Popcorn

Hailed as a “scream queen”, a term described when an actor appears regularly as the victim or as much, the protagonist in the horror genre, Jill Schoelen plays Maggie, the main character in the 1991 film Popcorn ( Mark Herrier & Alan Ormsby).

Popcorn is a bitter sweet and often cynical horror comedy. The film comments on the lack of funding and under-appreciation in arts as lecturer Toby (Tom Villard) and his students organise a horrorthon at their local cinema to earn some respect and extra cash. The event is a showcase of 1950’s horror/ Sci-Fi themic environments like Projecto-vison, Odorama, or Shock-o-scope (electric buzzes embedded in the cinema chairs,  a’la The Tingler (William Castle 1959)).Besides all this, the cinema is faced with other problems. A killer is loose during the festival, killing crew members in self referential spectacles for the audience’s enjoyment. In one scene, he amps up the voltage of the tingling seats which the teenagers actually enjoy.

Popcorn becomes cluttered when the film delves deeper. We learn the back-story of the killer who was involved in a surrealist film cult who ultimately made films that were laughed out. Part of his vengeance on the audience was to perform the last scene of his film Possessor live, in which he kills his family. His unfinished business and vengeance resurfaces with the student’s horrorthon where he kills the crew behind the stage and manipulates the crew by wearing both the female and male victim’s faces to do his bidding. Adding another layer, or complication, to the narrative, we learn that the killer is Toby and is Maggie’s father. Popcorn crams in recycled homage to Leatherface of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper 1974) with its fluidity to gender, as well as tacking on the Freudian overtones of A Nightmare on Elm Street ( Wes Craven 1984) in Toby and Maggie’s relationship.

Although I did enjoy Maggie’s 90’s appearance, the finale resulted in Maggie being the pretty damsel in distress, as she is saved by her ex- boyfriend. Hence, a “scream queen” is different to a “final girl” (a masculinised character such as Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween (John Carpenter 1978). Because, you guessed it, Schoelen got this name for being pretty and screaming a lot.

Maggie, like Popcorn, was a letdown. I wished the mood and nostalgia were the film’s main focus. With a name like Popcorn, cheesiness and fun should have been its main priority.