documentary | Musings of the Monster Librarian

Documentary Review: All Hail the Popcorn King directed by Hansi Oppenheimer

All Hail the Popcorn King directed by Hansi Oppenheimer

Squee Projects LLC, 2019

Not Rated

Run time: 55 minutes

Available: on the convention circuit currently; DVD preorders available through website: https://squeeprojects.com/

“If you’ve read Joe Lansdale, you love Joe Lansdale.”

–Mick Garris

Award-winning East Texas-based author Joe R. Lansdale is the focus of director Hansi Oppenheimer’s documentary film, All Hail the Popcorn King. Oppenheimer follows Lansdale as he discusses growing up in Nacogdoches, TX in the 1950s, and what influenced his love of storytelling. Lansdale also talks about how he embarked on his writing career, how he has woven personal experiences into his work, and how he created his own unique genre. Included in the film are interviews with Joe Hill, David J. Schow, Del Howison, Brian Keene, Rick Klaw, Don Coscarelli, Bruce Campbell, James Purefoy, and more.

Q & A at the Nacogdoches Film Festival

Watching the documentary, it is clear Lansdale loves history. His eyes light up as he takes Hansi through the community center that used to be the library, discussing historical figures such as Davy Crockett, whose portrait hangs in a display case behind glass. As he talks about his love of drive-ins and movies, especially reminiscing about watching but not hearing films being played at the drive-in from a window, with his mother making up the story unfolding on the big screen, it is apparent where his love of storytelling comes from. Of course, there is much conversation about his works, such as Bubba Ho-Tep, the Hap and Leonard series, The Drive-In, and more. Joe also discusses the martial science he developed, Shen Chuan. Bruce Campbell says of Lansdale, “Do not sneak up on Joe.”

Hansi and Joe at the Cocteau Theater in Santa Fe, with George R.R. Martin

In the summary of the documentary, it reads “We pay homage to one of the Great American Authors.” Indeed, the film accomplishes this. Oppenheimer does a great job weaving the interviews with Joe and everyone else with comic book and drive-in movie style graphics that add a unique touch to the content. Listening to Lansdale talk about his life and history will make anyone want to take it all in. All Hail the Popcorn King belongs on any bookshelf that contains his works, and also provides a great introduction to new and potential readers. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Documentary Review: Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, directed by Xavier Burgen, written and produced by Ashlee Blackwell and Danielle Burrows

Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, directed by Xavier Burgen, written and produced by Ashlee Blackwell and Danielle Burrows, based on the book Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films From the 1890s to the Present by Robin R. Means Coleman

Stage 3 Productions, 2019

Not Rated

Run time: 83 minutes

ISBN-13/ASIN: Not Available

Available: Streaming on Amazon, Shudder

“We’ve always loved horror. It’s just that horror, unfortunately, hasn’t always loved us.”

With this opening quote by Tananarive Due, award winning author and UCLA educator (Black Horror, Afrofuturism), viewers begin an essential documentary on Black horror. The film investigates a century of horror films that marginalized, exploited, and eventually accepted and embraced them. Horror Noire is based on University of Michigan professor Robin Means Coleman’s book of the same title. Through new and archival interviews from scholars and creators, we take a horror movie journey through early classics, Blaxplotiation, the Reagan Era, the 90s, and the 2000s. Interviewees include Ashlee Blackwell, who runs the Graveyard Shift Sisters website, Tony Todd, William Crain, Rusty Cundieff, Rachel True, Tina Mabry, Ken Foree, and Jordan Peele.

The documentary starts with a discussion of Black representation in Birth of a Nation and moves into early classics and depiction of Black characters, as slaves, servants, or hapless victims in the 1940s. When the 50s came, horror films basically erased the Black presence, with the exception of Son of Ingara, in Atomic Age science-centered scripts. Change was coming when Night of the Living Dead was released. Blaxploitation provided more screen time for Black actors, but the films remained problematic. The Reagan Era presented the change from “urban to suburban” white flight settings, relegating Black characters to gangsters and villains. In the 90s and 2000s, more Black filmmakers and actors appeared more in the horror genre, with a shift from the focal point of fear to heroes on the big screen.

I recommend this for anyone interested in the sociopolitical history of the horror genre. The use of footage from various civil rights and conflicts that reached the national level interspersed throughout the film helped explain the reception and shift in attitudes about Black horror, and Black horror movies. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker