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BLOOD & POPCORN

By Brian Thomas December 20, 2001

It's a nostalgic joyride back to the '80s in BLOOD AND POPCORN.
© 2001 iUniverse.com

To anyone else, it sounds like a living hell. It's sometime in the mid-1980s. You work as a restock clerk in a chain book store, in a lower-end mall in a nondescript suburb of Nowhereville. You're 25, a community college drop-out, and you live with your mother in a tiny apartment. Dull. Depressing. Soul-stifling.

But to P-Man - first-person protagonist in Perri Pagonis' semi-autobiographical novel - things are looking better all the time. He gets to take home all the paperback "returns" he can carry, which makes his mom and the ladies in her office happy. Once a week, they live it up with a massive fast food dinner, there's some good shows on TV every night, and every weekend Count Gore DeVol shows a great old horror movie on channel 20.

And things just get better from there. He finds out that his crush on Tina, the cute photo shop girl, is mutual, which leads to all kinds of adventures. The Scoops caf� names a hot dog after him. The manager of the cineplex asks P-Man and his friends to help plan his midnight movie nights. And - wonder of wonders - a video store opens next to the book store.

Like AMERICAN GRAFFITI and FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, BLOOD & POPCORN is one of those stories that keeps hitting all kinds of little nostalgia buttons, and this was one that really did it for me. P-Man shares that awesome feeling that only came to folks that lived through the '80s, when home video was a wild new thing. You could actually go out on a Friday night and still watch a movie you wanted to catch on TV. You could go to a store and rent what seemed like an unlimited stockpile of amazing movies, and watch them anytime you want. You could rewind your favorite scene and watch it again. It was ambrosia.

The excitement builds to a climax with the premiere of the Skyline 6 Theaters' Cult Movie Fridays, with everyone in costume and Count Gore DeVol himself participating as Master of Scaremonies. This real-life horror movie host is still operating in the Washington, DC area, and it's great to have this among Pagonis' many slices of Americana recorded in glowing prose.

The only antagonistic factor in the tale comes when one of P-Man's less favorite acquaintances makes some disparaging remarks about mall queen Tina in a bar - a situation P-Man handles with steady composure and Zen wisdom. T-Girl's a sex kitten - of course she has a past. What could you expect?

P-Man's amusing, stop & smell the rose-colored glasses attitude is definitely contagious. Don't you remember when the simple triumphs and surprises of life gave you a kick? Aren't there things happening right now that give you a little pleasant satisfaction? Say, this Taco Bell seven-layer burrito is really good. Wow, it sure is nice to have a watch that's just right for me, and actually keeps pretty good time. Hey, I missed the bus, but the weather's fine, and I can smell the donuts baking in the shop across the street.

BLOOD & POPCORN doesn't just capture a time, but an attitude as well. It takes you back to those days when burning ambition wasn't too hot to handle, and the color of the grass on your side of the fence was coming along just fine.