"American Scary" is a 2006 documentary look at horror hosting in the USA."American Scary" is a 2006 documentary look at horror hosting in the USA."American Scary" is a 2006 documentary look at horror hosting in the USA.
- Awards
- 2 wins
George Chastain
- Self - E-Gor's Chamber of TV Horror Hosts
- (as George 'E-Gor' Chastain)
Bill Cardille
- Self
- (as Bill 'Chilly Billy' Cardille)
- …
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaIn 2018, Alan Milair - "Dr. E. Nick Witty" was inducted into "The Official Horror Host Hall of Fame".
Featured review
A nice walk down memory lane.
American SCARY is a nice little walk down memory lane for adults who grew up during the generation that enjoyed their local version of "Creature Feature" on television. Where I grew up, it was on Friday and Saturday nights and decades later I have a warm place in my heart for Count Gore De Vol. So it wasn't at all surprising that I gravitated towards this documentary when I saw it listed on Netflix.
Some background is needed for you young whippersnappers. Once or twice a week, in most of the major cities had a local horror movie evening (usually starting around 11pm or later). This film is about these local hosts--local celebrities who were hardly recognized outside their local markets (with only a few exceptions, such as Vampira). In most cases, the films they showed weren't all that great and sometimes watching the host's antics during commercial breaks made these sub-par films worth watching. And in every case in every market, the sets and acting were all pure cheese--enjoyable, fun but certainly cheese!
Now as far as the documentary goes, it was quite enjoyable but suffered from a few problems. First, the musical track was really too invasive and too omni-present. Less would have worked better. Second, while I adored seeing all these local hosts after all these years, I don't know why they had other celebrities there as well (other than, I assume, they'd appear for free). The telepathic lady from "Babylon 5" and Booger from "Revenge of the Nerds", for examples, were shown quite a few times but I would MUCH rather have seen more of the hosts or old clips or more about the history of these shows. Third, and I can't at all blame the film makers, but seeing this stretched out--with more time for specific hosts would have been nice. I wanted more on The Cool Ghoul and Count Gore De Vol and also more on hosts I wasn't familiar with before the film. As they say, though, in entertainment it's important to keep them wanting more, so in this sense the film was a real success--and walk down memory lane.
Some background is needed for you young whippersnappers. Once or twice a week, in most of the major cities had a local horror movie evening (usually starting around 11pm or later). This film is about these local hosts--local celebrities who were hardly recognized outside their local markets (with only a few exceptions, such as Vampira). In most cases, the films they showed weren't all that great and sometimes watching the host's antics during commercial breaks made these sub-par films worth watching. And in every case in every market, the sets and acting were all pure cheese--enjoyable, fun but certainly cheese!
Now as far as the documentary goes, it was quite enjoyable but suffered from a few problems. First, the musical track was really too invasive and too omni-present. Less would have worked better. Second, while I adored seeing all these local hosts after all these years, I don't know why they had other celebrities there as well (other than, I assume, they'd appear for free). The telepathic lady from "Babylon 5" and Booger from "Revenge of the Nerds", for examples, were shown quite a few times but I would MUCH rather have seen more of the hosts or old clips or more about the history of these shows. Third, and I can't at all blame the film makers, but seeing this stretched out--with more time for specific hosts would have been nice. I wanted more on The Cool Ghoul and Count Gore De Vol and also more on hosts I wasn't familiar with before the film. As they say, though, in entertainment it's important to keep them wanting more, so in this sense the film was a real success--and walk down memory lane.
helpful•42
- planktonrules
- Jul 1, 2009
Details
- Runtime1 hour 31 minutes
- Color
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