Mark Pariselli | Monster Mash / 2014

the scars

by Douglas Messerli

 

Mark Pariselli (screenwriter and director) Monster Mash / 2014 [21 minutes]

 

In a local drag Halloween party men’s room Carrie (Geoff Stevens) of the 1976 movie of that name meets Regan (Eric Rich) of the 1973 film The Exorcist, and it’s love at first sight. Forget Divine who is about to get it on with Mr. Tusk, or Carrie’s friend who seems to be dressed as Louise Brooks’ Lulu about to head home with Jesus. Hand in hand, Carrie and Regan head off via the local cemetery where some ghoul is making a ruckus and a quick stop-by at the haunted school where boys’ bodies were found under floorboards. Clearly, this is not a very nice town.

    These two ghouls, Regan with an electric upside down cross over his bed, the other lugging the same symbol from the bathroom wall with him, strip down to the young men they really are and begin to circle in for hot sex—that is until Carrie backs off, insisting he needs to go home.

     Evidently, it’s just all too much for him, all a bit overwhelming; although the other points out that with only one shoe (the other broken in the walk) and layered in blood it’s too late to be out walking about town alone.

     Regan knows best, riddling him with questions about the horror genre they clearly share: “Argento or Fulci?”* Both go for Argento. Favorite classic horror movie monster. Carrie likes “Gill-man” from The Creature of the Black Lagoon (1954). Regan likes “The Mummy,” but as Carrie points out, “the mummy doesn’t do anything.” They share information about their past costumes: Regan’s the mummy” made it hard to piss and Carrie’s “The Bride of Frankenstein” had her beehive set afire.

     By this time Carrie’s back on the bed while Regan goes off to get their drinks.

    Favorite death scene: Carrie likes one of the scenes from Prom Night II ((1987) with Mary Lou, while Regan likes the floating head in Scanners (1981).

   These boys obviously know their horror films, recognizing themselves like the heroes of their movies, outsiders from their own worlds; they have lost themselves in the world of bizarre often homophobic worlds that they have appropriated and reconstructed as their own.

   They even imagine which of the horror monsters they might be able to get it on with. And the queerest of the queerest horror movie characters. For Regan that’s easy: Jesse The Nightmare on Elm Street, Part 2. Carrie argues for Angela in Sleepaway Camp.

    And why did Carrie choose that costume this year? He never went to prom. He was too scared he’d get beat up. When he got heckled in the hallways or pushed around in the locker room he fantasized about having telekinesis, of having the ability to make a particular bully plummet down the stairwell.

    Regan’s costume represents a typical angst rebellion against a strict Catholic upbringing. “My parents are total Jesus freaks. Their idea of a pleasant Sunday afternoon is protesting outside an abortion clinic or a Pride Parade. You can only dress up as Satan for so many years.”

   These are kids who have learned to act out death, to imagine, even worship it rather than actualizing it.

    They sleep side by side as innocents. But when Carrie gets up to shower, almost humorously ridding himself of his mockery of blood, Regan quickly rises, unable to resist momentarily playing out the scene from Psycho before dropping the knife and joining his new friend in the shower as they gently help wash away each other’s “wounds.”  

 

*Dario Argento, director of Suspiria (1977), Deep Red (1975) and numerous other films of his famed giallo genre. Luigi Fulci, also working in the giallo genre, directed City of the Living Dead (1980), The Beyond (1981), and The House by the Cemetery (1981) and many other horror films.

 

Los Angeles, December 18, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2025).