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- [Tom] I made a documentary a few years back,

and it was about the end of the video store era

and the decline of physical media.

It opened up a can of worms,

that I think resonates throughout the history of film.

Filmmaking is a freedom of speech issue,

- And you have very few people who will buck that system.

- [Tom] And films have been censored

throughout history in various ways.

- That film, which was his first film, destroyed his career.

- And controversy is really what makes a movie survive.

- There was no streaming service that would even stream us.

- You should be able to, you should be able to turn profit.

- You, you did. - Someone stole it. (laughs)

- [Tom] Somewhere along

the 120 year plus history of film,

people realized that movies had the ability

to sculpt society in a way

that was even more potent than the written word,

and people have been trying to control it ever since.

(dramatic synth music)

What I realized is that films have been exploitative

and for profit since the beginning.

Think of Thomas Edison showing us short films

of strong men or dancing girls,

and of course, they've been censored since the beginning.

For instance, early boxing films were outright banned,

but censorship wasn't formalized 'til 1930

when the Hayes Code went into effect.

This heavily censored any sexuality and violence.

Then over time in 1968,

we had the Motion Picture Association

of America rating system,

and the films that stretched the boundaries

of that rating system were often referred to

as exploitation films,

and in the same breath, independent films,

and that's what this film is about.

Maybe Joe Bob Briggs can enlighten us

as to the origin of the term exploitation film.

- The true exploitation film,

a film that is on the border of being a carnival act

was probably in the '30s and '40s

when you had films like "Mom and Dad," you know,

it was a sex education film in a drama,

or "Reefer Madness" or films like that.

- Let's go, Jack, I'm red hot.

- You better be careful how you drive

or the first thing you know you'll be ice cold.

(car engine revving)

(tires screech)

- That was the pure exploitation circuit where the,

where the Kroger Babbs and other great producers of that era

were actually sort of,

they were misleading the public into thinking

they were seeing something that they were not seeing.

It was a very fine art that they practiced,

you know, the '50s and later

where exploitation films are just things

that the major studios will not make.

For example, in the '50s, you had these films

called Juvenile Delinquent Films, JD Films.

- Why don't you go out and hunt real criminals?

- We got a tip on this drag race,

but when we found the marijuana, well, sir,

that's a very serious charge.

- I don't believe the kids have touched the stuff.

- The major studios wouldn't make films

about high school hoodlums.

You know, so you had films like "High School Confidential"

that were released by the Sam Arkovs of the world

that were too racy for the mainstream theaters,

and they would premiere at the drive-ins.

I would say the golden age of exploitation films

from around 1966 to 1976.

In those years you had,

they were sex themed films, you know,

that went farther with nudity than you could previously go.

You had violence breaking out

in a way you'd never seen before,

and you had all kinds of horror films, like,

maybe "Night of The Living Dead" is the best known, 1968.

"Texas Chainsaw Massacre", that's 1974.

But you had hundreds of those.

You even had exploitation genres

that didn't survive the sixties and early seventies,

like the LSD film, you know, trip films or biker films.

Biker films only lasted four or five years,

but in that four or five years

there're probably a hundred biker films.

You had black exploitation.

Black exploitation probably lasted five years,

but there're probably 300,

maybe 400 black exploitation films.

You just don't have that kind of volume today, you know?

- Yeah. - So that was, that was,

I would say that was the golden era

of all exploitation genres.

(light music)

- My name is James Richardson.

I'm an Associate Professor of New Media Technology

at LaGuardia Community College.

Exploitation films have pretty much, you know,

I've been a big fan of those for, like, years.

I remember growing up in the seventies,

we had movies like "Shaft."

We had "Three The Hard Way," "Truck Turner,"

all the Coffy Brown and Cleopatra Jones movies,

Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, Jim Kelly.

That was pretty much the closest thing

that brothers like me had to black superhero films.

- Gonna set me up?

(funky music)

(men groaning)

- Over the top.

But, you know, without those characters,

without that type of extreme pro-blackness,

you wouldn't have had

some of the representation that you have today.

(funky music)

(kick thuds) (man groans)

It's almost impossible to mention black exploitation films

from the seventies without Pam Grier's name popping up.

You know, most of her movies were really sexist.

- Why don't you turn out the lights?

- As a 53 year old man now looking back,

a man who has, you know, a daughter himself,

it makes you a little uncomfortable.

But without Pam Grier,

you wouldn't have had almost any of the movies

that you have now in terms of with black female empowerment.

- This is the end of your rotten life

you motherfuckin' dope pusher!

(shotgun blasts)

- You have to go through a "Foxy Brown"

to get to, like, a "Hidden Figures."

(light music)

- [Tom] So when we realize

that exploitation films can be important works of art,

and they can inspire artists to improve on the past,

it puts us in a strange position.

You might not condone those films,

but you understand their need to exist,

because that is where the real experimentation is

at the edges of acceptability.

Filmmakers like John Waters, Roger Corman,

and Lloyd Kaufman of Troma Entertainment

have been making very inclusive films,

although in the same breath, they're considered offensive.

Some emphasize violence, sexuality, race,

others are monster movies, biker movies, gross out movies.

- [Announcer] Now comes an action film

of relentless excitement.

- Taste some of mama's home cooking, playa!

(man groaning)

- [Announcer] See the film

that is creating a tidal wave of action all over the world.

See, "Surf Nazis Must Die."

- But their thing with exploitation films is too,

so many movies wouldn't exist without them.

Some of the first slasher films were exploitation films,

and so it's like,

if these things didn't exist so much of what was, you know,

seen now, you know, wouldn't exist whatsoever.

You know, years back,

horror was kind of considered almost like

the evil stepchild of the world.

People didn't like talking about it.

Horror was very considered very, you know,

underground really wasn't that big.

If you liked horror films,

you were kind of considered odd and strange.

Nowadays though, horror films are the films that make money.

Horror films are the movies that people are talking about.

You know, Blumhouse now is like a mainstream horror company.

20 years ago,

they would be considered like a Roger Corman underground.

They would not be like they are now.

(liquid spluttering) (ominous music)

- You know, like you couldn't find

Troma films in Blockbuster.

I hate Blockbuster, I hate Blockbuster with a passion.

- [Tom] Wait a minute.

Why is James so pissed off about Blockbuster video?

Well, the mom and pop video stores

often filled their shelves with low budget

and exploitation films because they were much cheaper.

If a studio release of "Pulp Fiction" was $70,

you could buy three films from Troma Studios

for the same amount of money.

- You couldn't find anything other

than the major releases at Blockbuster.

"Maniac Cop" one and two, "Faces of Death,"

you know, porn, there's another thing. (laughs)

They drove so many small mom and pop shops out of business.

I used to live directly above

a Blockbuster here in Manhattan.

- [Tom] Blockbuster video

was established in 1985 by David Cook.

He had humble beginnings but it grew quickly,

acquiring other franchises by the hundreds

and in just a few years,

they started to be tied into the film industry itself.

It was not long before

they worked directly with the film studios.

By the early 2000s,

it was clear that mom and pop video stores

could not compete with Blockbuster Video.

For the most part,

Blockbuster Video paid nothing for the new releases

and split revenue directly with the film studios.

They did not offer low-budget,

independent, or exploitation titles.

- I felt really kind of vindicated

when they were driven out of business

because they didn't adapt.

They basically thought

they were the biggest dogs on the block,

and as a result they got eaten.

- [Interviewer] Did you hear

there's one existing Blockbuster Video left?

- I heard that somewhere

and I wish them nothing but heartbreak.

- And yes,

it still looks like the old original Blockbuster Video,

even with the torn ticket stub light

on the side of the building and the sign out on the street,

the last Blockbuster Video in the United States.

I got this while I was there.

Part of the nostalgia.

I believe that those people there are enjoying what they do.

They seem to be holding on

to this last vestige of our old culture,

and I'm glad that they're just down the road from me.

This stuff I understand was actually given

to the Anchorage, the Alaska store,

but they ended up closing anyway, and so they ended up here.

So, and you have a French officer's uniform

from "Les Miserables."

- When "The John Oliver Show" found out that,

they didn't know about our store, so they were like,

we need to try to save the Alaska stores.

Russell Crowe was doing a personal auction

of some of his movie props.

So they went to the auction, bought a handful of 'em,

and then donated them to the Alaska Blockbuster store.

Ultimately, unfortunately, it didn't help save them,

and so they had to go somewhere.

(light elevator music)

- [Tom] It brings back memories, doesn't it?

- When Blockbusters started dominating

the video store market,

that was the beginning of the end

for the guys who could make direct to video product.

That was possible because there were so many video stores,

and so, and as you say, mom and pop video stores.

(light music)

- Now people, they say they like exploitation movies,

but it's almost like a dirty secret that, you know,

maybe in their little clique they could talk about it.

I find it fascinating also,

that they're more willing to judge

and give a hard time to filmmakers that are alive right now.

It's almost like they want to see

the destruction of these people, like that's part of it.

(crowd chattering)

Whether it's Lloyd or you know,

some of the other independent filmmakers that do edgy stuff,

it's, you have to fully understand

that there's going to be massive dips and peaks

within the acceptability of what you're doing.

It's gonna be completely out of chic

and you're just gonna get hammered.

But then the time will come when it'll come back,

and I've always seen Troma like that.

People are either taking Troma off their resume, you know,

which is what they'll, if you go to Hollywood,

that's the first thing,

like Trent Haaga told me, the first thing they told him,

get all that Troma stuff off your resume, you know,

purge your resume, get rid of all that indie stuff.

We would rather see you as a fresh person

than someone who's done, you know, exploitation.

- It's, it's so ironic to me

that today when an exploitation filmmaker dies,

they do an obit in the New York Times. (laughs)

After ignoring his whole body of work for his entire career,

refusing to review his movies,

they will actually write

an admiring biographical obituary about the guy,

it's like, it's like the essence of hypocrisy.

The New York Times did a front page obituary

on Al Goldstein of all people, you know?

They weren't talking about Al Goldstein

when he was publishing Screw Magazine.

So I don't know what this is that now main,

now it's sort of okay with mainstream media to talk about

the Roger Cormans of the world

and the Lloyd Kaufmans of the world.

They certainly weren't talking about 'em

when they were putting out their best movies

and they were sometimes actively denigrating them.

There was a critic at the New York Times named Janet Maslin,

who actually suggested

that movies like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"

caused crime, were pornography.

(light music)

- [Tom] For the last few years

I've hosted a film podcast in New York

with James Richardson and Ken Powell.

Over time, it became a way to chronicle

the changing landscape of independent

and exploitation films in the modern era.

Here Ken talks about visiting the set

on Lloyd Kaufman's latest film.

- So I went out to a Troma set,

which they were working here in Astoria,

which is, you know, really cool.

Hey guys, I'm out here just waiting

to head up to the Troma shoot for "Shitstorm."

In a kind of a crummier section,

broken down houses and warehouses

and a lot of construction going on,

kind of fitting for Troma.

Like, you know, it's definitely part of Troma's image,

like the house that they were using,

probably like one good rainstorm from being condemned,

(laughs) but that's the Troma way.

I'm sure they got it for the cheap, you know,

they were very open to, you know,

having me behind the scenes and filming,

filming these guys as they were setting up

for the shots for the day.

But yeah, I was able to, you know, get Lloyd in action.

- I told him to stop editing until we finish

and to make an assembly, until we can pick takes.

- [Ken] He loves having people there

to cover his movie shoots and 'cause he knows

it's gonna be kind of like free press.

- The empty wall, not the couch wall but the empty wall.

- [Ken] You know, that helps attract eyes.

- I think it was far more acceptable

to make exploitation 30, 40 years ago.

And even if you're making an exploitation movie,

the only way that you'll fully get away with it

is if you're kind of doing an homage.

- Yeah. - This is like that.

- Yeah. - So it's okay.

- [Tom] Like a "Sharknado" or something that's not,

essentially it's satire and it's not,

it's not particularly edgy or, you know?

- No, it's not trying to say anything

other than this is fun.

You know, there's no, like, social commentary about it,

like "Easy Rider" or something like that,

that's, you know, a lot of the movies had,

even if you didn't even, you know,

know that you were seeing it at the time.

It's, they were being made to say something.

After I made "Model Hunger,"

which was shot in in 2012, but came out in 2016.

So I had a lot of bills to pay like anybody else does.

Like, I didn't finance the movie,

the writer did, James Morgart,

but I had a lot of expenses

and traveling around with it under my arm,

getting people to play it anywhere that,

you know, had a door and a screen and more than one person.

So, I mean it's,

I went into quite a bit of debt

just to get people to see it and,

you know, not expecting even to make money.

- Oh, and even if you get paid

for the feature film eventually,

it's like you have to put in all these hours first.

Like, it's the only reason you're gonna do it

is because you enjoy doing it.

You're not gonna do it to make a living

because the amount of hours you can put into

making a feature film is the same amount of hours,

like if you were to put take those same hours

and put it into a regular job, minimum wage,

you would've made a ton more at that point

because, you know, otherwise you're doing,

you're doing all this for free

in a hope that for all the time you put into it,

that eventually you'll get paid back

for that time in the long run,

but you're just holding your breath

for years until that would ever come.

So you could totally go in debt for making a film,

even if it's the film is fundraised

because that has nothing to do with it.

The fundraiser, all the money goes into the film.

So anything that you're actually gonna personally make

out of it would only happen after the film was finished.

- What happened was, I had to get a day job

to help with the bills during this process

and I was there for a little while

and this group of concerned parents came after me

and they started a flyer campaign

and I was actually flyered out of my job

because they would take captions from Twitter

and pictures of me from silly, goofy movies where, you know,

like "Teen Ape Vs. The Monster Nazi Apocalypse,"

and I've got like, you know, a swastika on or something,

but I die in the movie, there's justice,

- [Tom] You're a villain.

- I'm a villain, you know, like a cartoon villain.

Doctor, prepare the throne for his arrival!

- Oh, we have a chair.

- But they would take these outta context

and they had all these crazy characters I've done,

not of course the serious ones, the most outlandish,

and if there's any nudity, they had it all like a package.

So I was just brought into the office

of the place that I was worked,

was working at and they said, "No, no, no, no."

And so that was the end of that.

- You're literally seeing people

get shouted down for individual views

and some of the stuff absolutely should be challenged.

But the problem that I have with some of the stuff

that you see on social media

is that because of the way Facebook

and other content providers kind of filter their content,

you generally only see content

from people that you agree with.

So we start to, after awhile,

start to exist in these little bubbles

where we kind of think that this is the idea,

the ideas that I have are uniform

and most people think like me or should think like me

and you're not really confronted

with opposing points of view.

That's troubling and it doesn't do,

you know, our culture any service in the long run.

Art absolutely has to offend people at times.

It has to challenge their sensibilities,

make them think and see things in different ways.

Without that type of challenge,

art's worthless, absolutely worthless.

- [Producer] By financially starving out

independent content now culturally,

you're losing out, like, art suffers in general.

- Absolutely.

Because of the fact that you have content

that seems like almost all the same.

The Hollywood films, the major streaming sites,

they're churning out a lot of stuff that's,

I don't wanna say cookie cutter,

but it's not really pushing the envelope,

so over time you do lose out.

(light music)

- [Tom] Truth is,

I have dozens of stories from friends of mine

who have gotten ripped off by the studio system,

but there are very few people who actually go on the record

and talk about this stuff.

Mostly because they want

to keep participating in filmmaking.

So I was able to convince one of my oldest friends,

Jason Carvey, to come to New York and talk with me.

But you did direct this smoothie called "New Wave."

- Yep, it's called "New Wave."

It was independently financed, raised all the money,

shot it in Connecticut in New York in 2007

and then got a sales agent that liked it enough,

thought he could sell it,

did sell it to a company called ThinkFilm,

which you've probably heard of,

and I was really psyched 'cause ThinkFilm at the time

was really cool, independent.

It was one of the really cool independent distributors.

There was movies I'd heard of.

They did "Half Nelson,"

they did "Taxi to the Dark Side," they did "Murder Ball."

- [Tom] You had essentially, when you started,

had no connections to the industry.

- None.

- [Tom] You managed to raise a good amount of money.

- We had around 250 grand.

- [Tom] You cast John Krasinski

in one of his first features.

- Yeah, that was he,

he had done "The Office."

He'd done the pilot for "The Office."

It hadn't been picked up,

which was good for us and I didn't know any of this.

He just came in and auditioned

and the guy was fucking great.

- Is this, uh, silk?

- It's wool.

- I will wipe my ass with this suit.

- Okay, have you boys ever used a gun before?

- Yeah, I've used a gun.

Coney Island, they're tied down, but they're real guns.

They are.

- We had made the deal with him

and then maybe like a week later,

"The Office" got picked up for, I think first six episodes.

It wasn't a great, it wasn't a tremendous deal.

It wasn't like a bunch of money up front,

it was a little bit of money up front

basically to finish the film.

The backend deal was very, very good.

So I was like, okay, I can really, I can pay.

I think we have a really good shot

at paying my investors back.

To me, that was like the big thing

because if I can pay them back,

they'll give that money again.

They'll like, you know, let it ride.

And then, you know, the movie came out.

We had, I had some inside,

one of my producers had some connections

with the DVD business, you know,

normally a filmmaker, you have no idea how,

what sold, what didn't sell.

But he was able to call in, get some favors and be like,

okay, Hollywood Video bought this many copies,

Blockbuster Video bought this many copies.

So we kind of put together a number in our head

of how many DVDs are out there.

You know, we knew how much the wholesale value was.

So I'm starting to do the math in my head and we should,

we should be past the breakeven point here.

We should be able to really make some money.

So I'm waiting for our first statement.

Okay, I'm getting the runaround.

Bruce is calling people getting the runaround.

I think it was up to year finally after like,

I think Bruce had to go into the offices in New York,

barged into his office and was like, "What the fuck, man?"

They gave us a statement

and it said we had $100,000 in marketing costs

that were deducted off the top, which is standard,

and we knew that, I knew that going in.

It wasn't a surprise, it was part of the contract.

You're still in the red $30,000.

And I'm like that, the numbers of DVDs don't,

that doesn't add up at all with the inside numbers

that I already know about.

So, but I don't,

I think that might have been the only statement we ever got.

- [Producer] Wow.

- Because we didn't get another statement.

So six months goes by, you know, I'm sitting there, I have,

you know, now my investors are like,

"Hey, how did the movie do?"

(energetic music)

I had to borrow $10,000 from my dad

to hire a lawyer to try to get our money back.

So I was suing just to get the upfront money

and we're not even talking about the money

that I think they owe me on the backend,

which I estimated to be around $500,000,

which would've paid everyone back

and then given everybody a little extra.

We did a summary judgment

and ThinkFilm were required to pay us,

and they actually did.

They, they started, they gave us,

they cut us a check for five grand.

So I gave five grand back to my dad.

- [Producer] Yeah.

- And then they cut us another check for five grand.

I gave that back to my dad.

So now we're we're even, and then we never got another dime.

And then they went into bankruptcy, so.

- [Producer] And how common do you think this,

that what they did is?

- I think that is absolutely how it works.

And unfortunately I think that there are,

I'm not saying every company's like that,

but I think they're, listen,

the music industry's very similar.

Like, there are no shortage of stories

of people getting ripped off.

There are no shortage of stories of people

just getting taken advantage of, you know, and the truth is,

I think this is much bigger than the film industry.

Our whole legal system operates on

whoever has more money is likely gonna win.

Whether it's a murder case

or whether it's, you know, a lawsuit.

It's just how much money it takes to sue someone.

So contracts be damned.

I had, I didn't have enough money to challenge them.

- [Producer] Well, I seem to remember even Peter Jackson

had to sue over "The Lord of the Rings."

- Yeah, yeah, he had sue New Line.

Yeah, well even if I had millions of dollars

to throw into a lawsuit,

what would it take for me to sue ThinkFilm

and it'd probably take $300,000, $500,000

to sue to possibly get my money back.

- [Producer] Yeah, yeah.

- And now, (laughs) so it's not even worth it, right?

So that does create this, it creates this environment

where it's just very, very easy

to take advantage of people's dreams.

The sad thing is,

it wasn't necessarily the folks at ThinkFilm

who started the company because ThinkFilm got bought

by a bigger conglomerate

and that's when I think things turned

and it was right around the time I sold my film to them.

But I figured if you're anywhere in that like, you know,

under half a million dollars, you should be able to,

you should be able to turn profit, you know?

- [Producer] Yeah, and you would've, you did.

I mean, you did turn profit. - (laughs) Yeah.

- It's just... - Someone stole it.

(both laughing)

- What I think is fascinating

is one of the last things he said was

ThinkFilm was independent and then sold to a conglomerate.

It becomes the studio system and at that point is when

they essentially stiffed the filmmakers.

- [James] Is it just the majors though?

'Cause I've heard stories

of smaller companies doing the same thing though.

- [Tom] I don't think any independent distribution company

is really making a lot of money.

So if you put out an indie film,

I think you have to be prepared to not,

to expect to not make a ton of money.

The honest, independent film companies will say, look,

we're not gonna make a lot of money, just so you know,

if you sign with us, this is usually what we sell.

If you make above this, we'll pay you.

- What's really preventing

the independent film companies from turning a profit?

Because the channels are there.

You would think that the distribution, the,

with the advent of social media that it's easier to market,

it's easier to get the product out.

So what the hell is the issue?

Is it the middle man?

- [Tom] So James brings up a good point here.

What is exactly keeping

independent filmmakers from making money?

I decided I need to talk with someone

who actually runs a distribution company.

So I reached out to J.R. Bookwalter,

whose first film was actually funded by Sam Raimi

and who's run Tempe Video for nearly two decades.

(dramatic music)

- I think the Tempe Video end of things I've laid,

sort of laid to rest over the last few months.

- [Producer] Initially, I mean, it's a known label.

I mean, so it was, it worked for a long time.

- It worked for, well, it worked for awhile.

It hasn't, it hadn't, hadn't really,

it's been on life support honestly,

since probably about 2008.

Which is about the time that we, Netflix sort of dumped us.

They were very supportive

and we did a lot of business with Netflix

and they on the DVD side, they took all the movies on the,

when they started their streaming service,

they took all the movies and it was never,

I won't say it was a huge business,

but it was enough business

to sort of justify continuing to do it

and find little movies that I could put out

and, you know, continue doing it.

But when that kind of went away, I don't,

I won't say it broke my spirit, but it sort of was like,

now I'm kind of like left without a safety net.

- [Producer] So do you think it,

would you say in general that Netflix

was built on the backs of independent content like you?

- Oh, no doubt.

Because back in the DVD days,

they would take everything and when they launched,

first launched their streaming service, Netflix basically,

I won't say they were begging us, but they were.

I mean, they were like, we want your content.

And they were willing at the time

when they started the deal, they would pay you by stream.

It was like 50 cents per hour or something they were paying,

which sounds like absolutely luxurious

compared to what anybody gets now. (laughs)

Hollywood wanted nothing to do with them.

They didn't want to give 'em the movie.

They didn't believe in this whole streaming thing,

you know, nobody wanted to give them content.

So it was guys like me that gave them content.

And that went on for almost a year

before Netflix kind of circled back and said,

"Well, this is costing

"a little more money than we anticipated." (laughs)

I think they were losing money, you know?

They then partnered with Starz

who did have Hollywood content

and against the really, probably,

they kind of got in the back door

because the studios were licensing it to Starz for cable.

But part of that deal was that they also had streaming

and that was sort of the beginning of the end.

The business is very cyclical.

It's, you know, every so many years,

there's a gold, a new gold rush.

You know what I mean?

Where you could, if you get in at the right time,

you're gonna make money.

People like Charles Band, you know,

had been in that gold rush

back in the days of the Vestron Videos.

You know, he was getting, I remember him telling me a story

about Vestron giving him his first million.

He got a check for like a million dollars as in advance

on a couple of movies or something that he was doing.

And this was at the height of that whole marketplace

when everything was just theatrical, you know,

that home video was just this new thing that nobody knew

and everybody was throwing money around and then,

but like anything, you know,

that time goes by and everything constricts again.

And then if you're, if you get in at the wrong time,

you know, too bad, you missed the boat.

I actually don't think that these companies

are looking to starve independents.

I don't think it's that at all.

I think they're so oblivious that we're not even,

we're like a non-issue for them really.

I mean it's,

it was interesting because Amazon started

this video direct service with the big pitch that, you know,

any creative filmmaker

or short films or whatever, you can post it.

It was, they were scared by YouTube.

They got spooked because YouTube made it, you know,

was sort of like the great equalizer when it came out

that anybody can post stuff on online and have an audience

and people were building multimillion dollar careers

off of that kind of thing.

So Amazon in particular had created the service with

the intention of trying to capture some of that audience.

But I think then what they found out is there was,

part of it was there was a lot of junk on their service

intermingled with all the stuff that, you know,

the studios were pushing in.

They're trying to,

still trying to push the old studio model.

You know, they're sort of undermining us to some degree,

making it harder for people to find our movies.

You know, if you search,

go on and search on one of these services,

they're gonna favor, you know,

the studios' films because the studios,

they have that buddy system relationship

that they've had forever.

- [Tom] So would you like to guess

how much money I made off of both films

collectively for a quarter of a year maybe?

- 50, 60 bucks? - (laughs) $15.

- [James] Damn!

- It's almost like they go out of their way every six months

to just trip you, like to put your,

their foot out and just, like, trip you

because they're always changing the rules.

In 2018, they decided to change

how they monetize the content.

They changed it in such a way that only the people who had

hundreds of thousands of minutes of content

viewed every month were gonna make anything.

And even then it was a reduced amount

because I've never really made

any significant money from rent or buy,

you know, the rent or buy box on there.

It's mostly from Prime, that was,

they just decided to start pulling content for, you know,

and in using some sort of vague,

like, quality control explanation.

And the worst part is they were,

they would just shut those titles off

and tell you that there's no way to appeal it.

No way you're gonna get it back online.

It's just done, that's it.

- [Tom] On that subject,

I had actually purchased one of my own films on Amazon,

the film "London Betty."

In reality, you're purchasing more like a license

to have permanent access to that film.

Well, when Amazon Prime deleted

those thousands of independent films,

they deleted that film as well,

so they deleted it from my permanent library.

- Which is scary 'cause that,

then it becomes from a filmmaker's perspective,

like, wait a minute.

You're sort of like,

it's censorship but not censorship for any valid reason.

It's not like you don't like this nude scene here or this,

you know, there's some sort of

gore torture scene or something.

I mean, it's not that at all.

They just decided this title doesn't fit

with what we want on here.

Out of my 40 titles that I have in my library,

they had pulled seven titles down

and it was a very strange mix.

Like one of them was my shot on video film

I had done in the late '90s called "The Sandman."

It's very generic, not,

I had made it trying to get into Blockbuster

back in the day, so there's no gore in it.

There's no, really anything that that they could have said,

"Oh, this is offensive," or whatever.

They just decided it wasn't the user reviews

because there was good reviews

and there was a few bad reviews.

There was one called "Poison Sweethearts"

that I had made years ago that I had produced.

- I'm gonna kill them. (ominous music)

(woman screams)

- [Announcer] Poison Sweethearts,

Poison Sweethearts, Poison Sweethearts.

A mysterious film, a mysterious film.

A sexual film, a sexual film.

A violent film, a violent film.

- Damn tramps!

- [Narrator] In this city,

they're treated as sweet candy to the eyes of sour men.

Fear leads to anger.

Poison Sweethearts.

- I distributed it and it's shot on HD, lit well.

You know, it's the technical quality of it

was better maybe than "The Sandman."

So I could understand, okay,

if you're gonna not take "The Sandman," but why would,

why would you take this one down?

Somebody had told me, "Hey, what's going on with this movie?

"I wanted to watch it and it's gone."

You know, that's how a lot of people found out about it.

It's a reminder, I think when these companies do this,

that you're we're not in control of our destinies.

They are.

- Greetings from Troma.

(group screaming)

When it comes to any independent business,

especially movies, television, and the arts.

The effects that the oligopolies

have over visionary enterprise,

those effects are disastrous to us.

If you ran a business that saw revenues

decline by 88% over the course of just two years,

you'd likely make the logical assumption

that the business was dying.

But what if that very same business

actually had a 65% increase

in customer traffic over the same time period?

At that point,

you probably have to assume you were being robbed blind.

- All right, everybody!

Drop your tacos or I'll blow your brains out!

- Well, this is exactly

what's happening to Troma Entertainment.

Even as Troma's online viewership

increased substantially from the fourth quarter of 2015

to the fourth quarter of 2017,

views increased from about 5 million to over 15 million.

The revenue generated from this traffic

dropped to almost nothing in the fourth quarter of 2015.

"Electra Love," a typical title distributed by Troma

was viewed 500,000 times

and received about a thousand bucks.

In the fourth quarter of 2017,

the same "Electra Love" was viewed just as many times

and received exactly $1 and 20 cents.

- See, now that Disney owns Fox

and has already bought and scooped up Marvel

and Lucas Film and Pixar and I mean, it's soon,

how long's it gonna be before Disney owns everybody?

The last film I made for Full Moon

was this thing called "Mega Scorpions."

Not my shining moment,

but that film was originally made for Fox Home Video

and Fox Home Video, as far as I know, still owns the rights.

In a roundabout way now, Disney owns one of the movies

that I made for Full Moon. (laughs)

(light music)

- This is something that's true.

A lot of independent films just don't make money and a lot,

just like the music industry,

a lot of albums just don't make money.

So there's nothing nefarious there,

but I think you got like a 50/50 chance

of getting an honest distribution company

versus a predatory one.

In the studio system, if you are outside of that ecosystem,

I think the standard is to essentially fleece you.

So if an independent filmmaker does well for a company

and that distributor screws them,

then you're not allowing capitalism

to actually function in the proper way

because that filmmaker would've gone on to a second film.

And what you've done is you've destroyed that possibility

because if they lost a quarter million dollars,

how the fuck are they supposed

to get another quarter million, you know?

The same story about Jason Carvey is true,

is that he was successful.

This is what happens when capitalism gets too corrupt,

is that it actually doesn't function the way it should.

It should be a hierarchy of competence.

- If I'm looking at 500,000 directly in front of you

and it's like, I should give Tom his 250,

or fuck it, I can keep it all myself.

(both laughing)

- And yeah.

- There's a lot of people who are like,

"Yo, I'm not giving you anything."

- When you look at nowadays what is being remade,

it's so often a movie that would be considered

like a niche film, like a "Child's Play" getting remade,

"Texas Chainsaw Massacre,"

which was considered so shocking at the time, been remade.

They're still making, you know,

direct to video sequels to it to this day.

You know, like when you think about

the characters that live on,

you remember Chop Top, you remember, you know, Leatherface,

you don't remember, like,

who was the Academy Award winner in 1982 or '85?

You don't remember half of that.

That's sort of of the kind of thing like,

"Oh yeah, I don't really remember,"

but you remember, you know, Angela from "Sleepaway Camp."

You remember the shocking ending to "Sleepaway Camp."

- The process bringing a truly independent piece

of filmmaking to the market is extremely hard.

Okay, it's always been hard.

There's no big breaking news here,

but here's what's extremely hard.

I was told by a lot of people when I made the movie

that the ending was too much.

Even Harry Manfredini said to me,

he did the original score.

He said, "You really should think twice about that ending."

And I was like, I heard him out,

I listened to him and I understood what he said,

but I felt so strongly about it

and I spoke to my editor and he said,

"You're bringing the story this far,

"and then are you just gonna drop it?"

And I'm like, "No, no."

So there was no choice

to keep the ending in as it was designed.

And I'm still to this day, glad that we did.

However, in the distribution of this movie,

there was a couple different companies that wanted it,

you know, smaller companies of course.

One that we went with Wild Eye

agreed to keep the title and not cut it.

The other company wanted to change the title,

which wasn't a big deal, but, and cut it.

- Filmmakers love their craft, but they also,

many times they want to get paid also.

They're tired of being broke.

So if in order for me to make my money back,

I have to tone down certain things

in order to get on certain platforms, they'll do it.

And you have very few people who will buck that system.

- So went with the not cutting it, you know, Wild Eye.

The trouble that Wild Eye had with it though was,

okay, they put it out in DVD.

They couldn't get it into any Red Box or Walmart.

It was just way too off the charts graphic for them.

Even though it had, like, an incredible message about,

hey women, stop judging yourselves.

Like this is, you know, don't worry about this.

Do what you can do,

but love yourself and don't fall into the pits of,

you know, beauty coming out of magazines

and all that sort of thing.

That was the message of the movie.

But all they saw was the gore instead of the message.

- I wanted to be an actress.

I used to go on all the casting calls.

God knows I have the arthritic knees

to prove all the begging I did in the casting office.

But it got me nowhere.

The younger, prettier girls always got the roles.

You said that, that your thighs

were your biggest hurdle to becomin' famous.

I can solve your problem!

(woman screaming)

- And so, but because of the graphic nature of it,

there was no streaming service

that would even stream us and that, but that was too much.

And so because we got banned from the streaming,

which is where, where everything is at now,

and we only have DVD.

The only Blu-ray that came out was

on the Special Horror Box special edition that they did.

And they probably did like 100 or so Blu-rays

just for their particular thing.

That's all that it was, that's all.

It was just a DVD and it didn't stream a single place,

even on indies.

It may not be a Hollywood movie,

but the indies have very similar standards

to the Hollywood movies

if you want to stream on those big sites.

So it killed us, it killed us.

- I can go and watch "Human Centipede" one through three.

Meanwhile, Debbie Rochon's film is for some reason banned.

The idea that those films are somehow less graphic

than Debbie's film is totally ridiculous.

And I really have to call in the question,

what's happening here?

There is a reason why people want to

experience something horrific in a safe way.

That's what films are.

So I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

And I think the mission of independent filmmakers

and B movie filmmakers is to push the limits

and to find those edges.

That's the only way

we can differentiate from Hollywood garbage.

- Sometimes you gotta offend people,

you have to challenge their views.

My point of view, for the most part,

can stand up under scrutiny, under bright lights.

And if it can't, then maybe I should shut my mouth.

And a lot of people nowadays,

it's like, you know, because you don't like it,

because it offends your sensibilities,

it should be automatically banned.

If I'm watching "Faces of Death,"

I can't really ban Kurt Cameron's stuff.

- [Tom] It is impossible to talk about exploitation films

without upbringing in the VHS era,

for this was the first time in American history

that people had continuous access

to these strange exploitation films.

Do you have any VHS tapes in the store?

- No, no. (laughs) - It's all DVD and Blu-ray?

- It's all DVD and Blu-ray.

Yeah, they stopped making VHS in 2004,

so we stopped carrying 'em as soon as they,

when they stopped manufacturing them.

We started, we actually started transitioning to DVD

and Blu-ray a few years before that.

- Interesting story

that when I myself worked for Blockbuster,

I was part of that transition where the,

we had the order from corporate that we couldn't sell

or give away or even personally take

any of the old VHS tapes.

We had to double garbage bag

and put them all in the dumpster.

And we even had like, you know,

district managers coming in

and supervising that to make sure that that took place.

I still took some.

- We've seen movies that have,

like, never gone past the VHS.

You know, they stopped there

and they've never made their way onto DVD, Blu-Ray.

- [Tom] Did you ever see the movie "The Howling VII?"

- "The Howling VII?"

No, I must have missed that one.

- [Tom] Did you know "The Howling" went up to number seven?

- Oh, you. (laughs)

No, I did, I did not see that.

- One of the worst movies ever made is "The Howling VII,"

and when it's the movie that killed "The Howling" franchise.

"The Howling" franchise has recently come back.

Well, it took it 20 years to come back. (laughs)

It took it 20 years

to get rid of the stigma of "The Howling VII."

We showed "The Howling VII" on my show and it was so,

it was one of those movies that's so bad

you can actually start to enjoy the badness of it.

The week after we showed it,

we got this massive amount of fan mail

and it's like, where is that?

I didn't, I didn't,

I thought the series ended at "Howling VI."

Well, yes, that's because New Line never released this,

but somehow we ended up with it.

Yeah, where is that?

You know, where can I get that?

And actually it had a VHS release.

It never had a DVD release.

It never had a theatrical release

and it does not exist as an actual film.

They pieced together enough of it (laughs)

to release the VHS version

and the rest of the 35 millimeter film

is just in cardboard boxes somewhere at New Line in pieces.

It was never actually pieced together

so it could be shown in a theater.

There's an example of VHS saving something for posterity.

Now, whether it should be saved, who knows? (laughs)

- I have a whole entire room full of VHS tapes and stuff

and you know, it fills up and it's like, you know,

I'm not gonna be watching stuff on VHS but I like to own it

for, like, collectors because, you know,

I'm nostalgic for that

and I like to have that in my background of my videos

to show as hey, you know,

this is a period in time that I don't wanna forget.

I like to, you know, show that this is like,

almost like a period in history, which I was a part of.

And it's, it's fun to look back at that.

Yeah, the video store!

- Oh shit!

- Don't you just love the video store?

- I love the fucking video store.

- It's the shit!

Probably the most nostalgic thing to me personally,

is the video store. - Yeah.

- Just the idea of going into a place to actually

physically look at the movies before you rent 'em.

(mysterious synth music)

Oh man, look at this.

A little VHS tape action.

Remember this shit?

It would become unspooled and it would just go everywhere.

Look at this, it's just going.

It's tied up in the bike over here.

So I found this really cool VHS, it's got great artwork.

If you look on the spine it says Tromabilia.

So when I opened it up,

it actually says "Killer Condom" on it.

But it also says please return as soon as possible.

- Oh, what? (screams)

(dramatic music)

- So we're here at Troma and I'm gonna return this VHS

that says return as soon as possible on it.

So hopefully he won't be too mad at me

'cause it's 30 years overdue.

(mysterious synth music)

Okay, I'm gonna ring the buzzer, right?

(buzzer buzzes)

- That's good porn.

YouTube, tubegalore.com.

- Jesus.

Hey.

- Hey Tom Seymour. - Hey, Lloyd.

- Tom Seymour, who let you in?

- Lloyd, I found this VHS tape.

I think it's really important.

It says return as soon as possible.

- Wait a minute, this is, this is 30 years old.

What?

No wonder "Killer Condom" had no success in distribution.

You didn't return our screener.

This was the only one we had.

- Fuck!

Sweet, Lloyd's autographing my VHS.

My 30 year late VHS.

- Well, filmmaking is an art and if you want to be an artist

then the filmmaking might be a good profession for you.

But if you're a lazy son of a bitch,

then you aren't going to do very well

in the making of cinema.

And if you think you're gonna be able

to make a lot of money and be lazy,

it ain't gonna work either.

If you're an artist, you might support yourself.

If you are a genuine artist and if you've read some books,

and if you have something to say

and if you really love cinema,

you can probably make some kind of life out of it.

But it's not going to pay your rent or feed you unless,

unless you become an ally of one of the vassals

of one of these giant devil worshiping

international media conglomerates.

It's been coming for a long time,

but the independent movie industry is pretty much squashed.

The word independent's been stolen.

Fox Searchlight is called independent

movies made by the sons and daughters

of multi-million dollar celebrities are called independent.

And the word has been literally stolen away.

So it, if you're gonna be independent artists,

you better be prepared to have a day job.

- [Tom] You don't foresee

any sort of gold rush again, right?

Like in regard to the various times

where indies could kind of sneak in, like make some cash.

- I think there is a gold rush

and I think there is ways to make a lot of money

become an internet star.

The Cinema Snob, he's got a great podcast,

he's totally independent, he has his own company.

The Cinema Snob makes enough money

so he doesn't have to work at anything

other than being the Cinema Snob.

He's got at least one full-time employee.

He's made two movies

and it's all from his independent things.

His source of income is something other than movie making.

It's something other than the garbage that's on television.

And I've been talking about this for a long time.

A base of power, the base of power, right?

Troma, we're out here in the middle of nowhere,

but at least we have a little base of power.

We've got, you know,

half a million fans and a cult following

and we're here in the Long Island city where people come,

tourists come here and we have kind of a brand.

Movie making has become democratized,

but you can't eat off of it.

You can't pay your rent

unless you are in with one of the big shots,

and then you get your wings clipped

and you have to become reeducated, right?

So that unless you, if you wanna be a real artist,

you have to be prepared for those kinds of troubles.

- [Tom] Now I have to figure out how to play this.

It's a VCD.

- [Woman] I'm sure I can find my card for you.

(Tom laughs)

- [Tom] "Joe Dirt."

So Tom Poirier, one of our producers

has actually been shooting footage

at the last Blockbuster Video,

and it occurred to me that maybe

I should take this copy of a classic film.

It's actually not a very classic film

and I'm gonna try to return this video tape.

I think it's really late.

I think it's, like, 30 years late.

- I have found out through our local news

that there is a video store in a town

that happens to be between

where I live in Albany, Oregon and Bend,

in a little town called Sweet Home, Oregon,

and there resides American Family Video.

I'm gonna take you guys along with me

and we'll see what happens.

And this is Sweet Home, Oregon.

It is 9,000 people.

This is the front of American Family video.

It's a clearance sale because this store is closing.

- [Kathi] Well, I tell you right now, I do not.

- [Tom] "Borrowed Hearts."

Okay, I don't know what that is, but you'll never.

- American Family Video started in '82 and '83.

It was like 49th in the nation at one time,

so we were a big guy.

In 2008, when it started doing the downturn,

they started shutting some of our stores down.

The owner offered me an opportunity

to buy the Sweet Home store and so I did then in 2010.

- [Tom] Okay.

- I figured I had 10 years left because I'm 67 now.

So I figured, well, 10 more years of video

and I made it nine and a half.

- [Tom] You outlived Blockbuster.

You outlived Hollywood

and essentially every other independent.

- You have to really watch on the not rated movies

because there's a lot of not rated movies,

but that's how some of these independents get started.

I dealt with one distributor

that would bring in a lot of independents.

A video store is a tool for the whole industry,

but they didn't realize what the video stores created

for the studios and for the market.

- [Tom] Right.

- And so it's a bittersweet relationship

that the movie studios have had with the video stores.

Even no regrets now closing at this time.

Would I have liked to gone another year?

Yes, but you know, when it's my time to go, it's okay,

but I'm not done yet. (Tom laughs)

And so we'll wait and see what happens next year

because I know I'm going to have to evolve

with the industry and part of it will be online selling

and then, but I still love what I do, so wait and see.

- Awesome. - Talk to me next year.

(both laughing)

(light music)

- So I just feel like now there's such a collector's market

and that's what it's kind of become now

is much more of a collector's market.

But you sometimes see, you know,

Scream Factory releases in Best Buy,

which is so cool to see these kind of releases

in a big store like that.

You see them in FYE, you know,

sometimes they pop up in Walmart.

So I feel like sometimes

people are saying the format's dying,

but I really think, no.

I think that the collector's market

is really what's going to keep it going.

I think exploitation films really are important

in the big sense that there are films

that people talk about,

films that people remember, films that have a lot of,

sometimes can have a lot of controversy around them.

And controversy is really what makes a movie survive.

For example, with something like "Cannibal Holocaust."

It's one of those movies where so many people

are so against watching the movie for one aspect.

They go, "Oh, there's real animals

"being tortured in that film and being killed."

So they refuse to watch the movie

even though the movie is really, really well done.

And films like, you know,

"Blair Witch Project" wouldn't even exist

without the inspiration for

one of the first ever found footage movies,

which was "Cannibal Holocaust."

But so many people out there

refuse to watch "Cannibal Holocaust"

because they hear about the controversy

of the animals being killed in the film,

which really was a terrible thing.

If they were doing that movie now though,

it would all be done fake

and it would be props and everything,

but back then they didn't have all the rules

in place too about, you know,

you can't have an animal killed on film and all that.

I think that's one of the movies too

that really got that kind of into play and talked about.

- You could take a movie,

like a movie called "Hanger," for example,

extreme, like, completely extreme.

But there was a point to it that, you know,

here's a guy who, he was, he had a back,

I actually was his mother, backstreet abortion,

and he was brought up in, like, homeless camps,

but he became this, you know, full grown guy that, you know,

came for a vengeance from his dad who was a pimp

and all this kind of stuff.

So I mean, you could completely take this apart

and look at all, you know, how disgusting and horrifying,

but there's a story there.

So it's just in the storytelling

and knowing that for a fact,

my movie is not gonna play.

You know, Sony's not gonna pick my movie up,

so therefore I wanna tell the story the way I wanna tell it.

You know, you have to really rethink that nowadays.

- There were films that were complete disasters

in the theater, even in the grindhouses.

There was a film called "Nightmare,"

which there have been several films called "Nightmare."

But the "Nightmare" that came out in 1982

was a film about a serial killer

told from the point of view with a POV camera

of the serial killer, the entire film.

Well, almost like a Hitchcockian experiment

where you are the serial killer. (laughs)

Well, it was, it was a disaster theatrically

because it was just too mean.

It was just too, first of all,

you thought what maniac made this?

Because it's like this,

it's this guy going up and down the East Coast

doing these gruesome killings

and making you feel dirty. (laughs)

You know, you the viewer. - (laughs) Right, right.

- And it was,

it was before the era of that sort of experimentation.

And so you expect some release at the end of the film.

No, it's just like the blood lust is the whole thing,

is the whole point.

The first DVD extra commentary track that I did

was "I Spit on Your Grave,"

and the way that came about

is the guy at Elite Entertainment called me up and he said,

"Look, we just bought the rights to this movie

"I spit on the grave that every critic hates."

We were told by the director that you're the only critic

that ever wrote a favorable review of it.

(Tom laughs)

Would you like to do the commentary track?

And I said, sure.

And so I did the commentary track for the film.

- [Announcer] I Spit On Your Grave.

(ominous music)

- The director is named Meir Zarchi,

and that film, which was his first film,

destroyed his career.

He could never work anymore because of the way

it was greeted by the critical establishment at the time,

especially Ebert and Siskel,

which said it was a dangerous film and encouraged rape.

I mean, what worst thing can you say

(both laughing)

about a filmmaker than he was, he was a closet rapist?

You know, and poor Meir,

he thought he was making an anti-rape film.

He thought he was making a pro-woman film.

The first title-

- [Tom] Yeah, empowered woman revenge.

- Was "Day of the Woman."

That was his working title, "Day of the Woman."

- [Lloyd] Are we just whining because we,

you know, don't really have what it takes?

Or do you think it is more difficult now

to get established in the media than it was, say, 1995?

- Well, it's way more difficult to get established in media

than it was in 1995, simply because there's less slots.

I mean, especially in film, there's just,

there's less movies being made overall,

even when at the studios, you know,

Disney in 1995 was probably making 25 movies a year.

Paramount was probably making 25 movies a year.

Now those studios are making, I think Paramount made what?

Two movies last year, Disney made four or five.

So there's hardly any movies being made these days.

So it's a lot different.

And then independent film, of course,

has pretty much, you know, nearly died

in terms of there actually being a market for it.

I think that a lot of the revenue that went into films

has gone into video games and TV.

It used to be that, you know,

you would take a risk in watching a movie

and if the risk pays off,

you get an hour and a half or two hours of a good movie.

If it goes bad,

you get an hour and a half or two hours of a bad movie.

But with TV, people go online now, they can watch it,

they can pay for a single episode.

If it's bad, they lose an hour of their life

and if it's good,

they gained maybe 30, 40 hours of television they can watch.

So the ratio's much different in terms of the risk reward

and also just video games

are just so much bigger than they were back then,

and that that takes up so much to the market.

So I just think it's much harder for films in general.

- When the technology to make films became so cheap.

I thought that was a wonderful thing

because now everybody can make a film.

You know, for years the problem,

the reason you couldn't become a filmmaker

is it was just too damn expensive.

For $20,000 today,

you can buy 10 cameras that are broadcast quality

and a full set of lenses and everything you need.

So the economics of filmmaking

became really attractive to young, low budget filmmakers.

So you start to think that's a good thing.

Then you see year, after year, after year,

crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.

It's not like resulting in, you would think,

okay, if suddenly we have,

instead of a thousand movies coming out a year,

we have 300,000 movies coming out a year,

you would think five of those are gonna be great.

No, it didn't work out that way. (laughs)

It's like, we don't have that many genius

writer directors who can pick up a camera,

not go to film school and just start shooting, you know?

Fathers and mothers of America,

(laughs) when you give a kid a camera,

make him still go to film school, you know?

(laughs) I always say, you know,

you still gotta plan your shots and art direct your scene

and hire people who can actually act.

- I don't blame some of the streaming services

for not wanting certain movies.

Like if a movie has really badly recorded sound, you know,

and there's some indie movies where the sound is horrific

or it's shot really bad

and I can understand, like,

keeping some of them off of there for those reasons.

But nowadays with the equipment

and the way things can be shot,

you shouldn't really have

the problems like that that you did.

- It's okay to shoot the film in your apartment,

but it should not look like your apartment.

(both laughing)

- Right. - You know?

It's like, you don't have a dirty sock over in the corner

that has no purpose in the scene.

You know, it's like,

it's like you would think, you know,

someone would've told them this

long before they actually showed their film in public.

But that's sort of the state of the film industry right now.

- [Tom] If you could,

if someone could wave a wand

and somehow you could break up conglomerates,

which seems impossible, would it actually make any,

do you think it would actually help?

I mean, you'd break up giants into smaller giants.

- The Consent Decree of 1948 broke up the stranglehold

that a small number of devil worshiping conglomerates

had on the theatrical distribution system.

And as a result,

American International Pictures and Troma,

and about 30 other independent studios sprang up

because there was competition.

The major studios didn't own all the movie theaters.

It was broken up.

There were hundreds of family owned chains and it was great.

It was not permitted for Paramount

to own or control movie theaters.

There was also a rule that required the networks

to license at least a third of their content

from independent sources like us.

All the rules that prevent monopoly

and encourage competition in the entertainment or media,

the media world, have gone away.

So, of course!

You now have AT&T owning Warner Brothers,

and then you've got Viacom who owned Paramount or so they,

they can own us.

There's, there's no way.

And and they should be broken up, yes. (chuckles)

Why not?

They'd worked pretty well

when the financial syndication rule was in.

In those days, we got "All in the Family"

or we got "The Jeffersons."

We got all sorts of independently produced top,

you know, almost revolutionary art.

- And there's no clear path.

There's no real solid outline of,

like, how to get there.

Like, "Oh, I want to be a movie director."

Well, you don't just become a movie director.

It's a lot more complicated.

So, like, you gotta have some kind of job.

You gotta make a living,

and I make a living by complaining about video games.

- Slap the fuck outta crocodiles,

chickens, and wolves, even bunnies.

- Send those fuckers into the stratosphere!

- Share your fate with the female tiger.

Stack up elephants and fuckin' buffalo.

- Nothing says romance like,

"Honey, I'm bringing you a stack of rhinoceroses."

With hardcore tiger fucking.

- You get to play video games and drink beer

and curse and (laughs) get mad at 'em and vent to the world.

So, it's fun.

It's a fun thing,

but I always have to be working on my

big project behind that.

So I am working on another horror film now, early stages.

It's honestly gonna be years.

It's probably gonna be a long time,

but that's what I learned.

These things take a long time.

If you're gonna try to make a feature film,

a feature film on your spare time.

You don't have to go to Hollywood.

You don't have to work under a system.

You could do it yourself.

And it doesn't matter if you don't have the money

that a Hollywood film does,

like I don't think that you should limit your story

and limit your imagination.

You should be able to make the movie you wanna make

no matter how much money you have, years of practice.

Like, it's not gonna be like your first try or anything.

I was like, this was years and years and years and years.

And then YouTube came out and then I built up a community

based on the Angry Nerd

in all the web episodes that I do,

all the web videos and then said,

"Hey, you know, I really wanna make this movie,"

and the fans gave me this great idea for this.

You know, they helped nurture this character that I created.

They supported, you know, my passion in making film.

So it was like, hey, here it it, here's what I want to do.

But yeah, it's like the ambition is what matters.

It just matters that the heart is there.

(light music)

- I remember when we were shooting the first VHS Massacre,

we're like, "Why doesn't he have a show?"

Everyone loves this guy.

Would you ever go back to doing a show, like a TV show or?

- You know, I don't know if I would do

a MonsterVision type show again,

simply because TV has changed.

They don't, they don't make space for that anymore.

- [Tom] Right, yeah.

- We never started at the same time.

You just sort of had to figure out

when the show was gonna start. (laughs)

Well, I don't think any network is that loose anymore.

No one's gonna do that.

No one's gonna let me do that.

- He was in a lull as far as his TV career.

- So I don't think that world is coming back. (laughs)

But, you know, TV constantly evolves,

and very rarely do you see something

that worked in one decade, come back in another decade.

(light music)

- Recently, he just did the Shudder special

and he crashed Shudder, and it was so cool.

- That was the best in the "Bikini Bloodbath" trilogy.

I would admit that.

Or "Feeders 2: Slay Bells."

You know, S-L-A-Y, slay bells.

- Dude, that was amazing!

- Okay, so here we are.

We are outside the Blockbuster Video in Bend, Oregon.

I have this VHS tape

that I'm going to return to this Blockbuster store.

So, let's do it.

(light music)

It's been a long time coming for this little VHS tape.

Did I tell you it's going to get back to its home?

Here we are at the drop box and there it went.

All right, I hope this tour has been

as entertaining for you as it's been for me.

The last Blockbuster in the United States.

(light music)

(ambient music)

- Artists like Debbie Rochon, Lloyd Kaufman,

and Joe Bob Briggs hold a mirror up to the Hollywood system

in that a film is like a carnival act.

One looks for something

to sensationalize or exploit for money.

This is truly the basis of Hollywood industry

and any film that transcends this to become profound

is a wonderful exception to how the system works.

Though it is not necessary for the system to function,

and it is also rare,

this is why independent films

and exploitation films are so important.

Because true experimentation

lies at the edge of acceptability.

(ambient music)

(airy synth music)

(heavy metal music)