Bayflicks.net

On one level, Matinee works as a nostalgic comedy, allowing us to laugh at the bad movies and outrageous attitudes of the early 1960’s. But there’s something deeper at work here. Writer Charles S. Haas and director Joe Dante use the premise of a cheap horror film’s small-town preview during the Cuban Missile Crisis to examine the nature of fear. It’s one thing to jump in your seat when the monster leaps out on the movie screen, and then laugh when you realize that it’s only make-believe. But everything changes when nuclear war is imminent outside the theater. And what about the fear of asking out a girl with a violent and jealous ex-boyfriend (even if he does write poetry)? Of course, things can’t get too scary when John Goodman and Cathy Moriarty steal the show as a crafty b-movie producer and his long-suffering girlfriend. And watch for John Sayles as a religious fanatic who might not be what he seems.