Another documentary with great intentions and an incredible amount of interviewees (see below) but falls down too many times in its execution to be recommended without serious reservations. The director should’ve hired an editor who understood how less can be more with this topic.
For those who don’t remember what regional American television was like, before the homogenization/consolidation, practically every major city had a horror-show host, often on the non-network UHF stations (Chicago 32 in my youth). About once a week, the channel showed some awful Horror flick yet many watched because the host was funny or more amusing than the main feature. Most are the forebearers of MST3K and Austin’s own Master Pancake.
Scary gets one major element right. It explains the common origins of these hosts. Back in the mid-Fifties, Universal put together a movie collection for local stations to show the classics: Frankenstein, Dracula and Bride of Frankenstein. There was a catch though, numerous turkeys were part of the bargain. Filling air time was harder 40-50 years ago so the stations often accepted the deal first, then figured out how to present it later. The solution most came up with was a goofy monster/fiend/something as the MC to serve as comic relief during the breaks (Svengoolie, Ghoulardi, Zacherley and Elvira); others could be serious/ironic (Vampira); and there was a minority doing the living encyclopedia bit (Bob Wilkins and Joe Bob Briggs).
The story about this evolution is then heavily peppered with interviews from these hosts themselves, some happened before they died and one was archived conversations from the Nineties. Here are the people I recall from memory with a little explanation of why they matter:
- Len Wein: comic book writer who created Wolverine and Blade, yet he did Horror books for Marvel and DC.
- Neil Gaiman: contemporary writer most know for the Sandman comic, a staple of the Goth crowd.
- Ernie Anderson: Ghoulardi (Cleveland), later was the voiceover of ABC.
- Tim Conway: a friend of Ernie Anderson.
- Malia Nurmi: Vampira (LA).
- John Zacherle: Zacherley (Philly/NYC).
- Cassandra Peters: Elvira (LA/International).
- Jerry G. Bishop: Svengoolie (Chicago).
- John Bloom: Joe Bob Briggs, former host on TNT and The Movie Channel plus an incredible author who should be on TCM.
- Joel Hodgson: stand-up comedian, magic consultant and creator of MST3K.
- Leonard Maltin: film critic, author.
- Forrest J. Ackerman: considered the greatest SciFi/Horror Fan who ever lived, also wrote authoritative books on movie monsters.
- Tom Savini: Horror make-up/effects expert, actor.
- Phil Tippet: Special effects expert.
- Patricia Tallman: Actress/stuntwoman from numerous Star Trek franchises, Babylon 5 and starred in a remake of Night of the Living Dead.
- John Kassir: voice actor for numerous cartoons like Rocket Power but known for The Cryptkeeper on HBO’s Tales from the Crypt.
The above list is incredible! It’s the foundation for a first-rate documentary worthy of the History Channel or PBS. Instead the filmmakers fumble it away by diluting it with segments from an army of irrelevant, wannabe hosts. No one gives a crap what they have to say since anybody with a YouTube account is a “TV star” on the Internet! If only a fraction of the above people were available, then I’d understand and would’ve stopped watching much sooner.
I also take issue with the filmmakers’ premise over how each city “independently” developed a unique host in the pre-Internet/pre-cable era. It isn’t rocket science, stories and rumors circulated amongst the industry through magazines, newspapers and the broadcasters have these little annual things called conventions. Tim Conway went from being an engineer in Cleveland to a member of Steve Allen’s comedy gang through word-of-mouth not by being discovered at malt stand. Television stations used to show non-Horror movies with hosts as well when I was a little kid: Family Classics with Frasier Thomas on WGN, some funny guy on KPLR on weekend afternoons, Bill Tush’s Academy Award Theater on WTBS, and a generic guy on WCIA’s The Early Show. It was logical they’d adjust a functional formula to accommodate bad Horror flicks.
I’m glad my co-worker/friend Jarrett told me about it on Netflix Streaming, he’s one of the biggest Horror fans/experts I know. Somara and I are probably peripheral fans ourselves. I certainly will share this with other aficionados, solicit their opinions, hopefully they can prove me wrong. Anybody else, don’t bother, you’ll just want 90 minutes of your life back like I did after enduring the four most boring Canadians who ever lived in the John Hughes tragedy Don’t You Forget About Me.
