Hello there, everyone, and welcome back to the disc Connected. You are
about to see me do an interview with the wonderful Cat Ollinger. If you've
been watching this channel for quite some time, you have probably heard me say
her name a countless infinite number of times. Cat has been a part of
many, many wonderful boutique releases throughout the years from companies like Vinegar Syndrome,
Severn Films, Aero Video, and many more. On top of that,
she's been announced as being a part of the boutique label that is about to
be launched officially in the next thirty days or so from Franz Simioni who used
to be at Aero Video. That company will be called Radiance Films, and
it does get mentioned in this interview. If you have anybody like this that
you would like me to interview, please let me know in the comments below,
or if you are somebody that is an expert in any of these fields
and you would like to be involved, please send me an email. My
email is in that description as well. On top of that, if you
would like to have a hand in some of these interviews by contributing questions,
please consider joining the Patreon and the description below. If by the end of
this interview you enjoyed it, please click that like button, and if you
haven't, please subscribe. I've got more interviews like this coming out all the
time, and I'm looking to make this community stronger than ever before, so
I would love to have you be a part of it. Without further ado,
after the intro, here is myself and kat Elancher, Kat, how
are you tonight? Hello? Thank you for having me. Thank you.
I had the wonderful honor of previewing the ridiculously great documentary that you just finished
and premiered at FrightFest Orchestrator of Stores. You've done a lot behind that.
What were all of your roles? Oh my god, I was like the
writer, producer, co director, just thing on it. Basically, I've
worked with Deema, my sort of collaborative partner for years, and we've made
quite a few films together, but this was my first co director credit on
that. Yeah. I'm glad you liked it, though, because I didn't
know this is I genuinely documentaries are one of my favorite things because I really
like diving into a niche that either I tangentially sort of understand or I know
nothing about and now I just want to be absorbed and everything about it.
And usually if it's successful, I just want to immerse myself in it.
And after watching this, it was just feed everything that he has ever completed
directly that is so good. That was why we did it. One of
the reasons why his his work is a been like widely out there to everybody
in a way that is like pervasive. Do you have any sense on why
that would be? Perhaps, well, I don't know. I mean,
we tried to cover some of it in the film and sort of highlight that
before the nineties, it was really impossible to see this stuff. I mean,
some people managed to see it. I know Pete Tooms did some screenings
in the late eighties, and you know, obviously there were small French the
actrical releases of some of his films, but by and large it was just
ignored. And I guess because it wasn't that marketable. It wasn't like straight
on horror. Some of his porn stuff came out as pawn but again it's
like this weird mix, and so it really was then. And Quino actually
did blu rays of his stuff probably about ten years ago, but even those
have been kind of ignored, like nobody was. I remember when they bought
them out, they did the Jess Branco stuff and they did the people because
stuff all through Redemption, like Heino Redemption. Obviously it's Nigel Wingrove again.
And we had some releases here in the UK. I'm trying to think what
label it was. One of the small ones like screen band maybe, but
again, like I don't know, it's just totally got overlooked. It's odd
because obviously, like you go over in the documentary, it's kind of a
weird mix of genres for some people, so I think that that may be
a part of it. But yeah, in the US, the maybe the
Redemption branding was just different for people. But I know I was excited to
see Nigel in the documentary and speaking. Yeah he was great. Yeah,
he was great. And you know, the documentary video a lot of it
to him because it started off as as a much smaller product. And then
I started talking to him about Rollin and we had loads of phone conversations and
he told me all this wonderful stuff about him and it was like, we
have to get this in the film and put me in touch with Rolands and
surgery who's not in the film, but was also very helpful behind them scenes,
and he put us in touch with a very unique Roland's long term friend
and she was great and you know the stories that she had, So it
kind of went from there, and Nigel was just wonderful. He just wanted
to the film to be made because obviously he's champion Rolland for decades, and
there was a big risk put in those films out when he did, because
they were virtually unheard of. And I know he told me Pete Teams had
a lot to do with that also, But you know, Pete was great
behind the scenes but didn't want to come on camera and his teacher, I
love Pete. He was like, I don't want to go on camera,
but he was great behind the scenes. So we had so much support,
Like even though it was like co director, it really was like a kind
of team effort of everybody working on it. Levet Rollin, so I had
a great energy about it. The energy was palpable to a point where you
know, it's chronological documentary for the most part, and the winding thread through
the whole thing is this life that he's lived that's been super interesting and as
you got his friend that you just mentioned. And I don't want to spoil
it because I really want people to go see this, but the it was
this emotional climax and near the end of it that I was just gutted right
alongside it, just to feel that, you know, the memories of this
person and the pervasive imagery that he's given to the world, you can just
feel how much it's affected these people. Yeah, not a bad word,
and nobody had a bad wood to say about him, nobody, you know,
they all loved him. And I was very clear from the stock becas
obviously I've championed, championed Rollin a lot in my own writing career, but
I really wanted to ever have very super specific experts like we have Madeline to
talk about things like anti clerical porn and the fantasy Ekla Paris and and decadence
stuff because she's just so good on that, but also a massive fan of
Rollin and Virginie as well, who is also like and a total expert on
the French fantastic and everybody else had to be somebody who either knew Rollin or
met Rollan. You know, we didn't. We didn't want to just do
like a kind of analysis of his films. We wanted people that knew him
in there that he could sort of tell us personal things about him, because
he's a difficult man to know. We spent ments translating his autobiography from French,
photographing every page and running them through Google Translate. And he says very
little about his family. It's all about his films. Even his mothery we
adored. There's like a little bit about his mother, but again it's all
about the films. And so getting anything about him was so difficult because all
he ever talked about was my film, my life in films. But yeah,
he was married, he had children, his brother worked with him in
films. The surge was helped him with some of his films, but he
kind of I don't know, he was just like that. He just didn't
like to talk about himself. It was all to do with the film.
So it was important that we had people that had actually known him, yeah,
to tell us something about that. We did get some archive interviews with
him, but again they were just very straightforward talking and thought, this isn't
really telling as much. I was excited to see all of the pictures that
were shown in the background. As you know, there was a voiceover.
Frequently with documentaries like this, it's more of a retrospective with talking heads and
this personal aspect that genuinely came across. And I checked to make sure that
reviews were out there from Fight Fast about this and all that before I posted
mine online. But it was nice to be able to post this review and
immediately, not even kidding, within about three minutes, had already somebody messaging
me, where can I watch this right now? That's good? That is
good. There are people dying to see this. I doubt that there will
be anything but triumphant praise because this is a remarkable, remarkable film. We
had hell getting the photos as well, because that was a whole other thing,
but with his family were really helpful. Kayla Janice was incredible and she
was one of our assistant producers and she was able to get a lot of
stuff that she had in an archive. But even just getting photos like you
can't just look online and find of course, oh, so you know,
we had people digging them up from here, there and everywhere. We did
have some people say, oh, it's kind of conventional, but it was
the only way we could do it because, like Rollin, we had a
tiny budget. Yeah, it's the irony that people are kind of like,
wow, it's kind of conventional, and it's like wow, you know,
if I'd been given a bag of many, I would have had women dancing
around and right, French poetry. But also we didn't really want to detract
from rolland so I think Roland's work speaks for itself, right. And yeah,
with the conventional aspect, it's not like there's many of these documentaries about
Rolan out there. So yeah, there is a French one. Actually there's
a French one with a lot of interviews with him in it, and that's
kind of good, but again it's just very it's more like an extended interview,
right. So we looked at that and thought, well, no,
we want to do something a little bit different. We want to also bring
context in and stuff, and so it is a little bit different to that
one. But in English language nothing there's like been nothing exactly. So a
conventional aspect kind of makes sense because for a lot of people, this will
be the intro to Roland, and this will be the inspiration to dive in
headfirst and forgive the pun, but you know, find the fascination in his
so fascinations was one of my working titles, and everyone was like, you
get to just stop. It was something like the nude Vampire and other fascinations
and that's actually pretty yeah. Come up with orchestrated storms, which is a
thing that he said, so yeah, that was a bit more abstract where
his mine was like right right, hitting the head on the or hitting the
nail on the head. I get that this played very well. I watched
this last night with my mom and my wife, and both of them had
never seen any of his films, So for me with the background and for
them without the background, it worked gangbusters for everybody. And do they want
to watch them now? They interesting? Immediately my wife was literally like,
I like vampire films. How can you even show me any of these?
You haven't seen too many things. I'm trying to show you everything. It
was a great time though, Like I said, that conventional aspect makes sense
because this will be the intro for most people. So for me, I've
got my personal things that I tell people if they're looking for him what to
watch first? What do you usually throw out there as after this documentary?
What would you say usually I'd say fascination in The Living Dead Girl, which
are is slightly later of films. I think Grapes of Death is a kind
of fan favorite as well. It's like a very weird take on a zombie
film. But The Living Dead Girls especially plays out more like a conventional horror,
even though it isn't really conventional horror, but it was the early eighties
he was having to try and be more conventional. It's also a masterpiece,
and it's also one hundred percent rollin, but I think that's probably the best
way in, and then work your way back to things like Rape of the
Vampire, which is one of his most difficult films. That's about online exactly
the way I usually say. And for those in the US, the Redemption
Films line that put them out. They again, I think they're about a
decade old now, but yeah, they're probably about a decade, don't They
were one of the reasons I actually bought a multi region player them and The
Pete Walkers because we didn't have them that we only had the vhs then.
Surprisingly, though, even though I think they're his stuff, started around twenty
twelve with that line, and they look fantastic. They do they're really nice
transwer Yeah, they are really nice transwers. That was one of the first
sort of blu rays that I got, and I thought, oh, this
actually looks really good. I was surprised, especially with the name that hasn't
been pervasive with a lot of people like REGI. Yeah, it's strange.
They never seem to be big sells for for Kino, and they're they're part
of every sale and I don't get it. I think that they should be
doing very well. They should be buying them all. And they're quite cheap
as well. There's no exc they're kind of bare bones, but you know,
they're good for the films. I can't the math little. Yeah,
some of the have little interviews with rollin on I think. I don't know
if they all do, but yeah, especially some of the later ones,
because a lot of the earlier ones there was not a lot saved. I
mean for a person that was born in nineteen thirty eight, again, getting
those photos must have been extremely difficult. Yeah, and some of them had
to be restored. I mean, it was a whole thing. But we
really wanted to show that side of him, right, which was amazing,
and so we're indebted to everyone who was just so generous and you know us
pleading give us more, please, so many photos for like nearly two hour
film. I'm telling you well, especially the style that you went, the
stuff in the background with some of that voiceover, it was the perfect backdrop
to see the contextual side of his life because it's not an easy story to
tell with everything that he went through. Yeah, we decided to go with
bits from his autobiography which are a bit more personal, which he never actually
said out loud in interviews, which is interesting. So we thought, well,
we'll get an actor to say this, and getting the right actor was
was you know, we just had to find someone who was right for that,
and we had Avianna to do the other narration and she actually Avianna Snow
she actually looks like a Roland girl, though you don't see her in the
film, but she went to fright Fest and was having photos she's an actress,
obviously saving photos taken outside the premiere. And then when there's a guy
I think doing a double take. It's almost as if one of the girls
from the field wanted up. And she's got a sort of floaty dress on
which she's amazing did you get to attend the premiere as well. Unfortunately,
no, because my son's college induction. Yeah, the mundane world of being
a parent, unfortunately, But it was We had Bridget le Hay there and
Virginally did a wonderful Q and A. So hopefully going to get some footage
from that because it was recorded, and yeah, it was. It was
one of them things. Nice to see Brigitte getting a lot of attention the
last year and a half or so with big, fancy releases of some of
her films. Yes, it's about time. She's wonderful and she was so
great as well. It took us a while to track her down. It
was just before she kind of resurfaced for the book, and it took us
a while to track her down, and we had to go through one of
our producers, Jonathan'surin. He's also our DP for a lot of the interviews.
He's he's based in the UK, but he's French, so he was
going through French journalists to fight because none of us speak French and she doesn't
speak very good English. So that we finally chatted her down, I was
like, we need to do this with Brigitte if we can, and She
was great. She was absolutely wonderful. She was like, yeah, any
excuse to talk about John. She loved him so much they all did.
She looked genuinely beaming happy the entire time. So yes, she looks incredible
as well. It's like she's Asia exactly. How was the reception that you've
heard from the premiere? It did really well. I think it also premiered
at Fantasia, and so it did really well there because obviously Fantasia and Mitch
Davis and Kayla Deanie, you know, they were bringing Rollan over sort of
decades ago, and Kayla's actually in the film talking about that how she accidentally
invited him to a film festival, which is great, and and Mitch has
always been a massive support of Rollane as well, so they actually gave him
a lifetime Achievement world there in twenty eleven. So it was lovely to have
it like have its first premiere at Fantasia because it kind of felt like Rolande's
spiritual home, but the London one because right fast, you do have like
quite a lot of old guard that go to that. He met Rollane in
the nineties at what they call the euro and they brought him over in the
mid nineties with Brigitte, I think, and so a lot of those people
who'd met Bridgite then went to see the film, which was nice and got
to meet her again. Awesome. So there's like a special love in London
and the London Films theme for Rollin. That's great, so good to hear,
and that's the entire time. It felt sort of like a return to
home, kind of like very warm belly, like I feel like I'm growing
up again feeling while watching and it was just nice, absolutely great speaking of
euro so that there is so much else that you've done other than Roland obviously,
and I try to get prepared. So I've got a couple of things
here. First off, so many people don't even know that you did Yeah,
my Sergio Martino. But that was for Arrow back. Now, how
did that come about originally? Because that was Yeah, Arrow just started this
book line, which I think they might have abandoned now. They did like
a few of them. Tom Mes did a really good one on Maker Cargi,
they had the Hitcher, there was a few, and so they just
put out a call out to contributors. You know, if you have a
book pitch, send us a pitch, so I did and send it to
Francesco Simeoni, who was also my producer on the Rollland thing so and now
my boss at Radiance Films. So I do o frown a lot, and
he liked the pitch. I'd always wanted to do either Sudio or Lensy.
It's a very more book project, though the idea was they fit next to
a blue ray. So it ended up quite a challenge because when I started
writing it and then decided I also want to cover his comedies because I love
them. Then also I had the hell, am I going to fit since
exactly spect they've given me? But it was fun, It was really fun.
I'd like to expand me something expanded at some point though, that is
the perfect way. I was literally about to say it's a great read.
I just same with the documentary. I just wanted more. Immediately. You
could tell it's somebody that had that passion behind it, and they were just
itching to say more. Yeah, I just yeah. It was It was
kind of limited, but I wanted to show and I love his shallow films,
but I wanted to show he wasn't just Jallo and a third of the
films he made with comedies, and he had this really long career and did
TV and you know, and since then I've had lots and lots of chances
to talk about him as well, So that that is cool speaking of And
you're also on this disc for So Sweet, So Perversal, I one of
my favorite projects I've ever done, because all my love for LENDSI that was
the book I didn't write in that track you can tell. And I don't
think this was the first one, but it's one of the first ones that
I really went, you know what. I listened to a lot of my
extras, but Cat is special and that commentary is what kind of cemented it
for me. And I do I know this doesn't matter a whole lot,
but I do a live show every Thursday where I talk about the boutique announcements
that are coming out and when I go over special features. You are one
of very few people that when I see the name, I tell everybody that
even if the film is trash, this is worth buying just for this person.
That is going to be explained. Yeah, I did cover some trash,
but it's always trash that I love. And yeah, some people take
offense at that they think I should be more critical with So I'm not going
to waste my time doing something that I don't like, you know, I'm
there to, you know, work on things that I love really, but
the getting to do the Lenzi sat was just brilliant. I remember when David
Gregory emailed me to say they were doing a LENSI Carol, because I was
like, you are you are? Can I swear? I was like all
right, yeah, he'll fucking jokeing. I was just like, oh my
god. But David Gregory tends to do that a lot with stuff, you
know, because sovereign perhaps some insane stuff. You'll be like, oh,
yeah, we're doing this like Massive Christopher in Europe Box It's just like what
we Oh my god, that Milligan set. I don't buy that many disks
because I can never afford them, but that's one of the only things I've
ever pre ordered. And I was sweating through it, suddenly thinking why am
I panicking that everyone's suddenly gonna buy Andy Milligan, Like no one gives a
ship about Andy Milligan. And then and then it did. It sold out,
so I was like, I was like triumphant. I thought I get
it. Now I get this whole like if people keep up at midnight.
It's very very true. I speaking of the trash films that we all tend
to love. When we're you know, discussing stuff like this. One of
the things I tend to say on this channel a lot is that every single
film has been somebody's favorite film. So, with all the work that you've
done, is there any film that you find especially hard to recommend to people
even though you truly love it? No? No, I mean all the
work that I've done, I take on largely to champion it. Yeah,
and I think, you know, say I did something that I didn't think
was that amazing. I can't think of anything, but no, it's normally
I do have ADHD, so I have to be like hyper focused and interested
on something to engage with it. But you're right, it's like every film
as a fan, And so I would never go on a commentary and be
remotely critical exactly, you know, because I'm not doing a commentary for some
reviewer who've got a check disc. I'm doing it for the that spent twenty
dollars thirty dollars on the disc, and the last thing they want is somebody
pointing out flaws, you know, like that is part of film criticism,
but I don't think it should be part of extras. You know, it's
just an insult. So no, I'd recommend everything I've ever worked on one
hundred percent, like you have to get it all because it's all amazing.
And a lot of the stuff that I've done, it's been stuff that just
wasn't available before, or on very bad quality copies and things like that,
or just these terrible, awful ratio DVDs, or you could only see it
on bootlegs. So I do. I have done some more mainstream stuff,
but generally it tends to be that That's what really excites me, the fact
that somebody's actually bothered to think, you know, I'm going to release this
film, you know that maybe twenty five people care about, and then sitting
people discover it that it is the best part. Because I think one of
them was American Richual, the Sergio Martino film, which I bloody love,
and when Jesse told me they were doing it, I was like, you
just you can't be serious. This is like the only way I could see
that before because I missed it in the eighties, was there was a bootleg
that went around and it had and it was even on Amazon Prime. At
one point. I saw it on Prime and I was like, oh my
god, they've restored it. And I put it on. It was the
same and it had like the tracking thing come a pathway through the I was
like, why is this pe put on Amazon? This is bizarre? And
I loved that film, so when he said they were doing it, I
was like, Oh my god, this is so good. And then it
came out and I'm just seeing how everybody loved that film too. That was
just the best thing ever. I was like, where is this Bee?
I feel like lately you you are genuinely hitting a lot of those titles that
haven't been out for a long time. One of the most recent ones is
this horror disc from Oh my God. Yeah, so good. I love
seeing some of these films come out, and again, just seeing your name,
I'm telling you everybody by this now you absolutely have to You're branching out
to all these new and different boutiques. How are you feeling about the state
of the Union for boutique physical media ry. I think it's the best it's
ever been. I mean, this is my full time job basically, and
it's just me and my kids. You know, it's just you know,
but I managed to support myself that way full time because I'm you know,
my kids at home. He's been homeschooled, so you know, that's given
me the chance to also be at home with my kids. And you know,
the way it is at the moment, I just think we're really in
some sort of renaissance period. For it's almost like when I don't know VHS
first came out and suddenly you could just get things and take them home.
It's that same sort of excitement because there's all sorts of like bizarre check films
that have just been available on fans, of bootlegs and all, like,
I think companies are really sort of going out of there. You know.
It was great when Blu Ray first came along and we just had all the
like classics and that was good. It was like, oh, this is
exciting, it looks good. But as it's gone along, it's got more
and more esoteric, and you see companies taking a lot more risks and obviously
saving are one of the biggest of those because some of the you know,
quin que box sets and mostly it's done pretty decent for them, so congress
to them. Yeah, and I think I think we're at a time now
where film fans are more open to wanting to discover. And that goes back
to Rollin you said why not before. I think before people tended to be
slightly more narrow mine, whereas you find now, especially within the whole collective
community, people are more open to just buying other staff and oh, I
don't know this direct or, great, I can do like a whole retrospective
on him. So you're seeing a lot more a lot more of that,
probably within the last five or six years. So it's like really taking I
keep hearing people go, oh, the bottom's about to fall out, but
it doesn't look like that to me. Put it that way at all.
I mean, there's still literally thousands of films that can be released. I
guess at this point many one of the main questions is elements. Do we
have proper film to be able to scale? Yeah, that's always an issue.
That is always an issue. And you know, there's certain projects I've
worked on behind the scenes that have fallen through because of elements and things like
that, and that's always getting but you can always you know, LaaS when
they found Symptoms that I never thought anyone would find that. It showed on
British TV here in the early eighties, and again somebody managed to record that
and then transfer it to like a you know, I don't know, some
sort of m K four file on it, and then it was on YouTube.
Someone even tried to killor correct it on YouTube at one point. But
the but, the but this is like just this a great thing. But
the story was the elements are gone, We're never going to see this.
And then all of a sudden BFI come out with hey, we've restored Symptoms,
and then all the other LRAs films they started finding them, and it's
like this is so never say never. Somebody somewhere might have a serviceable copy
somewhere in some vault or something that will turn up. So you know,
I know, Ali Carter is one of my most wanted and they're always saying
they can't find the elements for that. I just booked a Jared from Mondo
Macabreau earlier this year, and that was one of the biggest things that we
were like, I mean, what do we have to do. We have
to fund a trip to Mexico to look through something we got to get it.
But I am sort of that on stuff that I know is being released
as well that people never thought would be released, and it's hard not being
able to say it, but then just waiting for people's shock. That's awesome.
Yeah, I'm sure that that moment has happened a lot over the last
few years because some of these I mean even like Hitcher from Second Site being
able to be found when everybody thought that was just yeah, ancient history basically,
I do, but producing for Second Site now, so I'm on the
other side of it. I'm more on the curation side, and I've been
doing that for I'm working with Severin on something obviously at Radiance. I just
did a project for Arrow, which means I get to bask in other people's
shine. But yeah, the stuff that goes on behind the scenes to really
get this stuff together is it takes a lot of commitment and from the people
behind it a mondo. You know, it's only Pete and Jared and the
stuff they go through to restore things, and that is incredible. So there's
a lot of passionate people out there that will keep this going, I think
well, and with cult films in general, there's always been some sort of
unfortunate like disrespect, and I'm curious, just with your historical context, if
you think that that has led to either helping it in you know, possibly
the outrage bringing it to more eyes, or do you think it's hindered it
in terms of like lost elements or people not getting chances to be as creative
as they need to be. I don't know, because some of the most
creative stuff, like Roland's was made under the most difficult circumstances, and that
was definitely something we wanted to show in the film, because you know,
his budgets were so low and he was so compromised a lot of the time
that it forced him to be even more creative. And you know, even
though it was a strike, like a huge struggle for him. So I
don't know if it's necessarily hindered it. There'll always be that kind of poo
poo in it, the cult thing, and I think nowadays, you know,
it just makes people more emboldened to say, you know, I'm going
to defend this, because it's like the underdog. You do still find the
odd person. They all remember the broth tracks that came out, and there
were a few people they got to the Beast and then they were like,
oh my god, Oh that is a gorgeous set too. I was glad
when that came out. And it seems like overall, I think Cult Epics
or somebody in the US started putting some of those out as well. So
yeah, I know Jeremy Richie's been working very closely with them and did his
Sylvia Crystal. But yeah, I saw that they're doing some stuff. I
don't really get Cult Epics over here. They're quite expensive to import, so
I don't. I don't think I have any of their discs, but they're
doing some interesting stuff. Yeah. They put out a Angst, which one
of the best films that it's just brutal. Oh the German one. Yeah,
oh my god, I fucking love that film. Uh yeah, Ans
is big with them, and then they did Gosh, they've done a handful,
like they really hyper focus on certain things like Sylvia Cristell. They've done,
oh gosh, a lot. But yeah, Cold they do really good
work overall. Yeah. Yeah, see there's I just I just wonder where
it's all going, because it's like you said, there's still thousands of other
things that are yet to be released. And as we get into weirder and
weirder territory, you know, it's like the sky's the limit. But then
you have companies like to go back to second Sight, you are a small
company behind the scenes, they put so much dedication into the restorations, like
Martin for example, and it might mean that we have to wait a little
bit longer for them. And I know Martin's been put back quite a few
times and they've made announcements, but they really want to get it right,
they really really They even tried to license that legendary what was it, three
hour or four hour directed cut crazy Yeah, which you know they couldn't unfortunately,
But I love Martin, but I'm not sure i'd want to sit through
that. Yeah, Martin's good. I'm really excited for people to see it
because, especially in the US, it's been a little difficult to see for
a long time with even here. Yeah, and and and just adding a
decent copy of it that that was another one where they thought the elements just
weren't there. It added DVD and it was it was always on my sort
of you know, hassle companies about list. And then a second site got
hold of it. I did a commentary on that one which cited about and
yeah, it's just there. Their restoration is beautiful. They're doing some really
beautiful stuff. Yeah, I mean their releases are astonishing. It doesn't get
any better than you know, a full hardcover, one hundred and fifty page
book and soundtrack and yeah, all brand new special features. It's incredible In
terms of the hobby overall, I would be remiss to not bring up the
fact that I'm just a cisheit white guy standing here giving my opinions, and
that's kind of pointless in the grand sea of things. So in your mind,
there's a lot more diversity coming. It feels like to me, at
least some people are getting opportunities that they never got before. How do you
think about that? I think it's great, and it's one of the reasons
why I wanted to move into production, because, you know, I've always
been quite outspoken about this, but when I first started doing commentries, with
barely any women doing commentries. When I first got into sort of you know,
the field, like writing professionally about your cult, there were barely any
women doing that, and Kayla Janie really was like the forerunner for everyone,
and it wasn't welcoming, and it's still not welcoming. I still face a
lot of flak online from certain type of guys in certain types of communities.
You just they're enraged that a woman would dare to speak about this stuff and
bring in other stuff. So, you know, I think it's important that
we have other voices in there. You know, I wouldn't just hire somebody
because you know, diversity, it has to be the right person. But
there are so many other people out there, especially in even working class critics
in Britain. That's a real issue. I am working class and that was
another thing that I faced, was classism, especially when I was first started
out and certain peers of mine were not accepting of the pleb that had been
allowed into the ranks and made that known, and when critic Atch even wrote
a whole essay to that effect, to saying, you know, well,
I don't go to these exclusive European film festivals, yeah, because they cost
many and so the more voices the better, because we get to hear different
views on things. Film is subjective, and you know, if we always
hear from the same voice and the same type, we're only ever going to
get one view, and that's been very much the case with things like classic
horror and things like that. But now you got writers like Kelly Robinson.
He's an amazing researcher breaking through into that mold and she's incredible and sees all
this other political stuff that's not really been discussed. So you know, actually
now being able to you know, bring more people in. And I've always
tried to do that. Yeah, since I since I started sort of even
as an editor at a magazine, tried to platform all different types of people.
Actually been able to make a change in that is really important to me
because it does get frustraight like, it does get really frustrated when you see
people shut out or whatever. So it is changing. The revolution is coming.
It is. It's really about that part that you brought up, where
it's the right person for the job. And it has been genuinely frustrating for
years to see people that don't really know what they're talking about. Yeah,
I won't name names I have, and it's just like, oh, yeah,
it's the dude. We'll just bring the dude in, or someone who's
kind of only half interested in it, and they're just and that to me
just feels really, I don't know, just depressing. It's like I want
to hear somebody who's passionate. He's going to give me something that I might
not have thought of before, you know, rather than someone who's just parenting
out the same production history that we can now read on Wikipedia. I feel
like that type of film criticism is becoming more and more redundant because at a
tap of a keyboard we can look at mine. It's not always right,
but you know, we can find quite a lot of stuff online now very
easily when it comes to production stuff, you know. So I think that
film criticism is slowly sort of moving out into into something else. People are
bringing a lot more into it, and I want to see a lot more
of that because that is the is selfish, That's what I like in film.
No we are the world thing. It's just that's what personally interests me,
and I want more of it. And it's uh, I promise this
is not just to you know, give you pomp and circumstance or anything.
But just reading some of the things that you write, even you know,
nonchalantly on Facebook or something, it comes across as somebody that is just open
and honest and feels you know, passionate about all. It's like you're getting
it and yeah, recently you had that the Quentin Tarantino thing that you to
me that that falls in exactly with what we're kind of talking about right here.
It's just the different realm and it's the same toxic community that like,
you know, the Hell the Hell Raiser reboot that's coming with a female pin
head and everybody's like, what is this? We can't do that, Yeah,
we can't have a female pin Head. And it's like, well,
actually, have you read Hell Bound Heart because you know it wasn't Doug Bradley
in that book. In the book a queer creative and they're like, you
know, total straight man. It's like, you know, is Clive Barker
one of the most like transgressive queerest Like you know, when you're arguing about
the gender of the pin this character from a series that is like hyper sexual
throughout the entire Hell Raiser just insane. It's sad that there is still that
part of it. But I do do my part to kick back at it
because you know, I can only be me and I know some people don't
like that. In critics, they want critics to you know, be I
guess more professional, but I like that and kind of opinionated, and especially
about things like this. And it is sad, but I do find within
the kind of collector community, outside of very small pockets, there is an
open mindedness from the people. We are largely male, and obviously not all
collectors are male. There are a lot of women collectors as well, but
the kind of bulk of that community and they're very open minded that women doing
countries and stuff. I've not really experienced from that. It is this core
thing of people that don't even buy the disks half the time, or read
the stuff, or buy the magazines. You know, they just want to
go online and complain, you know, somebody's in their sound pit. And
it's like they don't want to share the professional side of it with sharing your
opinion. And I kind of disagree that they, you know, everybody else
thinks it's not professional to share it because if you don't share like this,
it takes the personality of it. It completely erases your identity other than just
your professionalism. It's difficult because when I first started, I was I was
kind of hyper aware of my class, you know, I was hyper aware
of a lot of things, and I didn't. I had some great editors,
and I had some really supportive people, especially like Chris Alexander at Fangoria
was great and so I was lucky there. But I didn't have this like
big welcome thing, big welcome in matt It was the opposite, which is
funny because when I first started my blog, I never had my name on
them. Everyone thought I was a dude and no one ever disagree with me.
And then when I finally cat merged I'm Cat, That's when it changed.
And so it was difficult and so I would sense myself because there is
this whole thing I did have. Without going into too much detail, I
did get pressured by certain people in the industry. You need to put a
lid on that, you shouldn't do that, you shouldn't do this. And
I got to this like weird crossroads and figured, you know, well,
if I never did another commentary again, or I never did this, you
know, I have my magazine, I could blog, I can do a
podcast. So if I lose that by being myself, then fine, but
I will just be myself. And so that's and I'm glad I did because
that was when my career actually really took off, because there is a kind
of like disingenuous thing around it. You know that we have to be nice
and professional and we shouldn't really talk about politics, and we really need to.
And I meet quite a few male critics so like, well, I
don't really like talking about politics. Films should be escapism. And it's like
it's because you don't have to talk about politics. You know, that's your
privilege, but some of us don't have that privilege. We have to bring
it into what we're doing. You know, we can't ignore it. We
don't get the privilege to ignore it. And just so I'm going to lock
myself away with my DVDs and ignore all this. And you shouldn't put that
online. And occasionally it gets heated, and occasionally I get guys who kind
of take it very personally. And I had one who stalk me for a
few years over it because I laughed at someone posting a meme at him.
Another one who recently resurfaced, I kicked him off my page two years ago,
got massive graduate against me and all I could say was are you like,
what are you doing? Wow? So yeah, there's that there's that
to deal with. So many people don't understand those actions affect people, and
really I'm laughing, but sometimes it does. Sometimes it gets really intrusive.
And I don't think I know a single woman in this industry that's not doubt
with that on some level, which is unfortunate. Well, and fortunately it
kind of leads to the one thing that made me originally reach out because you
had posted this on your Facebook. Hopefully everybody could pause and read this.
Oh yeah, I'm scared what you were going to bring up there, no,
no, no, nothing bad. For those that maybe are just going
to listen all the way through and then go back and read this, I'm
not going to have it up the whole time. But it is about imposter
syndrome and for some and I still get that now, you know, I
still I never take him for granted, the fact I get to do this
work right, and you know the fact that you know that meant that I
was able to stay home with my son and take care of him, because
I've never taken that for granted. But there is a lot of the time
where I'm just like, everything I've done is shit, this is shit.
I don't think I've ever like submitted a single thing, even the Roland film.
At one point, I was just so convinced that I was going the
wrong way that I was I think I need to get another writer in And
I wrote that because I wanted other people to know that, you know,
just because you've been successful whatever, doesn't mean that you don't still feel that
it's natural. But I see it as well. You care. At least
you care, you know. I've met people that don't feel like that,
and generally their work's not very good, and because they never question it.
And when I did first start blogging about it, only it was only a
decade ago that I started doing this sort of movement, and I wasn't even
really perfect. It kind of happened by accident, but I started blogging.
I used to write exclusively and run on sentences like it was cringe as fuck,
but I worked it. I just kept taking grammar courses and listening to
my editors and thinking how can I improve that? And I still do that
now, reading other writers and thinking what do I like about this? Why
is this good? I don't think you should ever stop doing that if you're
making stuff, you know, if you're sort of creating stuff. But Unfortunately
some people don't. But so many people reach out and say, I didn't
think you would feel like that, and it's like, no, it's normal.
I think it's part of the process that we love to talk about and
the funny thing and hopefully to make this relative for this channel a little bit
more. You are literally like a dream guest. You are the type of
person that I see as film school in a see which I don't. I've
never been able to connect myself to that. I don't know. Maybe it's
because you know, a lot of my life is this in mundane, being
a single mum, you know, and you know the communities I live in,
people aren't watching the films I watch or remotely interested in film. Half
the people I know don't even know what the fuck I do, and so
it kind of I don't know, it doesn't seem real to me in that
way. Whenever I do a podcast or a commentary, I'm just I kind
of forget that it's going to be broadcast. Even now I'm talking to you
totally suddenly become aware that it will be on YouTube. But no, I
never think of it in those turns. And then people say that, and
I'm like, I don't know. I just, yeah, it is something
that I struggle with immenseally, and so when I read that, it was,
you know what, she's on my side. It's somebody that I can
reach out to. It is somebody that shares a similar struggle. And there's
a lot of people out there that I'm sure you're dealing with it as well.
And this is, you know, a proof of exact concept of what's
going on in your mind that even those that are immensely successful, the good
ones, at least, they question their abilities and they push themselves to do
better and they make sure that they're on track. I think it's important that
we talk about this stuff. We shouldn't like keep it hidden and pretend that
we're doing okay, because that doesn't help anyone. You know. I started
out and I didn't really know anything, and I just thought, is this
normal? You know? There were times that I just kept just thought I'm
just going to give up, it's like and then I was lucky that I
had some people early on that were honest with me, and we're like,
you know, it's okay, Like just keep going. And I think it's
really important for me to pay that back in some way. And just say
to people, look, you know, it doesn't all this idea of you
know, success, it doesn't really mean anything. At the end of the
day, you're still you. You're still you sat at your computer probably doing
what there it is on your own. Well, you have guests on,
but most of the time you're on your own doing stuff, and so it
doesn't Yeah, it doesn't change you, but it is okay to feel like
that. It's absolutely okay to feel that you fucked up or you know you're
not good enough. Just let that sit for a moment. Yeah, our
background is in social science, is mine, So it does, I think
come into my film work a lot. Oh yeah, I can certainly see
that. I don't think I had known that, and yet you can certainly
feel it, especially in God there was an essay that you did something recently.
I feel like an idiot now that I don't know which one, but
yeah, the way you speak, you can just tell. And I'm I
have a psychology major myself, so just dealing with a lot of what goes
on mentally and can be long lasting for people that happens at home, but
also through art, and the way that we can progress is by celebrating this
art and learning from it and expanding our horizons. That's what it's about,
isn't it. Film Really, for me anyway, is very much about connection.
Yeah, I've talked about this, I've written essays on it. You
know. Obviously there's an intellectual part about it, especially if you're writing a
book or an essay. But to me, first and foremost always, film
has been about connecting to other people, like hearing a song and you hear
a lyric in it, you know, And that could even be something like
I don't know, American Rickshaw or whatever, but anywhere that I can find
something that touches me in a way, that's really what it's about. And
I don't think that's a bad thing. I think we should celebrate that exactly.
Well, speaking of celebrating, kat is sending her son off to college,
so I'll let her get back to her family. So much for taking
the time. Oh, thank you, thank you. I enjoyed this.
I hope someday we can get you back on and do process a little more.
Definitely, definitely thank you for watching everybody, and we'll see you next
time. Tell me no