We may be sick, and we may be disgusting, but if you boogie till you puke, I’m asking you to come with me for a minute.
Think back to one of the early episodes of THE LAST DRIVE-IN’s first season. Somewhere betwixt channeling Cropsey legend and a MADMAN (1981) musical interlude, Joe Bob turned his attention to a legend of a different sort.
Gaylen Ross only appeared in three films, including CREEPSHOW (1982), but appeared in MADMAN as Alexis Dubin to keep her SAG status. “She only had one other movie at the time,” Briggs said. “She was the heroine in George Romero’s sequel to the classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968), so people did know her,” pausing to smirk before quipping “I’m using the term ‘people’ loosely. People LIKE US knew her.”
Never has a phrase so perfectly encapsulated the Mutant Fam. While we love stars like Bruce Campbell and Robert Englund, more often than not it’s the deep dives including Ross and Cynthia Bond (DEF BY TEMPTATION, 1990) and Jonathan Fuller (CASTLE FREAK, 1995) that give us warm fuzzies.
Case in point, my girlfriend is an audience coordinator at a local theatre whose been getting home late because the season’s about to pop off. But when she walked through the door a couple of weeks back–shortly after LIVE FROM THE JAMBOREE began–she squealed when I told her the feature was NIGHT OF THE DEMONS (1988), quickly settling in for the show.
For clarity, my better half is bisexual, so when I tell you I was quickly regaled with a ditty detailing the first time she clapped eyes on Amelia Kinkade’s fireside flex, you need to understand that she referred to it as “a moment” more than once.
Reflecting on said awakening, my baby shared the whirlwind she experienced whilst watching Angela’s erotic, demonic writhing, sharing that she didn’t know whether she wanted to be her or sleep with her. I was all ears. Think Eddie Griffin undercover with Orville Redenbacher.
Sparing you a 17-minute diatribe before arriving at “and here’s my point,” truly we are not like other people. Our love of blood, breasts, and beasts often left us feeling like we were on the outside looking in growing up — and in some cases, into adulthood. But then there was the Mutan Fam, welcoming us with open arms, an incomparable group of fellow drive-in afficionados constantly reminding us that it’s perfectly acceptable to dig movies and stars that the normies have never heard of, much less care about.
Gaylen Ross and Amelia Kinkade represent far more than a Romero heroine or sexy sway. They possess a piece of our heart because each of us cling to a cherished and very personal memory directly tied to those performances.
They mean something to us. And we mean something to them. Go to Shudder and pull up the moment when Kinkade and Linnea Quigley sauntered to the stage to a raucous ovation–those smiles and that love was real. That makes them special. It makes us special. No, we are most definitely not like other people, and as the DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004) Easter egg below clearly communicates, we are not alone. You should be damn proud of that.
