Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors

 

Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors. Directors Kerry O Quinn/Mike Hadley. (1986). 

I rented this on VHS back in the day. Just like Terror in the Aisles it gave you a crash course in gore movies. This promotion video showcases the greatest horror, monster special effects make-up magazine in existence (at least to this writer)! 

At first we’re greeted by one of the M.C.'s Mr. Chas Balun who proclaims this is Fango in 3D! Balun if you weren't aware was a writer and film critic for the influential magazine. This man is also the sole reason I discovered so many underground flicks from around the globe. His impact reaches into today's technological world because companies like Grindhouse Releasing and Vinegar Syndrome often churn out upgraded versions of trash Chas bootlegged off a laserdisc and dubbed onto a VHS tape in the 90s. 

Bitchin' 90s high tech shit!

There’s some prime convention nerd people watching in this videotape, which I saw on Internet Archive. The ravenous fans are here to see all the usual Fango faves like Freddy Krueger, Tobe Hooper and Elvira. The con is all presented by publisher Kerry O’ Quinn who wears a cheap looking pastel banded hat. He says "You people seem too normal to be into blood and guts"! "How insulting dude"!

Just took a paycheck, never looked at an issue. Too scary.

When I initially saw this video, I remember thinking they couldn’t show enough Nightmare on Elm Street clips to my satisfaction!

Howard Kaylan from The Turtles even gets Robert Englund’s signature—I shit you not! 

Flo and Eddie more like Flo and Freddy

 

Craig Reardon the FX artist does foam latex appliances on people. His impressive work ranges from Deep Space Nine(1993) to The Gate (1987).

 

Oh, I should mention I spotted Deep Red interview specialist and "shit flix expert" Kris Gilpin in the crowd. Read some of his past reviews here.

Kris is on the right next to someone in a purple jacket.

A young Rick Baker gives advice on breaking into the horror biz. Next we enter the Star Trek portion of the tape. One of my fav random weirdos is Nichelle Nichols former con booker. He's covered in buttons and has two homemade antenna protruding from his head.

I wasted my life (SIGH).

Chekov (Walter Koenig) and son show up and say "They love Monsters", which is just nice! 

John Carl Buechler (1952-2019 R.I.P.) briefly introduces himself as the director of Troll (1986) and we see a clip.I rented the movie he directed at a grocery store in Florida and absolutely loved it! That film has Harry Potter and Harry Potter jr., sound familiar? There are tons of people who saw the sequel first but I'm not one of them. Buechler is so much more to me than merely Troll (86). I love his warped looking Ghoulies (1985), the GPK Movie (1987) and The Cellar Dweller (1988). 

Demonic Toys and Seed People, can't all be gems!

 The stunningly attractive Jewel Shepard gushes over Dan O Bannon’s ROTLD in front of a Young Sherlock Holmes (1986) cardboard ad. Anytime I see O’ Bannon I can’t but think of him as the space hippie in Dark Star (1974). 

I'd jump his bones!

Forrest Ackerman talks about his famous mansion and all the collectables. 

Jenny Aspinal who mentions her first film was The Toxic Avenger (1984, which makes her Toxies mommy)! She just finished Street Trash (1985). Gosh, she’s so talented. Erok dissolves into a puddle of envy and admiration. 

AHHH She's soo fuggin' cool!

Whew, OK I’m back. Next up to the podium is Elvira who thinks Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978) is thee worst flick she’s ever seen. I heard she refused to host Cannibal Ferox (1980) on Thriller vid. Whatever, her loss. 

Quit talkin shit about my woman!

Next is Steve Miner’s House (1985) with William Katt who appears to sign headshots. I love the William Stout designs for Big Ben (Richard Moll's character). Miner seems very cranky and later on ditched horror for shit like Dawson's Creek (1998-03) and (GASP) Soul Man (1986)!

Tobe Hooper who holds a big ass cigar, gives low budget film advice. There are clips of a few shorts films and awards are given. Hooper later on talks about recreating segments from Invaders from Mars (1986). 

Clu Gulager, yet another ROTLD alum speaks. He says horror gives him an erection! Ha!

Alex Gordon, whom I remember as the guy who writes the Pit and Pen articles on classic horror for Fango. Stan Winston is briefly interviewed about the effects. Dick Miller shows up for a few mins. One Freddy Krueger superfan applies their own makeup and mentions how they get an adrenaline high off chasing people in costume.

Yo! I get high on my own supply

I’m glad to see Fangoria evolve into this new LGTBQ plus friendly magazine. It's quite remarkable. I read in Bill Landis’ biography (given to me by my pal Rob Fletcher), that in the late 70's Landis wanted Bob Martin head honcho of Fangoria to allow gay porn reviews. Unc Bob freaked and it soured their relationship. It’s insane how ahead of his time Bill Landis was even if he was kind of a wacko. He was also a gay stunt cock but that’s spoiling the book, read it yourself. 

I love Fangoria with all my heart and soul. I have 3 plastic bins full of 70s. 80s and 90's issues under my bed right now! I wanted to work as Tom Savini's apprentice at some point in my preteens. Support the magazine, be on the right side of history. Watch this time capsule right now I highly recommend YOU GET UNDER THE INFLUENCE BEFOREHAND. 

WATCH HERE

Chas Balun vs Film Threat

CHAS BALUN VS FILM THREAT 

-Erok/Crankenstein

The first time I discovered Chas Balun was through Fangoria. I saw the hypnotic ad featuring the eyes of Christopher Lee from Dracula A.D. 1972 which boasted about “chunkblowers to rip your guts out”. I was thoroughly intrigued and requested a copy of the bootleg catalog, I even ordered the Deep Red delivers shirt and literally wore it until it dissolved off my torso. I was aware of Balun's writing in Fangoria and Gorezone and loved his anarchistic sense of humor and punk/ hippie way of writing. I’d heard all about these Film Threat shit posting letters aimed at one of my heroes Chas Balun. While digging around, I finally found them on archive.org. 

In the letters between Balun and Manfred Jellinski there is some vitriol and shots fired over contracts and illegal duping. We’re talking about VHS tape deck/ foreign laserdisc technology folks, I mean how archaic. But often that’s what TOG is all about so “Be Kind and Rewind” if you dare. 

Jellinski starts off by telling Balun to stop selling his illegal boots of Nekromantik 1 because Film Threat owns the rights. Next Balun offers free promotion for Buttgereit and Jellinski to spread the word about Nekromatik 2 (which was heavily showcased in DR Alert #1). I recall first seeing the grotesque sight of a nude girl, played by Monica M., fondling a realistically dismembered corpse in a bathtub. I myself didn’t become aware of Film Threat until I bought an issue that mentioned Parker Posey. 

Film Threat and Manfred's response.

The vicious letter ends with Chas basically unglued and irked beyond belief. He calls Film Threat, Chris Gore and his mutant twin “punk snitches” and “quasi-porn merchants”. It seems as though he felt caught and says some idiotic things like “I didn’t make all that much money from bootlegging your films”. I guess he should’ve known better but I still gotta side with the big guy. 

They were very unfair and mean spirited in David E. Williams article. Chas sadly comes off like a “caught child” as M. Jellinski puts it and both sides handled this situation poorly. But for Chris Gore/ Charlie Sheen to sic the U.S. Government on Chas when they knew full well that Guinea Pig (1985) was never an actual snuff film, it comes off as a nasty move. Hashtag Winning! 

To me both sides look childish. I always assumed that Jorg and the Deep Red crew were pals, considering Graham Rae (who briefly wrote for FT), took him along on their journey to see Ed Gein’s gravesite. (read here). 

Both parties are sadly from a bygone era of VHS tape traders and for some that dead format had a sudden resurgence in popularity. I myself collect VHS tapes but prefer the cleaned up version the film makers intended us to view. The technology boom to restore anything of cult media had no signs of stopping, just as long as there are rich nerds with deep pockets willing to re-purchase shit they already bought a month ago, with a handy dandy new slip cover! Whoopie-fucking-doo! 

Seriously though without Fangoria, Gorezone, Deep Red Magazine or Psychotronic Video, where would I turn to for sources of all the horror, cult films I treasure? Film Threat never taught me a thing and I noticed how they seem to despise any bootleggers. The underground would still thrive regardless of who they slandered. These hypocrites would publicly shame the victim, even though years before FT sold bootlegs. In the “hatchet-job” piece called “Busted” by David E. Williams, they mention going after a lowlife named Donald Farmer! Read Xerox Ferox to learn more about that zine writer and film maker. 

FT’s opinion goes so far as to say (and this was written in 1992), "Dario Argento. George Romero. Lucio Fulci. Balun viciously stabs them all in the back by pirating their legally available work and selling it for his personal profit". This is way off base and funnily enough somewhat true. I mean I received The Hypnotic Eye (1960) with commercials, it was taped off of some local station. And I could pretend and say “Oh yeah I can just order the KINO blu-ray for 10$ online instead”, YEAH RIGHT! It wasn’t that fucking easy! The only source you had in the 90s was turning to bootleggers and Yes, the quality was horrendous but if you wanted to see them uncut, Chas had your back. 

In 1992, the pristine uncut versions of these impossibly rare flicks didn’t exist yet and you had all the butchered versions of every Italian Horror available! Instead of Tenebre (1982) you suffered through Unsane (1982). 7 Doors of Death (1981) the truncated version of The Beyond (1981) was all that my local Blockbuster carried and when I saw the original version my jaw dropped (read my review here). As for Romero goes, Deep Red sold the extra-long euro-cut of Dawn of the Dead (1978). 

You can dream that America already had every impossibly rare cult movie at our collective disposal back in the day, ones currently are all getting a 4K restoration (whether it needs one or not)! But I was there and it was a struggle for ghoulish film lunatics because we needed our fix. CB was the main reason for my education in rare underground cult trash films and through the chapters of the Deep Red Horror Handbook, I discovered the works of Buddy G, Jim Van Bebber, Roger Watkins and other influential indie film makers. Balun shared and meagerly profited from his collection of laser discs and duped foreign horrors for those who dabbled in the grey market. Does anyone think Film Threat and the team behind Nekromantik's bullying helped matters? I don't and it made both sides look desperate.  

I also find it fascinating that companies like Grindhouse Releasing, Blue Underground, Severin and VS have all restored the picks Chas celebrated in his books and zines. I submit for your "Rod Serling" type approval that it was Balun who ignited to flame and inspired others to secure the rights for proper release. Not only that, he included some films that are still unreleased in his catalog (or ones that have yet to come out like Run and Kill (1993). This man was light years ahead of his time. I’m glad these legit companies were able to decimate the bootleggers and now the licensed, upgraded versions are available but for decades, a 2nd generation dub of The Beyond (1981), LHODES (1972) or Porno Holocaust (1981) was all that existed in the 90s. This is mainly attributed to censorship in the USA, these VHS dupes were pretty much my only source as a suburban kid trapped in Florida with typically generic Blockbusters or Hollywood Video to rent from. OK, my two sources were 16000 and Video Waves (which carried all the Film Threat shit). 

Lately insane HK movies I only knew existed because of the Deep Red Catalog are getting 4K restorations like Burning Paradise(1994), Blue Jeans Monster (1991) and Ebola Syndrome (1996). These are some fucked up movies that I was only aware of their existence through CB, which inspired me to review them. And YES---like Film Threat accused him of selling out the film makers to get stoned on weed and maybe Orange Sunshine, he committed this petty crime. After this incident, Chas stopped selling boots of Buttgereit’s work. I currently own the Film Threat clamshell VHS and Cult Epics owns the rights now. 

Chas wrote so passionately about Nekromantik in the DR Horror Handbook that it made me want to rent the tape. I did buy a bootleg of Bad Taste (1987) and Meet The Feebles (1989) in high school. Do I feel responsible for causing Peter Jackson to struggle before he made LOTR? Ha fuck no! I mean you could make the argument that the internet devoured all forms of pay media, rendering it all free. Unlike the mean article about Chas printed in Film Threat, at least I didn’t read about how paunchy, childish and backstabbing Chris Gore is. Why go there? And who’s really the childish one here? I’ve never been a fan of FT’s condescending tone and thirst to be accepted by the mainstream Hollywood masses. They are not fondly remembered by me at least and these excerpts come off in my mind as “Punching down”. 

In one picture (the one featured at the start), FT brags about harassing Balun on his turf, the Fango Weekend of Horrors! Nice going choads, bothering a legend who’s trying to mellow out! Chas remains a triumphant educator in my film history knowledge and FT, a cringy reminder that not all zines have something important to say.

HERE’S BLOOD IN YER EYE: CHAS BALUN. 1948-2009

 

As many of you folks know by now, I spent my formative teen years growing up in a Midwest landlock. Living in the 80’s. Overweight, misunderstood and glued to a TV, long before the home stereo ever factored in. Sports did not exist. Uncle Don’s Terror Theater and the Son of Svengoolie did. These silly local horror hosts, along with the glory days of video rental brought me new visions of terror weekly. When I wasn’t staring at the tube, drawing monster cars or sitting alone the dark, I was feeding my brains on whatever horror film magazines I could get my chubby/grubby hands on. Too young to hit the first wave of tween scream periodicals like Famous Monsters or the early hands-on/how-to digest Cinemagic; I sprouted up just in time to find Fangoria fresh and bleeding on the shelves. From this I learned the wonders of the straight up gore flick. Local mom-n-pop video stores may have been my temples for grue blasting creature features and slasher worship, but it wasn’t ‘til I picked up that Fango (sometime around the summer of ’83) that I got taught a little bit of history. And even then, I barely respected it. 

Inside these issues were the review columns of a certain "Dr. Cyclops". Mostly the Doc went on about old B&W flicks from Universal, Roger Corman produced drive-in schlock and Hammer-style imports. I would briefly glance over them, linger on the box art images for a minute, then move on to the more important stuff…full color pages of dripping entrails and zombie head explosions. Man, how well I remember the cover of issue #25. The first NEW copy I ever picked up. It had the Videodrome television on the front: guts strewn out, dangling like candy from a rotten and smashed piñata. A TV set, so engorged on this bloody organ buffet, it had burst open from the wet girth. Delightful. Dee-lish. This was what mattered. Who cares about that classical-class or the psychological horror? Not the plus-sized, sweat panted youth of America…that was for damn sure. 

 Dr. Cyclops (whereabouts unknown)

                                             

(issue 25, TV With GUTS where TOG stole their banner from)

                                       

 There was a local comic and games shop (called Tomorrow is Yesterday, for those who care) that I’d force my family to drive me to twice a week. Religiously. A ritual I continued to do solo, well into my college years. Here I snagged up the better digests that existed in the fantasy film realm. Stronger stuff than what mall shop booksellers could offer me. Not just magazines proper, but overzealous rants on xerox (or even mimeographs…remember them, grandpappy?) written by psycho-babbling nutbags like myself. Only older. And with better typing skills. Or at the least, with nicer penmanship. 

Zines enter my picture HERE. Not with music. Not with punk. But with horror and sci-fi fandom. The idea of music rags didn’t rattle my feeble brain ‘til my twenties. No stock pile of Touch N Go, Search and Destroy, or Forced Exposure in my cupboard. No sir. Not yet. It was all film related in the lame “Frankie Says”-era. Most importantly, these new cut-n-paste-ups were studies in the ghastly world of gore. I started to branch out into some classier fare (Midnight Marquee, Demonique) and nerdish lost film worship (Video Watchdog and Psychotronic) as time passed, but these early guts n’ gravy mags always found the soft spot between my ribmeats. And during these fruitful times, one scribe’s pen spoke to me and these vulgar interests more than any other. A big bear of a man, always pictured with disheveled hair and an evil glint in his eye. A man who looked uncannily as rabid as Gunnar "Leatherface" Hansen himself. That man was Charlie “Chas” Balun.

Chas at Fango's Weekend of Horrors.

He was the demonic bruiser behind such sweetly sick pages as Deep Red and The Horror Holocaust, whose writing expressed such glee (and sometimes full-tilt hatred) for these trashy, often forgotten efforts, that it single-handedly jumpstarted my quest for certain holy grails and gutter flicks. A quest that has not ended, even to this day. There was no Leonard Maltin pussyfootin’ around in Deep Red. Films reviewed had accurately been said to “suck farts out of a dead cat's ass” from time to time. That is a direct quote. Look it up. I, as an impressionable youth, wholeheartedly agreed. Don’t mince words. Deliver the groceries. And his black and red offset printed pages did just that. Delivered these goods...in a bodybag. I still have my well thumbed Gore Score review guide. Battered, thumbed and hi-lighted to the point of being illegible. It’s going nowhere. 

 (The illustrious Gore Score (zoom in for clarity)

                                        

                                       

He taught me many things: Herschel Gordon Lewis was KING. The Italians could do ANYTHING better, and on even less of a budget. Dr. Butcher MD was a high bar that all must match in trash cinema. (Well, until I Drink Your Blood finally made its bootleg rounds). And so on. 

Looking back now, I can see we didn’t always gel in agreement. I’m pretty sure he’d rather carve up his own scrotum with broken glass shards than watch any Andy Milligan flick. Shit. Most would. He also burned some bridges with the folks over at Film Threat and the like, selling off unauthorized copies of rare J. Buttgereit films (Nekromantik, Der Todesking, etc.), but it didn’t faze me. I’m no businessman. I’m a fanboy. He wrote novels (Ninth & Hell Street) and screenplays (Chunk Blower) and as time charged on he even put in some hours at the Fango HQ, along with their upstart mags like GoreZone. From what I recall, this did not tame him. He was a frothing zealous creature who stuck out like a sore thumb in the clinically pure Q&A trappings of a national publication. His throw-it-all-in-yer-face style and attitude was so PUNK at the time for horror film reviewing. Or maybe metal. Crossover? Hard to remember these days. Drug out of the 42nd Street sewers and shoved into yer Kroch’s and Brentano’s shopping center mugs, horrifying parents of impressionable kiddies everywhere. Warped me fer good.

 (RF delivers the guts)

                                            

Chas - along with real punk/film buff extraordinaire, Chris D. - are really the only reason I sit here today blathering about movies, music, etc. Balun was an honest to God hero to me. One of the very few. And sadly, no longer with us. 

Just shy of a year by the time you’ll be reading this, Chas finally caved in on his battle with cancer. I was never even aware he was sick. I’ve been out of the loop with these mags and related zines for most of the past decade. I rarely even troll the proper websites ‘cept for when I wanna find out what’s hitting the DVD market. I was casually reading a mid-year issue of the Goth-horror digest Rue Morgue (on the toilet no less…where else?) when I saw his passing mentioned in the editorial. I felt sickly. Like when I found out Ed “Big Daddy” Roth had died. I never met him either, but both were so formative and integral to the genetic make-up of what I am today (not much, but still…). I was heartbroken. Another year has withered away and yet another of my idols had passed. Just like the lame mid-lifer I’m slowly becoming, I cling dearly to my fondest memories. This past that I don’t wanna let go of. I think back to sitting around in high school art rooms photocopying (or cutting up) these magazines for disgusting locker decoration. I think back to standing in the snow, waiting for Pittsburgh metro buses, thumbing through bent issues of Deep Red during my Art Institute years. Reading about the latest Tom Savini f/x blowout or some uncut Japanese laserdisc that offers seconds more splatter to a lost cannibal flick. Hoping to be interviewed by the main Chas-man himself one day. Sorry kid. Ain’t gonna’ happen. Very little effects work for me in these times. And now, worse yet…no Charlie to chat with tomorrow. So I guess this is just me saying goodbye (a year late) to a muse, of sorts. From an unknown friend, fiend, fanatic and follower. To a lesser-scale celebrity whose demise has been grossly overlooked. It’s totally understandable. A lot of genre related greats went down in recent times. Bill Landis of Sleazoid Express for one. Ugh. Ray Dennis Steckler too. Etc… Getting old is tragic and sad and not nearly as gory and violent as most of us gut-busters would have hoped for. I went and dug out the old Deep Red issues and stacked ‘em in the bathroom reading pile. To the left of the commode. Right where they belong. 

Cinema = Sewer.

Just like old times. 

Here’s blood in yer eye. 

R.I.P.

Chas Balun is a legend.

Deep Red Deluxe

Deep Red Deluxe compiled by Chas Balun (1991).

Just like the famed Skunkape trailer for Contamination that I’m about to paraphrase goes “You’ve seen Son of Deep Red Deluxe and you’ve seen Bride of Deep Red, but have you seen the one that started it all”? This time to procure a rare copy of this tape, I excavated the Atari E.T. landfill, ran over some hipsters with a bulldozer and low and behold this video dupe fell into my lap. Oh, and I also wrassled with one of those scissor wielding Hands Across America soulless doppelgangers. And lastly I bargained with the Asian man from Hellraiser that sells the Lament Configuration and he scored me this mind bender.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9h0kUcfGBM

As you can tell, I was maimed in the accident, my limbs were torn off! I had some robot arm technology (used in Empire Strikes Back) performed by an android surgeon and he hooked me up with these handy dandy new didjits. So that’s why it took 3 years to write this.

Once you pop in the tape into the metaphorical VCR It emerges from a door of TV static with a blindingly white trailer for John Carpenter’s The Thing. That aforementioned flick has a noggin scratching tagline, I overlooked before that says “Man is the warmest place to hide”. So, we’re just here to be split open pig on a spit roast style and “Turduckened Taun Taun style?”

I'm so offended!

The Dr. Butcher trailer is another highlight, it features a trailer voice champion, like Don Lafontaine and Percy Rodriguez (the voice of the Loc-Nar) and that’s the criminally under mentioned Adolph Caezar. Adolph is most famous as the Dawn and Day of the Dead trailer voice. He’s also an acclaimed actor in his own right who appeared in The Color Purple and A Soldier’s Story. During the Dr. Butcher trailer, they even play that 8-bit style casio music by Walter Sear from the Snuff Maximus cut.

Remember this Intellivision Dr. Butcher Micro-Surgeon edition?

I’m getting all kinds of flashbacks of the 9^th grade when I first ordered Deep Red Alert #1 from Fantaco, because this tape is the visual equivalent of that issue! There's even a Jim Van Bebber promo reel ad in that zine (most of that cassette is included on this one, so it's a bargain)!

Prior to Jim Van Bebber’s film Manson Family eventually being released on Blu-ray by Severin, this was thee only way you could see a trailer for Charlies Family. It was also released in illustrated script form by Creation books in the UK. I enjoyed it as a solid parody of the Laurence Merrick Manson documentary (which it lifts whole re-enactments from). Check out the review for the Manson film here.

No room for me in that new Tarantino Manson flick?

Marcello Games who plays Charlie and was in one quick moment in Deadbeat at Dawn and vanished before the film was completed. The same thing apparently happened to the actor in Roadkill : The Last Days of John Martin. Van Bebber went through miles of hell to get the film off the ground and it’s commendable. There's something going on with him lately and noone but the man himself can figure it out and I'm not going to try to either.

This VHS compilation might’ve knocked Mad Ron’s Prevues down a peg, had Chas not dubbed trailers from that aforementioned tape he sold separately into this new mix. How can I tell? The shroud of Happy Goldsplatt is hand spliced in periodically.

My Fuggin Weeny fell off again!

The Martin trailer is a great one and shows the flashback footage from the final cut in color.

Patton Oswalt is constantly complaining about how Criterion should re-release that Romero classic with extra features and I couldn’t agree more.

Criterion will put out Tiny Furniture but not add this one to their roster?

Balun and Van Bebber’s trailer for the unreleased Chunkblower is here once again. If only that one was funded to completion. Claude the gear jammin, meathook swingin CB radio psycho could’ve gone down in history as a cross between Red Sovine and Leatherface, but sadly only the trailer remains. His Krueger-esque quip is “There is no why”!

Three on a Meathook is a trailer and film that sadly never surpasses the great title of that dull splatter flick. We get a segment of pre Miramax copyrighted Jackie Chan and or Chinese action cinematic gun and chop em up battles.

The quality and VHS haze makes me grateful but also sad that most of this is up on YT or Amazon in superior HD format.

Some sadistically demented and just plain nasty water sports and Japanese sex footage set to "Ride of the Valkyries" is here for your viewing pleasure. I like the repeated image of a tied up woman in a cage hurled off a building (it’s out there man)! Make sure you light up for maximum viewing!

I'm confused!

More Mad Ron stolen moments ( Thankfully Chas’ head never erupted in brain matter and skull cavity fragments, like that dude who booted the end of video).

He chose Torso and Deep Red just before some choice clips of Mad Dr of Blood island.

Here we get the unfiltered version of the Skinny Puppy vid for "Warlock" that uses footage from a trillion horror movies. Someone on YT actually remixed the video to update it in HD.

If you don’t know the footage they used like Bad Taste or Henry, turn in your horror nerd card forever. It’s fun to see how many you can name.

There's an exploitive local news 2 part segment about how horror films warp teens minds and Chas is interviewed. Most of the interviews are with real kids just after they went to see Hellraiser 2 in the theater. I'm glad my parents never saw this expose about how kids get desensitized because they're able to rent gore movies without adult consent. I snuck watched most of my favorite horror classics!

They also interview Linnea Quigley and Brian Yuzna. Quigley thinks it's bad for kids to see them at an early age. The most appalling scene is where they get a family health center guy (who probably works for Trump now) to show a clip of Ted Bundy. He basically says that if you watch horror movies you'll turn into a serial killer! A lot of that bullshit propaganda was going on up until the early aughts.

there's that accurate journalism for ya!

R.I.P. videostores 

More gratuitous Argento and Fulci trailers are on here even if they are a welcome sight. I have yet to watch that recent Suspiria remake and I'm dreading it. A trailer for The Nesting is here (they do a great job making the movie look good, but I didn't really like the end result). Shadows Run Black (which is a Troma movie) is on prime in HD and Walking The Edge was super boring. The cast in that aforementioned film has Joe Spinell and Robert Forster but it didn't add up to much sadly. Then there's "What Waits Below" and Night School, which I bought from Warner Archives. that last film I remember seeing in flashes on WDZL. All I recalled about it was there was a waitresses decapitated head in a soup pot and people were eating it. This ghastly, through ally enjoyable trip down memory lane is just one of 3 party tapes I've reviewed in the past. They don't make em like this anymore.