Tag: Country Gate Players

  • Night of the Living Dead Discussion

    Night of the Living Dead Discussion

    Thanks to Bill Scurato, managing director of Country Gate Players, for joining us last night on Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, for a lively discussion about “Night of the Living Dead” (1968). We talked about the actual making of the film, its social relevance, and its undying influence. Reanimate the archived program by clicking here:

    George A. Romero’s underground masterpiece was featured as part of a Saturday night film series Bill is curating this month at Country Gate Playhouse in Belvidere, NJ. Tonight at 8 pm, there will be a showing of the original, Roger Corman-directed “Little Shop of Horrors” (not to be confused with the later Mencken & Ashman musical).

    On October 29th & 30th the Players will present a “live experience” that will incorporate a screening of Ed Wood’s masterpiece of incompetence, “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” Think “Rocky Horror” meets “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” Among other horrors, Roy will actually sing. And dance. For more information, visit https://www.countrygateplayers.org/upcoming-shows-events

    Next week, we’ll conclude Halloween month with special guests Michael Rizzo and Marybeth Ritkouski of the weekly webcast SciFi Distilled. In what has now become something of a holiday tradition, M&M will join R&R for a lighthearted conversation about the classic television series “The Munsters” (1964-66). Costumes will be worn!

    We’ll be looking for you on Mockingbird Lane. Leave your macabre, comical comments, when we livestream on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, next Friday evening at 7:30 EDT!

    https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

  • “The Omen” Didn’t Scare Me

    “The Omen” Didn’t Scare Me

    Granted, the film’s gruesome set-pieces are all pretty unforgettable. But I’m sorry, “The Omen” (1976) just didn’t scare me. Then again, my dad took me to the drive-in to see “The Omega Man” when I was five. So I was probably fairly well inured to stuff-and-nonsense like the son of Satan being born to a jackal. Atticus Finch and family terrorized by the Devil’s Rottweilers? A little silly, don’t you think? But Charlton Heston, the last man on earth, battling legions of plague-induced zombies? That sh** can happen!

    Few would deny that the 1970s was a very strange decade. It was an era when audiences could accept supernatural Rottweilers doing the bidding of Satan, and a successful franchise spun out of “The Doberman Gang.”

    One thing I think we can all agree on is that little kids are creepy. Also, David Warner looks sinister even when he’s supposed to be one of the good guys. (I was amused to learn that Warner held on to the film’s iconic severed head for years – until it was taken by his wife when they divorced.)

    FUN FACT! Jerry Goldsmith’s Oscar-winning music can be used to underscore almost any situation.

    Lawn crew pulls up at development [Cue “Ave Satani”]

    Sniff carton to discover milk has turned [Cue “Ave Satani”]

    Squirrel hangs upside down from tube feeder [Cue “Ave Satani”]

    Try it!

    Then check out our conversation about “The Omen” on last night’s Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.

    Next week, we’ll be joined by Bill Scurato, managing director of Country Gate Players. Bill is presenting a Saturday night film series this month (with a 100th anniversary screening of F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu” tonight at 8:00) at Country Gate Playhouse in Belvidere, NJ.

    On the 29th & 30th the players will present a “live experience” assimilating Ed Wood’s masterpiece of incompetence, “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” We’ll learn more about it, when we discuss one of the films shown at Country Gate this month, George A. Romero’s seminal zombie classic, “Night of the Living Dead” (1968).

    So leave your brains in the comments section. Human flesh is on the menu, when we livestream on Facebook, next Friday evening at 7:30 EDT!

    https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner


    PHOTO: Rubber bands had to be put around the muzzles of the “Satanic” Rottweilers in order to make them look like they were snarling

  • Perfect Match Murders Live Stream Darby O’Gill Review

    Perfect Match Murders Live Stream Darby O’Gill Review

    The tie-dye is at the dry cleaners this weekend, as Roy takes off to appear in another mystery, “The Perfect Match Murders,” courtesy of Country Gate Players in Belvidere, NJ. Performances will be live-streamed, via Zoom, tomorrow at 8 pm EST and Sunday at 2 pm EDT. Admission is free, but donations help support the playhouse, which has been hard hit, like everyone else, by the deprivations of Covid. To register, visit billscurato.com.

    Roy and I will reunite next Friday to chase away your delirium tremens, with a post-St. Patrick’s Day discussion of “Darby O’Gill and the Little People” (1959). This Walt Disney classic pioneered forced perspective effects of a type employed so effectively in Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Furthermore, it boasts an early film appearance by the late Sean Connery.

    Be sure and save yourself a hair of the dog. We’ll see you next Friday, even as we’re seeing double, on Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.

    https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

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