LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles is, first and foremost, a city dedicated to the cinema, and some of the films it's produced that audiences love best are what's been described as "cult films." And now, the first part of a three-part documentary feature, Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All-Time, will hit the VOD/digital marketplace on Amazon, iTunes, Fandango Now, Vudu and most cable systems (Comcast, Spectrum, etc.) beginning today, April 21—and its executive producer, the guy who literally came to LA to make films such as these documentaries, is none other than Paul Fishbein, the founder of Adult Video News, considered the top trade magazine of the adult industry, and the owner of Plausible Films, which produced the Time Warp trilogy.
A history of cult movies which traces their roots in repertory cinemas and at midnight screenings from the 1970s through today, Time Warp names the greatest cult films of all time (though Fishbein admits there are many more that could have been chosen), and provides inside stories, interviews with the stars, directors and historians who defined the genre, as well as illustrated film clips.
Each volume is hosted by a panel of established film buffs, including directors Joe Dante and John Waters and actors Illeana Douglas and Kevin Pollak.
Quiver Distribution is releasing the Plausible Films production.
“This production was a dream come true,” said Fishbein, the executive producer of Time Warp. “These are the films we grew up on, that we cut classes to go see and snuck into drive-ins to watch. And after seeing them over and over and over again, they still hold up. ... We could have done 35 hours of this and still not gotten every film that we considered a cult film."
"Back when we lived in Philadelphia, Irv [Slifkin, author of Videohound's Groovy Movies] and I wanted to come to Hollywood. This is what we wanted to do: We wanted to be in Hollywood in the movie business. We're movie buffs, but I got waylaid for 30 years by AVN because AVN was an opportunity. You know, people were getting VCRs for the first time and wanted to know what to rent in the adult world, and a lightbulb went off. So I did that for more than 30 years, and now I get to do what I really wanted to do: Make movies."
The first chapter of the documentary, titled “Midnight Madness,” releasing on April 21, considers the phenomenon of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, whose main song lends the series its title ("Let's do the time warp again!"), as well as the admiration for Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude, the strange way David Lynch’s Eraserhead became a cult hit, how Pink Flamingos established John Waters as a cult director, and discusses many more “midnight movies.”
"The origin of the midnight movie is, it started in New York City, the Elgin Theater; a man named Ben Barenholtz was instrumental in creating the midnight movie," Fishbein explained during a podcast interview he did with Illeana Douglas. "El Topo is known as the first midnight movie, but the one that really put midnight movies on the map before Rocky Horror was Eraserhead, and Barenholtz worked closely with David Lynch to get Eraserhead on screens, specifically the Elgin Theater in New York, and it was the slowest word of mouth ever, but eventually Eraserhead became a phenomenon in that midnight showing in New York City, and then moved out to other theaters—and of course, Rocky Horror sort of became the quintessential midnight movie."
Also in Time Warp's first chapter, Jeff Bridges and John Turturro are on hand to deliberate The Big Lebowski; Rob Reiner, Michael McKean and Fran Drescher explain the greatness of This Is Spinal Tap; the extraordinary Pam Grier is on hand to discuss her 1970s blaxploitation cult classics Coffy and Foxy Brown, and many more stars, directors and their movies are dissected.
Part 2, with the title “Horror and Sci-Fi,” releases May 21 on VOD platforms and features cult sci-fi classics such as Blade Runner with star Sean Young reflecting on her role; Malcolm McDowell dishing on A Clockwork Orange; Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai with Jeff Goldblum on hand; John Sayles and Joe Morton discussing The Brother From Another Planet; and many others.
Cult horror is represented with Night of the Living Dead and the late George Romero; The Evil Dead featuring Bruce Campbell; and director Tobe Hooper’s final interview along with co-star Ed Neal in discussing the cult greatness of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
The third volume, “Comedy & Camp,” premiering June 23 on most VOD platforms, establishes the greatest cult comedies as well as the camp cult classics that filled repertory cinemas, video stores and screens at midnight. The all-star cast includes John Cleese, Fred Willard, David Cross, Gina Gershon, Jim Gaffigan, Jon Heder, John Cameron Mitchell, the cast of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls including such top stars as Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers and Edy Williams; Ron Livingston, Kevin Smith, director Amy Heckerling and many others discussing the likes of Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, Clerks, Showgirls, The Room, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Napoleon Dynamite, Office Space. Fast Time at Ridgemont High, Plan 9 From Outer Space and many more.
"It's interesting to talk to female directors of that era," Fishbein told Douglas, "fighting their way uphill in a male-dominated industry to try to make the movies that they wanted to make, and the fights that they had with the studios to make them; great stories, so they deserve their cult status."
All three volumes feature many experts and authors including Bruce Vilanch, Owen Gleiberman (Variety), David Edelstein (New York Magazine, CBS Sunday News), Amy Nicholson (Variety), Kyle Anderson (The Nerdist), Danny Peary (Cult Movies 1-4), Tony Timpone (Fangoria), Carrie Rickey (Philadelphia Inquirer) and Irv Slifkin.
Slifkin, an accomplished film writer and professor, who served as a producer on the project, added, “I’ve always had a fondness for movies that are off the beaten track or have never found the audience they deserve, so taking a liking to cult films were a natural for me. Realizing that others shared my enthusiasm for such films was a revelation, and nothing is more fulfilling than sitting in a theater and sharing the love for a movie you thought nobody cared about with others who appreciate the same thing."
In that, he and Fishbein, both of whom got their starts at top Philadelphia-based video rental/sales chain Movies Unlimited, are in total agreement.
"This is a documentary series for movie lovers made by movie lovers," Fishbein said. "We love movies, we love cult movies. It's what I've always wanted to do. I've always wanted to do stuff like this growing up, and so when you have the opportunity, you're gonna make it big and you're gonna make it bold and you're gonna make it fun and we're appealing to people who love movies ... I think that's one of the benefits of the documentary like this; there's gonna be films that people are gonna go, 'I never saw that! I've got to see it.'"
Danny Wolf, who directed the project, said, “What I loved best about directing and conducting the interviews was that so many of the films we covered were personal favorites of mine. So, it's hard to put into words how amazing it was to interview Gina Gershon for Showgirls, Peter Farrelly for Kingpin, or the unique opportunity to travel to Kingsland, Texas to interview The Texas Chain Saw Massacre's Ed Neal—in front of the actual house used in the movie.”
Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All-Time is available starting today, April 21 on Amazon Apple TV, iTunes, Amazon, Vudu and most places people rent or buy new movies to stream. A trailer for Time Warp can be found here.
