A hail of bullets riddles the ground and nearby buildings as the government assassin makes for cover, firing blindly over her shoulder at the line of terrorists behind her. Suddenly, an explosion rocks the screen and the scene's dramatic music kicks up.
"You know, if you didn't run in slow motion you'd get there a lot faster!" Someone yells from the front row of the makeshift movie theatre in the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in downtown Silver Spring Saturday night. A chorus of laughter follows.
This was the scene at the 20th meeting of the Cavalcade of Schlock, where about 20 of the group's members met to enjoy a back-to-back screening of hysterically terrible holiday-themed movies accompanied by plenty of Christmas-themed foods, and of course, alcohol.
Micah Pearson hosted the first meeting of the group in his apartment in March 2008, entertaining eight friends with a zombie movie marathon.
"By the fifth or sixth event, we had a name, and by the ninth event, we had a Web site."
Once the event had become too crowded for Pearson's living room, the group made its move to the art studio, renting the space out one Saturday night a month, largely out of Pearson's pocket. While there has been some talk about membership fees for next year, a quick look around the room full of grinning faces reveals the popularity of the event, which typically unfolds like a screening of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," complete with all the snide and humorous comments from the peanut gallery.
"I grew up on Mystery Science Theater, so making fun of these movies is part of the fun," said Tom O'Reilly, who attended his second event Saturday. "There are bad movies and there are movies that are unwatchable, ... so as long as there's something going on, you can run with it."
This month, the movies up for viewing were "The Long Kiss Goodnight," about an amnesia-afflicted government assassin (Geena Davis) who teams up with a wise-cracking con-man (Samuel L. Jackson) to bury her past; and "The Gingerdead Man," a holiday horror movie featuring Gary Busey as a foul-mouthed, knife-happy gingerbread cookie.
Not five minutes into the first movie, "The Long Kiss Goodnight," the crowd is getting restless as the characters go through the motions of a tasteless holiday party in small town America.
"When does she stab somebody?" Pearson yells from the front row. "I want a cookie to stab someone in the face!"
Pearson's friend and Schlock Web site contributor John Higgins is quick to reply.
"Good stabbings come to those who wait," he said, just as the action picked up.
Geena Davis, the suburban housewife, crashes into a deer in a car accident that ends up jarring memories of her past as a contract killer. As the car explodes in a ball of flames behind her, the confused woman walks up to the injured deer and snaps its neck with a quick jerk of her hands. The crowd erupts.
"Now we know who to get to play Sarah Palin in a movie!" Higgins yelled, poking fun at the former Alaska governor.
Later on, Davis is cornered by a group of machine-gun toting terrorists in the basement of a warehouse. A nearby barrel of kerosene leaks the flammable liquid across the concrete as the main bad guy threatens to drop a match if the assassin does not surrender, giving her 30 seconds to decide. From somewhere near the front of the audience, Gaithersburg resident Tegan Hendrickson begins humming the Jeopardy theme song to add comedic effect to Davis' plight. She is soon joined by the whole group.
"That's the whole reason people come out to these things," Pearson said as he searched for the copy of "The Gingerdead Man" amid increasingly more insistent calls for ‘Busey, Busey, Busey!'
"Here we can get together and act like our kids without being retarded," he said.
For those interested in more information about this group, or for proper advice on how to properly ridicule your own stash of horribly funny B-movies, please visit the group's Web site,
www.cavalcadeofschlock.com.
