A Creeping Dose

If you’re reading this, I hope you like strange movies. Seeing as how you’ve somehow managed to stumble upon this site in your various internet travels, I’m going to assume that you do. That’s good, because I like strange movies, too. I like them a lot. The weirder the better, in fact. And I just can’t get enough of them. Seriously.

Let me explain a little…

For as long as I can remember I’ve had an affinity for unusual films. Many a Saturday afternoon of my youth was spent choosing to stay inside and watch B-grade horror or kung fu double features filled with greasepaint makeup, rubbery monsters, bizarre weapons, ancient sorcery, and high flying action rather than going out to play in the fresh air and sunshine. All throughout my teenage years I became obsessed with seeing as much of this as I could, spending countless hours of my precious weekends lurking around the dark corners of some disheveled video store or sitting in a torn up seat at the back of a musty old rundown theater. The video rental boom played the perfect backdrop for this seemingly insatiable urge for the out of the ordinary, allowing me to see all of the highly talked about “cult classics” that I could get my hands on. I was hooked, without a doubt, inescapably drawn in by the aura of mystery and promise of danger offered only by the most outlandish of films.

But no matter how many I saw, I always wanted more. Like a junkie in the truest sense of the word (although I prefer the term “devoted fan”), I began to seek out more weird movies in any place I could find them. When I saw everything that my local video stores had to offer, I started to travel to rent movies, with anything short of a 50 mile radius considered fair game. Once that was exhausted, I looked toward horror conventions, photocopied mailorder catalogs, and eventually that most wonderful of inventions called the internet for all my rare video needs.

And like any good addict (although I prefer the term “passionate enthusiast”), I lowered my standards. I mean, what is a dedicated aficionado of bizarre films to do when he’s seen everything that’s good (or at least everything that is considered to be good)? Start watching crap of course (or at least everything that is considered to be crap) . And once you’ve seen all that garbage, you take a step even lower, and then another one even lower still, until you will pretty much watch everything, even things that most other people would consider absolutely unwatchable. All because you just can’t get enough. This is when I realized that I actually really like bad movies, sometimes even more than “good” ones. There is something undeniably charming about them, a different kind of magical entertaining quality that a well made film could only hope to achieve, but that is a completely different rant entirely which I’m sure will end up here are some point.

So here we are. That pretty much brings us up to the present. I’ve continued to watch all manner of strange film over the years and still possess that never-ending desire for more.

I hope this all sounds familiar, because that means that you’re in the right place.

I decided that I wanted to share my forays into weird cinema a while ago when I was writing more current, time sensitive reviews for several other horror/cult themed websites. While I enjoyed doing that (and still do potential employers! *wink wink*) I realized that I wanted a place where I could write about absolutely anything that I was watching, whether it was something with a brand new DVD release or some long forgotten thing I pulled off the bottom of a VHS bargain bin years ago that has lived in a box under my bed ever since. I wanted a place where I could write about total TRASH! The stuff that only the most dedicated, die hard cinematic adventurers are brave (or stupid) enough to sit through. The stuff that believe it or not, I like to watch. And it dawned on me that there must be others like me out there (or at least I hope so), right? There are so many places to find information about all of the recognizable, celebrated genre classics or whatever new, slick looking remake Hollywood is going to churn out next, so why not start one to share information about films that no one (or very few people, anyway) seems to care about?

So that’s what you have to look forward to here, some of my ramblings about whatever less-than-popular movie I’ve probably watched lately. You know how the saying goes, “one man’s trash is another man’s pizza fueled, popcorn crunching late night double feature.” Or something like that.

I hope this is what you were looking for and I hope you just found it. That’s what I’d really like to get out of all this. To find those, like me, who celebrate the uncelebrated. Those who praise what others condemn. Those who are willing to give almost anything (notice I said ALMOST anything - it’s not like I like EVERY movie I see, you know, but I am always open for suggestions) a chance. Those who like critically acclaimed, well made films, but might just happen to like some bottom of the barrel garbage more. And most importantly, those that think watching movies, of all kinds, good or bad, is fun.

I hope that’s you.

Welcome to Radiation Sickness.

Now let’s watch movies until our eyeballs fall out.