BRING BACK THE MIDNIGHT MOVIES.

You guys know I love independent… well everything. Most times the most creative work comes out of the subcultures or the dark side of the underground. Main stream art for the most part has never found a way to lose…. If anything the direct hits have been lucky shots in the dark.

This time let’s talk about those hundreds of thousands of independent movies out there going straight to D.V.D. Sure you can find them at your Block Buster and F.Y.E about three years after it’s been made. You can find the actors and actresses and directors of such films (all stars in their own right) hanging out with the Hollywood types at Horror Conventions world wide. Some of you even know their names, the companies they work for and the magazines that write about them. But maybe that’s just not enough.

Some of the wild child directors and performers break through all the time. This is quite impressive all and all. However I think that it’s not quite enough. Once it was much easier to get that happening on a higher scale, more often. We have a whole generation of big wig director and styles of film to a little thing called Midnight movies.

The local theaters and drive in’s use to test new directors and some of the most experiment films ever. Grind House, Exploitation, Horror/ Sci-Fi, Spaghetti westerns and Black comedies grew to power with in the day of Midnight movies. It wasn’t always pretty or even good, but trust me freedom (even in art) hardly ever is. But when it was good it was great and the commercial world borrowed from them readily. Then it was no longer a universal constant. It’s now all but gone.

Part of this is due to the big chain theaters and multiplex that has cropped up all over the place. Much like malls and Walmarts are putting stress on mom and pop stores country wide the local theater isn’t really there anymore to release these films nearly as often.

It does still happen, in some corners of the country where these single and double screen theaters hang on… along with indie film-fest and such, but I’d like to see a full scale return of the drive-in and the little family own theater. Maybe if that starts happening more often and in more places we can see the movies that are put on hold waiting to for direct release sooner.

As always there are outlets for the underground art… for film and such is the World Wide Web in the form of webcast and web shows. I also believe that when cable channels like Sci-Fi, Chiller and other less main stream broadcasters gain ground we may see more of these works on the television. Well here’s to hoping anyway right?

If you ever, find yourself in the position to get this type of thing happening where you live, for art sake… do it.

SAINT