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The night Cinema Suicide came out of the grave

Rotten and stinking of grave dirt…

Back in 2007 a co-worker asked me why I didn’t have a website.

“You know a lot about weird movies. Why don’t you write about that?”

Being that I built websites as a profession, lacking one which represented me and my interests was a conspicuous gap in my CV. My reply was pretty simple, “What could I have to say that others haven’t already said?”

A few years later, All Things Considered on NPR placed a soundbite of me between soundbites from Neil Gaiman and Salman Rushdie on the topic of Edgar Allen Poe and I owe it all to that question. As it would happen I have a lot of things to say and people went out of their way to read them. I was nominated three years in a row for a Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award in the best blog category. I was the stand-by horror movie guy for a handful of National Public Radio producers. I was on convention panels. I got yelled at by Tom Savini on Christmas Eve. Bruce Campbell and Joe Hill both welcomed the birth of my son in their social feeds. I was invited to contribute horror shorts to comic books. I even had merch! Those years were crazy!

But life is complicated and things change and people reading blogs took a backseat to people staring at youtube videos of weirdos in filthy bedrooms talking to their webcams while holding up a DVD and nobody really looked forward to new Cinema S articles anymore if my analytics were to be believed. A couple years spent producing Youtube content turned out to be too much work for one guy. And so it was, with a heavy heart, that I threw in the towel.

What changed?

It’s crazy to think that it’s nearly ten years on since I published my last piece for Cinema Suicide but every now and then I think about it and it gnaws at me. The ghost of that old website haunts me.

The internet is changing again. The ways in which we consume content are up in the air and it’s easier than ever to reach people who want to read critical analysis of utterly feral, unhinged movies that set out to exploit popular trends in the mainstream and accidentally turned in unique and special movies that strike a chord in people looking for something that they can’t find in the more reputable movie spaces.

We’re also seeing a pivot in the way movies are made, promoted, and presented, and if Hollywood was risk-averse before the pandemic, they’re more committed to producing right-down-the-middle junk food than ever before. There will never again be a time like the 70’s where the drive-ins and sticky-floor grindhouses cast accidental pearls before the swine. There will never again be a time like the 80’s and 90’s where the direct-to-video market exposed bored teenagers to retitled genre fare from overseas markets where currents ran a little differently than here in The States. What got past censors was amazing and an MPAA rating only ever mattered if you wanted your movie on the shelves at Blockbuster.

But there’s enough of it out there, and new stuff always being turned up and released in presentations beyond the wildest dreams of the original filmmakers and I intend to remark upon it all.

So, what’s the plan?

I mistakenly assume that anyone reading this is familiar with the original Cinema S. Back in the day I wrote whenever I felt like it in spite of published strategies that insist that publications be made on a schedule. People like schedules. It gives them something to look forward to. I know I do.

I’ll likely do what I used to do and publish on the fly but issue a weekly email digest through all the wonderful tools made available by the fine folks of Substack. Drop by when you feel like it. Find it in your inbox if you need a reminder. It’s the best of both worlds and everybody wins!

Also look forward to regular chats, because Substack has a pretty sweet chat room function for subscribers and, because I love the sound of my own voice, keep your eyes peeled for the occasional podcast and video.

You’re looking at Cinema Suicide Part 3: Season of the Witch. Coming straight to you from the darkest heart of America, Salem, Massachusetts.

Do subscribe. Or else…

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