An odd bit of trivia about the city's movie history plus a question.
A few years ago, Felissa Rose was doing a fan meet and greet at the now defunct Wildwolf Halloween store. She's got hundreds of film credits but she's most famous for playing Angela in Sleepaway Camp (1983). When we met, she mentioned that Sleepaway Camp first played in Corpus Christi, a bit of trivia she learned from long time movie critic and horror host Joe Bob Briggs who famously has an encyclopedic knowledge of this sort of stuff.
Just now, I was looking at the production history of Spider Baby (1968) which was made by exploitation legend Jack Hill (Coffy, Big Bird House, Foxy Brown, Switchblade Sisters). That was one of Sid Haig's first movies and one of Lon Chaney Jr.'s very last. It was filmed in 1964 but got hung up in before release thanks to a bankruptcy. It finally premiered on Christmas Eve in... Corpus Christi.
So that's two (that I know of) low budget cult classics that debuted down here for some reason. Now the question - is this just a coincidence or was there some theater here that made itself important enough on the first stop list for this grindhouse trash? I haven't been able to find which theater either played at. I'd love to find out more about Corpus's indie theater history.
Also, are there any other fans of trash and obscure cinema fans here?