I was on For God’s Sake Get Out: An Amityville Podcast talking about all things Amityville. Mostly Amityville Prison. But you know me. I can talk Amityville for a long time.

Listen here or use the player.

Next Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm EST, Erica Shultz will be drawing from her book The Sweetest Taboo: An Unapologetic Guide to Child Kills in Film to take a sharp-witted, irreverent approach to a subject that has made critics and censors clutch their pearls for decades.

Through film clips, historical context, and a healthy dose of gallows humor, this talk will dissect the genre biases, cultural contexts, and hypocrisies that dictate what is considered too far. Different cultures and historical moments have shaped how filmmakers portray child mortality, from the transgressive violence of Italy’s “Years of Lead”-era cinema to the reactionary moral panics of 1980s America. In Hong Kong cinema, shifting political landscapes before and after the Handover influenced the framing of youthful innocence—and its destruction.

Meanwhile, Hollywood’s unwritten rules dictate when a child’s death serves as tragedy, retribution, or exploitation. Mainstream, critically acclaimed films have long used child mortality as an emotional weapon, while horror films are branded exploitative for doing the same. Violent child deaths in action movies may remain PG-13, while horror films with similar content are punished with an R or NC-17. This conversation will also explore the difference between “Killer Kids” and “Killing Kids,” examining why a murderous child’s death in Pet Sematary, Mikey, or Who Can Kill a Child? is more palatable than the death of an innocent.

Beyond genre and censorship, the internet’s ever-growing influence has reshaped audience reactions, amplifying social media outrage and recontextualizing past films through contemporary lenses. Expect a lively discussion, controversial examples, and an unapologetic look at one of cinema’s most enduring taboos. If you’ve ever laughed, gasped, or cringed at an onscreen child kill, this is the class for you.

Erica Shultz is the co-host of the Unsung Horrors podcast, which focuses on horror films with fewer than 1000 views on Letterboxd. She has contributed booklet essays, visual essays, and commentary tracks for various boutique Blu-ray labels such as Vinegar Syndrome, Severin, Terror Vision, Fun City Editions, and Cinephobia releasing. Her 2024 self-published book The Sweetest Taboo: An Unapologetic Guide to Child Kills in Film categorizes and reviews nearly 1200 films that depict a child death. She is currently working on a second volume, and living blissfully child-free in Austin, Texas.

You can learn more here.

It Came From Texas is a feature-length documentary that dives headfirst into this untold story. Through interviews with filmmakers, actors, critics, and fans, plus rare footage and behind-the-scenes treasures, we’ll celebrate the creators who proved that you don’t need Hollywood to make movie magic — just grit, guts, and maybe a bucket of fake blood.

Texas is home to some of the strangest, most unforgettable B-movies ever unleashed on late-night TV, drive-in screens, and straight-to-VHS shelves. From the cult catastrophe of Manos: The Hands of Fate to gems like Blood Suckers From Outer Space, The Nail Gun Massacre, and Don’t Look in the Basement — the Lone Star State has carved its own wild legacy in the world of cult cinema.

To learn more, click here.

I just got this in my email and wanted to share it with you!

“We’ve embarked on our latest film adventure — Echoes — a new story that revisits the dark and imaginative world first glimpsed in Despiser. Our modest Kickstarter campaign is now live, and we’d love for you to be part of bringing it to life.

Your support can help us finish the film — and you can even claim a few Despiser props before they’re gone, or see your name appear in the credits!

Echoes of Dread introduces a new heroine, Samantha Rainer, a social media “View-Tuber” with a devoted following. In her quest to explore the macabre, she stumbles into a nightmare world…and accidentally unleashes it. Now, Samantha must find a way to put the genie back in the bottle — with the help (and hindrance) of old and new allies — as she fights for her life.

Our Kickstarter campaign runs for only a few more weeks, so please check it out today and consider joining us on this next cinematic journey.”

Cook says that this film is “peripherally connected to Despiser. It’s not a gonzo car-chase shoot ’em up, but rather a darkly quirky dip into some of Despiser’s themes—and a few of its surviving characters.”

Get on that Kickstarter now, there’s just a few days to go!

Visual Vengeance has more movies and I can’t wait! You can learn about all of the other Visual Vengeance releases here.

Ozone: Attack of the Redneck Mutants: When a toxic chemical spill tears open the ozone above rural Texas, backwoods locals mutate into drooling, slime-choked ghouls with an insatiable appetite for flesh. Environmental science student Arlene and hitchhiker Kevin stumble into the madness as small-town life collapses into a grotesque carnival of green vomit, yellow pus, and blood-soaked carnage. Dubbed dialogue, surreal padding, Americana weirdness, and gallons of inventive practical gore make Ozone unforgettable and stomach-churning. Director Matt Devlen’s infamous Super-8 splatter oddity–sister film to Bret McCormick’s The Abomination–remains a true DIY regional relic, long overshadowed by its limited VHS release in the late ’80s. Now, for the first time on Blu-ray, this Special Edition features deleted scenes, outtakes, lost short films, rare images, and fresh extras with the original creators.

It has a new director-approved SD master from original tape elements, plus two commentary tracks, one by producer Bret McCormick and star Blue Thompson and another with commentary with Sam Panico of B&S About Movies and Bill Van Ryn of Drive-In Asylum. Hey that’s me!

Plus you get a new Blue Thompson interview, an Ozone and The Abomination location visit, deleted scenes and outtakes from producer Matt Devlen’s personal archives, a Muther Video VHS intro reel, interviews with Devlen, a short film, acting reels, a public access review, a podcast, an image gallery, a trailer for Tabloid, Visual Vengeance trailers, a “Stick Your Own” VHS sticker set, a reversible sleeve featuring original VHS art, a folded mini-poster, a limited edition O-Card with alternate art by The Dude, a 12-page mini-comic book, an Ozone mutant puke bag and a Muther Video logo stick. You can get tjis from MVD.

Violent New Breed: A vicious new street drug called Rapture is flooding New York City, and two burned-out cops are sent to trace its source. What they don’t know is that the poison was cooked up by an army of demons festering beneath Manhattan–creatures who have also birthed the Antichrist! Now it’s a race through sleaze-soaked streets with Satan’s spawn in tow, hoping to deliver the hell-baby to the last Pastor in the city (blaxploitation legend Rudy Ray Moore) for a baptism before it unleashes hell on earth. The most ambitious, unpredictable effort from SOV auteur Todd Sheets, Violent New Breed swings for the fences, weaving clashing storylines, a sprawling cast, and Sheets’ trademark splatter and monster effects. Featuring drug deals, crooked cops, strip clubs, rituals, possessed kids and slimy births, the film channels the late-80s “satanic panic” and mixes it with Sheets’ raw camcorder fury and homemade charm, creating a cracked vision of a post-apocalyptic world that plays like a summer blockbuster from another dimension. Available for the first time on Blu-ray with over 12 hours of new and archival bonus content including four versions of the film.

This is a new director-approved, remastered SD master version from original tape elements with the plternate original DVD version, an alternate R-rated version as aired on The Movie Channel and an alternate original VHS release version. There are three commentary tracks, interviews, behind the scenes docs, the Q&A from the Nitehawk Cinema showing, news coverage, uncut sequences, a booklet with liner notes by Tony Strauss of Weng’s Chop Magazine, Visual Vengeance trailers, a reversible sleeve featuring original VHS art, a folded mini-poster of original Ghana art by Heavy J, a Ghana poster by legend Heavy J and a Birth Announcement’ vintage reproduction. Get it from MVD.

Date With a Vampire:Violet is a vampire who hungers for sexual pleasure as much as her victim’s blood. By night she prowls the city, luring both men and women into her web of lust and murder. Her latest unsuspecting prey, Chuck, is a lonely young man she meets in a smoky bar and draws into her orbit with a mix of charm, sensuality, and mystery. But what begins as flirtation soon becomes a hypnotic seduction–leading him straight into her bed and trapped in her world of erotic indulgence and eternal hunger.
Produced during the booming heyday of the shot-on-video era, Date with a Vampire captures a unique moment when softcore erotica and horror overlapped on the shelves of late-1990s and early-2000s video stores. Directed by Jeffrey Arsenault (creator of the cult vampire favorite Night Owl), written by prolific filmmaker Kevin J. Lindenmuth (Addicted to Murder), and featuring an appearance by cult east coast horror actor Joe Zaso (5 Dead on the Crimson Canvas), together they craft a stylish, lo-fi vampire tale that perfectly captures the raw, experimental creativity of New York’s no-budget horror scene of the time. First time ever on blu-ray and includes bonus SOV erotic horror film Blood Craving.

This features an SD master from original tape elements, commentary with director Jeffrey Arsenault; interviews with Arsenault, Kevin J. Lindenmuth, Cynthia Polakovich and Joe Zaso; location videos; an image gallery; an original trailer; commentary and interview on Blood Craving with Jeffrey Arsenault; an After Midnight Entertainment: trailer reel; Visual Vengeance trailers; a reversible sleeve featuring new Blood Craving art; a dflded mini-poster and a limited Edition O-Card by Rick Melton. Get it from MVD.

Highway to Hell: Convicted mass-murderer Toby Gilmore has escaped from prison, and the open desert becomes his playground for sadism and destruction. Determined to stop him after failing to execute him years earlier, officer Earl Dent (Richard Harrison) sets out on a relentless pursuit that turns into a deadly game of cat and mouse. But Gilmore has taken a hostage — Fran Tucker, a young woman caught in the wrong place at the worst possible time. As the chase hurtles across backroads and wastelands, Dent closes in, each mile bringing he and Gilmore closer to an explosive reckoning on the highway to hell. Shot in rural Texas, Highway to Hell stands as a prime example of the regional, low-budget filmmaking that fueled America’s video boom of the 1980s and ’90s. Originally released on VHS via Rae Don Home Video, the film showcases director Bret McCormick (The Abomination, Repligator), a key figure in the Texas exploitation underground, whose raw energy and ingenuity turn poverty row resources into a fast-paced, sun-baked thriller that captures the true spirit and grit of independent genre cinema. First time ever on Blu-ray and includes bonus SOV feature film, Redneck County Fever (1992).

Made from an SD master from original tape elements, this has a commentary and interview with director Bret McCormick; interviews with Blue Thompson, Richard Harrison, Gary Kennamer and Tom Fegan; an image gallery; a commentary track and interviews on Redneck County Fever with Bret McCormick and Gary Kennamer; Visual Vengeance trailers; a “Stick Your Own” VHS sticker set; a reversible sleeve featuring original VHS art; a folded Redneck County Fever mini-poster and a limited edition O-CARD featuring original poster art. You can get this from MVD.

September Drive-In Super Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre, September 19 and 20, 2025. Two big nights with four feature films each night include:

• Friday, September 19: Mark of the Devil, The Sentinel, The Devil’s Rain and Devil Times Five
• September 20: The Omega Man, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Grindhouse Releasing 4K restoration drive-in premiere of S.F. Brownrigg’s Scum of the Earth and Eaten Alive

Admission is $15 per person each night (children 12 and under – accompanied by an adult guardian – are admitted free). Overnight camping is available (breakfast included) for an additional $20 a person per night. Advance online tickets (highly recommended) for both movies and camping here: https://www.riversidedrivein.com/shop/

Fell Out of Heaven

• 1 oz. amaretto
• 1 oz. Malibu rum
• 1 oz. Midori
• 6 oz. pineapple juice

1. Pour all ingredients over ice. Stir and say these words: “O Mighty light and burning flame of comfort, enter this body and cleanse it of its unworthy soul.”
2. Drink.

For the second night:

Poor White Trash Part II AKA Drunk Is a Family Affair

• 1.5 oz. tequila
• 1 oz. Cointreau
• .5 oz. lime juice
• 1.5 oz. pomegranate juice
• Pinch of salt

1. Mix all ingredients in a shaker, except the salt.
2. Pour over ice and place a pinch of salt in.

I’m always looking for more writers to be part of the site. Sure, it doesn’t pay, but I’m willing to let you write about just about any movie that you want to, at any length and in any style or format. The site gets around 1,200 visitors a day, and I share the reviews on Letterboxd, IMDB, Amazon, Rotten Tomatoes, Facebook and Twitter, so your work will get an audience.

For October, the prompts are:

Chiller Theater: Movies that played on Pittsburgh’s Chiller Theater.

Horror Gives Back: Follow the link for prompts to be part of Unsung Horror’s annual event while helping animals.

Scarecrow Video Psychotronic Challenge: The yearly event of the largest video store in the world.

The Important Cinema Club Super Scary Challenge: 31 days of deep cut horror prompts.

For November, the prompts are:

Mill Creek Legends of Horror: Every November, I try to make it through a 50-movie box set from Mill Creek. Please help!

Kaiju Day: Every Thanksgiving, I post 24 or more kaiju films. Share your favorites!

You can always send your pitch my way, and I’ll see if it fits the site.

If you want to be part of the site, just email me at bandsaboutmovies@gmail.com. I look forward to having you write for us and am easy on deadlines, have no limit on word count and am really excited to help you either get a new audience for your site or write about movies for the first time.

On this week’s episode of the audio and video podcast, Phillip is joined by Sam Panico from B and S about Movies podcast and Groovy Doom’s Drive-In Asylum on YouTube to discuss 1947’s On The Old Spanish Trail directed by William Whitney. They start the show by discussing the shows they are watching on TV, and then Phillip reads the general information about the movie, incorporating some interesting facts along the way. Then they begin to discuss Roy Rogers, TV westerns and the film itself. It is a fun conversation that goes all over the place, and that’s what happens when Sam joins Phillip on the show.

You can listen to this episode here or on any other podcast platform.

Back in early 2023, in the middle of SOV mania, I found the film Song of the Sword on the Internet Archive, thanks to Demolition Kitchen. It obsessed me — a rare movie that it seemed that no one else had seen with no Letterboxd or IMDB entry. I wrote about it, entered it into both of those sites and even hunted down a lot of the cast and crew.

Imagine my surprise when Joel Sanderson, who is Demolition Kitchen, reached out about a revised version of the film.

Last weekend, the film played for audiences for the second time — the first in forty years.

Here’s what the Lawrence Times had to say:

Song of the Sword, a 1986 local sword-and-sorcery movie, has been lovingly re-edited for a fresh premiere at Liberty Hall.

The movie, directed by J. Stanley Haehl, was filmed entirely in Kansas by a primarily Lawrence-based cast and crew under the banner Abraxas Productions. Its narrative draws influence from many of the classics that are still loved today: Tolkien, Arthurian legend and the Tom Baker era of Doctor Who.

Maria Anthony, who co-wrote the script and starred in the film as a warrior named Kalydia, said the movie had a single screening at KU’s student union upon release. Although it won an award, she wasn’t aware of any further showings.

According to Anthony, film enthusiast Sam Panico kickstarted the film’s modern revival with a review on his blog, “B&S About Movies.”

“Imagine, if you will, LARPers — Live Action Role Playing — but on a much larger scale, filmed by video camera, fuzzy drained video colors coalescing to give us wanderers with walking sticks in the woods, primitive video effects in the place of computer generation magic and best of all, everyone is so serious about it,” Panico wrote in the review.

Anthony said Panico was intrigued by the semi-lost film and wanted to see it rejuvenated for a modern audience. That’s where Joel Sanderson, operator of Demolition Kitchen Video, stepped in to provide his editing expertise.

Under the Demolition Kitchen banner, Sanderson is a “budget video producer, audio-visual technical designer, public access movie host, and musician,” according to his Facebook page. He also documents a diversity of Kansas-made media through an Internet Archive account.

Sanderson has long been interested in collecting and researching Kansas-made films. When he moved to Lawrence in 1989 and began working at the KU Film Library, he learned of “Song of the Sword” from his coworker, Mark Zumalt, the movie’s cinematographer.

Sanderson toyed with showing the film on his Sunflower Cable public access show around 2007, but figured it needed to be condensed — the original video clocks in at a healthy 1 hour and 57 minutes run time. The new edition showing at Liberty has since been shortened by Sanderson’s discerning eye.

“All I did was cut it for time, tighten things up, and the only other thing I added was I enhanced some of the sound effects, too,” Sanderson said. “And, you know, enhanced the colors and made it look more dreamy in a way. It’s from an original VHS tape, so it’s not going to be pristine, 4K quality.”

Sanderson reported that a recent test-run of the footage looked “really good on the screen” at Liberty.

Sanderson was also drawn to the project because he felt an ‘80s sword-and-sorcery regional film would stand out in a local movie scene dominated by horror films. Out of the thousands of regionally made movies, he estimates that very few are high fantasy.

The work required for this type of cinema, replete with elaborate costuming and magical effects, was driven part by passionate willpower and part by sheer luck.

“We cast our friends and closest companions,” Anthony said. To cast the sorcerer Adroma, she added, “We went up to this pretty lady in the student union and said, ‘Do you want to be in a movie?’ That’s kind of dicey now, but again, there was no budget.”

Clark Jamison played Shan-Ra in the film, a noble, guiding character invested in the power of words. Jamison recalls self-funding what he could of the project, including costumes created by Anna McCoy, editing software and lodging during two days of shooting at the Coronado Heights castle.

“We all stayed in (one) motel room for a night or two while we shot there,” Anthony said, laughing at the memory.

With 40 years gone by, she was happy to hand over creative reins for the 2025 special edition.

“There was no motivation or plan on my part (to re-edit the movie),” she said. “It was all these other people, and I think that’s perfectly appropriate at this point, that it be more fan-driven, creator-driven.”

Ultimately, every moment of viewing is imbued with the whimsy and fantastical interests of the cast and crew.

“This movie makes me feel like everyone in this is really into symphonic metal, BDSM, polyamory or painting miniatures,” Panico wrote. “Maybe and instead of or.”

Here are a few cool things from that showing:

This was such an exciting project to be part of. Thanks to everyone who made such a great movie and to Joel for being a champion of getting it back out there!