My Love of Grindhouse

When the HD revolution came about in 2006 with the onset of the Blu-ray and HD DVD wars I was not an early adopter however I was excited for the possibilities for what it could bring.  At that point I had a 480p projector and a 100 inch screen.  I love watching my movies on the big screen but at that time the detail quality was sub par.  The bigness of the image really brought out the pixelation and chunkiness of the 480p limitations.  A couple years later (2008 perhaps), when I finally was able to upgrade everything to 1080p I was (and still am) in movie watching heaven.

I mention that because one of my newest loves is to watch grimy and heavily worn prints.  Not for all movies but for ones that were pretty much made in the 70's, more specifically the early 70's and even mopre specifically horror movies.  How did this come out?  Tarantino's and Rodriguez's Grindhouse had a lot to do with it.  They showed a love of the old days when sometimes the only way to watch a certain movie (most low budget B movies) was to watch an old, crappy scratched-to-hell print at the local cheap theater.  

What is it that I love about watching a movie like that?  It's the scratches, the audio pops, the reel snags and the wobbly title cards aka telecine wobble.  All that can add loads to an unwatchable movie due to low budget effects and less than stellar acting.

2007's Grindhouse wasn't the lone factor though.  One October night back in 2011 I was searching all my streaming sites for a horror movie to watch.  On hulu I came across several free video's of Elvira's Movie Macabre, one of which was called "The Devil's Wedding Night" from 1973 I will review that in full detail in my next post :).  Suffice to say the print used for that show was in terrible condition.  The image was quite detailed but it was the scratchiest thing I ever saw and I loved it.  Since then I have been on quest to find similar movies with similar print damage.  It hasn't been entirely successfully with only a few finds. The next best one being 1972's "Enter the Devil".The damage is not as heavy and the overall image is soft but I was taking whatever I could get.  

Around 2013 is when I came across a powerful editing tool called Adobe After Effects and through some research and practice I was able to find out how to grindhouse my own movies. So I went through my disc collection and looked for any horror movies from the 70's to experiment with.  I grabbed a couple and potential candidate.  Below is a comparison of before and after what I was able to accomplish. 

I hadn't watched "Taste" in a very long time.  I find it kind of boring and has that late 60's/early 70's  campy aesthetic.  But since I was able to "grindhouse" it, it now has a lot more personality and has become more watchable.  I also experimented on the other side of the spectrum with "Texas Chainsaw Maassacre".  Here's are some pics of that.

With more serious and higher quality horror films I found that not only did it add some personality but it can actually help add to the tension and add a scarier quality to it.  It also kind of feels like finding an old film relic in a dusty old attic.  

Final note: These experimentations were only for my own curiosity and will never be sold.  And I have only done this with films of movies where I own the discs.