By DR. BENNY GRAVES
We’re living in an interesting time for physical media. One coalescing factor is the dissatisfaction of discerning fans with major streaming services. Price, poor interface and rapid turnover have all become larger and larger problems as (shocker) big media tries to maximize profits. Will there still be a complacent majority that continues to subscribe to services that provide less? Of course, but we know what Harry Dean Stanton said about ordinary people in Repo Man.
Then we have to consider the rise of boutique distributors. Folks who are dedicated to the preservation and restoration of niche films for niche folks. (Read: degenerates like me… and you!) Once an arena dominated by Criterion, it’s been over a decade since the big names in genre film distribution made the scene. Some have suffered realistic setbacks. There are only so many hidden gems, and you can’t convince everyone that shards of beer bottle glass belong in a treasure chest. However, one I’ve stood by consistently is Cauldron Films.
Over half a decade into their existence, the capering demons behind Cauldron are hard at work restoring and presenting the finest in film degeneracy. I had the pleasure of interviewing Jesse Nelson, one of the cultists behind Cauldron. Nelson also works with Diabolik DVD and Exhumed Films. We went on tangents, traveled down memory lane and discussed whether an exploding head should be filled with Italian cuisine.
Cauldron Films came about in 2020. What brought that on?
I have a partner in Cauldron, Brian Izzi. He is someone who was a customer [of Diabolik DVD], and he would show up at conventions, because we share that love of movies and horror conventions. He offered to help out, and then that became a regular thing, and we spent a lot of time talking, and he was really interested in releasing American Rickshaw on Blu-Ray. Cauldron came out of talking about movies at conventions. So we tracked it down, and the rest is history. We actually released American Rickshaw right before everything shut down during COVID. But we’re still trying to get a good rhythm to things for Cauldron.
Your releases have a very specific tone, which to me, is deep cut sleaze and schlock: The Last House On The Left meets Naschy-esque Beyond Terror, Fulci Poliziotteschi gorefest Contraband, Ratman, which I don’t think even needs a witty bit to describe.
Cauldron Films’ Jesse Nelson and friend.
I spent ten years working at a video store. I worked at a West Coast Video that was headquartered in Pennsylvania. And the people who owned our store owned three locations, so we had a rotating stock of movies, and we would bring in movies from the other stores and send movies to those stores. So we had a pretty good selection of horror movies. It was kind of the heyday of video stores, and obviously, there was no internet at that time, so it was hard to find out what these movies were. For example, we had a movie called Blood Splash, which was the Italian movie Nightmare. I took that home and watched it, and was like, “Holy shit, what’s this movie?!?” I didn’t know until later.
And this is a true story: We had Alucarda and Sisters of Satan (The alternate title for Alucarda), and I took Alucarda home, and I took Sisters of Satan home the next day. I still watched it the second night because it’s so damn good! Fangoria didn’t even really cover things like that. If it wasn’t Fulci or Argento, it was hard to know what anything was. Until European Trash Cinema Fanzine and Midnight Video came on the scene, and that’s how you figured out who these directors were. That European Trash Cinema and the Midnight Video catalogue were parts of the formula that led to Exhumed Films. I worked at that video store with Harry (Harry Guerro, the magician behind acquiring the rare prints shown by Exhumed) and Dan Fraga. Our first show was a double feature of The Gates of Hell and Zombie. It was a full circle when we released The Gates of Hell.
I just need to throw out that I think Topline was one of those perfect experiences for me, where I’d never seen it, bought it on the strength of the trailer, and the actual movie is so much more unhinged. Franco Nero, out of the gate, Henry Silva, terminators, aliens. It unravels, and you just sit there slack-jawed.
We live in these unprecedented times, and I appreciate you noticing this niche we’re going for. Any Italian movie that starts in one direction and ends up in another is aces for me. I did a podcast where you can talk about any sequel, and I picked Patrick Still Lives.
We are reaching an interesting point with releasing labels. There are only so many hidden gems out there. Putting out The Houses of Doom and Brivido Giallo felt like a way of putting out material that has otherwise not seen the light of day in a watchable form. Is there more like that on the way? Maybe Sodoma’s Ghost, a lesser-known Nazi ghost Fulci flick that this diabolical doctor has yet to see?
You know, it’s funny that you mention that because when we licensed Conquest, we talked to the licensor about all the Fulci flicks, and when Severin announced Voices from Beyond, we decided to check on those licenses again. We have a handful of movies, where we know the licensor, and there’s some legal issue or dispute with the producers. Not just Italian; it’s the case with some Japanese movies that’ve been on our list.
Conquest! for those who don’t know it, it’s Conan was on quaaludes, and Fulci directed it, but also had an Italian version of Tangerine Dream do the soundtrack. I shamelessly picked that one up from you guys, and that’s very much in the Cauldron Films wheelhouse. Tell me all about acquiring the rights and your relationship with the film.
Well, Conquest was one of those movies that I rented on VHS when it first came out. We used to go to a local place, prior to me working at the video store. I saw the poster there and needed to know what this movie is. Plus, it’s a Fulci movie, and I was heavily into Conan at the time. Conan the Barbarian has got that amazing Pouldaris score. It has that John Milius macho screenplay, and it has both Arnold and Sandahl Bergman. I never realized Sandahl Bergman came from a dancing background and is from All That Jazz. Just a terrific movie
So we tracked down a movie we were looking for, and the distributor was like, “No one has ever asked for this in any territory, but we have the negative, so if you want it, you can have it.” We always like to make package deals, and Conquest was on the list they gave us.
Conquest was so exciting for us, so we put everything on the back burner. I have watched it ten to twelve times in recent months, all the way through. We’re kind of sticklers about watching it in all the formats, especially if we intend to make changes to the release. I am not tired of the movie. I think about sitting down and watching Conquest in high definition, and there are so many things about it that I never noticed before. There are all these scenes…The movie famously looks foggy. It’s shot with this weird vaseline lens and full of all this practical FX work and natural light. There’s a scene where Okren (our masked sorceress antagonist) sits on this throne topless. And two giant owls are sitting on each side of her. At first, I thought they were props, but they move, and it’s this incredible detail that I never noticed before. There are so many little things in that movie that I love so much. It also feels like a role-playing game. You got this guy, and he comes over from a distant land that is never mentioned, and he meets up with another guy, and they go through and face all these monsters to get to the final boss.
It’s very Doom Metal. Pure Frazetta.
I wanna throw out there that you are releasing a sticker sheet that Johnny Ryan (Of Prison Pit fame) did for Conquest. He also did the stickers for your City of the Living Dead release. The man seems like a brilliant Lunatic. How did you get him on board?
I love Johnny Ryan. I can’t even remember how I initially got involved with him … I said, “Hey, would you mind making us a little poster for a double feature of Torso and Baron Blood?” So there’s a Torso pin and a Baron Blood pin based on his drawings, but we also showed Eyeball and Suspiria. He emailed me back and said, “I fucking love these movies!” and the next day I had those drawings. So when we did City Of The Living Dead, I mentioned it, and he said it’s his favorite movie. I asked if he wanted to do stickers, and later that day he sent me them. The initial conversation for the Contraband piece he did is that I wanted the guy’s head to be exploding into spaghetti and meatballs. Johnny says, “You want spaghetti and meatballs? No problem!” We ended up going with brains and blood, but he asked if we were sure. So I said we’re doing Conquest. You want to do some stickers?
The drawing of Fulci that he did deserves to be a t-shirt – Fulci looking like one of The Peanuts! What would be your dream release if you could go all out? A soundtrack, t-shirt, poster, etc?
On my list of things, Conquest was No. 1, but if I had a dream release and I could pick out anything… The weird Cannon movie, The Apple, I would love to do a 4K of that.
Actually, I would do Phantom Of The Paradise. There’s a guy who is obsessed with Phantom Of The Paradise, and the name of the record company in the movie is Swan Song Enterprises, which was Led Zeppelin’s label name. Their manager sued to stop that from happening. So they removed all the references to Swan Song, and this guy found all the footage that had been cut out of it. It was in the Something Weird archives. This superfan did a version where he cut it all back in, and the studio said we don’t want to be involved, but if you talk to Zeppelin’s current manager and he says yes, you can do it. He even got a letter from Guillermo Del Toro in support of it – and they politely declined his request. Evidently, when the movie came out, Led Zeppelin’s manager managed another band whose singer was electrocuted on stage, and he felt De Palma was making fun of that with Beef getting electrocuted, and he had this grudge about that.
What do you reach for when you want to watch a movie at home?
I’ll watch any new horror movie… I tell you what I watched, and it’s very rare that I pick up a box set and watch everything in a row, but I watched all the new Arrow Films Shawscope movies in a row. It’s amazing. It’s incredible. That’s where I am with movies right now. I just wanna watch stuff I haven’t seen, that I’m going to love, and all those movies in that new Shawscope set are absolutely phenomenal.
Keep up with Cauldron’s releases at their official website. And as always, death to false horror!
