Get your chainsaws ready! Two weeks following the reopening of the Downtown Square, the Plaza Theatre in Garland will host its first film festival, IT CAME FROM TEXAS Film Festival. The festival, sponsored by the City of Garland, features B-movies that spent their time at the drive-ins around the country in the 1950s and '60s, including The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The festival will take place Oct. 28-29.
Kelly Kitchens, the film festival’s director, and Gordon Smith, the festival’s unofficial film historian, talk about the films, many made on location in Texas, including Dallas and Fort Worth.
NBC DFW: Where did the idea of IT CAME FROM TEXAS Film Festival come from?
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Kelly Kitchens (KK): Gordon Smith (the unofficial film historian specializing in B-movies made in Texas) and I were on a committee for a fundraiser at the Dallas Producers Association. That event was called IT CAME FROM DALLAS (2005-2017) and showcased films made in North Texas. We did highlight films like Bonnie and Clyde, Tender Mercies, Places in the Heart and Trip to Bountiful and the like, but the fun backbone of the event was all the B-movies that were also made around here. The tagline for that first fundraiser was "It Came From Dallas: Films that Drove the Drive-ins to Extinction." They were just so much fun and included most of the films we'll be showing in this inaugural Festival. The only thing was that we could only show clips and trailers from those films. We never had the opportunity to show the full-feature films. That has been in the back of my mind since 2005 when that first ICFD fundraiser happened.
The City of Garland contacted me during the pandemic to be the coordinator with other classic films playing at the Plaza. And I know a lot of classic movie buffs and true historians. We did 10–15-minute presentations before showing the film and that led to the City of Garland starting a conversation with me about an actual Film Festival.
NBC DFW: Why focus on the horror and Sci-Fi genre for this festival?
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KK: Since the dates of October 28-29 opened up for the Plaza Theatre in Downtown Garland, the horror and Sci-Fi genre was just a natural fit. Trayc Claybrook, owner of The Frocksy on the Downtown Square, suggested The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as the headliner, spotlight film, and Gordon and I built the schedule around that film with all the B-movie double features.
Gordon Smith (GS): It gives people a fun way to spend Halloween, and a rare chance to see these movies, which they've grown up with seeing on TV, home video and the web, on big screen. The Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys, and regional TV horror hosts (which I was on Fort Lauderdale TV from 1994-97) did a lot to help build the cult for these films. The added plus here is that I'll be providing an intro to each one and showing some pertinent trailers and visuals. We also hope to get some of the stars to appear or do recorded intros for us.
NBC DFW: Why were so many horror and Sci-Fi B-movies made in Texas?
GS: Outside of the left and right coasts, many were made here thanks to, for one thing, oil industry VIPs who wanted to invest money in getting movies made. We also had two Dallas men who were among the first regional producers anywhere, who did a lot to create the independent feature filmmaking structure in Texas: Spencer Williams in the 1940s and Larry Buchanan, from the late '50s to the early '70s.
NBC DFW: Why were these campy films so popular in the 50s, 60s and 70s?
GS: They filled the drive-ins during those decades, which were the heyday of drive-ins. They made the transition to TV within a few years, and later home video markets and midnight movies once their cults developed. Certain ones, like Texas Chain Saw Massacre and non-Texas ones like Halloween and Night of the Living Dead, became pop-culture icons and prototypes for countless imitations.
NBC DFW: What makes The Texas Chain Saw Massacre so iconic?
GS: It had a great title, ad campaign and trailer. It was vaguely based on a true story (the same one as Psycho). It's a truly feverish, crazed, nightmare vision that defied the usual clichés and stereotypes of horror flicks up to that time -- there are no stalwart heroes, no damsels in distress rescued in the nick of time, no happy ending. It also got a reputation for being far more gruesome than it actually is.
NBC DFW: Of the movies featured in the festival, which is your favorite? Why?
KK: I know Gordon will have his thoughts on this, too. I've seen The Killer Shrews and The Giant Gila Monster on both TCM and Mystery Science Theater 3000, but I've never seen them with a live, appreciative audience. I'm looking forward to seeing ALL of these will an audience who is willing to have fun with these films.
GS: Not counting Don’t Look in The Basement 2 (in which I have a cameo), I love the "Gordon McLendon double bill" of Shrews and Gila also. But Beyond the Time Barrier, made around the same time, is interesting for many reasons, including how it was shot along with its co-feature, Amazing Transparent Man -- two seemingly major-budget futuristic sci-fi epics made with very little money. All of these made in, or produced out of, Dallas.
Learn more: IT CAME FROM TEXAS Film Festival
