Every film is a travelogue. From Douglas Sirk’s Technicolor melodramas to Doris Wishman’s paperback gutter-noirs, all movies are mini-vacations that enable us to escape the real world and revitalize our souls. But out of the billions of movies in existence, very few allow us to step off the planet and reach a new plane of consciousness. Thankfully, 50 of those films are gathered here. This list honors our favorite shot-on-video (SOV) mind warps from all realities and centuries. Over the years, people have used “SOV” to describe any movie that was made for the price of a used car or released direct-to-VHS, even if it was shot on film. So, let’s be clear: this list is pure. We’ve only included genre films that were actually shot and edited on tape. This means you won’t find movies that were shot on Super 8 or 16mm and edited on tape (Things, Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness, respectively). But you will find gore-soaked wizard battles, senior citizen auteurs, and enough Karobics (karate + aerobics) montages to last a lifetime. These films are outsider miracles that erupted from the depths to subvert reality and destroy expectations. Each and every movie on this list belongs in a museum. But until that happens, prepare to step off the planet . . . and hopefully never return.
50. Video Violence (Gary Cohen, 1987)
Video Violence is more historically important than entertaining. Written and directed by Gary Cohen (Captives), this is the most widely distributed and financially successful movie ever made about a video store that rents misogynistic snuff films to its customers. A slow-burn melting pot of cheap gore, gratuitous nudity, and mean spirits, the movie’s campy tone butts heads with its nasty visuals. The widespread success of Video Violence established SOV horror as a force to be reckoned with during the second half of the 1980s. And for that, we salute it. (JZ)
49. Devil Snow (James Tucker, 1991)
Devil Snow might not be the most unhinged or inhumanly surreal movie on this list, but that doesn’t make it any less important. The rare SOV horror movie that was helmed by Black filmmakers, this is a no-fi morality tale about how smoking crack can transform you into a green-faced monster who murders 15 people. If you can deal with the no-burn pace, non-existent lighting, neutered violence, and static photography, Devil Snow is a fascinating artifact with an impactful message that deserves to be watched. (JZ)
48. The Bounty Hunters (Bruno Pischiutta, 1985)
Do you like mercenaries? Do you like aerobics? Do you like them both at the same time? Of course you do. The Bounty Hunters is about a pair of Vietnam vets who track a serial killer across the Canadian border. But there’s so much more—namely a lusty, blood-thirsty photographer and the lusty, busty women who quench his thirst. This film is a deliciously sleazy ride with hip-thrusting cardio workouts, brazen nudity, and plenty of sucker punches to the stomach. There’s also a giant scene where people literally play with fire and you absolutely worry about their safety. (Obviously, this was not a union production.) While The Bounty Hunters is light on action and heavy on talk and even heavier on petting, the film is still a joy to behold and experience. (AC)
47. Fatal Images (Dennis Devine, 1989)
A slasher melodrama that escaped from the wilds of someone’s North Hollywood living room, Fatal Images involves a serial killer, a haunted camera, and enough Satanic panic magic to fill at least one sleazy paperback. Arms are ripped off! Guts are pulled out! A hair metal band named Teaser shows up for no good reason! But the real reason that this movie demands your undivided attention is its miraculous climax, which feels like a proof-of-concept for a Dungeons & Dragons anthology TV show as realized by extraterrestrials. (JZ)
46. Ozone (J.R. Bookwalter, 1993)
Ozone is the action-horror-peyote wonderland of your wildest dreams. Written and directed by home video trailblazer J.R. Bookwalter (The Dead Next Door) and notable for featuring a Black actor (James Black) in a lead role, this is what it might feel like if a teenage David Cronenberg adapted a bronze age X-Men comic book that was chock-full of rubber beastoids, hallucinogenic morphing CGI, and inspiring DIY spirit. Basically, it’s everything you need out of life. This includes a Jabba the Hutt knock-off who is covered in flopsweat. (JZ)
45. Scream Dream (Donald Farmer, 1989)
This is the finest commingling of puppets and false metal ever caught on video tape. Scream Dream is a 69-minute scuzzblast from Donald Farmer (Demon Queen) that focuses on a band named RIKK-O-SHAY and the Satanic demons that crash their party. The puppet monsters are heavenly, and the 8-bit graphics are everywhere. Dubbing overlaps existing audio, incidental music is provided by one drum machine and one shredding guitar, and cardboard boxes stand in for furniture. For all of these reasons and more, Scream Dream is a triumph for SOV. And also for Derrick, the back-up singer with a leonine perm who gets his crotch bitten by a beastie. (JZ)
44. Moonchild (Todd Sheets, 1994)
This is Todd Sheets’ Moonchild. And I’ve got a Sheets-eating grin. Easily the most ambitious film in Sheets’ incredibly prolific 1990s filmography, this is what happens when Captain America’s origin story is mashed together with The Terminator. And a werewolf. If a lifetime’s worth of positive energy could be siphoned into a single movie that could save the world, and if that movie was a post-apocalyptic, thrash-metal werewolf jam that felt like an adaptation of an unreleased Sega Saturn game combined with backyard wrestling, it would be known as Moonchild. Cherish it forever. (JZ)
43. Evil Night (Todd Cook, 1992)
Evil Night takes the best of Texas filmmaker Todd Cook’s good intentions and mashes them together into a 74-minute scrambler of cartoonish ultra-violence, uneventful documentation, and second-generation analog static. A parade of jocks, horror nerds, stoners, and mall punks are destroyed by Jimmy the Clown via floating knives, a lawn sprinkler, and a Chevy Lumina sunroof. People smoke weed. The alt-metal soundtrack, which sounds like an unwanted basement collaboration between Depeche Mode and Megadeth, is really Cook recording under the fake band names Stage Dive and Nytemayre. This movie is the reason why I would follow Todd Cook to the end of the solar system. (JZ)
42. Jan-Gel: The Beast from the East (Conrad Brooks, 2000)
This might be the finest achievement ever achieved by a senior citizen. In the late 1990s, Ed Wood protégé Conrad Brooks (Glen or Glenda) decided to direct a horror movie. The catch? He was 68-years-old. Jan-Gel: the Beast from the East follows special investigator Dirty Harry (Brooks) as he tracks down Jan-Gel—a three-hundred-pound, loincloth-clad man-beast who is terrorizing Baltimore. Easily the most surreal and endearing home movie ever made by a senior citizen, this is truly cinema from beyond space and time. Don’t miss the special appearances from underground legend George Stover and Jan-Gel’s beer gut. (JZ)
41. Trash Humpers (Harmony Korine, 2009)
Trash Humpers isn’t a horror movie. But if you imagine that it is—and that everything you’re seeing onscreen is real—it morphs into one of the most unsettling horror films of the 2000s. An “ode to vandalism” that was shot on VHS and edited with two VCRs by Harmony Korine (Gummo, Spring Breakers), the movie uses found footage aesthetics to follow a group of freakish senior citizens (Harmony and Rachel Korine and friends wearing Jackass-style old man masks) as they rage war on the humidity-drenched backyards of Nashville. There’s no plot or trajectory. But there’s lots of screaming and gross-out perversion. And eventually, murder. Trash Humpers will make you never want to hear the phrase “make it, don’t fake it!” ever again. But as a haunting, experimental crossroads between performance art and John Waters’s Desperate Living, it can’t be beat. (JZ)
40. Eaten Alive!: A Tasteful Revenge (Gary Whitson, 1999)
Exploring the innermost fantasies of anonymous strangers has never been more fascinating. Or terrifying. The crown jewel from Gary Whitson’s W.A.V.E. Productions (a mail-order company that creates custom fetish tapes for its customers), Eaten Alive is a reminder of what the human race can achieve. When W.A.V.E. veteran Debbie D is passed over for a promotion at work, she takes matters into her own hands . . . by using a mad scientist’s raygun to shrink her co-workers and eat them. We would never want to read an autobiography by the person who commissioned this movie. (AC/JZ)
39. Captives (Gary Cohen, 1988)
One dead dog, one knifed babysitter, and one almost-smothered baby. Welcome to New Jersey! Completed shortly after Video Violence but not released in its original form until the early 2000s, Captives is a home invasion thriller from writer/director Gary Cohen that leans heavily on public access histrionics. Despite the budget constraints, Cohen and friends deliver a lucid, competent, and unsettling slice-of-life terrorizer that elevated the potential of SOV as an aesthetic form. It should also be noted that this movie contains a scene in which one of the protagonists literally snorts cocaine off of someone’s ass. (JZ)
38. Way Bad Stone (Archie Waugh, 1991)
A wizard. A pentagram. A semi-naked woman summoned from the other side. A sword fight. Another sword fight. Yet another sword fight. A stolen enchanted stone. But it’s not just any stone. It’s Way Bad Stone, which throws together leathery Dungeons & Dragons cosplay, frilly Ren Faire dialogue, and your regularly scheduled LARP campaign. There’s also ample stage fog, steins of mead, magic potions, and drunken beefcake warriors with long tresses. Now if your version of a good time is watching people swordplay and cast ancient spells in stilted Old English, then Way Bad Stone will deliver. This film is literally watching people play make-believe in real life, and every minute is a delight, from the “yes, my Lord” formalities to the raucous debauchery of a Ren Faire encampment. This is a SOV equivalent of rolling a 20-sided die and earning unlimited powers for your character. (AC)
37. Alien Beasts (Carl J. Sukenik, 1991)
Alien Beasts is unfamiliar to life as we know it on every level imaginable. Filmed by writer/director/editor/ star Carl J. Sukenick somewhere in New York, this movie seems to be the product of a troubled brain. Initially, it feels like Jonas Mekas’ diary film Walden as remade by David “The Rock” Nelson in the style of Psyched by the 4D Witch—a childlike, experimental document in the guise of a backyard horror movie. But as the movie continues, any chance of comparison disappears. Alien Beasts is a freeform, psychotropic anomaly that was made to entertain no one. It has the ability to make five minutes feel like two hours. But the fact that this videotape exists—that somehow Sukenick completed this alien beast—is a victory. (JZ)
36. The Burning Moon (Olaf Ittenbach, 1992)
Olaf Ittenbach wrote and directed The Burning Moon, a three-story anthology, when he was just 23 years old. It is obvious that Ittenbach ruined his family’s house while making this and we are lucky enough to experience it. The movie may crawl a bit and test your patience, but you will be rewarded generously. Especially during the story “Purity,” which includes a completely maniacal scene of what hell looks like. There are exploding heads, teeth-drilling, and a good old-fashioned game of tug-of-war using someone’s legs. The Burning Moon is just the beginning of Ittenbach’s brilliantly sticky, gory future. (AC)
35. Each Time I Kill (Doris Wishman, 2007)
Poor Ellie. She’s a hopelessly nerdy teen with chunky prosthetic teeth, thick glasses, unruly hair that’s definitely not a wig, and pimpled skin that’s definitely not spaghetti sauce. What’s a nerd to do? Well for starters, a nerd can find a magical locket that allows her to steal people’s physical features after she kills them. As bodies pile up, Ellie’s skin clears up, her teeth become regular-sized, and her hair turns silky and manageable. What lengths will she go before understanding that beauty is only skin deep? Doris Wishman finished shooting Each Time I Kill but wasn’t able to complete it before she died in 2002. Fortunately, friends and collaborators (including Joe Sarno) used her notes to finish the film and released it in 2007, and for this we will be forever grateful. The filmmakers kept the integrity of Wishman’s vision and aesthetic, so we still get to see shots of feet, ceiling fans, and paintings of fruit. From the bizarre concept to the old-fashioned dialogue (“Will you wear my class ring?”), Each Time I Kill is a classic Wishman epic. It’s everything you hoped it’d be, and more, including a cameo by John Waters. (AC)
34. Hawk Jones (Richard Lowry, 1986)
Jean Claude Van Damme. Wesley Snipes. Sylvester Stallone. These are the names that have defined what it means to be a lethal, justice-seeking master of violence—until now. Hawk Jones takes no prisoners. He follows no rules. He’s a martial arts expert. He’s an uzi expert. His adventures are punctuated by scorching guitar solos and triumphant drum machine fills. When crime kingpin Antonio unleashes a wave of terror over Minitropolois, it’s up to Hawk and his sassy-lady partner to clean up the streets. But do they have what it takes to defeat The Destroyer, Antonio’s bionic punk henchman? And will love get in the way of vengeance? As Hawk says, “This is my war. And the game is justice.” No one who appears in this movie is over the age of twelve. (JZ)
33. Escape from the Insane Asylum (Felix Gerard & Renee Harmon, 1986)
This is a movie where everyone tells a woman that she’s crazy, and that woman just happens to be Renee Harmon, a woman who was told time and time again that she was crazy. She was crazy for producing low-budget films that would never return on its investments, she was crazy for writing films that were disjointed and illogical, she was crazy for stealing scenes from her older films and adding them into her newer ones without regard to year of production or film stock or type, and she was crazy for rolling her husband’s car down a hill without getting his permission. Escape from the Insane Asylum might be the most personal, autobiographical film that Harmon has ever written, produced, and starred in. This film has all the hallmarks of a Harmon production: a convoluted plot, classic Harmon collaborators (including Frank Neuhaus), histrionic performances, strong female characters, and more. Of course, scenes from Frozen Scream, shot on film, are interjected into this movie, which is shot on video. In the end, we are the ones that were crazy for not seeing her genius while she was alive. (AC)
32. Splatter Farm (Mark and John Polonia and Todd Michael Smith, 1987)
Splatter Farm feels less like a movie and more like a demonic possession. The most infamous film from the team-up of Mark and John Polonia and gay filmmaker Todd Michael Smith, this is a sneak-peek of what The Texas Chainsaw Massacre might look like if it was made by high school A/V club nerds after watching Pink Flamingos twenty times in a row. Splatter Farm wallows in degradation and shock value. From the man-on-man assault to incest involving Grandma, from the decapitations to the sexual mutilation, the movie succeeds in conjuring a sickly, uncomfortable atmosphere that stays with you for life. It’s pretty impressive. And also super gross. (JZ)
31. Zombie Army (Betty Stapleford, 1991)
Zombie Army is an all-time champion of sleazy anti-logic. Directed by one-and-done filmmaker Betty Stapleford, the movie features exploding heads, guts-thrown-on-walls, samurai sword attacks, tiny tanks being driven through tiny hallways, two randos having awkward sex in a bunker, and songs with titles like “Stinky Loving” and “You Zlay Me.” Plus, when the initial batch of soldiers is obliterated by the legion of gut-chompers, the government calls in an all-women battle squad to do the job right. This makes Zombie Army the first—and only—feminist SOV zombie movie. (JZ)
30. Zombie ‘90: Extreme Pestilence (Andreas Schnaas, 1991)
Zombie ’90 is another ultra-cheap exercise in tasteless SOV gore from Andreas Schnaas (Violent Shit), Germany’s master of crotch violence. As expected, this movie features zombies with chainsaws, zombies attacking people while they’re taking a shit, and zombies ripping apart a baby (aka a doll from the Dollar Tree clearance rack). That’s all terrific stuff. But then there’s the dubbing. It is not clear who dubbed the movie. But it is clear that this person wasn’t interested in following the onscreen action. The result is a random assemblage of footage that feels like Eddie Murphy downing quaaludes during a sleepover at Lucio Fulci’s house. There is also a zombie eating a penis that resembles a Little Debbie Banana Pudding Roll. Schwing! (JZ)
29. The Life and Loves of a Male Stripper (John Stagliano, 1987)
Decades before Magic Mike, there was The Life and Loves of a Male Stripper. Rafael is an exotic dancer who just wants to live his life grinding on stage and filling his audience of middle-aged women with lip-biting lust. His girlfriend wants him to stop stripping, but parading around in a cowboy hat and thong is his life’s calling. She’ll just never understand. The Life and Loves of a Male Stripper is more or less a series of exotic dance numbers with heartfelt conversations peppered in between. It feels like a promotional video for a strip club, or at the very least, a passion project vehicle for the star and writer (Rafael Bethencort). All the dance numbers—and there are many of them—are absolute perfection. There are some exceptional strength skills on display, including one-armed push-ups in the split position where a leopard-clad crotch grazes the floor ever so gently. It’s truly a feat of human strength and peen. But the real gem is the jaw-dropping and pants-dropping song our hero sings, slightly off key, about surviving in the glamorous world exotic dancing. (AC)
28. Final Flesh (Vernon Chatman, 2009)
Let’s say you recorded a conversation between a highly intoxicated six-year-old and a barely-lucid senior citizen spending their final days hooked up to a morphine drip. Then let’s say you turned that conversation into a script and then gave it to an adult filmmaker who shot it and added some nudity even though you didn’t necessarily ask for it, but that’s kind of their whole brand. The result would be Final Flesh. Vernon Chatman (Wonder Showzen) dared to do what many of us have only dreamed of: he wrote four scripts and sent them each to a DIY porn studio to shoot, and then he edited them together into an anthology. One part lowbrow Dadaism and one hundred parts what-the-fuckery, Final Flesh is nothing short of incredible. Each line of dialogue feels like it was ripped from a different news article, textbook, church pamphlet, soap opera, book of Dad-jokes, or philosophical manifesto: “What’s the opposite of a mirror?” “In a nutshell, I’m claustrophobic.” A woman breast-feeding a steak is the most normal thing that happens in this movie. (AC)
27. Fuck the Devil 2: Return of the Fucker (Michael Pollklesener, 1991)
Just like The Godfather Part II, Fuck the Devil 2: Return of the Fucker utilizes the magic of its predecessor to build a more expansive world. Every element that I loved about Fuck the Devil is here: audio dropouts, inexplicable slow-motion, cartoon-ish gore, and doom-laden Casiocore that sounds like someone hit “record” on a boombox in an Urgent Care clinic. But where the first movie felt like an underground art project by a teenage dunderhead who was experimenting with bootleg acid, this one is more “accessible.” Fuck the Devil 2 is less drowsy than Fuck the Devil. It’s like the acid was chased by cocaine and now everyone’s STOKED. After a gnarly-yet-adorable scalping, the Fucker puts on Ray-Bans. If that isn’t a sign of progress, nothing is. (JZ)
26. 555 (Wally Koz, 1988)
555 will always be the world’s greatest soap opera from hell. Shot on one-inch video tape in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village, this sleazoid slasher mix of Dirty Harry, The New York Ripper, and an episode of Days of Our Lives is incredibly entertaining and thoroughly filthy. Bratwurst lunches! Fiftysomethings French-kissing! Necrophilia! Like Pieces before it, this movie is so over the top in terms of button-pushing outrageousness that you can’t help but hug it. Heed its promo’s warning: “Caution: Viewing may cause severe damage to your brain cells.” (JZ)
25. Violent Shit (Andreas Schnaas, 1989)
Violent Shit is the greatest title for a movie in motion picture history. Combining the ecstatic spirit of Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste with a WWF wrestling match from hell, this is a SOV burlesque of a snuff film that follows Karl “the Butcher” Shitter as he roams around and obliterates random people. But all of the dick-ripping and vagina-stabbing somehow feels quaint because of the sheer outrageousness of the mayhem. You haven’t lived until you’ve watched the three-minute scene of someone driving down a road in Violent Shit. (JZ)
24. Attack of the Killer Refrigerator (Michael Savino, 1984)
Attack of the Killer Refrigerator is what happens when someone throws a party, then decides to videotape that party and call it a movie. Shot with pocket change on ½-inch tape somewhere in Massachusetts, Attack vies with Boardinghouse and Sledgehammer as one of first publicly released SOV horror productions in the United States. This is a sincere and pleasant experiment that anticipates ideas and techniques set forth in The Abomination (monster-in-the-kitchen carnage) and Blood Lake (righteous-party-as-movie), but does them one better by running just 15 minutes. At that length, there’s nothing to dislike. Especially the unauthorized use of The Cars’s “Heartbeat City” to soundtrack a sex scene. (JZ)
23. Halloween Party (Dave Skowronski, 1989)
Halloween Party is a minimalist slasher that features stolen music from Halloween, 8-bit text crawls, and a cast of real-life teenagers who talk very fast. While it follows the basic template of other shot-on-video hangout slashers like Blood Lake, Halloween Party is less of a “real movie” and more of a “home movie.” That’s what makes it cross the threshold from a charming curiosity to a time-warp treasure chest that overflows with Halloween mood. Like Girls at the Carnival and Metalhead Teens in a Record Store, Halloween Party is a document of teens hanging out and being themselves during a time that will never exist again. The only difference is that this snapshot takes the form of a narrative horror movie. From the scene of three kids driving to pick up a pizza to the hilarious sick burn battle between two girls, we feel the infectious energy in every frame. This movie is a gentle reminder that the world isn’t always a pit of flaming hot garbage. (JZ)
22. Conrad Brooks vs. the Werewolf (David “The Rock” Nelson, 1994)
Conrad Brooks vs. the Werewolf is a milestone in David “The Rock” Nelson’s career. It’s also one of the most magical SOV movies in history. This is a cascade of madness, a delirious (and hilarious) testament to the creative spirit, as Conrad Brooks (Glen or Glenda) and his 100-year-old brothers battle a werewolf (Nelson in a rubber mask). There are constant meta-references to Ed Wood, Tor Johnson, and Nelson himself. Rainbow dubbing lines abruptly cut through scenes, and Conrad’s stream-of-consciousness ad-libbing gets more bizarre as time goes on (“Take a little more of that back ’n’ forth action, werewolf!”). This movie feels like a 45-minute luncheon between a 10-year-old and a dementia patient. It’s pure and it’s real. There’s nothing else like it. (JZ)
21. Las Vegas Bloodbath (David Schwartz, 1989)
Las Vegas Bloodbath is a sleazy, low-budget tale of a man who descends into lady-murder madness, but it’s so much more than that. It’s one part slasher and ten parts B.L.O.W. (Beautiful Ladies Oil Wrestling) hanging out. B.L.O.W. is like G.L.O.W. only without the showmanship, artistry, rivalry, glittery capes, or dramatic eye makeup. As we know, there are many recipes for success, and this is one of them. Writer, director, and producer David Schwartz is unapologetically exploitive and he does not care about your feelings. For this reason, Las Vegas Bloodbath is not a movie for civilians; it’s for warriors who can stomach watching a man rip a baby from a womb and fling it across the room. It’s for warriors who can stomach watching ten minutes of aggressively mediocre oil wrestling. It’s for warriors who can stomach long scenes where people play cards and talk about hair. It’s not for everyone, but it is for me. (AC)
20. The Boy from Hell (Mari Asato, 2004)
The Boy from Hell is unlike anything else in Mari Asato’s filmography. Cheap, reckless, and fueled by comic book gore, the movie grafts a Universal horror template onto a public access soap opera. We end up with an unexpected voyage to a grotesque subconsciousness, one that’s just as electric as the manga that inspired it. Green screen inserts and animated transitions melt into beautifully composed shots of barren landscapes. The soundtrack copies Goblin’s electro-harpsichord soundtrack for Deep Red and puts it to good use during a bizarre tangent involving pigeons. The unhinged violence, melodrama (“One more brain transplant will save him!”), and lightning-fast pace all culminate in a literal trip to hell. It materializes as an acid-tinged, CGI nightmare zone that’s almost as shocking as the one in Spawn. But bubbling below the madness is a hint of what would define Asato’s work in the future—a sincere, emotional core. (JZ)
19. Feeders (Mark and John Polonia and Jon McBride, 1996)
Feeders is a triumph. While it doesn’t have the gross-out mutilations of Hallucinations or the head-scratching, stop-motion chicanery of Saurians, Feeders still has the heart and spirit of the Polonia brothers. There’s vehicular manslaughter, shots of bloody teeth, flying UFOs, and a pick-up of a cute girl at a gas station. The video effects are decidedly 8-bit and the alien puppets are second only to John Polonia’s swagger. Feeders is a genuine joy to experience. It has all the infectious energy and undeniable charm of your best friends telling you an incredible story using alien puppets, canned library music, and dialogue like this: “We came here from many light years away for the simple reason for survival. Humans taste so good.” (AC)
18. Death Nurse (Nick Millard, 1987)
Death Nurse may or may not have been meant for public consumption. And that’s the key to enjoying it. The first SOV feature from prolific outsider filmmaker Nick Millard (Criminally Insane), this anti-movie follows the exploits of the incomparable Priscilla Alden (Crazy Fat Ethel from Criminally Insane) as serial killer Nurse Edith Mortley. Combining scenes from Millard’s earlier films with newly shot footage, this is an ugly, claustrophobic brain hemorrhage that’s mostly concerned with people talking on the phone, grunting off camera, or chasing cats. I’ve seen Death Nurse four times. I’ll probably watch it ten more. (JZ)
17. American Commando Ninja (Lo Gio, 1988)
American Commando Ninja is a life-changing free-for-all designed to desecrate your senses. A non-American, un-commando, sometimes-ninja who wears electric blue short-shorts fights a gang of evil ninjas who utilize “germ warfare” and “hocus pocus.” This is just another way of saying that ninjas wearing Hawaiian shirts will fight other ninjas wearing Union Jack jogging shorts and a vicious crime boss named Larry will fall down a hole. This is the only ninja movie in existence to showcase a fist fight between a man and La-Z-Boy recliner. To quote a ninja who compliments another ninja in the movie: “You’re quite a guy!” (JZ)
16. Droid (Philip O’Toole, 1988)
Droid is definitely not the droid you’re looking for. In 1987, adult filmmaker Philip O’Toole made an ambitious post-apocalyptic sci-fi porno with a video camera. It was called Cabaret Sin. The movie had plywood spaceships, men with Christmas lights for eyes, and a C-3PO knockoff named “Rochester,” who wore a red jumpsuit and a beanie. In 1988, the hardcore sex was removed from Cabaret Sin and it was sold to sci-fi fans on home video as Droid. This fact simultaneously explains a lot and very little. Edited by someone with a maximum attention span of eight seconds, Droid is a black hole of irrational ideas, disconnected visuals, and coked-out New Wave musical interludes. Basically, this is what happens when a porn director gets inspired by Star Wars and Blade Runner, but only has $5. (AC/JZ)
15. Blood Lake (Tim Boggs, 1987)
This is the only SOV slasher capable of receiving a stamp of approval from both David Lee Roth and Andy Warhol. A group of party animals, including adolescent horn-dog Lil’ Tony, embark on a weekend trip filled with Jet Skis, a keg of Busch, and a game of quarters. But there’s also a supernatural killer on the loose who wears cowboy boots and a silk shirt with a rose stitched on it! Made by real-life friends from Oklahoma on a real-life vacation, Blood Lake is a rewardingly lethal collision of ‘80s slasher video-vomit and twisted cinéma vérité madness. (JZ)
14. Demon Queen (Donald Farmer, 1987)
Demon Queen is the debut film from Donald Farmer (Scream Dream), and it surpasses my expectations every time I watch it. The loose structure, revolving around the Demon Queen and her relationship with a drug dealer, seems like an afterthought. There’s no recognizable plot, and even less of an explanation. Demon Queen is assembled and presented as a “movie,” one like any other in the Farmer canon. Gore and sex give way to a series of no-fi video experiments, accented with neon overlays and one-note synth drones. This style is alien to the rest of Farmer’s work. Like Tim Ritter’s Day of the Reaper, Demon Queen finds a first-time filmmaker utilizing the fundamentals of backyard horror as a basis for dreamy disengagement. But unlike Day of the Reaper, this movie has a better chance of entertaining viewers who are not me. (JZ)
13. Limbo (Tina Krause, 1999)
After starring in 100 movies over the past two decades, Tina Krause has established herself as an unstoppable warrior from the DIY fringes. Limbo is the first—and to this day, only—movie written and directed by Krause. And it’s truly invigorating. Limbo presents three days in the life of a woman named Elizabeth, as she deals with identity issues, sexist mouth-breathers, supernatural manifestations . . . and a possible trip to hell. Combining video collage experiments with dreamy horror mood, this is what might happen if David Lynch and Nine Inch Nails collaborated on a SOV horror movie. (JZ)
12. Twisted Issues (Charles Pinion, 1988)
Twisted Issues is the debut film from underground art-barf filmmaker Charles Pinion. It has a killer with a skateboard attached to his foot and girls screaming. So, you could label it as a “slasher” without sounding like an ass. But the face-crushings and impalements are just there to anchor us. Pinion wasn’t interested in narrative or logic. He was interested in documenting the punk/skate/thrash scene of Gainesville, Florida in the late 1980s. So Twisted Issues feels like an issue of Destroy All Monsters that was created with a camcorder instead of a Xerox machine—non sequiturs overlap to create a snapshot of someone’s life. One that is scored by Mutley Chix and Hell Witch. Chef’s kiss. (JZ)
11. Ghostwatch (Lesley Manning, 1992)
Ghostwatch is a reality special that aired on BBC in which a crackpot team of journalists and paranormal specialists investigate a haunted house to prove that ghosts do, in fact, exist. It’s an elaborate faux documentary, complete with interviews with believers and non-believers, footage of flying objects, loud thuds in the darkness, and a toll-free number where people can call in with their own ghost stories. There are also talking heads of ghost-deniers, exasperated scientists, and regular common folk who’ve had experiences with the unexplained. The poltergeist activities range from circles in the shag carpet to bloody scratches on a child’s face, and the antics escalate. Ghostwatch is basically a blueprint of all the paranormal investigation reality shows that plague basic cable today. Directed by Lesley Manning—one of the few women working in the SOV sub-genre—Ghostwatch’s elaborate but simple details convinced many viewers when it first aired, even though the entire thing was completely staged. (AC)
10. Possibly in Michigan (Cecelia Condit, 1983)
Possibly in Michigan is part of a series of experimental video shorts by artist Cecelia Condit that served as a coping mechanism after she unknowingly dated a real-life murderer. Presented as a day in the life of two women as they deal with a male stalker, this is cathartic surrealism at its most inspiring. Condit uses Casiocore songs, multimedia collage, and crude bloodshed to build an anxious netherworld—one where grotesque secrets lurk behind every rubber animal mask. But through it all, Condit’s resolve is crystal clear. I’m awed by her ability to confront personal demons with such a savage sense of humor (“They had two things in common: violence and perfume.”). Possibly in Michigan is an essential watch for anyone with a beating heart, and one of the most important SOV horror films in history—even at 12 minutes long. (JZ)
09. Blood Brothers (Mike Diana, 1989)
This is Trash Humpers for real. It’s also a seven course meal for connoisseurs of bad taste. Like Hawk Jones, this movie presents an adult world that is mostly populated by humans who weren’t old enough to drive. But if the “grown-up” equivalent of the happy-go-lucky world of Hawk Jones is Action Jackson, then Blood Brothers would be The Last House On Dead End Street. The psychology of this movie was damaged in the same suburban war zone that left teenage filmmaker (and controversial artist) Mike Diana permanently scarred. Out of the rubble, we find a primordial angst that can only be satiated by pounding the keys of a Casio SK-1 keyboard, kindergarteners huffing glue, and a kid smashing a television over another kid’s head. It’s disturbing, inconceivable, hilarious, and absolutely essential. (JZ)
08. High Kicks (Ruta K. Aras, 1993)
A “tribe” of cartoonish riffraff shakes down an aerobics studio. What’s a high-impact cardio instructor to do? The answer is High Kicks, a glorious trash-action film that features aerobics, karate (pronounced “ka-rah-tay” exactly once), lovemaking on a boat, and an unhealthy number of montages. High Kicks is one part vigilante movie and five parts karate-aerobics workout video. At its heart, the movie is about empowerment, teamwork, revenge, and the importance of cardiovascular health. This is the only film that has four karate choreographers, several stunt choreographers, an aerobics choreographer, and a Karobics (karate + aerobics) choreographer in its credits. Writer/director Ruta K. Aras may be the only woman filmmaker to take the classic rape revenge story and turn it into a HIIT class. Time to get in shape. (AC)
07. Boardinghouse (John Wintergate, 1982)
Nothing can prepare you for Boardinghouse. Jim (director John Wintergate), a psychic-gigolo who wears a leopard-print thong, rents a haunted house to “beautiful women with no ties.” From there, this unworldly slasher transforms into a sleazy, hallucinogenic maelstrom of gore, sex, chainsaws, pie fights, killer refrigerators, Jacuzzis, beds that eat people, a new wave band called 33 and 1/3, and a leading lady known only as Kalassu (who also produced and co-wrote the movie). Boardinghouse is the first shot-on-video horror film to be blown up to 35mm and released theatrically. For that reason alone, it’s a must-see for everyone on the planet. But beyond the film’s historical significance, Boardinghouse is an all-in-one gateway that defines the SOV aesthetic. (JZ)
06. The McPherson Tape (Dean Alioto, 1989)
A decade before The Blair Witch Project defined the “point-of-view” found footage style, there was The McPherson Tape. On October 8th, 1983, the McPherson family gathered together to celebrate the 5th birthday of Michelle, the littlest member of their household. Everything was captured on VHS by Michael McPherson and his new camcorder. Including the alien invasion. Shot for $6,000 by first-time filmmaker Dean Alioto, this movie blends the production design of a Jaycees haunted house with a dead serious tone to forge a fun, hypnotic nightmare that upends the concept of reality. The McPherson Tape is a huge milestone in SOV history and a lovely reminder of how much can be achieved with very little. (JZ)
05. Hallucinations (Mark and John Polonia and Todd Michael Smith, 1987)
Prior to Splatter Farm, DIY legends Mark and John Polonia and Todd Michael Smith made Hallucinations, which feels like a mutant three-way between Kenneth Anger, Tex Avery, and David Cronenberg in David “The Rock” Nelson’s basement. When teenage twin brothers (the Polonias) are left home alone with their friend (Smith), they come face-to-face with a house full of phantasms. A kitten is mutilated by a chainsaw. A severed leg appears in a refrigerator. A Freddy Krueger-esque slasher shows up wearing an Adidas snowsuit. But the gross-out gags are slowly overpowered by sexual perversion, including bondage and a giant penis monster that lurks in the shower. Eerie, dream-like, and containing surprisingly mature themes, Hallucinations is unmissable. (JZ)
04. Tales from the Quadead Zone (Chester Turner, 1987)
Tales from the Quadead Zone, a three-story anthology made in Chicago, is Chester Turner’s second and final dig into self-released SOV sludge following Black Devil Doll From Hell. Rules of language, structure, and general awareness do not exist in the Quadead Zone. It’s a tight package of non-stop delirium, featuring Turner’s homemade Casiotone score, kitchen utensil bloodbaths, and psychedelic Video Toaster effects. Surprises hide beneath every plastic-covered couch, dirt floor basement, and clown nose. The credits say “Tales From The Quadead Zone Will Return” and I await forever. (JZ)
03. Suffer, Little Children (Alan Briggs, 1983)
This is the greatest concussion that I’ve ever had. Written by producer Meg Shanks (who also owned the drama school that supplied the movie’s child actors), Suffer, Little Children is one of the most unforgettable and immersive SOV horror movies in existence. Combining exploitive “true crime” elements with a hallucinatory aesthetic, the movie purports to be a “recreation” of supernatural events that took place at an orphanage in Surrey, England. Whether or not these events are true is a moot point. Banned during the UK’s Video Nasty witch hunt, Suffer, Little Children is Satanic panic artifact that digs deeper and deeper into my brain with each passing year. (JZ)
02. Sledgehammer (David Prior, 1983)
Sledgehammer is the first SOV horror movie ever made for the home video market . . . and so much more. Ted Prior (Deadly Prey) leads a cast of self-loathing party animals who face off against a dimension-leaping ghost with a fondness for homicide and flannel. By the end, guts, brains, and beers are splashed across every inch of the shitty condo walls. Directed by David Prior (Killer Workout), this is a feel-good collision of slow-motion abuse, unintentional surrealist art, homoerotic pathos, and slasher video-barf. Bleeding Skull’s Zack Carlson said it best: If you survive Sledgehammer, you’ll never, ever forget it. (JZ)
01. Blonde Death (James Robert Baker, 1983)
Shot for $2,000 by “James Dillinger” aka James Robert Baker, a playwright-novelist-anarchist who was once described as “the world’s angriest gay man,” Blonde Death is a major triumph in the SOV universe. This movie wages war on suburban America, attacking the concepts of family and love with murderous wit. Blonde Death draws comparisons to early John Waters, and it’s as strong as Waters’ best. At the age of 51, Baker chose to end his life via carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage (exactly how two of his lead characters perish in Blonde Death). This was his supreme bird-flip to the world. We wish he could be alive to experience the praise of his work, but the brilliant and overlooked Baker—to his credit—wouldn’t care. (ZC/JZ)
