The 1993 IT CAME FROM THE DREXEL NORTH! The 7th edition of this legendary event also marked my first ever Marathon! Some notes:
-After years of reading about the Marathons in HOOT (Irv Oslin's wonderful cartoon free weekly, and a longtime supporter of our humble events), my interest in them had sorta faded into the background. Plus, as I've said before many times, I never figured that my parents would let me attend when I was younger. But now at a ripe old 16, a good friend of mine suggested that we attend. Little did I know how profoundly this little movie fest would influence/warp my life.
-Part of what made the Marathon so memorable for me was the bookending of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, neither of which I had ever seen in their entirety. Man oh man, what a way to end an event! My friend and I still talk about it to this day.
-THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS never made the final lineup, but premieres of BLOBBERMOUTH (featuring new dialogue by the comedy troupe The L.A. Connection...no relation to our pal from Boston) and George Romero's THE DARK HALF (which played in the middle of the night) did.
-The infamous BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS story! Slated for next to last in the lineup, this Corman actioner played just fine for about an hour, but then kept breaking in the projector. Finally, in an effort to stay relatively on time (a hazy concept in any Marathon setting), the rest of the film was cancelled in favor of getting to Donald Sutherland and friends. Upon exiting the theater that day, Marathoids were able to pick up some of the broken BATTLE film frames in a styrofoam cup by the front doors!
-Seeing the Director's Cut of THE ABYSS was a real treat. And I still maintain that for any of its flaws, ROBOCOP 2 is the perfect late Marathon film to wake up the audience.