Theater Review: JIM STEINMAN'S BAT OUT OF HELL––THE MUSICAL (2019, New York City Centre)

Bats: 5 of 5.

Running Time: 165 minutes, including intermission and curtain call.

I don't usually write theater reviews, but I think you'll see why I made an exception for BAT OUT OF HELL––THE MUSICAL.

Sure, there might not actually be bats in this show. Hell, there might not even be Hell. I guess we do get to see a projection of flames after a certain character dies, but I hardly think that counts. Consider this: all I wanted out of this show was to see a motorcycle being swarmed by bats as it was launched out of Satan's lava-spewin' jaws. Remarkably, the show does not deliver on this tableau, and yet it still stirred the depths of my soul. That probably had something to do with it being, essentially, as if Ken Russell and David Lynch had co-directed Samuel Beckett's porn parody adaptation of the "Dancing With Myself" music video. If I didn't know better, I'd think that somebody had been reading my 1990: BRONX WARRIORS / RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3 / ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK fan-fiction.
 
Courtesy of Specular

I don't understand why there haven't been more musicals inspired by Cannon Films' CYBORG (right on down to characters being named for famous guitars). Or why the visual vocabulary of early '80s local access cable, abandoned Eastern Bloc discotheques, cyberpunk rec rooms, and Jersey biker bar parking lots are so rarely combined. Or why more characters named Jaguar don't spell it like "Jagwire." I don't understand critics who are unsatisfied with the answer to every dramaturgical question being: "cocaine... and fever dreams."

Courtesy of Little Fang Photo

Don't walk––hell, don't even run––glide on a slow-moving motorcycle across a fog bank straight to this show. A good drinking game might be every time there is a Peter Pan reference. Or each time someone "offers their throat to the wolf with red roses." Or whenever someone collapses completely, limp in a melodramatic frenzy.

A part of me will be at this show forever. To paraphrase THE GRAPES OF WRATH: "I'll be in the dark. Wherever you look. Wherever there's a futuristic riot cop beatin' up a post-apocalyptic street urchin, I'll be there. I'll be in the way undead (?) kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready at the weird sewer dive bar they hang out at. An' when folks are doing open mic poetry night in the skyscrapers they build––why, I'll be there, too. Wherever there's a plutocrat-with-a-heart-of-gold struggling against the tide to name what part of his body hurts the most, I'll be there. I'll be there during the power ballads, and, um, I guess during the regular ballads, too. Wherever there's a Bridge n' Tunneler in the audience fondly mumbling along to 'Paradise by the Dashboard Light,' I'll be there. And whenever a kid gets so frustrated by their parents' adolescent sexual fumblings that they rip the engine block out of a car and hurl it into the orchestra pit... I will definitely, definitely be there."

Film Review: PELTS (2006, Dario Argento)

Stars: 3.5 of 5.
Running Time: 58 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Meat Loaf, John Saxon (ENTER THE DRAGON, TENEBRE, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET), music by Claudio Simonetti.
Tag-line: "Dario Argento: Director of Suspira, Opera, and Jenifer."

So, after the lackluster CARD PLAYER, the abysmal DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK?, and the pretty good but not-all-that Argentoish JENIFER, a lot of Argento fans didn't know what to expect from PELTS, his second stab at an episode for Showtime's MASTERS OF HORROR. Is it good? Debatable. But is it Argento? Unwaveringly yes! John Saxon of early Bava and TENEBRE? Check. Claudio Simonetti of GOBLIN doing the music? Check. Vaguely arthouse sleaze with a slight Eurotrash tinge? Check.

Bright primary colors artfully presented? Check. Love for animals and a belief in animal rights? Oh, my, yes. Check. Over-the-top ridiculous gore, the likes of which you may have never seen? Check, check, and double-check.



To the point of which you won't know whether to laugh or cry. The plot involves poetic justice in its most literal form, as sleazy fur-trapper MEAT LOAF desires some magical raccoon pelts to win the heart of a local stripper. But all who touch said pelts meet their end in fashions relating to the animals' demises or the pelts' conditionings.

So you'll see people's eyes sewn shut, their heads caught in traps, their abdomens gutted, their skulls bashed in, their hands gnawed off, and- in the film's final, epic, unbelievable gore setpiece- their bodies skinned alive. Argento has succeeded in creating the bloodiest, trashiest, most eccentric public service announcement for animal rights the world has ever seen. And I do believe that we're all the better for it. 'Fur Kills,' indeed.

-Sean Gill

2009 Halloween Countdown

31. PROM NIGHT (1980, Paul Lynch)
30. PHENOMENA (1985, Dario Argento)
29. HOUSE OF WAX (1953, André de Toth)
28. SILENT RAGE (1982, Michael Miller)
27. BASKET CASE (1982, Frank Henenlotter)
26. THE DEADLY SPAWN (1983, Douglas McKeown)
25. PELTS (2006, Dario Argento)
24.
...

Film Review: ROADIE (1980, Alan Rudolph)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 106 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Director Alan Rudolph (MRS. PARKER AND THE VICIOUS CIRCLE, BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS, AFTERGLOW). Meat Loaf, Kaki Hunter, Art Carney, Alice Cooper, Roy Orbison, Debbie Harry and Blondie, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Hank Williams Jr., Peter Frampton, Kurtwood Smith (RAMBO III, ROBOCOP, THAT 70's SHOW) in a Security Guard cameo.
Tag-lines: "The story of a boy and his equipment."
Best one-liner: "Well that's a strange and wondrous tale, son, but like everything else, it'll work if you let it." (said by an insane Art Carney).

A meandering, slightly mediocre, BLUES BROTHERS-style, rock 'n roll pileup of a movie that pays the bills by phoning in some car wrecks and barroom brawls, but justifies its cultish appeal via a number of truly, befittingly insane elements.

Hey, at least it's better than MRS. PARKER AND THE VICIOUS CIRCLE.

Meat Loaf plays the eponymous ROADIE, fixing equipment for rock bands across the armadillo-covered roads and byways of Americana. Art Carney plays his dad, who putters and mutters and does all manner of things that I'm sure had some whacked-out rationalization in the screenwriter's mind.

Art Carney: irascible.

By the way, the owner of said screenwriting mind is named "Big Boy" (Medlin). Regardless of its shortcomings, however, ROADIE does have its share of street credentials: Debbie Harry giving surreal advice about the "Age of Specialization," and her band (Blondie) covering Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire;"

The Debbie Harry factor is pretty high.

a character ("The Groupie," played by Kaki Hunter) who wears a different, insanely colored pair of tight pants in nearly every scene; a slew of cameos from Roy Orbison to Hank Williams, Jr. to Peter Frampton; and, as its 'piece de resistance,' a dinner with Alice Cooper that involves a boa constrictor and one of those Martian bug-out stress relievers dressed as Alice himself!

Alice Cooper orders around some security flunkies....including (!) Kurtwood Smith (on the left).

So despite possessing the storytelling aptitude of a tipsy gnat, ROADIE has some pretty rockin' tunes (by the likes of Pat Benatar, Cheap Trick, Styx, The B-52's and a shit-ton of others) and a palpable dive bar rock concert atmosphere. If this sounds up your alley, then I guess you can lose yourself in the ambience, kick back some beer (straight from the pitcher), relax, and enjoy yourself some ROADIE.

-Sean Gill