) directed by Jackie Kong!!! We want to thank Koop and Tanny for stepping in to help Large William while Sammy is away working on his tan lines!!! Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com Voicemails to 206-666-5207 Adios!!! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ggtmc/message