Movies At Dog Farm Remembers . . . The Dixie Theater In Staunton, VA

     When I was growing up, my hometown of Staunton,Virginia had three theaters: the Plaza Cinema (now The Staunton Mall Cinema 6), the Visulite Cinema, and the Dixie Theater.  All three were still open for business until Sunday, July 27th when the Dixie Theater presented a final showing of Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1980) and then closed its doors.  This historic theater that first opened over a century ago was forced by a weak economy and rising operational costs to shut its doors for the last time.

The New Theater, 1913

     The Dixie, originally known as the New Theater, first opened those doors in 1913.  It was gutted by fire in 1936, after which it was remodeled in Art Moderne style by architect John Eberson and rechristened the Dixie Theater.  The Dixie was reconfigured into a four screen multiplex in 1982, and then slowly fell into disrepair over the course of the next two decades.  That's the era in which I visited most often, and I actually liked that it seemed just a little seedy.  The Dixie was slated to close in 2009, but it was instead taken over by Adam Greenbaum, who still operates the Visulite Cinema just a few blocks away.  Only last year the Dixie converted two of its four projectors to digital formatting at a cost of over $50,000 per projector.  Sadly, it seems that wasn't enough to boost attendance.

     At least the Dixie went out with a flourish this last weekend by screening the classic blockbusters Jaws (1975), E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Back To The Future (1985), and the aforementioned Raiders Of The Lost Ark.  Of course, any one of these titles would have been a treat to see again on the big screen, but I opted only for tickets to the last showing of Jaws on Sunday.  It was the only one of the four I'd never seen in a proper theater.  As great as it was to see Jaws on the big screen for the first time, I found myself preoccupied with the ghosts of movies I'd seen at the Dixie in the past.

Time Walker (1982)

     In the early eighties the Dixie was a haven for the kinds of movies that more often turned up on the bottom of the bill at the drive-in.  I distinctly recall seeing The Grim Reaper there, which was a retitled and heavily edited American release of director Joe D'Amato's infamous cannibal flick Anthropophagus (1980).  For some inexplicable reason I have a very clear recollection of seeing future Mystery Science Theater 3000 fodder Time Walker (1982) at the Dixie, as well.  At the time (I was only twelve years old) I thought the defiantly B-movie conceit of an alien "mummy" buried in King Tut's tomb was pretty clever. 

     I also recall a few screenings made memorable primarily by virtue of who accompanied me.  My first apartment was in downtown Staunton within walking distance of the Dixie.  My grandmother crashed at my place while visiting from Minnesota one summer, and we walked to the Dixie together to take in a matinee of Pump Up The Volume (1990).  The R-rated story of an angsty teenage loner (Christian Slater) broadcasting a pirate radio station from his parents' basement was a bit of a shock to my grandmother, who professed to have no idea how difficult things were for the youth of the day.  We then spent the evening back at my apartment bonding over one of our first real adult conversations with one another, an evening that defined the tenor of our relationship from that day forward.

South Park: Bigger, Longer, And Uncut (1999)

     Of course, not every trip to the theater was fraught with such heady import.  I remember seeing South Park: Bigger, Longer, And Uncut (1999) with my dad at the Dixie.  My father is the kind of moviegoer who sees whatever happens to be popular at the time, but I'm pretty sure he had no idea what to make of this particular bit of bawdy pop culture.  I ended up watching his reactions more intently than I watched the movie.  I nearly lost him when Saddam Hussein, in bed with his lover Satan, whipped out an over-sized dildo.  Whereas Pump Up The Volume brought my grandmother and I closer together, the South Park movie only served to illustrate the generational divide between my dad and me.  Curiously, our bonding moment came later in the same year when we both had to remain seated long enough to regain our composure as the credits rolled at the end of American Beauty (1999).

     Not surprisingly, though, my most vivid recollection of the Dixie actually involved a horror movie screening nearly fifteen years earlier.  You see, the Dixie is where I saw Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter (1984).  The first two Friday The 13th movies had been seminal viewing experiences for me, and at the ripe old age of fourteen I actually believed that The Final Chapter would be Jason's swan song as well as the end of the Friday The 13th franchise.  I hadn't yet become the cynical and jaded curmudgeon I am today.

Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

     Despite the popularity of the franchise, The Final Chapter had been booked into one of the two tiny theaters upstairs, each of which were one half of what used to be the balcony.  It was opening weekend, standing room only, and the crowd was rowdy and animated.  Everyone hooted and cheered for each successive gory demise.  The audience erupted when Jason slid slowly down the length of a machete planted deep in his head at the movie's climax.  There was no way in hell Jason would recover from that deathblow, right?  Of course, we all know better now, but at the time it seemed pretty definitive.

     Now, some thirty years later, I found myself watching a movie at the Dixie Theater for the very last time.  It didn't really hit me until the shark had been vanquished and the end credits rolled.  The capacity audience broke into applause at the end of Jaws, but in this one instance I'm pretty sure the applause was for the Dixie Theater itself rather than the movie.  A friend had teased that I would probably cry when I saw my last movie at the Dixie.  She was right.

A few more disappointing snapshots of the Dixie Theater in Staunton, courtesy of my crappy TracFone.

     Please visit Cinema Treasures for a gallery of fifteen higher quality Dixie pics as well as a street view of the Dixie you can manipulate to get a closer look at the arches, terra cotta tiles, and laughing theatrical faces that adorn the front of the building.  The property is owned by the Staunton Performing Arts Center, which has plans to restore and renovate both the Dixie and the adjacent Arcadia Building.

     At least the building itself will be restored to an approximation of its original glory.  Sadly, however, the Dixie Theater I knew is gone for good.

The Dixie Theater
1913-2014
R.I.P.

Horror Movie Advocacy - You've Gotta See This Movie Because It Earns My Own Personal Seal Of Approval

Slightly better than a rooftop antenna . . .

     While shopping for a few new Blu-rays to order in anticipation of Pre'Ween, it occurred to me that I rarely ever purchase movies on disc anymore.  I view movies almost exclusively by streaming or media server.  That's not really news, because increasingly, that's how most people view movies at home.  What was interesting to me was how my criteria for what warrants a "buy" rather than a "stream" has changed along with my altered viewing habits.

     Like many movie aficionados, I am by nature a collector.  I'm just old enough to remember a time, though, when even movie fans rarely owned their own copies of their favorites.  The tech wasn't as widely available, and the movies themselves - because they were exorbitantly expensive - weren't as commonly purchased to own.  We rented instead.

     Once upon a time, Mom and Pop video rental stores were almost as ubiquitous as Redbox kiosks are today.  The good news was that the cost of rental was well within most families' budgets provided they could make the initial investment in a VCR.  Even better, all of those video stores (and their customers) were so eager for new content that store shelves overflowed with movies of every stripe.  Of course, such a wealth of choices was a movie fan's dream, but rental did not scratch the itch to collect one's favorites.  If you were really enterprising you could purchase a second VCR and dub copies of your rental tapes, but it was only a matter of time before the movie industry plugged up that hole by widely adopting Macrovision copy protection.

LaserDisc - It's Portable!

     All things must eventually pass, however, and the arrival of new format called DVD eventually drove the last few nails in the VHS coffin.  I'm intentionally glossing over LaserDisc because it was never widely adopted in North America - or anywhere else save Japan and South East Asia, really.  DVD was the giant killer, and the format popularized the idea of sell-through pricing so that many of us were finally able to start our own movie collections in earnest.  Many of us went a little ape-shit on that point, too.

     Throughout the first decade of the new millennium I purchased an absurd number of DVDs.  Curating my own collection even took precedence over actually going to the theater, since for the cost of a movie ticket and some popcorn I could actually own my own copy of each new release just a few months after it was in theaters.  My rule of thumb:  if I entertained the notion of venturing out to the theater to see a new release, I just bought a copy of the DVD a few months later instead.  My DVD collection grew exponentially in a very short period of time based upon this somewhat specious reasoning.

My first Limited Edition DVD purchase

     Of course, new releases were only the tip of the iceberg.  It was the catalog titles that really broke the bank.  Distributors like Synapse, Code Red, Anchor Bay, and Blue Underground were releasing old favorites at a brisk clip, and I was buying most of them.  Not only was I finally able to own my own copy of movies like Lucio Fulci's Zombie (1979) and Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977), but I was awash in a sea of special features that augmented these releases.  Now even the most obscure titles were getting the Collector's Edition treatment.  It was truly a wonderful time to be a movie fan.

    Not surprisingly, though, I soon found myself with a sizable collection that housed far too many disappointing catalog releases and watch-it-once-and-forget-it new releases.  I had to institute some buying parameters to insure more judicious purchases.  I stopped buying new releases sight unseen, and I began to be far more selective about my catalog purchases.  A DVD did not warrant a purchase unless I was certain it was a title I'd watch multiple times.  Catalog titles did not warrant a purchase until after reviews hit the internet to tell me whether or not it was a quality release.

A bigger priority than Jaws

     Perhaps most importantly, obscure titles, long out of print titles, and titles that rarely aired on cable or satellite were always the priority.  For example, to this day I don't own a copy of Jaws (1975) on disc.  Jaws is always on television and will never be out of print in my lifetime.  It's a brilliant movie, but it's not a priority purchase.  I do, however, own a copy of The Manitou (1978).  What the f**k, right? 

     Since my purchases were now required to be titles that were previously difficult to obtain,  or difficult to see elsewhere, or - in my own humble opinion - worthy of multiple viewings, it almost goes without saying that the discs I did purchase were usually titles that I would enthusiastically recommend to others.  One more parameter, perhaps more important than all the rest, began to govern my purchases:  if it's a title that I want to share with others, it's a buy.  It was the birth of my horror movie advocacy.

     At the same time, it was essentially the death of my spend-crazy ways.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, I guess, but it did mean that my purchases became fewer and far less frequent.  Since by that point I already owned copies of most catalog titles worth owning, my buying began to revolve only around newer titles that made the grade.  When I consider now my purchases over the course of the last several years, I find that there have been distressingly few of those.

     I've been vocal here at the Dog Farm with my advocacy of Pontypool (2008), a movie I still frequently loan out to others.  I continue to share Trick 'r Treat (2007) with as many people as I can every Halloween,  because I'm determined to do my part to make it a perennial staple.  I frequently loan out [REC] (2007) because it kills my soul that American audiences are still more familiar with the inferior English language remake.  Attack The Block (2011) is one of my more recent causes.  I just can't understand how this relatively big and wildly entertaining release managed to fly beneath so many radars.  There have been others - Laid To Rest (2009), House Of The Devil (2009), John Dies At The End (2012) - but still too few to warrant more than a trickle of new purchases.  I still see plenty of movies that I enjoy, but I don't see that many that inspire my whole-hearted advocacy.

My Pre'Ween shopping list for 2014

     For what it's worth, every movie I've chosen to purchase for Pre-Ween this year is a catalog title.  The Director's Cut of Nightbreed (1990) is a must have, as is Without Warning (1980).  I'll also be picking up Sleepaway Camp (1983) and Curtains (1983), neither of which have previously enjoyed decent releases.  I'll probably also purchase Blue Underground's bargain priced release The Complete Blind Dead Saga since I never purchased The Blind Dead Collection Limited Edition from 2005.  That's it, though - not a new movie in the bunch.  It looks like this horror movie advocate is stumping exclusively for the oldies this year.

     Which newer movies have you really gone out of your way to recommend to others recently, and what makes them deserving of special attention?  If you consider yourself a horror movie advocate, what qualities are most likely to earn a movie your own personal seal of approval?

Movies At Dog Farm Remembers: The Early Scares And Formative Horrors

"They're here."  Poltergeist (1982)

     I'm edging up on my 43rd birthday at the end of this month, and that means I've logged about 43 years watching genre movies.  I started young.  Of course, when I was starting out there were a lot less genre movies to watch.  They weren't quite as accessible, either.  You had your drive-in, your theater (not multiplex - a crucial distinction) or your thirteen channels of broadcast television.  One of those thirteen channels was PBS, and all the others were snow after a certain hour of the night - that would be snow like what Carol Anne watches on her family's sweet-ass tube television in Poltergeist, kids.  You see, back then television stations still ended their broadcast days at around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m.  Then you'd get "The Star Spangled Banner", then some sort of quasi-religious daily affirmation, then snow.  At least once a week, though, I'd get a shot of late night genre goodness delivered before the snowstorm.

The nameplate on Bowman Body's casket.

     Most of my earliest recollections of exposure to genre movies were tied to once weekly viewings of Shock Theater hosted by The Bowman Body.  I've written fondly of Shock Theater in the past here.  It was preceded each Saturday night by Soul Train.  As such, I was one of what I'm sure was a legion of surprisingly funky lower middle class pre-teens well-versed in the old black and white Universal horror movies and sci-fi B movies straight from the 1950s.  I watched whatever was on, but a few stand out.

Scary stuff, right?

     Many of the movies dealt with the traditional werewolves, vampires, and mummies.  Most of the others dealt with anthromorphic horrors of some sort, because a guy in a monster suit usually still pretty much looked like a guy in a monster suit.  Occasionally, though, something a little different would come along, and those were always the ones that had the most impact.  The Blob (1958) actually terrified me as a child.  If something with a more or less human form came after me, there were safe places to hide.  The Blob could get me anywhere.  The lyrics to the deceptively catchy Burt Bacharach song "Beware The Blob" that played over the opening credits said it all:  "Beware of the Blob! - It creeps and leaps and glides and slides across the floor - Right through the door and all around the wall - A splotch, a blotch - Be careful of the blob!"  Now where in the hell was I going to hide from a monster like that?

The monster challenging the world, one closet door at a time.

     The Monster That Challenged The World (1957) was another favorite.  I just rewatched this a few days ago, and giant prehistoric mollusks from the Salton Sea still hold up pretty well.  The movie actually builds up to some solid chills, and it boasts an impressive monster design that gets its fair share of screen time.  Secretary Gail MacKenzie telling her little daughter Sandy to close her eyes as one of the monsters tears through the door is still strong stuff.  I don't recall too many children being placed in harm's way in the old horror movies, so that moment really hit home for me.  Again, too, this was a monster that didn't possess a recognizably human form.  Apparently, I was just sophisticated enough a viewer to demand a bit more from my monsters in order to buy the premise.  So how about a monster that still keeps me from going into ocean water more than knee deep?

Easily one of the best movie scares ever.  Jaws (1975)

     Jaws (1975) is a seminal horror for a lot of viewers, and I was young enough to be completely gobsmacked by it. Jaws was a little too upscale for Shock Theater, and I know that first viewing was a prime time network broadcast.  I know this because I almost didn't see it.  You see, my mother had found some boogers wiped on the underside of the kitchen table, and when I was confronted about this I tried vainly to convince her it had been my father who'd left them there.  The booger issue was less serious than the fact that I lied about it.  I was punished for lying, my punishment being no TV for a month (seems a little harsh, doesn't it?).  I knew nothing of Jaws, but my father - God bless him - did.  He knew I'd want to see it, and he brokered a one night reprieve for me.  Because the network television premiere of Jaws was a special circumstance, he convinced my mother to let me off the hook for just one night.  Thanks, Dad.

     I've been thinking about all of these special movies because we old people always tend to wax nostalgic on birthdays.  I've also been thinking of them because I anxiously await the day I get to introduce my little baby Gunnar to genre movies.  Adrienne says I have to ease him into it because she doesn't want to be left to contend with the nightmares.  I envy Gunnar.  If only something as innocent as The Blob could still breed nightmares for me . . .  I'll get to see everything old become new again through Gunnar's eyes, though, and that's going to be pretty freakin' awesome.

     What movies gave you your first nightmares as a child?