Bradley's Buzz

Saturday Matinee

It would appear that I have quite a social life lately. I have been going to shows, hanging out with friends and even (gasp!) leaving West Hollywood and driving to the Valley! I know, I am a jet setting LA boy if ever there was one.

So this last weekend I finally hooked up with my Val pal Jen and we had a Saturday of watching some classic horror-ish type of flicks. Two from the glorious 80s and one strange little 70s flick. It all started with Jen asking me if I had the movie April Fool's Day starring our other fav Val gal Deborah Foreman - not too mention other actors from such classic films as Friday the 13th Part 2 and Just One Of The Guys - which was kind of strange as I had just been at Amoeba and was planning on buying the flick but thought it was a little too spendy at $15.

With Jen's birthday only a few weeks ago I decided to tell a fib and told her I did own the movie and then before driving through the canyon, I hit up Amoeba in Hollywood and bought her the copy of April Fool's Day.

Of course she loved it, and she also loved the vinyl copy of Lisa Hartman's Letterock I bought her and the 7" (with picture sleeve) of Andy Gibb and Victoria Principal's version of "All I Have To Do Is Dream." But since she didn't have a record player, we opted to watch some flicks instead starting with the uber cool April Fool's Day.

If anyone hasn't seen this classic little film, head on over to Netflix right now and get it. Here's the gist - Lovely and loveable Deborah Foreman plays Muffy St. John who invites all her college pals to her remote island mansion for April Fool's Day weekend. They all come out and after a strange little tragedy on the ferry over, the pranks and the fun really begin. A total send up of Agatha Christie, there's not really too much gore as most of the murders take place off screen, but like most of Deborah's roles, the normal 80s cliches are pushed aside for something a little more intelligent than your standard 80s slasher flick. The cast will all be familiar to anyone who's seen any 80s flicks including Amy Steel and Deborah Goodrich and the ending and the post ending are awesome... Get it, now! You can buy it at Amazon for cheap

For our second flick, we headed to 1977 as I had made a recent purchase. For a whopping $1.99 I got a TV movie classic from that wonderful Amoeba Music - a little movie called "Ants" which features Suzanne Somers, Robert Foxworth, Myrna Loy and a whole heapin' helpin' of crazy pesticide infested ants. I remember seeing this movie on TV when I was a kid and let me tell you it's just as great as I remember it. I love those "when animals go bad" flicks and this is a doozie... check out one crucial and shocking scene:


and we ended the evening with yet another classic, the pseudo zombie/sci fi hybrid of Night Of The Comet, one of my all time favorite movies and a film that my gal Jen - queen of all things 80's - hadn't ever seen! I couldn't believe it. For anyone else not in the know, here's the sitch - a big comet is making its way into our atmosphere circa 1984 and our heroines are part of the whole world celebrating. At a theater, Catherine Mary Stewart as Regina is making out with her boyfriend in a steel encased room while her sister Sam (played by the uber cool Kelly Maroney) is at home with step monster Doris. As the comet makes its way to Earth it appears that anyone left outside is either turned to dust immediately or is slowly disinegrating into dust, including a secret army science barracks outside of LA - as the movie kicks in our Valley Girls seem to be one of only a few living residents on planet Earth and it just gets better and better. Here's a little scene with some bad, mad and slowly disinegrating stock boys harrasing our girls after they do a little shopping at the mall.


and that's the way we spend Saturdays in the Valley!

Labels: 80s Flicks, April Fool's Day, Deborah Foreman, Night Of The Comet, Suzanne Somers

posted by swivek @ 9:27 AM