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They are the ghouls, counts, mad doctors, vampires and vamps who possessed late night television airwaves since the 1950s and continue to entrance loyal fans in the 21st century: the classic and creepy TV horror hosts of yesterday and today. The thorough and thoroughly entertaining documentary AMERICAN SCARY collects rare interviews and video clips with dozens of these history-making hosts to preserve this legacy of local television personalities. With such classic horror hosts being a purely hometown phenomenon long pre-dating home VHS technology, this fun yet factual documentary offers rare kinescopes and video segments not seen in years which bring the subject to hilarious life in living color (or delightfully dreary black-and-white). Perhaps the definitive study and salute to the groovy and ghoulish hosts of past and present, AMERICAN SCARY is truly must-see viewing for any self-respecting fan of horror cinema and the unforgettable men and women who beamed these films into our living rooms and memories then and now. Director John E. Hudgens, writer Sandy Clark and associate producer/archivist Michael Monahan have assembled this clever and witty collection of interviews, memories and analysis of the entire horror host phenomenon which is so entertaining, viewers may forget how much they're actually learning about this irreverent yet invaluable artifact of Baby Boomer culture. While such classic (and sometimes class-less) characters were rarely scary in their televised guises like Zacherley, Vampira or Ghoulardi, they definitely represented an entirely American pop culture phenomenon. When Universal Studios released their "Shock Theater" package of classic horror films in 1957 to air for the first time on television — including masterpieces like DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN and THE WOLF MAN — local stations soon hired hosts to introduce these cinematic gems in varying degrees of spooky character. Often these hosts were also news anchors, weathermen and announcers at these stations picking up a few extra bucks on the side. Fans and historians debate whether these hosts were present to lighten the mood of these terrifying shockers for young viewers, or if they simply embodied a promotional campaign for the stations to better sell advertising. In either case, the Shock film package and birth of horror hosting literally exploded onto the television landscape, garnering huge increases in ratings for outlets airing these movies. In 1958 Universal via Screen Gems released a second package of films, Son of Shock, which only extended the popularity and ratings bonanza of local stations and their creepy emcees. From this early era of horror hosting arose the iconic figureheads of the TV genre: Zacherley (John Zacherle) in Philadelphia and later New York, Vampira (Maila Nurmi) in Los Angeles, Marvin (Terry Bennett) in Chicago, and many others who popped up from their cardboard coffins around the country. Horror hosts proliferated in the 1960s as a generation of Baby Boomers awakened to the generation of monster movies that came before, now only seen on television, as more TV-savvy hosts like Cleveland's own Ghoulardi (Ernie Anderson) and Pittsburgh's "Chilly" Bill Cardille began highly successful runs. The phenomenon stomped ahead in color during the 1970s with characters like Count Gore De Vol (Dick Dyzel) in Washington D.C., Cleveland's successor The Ghoul (Ron Sweed), and Chicago's popular counter-culture creep Svengoolie (Jerry Bishop), They and others expanded upon the tradition with their own innovations and ever more diverse approaches to the growing roster of classic and less-so creature features. With the rise of cable television, such fledgling networks — hungry for programming to fill 24 hours of airtime — also found hosts to brand their own film libraries with hosts like USA Network's Commander USA (James Hendricks) and Comedy Channel, who hired Joel Hodgson and Mystery Science Theater 3000 away from Minneapolis. While horror hosting dimished in popularity as local TV's influence waned, MST3K carried on a similar tradition with great success for many years. The well-timed brilliance of AMERICAN SCARY and its makers was their tireless effort compiling video interviews and original show clips from these horror hosts, many long since retired and their shows often barely preserved on aging kinescopes and video cassettes. Hudgens, Clark and Monahan deserve much praise for capturing and cataloguing these personalities, interviews and memories before such hosts and their shows were lost forever in time. Indeed, the list of hosts, fans, celebrities and historians who speak so fondly on the subject is lengthy and impressive here. It took roughly three years of development, traveling to hosts and horror conventions to meet and tape dozens of segments before AMERICAN SCARY premiered at the 2006 Hollywood Film Festival to great praise. It was another three years before the documentary debuted on DVD for fans everywhere to enjoy. FilmEdge was fortunate enough to preview the film at Comic-Con 2007 where we met John Hudgens and became instant fans of his passionately dedicated documentary. The AMERICAN SCARY DVD presents the entire 92-minute documentary, enhanced for widescreen 16x9 television viewing — though you'll understand if some of the truly vintage video clips may not hold up in high image quality given the aging, low-res source materials, but it won't diminish your enjoyment of the horror humor one bit. Equally substantial Bonus Features include a feature-length Audio Commentary track by the filmmakers, the original Pitch Reel for the project, five Bonus Interview clips including comedian Tim Conway, a segment studying the Nashville Horror Host scene, the Horror Host convention wedding of A. Ghastly Ghoul, plus two teaser Trailers. With Halloween creeping up on us quickly, or to keep the Halloween spirit alive in your body all year long, FilmEdge highly recommends AMERICAN SCARY as an unprecedented, unparalleled study and salute of the television horror hosting invasion, and how these lethal ladies and gentlemonsters fueled the childhood (and adult) imaginations of millions of fans one city at a time. Thankfully this fond and factual compilation of performers and skits, many rarely seen outside their local markets, was preserved in this DVD time capsule before these souls and shows began departing our world. Indeed, hosts Maila Nurmi, Bob Wilkins and genre archivist Forrest J. Ackerman have since passed since their inclusion in the project. AMERICAN SCARY is not only an invaluable document of this Golden Age at its height and eventual waning, but it's a hilarious tribute to the creative spirit of those who acted the part and watched movies with us from the other side of the tube. This DVD is plain fun to watch and will likely remain a perennial favorite in your home video collection this Halloween and for many more to come. FilmEdge happily features it in our Halloween Film Fest 2010 list of recommended viewing.
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