Getting With The Program: Q & A With The Spook Lights

Popshifter: What’s wrong with Hollywood today?

We are not amused.

Scary Manilow: Same thing that’s ALWAYS been wrong with Hollywood: THE AUDIENCE. If the average movie goer wasn’t a sub-IQ yokel, the studios wouldn’t be forced to pander to their collective (lack of) taste. Hollywood’s only in it for the money, and so they gotta follow that cash to the source. There wouldn’t be turgid logs like Hairspray: The Musical! or Larry The Cable Guy: Health Inspector if people didn’t shell out dollar after dollar to see them. It’s a sad fact of life: most people are brainless fucking inbreds.

Curvacia VaVoom: When you have to write a movie to appeal to everyone, you end up having to compromise a lot so that you can sell a lot of tickets. I love what costume ideas people come up with themselves when given the license to invent the look and sound of a character. The movie that Scary Manilow wrote, that we’ve been working on this summer, every scene is my favorite scene. At first I would watch the raw footage of myself and think, “AAAAGH! Look at my chin!” Then at some point you realize you’re in a whole cast of people who look great, sound even better, and play the character to the HILT, and they all have chins or some other feature they’re concerned about. They offer more in one scene than a whole movie of people who have been sculpted, airbrushed, and vocally coached for big industry movies. I’ve seen a lot of Gwyneth Paltrow. But I haven’t seen enough of characters like THIS! There are so many more talented people who aren’t rich.

Also, what’s up with hiring people who are straight, skinny, or non-disabled to play someone gay, or put on a fat suit, or play a person with a disability? Why not hire ACTUAL queer people, actors of size, and actors with disabilities? Jesus!

Popshifter: What makes a good movie?

Scary Manilow: Grainy, black and white film stock. Out-of synch overdubs. Some kind of mad science or hideous monster. Choreographed dance sequences—A MUST! And I personally endorse bouncing, voluptuous women and broad-chested, square-jawed he-men with well-oiled buttocks.

Popshifter: What makes a bad movie?

Scary Manilow: Pretty much anything that wasn’t listed above, and especially anything in which Scarlett Johansson is cast.

Popshifter: What’s so great about Halloween? Why is it better than Christmas?

Scary Manilow: Anyone will tell you that I’m a guy who likes disguises, enjoys playing different characters. I can wear seven or eight different personalities in a single day! To me, Halloween isn’t so much about wearing a mask as it is about finally dropping one. It’s the one day a year where it’s okay to indulge in public role-playing, to show the rest of the world how you really wish you could relate to it. Also, I’m a child at heart, and the best toys hit the stores around Halloween. The BEST toys.

Black Christmas

Christmas is scarier than Halloween, but not necessarily FUN-scary. It’s real-life horror: Jesus freaks are everywhere, the financial burden is stifling, and the familial obligations really begin to stack up. I can face these terrors on an individual basis, but all at once? I crumble like a gingerbread house.

Some of the best horror movies are Christmas-themed, by the way: Black Christmas (which was the inspiration for the original Halloween), Christmas Evil, Silent Night, Deadly Night, etc.

Click to read more from The Spook Lights on. . .

Elderly delinquents
Low-budget movies
What’s wrong with Hollywood?
Horror movies and what’s next on The Program

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