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Did You Catch John Waters as Horror Master William Castle on “Feud”?!
John Waters once compared William Castle to God. I think John Waters just became God.
This past Sunday night’s episode of FX series “Feud: Bette and Joan” was titled ‘Hagsploitation,’ and it kicked off with Jessica Lange (as Joan Crawford) recreating the trailer for William Castle’s 1964 horror film Strait-Jacket. A scene from the film’s promotional tour was then recreated, and wouldn’t ya know it, John Waters popped up for a cameo as Castle himself!
The scene paid tribute to the real-life marketing campaign for Strait-Jacket, which saw Castle and Crawford handing out cardboard axes to audience members when the film was released in theaters – Crawford also entered the room carrying (and swinging) an axe. And who better to play Castle, known for his attention-grabbing cinema gimmicks, than John Waters, whose own films have drawn inspiration from Castle’s unique brand of showmanship. For Polyester, released in 1981, Waters handed out scratch ‘n sniff “Odorama” cards, allowing audiences to literally smell the objects appearing on screen. It was a gimmick ripped straight out of William Castle’s playbook, so I suppose you could say that Castle was the role that Waters was born to play.
Of course, Waters doesn’t actually look anything like the heavy-set Castle, but that didn’t matter to “Feud” creator Ryan Murphy. Waters told Indiewire about the dream-come-true experience:
When they asked me to do it, I was like, ‘Well, I’m not fat, should I wear a fat suit?’ and they were like, no, we just like the conceptual idea of you playing him. It was an honor to be asked to do it, because I’m such a fan of William Castle. I had to keep the secret for so long because we shot it a long time ago. And the secret kept. I was surprised, because there were 100 extras there.
He added, speaking of Castle’s influence:
When I first saw ‘House on Haunted Hill’ as a kid in Baltimore and the skeleton went out on the wire and the thousand kids in the audience went crazy … My whole life, I’ve tried to at least equal that cinema anarchy. I came close with the end of ‘Pink Flamingos,’ but I didn’t tie with it. He still beat me.
If you missed it, you can watch the latest episode of “Feud” over on FX.
All of us here at Bloody Disgusting are deeply saddened to learn that George A. Romero Foundation Founder and President Suzanne Desrocher-Romero has passed away.
GARF shared in a statement on socials, “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Suzanne Desrocher Romero. Suzanne passed away of natural causes on June 24 at her home in Toronto after a prolonged illness.”
The statement continues, “Suzanne was the fierce leader of the George A. Romero Estate and The George A. Romero Foundation. She worked tirelessly to preserve George’s legacy. Her work at the foundation will continue to inspire and live on for generations to come. The family asks for privacy at this time.”
Desrocher-Romero founded GARF in 2018, after her late husband’s passing in 2017, and has been a fierce advocate for his legacy and the arts. It was her mission to “strengthen horror as a serious field of global study,” and she was a tremendous fighter on behalf of Romero’s works and supporting new filmmakers inspired by his legacy.
It was Desrocher-Romero who spearheaded the recovery and restoration of The Amusement Park, and, as the person in charge of the George A. Romero estate, worked closely with author Daniel Kraus on completing unfinished novels like Pay the Piper and The Living Dead. She most recently celebrated the restoration of her favorite of Romero’s zombie films, Day of the Dead, and was hard at work producing the upcoming film Twilight of the Dead.
That passionate advocacy led to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero becoming family to Bloody Disgusting as well.
2023 marked the start of an ongoing partnership between Bloody FM and GARF on The Dead, a scripted audio series spanning multiple seasons that saw Desrocher-Romero working closely with the Bloody FM team and mentoring the series’s contributing writers with GARF. To say her loss will be felt internally is an understatement.
“Anytime George Romero is mentioned is good, because what we are doing is to provide a healthy legacy. We’re uplifting his legacy, we’re supporting the archive, and we’re also supporting the Horror Study Center. So, all of these three things are what the Foundation is striving to do. As far as I’m concerned, the more we say George Romero’s name, the better it is,” Desrocher-Romero recently told BD.
It’s the perfect encapsulation of her unwavering enthusiasm for supporting Romero’s legacy and the horror genre, and just a glimpse at how much she contributed to preserving it. She is, in short, an inspiration.
We send our deepest condolences to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero’s family, friends, and GARF.
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