Phantom of the Theatre

This is a variation on The Phantom of the Opera which has a shoe salesman who is tired of his profession buying and renovating a disused cinema. The problem is that a murderous fiend is lurking on the premises. The actor who plays the cinema manager looks like a z grade version of comedian Paul Lynde. He also has a distinctive way of pronouncing theatre. Another memorable character is a slob of a detective who decides to "investigate" mysterious deaths - that is when he is not stuffing his face with food. This low budget junk has its moments. I saw the name of Steve Neill in the closing credits. He later helped with the special makeup on Mutant (aka Forbidden World).

The Meateater is one of those rare underground flicks that is actually INTERESTING. Think Ed Wood meets Stephen King. Bad technical stuff, but great characters.

The characters are unexpectedly and instantly likeable. Mitford, Raymond and the sheriff are the sort of mid-western anti-heroes that make one laugh out loud more than once. Mitford, the dad/main character, is dumbfoundedly fascinating - he's whiney, hokey, freaky and very funny. We want to hate him but CAN'T, because we can identify with his dissatisfaction in life and desire to live out a dream. And viewers will relate to how Raymond tries B.S.'ing his Projectionist experience (NONE) to Mitford in an interview. The son, Ricky - looks cool, exactly like a kid in the late 70's stoner-era wanted to look. Kind of like a teenage Mini-Me to Edgar Winter. The wife's subtle but obvious interest in meat products is highly amusing. Savage should have worked that nugget further into the plot somehow. It could have worked, considering the title of the movie.

Plot: It's there, albeit loose at times. Due to Mitford's drive to break out of shoe sales and live out a dream, the family buys the Crest theater (Mitford pronounces it "thee-ATE-er"). Unbeknownst to Mitford & The Gang, there's an old psychotic guy living there who used to have a thing with Jean Harlow. After being badly scarred by a fire, the geriatric looney toon starts killing people at the thee-ATE-er. And here's the cornstarch to thicken it all up: Mitford's daughter is a blonde bombshell named - you guessed it - Jeanie. Like Harlow. Good idea, but the Jean Harlow connection is so thin that it's almost non-existent.

There is a great deal of humor in this baby. Most of it is in the dialogue, but it's elsewhere as well. Innuendos are everywhere, from the Grizzy Safari movie to the numerous references to hot dogs. Freud would have a ball with this flick.

The actors are VERY seventies and Savage was an OK director.

If you have interest in cheesy 70's horror, then you'll know what to expect. This isn't the Exorcist, people, nor does it try to be. But in the category of Clever, Low-Budget Velveeta-Caked Horrors, this is a gem.

Derek Savage isn't my real name. Do you honestly think I would put my real name on this? It was a total giggle. Caldwell (who stupidly used his real name) and I knew exactly what we were doing. We set out to make an incredibly bad film, one I can't believe people have actually and recently seen and are even seriously writing about it. Some have even loved it!? Amazing! I don't even own a copy, but after reading some of the comments I now wish I did. Yes, the acting is bad. We tried to find the worst actors imaginable who would work for fifty bucks a day. The actor who played Mitford (I don't know where I came up with that name) was so nervous his knees literally shaked when he acted. We had to start plying him with Valium to calm him down. I find it hard to believe that some of these actors actually got another job.

A brief history on me. Went to UCLA film school in the mid 70s. Made my first feature at 24 for my thesis. Got discovered. Got married. 26 film festivals. Thought I had it made. Then nothing. This came up. The producer owned a theater in Monrovia, Ca. and wanted to set a movie there. I thought, why not? It was job, writing and directing. Think I made 300 bucks for both. A few years later I made one of my real films under my real name. Won the Grand Prize at Sundance. Had two more of my films shown at the festival in later years.

I'm still writing and directing. Currently as I write this in Aug '08 I start directing a TV movie the day after Labor Day. I came up with the name Derek Savage because I thought it sounded French, but the crew called me Derek Sausage.

If anybody has a copy of the new art work with the fork, let me know at my e mail address.

I gave myself a ten but I don't really deserve that.

Derek Savage

P.S. Reading some other comments I feel the need to say that this film was not a cover for porno being shot in the basement. I wish, it would have made the environment even more of a goof than it already was. Again, I'm just blown over that people have actually seen this. Somebody is making $ but it ain't me, babe. Not that I would want to use my real name to go and try to collect. I hope that the hapless producer who threw his money into this got something back. But, knowing this business, I doubt it. And I can promise the writer who hoped there wouldn't be a sequel that there definitely won't be one - unless I'm offered a truck load of money. Then I might do it under my real name. I am now worried that some sick mind I messed up is going to track me down. Hopefully they will show up with a pen for an autograph and not a knife to slit my throat and then gut me.

I watched this obscure, bizarre movie as a child and had months of nightmares after watching. I think my older brother had rented it with friends and I picked it up and put in the VCR and hit play after seeing the blood covered fork on the cover. The old man in the movie really freaked me out as a kid. I think what made it scarier to me at the time was the dated set and imagery. The styles of the seventies were scary enough, plus you throw in all of the loose ends and voilà, you have a traumatized child... I also recall the story leaving me confused, which compounded the whole effect.

I haven't seen this film in about twenty five years, but I am not surprised this many people have commented on it. I recall that it was truly bizarre and decided to look it up today.

An All-American suburban family man purchases an old, ramshackle movie theater with high hopes of restoring it as a family-run business. Unfortunately, he is unaware that the theater is home to a creeping madman obsessed with 1930s movie legend Jean Harlow. Not surprisingly, bodies begin piling up the minute the theater reopens, and the new owner's daughter finds herself in mortal danger due to her uncanny resemblance to Harlow(in truth, she looks about as much like Jean Harlow as Jack Klugman does).

This is a textbook example of trash-film-as-comedy...with its barnyard production of manifold deficiencies, it's hard not to feel a chivalrous, understanding sort of love for THE MEATEATER, similar to the way that you'd love your own two-headed, pigeon-toed offspring. If, however, your personal funnybone is not jabbed by the face-down peculiarities of supremely bad cinema, then you'd be best advised to forestall this one .

4/10