Popcorn (1991)

Popcorn makes the major mistake of placing high-camp burlesque versions of 1950s-style horror and science fiction movies—the kind using outlandish ballyhooish gimmicks to sell tickets—in the center of a quasi-legit slasher movie. The slasher part of the whole is not entirely serious as it’s a black comedy, but the parody movies-within-the-movie creamy filling are flat-out silly and so much more obviously funny than the chocolate coating that the whole thing melts in your hand.

Jill Schoelen (who had co-starred in the Robert Englund Phantom of the Opera in 1989) is Maggie, would-be screenwriter. She is a college student still living with her mom Suzanne (Dee Wallace). When Suzanne finds out that the struggling campus film department wants to put on an all night horror-palooza to raise money, she suddenly hesitates and asks Maggie not to get involved. Maggie wants to take part in the fund raiser. After all, they intend to run three schlocky gimmick flicks, recreating the original William Castle-ish stunts—shockers in the seats, a giant mosquito that buzzes the audience, and foul odors pumped into the theater to accompany a Japanese import called The Stench. Yeah, who’d want to miss that?

Ray Walston delivers a high energy cameo as Dr. Mnesyne (he remembers the good old days of motion picture promotion), proprietor of a movie memorabilia shop and owner of all the artifacts the students will need in order to pull off the promotional stunts. Walston is very much like the Devil in Damn Yankees.

While going through cases of stuff, one of the students finds a film can bearing a warning Not To Open, which is, of course, immediately ignored. A small reel of film is inside and when they project it they discover it’s part of a notorious movie made 15 years previously by Lanyard Gates, indie director and professional wacko. The movie was called The Possessor. To get revenge on everyone who ever doubted his talents, Gates presented his final film without an ending—an ending he intended to create live on stage by murdering his wife and daughter and everyone else he could. Somehow the theater caught on fire and Gates, as well as several people in the audience, were killed.

When she sees the remaining snippet of The Possessor, Maggie realizes that she has been dreaming it and quickly jumps to the conclusion that she is, in fact, Lanyard Gates’ daughter. How she wasn’t killed by the evil genius is explained in a quick bit of we-better-tell-the-audience-what-the-hell-really-happened-or-they’re-going-to-be-pissed exposition. And it seems that Gates is still alive, too, and plotting to kill everyone in the film department, a move that will spare future audiences hours of dreary independent art cinema.

The rest of the cast includes Tom Villard as Toby, the nerdiest of the class movie geeks; Elliott Hurst as Leon, the one in the wheelchair; and Freddie Marie Simpson as Tina, department flirt and student kootchymama (“people wonder how I manage to make straight A’s”) to department chair Mr. Davis (Tony Roberts). Derek Rydall is along as Mark, Maggie’s sort-of boyfriend and ineffectual hero.

To save some money on production costs, the picture was shot in Kingston, Jamaica. It’s based on a story by Mitchell Smith and screenwriter Alan Ormsby was set to direct until he lost the job after about three weeks of shooting and was replaced by Mark Hellier.

The film is a watchable failure, never generating anything like thrills or chills. That it has a cult following tells you more about movie cultists than it does about quality cinema, and I suspect people get a kick out of the movie parodies—I suspect this is where Ormsby’s heart really lay. You can watch this one once, but you’ll go back to Joe Dante’s Matinee, which also contains a burlesque movie-within-a-movie, over and over again.