Shocking Cinema Vol. 2

Shock Cinema Vol. 2 (1991)

** (out of 4)

The second entry in this four part documentary series isn't nearly as interesting as the first one. This time out we get interviews with Michael Burnett, Deanna Lund, Melissa Moore, Gary Graver, Steve Neill and others as they discuss the ups and downs of working in low-budget genre movies. The documentary starts off fairly well as the people discuss some of the bad things that can happen when you decide to make these type of films. We hear about the lack of any real money, the lack of time and of course we hear about what all can go wrong in terms of having the lack of funds. The problem is that the documentary constantly have the people telling stories about certain films yet we're never told what films they're talking about so this grew very annoying very quickly. A simple subtext of what they were discussing would have been nice because you hear about some interesting films and then you don't know what they're talking about. Forrest J. Ackerman shows up half way through and discusses the countless major directors who grew up reading his magazine Famous Monsters. He also discusses his film career, which included roles in THE HOWLING and Dracula VS. FRANKENSTEIN.

Since I watched Volume One, I figured that I would just go into this next documentary in the series while I was working. When I fired this up, something that intrigued me more was that we had names that I recognized and ones that I wasn't as familiar with. This is in the same vein though of people who made their own way in the industry through low budget horror and exploitation films.

Now the ones that I recognized were Robert Quarry as I've seen Count Yorga, Vampire. What I didn't realize though was the struggles with that movie and that he almost quit. It is stories like that which are intriguing. I also recognized Gary Graver, Joel Bender and Steve Neill when I started to look into their filmographies. Again, interesting to learn more about people that are behind films that I stumbled on growing up or diving deeper into the genre.

A great interview that could be expanded out was with Forrest J. Ackerman. He is the founder of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. His part feels rushed and my guess was to keep this at that one hour runtime. Just the things that he has experienced and his wealth of knowledge is impressive. He is horror royalty.

We also have a couple people here that I didn't realize that I knew in Melissa Moore and Deanna Lund. These are two that I've not seen many things that they've been in, but they're on my list of movies to check out. Hearing about how they got to where they did in their career was again interesting. These two are a great cautionary tale of setting up your own boundaries to be careful not to be taken advantage of.

I'll end here and say that it is fitting to have Brinke Stevens as the host, just since she is an actor who made her name in low budget cinema. The production value is low but that doesn't take away from hearing the stories of people like this. This won't be for everyone, but if you are into the movies people like this made, I'd recommend giving it a watch. Manage expectations and there are better documentaries out there. For an hour though, it is worth your time.

My Rating: 6 out of 10.