Local Movie Buff Regales Fans with Sordid Tales of Trailers Past
Saskatoon’s Bad Monster Films is celebrating their fourth anniversary this Friday, March 16, with a showing of Frankenstein at the Broadway Theatre.
Billed as the ‘Little Grindhouse on the Prairie’, Bad Monster Films is Tyler Baptist who is on a mission to bring Saskatoon 35mm films such as Jaws and Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS to the big screen.
He has also directed and written a short film (additional writing credits go to Skot Hamilton) entitled Mantis in Black Lace, which is rumoured to be seeing it’s online premiere shortly.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/38242384 w=600]Ominocity caught up with founder/Bad Monster Baptist for a rundown of the gloriously out-of-focus past four years, including why you should wear a good pair of steeltoes the next time you go to the theatre to see Sylvester Stallone put his flaccid penis in someone’s belly button.
Ominocity: What have some of the highlights and lowlights been from the past four years?
Bad Monster: “The main highlight is that I’ve been able to do this every month for the last four years, but here are a few of my favourite highlights from the screenings over the years: Number 1 has to be at our second or third screening which was The Italian Stallion (which for those not in the know is a softcore porn starring Sylvester Stallone) and there were maybe 25 people at the screenings each night – yes, we ran it twice – but it was just so rowdy in the audience. People were going crazy and shoes were being thrown around.
Apparently back in the ‘90’s it was illegal to show nunchucks on film or TV”
“And then the larger screenings attendance-wise are always a highlight; the near sellout at Cannibal Holocaust and the packed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles screening. The funny thing was it was a UK print, and apparently back in the ‘90’s it was illegal to show nunchucks on film or TV there, so everything with Michelangelo was an alternate take so you couldn’t see his weapons. It was bizarro-Ninja Turtles.
“Lowlights always involve the costs to bring these films to Saskatoon, mainly the shipping charges. When contract agreements mean the print can only be shipped International Express and so shipping costs alone end up being $500+ dollars for one screening – not cool.”
OM: Will you be around for another four years?
BM: “As long as asses are in the seats and that allows me to fund future screenings who knows how long this will go on. But the future of film booking is getting tougher and tougher, especially with the changes in the film industry to digital projection. The studios are phasing out their film libraries to programmers, and there are already certain studios that won’t book their film materials as of January of this year. More and more it’s relying on locating prints from private collectors so it’s getting to be a bit more of a treasure hunt and will make it harder to get certain titles.”
OM: Why Frankenstein for the Fourth Anniversary?
BM: “Our very first midnight show was Andy Warhol’s Flesh for Frankenstein. I felt it best to honour our first screening with the original Bad Monster himself, Boris Karloff in James Whale’s Frankenstein. It’s going to be a real treat for the audience to see this classic Universal horror film on the big screen. This black and white film print is immaculate.
“Since it’s also our Fourth Anniversary screening we want to entice people to come out and give them something in return, so if we have 200+ people in those seats on Friday night everyone in the attendance gets a FREE 2 for 1 for the Broadway Theatre. It’s also cheaper than those shitty new movies you can see any other day, plus the best popcorn in town hands down!”