Amherst Theater’s cult classic showings pack the house
Before introducing Roy Frumkes, associate manager of Amherst Theater, horror novelist Greg Lamberson said, “It’s great to see a big crowd support alternative theater at a somewhat alternative theater.”
Frumkes, a member of a Toronto-based horror fan club, drove over five hours to see a two hour film, Street Trash, in the University Heights District of Buffalo. Upon arriving, the proud Canadian got his complementary Street Trash t-shirt. By that time, it was already five minutes after midnight on Sunday morning.
Frumkes, writer and director of Street Trash, came to Amherst as part of “Midnight Movie Madness,” an event held by Amherst Theater that features five underground films shown over consecutive midnights at the theater.
One week earlier, over 300 raucous teenagers and a few aging hippies were pouring out the front door. They were there to see the director’s cut of Donnie Darko, but nearly all of them, despite their laughter and praise of director Richard Kelly’s social commentary, denied their participation in a cult following.
Street Trash, on the other hand, was filmed 20 years ago and has had enough time to manifest itself into something special.
“It’s just so different,” said Eric Basile, a UB junior majoring in media studies. “Hollywood doesn’t make that. These movies can’t be manufactured.” Basile, who before “Midnight Movie Madness,” had only seen the edited Japanese cut, called Street Trash, “By far, one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen.” His quote refers to a dark comedy that features melting hobos, exploding fat men, vomiting police officers, and a game of keep-away involving a freshly severed penis.
Frumkes is quick to admit that the film was not a box office success, but it was probably because the film’s audacious marketing campaign was never approved. The campaign involved full page newspaper ads that said “Street Trash: Fuck You.” At the movie’s New York premiere, the cast did have the courtesy to wear tuxedos. They wore them as they pulled up riding in a garbage truck.
Frumkes quoted his idol Charlie Chaplin, saying, “[A good] film works because of magic between the frames.” He explains that he purposefully wrote Street Trash to “offend as many demographics as possible.”
“In independent film, you have to take a stand,” he said. “Hollywood has to please people.” By the end of the evening, however, the entire audience was content with what they had seen. “You laughed at a lot of stuff other audiences didn’t get, and some stuff I didn’t get,” said Frumkes, as he was lecturing the group at 2 a.m. Lamberson was surprised that no one walked out of the theater while the movie was on.
Rodney Alexander, 41 year-old Allentown resident, came to Amherst Theater for two consecutive weeks. “That should not have been a midnight film,” he says, referring to the previous week’s screening of Donnie Darko.
Alexander remembered his youth, filled with horror movies on broadcast television, and the original cult film, a ‘70s box office bomb called The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He said that midnight movies should be filled with “violence, gratuitous sex, and quirky, fucked up characters.”
Even though over 200 people filled the theater, and more than 100 people were turned away, the consensus at Donnie Darko was that “cult” is a four letter word.
“Movies like that are not the greatest, but they bring people together,” said Canisius College senior Mike Slageor.
That was one of the reasons that Lamberson chose Donnie Darko as the first film in the series. After 23 years, and three feature length movies to his name, he left the film industry, “because I couldn’t afford to buy a house in New York City.”
“You can write a novel anywhere,” he said. To fulfill his passion, as well as pay the bills, Lamberson became an associate manager of the Amherst Theater. He began to overhear high school and college students talking about Donnie Darko, a film that he himself had never heard of. Making the connection between “Box Office Bomb” and “Strong Underground Following,” the idea for “Midnight Movie Madness” was born.
Rounding out the bill are three more films that are as violent and gratuitous as they come: Evil Dead 2, Dead Alive, and The Exorcist. The series is one component of a promotion for Lamberson’s latest novel, Personal Demons. He will be signing copies at Talking Leaves Bookstore on March 18.
While it is difficult to determine whether or not Donnie Darko will become a cult classic in 20 years, it is clear that DVD sales cannot make up for the midnight movie experience. While it was easy to find 300 people who are interested in time travel, it is a gem to find 120 people who are interested in decapitation by a flying canister of nitrous oxide. Lamberson explains that for one night, a fan of an underground film can sit in a theater with other fans from across town, and share “a sense of irony.”
