Saturday Night Grindhouse

[justintfirefly]

Saturday Night Grindhouse was a show I created in Kingsport, TN a couple of years ago. We chose the name "Grindhouse" not because we were showing grindhouse cinema (obviously...we were using the government access channel), but because of our format. We showed a double feature of classic sci-fi and horror flicks every Saturday night at 9:00, hosted by Shannon "The Cinema Warrior." Our first episode included "The Tell Tale Heart" (1960) and "House on Haunted Hill" (1959). Episode 2 included "This Is Not a Test" (1962) and "The Last Man On Earth" (1964). We have a collection of several hundred public domain horror films that we wanted to show. Our Halloween special was to include "Night of the Living Dead" and "Spiderbaby." After the opening credits, my host would introduce the first flick, then close it afterward followed by trailers for the next week's films, then he'd do the same for the second feature.

Here's a small taste of what it was like:

[YOUTUBE]dTmuOzcX9Nw[/YOUTUBE]

Our website can be found at www.saturdaynightgrindhouse.com

So what happened to us? Well, the mayor of Kingsport decided my host was too "scary" to be on public television and demanded he be removed from our commercials we were airing during the day. So I did. Soon after, fans were asking why, the newspapers were asking why, and then when one of the local news stations wanted to do a piece on it, the mayor decided he'd had enough of us and canceled our show completely. I lost my show and my job on that one day. We did have a fan base though and they stood tall for us. WE ARE, however, planning on revamping some stuff and bringing this back as online-only so we cannot be censored. Add Us On Facebook for all the latest and greatest so you'll be the first to know...

Also...Just...ya know...what do you guys think?

TUNE IN AND LOSE YOUR MINDS!

[Dr. Briggs]

VERY cool! Wish it aired just a few cities over! 700 PD films you say? Most you can find in those uber-repetitive movie-packs is like 250. Anything super-obscure, like you can't find it on DVD? Are they all old or are there some new ones with bad licences too?

Sorry to hear about your weenie mayor cancelling on you, I woulda been well... devastated XP . I'm really, really hoping the web broadcast does well and hope I'll have private internet at times to check it out as well!

Off-topic; what movie's your signature from?

[justintfirefly]

I actually inherited a lot of oldies when I started working for that particular company, then started buying some of those collections you are referring to. I'd then pick up one or two at cons every time I went to one (one film called "The Manster" that I'm eager to check out...). I also have a really cool collection of Alfred Hitchcock stuff that you buy in the public domain stuff at Wal*Mart...it was like 25 or 30, something like that. I haven't watched anywhere near all of them, though.

And we weren't really able to get stuff much newer than Night of the Living Dead, mostly because we had to keep stuff at the MAX PG to PG-13 (and the PG-13 was for the second feature that usually didn't air until around 11 pm). There may be some with funked up copyright issues that we could've taken advantage of, but I wasn't aware of any of them.

Thanks for checking us out, tho! Tell your friends!

[Dr. Briggs]

Sweetness about the "inheriting" movies! Do you get to keep 'em despite being fired?

And with the "restrictions" in mind, any plans to air new-and-edgier stuff now that you're going uncensored?

[justintfirefly]

Unfortunately I didn't get to keep the few that I inherited, however, I've been able to find the majority of them at used shops, online and at conventions.

I also have an "edgier" version of this in mind where we allow indie film makers to show their work on our website. This way we can be more "grindhouse" style since we'll be able to show exploitation, and my host and I LOVE some exploitation! However, we were wanting to make it a different show since Saturday Night Grindhouse has it's own legacy. I've bought the domain http://www.screensandspleens.com, but we've not done anything with it yet. Just a matter of getting the time to do it, like I said. If we ever get it off the ground, it will really be a bloody mess!