Not Suitable For Anyone

Years ago, I spoke to Owen Egerton about, among other things, his debut feature film, Follow. Egerton spins a seasonal, heartwarming yuletide yarn involving murder, paranoia, suicide, depression, betrayal, necrophilia, and gun-ellatio. I was more than happy to dust off this discussion and record some updated thoughts I have about the film, which stars Noah Segan, Haley Lu Richardson, and Don Most. Sadly, my attempts to reach out to Noah Segan were for naught.

Regardless, you can easily check out the film on Prime, Vudu, Tubi, or the typical VOD outlets: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/follow. 

You can find Owen on Twitter @Owen_Egerton.

And once again,  HUGE THANKS to Brendan Steere (Flashback to Episode 15) and the band Free Parking for the use of their track, Christmas Alone, as the theme music this month! Be sure to check out the full song on their bandcamp page and please show them some love: https://looksomefreeparking.bandcamp.com/track/christmas-alone

Ho Ho Ho! It's the best Christmas Shark-attack movie ever made, Santa Jaws!!! Director and shark-movie connoisseur Misty Talley joins me as we talk all about the inspiration and perspiration that went into making this instant Christmas classic. Shot in New Orleans over the summer, and aired as part of SyFy network's Sharknado week, Talley gifts us with the supernatural tale of a teen's comic book come to life at the most wonderful time of the year. Talley's other directorial efforts include Ozark Sharks, Mississippi River Sharks, and Shark Island.

The film is easy to find through Amazon Prime and a few digital outlets, and it really gives you a lot of joy while asking very little in return. Please check it out and head over to Letterboxd and leave a rating and review, talk about it on Twitter, or just tell your friends and help people discover the pure, silly Christmas joy that is Santa Jaws: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/santa-jaws

UPDATE: Also now you can order your own Santa Jaws merch!! Check out https://sharkmovieshirts.com/ for merch related to Santa Jaws, Zombie Shark, and Ozark Sharks!

And once again,  HUGE THANKS to Brendan Steere (Flashback to Episode 15) and the band Free Parking for the use of their track, Christmas Alone, as the theme music this month! Be sure to check out the full song on their bandcamp page and please show them some love: https://looksomefreeparking.bandcamp.com/track/christmas-alone

No, it's not the song by The Cars. Matt Stuertz wrote and directed an epic horror comedy mashup called Tonight She Comes that is equal parts The Evil Dead and Friday the 13th ... but throw in 20% American Pie and 1000% more period blood and you start to get an idea of what makes Matt come. It's extremely bloody, extremely funny, and extremely inappropriate for all audiences. If you thought the My Bloody Valentine remake featured a whole lotta labia, strap yourself in and crank the volume for Tonight She Comes because things just got weird.

Catch up w/ Matt .. he's @MattStuertz at both Twitter and Instagram. The movie is available super cheap, or in some cases for free, at the usual sites: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/tonight-she-comes. No US blu ray yet, but there are some European discs floating around. Keep an ear to the ground b/c I'll definitely be talking about this one again once that happens.

And be sure to tune in next week for the start of a very special series that is one week late in the making because I am a complete fucking idiot! 

NOW I HAVE A PODCAST

HO-HO-HO

Drew Barnhardt was one of my very first guests back in what are now the 'early days' of Not Suitable For Anyone.  He took a chance on me back when very few people I was contacting, Drew included, really knew who I was or what I was about. So it meant a lot to me when he agreed to come back for a second round on the show to talk about Rondo. This film was actually my first introduction to Drew's work, and I enjoyed it so much that I sought out his first film, Murder Loves Killers Too. To this day, MLKT remains one of my all-time favorite slashers, but Rondo will always hold a special place in my heart. It's combination of artful filmmaking with absolutely absurd story-turns and downright filthy dialogue absolutely tickles my depraved sense of humor. Rondo is the kind of movie that revels in depravity while telling a story with some of the most ridiculous caricatures of people I've ever seen. No, it doesn't feel grounded in reality, but who really wants that anyway?

Please look for Rondo on DVD (try https://grindhousevideo.com/products/rondo-dvd?_pos=1&_sid=56ab4909f&_ss=r) or for digital rental or purchase pretty much everywhere (https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/rondo).

Murder Loves Killers Too is also available on Amazon Prime (https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/murder-loves-killers-too) and on DVD (https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Loves-Killers-Allen-Andrews/dp/B001Y44DVS/).

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention Stephen Romano's fantastic artwork (some of which appears in the show's thumbnail). He's definitely worth a look, as is his fantastic book Shock Festival: http://www.stephenromanoshockfestival.com/#

Brendan Steere, writer/director of the viral sensation The VelociPastor, joins me as we try to unpack the mysteries of 'cult films.' Is there a secret formula to making a so-bad-it's-good movie? Fuck if we know, but we had a goddamn blast talking about it. Along the way, we unpacked the unlikely chain of events that actually led to the making of the film, each more mysterious and unexpected than the one before! Brendan is genuinely one of the nicest guys I have ever had the pleasure of speaking with, and his experiences making and releasing The VelociPastor is truly inspirational! I hope that comes through in the episode.

You can find The VelociPastor on Amazon Prime, TubiTV, and all the typical digital places. However, I highly recommend the region-free Blu Ray, available from Amazon and other retailers: https://www.amazon.com/Velocipastor-Blu-ray-Gregory-James-Cohan/dp/B07TPYY17P

We also get into the soundtrack a bit. If you like what you hear, the three bands whose songs you hear in the film are:

The Holy Mess: https://fucktheholymess.bandcamp.com/

Math The Band: https://maththeband.bandcamp.com/

Free Parking!: https://looksomefreeparking.bandcamp.com/

Please check these bands out and purchase some of their music. It would mean the world to me.

Finally, the cover art this week is by Michael Gambriel. Please go check out his website: http://www.mikegambriel.com/ and follow him on Twitter: @MikeGambrielArt and IG: @Mike.Gambriel

Disillusioned with a barrage of social media posts about Shout Factory's Friday the 13th Boxed Set, I tried to think of ways to share my feelings on the subject without just complaining or shitting on F13 fans ... In fact, I have no real problem with Friday the 13th, I just had no interest in giving more money to Sean Cunningham's company  for continuing to wring nostalgia from the teat of a franchise while trying to cheat the original screenwriter out of fair compensation. Suddenly, it dawned on me. Use the money that might have gone toward the boxed set and, instead, spend it on low budget, indie genre films! Brilliant! So that's what I did, and I decided to dub it #BYOBoxedSet (as in "Build Your Own Boxed Set"). It was a lot of fun, and I might do the same thing the next time a big viral boxed set gets popular! 

Please join me as I talk in more detail about this journey and my reaction to these films (some of which I have yet to see, and some I saw for just the first time). And please show these films and filmmakers some love!

Briefly, the movies covered include:

This is my  most personal episode to date because no film has spoken directly to me in recent years as much as #1 Serial Killer by Asian-American filmmakers Stanley Yung and Koji Steven Sakai. There is strikingly little Asian-American representation in horror (and film in general). In fact, this low budget affair, #1 Serial Killer, was the first-ever film to feature an Asian-American serial killer. When Asians leave their native countries and emigrate to America, we have a tendency to blend into the landscape resulting in a certain invisibility. While understandably different--and seldom, if ever, as tragic--than the forms of racism perpetrated against other marginalized communities, stigmatizing and stereotyping are nevertheless dehumanizing behaviors.

I'm thankful for the discussion and really hope you all get something out of it as well. And please check out the movie #1 Serial Killer, available on DVD (https://www.amazon.com/1-Serial-Killer-Tzi-Ma/dp/B00UHJ7KI4) and VOD. Some sites may list it under it's original title (for example, see https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/chink), but in actual VOD outlets, it shows up under the current title (for example, on Amazon) https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0107OQKIE

You can find out more about Koji's projects, including Santa vs Zombies, at his website, https://kojistevensakai.com/. He's currently filming The Commandos, an action film starring Mickey Rourke and Michael Jai White. Stanley is currently developing a number of projects as well. These are both ones to watch in the future!

I realize I'm probably supposed to wait until *much* later in my podcasting life to do something this fucking stupid and out of left field. But not being able to book a guest in awhile, I decided to just get fucking shit-faced and watch a completely INSANE movie and talk about it in real time. I edited it down into something resembling an episode, cut together with a little bit of choice audio from the film itself.

The Kingdom Of Var follows this misadventures of college student Sonja after she unwittingly summons the demonic sorcerer Var by watching 500-year-old VHS containing his spirit. Yes, that's not a typo ... the sorcerer, according to legend, filmed a movie in the year 1594 to preserve his spirit for all time. The plot is insane, the acting is insane, the choices are insane, the CGI and camera effects are hilarious, and this is just an all-around fun watch. Get together with your friends, get drunk or high, and then watch The Kingdom Of Var (available on Amazon Prime) ... and then fire up the episode to relive some of the highlights, as well as my drunken, mystified ramblings as I try to make sense of this insanity.

Please watch it.

https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Var-Vida-Zukauskas/dp/B08BZ16VJS