What makes someone a cult legend? In some cases, it's as simple as dying young, at the height of one's career- as with the dreaded so-called "27 Club," which saw death claim everyone from Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison to Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse at that age, albeit mostly unintentionally and the end result of alcohol and/or drug abuse. Save Cobain, who obviously took his own life.
In other cases, it's someone who was already pretty much a living legend at the time of their death, such as Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson or George Michael. All death did there was to cement their legendary status, really. But what of those who were always more of a cult star at best?
Oftentimes such things happen because of one's perceived "outsider" status, in that they were doing something left-of-center in a time in which it wasn't common. For instance, Bettie Page, a pin-up model from the 50's was popular in her time, but later faded from view, only to later resurface as a cult figure in the 80's.
A lot of this had to do with her image, which managed to combine an inherent "innocence" with S&M and bondage iconography at a time in which that sort of thing was hardly common. She's since become a key influence for artists as diverse as Madonna, Katy Perry, Dita Von Teese, Rihanna, Beyoncé and filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, who outfitted both Uma Thurman and Rosario Dawson with her trademark hairdo in Pulp Fiction and Death Proof, respectively.
And then we have Maila Nurmi, aka Vampira. As with Page, she was hugely successful in the mid-to-late 50's, but followed a very different career path. Like Page, she began as a model, but also dabbled in acting, with director Howard Hawks spotting her in an off-Broadway play and talking her into moving back to California to pursue acting professionally.
Though she landed a few minor parts in respectable films, her career wasn't moving along the way she hoped, so she went back to modeling and dancing to supplement her income, severing her Hollywood contract in the process. One night, she attended a Halloween party dressed as Morticia Addams, which, at the time, was only a cartoon strip in New Yorker magazine, and not yet the hugely successful TV show that would later follow.
Spotted by a television producer, she later received a phone call from him asking if she'd be interested in hosting a horror movie-themed TV show in the same outfit. Her then-husband Dean Riesner (who later wrote the scripts for movies like Dirty Harry and Play Misty for Me) suggested the name Vampira to avoid having to get the rights to the Addams' character, and she further drew inspiration from the Evil Queen from the Disney movie Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs and the Dragon Lady from the comic strip Terry & The Pirates.
The character was an instant hit, and the first incarnation of The Vampira Show ran locally in Hollywood from 1954-55. Despite only being available in the Los Angeles area, high profile guest spots on syndicated TV programs like The Red Skeleton Show and The George Gobel Show, alongside high-profile photo spreads in the likes of LIFE magazine and others helped to make her an international success, befriending such big names as Elvis and James Dean.
Contract disputes led to a premature end to the show, but Vampira held the rights to the character, and took the gig to a local competitor, where she rebooted the show for continued success for a few more years, garnering a local Emmy for her work. Alas, as her shows were shot live in the pre-taped era, none of her broadcasts exist anymore.
In the late 50's, Nurmi returned to acting in film, landing small roles, often as Vampira, in Too Much Too Soon, The Big Operator, The Beat Generation, I Passed for White, Sex Kittens Go to College, The Magic Sword and most infamously, Ed Wood's notoriously bad Plan 9 From Outer Space, often cited as the worst film ever made. (It isn't. In fact, it's pretty damn enjoyable, IMHO.)
Sadly, by the early 60's, her career in Hollywood was essentially over, and she turned to odd jobs, like installing linoleum floors or carpentry (!) to make a living. She also opened a clothing boutique that catered to celebrities like Grace Slick and the Zappa family. A random assault by a man in her apartment building resulted in her being too injured to work anymore regularly, and she lived in poverty for many years.
However, in the late 70's, after the film critic Michael Medved declared Plan 9 the worst film ever made, people began to wonder what had happened to her and who this Vampira character was, leading to a resurgence in popularity. Vampira was, in particular, embraced by the punks, who saw her as a kindred spirit, recording songs about her and her work, notably The Misfits' "Vampira" and an appearance by Nurmi in the punk rock musical Population: 1 and on several songs by the band Satan's Cheerleaders.
A clip of her from Plan 9 was also used in the intro for the New York-based Chiller Theater. All of this led TV producers to consider resurrecting the character of Vampira for a new generation. However, after initially working with her, said producers hired an actress behind her back for the gig, without her approval, leading Nurmi to leave the project. The actress was named Cassandra Peterson, but you probably know her better as... Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
None too happy with this development, Nurmi sued Peterson and the producers for ripping off her act without her permission, but by most accounts, aside from wearing a black dress and lounging on a couch part of the time, the character was actually pretty different and distinctly 80's, with Peterson opting for more of a "Valley Girl" approach to the gig. And lest we forget, Nurmi herself readily admits ripping off the Morticia Addams character in the creation of Vampira.
Given all that, Nurmi lost the lawsuit, and missed out on a potential career resurgence, not to mention an influx of much-needed cash flow. She didn't make things easier on herself by refusing many of the attempts to merchandise her Vampira character- something that Elvira had no qualms about doing, with much success to Nurmi's chagrin, who saw it as crass.
Nurmi did eventually relent somewhat on this front, allowing figurines and models to be made, along with allowing her likeness to be used on guitar cases and skateboards by the company Coffin Case. She also created an official website after becoming aware of her character's popularity online, often auctioning off autographed memorabilia on eBay.
Unfortunately, Nurmi only saw limited dividends for her efforts in her lifetime, but she remains popular with cult fans, thanks in part to her portrayal in Tim Burton's classic Ed Wood movie, where she was played by Burton's then-girlfriend, model/actress Lisa Marie, and various documentaries about her, notably Vampira: The Movie and Vampira and Me, the latter of which I just saw for the first time.
Vampira and Me is a fascinating look at the cult star, featuring some of the rarest footage available, thanks to filmmaker R.H. Greene's unprecedented access to Nurmi, who he befriended and did an extensive filmed interview with, some of which was featured in his previous documentary, Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies, but which much more of is used in his follow-up doc, made after her death in 2008 as a tribute to her.
The documentary also features interviews with many of those who knew her, rare home movies of her out of costume, lots of photographs, and an extended audio interview with the director and a fellow Vampira fan, who has run a Tumblr page dedicated to her for years. It's well-worth a watch, to be sure, especially if you don't know too much about Vampira, much less the actress who played her.
I was surprised to find how little footage of Vampira in action was available- I just assumed it was on video somewhere like everything else, though I never actively searched for it before. Now I know that I wouldn't have fared too well if I had. As a child of the 80's, I was more of an Elvira fan, but it's always nice to find out who inspired someone else you're a big fan of.
I do hate that there was such animosity between Nurmi and Peterson, who, after all, was barely alive when Vampira was popular, and almost certainly only saw what the rest of us born too late saw of Vampira- which is to say, not much. As such, it's unlikely she was much inspired by Vampira at all, beyond the look and general setting, with Elvira's brand of comedy much more indicative of her time, the 80's, than Vampira's, the 50's, which were VERY different.
Be that as it may, it is cool to see how Vampira has influenced a lot of people over the last few decades, particularly the Goth crowd, and, like Bettie Page, the underground S&M and fetish crowd, which isn't so underground anymore, thanks to the likes of the 50 Shades movies.
I still see women wearing Vampira's patented cinched-waist look to achieve that impossible figure of hers, and I just love what I've seen of her stuff, especially Plan 9 and now, the Vampira and Me documentary. While it's hard to say what makes some people legends and what doesn't, I do have to say that I tend to lean toward the more left-of-center types like Vampira and Bettie Page than the more obvious ones like Elvis and Michael Jackson and the like.
After all, I was a bit of a misfit myself- and a fan of The Misfits besides- and like the punk and Goth crowd, we recognize one of our own. Vampira may not be the household name that some of the other legends I mentioned are, likely in part due to the relatively obscure availability of her work, but she has a small-but-devoted following that I suspect will endure for years to come. And I think she would have wanted it that way, given how close to the vest she often played things.
Long live Vampira!
I suppose it's an accomplishment of sorts that we've come to the point in time that teen girls have an American Pie to call their own- not sure what it says about said film that the girls in question are basically side-lined in their own movie, but you know how it goes: one step forward, two steps back. Still... progress?
To be fair, none of the girls in question in Blockers are exactly big stars, but then again, neither were a lot of the young actors that got their big breaks in films like this in the 80's, 90's and 2000's. You gotta start somewhere, I guess.
The biggest name here amongst the teen cast is easily Kathryn Newton, who landed her first major role on the TV sitcom Gary Unmarried, before hitting the big screen with roles in the movies Bad Teacher and Paranormal Activity 4, which is where she first came to my attention.
She continued to go back and forth from TV to movies with relative ease, appearing in the former on Mad Men, Supernatural, Halt & Catch Fire and the hugely successful Big Little Lies- her most high-profile gig yet- as well as several critically-acclaimed movies like Lady Bird and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and a solid turn as Amy March in the latest miniseries adaptation of the classic novel Little Women for the BBC.
In Blockers, Newton plays Julie, the "Alpha" of a pack of three girls that have been friends since they were kids. The other two are Kayla, played by Aussie newcomer Geraldine Viswanathan (the upcoming TV show Miracle Workers, with Daniel Radcliffe) and Sam, played by Gideon Adlon (TV's When We Rise and American Crime), who is comedienne Pamela's daughter, of Better Things and Louie fame.
When Julie announces to her friends that she has plans to sleep with her boyfriend, Austin (Graham Phillips, Riverdale, The Good Wife) on Prom Night, the other girls, inspired by her, all make a pact to do the same- albeit reluctantly, in Sam's case. Sam is an in-the-closet lesbian that hasn't come out to her friends yet, though her father has long since suspected it.
Which brings us to the "real" stars of the movie: the parents, who are the "blockers" of the title- as in "cock-blockers," in case you missed the not-so-subtle rooster on the poster there. Not to slight the teens, who are all just fine and have funny, if typically low-key, moments throughout the film, but these three are the actual "Alphas" of the movie.
It's kind of hard to compete with such scene-stealing pros like Judd Apatow's better half, Leslie Mann (Knocked Up, This is 40), the up-for-anything Ike Barinholtz (the Neighbors movies, The Mindy Project) and newly-minted former-wrestler-turned-comedy-star John Cena, who made a splash with a small role in the Amy Schumer vehicle Trainwreck, and followed it up with solid turns in the Daddy's Home movies and Sisters.
All three work overtime to overcome their typical second-fiddle status, and are definitely ready for their close-ups. Hell, Mann's been training for it for a few decades at least by now. (Cena just looks like he has, lol.) To their eternal credit, they take what are admittedly iffy characters and make them all pretty relatable and likable, at least to a point.
Mann is Lisa, Julie's mom; Barinholtz plays Hunter, Sam's dad; and Cena is Mitchell, Kayla's dad. Somewhat refreshingly, there is no romantic angle to these three's relationships- they're simply bonded merely by virtue of being the parents of three kids that are friends. Beyond that, they have no relationship, really.
What brings them together is getting wind of, via one of the girls' computer, of their kids' sex pact and being determined to stop it at all costs- which, if you think about it, is kind of an iffy premise. But then again, so is a bunch of teens making a sex pact, so yeah... there's that. I can't recall if the girls are 18 or not, but I think, as seniors in high school, it's a safe bet, one would hope.
Besides, I imagine that more people would have raised hell if they weren't of age. Somewhat amusingly, though, I heard far more rabble-rousing about my review subject earlier this week, I Feel Pretty, which I guess some people flipped out about because of perceived fat-shaming, which is admittedly bad, but not really what the film was about.
Rather, that film was a feature-length feel-good-about-yourself ad campaign (literally- Schumer's big speech moment is offered up under the guise of selling a beauty product to "ordinary" women) that wants to hammer its message home so desperately it often forgets to be funny. That's the movie's real crime.
Blockers, thankfully, cares not about such things. I mean, sure there's a moral to the story (mild spoiler): you should always wait until you're ready before you have sex for the first time; with a secondary level to it for parents that basically amounts to: if you raised your kids right, you should learn to trust their judgment.
Granted, in the case of the latter, most parents don't have to deal with their kids making a sex pact, which only seems to happen in movies like this- those who try it IRL often find themselves disappointed, especially if they're boys who've seen one too many of these movies, lol. (He said, not speaking from any such experience whatsoever...)
Girls succeeding in this task is actually more believable, TBH, and I liked that the movie didn't completely cop out on that count- at least one of the girls follows through, and another has a life-changing moment that makes perfect sense within the context of the film- instead of a big moralizing moment at the end, a la I Feel Pretty, that practically hammers you over the head with it.
That's not to say that the film doesn't have other issues, though. The third of the girls has a decidedly different experience when her dad bursts in and completely rains on her parade in a somewhat shockingly violent way: one guess who perpetrates said mayhem. Yep, it's totally Leslie Mann. 😄 I kid, of course.
Setting aside the fact that one punch from the likes of Cena is probably enough to put a teen kid in the hospital, the film completely glosses over the incident, with the daughter in question unbelievably getting over what happens in an almost laughable amount of time.
It's literally like: "Oh dad, you nearly killed my boyfriend, but you meant well, so I forgive you and still love you bunches!" You'd think the writers never met a teenage girl before. (I tried to look up the writers, BTW, who are Brian and Jim Kehoe, but found precious little out about them- they don't even have a Wikipedia page yet.)
That said, if you can get past that sort of thing, there's a lot to find amusing about the film. The adults really do go for broke, and there's some show-stopping scenes here and there, notably the one in which Cena's character is introduced to "butt-chugging," which, yes, is really a thing. Thankfully, it was a thing AFTER my own adolescence, because it would have been a hard pass from me.
There's also a scene involving Austin's parents, played by Gary Cole (Veep, The Good Fight) and Gina Gershon (Showgirls, Bound), involving a weird sex game and involving some serious middle-aged nudity that I certainly wasn't expecting- once again, you'd think the writers never watched a teen movie before. This may be the first one in which only the parents do extensive nudity! (Not sure the actual teens watching this will want to see such things, but whatever...)
Be that as it may, the director, Kay Cannon, is indeed female, so at least the female girls' experiences mostly ring true- my guess is that she may have done a little re-writing in that area, even if the whole scene with Cena and his daughter got by her. To be fair, it is a sweet moment in the film in the aftermath, when the two are talking. But in the moment, it's kind of scary, like: is Cena actually gonna kill this kid?
My assumptions aren't just wild speculation, though. Cannon is an established writer herself, having written the screenplays for the likes of the Pitch Perfect movies (which were written a damn sight better than you might think- or than they even needed to be, for that matter) and the TV shows 30 Rock and New Girl, both of which she also produced as well.
Given that she's won three Writers' Guild Awards and was nominated for three Emmys to boot, I think it's a safe assumption she had some input on the screenplay, and that the relatively unknown screenwriters, getting their first big break here, would have likely welcomed it from such a longtime vet of the industry.
I also don't think it would have hurt for her to have done a more extensive re-write than she did, but, as a fellow writer, she probably didn't want to step on their toes too much. Be that as it may, and despite the occasional characterization missteps, overall, the film is funny more often than not- much more so than the comparatively heavy-handed I Feel Pretty, and mind you, this is a teen movie, where moralizing tends to come with the territory, seeing as most of them are written by adults.
Blockers isn't anything ground-breaking, per se, but is is a new spin on a plot-line you've seen before (the teen sex pact thing), in that it's kind of an adult-friendly teen movie. Indeed, adults who find themselves confused by teen-speak and emojis and the like may actually get a bit of an education by the end of the film, perhaps learning more than they would want to know.
But they can also take comfort in the fact that good kids are still out there, in spite of all the designer drugs (which the film touches upon- Connor, Kayla's boyfriend, is a burgeoning drug "cook") and iffy info about sex online (i.e. the ready availability of porn, which was definitely not a thing when I was a teen- you were lucky to get a second-hand VHS of an old-school porn dubbed by someone's older brother or a peek at someone's parent's Playboy or the like back then).
The performances are pretty solid across the board as well, and I'd like to give a special shout-out to Colton Dunn (TV's Superstore) as the beleaguered driver of the teens' limo, Rudy, who is determined to show the kids a good time, by any means necessary, as he made me laugh more than a few times. By the end of the movie, after dealing with all the parents and teens' shenanigans, he seems like a grizzled war vet that's been through it, lol.
All in all, there's a lot to recommend here, even if it's a bit by the numbers in places, which I suppose is to be expected in a teen movie. Still, the film's particular approach to the given premise- teens make a sex pact, but this time it's girls and their parents find out about it- is novel, and that makes it stand out from the rest of the pack.
While the writers hit some bum notes along the way- it happens- with director Kay Cannon steering the ship, she assures it never goes completely off the rails, even if things get a little wobbly here and there. I think she'll go on to make some more fun comedies, and so, too, might Brian and Jim Kehoe, if they can tighten up their act, and work on more nuanced characterization, instead of leaning on stereotypes.
All in all, I'd have to say check it out! 😄
