Groove to The Ghastly Love of Johnny X!

During all of the Oscar hoopla last weekend,CBS's Sunday Morning show ran a little story about an unsung movie that hit dead last at the box office,profit wise. The Ghastly Love of Johnny X,however,sounds like a real winner for those of us into sci-fi musicals set in the 1950s.

 The plot follows exiled space alien teen Johnny(Will Keenan)and his gang of Ghastly Ones as they relocate to Earth and set up shop,so to speak. Our out there leading man falls in love and tries to reclaim a piece of otherworldly technology known as The Resurrection Suit.

  Think of this as a cross between John Waters' Cry Baby and Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! and you'll get the right idea:

 

It took over ten years for director Paul Bunnell to make this movie,due to financial difficulties,but the results seem to be top notch. TGLOJX was filmed in the last of Kodak's  35 mm stock(known appropriately as Kodak X) and a good number of well known faces appear in the cast.

 The late sci-fi icon Kevin McCarthy made Ghastly Love of Johnny X his farewell performance and other kitschy celebs here include Phantasm's Reggie Bannister,Creed Bratton from The Office in a pivotal role as an undead rock star and my personal favorite,Paul Williams as Cousin Quilty,a skeptical  talk show host:

  

 The Ghastly Love of Johnny X was only able to have a limited run at a Kansas movie theater,hence the low box office($117,to be exact) but it has been doing well on the film festival circuit.

Plans are under way for this funky flick to be released on home video and made available for digital download this June. Granted,the best venue for viewing this delightful homage to old school B movies would be at a movie house(there are still showings being held across the country)yet I for one am planning on adding this bad boy to my Netflix queue as soon as possible:

 The soundtrack is currently available,in a limited edition CD and yes,it does include all of the original songs written for the film such as "What's Up With Johnny?"  .

 It's not as easy as it seems to get in on the ground floor of a cult film but this movie sounds like the perfect golden ticket for fans of off beat cinema. The Ghastly Love of Johnny X may not be the next Birdemic or The Room yet it feels a whole lot better than some of the sludge being shoved into multiplexes this season(Jack The Giant Slayer looks so cartoonish that I'm surprised it wasn't a Dreamworks or a Pixar creation).

 So,be on the look out for Johnny and his band of Ghastly Ones,armed with switchblades and songs. I won't be shocked to see some folks wearing Resurrection suits at the next round of Comic Cons or singing along to the tunes of the man with the grin,Mickey O'Flynn in the near future: