Exploring: SOV Filmmaker Jon McBride

“At the time I didn’t think anyone but the people involved were going to see [Cannibal Campout] and when it was actually picked up for distribution I was shocked. The fact that it’s achieved any kind of cult status is totally amazing to me. Even after Cannibal [Campout] was distributed I thought only a handful […]

Exploring: La Casa

La casa means the house and there’s an entire series of films with that title are just about as confusing as the Demons movies. It starts so simple and then, as it always does in Italy, gets very complicated. La Casa (1981, directed by Sam Raimi): The American horror film Evil Dead actually did pretty well in Italy. Why […]

Exploring: Elvis Fantasy Flicks

Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper were right: “Elvis Is Everywhere!” So drop your needle on the Dead Milkmen because, we are “Going to Graceland.” Don’t let the rockabilly sounds of Elvis Hitler bum your trip. (Remember, in our Beatles’ movies tribute, we called out the More Fiends for their cover-hybid of Motorhead and the Beatles […]

Exploring: The Films of Maria Konstantynova

Who? The one and only “Evil Woman Creeping from Dark” available on Shutterstock for indie filmmakers of the direct-to-video realms to clip-art into orb-tedium. Courtesy of the investigative entertainment journalism of Felipe M. Guerra, with his article “When the Overuse of Stock Photos Creates an Unexpected ‘Star System’: Familiar faces keep appearing on cheap movie […]

Exploring: Neil Merryweather on Film

Canadian rock singer, bass player and songwriter Neil Merryweather, born on December 27, 1945, recorded and performed with musicians including Steve Miller, Dave Mason, Lita Ford, Billy Joel, and Rick James. He passed away on March 29, 2021, in Las Vegas, Nevada, after a short battle with cancer. Neil Merryweather, influenced by David Bowie with […]

Exploring: The Movies of Don Kirshner

Everyone knows Don Kirshner as “The Man With the Golden Ear” who conceived the music of the Monkees and the animated the Archies, as well as managing ’70s prog-rockers Kansas. Moving into television production, Kirshner also created the MTV progenitors In Concert for ABC-TV and the weekly syndicated Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert as a counter […]

EXPLORING: Bruno Mattei

Why have we spent an entire week on the films of someone who is almost universally critically savaged, who has been called the Italian Ed Wood, who would rather outright steal footage from other movies than shoot them himself? Because Bruno Mattei understood what he was doing, saying “Movies are supposed to be entertaining. So, […]

Exploring: Tawny Kitaen

When one mentions the name Tawny Kitaen (born Julie), the first image that pops into another’s head are the MTV memories of an enchanting “video vixen” oozing alongside David Coverdale in the videos for Whitesnake’s 1987 hits “Still of the Night,” “Is This Love,” and “Here I Go Again,” and then “Fool for Your Loving” […]

EXPLORING: Cliffhangers

In 1979, NBC was looking for a hit. Any hit. When Fred Silverman became president of NBC in June 1978, he immediately ordered sixty pilots for new shows, as he felt that nearly the entire roster of 1978-1979 shows might not make it. Seeing as how he couldn’t start until June after leaving ABC, that […]