The Intelligence Estimate

Jen and I went to a hideous excuse for a movie last night, but you know what made it better? Free popcorn. That's right, free popcorn.

We went to the Music Box Theater's midnight showing of Motel Hell. It's a ridiculous movie from 1980 about a brother and sister who run a motel AND a farm AND a smoked meat business and probably do a little chartered accountancy on the side for all I know. (Their day planner must just be PACKED!) They kidnap motorists, plant them in the ground and fatten them with special herbs and spices. Then they kill them, smoke their carcasses and use their meat to spice up Farmer Vincent's Smoked Meats. All while running a hotel and evading the local police who, luckily, happen to be related to them. It's part Psycho, part Texas Chainsaw Massacre and part Sweeney Todd, but still finds a way to be uniquely horrible in a new and laughably uninteresting way.

Anyway, the theater was also showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show in its main theater last night. So when we showed up wearing more than just our underwear it was patently obvious which movie we were there to see. A tall, slender black man in a tuxedo saw that we were not with the herd of overweight high school girls in merrywidows and asked us which movie we were there to see.

"Motel Hell," I said.

"That's the magic words. You get free popcorn," he replied.

I had no idea what was going on. I assumed he was an angel sent from movie heaven to sweeten the experience of an otherwise tasteless movie. A metaphorical spoonful of sugar to make the cinematic medicine go down easier.

"Our website is buying popcorn for this show," he said.

Whatever. Make with the popcorn already. Honestly, at this point he could have signed me up for Scientology or Amway or any other cult if he wanted to. Turns out I can be bought and REALLY economically. Luckily all this guy wanted was to advertise his web site. And I'm more than happy to help...as long as the popcorn keeps flowing!

Sci Fi Horror Chicago