Last Updated on August 3, 2021
#1. THE GOLD ROOM (THE SHINING)
I’ve finally set my reading of Kubrick’s THE SHINING in stone: it’s merely an elaborate horror version of the movie ADAPTATION. At a certain point, all we are watching is the fictional adaptation that Jack Torrance, inspired by Stuart Ullman’s historical recounting of the Overlook at the start, is literally writing during his family’s stay in the hotel. The infamous Gold Room scene with Lloyd the Bartender certainly reinforces this theory and could explain the jump from empty ballroom devoid of booze one minute to a roaring 20s party stacked with a full bar the next. Of course, Lloyd also represents a gatekeepers of sorts, a watcher of spirits if you will, that Jack’s twisted soul must negotiate with. Beyond that, the sumptuous enormity of the set and sinister under-light of the bar itself is, like all things Kubrick, nothing short of masterful!
#2. THE TITTY TWISTER (FROM DUSK TILL DAWN)
Far be it from me to interrupt a true poet. So sir Cheech, by all means let her rip: “All right, pussy, pussy, pussy! Come on in pussy lovers! Here at the Titty Twister we’re slashing pussy in half! Give us an offer on our vast selection of pussy, this is a pussy blow out! All right, we got white pussy, black pussy, Spanish pussy, yellow pussy, we got hot pussy, cold pussy, we got wet pussy, we got smelly pussy, we got hairy pussy, bloody pussy, we got snappin’ pussy, we got silk pussy, velvet pussy, naugahyde pussy, we even got horse pussy, dog pussy, chicken pussy! Come on, you want pussy, come on in, pussy lovers! If we don’t got it, you don’t want it! Come on in, pussy lovers!” Let’s alert Sweden, that shite’s Nobel worthy!
#3. THE WINCHESTER (SHAUN OF THE DEAD)
F*ck yeah, let’s hop on over to the Winchester and share a cold pint with Shaun and the gang shall we! You know, Ed, Liz, Mum, Dianne and that spastic nerf-bag David? Yeah the whiny shit-talking bespectacled one? Yeah those guys…it’s party time! Oh wait, eff me, did I fail to mention my man Snake Hips, the slick murderous bigamist with cowboy boots and a toothpick? Hell, while we’re at it, how about that crazy Cockacidal Maniac lady or North London Mafia Al. Too good, right? They all add up to a rag-tag band of perfectly inept misfits ready to fend off an ever-growing mass of flesh-starved zombie interlopers. All set to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” no less? It’s the perfect cocktail, so hand ever your damn mugs and get ready for the next round!
#4. KOROVA MILK BAR (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE)
Ah, who’s up for a cool glass of freshly squeezed titty juice?! Well, leave it up to ol’ Alex and his disreputable clan of Droogs for inviting us into the Korova Milk Bar, a seedily sumptuous set-piece so perfectly and perversely realized by the master, Stanley Kubrick. It’s futuristic and archaic at once, both pallid and colorful, dynamic and (e)motionless in the enrapturing introductory pullback shot Kubrick so marvelously establishes the tone of the film with. Brilliant! The luridness of sexual suggestion and female objectification mixed with the innocence of teenage terrorists sucking back milk like goddamn six year olds, well, it never fails to entertain. Now if only I could pardon Luc or that blond Devotchka to milk my yarbles!
#5. THE SLAUGHTERED LAMB (AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON)
Anyone of you fortunate enough to frequent the coolly recreated Slaughtered Lamb Tavern at Hollywood Horror Nights last year – you know, the seminal English barroom that ignites the lycanthropic lore of AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON? Anyone? Anyone at all? Yeah, me neither. Sad, I know. Even still, as accurate as the HHN attraction was said to be, nothing can take away from John Landis’ memorable movie version, in which a pub of obstreperous English blokes foretell of an ancient curse on their parcel of land. Warnings are heeded, but the portends of abject terror have been laid and it isn’t long before our American heroes are plunged into a moon-lit night of beastly horror.
#6. DORRY’S TAVERN (GREMLINS)
Okay okay, so the barroom itself isn’t all that ghoulish, but come one now, as far as memorably manic horror scenes in which a local watering-hole gets thoroughly ransacked…GREMLINS is the f*cking tits! Props to Joe Dante and the whole Amblin FX team for mixing action, comedy and horror in a blender and whipping up a palatably potent potable for all the masses to consume, even if the movie did conspire to create the PG-13 rating (along with TEMPLE OF DOOM). And no better evidence of the tonal troika than this here scene…it’s silly, frightening, fun, crazy and pulsing with energy all at the same time. We’ve got the neon, the smoke, the popcorn, the card-table, the awful 80s tunes, Phobe Cates pouring drinks, and of course, the legion of hammered gremlins resembling the AITH crew on a night out!
#7. UNNAMED BAR (FEAST)
Ready for a little sustenance to sop up of the sauce? It’s FEAST time! Come on now, what’s more appetizing than Henry Rollins in pusillanimous pink sweatpants, Judah Friedlander’s puss-and-maggot ridden punum, and salty papa Gulager holding down the fort in and old crusty Stetson?! Oh I know, Krista Allen and Navi Rawat’s fines asses, that’s what! Seriously, how dare I almost forget the unnamed bar that gets ferociously marauded in FEAST? After-all, the entirety of the film takes place inside the deserted dive, which much more resembles a gorily dismantled slaughterhouse by the time the flick nears its end. There’s wall-to-wall action from frame one, the bar and its rag-tag bevy of unsuspecting patrons under severe siege the whole f*cking time!
#8. THE BANG BANG BAR (TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME)
Can’t really have a round of high-spirits without David Lynch mixing the elixir. Am I wrong? Right! And while I really want to find away to recall a bar-scene with Bobby Peru’s foul gum-line in WILD AT HEART, it’s all about the red-neon dripping dive THE BANG BANG BAR in TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. What a place! Not only a cool joint to get your swerve on, but think of all the insane shite that goes down here. Abductions, hallucinations, titular contests, dance numbers…the works. I do wonder if Lynch has, and if so, how much, intention to bring the Bang Bang Bar back when the short-lived series shockingly returns after a 25 year absence. Not for nothing, but I hope so…I want a goddamn drink there AND The Pink Room!
#9. LA LOUISIANE (INGLORIOUS BASTERDS)
What’s a shot of booze without QT pouring the punch! Unthinkable. Indeedy, we almost went with the Texas Chili Parlor in DEATH PROOF for that very reason, you know, the Chartreuse and all! But hell, since nobody saw EDEN LAKE the year before, I do believe the larger filmgoing world made their intro to the great Michael Fassbender in La Lousiane – the French basement tavern featured in Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. Sure, not quite a horror flick, but since this scene comes at such a crucial moment in the story, not to mention features more outright action and unremitting violence than any genre piece to begin with (certainly the DEATH PROOF bar-scene)…yup, we’re tipping a tall one back in its honor!
#10. VENUSVILLE RED LIGHT DISTRICT (TOTAL RECALL)
I don’t care if it’s a bar, nightclub, strip-joint, rec-hall, restaurant, or church. When you’ve got a sexy 3-tittied Martian looking to party, you abide! And so it goes friends, whatever you call that f*cked-up-gyp-joint in Verhoeven’s TOTAL RECALL, replete with disfigured Cyclops and Uzi-toting-midget-bitches, you goddamn know it’s receiving a high-toast! What’s great is by the time we actually arrive for the first time at the Red Light District of Venusville (on Mars mind you), we’re riding on the shoulders of Quaid, so we feel just as dizzy and disjointed as he does while dawdling along through the crowded serving area. It’s like we’re tipsy ourselves, intoxicated by the sheer unadulterated sleaze of another world.
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