Diani & Devine, How Hollywood Sucks, and One Reason to Be Hopeful
The comedy team of Diani & Devine have created two exceptional and hilarious feature films. Check them out!
Philosophy
A Pair of Pliers and a Blowtorch
Quentin Tarantino rips off other filmmakers liberally. I discuss ‘pair of pliers and a blowtorch.” But what’ terrible is that people don’t see these films.
Is Psychotronic Film Relevant?
So much of what comes from Hollywood today would, by many definitions, be psychotronic. I don’t count them as psychotronic. Partly because they’re boring.
Maggie Mae Fish and the Problem With the Better Critics
Maggie Mae Fish is an actor, producer, and writer. She is also a YouTube film critic. She is generally quite insightful when it comes to analyzing mainstream films. Even when she provides ridiculous takes, I find them interesting. Where she fails is anytime she mentions lower-budget films. I’ve seen this a number of times where … Read more
Saws, Self-Harm, and Horror Comedy
I just watched Dead Snow again. I really like it. There’s something incredibly compelling about its total lack of tone consistency. Here’s a deadly serious scene. Here’s a silly scene. As I wrote in Short Takes, “It’s two halves of the perfect zombie picture.” One of the silliest scenes is where Martin gets bitten by … Read more
Who Mourns for Arch Hall?
I just went to see The Mads Are Back (Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff) of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame. They are doing live shows where they riff to low budget films. Last night it was The Choppers — the film Arch Hall Sr made before his more famous Eegah. As can doubtless be guessed, … Read more
The Lie in The Human Centipede Trilogy
I have not seen any of The Human Centipede films. Normally, I would. But I don’t even like fart jokes. Scatological material makes me sick just to think about. As a result, this rumination is based on reports, not actual viewing. I’m more than open to publishing any positive posts or pages on any of … Read more
Money, Vision, and Psychotronic Film
There is an interesting distinction between exploitation filmmakers. There are those who are just in it for the money — people like Herschell Gordon Lewis. And then there are visionaries (who were often con men) who would do whatever they could do to get their ideas on film — people like Ed Wood. It doesn’t … Read more
Toward a Definition of Psychotronic Film 2: Content
In my last article on this subject, Toward a Definition of Psychotronic Film, I discussed what I considered the three different kinds of psychotronic films: true, independent, and Hollywood. In this article, I want to discuss the importance of content in psychotronic film, because more and more, I think that’s probably the most important aspect … Read more
So Bad It’s Good? So Good It’s Great!
I think that the psychotronic film community can roughly be divided into two: the “serious” camp and the “so bad it’s good” camp. By “serious,” I mean that these people take the films seriously. They certainly will laugh at things from time to time, but they understand when watching a low-budget film that if something … Read more