Happy Holidays, Fiends and Neighbors...

...And a heartfelt thanks to all who came out for the first two Bizarro Movie Nights!

Just wait 'til you see what Your Schlockologist Truly has in store for 2010. The Strange has just begun!!!

Photo from the first Aster Bizarro Movie Night, December 5!

Thanks, Bob Suh, for documenting the first Aster Bizarro Movie Night for posterity. And incidentally, Fiends and Neighbors, that empty chair was MY seat...

Santa Brings Brain Damage AND Goodies to the Aster Coffee Lounge!

Dear Lord in Silk Jammies, the second Bizarro Movie Night went like gangbusters!

The crowd was even bigger the second time than the first, and choc a bloc with many new faces! Thanks so much to all of you who came.

Here's a brief play-by-play:

1) Demented Christmas incidentals (Santa Claus trailer, crazed old kiddie shorts) played in the background as the throngs indulged in great coffees, tea, beer (the sweet holiday brew was the bomb--thanks, Dan!), the Aster's spiffy hummus plates, and FREE popcorn (thanks, Beth!)!

2) Schlockologist introduced, in traditional sparkling repartee style, the evening's feature: yes, the mighty, mad-as-a-Mexican-Hatter SANTA CLAUS!

3) Said feature unspooled before at least two-dozen sets of disbelieving eyes! In case you don't know the basic synopsis: Santa operates from a City in the Clouds (think Empire Strikes Back on about 20 pesos), employs child labor to do his toy-building dirty work, scores wacky dust from Merlin the Magician, and runs afoul of the most neurotically-mewling devil on the planet. And it's a flippin' KID'S MOVIE...Read a more detailed analysis (provided in part by Ye Olde Schlockologist) at this link on the excellent Kiddie Matinee website...

4) After blowing minds with said feature, Schlockologist held a PRIZE DRAWING, giving away several lovely prizes, including DVD's that turn your TV into a homey, roaring fireplace, Devil Duckies, unsettling figurines of boys with scary eyebrows, and for one lucky attendee--a copy of the most brain-broiling Holiday Double Feature Conceived by Man: SANTA CLAUS and SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS!! On ONE damned DVD!

Expect at least one spiffy prize to be handed out at the next Bizarro Movie Night. Program TBA, but rest assured...It'll be flippin' AMAzing!

Holy Holiday!! Bizarro Movie Night's TONIGHT!!

Yes, Fiends and Neighbors, Your Schlockologist Truly is bringing you the most weird-assed, lysergic loaf of Cinematic Fruitcake you'll ever dare taste, TONIGHT at the Aster!!

OK, we're so bursting at the seams to finally spill the beans on tonight's program that we'll just throw the trailer for tonight's feature presentation up, right now...



Well, didya watch it? Huh? Just wait 'til you actually see this movie in all its full-length, mind-twisting GLORY, tonight at the Aster!!

Plus added strange attractions (holiday-themed and otherwise) for your entertainment!

AND the Aster serves great hot drinks, beers and wines, and tasty light meals for your enjoyment!

AND you'll be done in plenty of time to hit the road and party hearty afterwards! You're a sucker if you miss it!!


See you there!

Bizarro-Worthy B-Girl: Yvette Vickers

Some B movie babes, you take home to mom.Yvette Vickers, conversely, is the girl you hop into the hot rod with--the sultry, thrill-seeking, wild-for-kicks vixen who's too much trouble to handle but too smoking-hot to resist.


Vickers appeared in several movies and TV shows in the 1950's and '60's, usually in bit roles (she's got a great cameo in Sunset Boulevard as a giggling blonde on a phone at a party); she posed for Playboy in the late fifties; and she worked the lounge circuit as a pop singer, too. But she amassed a rabid cult following from her work in two low-budget sci-fi classics.

Even horror non-initiates know Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman, the immortal 1958 schlock epic in which despondent and put-upon heiress Nancy Archer (Allison Hayes) grows to giant-size after falling afoul of a UFO. Vickers flat-out steals the movie as gold-digging Honey Parker, hussy on the side to Nancy's husband Harry. Whether she's kittenishly planting one on the jerk even as she goads him into attempting murder, or steaming the windows at Tony's Bar and Cafe in a sexy spitfire dance with the yokel deputy, Honey represents the flip-side of Nancy: She may be the reviled Other Woman, but she knows damn well what she wants.

But Vickers' biggest moment in the B-movie sun--and an eminently Bizarro-Worthy schlock masterwork--came in 1959 with Attack of the Giant Leeches. In it, the aforementioned bloodsuckers rise from an underwater cave (Why? Who the hell cares? GO WITH IT) to liberate hapless locals from their plasma in the Florida Everglades. Vickers plays one of those locals--Liz, the bored and trampy bride of dyspeptic Dave (Bruno VeSota), the local general store owner. Again, Vickers is sex on a stick, traipsing scantily-clad around the swamp environs and enthusiastically jumping into the arms and affections of local stud Cal (Michael Emmet). Of course, the affair ends badly, with Liz and Cal forced to choose between the barrel of Dave's shotgun and a dip in the swamp with something just as lethal and a lot slimier.

It's another blast of a grade B monster-fest, replete with awesomely ridiculous monsters (the giant leeches look like Glad trash bags with octopus suckers plastered all over them), but the best part of Leeches is its richly-pulpy dialogue. Vickers lends slatternly sensuality to her lines, alternately caressing and spitting them out like she's making rough love to them. How apropos, then, that in its most sublime moments Attack of the Giant Leeches resembles nothing more than a sci-fi flick filtered through the senses and sensibilities of Tennessee Williams.

Six More Days 'til Bizarro Movie Night, Holiday Edition!

You heard right, Fiends and Neighbors. Six more days until Bizarro Movie Night, Holiday Edition, is unleashed!

Did you hear that there'll be prizes? Yup, the Bizarro Movie Night prize committee has broken the bank, and will be giving away free prizes to a few lucky patrons. And trust me, they'll be pips, so arrive early! Set a spell. Have some fine beverages and chow. And get ready for Christmas Capers the likes o' which you've never experienced!!

Holiday Edition of Bizarro Movie Night is a GO!!

Felicitations, Fiends and Neighbors!

The programming for Bizarro Movie Night 2: The Holiday Edition is confirmed, but in true Christmas fashion, we won't unwrap it 'til that night (Saturday, December 19). For most of you, the content will be a super-secret surprise, but trust Your Schlockologist Truly: It'll be worth it!

See you there!