First off…what is Cinemapocalypse? Well, it’s a two-week West Coast movie tour where Alamo programmers Lars and Zack present the most blazing 35mm treasures from our darkest vaults at the finest-to-seediest theatrical venues on the left side of our nation! That’s what.

Now…

We left Austin unceremoniously at 9:37 AM on Tuesday, April 14 with a van full of film prints and our friend/cohort Justin. Our first day of driving took us through the windblown grime of beautiful El Paso, a city that apparently boasts the most alarming female kidnapping rate in the nation. Every year. Good work. We decided to pull off the highway to dine at a sub-digestible shit-hut called Qwik Wok Buffet. Who would have guessed that this was a bad idea? Our gas station attendant later alerted us that there was one worse choice possible, which you can imagine was a relief.

We pulled into Lordsburg, New Mexico and were treated like walking leukemia. The restaurant that shared the hotel parking lot — Kranberry’s — is represented by a crude drawing of a prospector walking alongside a donkey and holding a plate with what’s supposed to be a hamburger, but more closely resembles a steaming pile. Good eats, though!

From there, we were off to a stop at Phoenix, where we dined with family members and went on a short and mostly fruitless VHS hunt. That city is unearthly, like an endless skid row outdoor mini mall from a 1987 movie about a stolen nuclear motorcycle. You know what I’m saying. For instance, we passed a business called “CFS Submission Grappling Academy” and an Asian diner called “Long Wong.”

Our last stop before Los Angeles was at the dinosaurs from PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, which are all the more impressive at night and in person:

The next day was our first actual screening of the trip: a well-attended “Psychosexual Maniac Triple Feature” of JULIE DARLING, POOR PRETTY EDDIE and PSYCHO FROM TEXAS, screened at the New Beverly Cinema in collaboration with our friends Brian Quinn and Eric Caidin. Unstoppable exploitation supermachine Sybil Danning:

…was good enough to join us for the first film, an unapologetically vicous incest opera with a shotgun-blast-to-the-groin that had the crowd rolling in the aisles. Unfortunately, the actress who played the film’s title character was less excited about the show, but Lars has more info on that.

No tears shed. After a Q&A with everyone’s favorite Austrian she-warrior, we rolled directly into POOR PRETTY EDDIE a.k.a. BLACK VENGEANCE a.k.a. HEARTBREAK HOTEL a.k.a…(ahem)…REDNECK COUNTY RAPE. Despite the cheap, sell-it-quick title(s), this is an unquestionable backwoods/revenge masterpiece and the audience went completely bananas. The closing segment alone had attending professional film critic Devin Faraci of Chud.com deeming this under-appreciated 1975 hellwar The Best Movie He’d Seen in 2009. That’s considerable praise from a guy who averages six to eight movies a day.

The crowd thinned a little for PSYCHO FROM TEXAS (wimps!) but everyone there seemed to truly absorb the disturbing rabidity of the show. One unexpected attendee who made it to the end was legendary character actor Clu Gulager, an incredible seasoned performer who evidently attends many of the exploitation late-nights that the theater screens. Not only is he one of of our favorite actors in everything from Don Siegel’s THE KILLERS to RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD…he’s also a staunch movie nerd and all-around friendly guy. I guess even L.A. turns its back long enough to let a few of ‘em get in.

Overall, it was a perfect night of big screen anti-morality. How to follow it? The only chance would be to combine a zany ’80s new wave boner comedy with a North Carolina children’s movie about a talking chimp! Fortunately, we had both in the van. With the assistance of our pal Phil Blankenship, we presented a double feature of slapstick punk beach zombie epic SURF 2: END OF THE TRILOGY with the late Al Adamson’s lost celluloid traumatizer CARNIVAL MAGIC, and I think L.A. was left with visible emotional scars.

The SURF 2 screening was presented by producer George Braunstein, assistant director D. Scott Easton, writer/director Randall Badat and Hollywood’s supreme movie nerd EDDIE DEEZEN!:

Both Deezen and the crew seemed rattled by the appreciative crowd and just how goddamn funny that movie still is. And just so you know, Deezen’s on-screen persona is no act…this man is REAL.

Up last was the might CARNIVAL MAGIC, a shoestring not-so-family-friendly film drowning in unintended genius. Sure…at first glance, it’s an inept study of the heartwarming powers of linguistically gifted primates. BUT the New Beverly audience found themselves alternating between open-mouthed amazement and plaster-cracking laughter. There was an enormous air of excitement over this one as there’s only one print in the world and the film has and will never exist on video, and CARNIVAL MAGIC delivered to the goddamn max.

These were two nights in a row of the type of things that are too good to actually happen on this planet. But they happened anyway. A huge thanks to everyone who came out to take a double barrel shotgun blast of fun right in the skull.

On to our next target…SAN FRANCISCO!!

For more information on Cinemapocalypse and upcoming shows, click HERE!

Tags: alamo, exploitation, Rolling Roadshow, tour

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 9:29 am by zack and is filed under Rolling Roadshow. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.