If you were to watch Alice Cooper’s 1975 concert film, Welcome to My Nightmare, you might be surprised by how many unitards are in your eyes, and right away. There are a lot of unitards. The dancers are wearing hooded silver ones in the opening sequence, during which a transparent Alice emerges from his own grave in a white—yes—unitard. You can totally see his pickle and grapes.
Soon, Alice changes into a torn-up red unitard with black suspenders superfluously attached to its waist area to sing “No More Mr. Nice Guy.” This is just before two of his dancers, in skeleton unitards and white bow ties, pretend to be Punch and Judy puppets in a giant toy box before they add top hats to their ensembles and dance the vaudevillian “Some Folks” number. What’s heavy metal, again? Oh, that’s right. In 1975, it was still being invented.
I grew up with Alice Cooper’s gaunt, specific silhouette lurking in the background of the pop culture I was exposed to on a regular basis. The Muppet Show, MTV, and the ubiquitous horror films of the ’80s all seemed to feature Alice, or at least, references to Alice; I knew who he was way before I ever heard any of his songs. I don’t remember if I ever thought he was scary, I just knew he was a HEAVY METAL ROCKER. The riding crop, snake, and leather harnesses were signifiers that he was heavy metal, and not for Tom of Finland super-gay stuff.
I hadn’t really thought about Alice Cooper since Wayne’s World (I still pronounce Milwaukee “Milli-walk-AY” in my head). But recently it became clear, at least in my small corner of the world, that Alice was still skulking around. I had asked listeners of my podcast, How Was Your Week, to send in suggestions of songs I should sing at a show I do. They began sending me YouTube links to his live performances from the ’70s. Filmed performances of Alice with his band from the Love It To Death era hit all of my glam theatrics buttons. He wasn’t as pretty as Bowie or as punk as Iggy, and his music wasn’t even close to being as original or angry as anything like the MC5. But Alice did his thing with a uniquely all-American scuzz, and the way he wore his scrawny, swarthy body like an evening gown totally captivated me. Shortly after that, I saw a doc called Super Dooper Alice Cooper, and, while the film wasn’t perfect (I could have used more golfing footage), I knew I was in love.
Some backstory behind Welcome to My Nightmare: Alice Cooper had emerged from rehab, split with his band, and wanted to make a splash with his new, sober, solo act. In concurrence with the release of the Welcome to My Nightmare album, director and choreographer David Winters, the genius behind groovy TV specials like Movin’ With Nancy and Raquel! put a stage show together with Alice that would eventually become a TV special and film release.
On his website, Alice Cooper claims to be the first mainstream rocker to incorporate horror imagery into his act. And no horror trope was too broad for him to mine as muse: skeletons, spiders, bad dreams, graveyards and Vincent Price all play enormous shadow-casting roles in Welcome to My Nightmare; in the case of Price, years before “Thriller” was even a sparkle in Quincy and Michael’s collective eye.
I have seen this special many times. I own it on VHS. It displays all the criteria I consider essential when it comes to filmed entertainment: it takes itself far too seriously, it’s theatrical on the scale of a circus or a Ben Vereen Tonys performance, and also there’s a giant fake spider. I am a sucker for Bad Ideas Executed On a Giant Scale, and I also happen to enjoy when things that are supposed to be scary, aren’t really scary.
When Alice Cooper is on stage, I can’t take my eyes off him. The way he holds his skinny, slouched body like he has the confidence of an acrobat. The way he will stand there without an instrument and sometimes even without a snake or a cane, and it never seems like he needs anything more to do. He moves with a grace that somehow doesn’t jibe with his weak-chinned, gawky physique. It’s a joy to watch that body move around in a spandex onesie or a white tuxedo—not necessarily an erotic joy, but it’s hypnotic and thrilling. His is a beautiful ugliness, a 1970s skinniness, the slouch of a goon with the swagger of a rooster.
I don’t care that Alice is, since his second bout in rehab, a born-again Christian who votes Republican. I don’t care that the first time I heard his music I thought to myself, “Eh.” Now, I pledge allegiance to the giant black widow spider on stage that enters at the top of the Welcome to My Nightmare special while Alice is still sing-screaming, “Get Ready for the Lady!!” in the preamble to “Black Widow.” I tap my toes to “Some Folks” while Alice’s dancers (one of whom he would go on to marry!) manipulate their white top hats and canes. I worship his messiah complex as though it bled from the palms of the actual messiah in his Jesus-iest song yet, “Second Coming.” And I pshaw anyone who dare suggest the domestic violence-themed ballad, “Only Women Bleed,” is anything but fiercely feminist.
By the end of Welcome to My Nightmare, my fist is in the air alongside the fists of scores of mulleted 15-year-old boys in 1975, connecting deeply with something deeply silly. Perhaps what was meant for teenagers starving for ersatz darkness in 1975 has been aged into catnip for theater queens in their mid-thirties. I just know that, considering his charisma, I’m glad Alice Cooper isn’t a politician. I’d have to vote Republican.
