American Scary (2006)

User Rating:

5.3/10   

Director:

John E. Hudgens

Writer:

Sandy Clark (writer)

Genre:

Documentary

Tagline:

It's about that favorite show you forgot you loved ...

Plot:

American Scary is a look at the nation's tradition of horror hosting, from Ghoulardi to Ghoul-A-Go-Go...

Plot Keywords:

Horror Host

Cast

Forrest J Ackerman	...	Himself
Douglas Agosti	...	Himself / Dr. Shock
Ernie Anderson	...	Himself / 'Ghoulardi' (archive footage)
Curtis Armstrong	...	Himself
Bob Beidman	...	Himself / 'Carpathian'
Terry Bennett	...	Himself / "Marvin" (archive footage)
Bob Billbrough	...	Himself / "Hives the Butler"
Jerry G. Bishop	...	Himself / 'Svengoolie'
John Bloom	...	Himself
Ken Bramming	...	Dr. Lucifer (archive footage)
Nicole M. Brooks	...	Herself
Bob Burns	...	Himself
P.D. Cacek	...	Herself / 'Moira the Banshee'
Bill 'Chilly Billy' Cardille	...	Himself
George 'E-Gor' Chastain	...	Himself
Tim Conway	...	Himself
Lowell Cunningham	...	Himself
Shane Dallmann	...	Himself / 'Remo D.'
Frank J. Dello Stritto	...	Himself
Jeanne Dietrick	...	Herself / 'Joan E. Cleaver'
John Dimes	...	Himself / 'Dr. Sarcofiguy'
Penny Dreadful	...	Penny Dreadful (as Danielle Gelehrter)
Richard Dyszel	...	Himself / 'Count Gore DeVol'
Brian Easterling	...	Himself / 'Butch R. Cleaver'
Andrew C. Ely	...	Himself / 'Grimm'
Hart D. Fisher	...	Himself
Joseph Fotinos	...	Himself / 'Professor Anton Griffin'
Tim Fox	...	Himself
Neil Gaiman	...	Himself
Chris Gore	...	Himself
Billy Hall	...	Himself
Jeff Hall	...	Himself (as Jeff 'The Sickie' Hall)
Jim Hendricks	...	Himself / 'Commander USA'
Timothy Herron	...	Himself / 'Baron Von Wolfstein'
Bob Hinton	...	Himself / 'A. Ghastlee Ghoul'
Barry Hobart	...	Himself / 'Dr. Creep'
Joel Hodgson	...	Himself
John Kassir	...	Himself
Adam Kolesm	...	Himself
Eric Lobo	...	Himself / "Mr Lobo"
Leonard Maltin	...	Himself
Russ McCown	...	Sir Cecil Creepe (archive footage)
Alan F. Milair	...	Himself / "Dr. E. Nick Witty"
Michael Monahan	...	Himself / 'Doktor Goulfinger'
Joseph Monks	...	Himself
James Morrow	...	Himself
Mark D. Newman	...	Himself / 'Dr. Mor B.S.'
David Nielsen	...	Himself
Bob Paulin	...	Himself
Brittany Paulin	...	Herself
Mike Price	...	Himself / "Baron Daemon"
Jimmy Psycho	...	Himself
John Rinaldi	...	Himself / "Li'l John"
Tom Savini	...	Himself
Keven Scarpino	...	Himself
Chuck Schodowski	...	Himself / "Big Chuck"
Karen Scioli	...	Herself / "Stella"
Roberta Solomon	...	Herself / 'Crematia Mortem'
John Stanley	...	Himself
Ron Sweed	...	Himself / 'The Ghoul'
Patricia Tallman	...	Herself
Malena Teves	...	Herself
Jeff Thompson	...	Himself
Phil Tippett	...	Himself
Larry Underwood	...	Himself / 'Dr. Gangrene'
Vampira	...	Herself (as Maila Nurmi)
Len Wein	...	Himself
Darren Wilhite	...	Himself
Bob Wilkins	...	Himself
John Zacherle	...	Himself / 'Zacherley'
Randy Zimmerman	...	Himself

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Filming Locations:

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Company:

POOB Productions

A nice walk down memory lane.

American SCARY is a nice little walk down memory lane for adults who grew up during the generation that enjoyed their local version of "Creature Feature" on television. Where I grew up, it was on Friday and Saturday nights and decades later I have a warm place in my heart for Count Gore De Vol. So it wasn't at all surprising that I gravitated towards this documentary when I saw it listed on Netflix.

Some background is needed for you young whippersnappers. Once or twice a week, in most of the major cities had a local horror movie evening (usually starting around 11pm or later). This film is about these local hosts--local celebrities who were hardly recognized outside their local markets (with only a few exceptions, such as Vampira). In most cases, the films they showed weren't all that great and sometimes watching the host's antics during commercial breaks made these sub-par films worth watching. And in every case in every market, the sets and acting were all pure cheese--enjoyable, fun but certainly cheese!

Now as far as the documentary goes, it was quite enjoyable but suffered from a few problems. First, the musical track was really too invasive and too omni-present. Less would have worked better. Second, while I adored seeing all these local hosts after all these years, I don't know why they had other celebrities there as well (other than, I assume, they'd appear for free). The telepathic lady from "Babylon 5" and Booger from "Revenge of the Nerds", for examples, were shown quite a few times but I would MUCH rather have seen more of the hosts or old clips or more about the history of these shows. Third, and I can't at all blame the film makers, but seeing this stretched out--with more time for specific hosts would have been nice. I wanted more on The Cool Ghoul and Count Gore De Vol and also more on hosts I wasn't familiar with before the film. As they say, though, in entertainment it's important to keep them wanting more, so in this sense the film was a real success--and walk down memory lane.