As of November 2021, The AGFA Secret Screening is just The Secret Screening. Our favorite Monday night thing still shows plenty of AGFA prints, but now sometimes turns to other sources for an even more expansive selection of mind-blowers, head-scratchers, flashbacks, and bloodbaths.
81. STUNT ROCK (1978)
NOVEMBER 2021. A rare late-in-the-month Secret Screening (November 29) and a rare Secret Screening that your humble correspondent had to miss. It’s a film that I’ve covered before, though. From what I understand, this was also the return of 35mm to the show. Cool!
82. THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN (1969)
DECEMBER 2021. I like when The Secret Screening gets extra odd with films that I didn’t see coming in this series. Exploitation flicks about monsters biting peoples’ faces off are great, but it’s cool that there’s also room in there for The Magic Christian, the Terry Southern adaptation with a British twist that sits on the edge of cult status. It’s an Acid Generation comedy that mixes cartoonish gags with a bone-dry English sense of wit to an effect that only feels more brain-scrambling over time. I first saw The Magic Christian on TV many years ago and thought it was a mess. Seeing it again on the big screen (very nice 35mm print, by the way, that’s holding onto its colors well), I still think it’s a mess, but I kept watching and I got into its taste of 1969. I got into connecting the dots from it to Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which perfected this style soon after. These days, I also admire the original novel, which I reviewed on this site in 2018. I prefer the book’s idea of pranks as a path to observe the human animal to the film’s awkward commentary on capitalism. But, hey, the movie gives you Peter Sellers, Ringo Starr and goofy cameos from Christopher Lee and Raquel Welch, as well as some terrific songs from Badfinger and Thunderclap Newman turned up loud. There are worse ways to spend a Monday night.
83. MAUSOLEUM (1983)
JANUARY 2022. A little demon possession for a chilly winter night. The terrific practical effects (by genre luminary John Carl Buechler), some fun kills, much low-budget charm, and a worn-but-right 35mm print that valiantly clawed its way up to us from the early 80s provided plenty of toasty warmth.
84. THINGS TO COME (1976)
FEBRUARY 2022. The Secret Screening goes porn! Sort of. AGFA does this thing called “Smut Without Smut” in which they re-release old skin flicks with the sex scene inserts taken out so that audiences can enjoy the dated weirdness of the rest (and so that theaters can show it without violating any obscenity restrictions, I suppose). In a curious way, it’s an approach that strips the movie itself nude so all that’s left is the storytelling. Or the jokes. Or whatever it has to offer outside of money shots. Not a lot of films can still look good after that sort of undressing, but Things to Come was a blast. It’s set in a future dystopia where normal human emotions, inclinations, and ambitions are all considered taboo. One woman decides to rebel after she wins an exclusive trip to a government-approved resort where lucky participants can induldge in their basest desires. This is a product of the cynical 70s, but with a great campy sense of humor and charming low-budget craft. Nobody can act and the production is Amateur City, but everyone seems to give it their all. The results are lovable.
85. FREEWAY 2: CONFESSIONS OF A TRICKBABY (1999)
MARCH 2022. There are two kinds of exploitation movies: Ones that DON’T live up to their sensational promise (a great poster or a great title) and ones that DO. This sequel (in the spiritual sense) to the 90s video store gem Freeway is one of the good ones. This is fine cinematic brain damage. It begins in a women’s prison, but becomes a nightmarish road movie when our two (anti) heroines escape. They run into outrageous predators and close calls with the law, but their real worst enemies are their own deeply damaged mental states. To my knowledge, this went straight to video in its original release. I have no idea if a 35mm print exists as this was a rare DCP screening. Works for me. This needs the big screen experience however you can get it. Among a crowd is the best place to gasp, laugh, and lose count of how many vomiting scenes a movie has.
86. SURFER: TEEN CONFRONTS FEAR (2018)
APRIL 2022. True outsider visions in movies are fascinating because they’re so rare. Writers, musicians, painters, and sculptors can be weirdos by themselves in a secluded room, but a filmmaker needs to command a whole production with a crew to play along. That’s such a huge task that I’m always impressed that bizarre movies like this one get finished at all. Making fun of its rough acting and technical flaws is less interesting to me. So I wasn’t among those who laughed their way through this oddball flick on a pleasant post-Easter spring night. Instead, I got into the dreaminess of this movie. Its many left turns. Its odd pacing. The way that it lingers on scenes longer than Hollywood would ever consider. The way that it repeats itself until it becomes hypnotic. The plot: A surfer kid traumatized by a near-fatal wipeout gets a visit from the ghost of his long-gone father who talks him out of the fear. That’s pretty much it, but writer/director/actor/composer Douglas Burke goes about it in the weirdest way. He’s sincerely fixated on the responsibility of fatherhood. And it makes him bold. It makes him fearless. It makes him not care that neither he nor his son (in the two lead parts) can act at all. As of this writing, the only way to see this movie is in a theater and you have to go straight to Burke himself for it. It’s not streaming and you can’t buy it on disc. Maybe Burke knows what a potential hot cult item he has here and is content to let its reputation grow slowly. Or maybe he’s just a nut. I can believe either possibility.
87. BIG BAD MAMA (1974)
MAY 2022. A post-Bonnie and Clyde, Depression-set gangster movie done in the New World Pictures way. That means it’s rough, sleazy, violent, and everyone’s clothes will be hitting the floor. Angie Dickinson stars as a mother who turns to crime during hard times, Along the way, she hooks up with Tom Skerrit and a curiously awkward William Shatner, who steals the movie if you ask me. His uncomfortable sex scene with Dickinson got a big reaction from the room. Let’s also note that this was the Secret Screening’s fourth digital presentation in a row. Hope their film projector isn’t broken.
88. O.C. AND STIGGS (1987)
JUNE 2022. I never expected Robert Altman to show up in the Secret Screening, but on this hot Texas night, he did and it was perfect. I loved it. This is from Altman’s 80s wilderness period, which is full of films that floundered commercially, many of which remain lost between the cracks of history to this day. However, O.C. and Stiggs ages well as an offbeat artifact (shot in 1983, but unreleased until ’87). Yes, it’s easy to see why it bombed when it came out and why MGM had no idea of what to do with it. It’s a teen comedy centered on a pair of best-friend troublemakers and their wild summer vacation, which is mostly centered on fucking around with a rich and stupid local family, but made in Altman’s signature style. Few close-ups. Lots of master shots of the world around these characters. Gags in the corners of the frame. Warzones of overlapping dialogue. A blizzard of jokes, many of which are presented so dryly that it’s hard to imagine the Porky’s audience getting into it back in the day, but in 2022 I was fascinated. The room dug it, too. Lots of laughs. Bonus points for being a perfect, sunny selection for June. More bonus points for being the return of 35mm to the show.
89. PRIME CUT (1972)
JULY 2022. The Secret Screening consistently fills up Theater 6, the largest room at the Richardson, Texas Alamo Drafthouse, and it continues to use its powers for good this month by blasting a light through a rare 35mm print of an offbeat gem. I’d never even heard of this Michael Ritchie-directed film before, but now I’ll be thinking about it for awhile. Lee Marvin is a Chicago tough guy hired by local mobsters to collect a debt from a super-slimy Gene Hackman, a Kansas fatcat who owns a slaughterhouse and runs a prostitution side hustle that scouts its “talent” from an orphanage. If you’re like me and love stories of rural seediness, this is good stuff. In the first scene, the Kansas gangsters run a previous debt collector’s corpse through their meat-processing plant to make sausage links out of him, which they then package and send to their “friends” in Chicago. And the film doesn’t get any more wholesome from there. Like all good noir, this is about cracks in the foundation. The bad guys aren’t mere sickos. They’re products of a whole sick system. Let’s also note that the super-cool scene in which a car gets crushed in careful detail by a farm combine got one of the biggest mid-movie applause breaks that I can recall from The Secret Screening.
90. TAMMY AND THE T-REX (1994)
AUGUST 2022. What a fun night this was! As the city recovered from being pummeled by nearly ten inches of rain earlier in the day, the Secret Screening crowd filled up the big theater yet again and got taken away to a strange place. To be honest, I hadn’t seen this cult classic yet. What I’d heard about it over the years gave me the impression that it was a “so bad it’s good” movie. WRONG. Tammy and the T-Rex is a comedy that knows exactly how absurd and campy it is. Like a John Waters film though, it’s not for everybody. The blood ‘n ‘guts make that clear (yes, we saw the “gore” cut, the intended cut, via Vinegar Syndrome’s sparkling restoration). Host James Wallace talked about how he sees this as a perfect Secret Screening movie. It’s got everything. It gives you weirdness in every scene, along with spilled intestines, spurting blood, and a brain yanked straight out of a skull, but it’s somehow also a crowd-pleaser that leaves you feeling good. The room loved it. I loved it. I’m glad that I hadn’t seen it before. This was the ideal first trip.
91. FREEBIE AND THE BEAN (1974)
SEPTEMBER 2022. I never try to guess what the Secret Screening will be each month. I like to walk in with no expectations. Part of the Secret Screening’s greatness is that it encourages open-mindedness. It plays to a trait that real film freaks have, which is to be up for anything. It’s a great way to approach the offbeat Freebie and The Bean. On the surface, it lays down the blueprint for all “buddy cop” movies. It’s got the detective partners who bicker like an old married couple. It’s got the superior officer who has to chew out their asses over their loose cannon tactics. It’s got comedy and action served up together like a cheeseburger and fries. In the 1980s, this was a reliable commercial formula, but in 1974, things were a shade more cynical. Director Richard Rush takes no obvious moral stance. Our leads, James Caan and Alan Arkin, are charmers for sure, but Rush doesn’t lay on any sledgehammer music cues to tell us what to think while these guys abuse their power on their mission to take down a criminal fatcat. Also, we never see the villain do something heinous on screen so that we hate him. What we’re left to do is wonder if all of this destruction (crashed cars galore, mayhem that barges into peoples’ homes and workplaces) is REALLY worth it. The answer is yes, because it’s funny and this is just a movie, but Rush doesn’t put on the hard sell. If you think that these characters are ALL dirtbags, he seems to be fine with that. Let’s also mention that James Wallace framed this selection as a tribute to the late James Caan and that the 35mm print was a knockout, full of analog warmth and lively color with no weird splices or rough patches. My ability to order a beer from my seat was the only reminder I had that I wasn’t in 1974.
92. FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN (1973)
OCTOBER 2022. October is the Secret Screening’s anniversary month and that’s come to mean something extra weird or extra special to celebrate. To mark nine years of this city’s best monthly Monday night thing came the first 3-D movie in the series, complete with provided glasses. It also meant lots of bloody guts and thrusting butts jumping off the screen in this horror/sex comedy (presented via Vinegar Syndrome’s 4K restoration). This is the old Frankenstein story except with Udo Keir chewing up the screen as the mad doctor, as well as generous flesh and violence for the midnight movie crowds of yore. It’s a companion piece to Blood for Dracula, another Paul Morrissey-directed freak show, which played the Secret Screening back in Septmber of 2018. Both films closed out days of cozy fall weather with a nice sleazy jolt. Life is about balance, they say.
93. BLOOD RAGE (1987)
NOVEMBER 2022. The only Thanksgiving slasher film of the 1980s had to show up here eventually. It was Arrow’s digital restoration, but I’ll take it. Eighties genre junk is the comfort food of the Secret Screening. Or it is for a middle-aged creep like me, at least. Synthesizer scores and over-the-top acting warm up the soul. After a day of cold, rainy weather, I needed that. A fun night.
94. SANTA CLAUS (1959)
DECEMBER 2022. I’m of the generation that discovered this Mexican kiddie flick oddity on Mystery Science Theater 3000 about a hundred years ago. I’m also of the mind that seeing a movie on MST3K, with its interruptions and scenes cut for time, is NOT the same as seeing the movie. Now, I can say with complete confidence that I’ve really seen Santa Claus (or Santa Claus vs. The Devil, as it’s sometimes called). In a theater, no less, with a crowd having a blast a few weeks before Christmas. It held up as good fun.
95. THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER (1982)
JANUARY 2023. RIP Albert Pyun. James Wallace’s intro about the director and his work fired us up to watch anything from his long career. So this one, Pyun’s biggest hit, won over the room right away. It’s one of those movies that demonstrates how the sword & sandal genre peaked in the 80s. It was the right time for shirtless warriors with triple-bladed swords fighting evil wizards to a booming orchestral score. And am I right to doubt that today’s digital effects could ever out-charm this film’s practical low-budget fantasy world? I think so.
96. GRIZZLY (1976)
FEBRUARY 2023. Life happens and sometimes you miss out on shit. What I’m trying to say is that I couldn’t make it to this show. It’s only the second Secret Screening I’ve missed since I started going in 2014. From what I’m seeing on Facebook, it was some fine killer bear action. Also, this selection was surely inspired by the new movie Cocaine Bear, which came out the previous weekend.
97. AMANDA AND THE ALIEN (1995)
MARCH 2023. The Secret Screening’s first TV movie? I missed this one, but wish I could’ve been there.
98. BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER IN HELL (1995)
APRIL 2023. I also missed this one. I know! What the fuck?
99. BEYOND ATLANTIS (1973)
MAY 2023. I did NOT miss this one. I was there. I made the drive to Richardson and I’m glad that I did. This was a nicely wacky piece of mermaid exploitation. It played as a perverse tie-in with the new Little Mermaid remake, as well as a sunny, steamy lead-in to the summer. I MUST say though that there’s a hole in my heart that will never heal until the Secret Screening goes 35mm again. That was one of the coolest things about this series. It was an analog island in a digital world. Now it’s mostly digital. I will go to #100, but I hope that the old film projector starts running again at some point.
100. RAD (1986)
JUNE 2023. No one in the Dallas area had a bigger party on this hot Monday night than the Secret Screening crowd. This was the quickest sell-out in The Secret Screening’s history so far. It took less than a day, weeks before the show. I’m lucky that I nabbed a seat. Seriously. I feel lucky to have been there for such a fun, moving night. How do you celebrate the 100th Secret Screening? James Wallace went with a crowd-pleaser. He’d been wanting to show this ultra-80s cult classic for awhile, he claimed, preferably with star Bill Allen in attendance. June 26 was the night when all of that happened. Many in the room knew the movie well while I hadn’t seen it in about thirty-five years and this was an amazing way to flash back. The crowd was with this movie, laughing, cheering, and applauding at every moment that called for it. Meanwhile, Allen (who made an appearance in the intro and went back up a for a post-movie Q&A, in addition to autographs and handshakes in the lobby after all of that) was a charmer who appreciated the love. He had his answers to questions locked and loaded and he looked like he could still fit in his old Cru Jones costumes. Me, I stared up at the light and sifted through old memories. I got refreshed on the value in “triumph of the underdog” cliches. Do kids even get new movies like this anymore? Movies that show youth as golden and about how greatness is within you. Your powers are determination, cleverness, and the people who love you. I hope so.