Shady tapes, the charm of bootleg flicks and their influence on the current state of cinema

        For those of us not spoiled with internet and its various torrents and streaming sites and ebays, in addition the growing popularity that Tarantino has sprung in the B-movie and its many sub-genres many cut-classic movies and lesser known exploitation flicks have become available at major retail stores. We had it tough...we had to get our hands dirty to get our grindhouse fix. Breaking copyright laws in the days before high-speed internet  was a real wild west, we didn't know what the hell we were doin...luckily, aside from adding a little disclaimer at the beginning of a movie, the powers that be didn't know what we were doin either.

            My first experiences with bootleg movies was in the early 90's before Japanese animation really hit its stride in the US, anime fans relied on each other to share movies with each other.  Anime films and series were not readily available at retail stores so there was an underground network of  sellers and traders that would record 4 to 8 hours of anime on VHS tapes, no real labels, just a barely legible scribbling detailing the contents of the glorious tape in your hand. Some tapes were third, fourth and sometimes sixth generation recordings, leaving the movie foggy at places with wavering audio, and with the subtitles blurry. I owe my preferences of dubbed to subbed to these bootleg VHS's. My very first tape I got when i was a measly 9 years old, it had Akira, Ghost in a Shell, and half of some other movie that I can not recall at the moment. In spite of the obvious technical flaws I was in heaven, I had a little piece of something that my friends didn't know about, granted a very hipster reason to like something but its the truth, discovering some a masterpiece all on your own with no outside influence is pretty damn cool. Hipster logic aside, the cult-movie movement  relied on these measure to grow into what it is today, word of mouth laying the groundwork for what eventually will evolve into internet forums, God bless Al Gore... 

               As I  began to frequent these side alley swap meet bootleg stands, which were more like blankets sprawled on the ground with VHS littered all over it than actual stands, I began to get into other kinds of movies. Movies that I had never seen at major stores or rental places, movies like Cannibal Holocaust, Zombi, Shaw Bros  kung fu movies and the exploitation flicks of the 70's. Each movie didn't cost much, a few buck over the cost of a blank tape and luckily the faithful and shady shopkeep gave me the option of trading in movies for credit...which in retrospect, I have come to regret, I would love to have some of these in my collection today. As moving usually goes, I lost a few tapes or I let people borrow and forgot to get back....I have one tape left from my early days as a B-Movie aficionado, The Fatal Flying Guillotine, note the shitty box art and the very simple label(which was considered fancy by bootleg standards). 

     With the advent of DVD, bootleg movies have become much easier to get ahold of but have lost a considerable amount of charm that they once had. Usually they are either torrents of new movies, filmed with a camera at the movie theatre by very obvously nervous camera man, or burnt DVD's with the same shaky movie on them. Granted for the regualr schmoe this seems a sub-par option to do your movie viewing, but for the seasoned B-Movie buff this brings the charm of grindhouse movies in a modern setting. Action movies just look better on grainy sources. Recently I enjoyed a bootleg copy of Tarantino's western opus Django Unchained, the nature of the movie and its violent and classic style almost called for it to be viewed on a shitty medium...before you go on about how I'm taking caviar and champagne out of poor ol' Quentin's mouth I will have you know I have seen the movie twice in theatres and plan to buy the super mega special edition of the Blu-ray when that becomes available, yeah, I think I deserve one measly bootleg. 

  Here is a movie that deserved no ones money, note the printed paper artwork, but hey, at least its in color. Admitely out of the manners of bootlegging this is definitely the shadiest, and is about as illigal as small amounts of weed, so be careful and try to stay away from these...unless you just have to get your hands on a copy of the latest Tyler Perry movie. 

50 public domain movies for dat ass

       Like most illegal things in the bless'd U.S of A, companies have found a way around these copyright laws and straight into our pockets. These suit and tie clad weasels have bundled movies that are public domain(not subject to copyright) into packs of 50 and 100 and sold it at a cheap price. Most of them are older movies , usually from the 60's and below and have some pretty cool flick in them and for the asking price, I must admit its a steal. Movies are bundled by Genre, sci-fi and horror usually and are specially full of monster movies with bad special effects. The movies come in box with about a dozen and half dvds in little individual sleeves. Sometimes you will find these movies sold individually, packed in its own case with a printed cd image and everything. Although this way could be a bit a pricer...it does look cool to have on your shelf. You can even rip the movies off of Youtube or other streaming sites and  make your own copy with a custom label. It definitely adds a certain charm to your collection of obscure movies. Remember...public domain movies are all clear for this...they belong to the public after all. 

a public domain movie packaged on its own

 Inspite of the shadiness that goes with owning and selling bootlegs, B-movie and grindhouse aficianados owe these back alley gems for the current popularity of the genre. We wouldnt have movies like Deathproof, The Evil Dead Remake, Django Unchained, Kung Fu Hustle, Black Dynamite, and Hobo with a Shotgun among many others. Show some fucking respect.

Waflfles(the other fuck on the blog) made this bootleg of the classic Japanese sci-fi movies StarMan to add to his sizeable collection....don't worry,ITS PUBLIC DOMAIN FOOLS

Frankie says "uuuuuuuuuggggghhhhhh" : Frankenstein, The 1931 Classic

                    

"It's Alive!" We all know the line, and have made use of it in our everyday lives, whether smacking our DVD player back into working order, or getting the car running on the side of the highway. It's one of those iconic lines that has, and will continue to endure the test of time. Every bit as iconic, if not more so, is the Image of Karloff as the monster, making his way onto every form of merchandise available to the masses, from, lunch boxes to T-shirts, toys to graffiti on the wall in Everytown, U.S.A., and in fact across the world, hell Frankensteins monster is one of the most bought Halloween costumes every year, it has become a staple of pop culture world wide and rightfully so.

The Universal film adaptation of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein came out 82 years ago, and is still every bit as amazing as first time it hit the silver screen to eager crowds, ready and waiting to get their pants scared off. We all know the story by now, mad scientist builds body out of dead people, the brain, mistakenly, being from a violent criminal of some sort, and brings said built body to life with electricity, re-animated sewn together corpse eventually breaks free and kills fools, towns people get all kinds of mad and rally together to kill the "monster". The last part of that half assed explanation really makes me long for days past, days long before I was birthed unto this plane of existence, people used to have each others backs, and in the face of adversity would gang up on anyone or anything that would do them dirty. It's now a dead sentiment, with very few exceptions (gangs, and....uhhhhhhh) and that to me is truly a shame, but I've gotten off track haven't I?
When I first saw this movie as a very little kid (sometime before kindergarten) I thought this movie was like a documentary, and that somewhere there were sewn together dead people walking around throwing kids into lakes, and killing anyone who made anything even construed as a wrong move towards them.And that thought scared the shit out of me.I mean really, when you're little nobody tells you horror movies are fake, especially your parents, who use movie monsters as a way to keep you in line, akin to the boogey man and shit. Jerks. But enough about that....
When watching the movie nowadays I automatically notice some of the scientific inaccuracies, all of which I will gladly tell you now:

• The use of random dead bodies being sewn together, with no mention of the parts needing to have the same blood type, otherwise the body would reject the part, I think thats right anyways.
• The brain, before being stuck into the monster's head, was pickled in formaldehyde, which should have rendered the brain un-useable.  
• The doctor was building the body for weeks, in which time all the body parts would have decayed too much to have been used

• No mention of connecting nerves, which may have just been skipping over scientific jargon to make the movie flow
• The shock of the lightning bolt would have lit the body on fire, I don't care what kind of machines they had rerouting the electricity, a lightning strike that close to anyone would have fried the monster. Yeah yeah yeah, people get hit by electricity and survive, but most don't.    

Frankie say :Float.

Another thing I hadn't noticed as a child, was the ultimately child like nature of the monster, and how the "evil" nature it was accused of was really just the mistakes of an innocent mind. Really, the monster killed 3 people, the doctor's hunchback assistant , who tortured him relentlessly, another doctor who was intending to dismantle him, and a little girl, who had just taught him that if you throw things in the water they float, so he chucked the girl in the water and she drowned. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Really I don't blame the monster for any of the so called atrocities that he committed, the first two cases were self preservation, plain and simple, and the little girl, while it is horrible that a young life was taken, had taught the monster something that wasn't necessarily so, and the monster was just trying to put this new knowledge to use, immediately realizing the wrong he had done.It is possible the nature of the monster having no memory from the brain put into his head may have been the formaldehyde, the idea being the chemical wiped the brain clean of memories, so, in theory maturity wise and so forth, the monster was only a few weeks old at the time of his death, which also brings an extra sad note to the film.

Happy viewing.

Now, yes I am aware how hacky it is to write about such a classic movie that has been written about hundreds, nay, thousands of times a year for  80+ years, but having gained a new perspective on the film after not having seen it since the days of my childhood, I needed to get it out, I mean how many times does Frankenstein come up in conversation among the elitist hipster bastards that crowd the streets of contemporary America? Rarely. So having this platform to spout my jibber jabber works out quite nice. Anyways, go watch Frankie be brought to life and whipped, leading him to  liberate himself, only to be burned to death,  Or not quite to death, as the next flick, "The Bride of Frankestein" ,would have you believe.