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This July, as we find ourselves subjected to the annual bout of flag-waving fervor surrounding our country’s Independence Day, Spectacle Theater invites you to take part in an exploration of another side of American history. A history not written by its “victors”, as the adage goes, but by those at the fringes of our culture, lacking the visibility, political capital, or sheer amount of money needed to reach a wider audience. In the annals of American cinema, few filmmakers have so thoroughly embodied that distinct lack of characteristics more than self-proclaimed “schlockmeister”, Larry Buchanan.
Over the course of his career, Buchanan developed a reputation as a purveyor of low-budget sci-fi and horror, mostly intended for consumption at cheap drive-ins and on late-night television. A deeper dive into his work, though, shows a filmmaker with a deep fascination with American history and popular culture, underscored by a healthy contrarian perspective. Aside from his trademark sci-fi/horror schlock, Buchanan was probably best known for his streak of social issue films, biopics, and historical dramas that recontextualized real-life events in fantastical scenarios. His politics were often foregrounded in these works, which, when combined with his quick & dirty approach to production, resulted in films that ranged from the unintentionally radical— like a courtroom drama centered around Lee Harvey Oswald, produced and released less than six months after the Kennedy assassination— to the outright conspiratorial— like a musical biopic that implicates Richard Nixon in the deaths of multiple 60s musical icons.
Collectively, these films comprise a sort of alternate history of 20th-century America, one committed to exploring different dimensions of major historical events and figures that fall well outside of their traditional narratives. Whether dealing with Lee Harvey Oswald, Marilyn Monroe, or the Vietnam War, these are works that could only have been conceived of by a filmmaker in pursuit of his own specific idea of truth. This is America, through the eyes of Larry Buchanan.