Monster Movie Seminar Review. By Brian Kirst
Chicago’s first Monster Movie Seminar on Valentine’s Day brought a fairly impressive crowd (including a seductive, harem clad visitor from another planet where monsters are treated like friends) to the normally granola Lill Street Gallery and featured an entertaining lecture on the evolution of the monster film from Brainstorm Comics’ personable Matt Fagan.
Highlighted by entertaining clips, Fagan evaded any monsters (Vampires, Frankenstein, The Mummy…) that could be lectured on individually and focused on some rarer beasts. While standards such as the original King Kong, the original Blob and John Carpenter’s The Thing remake were included, to the delight of hardcore fans, Fagan also included oddities such as King Kong Escapes (an Asian film wherein a robotic Kong fights the real ‘n furry one) and Italy’s Contamination – a gory response to Alien. (Fagan wryly recounted that director Luigi Cozzi was forced to change direction midstream by his producers who decided they needed a Ridley Scott rip-off pronto!)
Charming host-producer Aaron Delehanty welcomed everyone personally to this one of a kind event and, hopefully, there will be more crowded art room shaking events like this from him in the future.
