The Mystery of the Grindhouse: Laughs and Screams at The Pioneer Theater’s Friday the 13th Fright Show

Listening to the crowd at [Pioneer Theater]’s sold-out Friday the 13th Fright Show, it was clear the room was filled with hipsters. Typical chatter included boasts about never having seen a whole episode of [Extras](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extras_%28TV_series%29 ), just this [clip](http://youtube.com/watch?v=Fg_cwI1Xj4M), or describing in lengthy-detail the plot of [Klute](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067309/), which had just screened at the [Landmark Sunshine](http://www.landmarktheaters.com/Market/NewYork/NewYork_Frameset.htm). That made it clear that the evening’s program wasn’t attended by the same sort of crowd proud “grindhouse” nostalgists Tarantino and Rodriguez must have slummed it with at the drive-ins of their youth.

Make no mistake, that night there was a significantly one-sided geek-to-hipster ratio in favor of the latter at the theater. A few quick surveys of the theater confirmed that while there was a well-seasoned crop of hardcore shut-ins—I mean, fans (the guy two seats over from me eagerly gabbed at me about some exclusive British horror fanzine which, he proudly mumbled, can only be found in “specialty stores”)—there were a lot more people with black-rimmed plastic glasses on their face than pimples.

Now, any exploitation fest easily accommodates both camps. After all, today’s audience’s concept of what a “grindhouse” film is inextricably tied to how they view horror. In a time when jaded hipsters and socially inept nerds everywhere both quote [Mystery Science Theater 3000] (or, MST3K to the diehard nerd set) as a defense for intractable elitism and amidst the dual stigma and guilty attraction stirred up by moral panics like torture porn, the word “grindhouse” connotes an unholy combination of Z-grade kitsch and gore. Less yelps, more yuks.

This is exactly what Friday’s programming capitalized on. The night kicked off with "The New York Grindhouse Trailer Show," 45 minutes of more than two-dozen horror, exploitation and just plain cheesy trailers projected on gloriously scratched 35mm prints. Audiences delighted to trailers for everything including, [The Abominable Dr. Phibes], [The Land That Time Forgo](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073260/), [Squirm](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075261/), [Supermanchu](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0201209/), [To The Devil a Daughter](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075334/) and, the most high-profile of the bunch, Dario Argento’s [Suspiria](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076786/).

Squirm is a perfect barometer for The Trailer Show’s atmosphere, both sublimely silly and, well, squirm-inducing. While not-so-hushed whispers confirmed that, yes, Squirm was on MST3K, the more squeamish of the bunch, including a woman to my right, jumped out of their seats as centipedes, night-crawlers and worms deluged unsuspecting, wide-eyed mouth-breathers onscreen.

Though laughs and screams are staples of the horror genre, seeing both simultaneously is more unsettling than any flesh-eating creepy-crawlies. The collision of the two begs the question of who is attending the “grindhouse” today. To appreciate Suspiria, the quintessential “grindhouse” feature, you must accept its wooden performances, non-existent plot and misogynistic undertones, but whether you do so to embrace the strength of the film’s elaborate set-pieces or to mock it as the second coming of [Ed Wood](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000248/ ) is unclear.

Similarly, the evening’s feature presentation of [Curtains] can be best described as captivating trash. Like a slasher version of Ten Little Indians, director [Richard Ciupka’s](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0162992/#director) camp-fest straddles the line between cheese and chills with some giggleworthy moments and some genuinely captivating images. In one hypnotizing scene, bubbles form and burst on the surface of B&W glossies that Samatha Sherwood ([Samantha Eggar](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002058/ )), the red herring killer, tosses into a fireplace but, in another, the film’s masked killer ice-skates to her prey in slow-motion. In between these two scenes lies true madness.

Even when [House of Horrors](http://houseofhorrors.com/ )’ Jonathan Stryker introduced Curtains Friday, he freely admitted that while the film has its drawbacks, he nevertheless adores it enough to not only have contributed his own 35mm print of the now out-of-print film to Friday’s screening but also to using Stryker as his pen name, a nod to the film’s only male protagonist ([John Vernon](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006893/), in a dizzyingly hammy performance). Why is anyone’s guess.

Perhaps it’s best to remain happily perplexed. More than likely the “grindhouse” will stay alive as a quaint freakshow that provides memorable grins at not-so-memorable ghouls and girls. Watching Curtains with a contemporary audience is inexplicably strange because while I wanted to tap into Stryker’s youthful, if not baffling nostalgia for the film, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing as one of the film’s victims performed a ridiculous improvised interpretative dance. Still, whether fans continue to flock the “grindhouse” because of gleeful cynicism or a blind devotion to blood and boobies, its weird charms remain impenetrable, a curio whose allure defies dissection.