Movies

B-movie legend Joe Bob Briggs scares up campy holiday fun in Houston

The legendary B-movie buff will host a fun movie screening.

Photo courtesy of Joe Bob Briggs

When Dallas-born newspaperman John Bloom adopted the persona of redneck, Western-wearing movie critic Joe Bob Briggs more than 30 years ago — writing proudly un-P.C. reviews of B-movies and exploitation movies that would get syndicated in papers across the country — one thing he didn’t expect to do was bring families together.

But that’s exactly what he did when he started hosting the popular, long-running Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theater on The Movie Channel back in the ’80s. “It’s remarkable how many people tell me that they watched it in family units like that,” says a giggling Bloom/Briggs, 65, tells CultureMap. “You know, that it was a unifying thing with their dad or their uncle or their brother or their sister.”

Through championing and showing films that mostly traffficked in his love of the three B’s — blood, breasts and beasts — Briggs not only became a familiar face on many families’ living-room TV. He also became an influential figure in the film world — the Pauline Kael of the drive-in/grindhouse circuit, if you will.

If it wasn’t for Briggs, we wouldn’t have art houses programming screenings of cult films and midnight movies, exploitation-friendly film festivals like Austin’s Fantastic Fest and film critics who aren’t afraid to show love to entertaining genre films. (You could also say that Briggs is responsible for all the rabid fanboys who go nuts on the Internet whenever someone doesn’t care for a popcorn picture they like — but let’s not completely blame those psychos on him.)

Briggs is proud that cult films and B-movies are no longer held in low regard. “When I first started reviewing these films, I was the only guy reviewing these films,” he remembers. “For the most part, I was the only guy writing weekly, on a regular basis about — and we didn’t call them genre films; we called them exploitation films. They were considered disposable. They were considered trash. People didn’t even keep the prints. The mainstream media didn’t review them at all. And, so, it’s good that many of these films were sort of rescued from oblivion, because nobody really wanted to give them any attention.

“So, it’s a good thing that now, when one of them comes out, there are a thousand reviews of them on the Internet the next day.” He giggles again. “Because it means, at least, they get a fair shake in the marketplace. Maybe they’re only gonna be on Netflix for three months or something. But, at least, people are aware of them.”

Another streaming platform these films could go to is the horror/thriller service Shudder. These days, that’s where you can find Briggs, once again introducing classic, old-school, drive-in movies. It began when he hosted the 24-hour movie marathon The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs over the summer, which caused many servers at Shudder to break down due to fans clamoring online to see Briggs again. “Everyone got kicked off the system,” he says. “We not only shut down the Shudder servers, we shut down the Sundance Channel servers. I don’t know how they were connected.” (Shudder is owned and operated by AMC Networks, which also owns SundanceTV.)

Briggs just got through hosting a Thanksgiving marathon on the service, which means a Christmas marathon — titled “A Very Joe Bob Christmas” — is right around the corner on December 21. (A weekly series is coming in 2019.) He’ll also be having a yuletide celebration right here in Houston, hosting a holiday-themed double feature at Alamo Drafthouse LaCenterra on December 14.

The event starts with the 1974 slasher flick Black Christmas (which is already sold out), followed by the 1977 Satanic thriller The Sentinel, which Briggs calls “the lesser-known of the Catholic-themed horror movies of the ’70s.” “You can do things at Alamo that you can’t do anywhere else,” he says, “because they have that audience that sort of hunger for cult films and films that are out of the mainstream.”

So, don’t be surprised if you see whole families attending these films, as Joe Bob Briggs once again gives them some blood and gore to bond over.

---

The Graveyard Shift: The Sentinel with Joe Bob Briggs Live! runs Friday, December 14, at Alamo Drafthouse LaCenterra, 2707 Commercial Center Blvd., Suite K-100. Showtime is 10 pm. Tickets are $25.48.

movies holidays

Movie Review

Over-the-top acting and incoherent plot drag down Her Private Hell

Photo courtesy of Neon

Sophie Thatcher in Her Private Hell.

Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn is not someone who plays nice with the general film world. His 2011 film Drive introduced him to American audiences in a big way, but that pulsating thriller was followed up with artier films like Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon that eschewed coherent plots in favor of moody, atmospheric pieces.

Winding Refn, who hasn’t made a feature film in 10 years, has gone fully down the rabbit hole with Her Private Hell. Taking place in a liminal space that kind of resembles Earth but also feels like someone’s dreams/nightmares, the film focuses on Elle (Sophie Thatcher), an actor currently starring in a sci-fi film. Staying at a hotel with newcomer Hunter (Kristine Froseth), the two bond over their shared passion and the legend of Elle’s father, Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott), who’s now married to Elle’s friend Dominique (Havana Rose Liu).

After spending a good amount of (mostly incomprehensible) time with that group, Refn introduces Private K (Charles Melton), who seems to be living in post-World War II Japan. He is looking for his daughter, who might have been taken by a mysterious figure known as “Leatherman,” and he will stop at nothing to find her, fighting whoever stands in his way.

It becomes clear almost right away that Winding Refn has no desire to engage in traditional storytelling in this film. The main characters wander through neon-drenched streets and buildings, which are often surrounded by a mist that is referred to on multiple occasions but never explained. Everyone speaks as if in a constant state of wonderment, and there are many moments where it’s unclear if events are actually happening, part of a movie-within-a-movie, or something else entirely.

Unlike his previous films, Winding Refn has taken the characters in this film completely out of the real world, with every scene taking place in a sparsely decorated room or street that is obviously a movie set. While there are moments where this decision really works, especially the striking first shot of a human-like figure mixed in with a cityscape and clouds, most of the time it only adds to the stilted nature of the film as a whole.

In fact, the entire movie has the feel of an avant-garde theater exercise. Every actor seems to be trying to outdo the others with awkward performances and out-sized reactions. Two very specific characters make appearances in both sides of the story for seemingly no reason other than to inject their weirdness into both spaces. The shocking violence that crops up on occasion would have more of an impact if it was related to anything intelligible.

Thatcher (Companion) and Liu (Tuner) are among the young stars who have had breakout moments in recent years, but neither of them is served well by this hot mess of a movie. They, along with Melton, still demonstrate the talent they possess, but the oddity of the film weighs them down. Scott makes an impression for all the wrong reasons, while Froseth is called upon to play a character who might as well not be there at all.

If there’s any kind of message that Winding Refn was trying to convey with Her Private Hell, it’s lost among the flashing lights, overload of pink, and jewel-like structures. Filmmakers who try to make art for art’s sake have a place in the world, but this film too often feels like people are making things up as they go, with no real goal in mind.

---

Her Private Hell opens in theaters on July 24.

movies film