Don't Panic | American Genre Film Archive + Shock Waves Podcast

hi welcome to this live episode of shockwaves I'm Rob galuzzo said Hanks Emmys Rebecca McKendree hello hurricane is in the can I think but we'll make note of that when he returns and if you're unfamiliar we're weekly oh whoa I'm sorry I thought Ernie was waving at me I already Ernest you're with us two guys we were weekly hard talk show podcasts where we talk about wacky movies like this new movies interview people and we've had a guy on the show before or at least we've had gel on the show before and and Brett before I've been on multiple iterations of our show including killer pervy the previous one but for for our listeners at home if you guys wouldn't mind introducing yourselves in your role you don't roll with AXA and then we'll delve into this wacky movie we just watched so we'll start with Bret I'm Bret burg I'm head of theatrical sales for Agfa I'm Joe Ziemba and the director of Agfa Alicia Coombs head of business affairs sebastian del castillo head of film preservation and we have just viewed 1988 don't panic which I tried to research the history of this film and legit there's like not much available online so what can you guys tell us about the backstory of this one I think the first thing that people usually ask us is where can I get some of those wild dino PJ's how have you not merchandised that yet my side right sure here I don't know if like and but they totally look almost identical but they're in like three T so yeah I don't know where I could get an adult pair and you assume because he wore them through most of it there's a lot of blood work like they had to have like quadruples of those jammies for this shoot so yeah I need to know where to get a pair yeah we don't know we've tried like two decades it's it's really they don't exist I don't know L Rick Cain has returned from the camel oh I'm sorry baby I just that's why I went to the bathroom so I could do that now I'll work and I have not seen this movie had it how do you feel about it I thought it was more entertaining than a couple of the night round street sequels and somehow less ludicrous than soul man I don't know how that's possible given that so man is the most ludicrous of 80s coming but I actually think what I like most about it weirdly enough is it might be the first film I've ever seen like the movies like pieces they're set in America even though they're shot in Italy or wherever and they go you know they put American flags everywhere they can I love that this one just leads with oh I'm going to Mexico now for and I don't think and then everything is an American trip after that effect and so it's like it's kind of perplexing but I kind of love that about it it was like a really weird line and culture mix I thought so I don't think I've seen that in that especially not on a slasher film before so that's cool yeah I mean I mean I think that runs through a lot of Mexican genre cinema because I think that they always start in a place where Western culture is influencing them and they see something that's big a crowd of across the world like what is the big thing that's happening and how can we make it for our make it our own you know that goes back to like you know the Creature from the Black Lagoon in Mexico was a red creature and instead of having protagonists like a scientist it was the protagonist was Batwoman in The Creature from the Black Lagoon movie and the Mexican one and like there's a child's play version of child's play from Mexico called herencia diabolica where instead of yeah you know instead of Chucky there's a little person clown who actually looks like a 500 year old like Buster Keaton in clown drag so we see this yes adding different permutations from reality on top of these movies and this one's no different and this one's kind of like one of the best nightmare Freddy Nightmare Fetty movies which is like you know Freddy ripoffs in that way in terms of what's bringing to it what I love that it's like it's a nightmare ripoff in in concept but like nothing like it at all like yeah it's like a possessed sea rat well don't play with the Ouija boards that's the lesson in every horror movie but can you tell us how so tell us if you can in terms of how agfa works how do you find something like this and bring it to a place like this tonight how does that happen where did you guys first discover this movie right Sebastian's like the leader of the archive he's been around more than any of us at AG fest I figured you'd know but no we don't know I don't know yeah I wish I did yeah I mean we have one of the only prints in the world for sure that's well back then Tim League and company would regularly just buy depots that would go out of business like take hundreds of prints at a time and sort it out later and this I'm presuming was just in with the mix of stuff yeah I mean this is what you want to find in the archive like these are the movies that we want you know and like yet what do you guys know about the filmmaker like I noticed he'd done a couple of other titles before this one does he have any history that you can talk about yeah there's a really rich history of the Ruben Galindo and his father Reba Legal endowed senior they were huge movers and shakers in Mexican genre history and there was a couple of different families the cardona's was another one so there's a long line of movies moviemaking in the history in the history of their families and you'll see when they're watching the TV in this movie it's a movie called cemetery of terror which is another one of his movies but I don't know much about their family other than they were awesome clearly you know and what they did but yeah they they were very prolific made a lot of movies but we did track down John Michael Bischoff who is Michael in the movie he lives in San Antonio now and I emailed a little bit with them and he also sings the song don't panic which is incredible it's gonna be in your head for the rest of the year thank God and so he's really cool and really nice and you know we reached out to him we're like we have this print of don't panic do you know anything about they need he didn't he knew nothing he's just like oh my gosh I can't believe you want to know about that and I really wanted to know the lyrics to the don't panic son because I can't make him out but he gave me the lyrics to the song and you know he was he was super nice but he also did not know where those dinosaur pajamas went so you know they didn't let him out there what's that I said they didn't let him keep a pair like wear them always you would think that they would but you know did he offer any insight as to why the filmmakers deliberately chose the pajamas is like a movie making choice you know I he wasn't really forthcoming with information about those pajamas so I don't know I just asked him if he still had him it does it create it actually creates a really strange for me this will sound ridiculous but did create a weird tension in the film that it goes from like his love scene to his mother holding him in pajamas keep saying calling him baby and stroking his face and there's this really weird stunted adolescence thing that runs throughout this film that is actually the creepiest element of the film it's kind of incestual you know because I don't know if you can she has a drinking problem I'm scared mama I'm scared he was like right in her face like to an uncle most burial-ground weird like kid thing yeah I love that foreground humor there's a select audience because we're here with them I also like the idea that when you're on the phone to him and Santa intern here that he's saying I have no idea where the pajamas going he's just like wearing the pajama like it's just like a grown man sitting there I don't know where they went what I found most interesting we were watching the credits is screaming mad George did the effects than this and this would have been like post society right right around yeah cuz if society this is 88 and society is like just you're so before that yeah is that right you know after this okay yeah so but I really want to know how he got involved in this so we now have to track him down and ask him yeah I mean I don't think anyone's ever asked him about don't panic so that would be great to hear yeah and it does have some decent effects in it like there's a couple moments where we're you know it's good like the levitating roses we knew that would come back into play how can how can people see this is is this only exists as a print is there because Agfa has put out some physical releases of their stuff so can you tell us a little bit about how more people can see this crazy little movie I've been talking a bunch so I want to hand the mic over well pretty much just theatrically at this point I would say this print we might we did preserve it at one point but I don't know if that I'll ever you know get around but this print is definitely around yeah you can you can put this print from us I mean we know who owns the movie we're working on it we're trying to make it happen so that more people can see this outside with the theatrical print but time will tell we'll see did it do business at the time because I mean I'm assuming on the zeitgeist of where it was and the nightmare flow it must have done business but did to do business here in the States I would imagine that it did because they struck prints you know and dubbed it into English but who knows you know I mean yeah I would like to think that it did better than all of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies combined because it deserves it but I don't think so it is a really fascinating time capsule of the 1980s and anytime that you can find something that kind of preserves it and kind of a kam penis of the wardrobe so well it's always a gem so it's wonderful to see this and it's also a family melodrama masquerading as a genre film it's kind of like a quiet place for us in that way or Nightmare on Elm streets 1 & 2 I think both of them have you get the clue Gallagher psychodrama number two a little bit so about that well we should we segue into actual other agfa stuff that you guys are doing here with especially with the series because I mean this movie I feel bad for anyone who's not here and didn't get to experience that if they're listening uh but in terms of what you guys do whoa I know you've told this audience a little bit about AG FEM we've had you on the show before but this series specifically you guys are kind of going through very different sub jobs and something I love about movies and what I think I respond to most about what you guys do is that it's it's almost like it's kinda like the Danny Perry book so it's equal you know Citizen Kane since black and white right next to you know Ed Wood right next anything and I don't think you guys feed to me don't feel like you have any filter in terms of what you're interested in what you're passionate about so maybe just speak to that a bit about this particular program because I think this is a pretty nice diverse cross-section of it yeah the you know the the ten years of Agra have really been a journey you know for a long time there was no egg Fatima the only person caring for and managing these prints was Sebastian for years there was a long process of having to discover what those prints were like in the case of don't panic and if anyone the audience can join us tomorrow for a real one party we can get into that process more cuz that's a really what it's all about but then you know from from that point being able to get into digital preservation being able to get into home video and to be able to distribute for our label partners because now we do theatrical distribution for labels like arrow Severn shout factory vinegar syndrome and others so this program really is a sampling of all of that from the deep cut prints that are really only available that way to are more to our preservations and our label some of the label titles that were really excited about does it sometimes create problems when you office Lee if you discover something in a vault or a lab that's closed and you have no idea what the chain of title is I mean one of the most incredible experiences I've had a last few years in a movie theater was just before it's in a family closed what the astrologer was just like you just do you're speechless even though I spoke a lot after it's but it was no it was really remarkable and I just remember hearing how that was found but also going like how would you then find out where who has the right stuff obviously if you can't find the author behind it would be really tricky but I imagine that must come up a lot in that scenario you wait take someone to send you a cease and desist just keep playing it Indiana Jones esque search where that involves good hats like a lot of running from things yeah do you have to do a lot of like rites hunting and is it like trails of paperwork that you have to follow a long way well when it comes to the prints you know our our prints are provided separate from rites you know it's up to when someone books a print it's up to them to to find the rites you know we just hold these materials certainly for anything that we want to do anything with beyond that something like a home video release of course we're doing our due diligence and anytime you know that this one's a mystery sometimes if one becomes not a mystery sometimes we don't screen that one anymore and it's sad but it means you know we can't do it we definitely do our due diligence there was a Wild West period but those days are over yeah I mean it takes a lot of detective work overall I mean we all program - for the Alamo so it's like kind of comes with the territory or you have to you kind of figure out a way working with other programmers how to track down prints and different avenues you can go down and you just kind of get good at it over a period of time but it's really detective work when it comes to rights I'm curious what was there a particular fine that was by mean I don't even know if the story I read was true about astrologer that somebody found it and had the title but they thought it was a different movie that was made around the same time with that title and I'm was discarded or saying with that movie pretty yeah yeah yeah there were two movies I think the same year maybe same year they came out both called the astrologer we should set the record stated straight and the astrologer once for all maybe anyone's a little thing like I was thinking about this too well yeah we get requests all the time for this movie and it's played theatrically a lot so this movie is owned by an entity that will never let it go we will never be able to release the astrologer and it's not because of music rights it's because it's it's owned by a major studio like X was not gonna be putting out the astrologer we loved the movie we would love to do it but it's not gonna happen because we don't have lots of money so that's basically where it said sits as transparent as possible yeah you know that's where that movie said yeah we would love to book it yeah that's that's actually really interesting I didn't surprise the chyme entity owns that movie again you find out when you get a cease-and-desist right now that's how it happens but what cuts through some more from this program because I know there's some things close to Becca's heart on this program season Doris Wishman first with me which means we have some lady terminator just some of the stuff that we're burning or yes of area what we're familiar with but maybe also maybe starting with the real one party because I think a lot of people might not have a clue what that was when you're referencing it sure well you know the history of the real one party was that you know there were so many prints that we didn't know what they were so we started setting up these events where we would play the first real of five prints what the heck is this you know and then once we play that that first night with an audience you know there's always gonna be at least one one gem one that you have to see the whole thing so then there's usually a second event that shows the whole movie so that was really one of the best ways one of the most fun ways to discover everything that was in the archive of course that process is really over we you know we have everything we know what they are it's all catalogued so now that we're getting to do a real one party here now it's all of our favorites so this is the only real one party that's been curated specifically to be like the most fun wacky sampling of the prints that are dear to our hearts yeah maximum impact yeah as Brett always says guaranteed to rip your head off part of you is gonna go on the floor somewhere yeah we should you brought up Doris Wishman and we got to talk about Doris Wishman because we are probably the biggest Doris Wishman like fanatics on earth at this point and we love Doris Wishman so much and the fact now that we get to work with her films which I don't know if we've really talked about yet very much we just we've had a couple screenings but and it rarely comes up on the show because it's it's not necessarily hard and even though I wedge her into conversations a lot like we never get to dive into Doris yeah her so much and if you need horror she's got a night to dismember indecent desires is a little bit of horror in it but yes a Doris Wishman is and she's my favorite filmmaker of all time she's my favorite director and it just kind of chanced upon that now we are actually restoring all of her films starting from the beginning and we're really really excited about that we started with nude on the moon which had a restoration at MoMA recently which was as mind-blowing as this is right now to be on this stage to us so yeah so Doris is a very near ensure true to our hearts and it means a lot it's like a dream come true did and did that come that was always dear to me was something weird video with it was just one of those things that I would go do and be surprised I remember and we took most psyched by the 40 which off-air seeing that on the screen for the first time just it's just these pieces of movies that feel completely forgotten but still have moments of just brilliance but is it was the relationship off after you know Mike Rainey's passing was this part of how Doris Wishman work came to you yeah it was definitely a connection after Mike Ranney who was the founder of something weird video passed away in 2014 and Lisa Petrucci who is his partner and creative partner she's chosen to the carry on the torch of something weird and keep the legacy going and those of you that don't know something weird look them up find their movies support them because if it wasn't for something weird I don't know if we'd be here really they were like our film education a big part of why we love what we do and taught us to recontextualize and see movies in a different way and they had an amazing VOD channel now yeah it's really good a lot of great titles on it and so you know and Mike had passed away and we reached out to Lisa and started talking with her about you know what her plans were and it just so ended up that she she was interested in working with us so we we did a Kickstarter to get our 4k scanner and that was successful and then we started working on restorations from the something weird archive and so Doris Wishman came out of that something weird didn't actually own the rights to Doris Wishman that was a third party but the same party that owned the Herschell Gordon Lewis movies we found out on the door swish from movies so we started doing theatrical on Herschell Gordon Lewis catalog and then after that the rights holder said oh I have Doris Wishman catalog too and we're like oh my god what and so yeah we jumped at the chance to work with them yeah there's a great interview for people just curious after hearing you talk about Doris Wishman on the incredibly strange films Jo yeah with Jonathan Ross back in the day and that was how I first I had never heard of her but you know 20 years ago when I came across all those unbe HS I remember being kind of just blown away by this you know elderly woman I'm living in Florida where was she working on it as a she's like there's just something about her spirit that was just you know remarkable yeah there's a transcription of it in the incredibly strange book as well which you can pick up for pennies on Amazon now but yeah so walk us through some of the others because I remember back in the day screening Lady Terminator and it was it went over gangbusters out of screening so I've never seen sister streetfighter that it's paired with but maybe talk a little bit about how because I didn't realize lady terminate part of your collective it was part of the actor oh ok the print is okay all the brain okay sister Street Fighter is a title that came to us from arrow video and it's one of the many restorations that they totally kill it with I don't know if you ever looked at their blu-rays but there's some of the best in the world in terms of preserving genre film sister Street Fighter was new to me you knew it but I didn't actually know it and it's a companion piece to Sonny cheap as Street Fighter series and you know self-explanatory sister Street Fighter is awesome and and who's the actress who sushi yummy yeah yeah and the cool thing is that like sister Street Fighter is something that you know is out there and you can get like you know sadly dub DVDs or whatever but it's never been available theatrically and that's what's really important to us is that like the theatrical experience is so important to agfa and so like what we do so the fact that now there is this gorgeous stunning beautiful restoration of sister streetfighter that is available to book is like a revelation to us and like that's like the key thing or it's like oh man like seeing this with a crowd it just means so much I am so excited about this one because it's one of the few like nuns plication films that I have not seen which is like another one if my major loves and I have somehow missed this one and so I'm super excited to dive into sister streetfighter I'm gonna be fun in the commercial the UCLA commercial that came up at the start about the archive the one part that I'm always kind of fascinated kept and I guess maybe starts with you you it talks about the cost of preservation and what are some of those what are some of the processes that you're going through I mean I want to be to drive but I'm just curious why it's so expensive so people can maybe understand that like sometimes when we see this great looking vinegar syndrome that we just take for granted right this disk of an obscure movie there's been so much work put into that and maybe cost so people understand why it's worth buying these things you know when they're first coming out well yeah I mean that the scanners cost a lot of money and the labor cost a lot of money too and as I assume it's a fairly long process and cleaning up I mean I guess it depends on the erosion of a print or yeah it depends on the print but or the negative but I'd say like at least a week okay good time depending on what it looks like when they have their before and after if we see they say the pink vinegar syndrome what can be done to that I guess I guess that's why I'm saying if you get something at that stage is it too late to restore something or well it depends it can be it's all about the shrinkage a film when it decomposes can shrink like one to two percent and it's just enough to not register with the sprockets anymore right got it okay interesting and speaking of vinegar syndrome I think it's like it's good to say that like right now because of labels like vinegar syndrome and sufferin and arrow and shot factory doing all this work like we're in a golden age of not only exhibition but just availability of these movies and we should never take it for granted because we've worked so hard you could only see it like grainy VHS the copies of these movies and now there's all these beautiful restorations coming out like quicker than we can keep up with but like go out there and explore these movies and buy them and have fun and enjoy that's what it's all about they're there to make us happy and like we're in like such an amazing age for that stuff now and like we're so happy to be like a tiny small part of that at Agfa it's really inspiring yeah these restorations are like time machines you really can't reach out and almost feel that past because of the the way that you can just focus in on the grain and stuff and I don't know yeah like you said go out and see more movies but I think oh you know that already well I mean Rob's you know the biggest proponent of physical media collecting but like often I didn't like I always said I don't always watch the stuff I collect but it's like the fact that you know it's there there's nothing to me worse than seeing how something was on Amazon Prime one day and I'll get to that then you go back and it's gone forever and these things that's happening all the time it's such an unreliable medium when we're talking about streaming you know it's exciting and it's not a negative by any means but it's I think there's just just still something so valuable about physical media I assume that's why you collect everything you have every control at this point but no I mean some room it's an apartment full of physical media at this point but no I mean this is the two best ways to watch movie obviously or theatrical with an audience and at home like I just I've never did this day I've never had a flawless streaming experience like there's always something the subtitles will be off it'll go you know blurry for a sec whatever it is but that never happens when you invite friends over and pop over a blu-ray and see films like this restored and probably better than they've ever looked before so yeah it's important to me to collect stuff physically too I mean again vinegar syndrome puts out whatever it is four five six titles a month and it is Russian Roulette I call it yeah that was I don't even know what what there was a puppet there was it was a puppet it was it was K there was a computer there was yes it was chaos I got to see runaway nightmare this year yes my card the bells run away no person I watched it with was in like 30 minutes and we've stopped it and put something else on I said can we come back to that we put it back on and by the end of it I was like this is room amazing like it's just one of the spots that won you over overtime I hope I mean last year I think our film of the year was the devil's honey which was a seven title and that one none of us had heard of it vulture like we've never seen before it was a pochi it was full a lot of things but yeah that was definitely like one of our best finds of the year and that was a seven one that we had never even heard of and we thought we had seen all full she so it's [ __ ] doing Richard Diaries yeah with a subtle saxophone scene at the right way train actually and I you know I hate cuz it gets used so much people say things are Lynch in but there's moments and runaway nightmare where some of the dialogue and some of the characters look like some of the extras in blue velvet and the way they deliver dialogue it's so stilted it doesn't seem purposely lynching it feels like this guy they're different universes and yet it has some quality that's coming out of that that just I know I think I think if you're an explorer of movies and you guys certainly you know without a doubt are and that's part of your job is to uncover this stuff but I feel like as audience members being on the hunt for that discovery these labels are all providing that and the idea you might say it's couples a couple things that bore you or are not your bag but you will also find something like I just was telling you affair the child in the new Hera box and for me just a couple days ago after seeing a couple in the first box that none of them really spoke to me and I saw that film and halfway through I was like this is it might be the find of the year you know it has something magical and unplanned about it you know I love the the various labels you know focus on different niches you know vinegar syndrome has a couple of my favorite like home video horror titles like dear dead Delilah and Dominique or two of my favorites it's like a certain area that they get into that I don't see from the other labels that's really exciting dear did Delilah is like a summer stock doing Tennessee Williams with Agnes Moorehead but it's also a horror movie and it's like my jam yeah it's it's great and dominique is like Diabolique but but not but yeah fitting into that like quiet sort of regional it there's like a very specific niche that I love finding those niches within label offerings and I guess we've been kind of trying to figure out what our niche is to and we kind of feel like it's it's sort of an outsider that feel even though we deal in different you know we don't have like a the option to focus on a particular genre or you know anything really specific but everything we're drawn to and everything we hunt after has this outsider feel yeah we had a conversation in the office about it recently we're like oh this is what we do it's outsider filmmaking that's that's the stuff we gravitate towards and I think Sara Jacobson's films which are playing later as part of this series like I think that was the one that kind of like solidified it for us we're like oh that's what we do her movies I've familiar with those ones and I know TCM Underground recently did it which was super cool but the film you're playing after those two which is like a 40-minute film by the actress who was in Helen Lauder films on a whole bunch of stuff I had never heard of that and I saw it on the posted on the site can you explain a little more oh of course yeah so the movie are talking about is limbo from 1999 it's written and directed by a woman named Tina Kraus who was most well known for starring in hundreds of movies by this company called wave productions in the 90s and wave productions was a mail-order movie company like song poems which is like people would go to their house and write down scripts and send it to wave and pay them $1,000 and then they would make their movies on camcorders and as you can imagine it's incredible because like I want to read the autobiographies of these people for every one of these wave movies because they get out there and they get strange so Tina Kraus was an actor in all of these movies she appears in hundreds of wave movies and I had no idea that she had actually written in directed her own shot on video horror movie and he would think that you know going into this movie it would be something similar to away productions maybe it's just like a zombie movie or it's a Dracula movie where Dracula crowns in quicksand because that seems to happen in every wave movie I don't know why it was just a quicksand thing going on but limbo is actually something more than that I mean not only was it the one of the only shot into a horror movie made by a woman but it is a very as you'd said lynching in a way it's a kind of it's like David Lynch and Nine Inch Nails getting together to make a shot on video horror movie and it's exactly like that so it's a Lost Highway yeah yeah crosses Lost Highway but it's it's really unique and it's really well done and it's serious a lot like during the 90s people were the gating ironic and they were like meta and they're going the comedy route and this is like dead serious it's very personal to her and she just made this one movie and discovering that was really special to me because that's like exactly what I'm drawn to so when you approach her is she just like what like that you want to show this is it like or is it actually really touching it says somebody that you're uncovering this and like bringing it to an audience yeah it's actually both and I mean how it happened is I'm part of bleeding skull with my partner Annie joy who's here tonight and our friend Zach Carlson and how that happened that whole thing is we were working on another book that's coming out Fantagraphics in 2020 it's called bleeding skull in 1990s trash horror Odyssey and so little right now thank you limbo is one of the movies that I had watched for the second book and when I was one of my favorites only my top 10 favorites of the book and you know we were just like where is this movie it's like what's going on and we found out that Tina had lived in Brooklyn and Annie lives in New York so we thought let's reach out to Tina Kraus and try to get some stills from the movie for the book and we did that and then Annie ended up being like a hero and meeting up with her and like you know talking and hanging out and getting drinks and stuff and then finally I was like do something with it and so Annie asked her like hey do you want to work with a Kevin bleeding scale to release limbo and I think she flipped out I think she was super excited and she told called her dad and was like you remember that movie I made 30 years ago well it's finally gonna come out so it's really fulfilling when that happens because you don't know how people are gonna react you know they made this movie 30 years ago maybe it's something that's painful for them maybe it was something that they'd forgotten about but with her I think she was just stoked she was so happy because I think when she originally tried to get the movie out there she would submit it to film festivals and they would reject her and then she would submit it under a man's name and they would accept her so at one of these screenings she actually submitted it and she got accepted and she the award like the best new movie at the screening and she went up there and she was like [ __ ] you I'm Tina Kraus not Michael Krause so it's a great story you know and the movie deserves to be out there it's important to shot on video horror history it's important for humankind in general that this movie be out there and will it get out there beyond the screening yeah okay cool so yeah it's coming out uh next February with a cough and bleeding skull so we're releasing it it'll be on blu-ray and DVD yeah well we've had a long-running in joke between us about the connoisseur ship of sov cinema I like to call it the Grey Poupon hang of sov a fair amount on the show as well and and and we realized that the best through-line just marketing wise for certain titles like limbo or any of the other sob titles that we've put out is just our enthusiasm for them that tends to bleed through easily so we just we've led with that but we've long talked about how to isolate like the finest moments in sov cinema and give them a platform and Limbo's in that tradition and well limbo is a special one too because when you watch it you know exactly what it would look like if she had the money she needed you know which that's a great thing to see I mean that's all her that's all the talent that's behind it so you know sometimes you don't necessarily see that was shown on video but the good ones you know you see the passion behind it and you see the vision like they don't have the money but you see the vision completely are there any sov gems I mean I mean I know Severin well center vision originally put out you know sledgehammer and a couple of other films at that time there hazard well things is actually super super it yeah but it's still in that thing yeah these guys they break yeah things has the spirit of that homemade film nail gun mask I'm not sure no gun massacre a woodchipper maskers oh that's that other one yeah shut it man that is not one of the gems I'm talking about but are there other other oh man it's like family ties gone wrong exactly it's fine but other gems out there that you guys would you know I don't know if you can talk about things you have your eye on there that you would love to get but are they're just things that you think deserve to cross over to you know to audiences that maybe have the stigma of being sov yeah absolutely there are lots of those I think that the great thing about you know the labels rediscovering this movies like you dimension inner vision doing sledgehammer and things I mean they were the first ones to actually put these out on DVD and make them available and I think the good thing about it is that it's reconfiguring the way that people look at these movies you know I think that there used to be a big stigma with shot on video horror and you were not cool if you loved boarding house at one point in time and you couldn't talk about it you know because people would look at you like there's something wrong with you I'm a huge fan of boarding house I love it's one of my favorite movies and your co-workers would be like like I don't know that's that's like scary maybe you shouldn't talk about that at work and but I love your co-workers that they new boarding else that's cool Oh even even to reject you but they did not but I showed them a little bit of it in anyway I got fired what I mean to say is that there's a shift in culture people are looking at these movies differently because of the way that they're being reissued in the world and presented to people in a new way and it's with respect like that's the key and I think that's what's really important I mean there's we're always gonna be battling against so bad it's good always like we hate that like every day we wage war against that because it's not kind to the filmmakers and it's a very entitled type of thinking like saying that like you can laugh at this movie because it's not up to your standards it's like come on get the [ __ ] out of here like that's that's no there's no place for that anymore so I think the important thing is that these movies are being put out there and being allowed to breathe and being allowed to be seen in a new way which is super important but to answer your question yes there's a lot out there that we're excited about you know coming up with act phone bleeding skull there's you mentioned things Barry Jay Gillis who is one of the geniuses behind things made a movie called wicked world in 1991 as a follow-up to things that never was really released and we are releasing that movie in November yes we have that Barry Gilles fan in the house thank you and I said I think berries here too right it features a novel editing style you will enjoy oh okay yeah moustache or no muss that is he in it oh yeah he plays a loose cannon cop on the trail the serial killers who killed his girlfriend yeah there's there's a lot of stuff on the way and like one that I'm particularly excited about is there's this guy from Chicago named David the rock Nelson who is a tireless champion of making you know werewolf and Frankenstein movies in his backyard that feel and I mean this is a compliment feel as if a 10 year old picked up a camcorder but he's like 50 he calls himself the modern-day Ed Wood and he knows he owns it like he emblazoned it on his Facebook page like that is his claim to fame and so yeah like it has an aesthetic in it that yeah here's something that guy's pure he's the purest as it comes and so we finally after like months of talking we were able to work with him to finally start releasing his movies I think in 2021 which is really really exciting for me because being from Chicago and kind of growing up and maturing with his movies and finding them in mid 90s and now actually being able to for the first time ever bring them to a new audience is really special and insane it's happening to get excited in advance I advise you to all follow him on YouTube it's amazing yeah yeah his YouTube channel is fun a never-ending stream of content don't get through the mommy man got dunked my daughter I need my coffee and Java man there's a little preview a taste yeah any other key titles from this particular series that we're missing I know it is it ends with suburbia is that right the series this series here yes suburbia and rock and roll high school okay yeah but am I missing any of the key events I just wanna make sure that they're all highlighted because well also the Miskatonic off-site oh yeah yeah oh yeah yeah we got to talk about that and Lisa Petrucci and something weird these are kind of go together yeah yeah yeah so we're showing nude on the moon the the Doris Wishman restoration that we were talking about which has been a fantastic bridge for agfa to the rest of the world because not only did it the restoration of this movie premiere at MoMA it's also playing here at the hammer and has played at the BFI and will be and also played at cineteca Madrid on July 4th so Doris's work is getting out there and she's gonna have a following whether she wants it or not she's gonna have it and so what do what is the Miskatonic I know Kayla was here earlier but what is the topic of the Miskatonic conversation exactly because I saw Robert Roberta Finley's name also mentioned yeah so Lisa Petrucci of something weird video is kind of come down here from Seattle and she's gonna give a whole two hour plus presentation on the work of Doris Wishman and Roberta Finlay two of the only female exploitation filmmakers of that era yeah and and these these lectures are all horror based lectures that are held at the U PRS which is the university of philosophical research studies which is a really just one of those spaces that if you haven't been yet find an excuse to go because it's like this little gem in LA it's definitely a hidden spot asked to tour the library yeah it's it's so Lovecraftian it really does look like a pee manly hall set up and he actually is the person who married Bela Lugosi and so there's photos I mean he didn't marry Bela Lugosi but he he held the ceremony there would have been interesting but um but no so it's got this rich history but you go this is the thing about LA there's something I sometimes really dislike when everything's so new and dirty and then sometimes you'll turn a corner and there's something perfectly preserved from a different error that to me is just it has this ugly rich history to it and it's kind of like what you guys do and so I remember when we kind of connected that Toomas cups to things were you know a perfect yeah I driven past that building half a dozen times and it wasn't until we did the tour that I was like oh my gosh it's just it's brilliant it sounds like a ghost Miskatonic and master tour the library it's wonderful one other thing that we forgot that's in this series so also on the bill with nude on the moon is smile without smart right so smoke without spot as a new artist we'll call it an anthology series that that Joe cuts together from vinegar syndromes archive of xxx movies so we've we've been trying to find uses theatrically for vintage adult film and it's kind of tricky in today's market so this is one way to actually get that [ __ ] to preserve the work in a way yeah because I'm so obsessed with horror movies that I got to see everything and and all the DIY stuff I want to see more of it and in the adult world there are all these like hour-long horror movies that are just fascinating to me because there is low-budget as it gets I mean they're just like the lowest of low and but they also happen to be adult movies so it's like not everybody wants to watch that so how can we like watch these things so the idea we had is to take these adult movies and cut out all of the sex scenes and then present them as just straight horror movies and what is that like and it's amazing it's so great so we did a three is kind of warm up some with something weird and vinegar syndrome at Alamo shows and we just screen them and then the one that we have now that's available theatrically is called smoke without smut bizarro horror night and that's like the one that's like the best of the best and so yeah we cut that together and it's it's so much fun to watch because you're never gonna see this stuff I mean Nora meet normies like people that aren't like civilians like we're not gonna go seek out you know dr. sexual and mr. Hyde you know they're just not going to do it so it's a way for people to see these things without feeling bad like you know watch it you know so yeah and it's playing with nude on the moon because one of the features included is Doris Wishman 'he's a haunted [ __ ] AKA come with me my love where does the smut go that you edit out you don't want to let the extra feature we've got a screen that if we can't read that at the UCLA archive oh man five and a half hours long because the movies are 60 minutes and you cut out all the sex in there like 17 minutes Wow so is it very long real is there a particular one that has just as a film you were actually like this is actually a really great film you know there's there's a couple there's one called Widow blue that is just very fine from the oh yeah it's a oh my god like it goes to some dark strange places we blue widow a widow I would oh blue also known as Joe what is the title sexy psycho that's it yeah sex psycho Widow blue that one is just deranged that one makes you feel like okay like I need two days do not watch any movies because I have to process what I just saw and but it's just like a straightforward soap opera slasher that just got some very very dark places and directed by a guy named Walt Davis who Sebastian really loves the other Walt Davis yeah what's the other one people come people go we're coming yes another great vinegar syndrome disc evil Knievel girl yeah oh and then like Alisha meant to mention the Haunted [ __ ] the Doris Wishman that is just one of the best like adult and in my in my opinion because it's Doris Wishman doing her Doris Wishman thing which is totally surreal and completely removed from reality like totally but it's it's a horror movie so we were talking about she only made it to dismember but she made another horror movie even though she refuses to say like she was like I never made an adult movie like I never did that but she to her death said she never made a doll yes but she did in the Haunted [ __ ] is really like a fantastic addition to Doris filmography yeah any other gems that we're missing just to make sure we don't skip over anything well I mean suburbia is [ __ ] amazing yeah and so it's suburbia and rock and roll high school or two movies that we got as part of a theatrical deal with Shout Factory and it opened up a whole floodgate of really awesome hits for us and things that have been for years as a programmer hard to book and now for those to be suddenly easy to book is like a joy for us both on and the exhibition and distribution size is erst I mean I assume there's still labs closing and I'm sure there's still movies being lost in the shuffle is it is this still a massive danger are there still titles that you know that could be lost in terms of if they're not restored properly we'll never make it to us is that still something that we should be concerned about yeah I would say yeah that's that's yeah I mean I mean I think most of the labs by now have have closed that are gonna close I think there are still some that are open that are getting business and they're actually thriving but yeah I mean I think there are still some that are in danger of being lost forever yeah I mean and also like the you know a lot of preservation to people who collect these movies and find them it's not just archives it's individuals and like we have Phil Blankenship in the house tonight and Phil is probably like the world's foremost authority on prints period and where they are and lost movies and it's it's because of his like super heroic efforts that we get information you know I mean it's it's because of people like that with who like calmly and quietly in the background are just doing this amazing work that like you know like you got to give it up for Phil it's like it's incredible what he does I mean really so you know it's it's all over the world but it's because of people like Phil that are finding these movies and enabling us to you know help preserve them what's what's the book the thousand cuts oh yeah yeah yeah forgot in the title sorry so what's the title okay nailed it can throw to you but you know I mean it's it's interesting it seems like the secret history of what some of the behavior being legal and yet it's without that behavior and without people saving these prints we would be the ones losing you know cinema would be the victim of this ultimately so it's kind of it's a remarkable story that some of the characters who are portrayed in that I think it's really worth your time if you can seek it out and also tomorrow night's event the real one party is very much in the spirit of all that print collecting for example we'll be talking about the Magna Carta of print collecting big real magazine and its influence on just collecting in general and how all these collections that still survive basically thrived on the lifeboat of this one publication which is says essentially a gray market trading floor for prints before the internet and yeah we'll be talking about stuff like that tomorrow night and showing the fruits of the labor of all the collectors I mean well we were well you guys are here we're not gonna you might not get this chance again so if there's any questions I guess we could run out and give you the mic I'm happy to take it up oh you have two mics Oh excellent any questions yes there's the one right there right there hello I I'm curious how a question for the Agfa team how important is it for you to be able to when you're restoring these films how important is it for you to be able to find the actual filmmaker and speak to them about their work because you've talked about getting in touch with the woman who directed limbo and I would assume that's an important part of the process but I'd also assumed for some of these really small films you may not be able to find anyone connected with it I mean I'd say it's really important it's it's it's either one of two things one they're no longer with us unfortunately because a lot of the movies are older you know so they're not around but two it's like usually with movies that are really obscure and at small releases the director usually owns the rights or the producer so that's the person you have to find in order to find out like can we play this movie can we put it out so it's pretty important I think in terms of telling the story is also important especially if you are going to release a blu-ray you know to get them involved and get them talking about the movie yeah other questions everybody's quiet because we already talked about the astrologer that that was my bed Yeah right there do you have any like stories about strange places that prints were being stored you know I've heard stories about like prints being stored in a barn or caves and stuff like that yeah I can just tell you the strangest print by that I ever went on and if more than one person in this room probably went to the same place and you know what I want to say it's the Texas Chainsaw Massacre house basically in Orange County where this dude who worked for Regal um who was a projectionists had several hundred prints in a storage in a barn in his property and when he brought people onto the property to look at them all for sale he lined them up in the Sun like just the reels themselves like printed reels on Coors or just reels without the core is kind of just slowly unspooling themselves in the baking Sun and the I'm this like total Texas Chainsaw Massacre House property and I don't know you just you you brave it because it's worth the effort I also bought that print of the Emerson Lake & Palmer concert film from some Russian mobster guy in the valley in a apartment parking lot everybody just like went crazy what even Emerson like in polymer friends like Sebastian and I took some road trips to some cool places to find prints yeah you know we went to New Mexico once and I was pretty weird we got stuck talking to an older gentleman who he had like this like he was really old he was like 80 years old and he had like one of those punks studded metal belts on and it see bands and vans yeah and he just sat with us the entire time we were going through this house like looking at their materials and he wouldn't leave us alone if we would like walk upstairs he go Joe Sebastian where are you get back down here so he could tell us more stories about the good old days and we had to kind of like put up with it because we wanted to buy his phones but it was a long day so you kind of meet all kinds and you just kind of you know he used to roll with it he just described your average pot deal circum 96 any more questions from the audience right there he's coming for you well this isn't a question but I wanted to point out in case you guys weren't aware that don't panic is actually on us DVD I think it's really out of print now but it came out on BCI in a 8 pack called gripped if terror yeah that's got cemetery of terror to everybody should watch it going by that yeah I agree it's great there are like seven other Mexican horror films from the gelinda family it's great doesn't have us go then with sombrero in the cover or something like that something ridiculous yep at the back right yeah right behind you you brought up the fact that there are some people who own movies to which you have material on that for whatever reason don't want them in circulation what are some of the most bizarre instances of intransigence you've come across from producers or rights holders regarding films that you wanted to help bring back to market go for it I don't want to make sure like okay I don't want to take over this conversation but and I won't then I'm gonna say any names but once for a Tara Tuesday at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin and territories there's our weekly horror series that we do we played a movie that we had in the archive and we didn't know who we always do due diligence obviously like we look it up and try to find who it is and we couldn't find it so we ran the print and then we heard back from someone about a week later that was like you ran my movie it's gonna be three thousand dollars like off the top just to pay me and so we're gonna have to work out a deal so that to make sure that you have to make this up to me and so I got on the phone with this guy and I was like well we can't pay you $3,000 obviously we usually pay like $300 or whatever we'll do that and he was like no no no you got to make it up to me and so it kept going and going and he's like he's like finally here's what I want to do okay we're gonna set up a new screening of this movie in your town you're gonna do another charities are gonna play the movie but I'm gonna get my band to come down to Austin and play and it's me on bass it's Rob Zombie on vocals it's the drummer from Slayer on drums and that's it and we're gonna come down and we're gonna play a show it's my close friend Rob Zombie and we're gonna make this happen we're gonna have women walking around in bikinis with TVs and on the TV is gonna be the trailer for the movie playing in the lobby so before they go in they know what they're gonna see and it was like clearly this person is like a maniac and it's like lost their mind but that was it's such a weird surreal experience to be talking on the phone and someone was dead serious and probably doesn't even know Rob Zombie to be honest but stuff like that happens it just happens you know and you got it you like I said you got to roll with it and be like yes there that that sounds like a great idea like that set it up call me next week so you do the screening we did not do the screening I deleted his number from my phone and went about my business and I wanted to see who would show up if not Rob Zombie who does he bring any others well you have the hope or interest here well I have one while they think of questions so I'll work and I probably spent a good half an hour on the show a few weeks ago talking about Tammy and the t-rex do we have any Tammy in the t-rex updates soon it'll be available soon if there's an apocalypse - right it did place an apocalypse in Chicago it's got a few more festival appearances and then it'll be out in the world and trust me people will be excited I can't wait can you explain that for people who here don't know we're talking about or at home who might have seen Tammy and t-rex but not seeing what we saw the version we saw which to me I can't even imagine seeing the other because what I saw in USA was not what you showed us no no okay so I guess we'll just unravel the story of Tammy for everybody because it really it took a village to bring this together so one of the people who works in the video department at Alamo Drafthouse Zane he is the spirit animal of Tammy because he was the one who found it and in unlike a video call to a bunch of us at the company it was like we all seen Tammy and the t-rex and then it just proceeded to talk about it a lot and get very excited so then Joe who programs Alamos video vortex residency programs Tammy and a pianist instantly becomes the biggest video vortex hit in the residency's history I put it up in an event here in LA called the five minutes game it like wins very enthusiastically the label who's putting it out one of their folks was at the screen the five minutes game and he was like well we have to put that out on on blu-ray and so a year or later from that here we are and restored yeah instead I answer your question i mean previously you only knew what you saw on cable or the VHS version which was a pg-13 kind of high school melodrama involving someone turning into it mechanical dinosaurs like you know usual stuff but the version that's going to be out there is an r-rated cut with gore added to it which changes the movie completely and makes it a totally new experience yes there was a lot of eviscerations and junk all bugler did all the effects he did I don't know yeah it one too soon it is Denise Richards and Paul Walker in a post Jurassic Park rom-com with a mechanical dinosaur in it and that his brain is planted into the mechanical dinosaur and after we saw it literally we're walking back to the parking lot and I looked to El Ric and I was like I started processing I was like that had like a huge chunk of the same cast as mannequin - don't ask me why I remember the cast from mannequin - but we're walking back to the car and I'm like hold on no that had like seven of the same actors from mannequin - and I start googling on my phone same director is mannequin - and as Mac and me ice pirates it goes on it's also quite a touching movie there's a really sad scene with a trenni he's trying to call on a payphone his little arms can't reach the dollar and it's just like yeah and a very sexy ending so but but you said added you said you said it as if like the Gores added but I have to assume that the director's vision the movie that he made is this gory weird teen film and then the movie that got delivered to the world was this very neutered thing so this is this is where the exciting part of I think what you guys do the exciting part of what we get to do when we get to discover things that excite us is like this is the movie this is the movie the movie you've seen before was not the movie because the movie that was forced into existence by sensors and networks but the actual movie that was intended is a gory strange romp I assume right a Peter Jackson level Gork yeah no it was great was then the only time it had a release which was on tape was a kind of way cut back pg-13 version of it presumably to sell to kids but there's nothing in the movie that appeals to kids and all the jokes would go over their head well cuz it's quite raunchy forget about the gore it's actually quite a raunchy film so it would I don't think it would succeed on that level you've there but I never saw it on cable so I don't know what you're seeing but I had seen it and I you're right it doesn't exactly resonate with kids because it wasn't it didn't become neverending story exactly I was just kind of like yeah I saw that I think and then it was gone so yeah but I like the way she rides yeah you gotta watch that one you got yeah I mean just from a pure marketing perspective it's a great thing to have a movie that has this potential cult appeal that can appeal to like a 50/50 male/female audience things like Birdemic don't necessarily do that but this kind of cuts across and it has movie stars which is always good yes you will be hearing more about Tammy in the future trust worth it well worth it any last questions well thank you guys so much for joining us tonight this has been awesome and thank you for having us here and and for breathe don't damage the screen I mean thank you thank you everyone in this room we're so grateful to be here with you yeah we're so appreciative and what an age where we can bust down the barriers and have such wonderful and wild genre and exploitation movies happen in real film institutions you're in one of the most hallowed film institutions on the planet watching don't panic I think Billy Wilder would have dug that film I just think it would have hit that ticklish spot on them you know it's I think we did him proud thanks guys thank you thank you all [Applause]