Confessions of a Monster Movie Agnostic: Part 2
Confessions of a Monster Movie Agnostic: Part 3

By Billy Anderson

PART 3: In the Abbey of Colonia

I suppose all of us, whether Gnostic or Agnostic, need an Abbey: a place where we can commune with the spirits. Rabelais fantasized a magnificent Abbey of Thelema, where the residents lived by Do What Thou Wilt. And, the Gnostic, Aleister (Uncle Al) Crowley made that fantasy into a reality with his own Abbey of Thelema, where the residents did some pretty heavy communing with some pretty heavy spirits.

So it's fitting that a Monster Movie Agnostic should also have an Abbey, where he can commune with the Spirit of Monster Movies, and the Spirit of Cinema in general.

My Abbey was the Abbey of Colonia, the Colonial Theatre. A main Street movie house. This white two story building looked like a Colonial mansion, with its four square columns supporting a front porch over the sidewalk. Some have said that Uncle Al's Abbey of Thelema wasn't quite as elegant as the one described by Rabelais. They even called it "little more than a shanty". I wouldn't go that far in describing the Colonial Theatre building, but it wasn't as elegant as a Colonial mansion should have been.

On the first story, to the left of the movie house, was a storefront, over which there was a second story apartment. Below the marquee was a recessed area, probably only four feet deep, with each end angled, the left end with a movie poster and on the right, the box office. Between the poster and the box office were two adjacent doors which opened into the lobby of the movie theatre which was very small, probably only twenty feet wide and less than ten feet deep. Its center was a concession stand, with swinging doors of the kind seen in saloons in old Western movies on each side, opening into the auditorium. The lobby doors onto main street were kept open during the movie showings and, walking down the sidewalk, you could hear the sound from the film if it was especially loud. The movie house was rather plain, with no curtains around the screen. When the picture was regular width there was no covering up of the extra widescreen area, although it wasn't too much, probably not over four feet on each side.

One of my first Monster Movie Experiences was at the Colonial Theatre, The First Man In Space. This astronaut went up into space but got contaminated by some radiation and came back as a monster who needed blood so bad he'd drink it wherever he could get it, slaughtering cattle or breaking into a blood bank at a hospital. So I first learned of the horrible practice of blood drinking in the Abbey of Colonia. (And there were reports of blood drinking in Uncle Al's Abbey of Thelema).

At first the monster wasn't shown. I just heard his raspy, labored breathing. When he was finally shown for the first time, I was so scared I left the theatre, and didn't come back to see how the movie ended!

There were more monster movies at the Colonial Theatre, but after the terror of The First Man In Space it would be a while before I'd go back to see any of them. I remember seeing the posters for the Hammer's Mummy and The Mysterians, just looking at the posters scared me. Walking down the sidewalk, I remember hearing the music from The Mysterians, since the lobby doors were opened. That was enough for me.

Later on, after I got the balls to go back to see horror movies at the Colonial, I remember The Yellow Canary with Pat Boone. In one scene a man had been strangled and was hanging on a fence. It scared one of my buddies so bad he ran out onto Main Street! But by that time I was a little more adjusted to the Horror Movie experience, so I stayed for the rest of the movie.

But it wasn't just the monster or horror movies that I saw at the Colonial Theatre. I remember it more as a Film Experience in general. That movie house was where I saw the Great American Movie Gone With The Wind for the first time. In most prints, the main title is blown across the screen by the wind from left to right. But this print didn't have the windswept title, just a plain typeface title, which rolled from the bottom to top of the screen. Fans of splatter movies should note the scene where Miss Scarlett shoots the Union soldier in the face (dimmed in some prints). And the soldier, screaming as the doctors prepared to amputate his leg with no anesthetic, was very horrifying.

Genghis Kahn was another one not considered a "horror movie," but it opened with a horrible scene of a prisoner being drawn and quartered. I also remember one summer the projectionist dropped and broke one of the wide screen lenses, so every other reel of the widescreen films were projected in regular width. I especially remember this on Von Ryan's Express, a film with Frank Sinatra, which I thought was pretty good.

The last film I saw in the Abbey of Colonia was the 666 film The Omen, released on June 6, 1976. I suppose Uncle Al would find that very appropriate, since he called himself "666". That summer was the last one for the movie house.

I could go on and on telling about the Colonial Theatre, but I won't. The building is still standing, although the front porch was removed many years ago. The theatre part is now a trophy engraving shop. The upstairs apartment has been recently demolished, although the storefront, which over the years was a bicycle shop, Italian restaurant, and optometrist’s office is still intact, although not occupied right now.

I hope that building stays there for the rest of my life, but even-if it were demolished today, it will forever remain a part of the Heart and Soul of this Lonely Dreamer and Monster Movie Agnostic.