Cult Cinema: An Arrow Video Companion
AS REGULAR readers of this column will know, the good people at Arrow Video have been responsible for some of the most intriguing cult releases of recent years.
Some of my favourite films ever, from Theatre Of Blood to Videodrome, have benefited from the Arrow touch and their dedication to the cause is admirable.
To their credit, they have trawled the dusty corridors of cultdom to dig out some seriously dark, dangerous and delicious delights for our home viewing pleasure.
Be it Class Of Nuke 'Em High or Nekromantik, they've cast their net wide and scored some truly remarkable results in the process. From creaky horror staples to sordid little sex comedies, long forgotten low budget sci-fi epics and odd, angular Asian offerings they've made it their business to dredge up as many hard to find off centre cinematic gems as they can and present them in the best light possible into the bargain.
That means sparkly Blu-ray prints wherever possible, gloriously garish new covers and plenty of informative viewing notes within.
The company's release catalogue over the last few years has been hugely impressive and if awards for services to the cult film industry existed in any shape or form, Arrow would be entitled to at least a living room full of them.
The company, and the world of underdog cinema in general, are celebrated in Cult Cinema: An Arrow Video Companion, a new book aimed at putting the company's output in some kind of critical context.
As plush and classy as much of the material covered within is cheap and trashy, it's a beautiful hardback study of everything that makes the world of slightly left field film making so attractive.
Through a selection of 25 essays from writers as diverse as David Del Valle, Vic Pratt and Tim Lucas it covers the stars, the film makers and the trends of cult cinema in its widest sense. That means fascinating studies of everything from Super 8 movies to Suzuki Seijum and 1970's Blaxploitation.
There are chapters on the video nasty scandal of the 1980's, the lure of horror at Christmas and the magic of Lee Van Cleef and the so called Spaghetti Western franchise in general, and it all comes with lush, full colour illustrations.
There's an opening chapter dedicated to seven seminal cult films – from Dressed To Kill to Withnail & I – and space is even given to the murky world of distribution, which looks at how we get to actually see a film, from festivals to DVD, and how those methods allow a movie's cult status to grow organically and spread by word of mouth.
High-Rise director Ben Wheatley provides the introduction and waxes lyrical about the days of corner video stores and the dubious VHS delights that lurked on those cheap plastic shelves.
As is often the way with such things nostalgia for all our viewing yesterdays is never far from the surface.
It's not definitive by any means but it's clearly not meant to be and if it drives the reader to dig a little deeper into cinematic worlds they'd hitherto left untouched then it's done its job really.
One little word of warning though. Most of these essays have already appeared in the notes to the DVD releases of many of the films covered.
Still, it's nice to have them all in one super-stylish place.
