VIDEO HELL
10 films in this collection
Welcome to VIDEOHELL: a season of DIY movies shot and distributed predominantly on video tape.
With the advent of video, marginalised outsider filmmakers found themselves able to shoot radical work without the prohibitive expense of film stock and large crews.
Features could be made locally, duplicated onto VHS and circulated through rental shops or mail order.
The limitations became the aesthetic - unstable colour, blunt editing, cramped locations and rough sound. Video enabled highly personal, regional and deeply peculiar work to exist outside the usual professional filters.
Director Charles Pinion presents RED SPIRIT LAKE and TWISTED ISSUES which memorably fuse horror with local punk scenes. BLONDE DEATH delivers queer Reagan-era satre via a violent lovers-on-the-run melodrama. THE BEAVER TRILOGY is a legendary oddity, an exploration of the ethics of videotaping people born out of a chance encounter in a Utah car park.
Elsewhere, G.B.H. brings video’s immediacy to British gangster cinema, while the police training tape SURVIVING EDGED WEAPONS became a cult object far removed from its original purpose. BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL and BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER IN HELL use domestic locations, non-professional production and handmade effects to realise bizarro horror far beyond their means.
REFLECTIONS OF EVIL is a deranged masterpiece shot across 16mm, Super 8 and Digital8 video which creates a feverish portrait of Los Angeles. FINAL FLESH assembles fetish commissions into an accidental science-fiction feature written by South Park creative Vernon Chatman - while CLUB LINGERIE is a cheerfully disreputable DIY slasher set at a lingerie modelling nightclub.
Films screen on VHS wherever available.
Art by Preston Spurlock
With the advent of video, marginalised outsider filmmakers found themselves able to shoot radical work without the prohibitive expense of film stock and large crews.
Features could be made locally, duplicated onto VHS and circulated through rental shops or mail order.
The limitations became the aesthetic - unstable colour, blunt editing, cramped locations and rough sound. Video enabled highly personal, regional and deeply peculiar work to exist outside the usual professional filters.
Director Charles Pinion presents RED SPIRIT LAKE and TWISTED ISSUES which memorably fuse horror with local punk scenes. BLONDE DEATH delivers queer Reagan-era satre via a violent lovers-on-the-run melodrama. THE BEAVER TRILOGY is a legendary oddity, an exploration of the ethics of videotaping people born out of a chance encounter in a Utah car park.
Elsewhere, G.B.H. brings video’s immediacy to British gangster cinema, while the police training tape SURVIVING EDGED WEAPONS became a cult object far removed from its original purpose. BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL and BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER IN HELL use domestic locations, non-professional production and handmade effects to realise bizarro horror far beyond their means.
REFLECTIONS OF EVIL is a deranged masterpiece shot across 16mm, Super 8 and Digital8 video which creates a feverish portrait of Los Angeles. FINAL FLESH assembles fetish commissions into an accidental science-fiction feature written by South Park creative Vernon Chatman - while CLUB LINGERIE is a cheerfully disreputable DIY slasher set at a lingerie modelling nightclub.
Films screen on VHS wherever available.
Art by Preston Spurlock
G.B.H.
(1983, United Kingdom, David Kent-Watson)
73 mins18
Fresh out of Strangeways, notorious Manchester bouncer Steve Donovan is hired to protect his former boss's nightclub from a protection racket. Donovan responds with his fists, his philosophy and an apparently limitless faith in his own charisma.
Shot on video, G.B.H. is less a conventional gangster film than Cliff Twemlow's gloriously eccentric vanity project. The former bouncer, bodybuilder and composer wrote, co-produced, scored and starred in the film, surrounding himself with local doormen, martial artists and nightclub personalities. The result is part regional crime fantasy, part time capsule of early-1980s Manchester nightlife and part monument to one man's heroic self-image.
Shot on video, G.B.H. is less a conventional gangster film than Cliff Twemlow's gloriously eccentric vanity project. The former bouncer, bodybuilder and composer wrote, co-produced, scored and starred in the film, surrounding himself with local doormen, martial artists and nightclub personalities. The result is part regional crime fantasy, part time capsule of early-1980s Manchester nightlife and part monument to one man's heroic self-image.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings
BLONDE DEATH (ON VHS)
(1984, USA, James Robert Baker)
98 mins18
Shot on consumer-grade video and circulating for decades as a near-mythic underground tape, Blonde Death follows the runaway odyssey of Tammy, a teenage misfit fleeing an abusive home with two queer outsiders who christen themselves her new family. Their improvised road trip blends impulsive romance, petty crime, and manic self-invention, gradually collapsing into violence as the trio drifts further from stability. The film’s messy exuberance is threaded with a growing sense of doom, capturing the volatility of youth pushed to the margins.
A seminal artifact of queer DIY cinema, Blonde Death fuses melodrama, punk energy, and camp excess with unexpectedly sharp social commentary. Director James Robert Baker — better known for his incendiary fiction — uses the limitations of shot-on-video production to amplify the film’s immediacy and emotional rawness. The result is a rare, transgressive work whose jagged form reflects the precarity, rebellion, and desperation of its characters, standing at the intersection of outsider art and queer counterculture.
A seminal artifact of queer DIY cinema, Blonde Death fuses melodrama, punk energy, and camp excess with unexpectedly sharp social commentary. Director James Robert Baker — better known for his incendiary fiction — uses the limitations of shot-on-video production to amplify the film’s immediacy and emotional rawness. The result is a rare, transgressive work whose jagged form reflects the precarity, rebellion, and desperation of its characters, standing at the intersection of outsider art and queer counterculture.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings
CLUB LINGERIE (ON VHS)
(2014, USA, Jared Masters)
82 mins18
When Renae inherits her grandfather’s failing nightclub, she revamps it with lingerie models and the customers come running. Unfortunately, so does a mysterious killer.
Jared Masters’ gleefully disreputable microbudget slasher-comedy is a neon-lit cocktail of bare flesh, bad taste and backstage bloodshed - the kind of handmade Hollywood sleaze that feels beamed in from a vanished late-night cable channel.
Jared Masters’ gleefully disreputable microbudget slasher-comedy is a neon-lit cocktail of bare flesh, bad taste and backstage bloodshed - the kind of handmade Hollywood sleaze that feels beamed in from a vanished late-night cable channel.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings
TWISTED ISSUES
(1988, USA, Charles Pinion)
87 mins18
A teenage skateboarder is murdered by a gang of local punks, only to return from the grave on his skateboard to exact revenge on those responsible. As his killing spree unfolds, the story collides with live punk performances, skate culture, surreal comedy, and bursts of graphic gore, creating an increasingly chaotic portrait of late-1980s underground youth culture.
Rather than following a conventional slasher structure, the film functions as a DIY snapshot of the Gainesville, Florida punk scene, mixing horror, music, satire, and experimental collage. Its anarchic editing, homemade effects, and regional soundtrack give it the feel of a time capsule as much as a revenge film.
With video intro by writer/director Charles Pinion.
Rather than following a conventional slasher structure, the film functions as a DIY snapshot of the Gainesville, Florida punk scene, mixing horror, music, satire, and experimental collage. Its anarchic editing, homemade effects, and regional soundtrack give it the feel of a time capsule as much as a revenge film.
With video intro by writer/director Charles Pinion.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings
RED SPIRIT LAKE
(1993, USA, Charles Pinion)
69 mins18
A young woman inherits a secluded house beside Red Spirit Lake after the murder of a relative. When her friends arrive to help her settle in, their stay is interrupted by a series of brutal killings carried out by a group of violent locals, forcing the survivors into a desperate struggle to uncover the secrets surrounding the lake and stay alive.
Blending backwoods slasher conventions with no-budget underground filmmaking, the film mixes graphic violence, occult overtones, and abrasive punk aesthetics into an intentionally raw and confrontational horror experience. Its fragmented structure and DIY style have made it a cult title within American underground cinema.
With video intro by writer/director Charles Pinion.
Blending backwoods slasher conventions with no-budget underground filmmaking, the film mixes graphic violence, occult overtones, and abrasive punk aesthetics into an intentionally raw and confrontational horror experience. Its fragmented structure and DIY style have made it a cult title within American underground cinema.
With video intro by writer/director Charles Pinion.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings
BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER IN HELL
(1995, Japan, Shinichi Fukazawa)
62 mins18
Set in a dingy Tokyo apartment, a self-absorbed bodybuilder sets out to film a showcase of his sculpted physique with the help of his ex-girlfriend and a cameraman, only to discover that the room is haunted by a furious spirit determined to drag them into chaos.
A frenzied splatter comedy forged in pure DIY ambition, Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell channels the scrappy inventiveness of cult cabin-in-the-woods horror while leaning hard into slapstick absurdity. Shot on gritty video and exploding with handmade practical effects, it transforms one claustrophobic location into a whirlwind of possession, rubbery monstrosities, and delirious blood soaked spectacle.
A frenzied splatter comedy forged in pure DIY ambition, Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell channels the scrappy inventiveness of cult cabin-in-the-woods horror while leaning hard into slapstick absurdity. Shot on gritty video and exploding with handmade practical effects, it transforms one claustrophobic location into a whirlwind of possession, rubbery monstrosities, and delirious blood soaked spectacle.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings
REFLECTIONS OF EVIL
(2002, USA, Damon Packard)
138 mins18
A rage-filled street vendor wanders through a warped Los Angeles, stumbling into encounters that twist the city into a feverish labyrinth of paranoia, failed dreams, and collapsing timelines. Haunted by the ghost of his sister and tormented by forces both mundane and uncanny, he barrels through the chaos in a spiral of frustration that borders on apocalyptic.
A ferocious blend of abrasive satire and surreal nightmare, Reflections of Evil channels cultural decay into an overwhelming sensory assault. The film becomes a darkly comic and disorienting vision of obsession, alienation, and a world fraying at every edge.
A ferocious blend of abrasive satire and surreal nightmare, Reflections of Evil channels cultural decay into an overwhelming sensory assault. The film becomes a darkly comic and disorienting vision of obsession, alienation, and a world fraying at every edge.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings
THE BEAVER TRILOGY
(2000, USA, Trent Harris)
83 mins18
In 1979, filmmaker Trent Harris encounters an eccentric young man named Groovin’ Gary in Beaver, Utah, who invites him to film a local talent show where he performs in drag as Olivia Newton-John. Fascinated by Gary’s personality and performance, Harris later recreates the story twice more: first with Sean Penn in Beaver Kid 2 (1981), and then with Crispin Glover in The Orkly Kid (1985). The three films are combined into a single work that explores the life, dreams, and outsider identity of its central figure.
Part documentary, part fiction, and part experimental investigation into the act of filmmaking itself, the trilogy examines how a real person’s story changes when filtered through different performers and interpretations. A unique piece of underground cinema, it became a cult landmark for its strange blend of humour, empathy, performance, and questions about identity and representation.
Part documentary, part fiction, and part experimental investigation into the act of filmmaking itself, the trilogy examines how a real person’s story changes when filtered through different performers and interpretations. A unique piece of underground cinema, it became a cult landmark for its strange blend of humour, empathy, performance, and questions about identity and representation.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings
SURVIVING EDGED WEAPONS
(1988, USA, Dennis Anderson)
84 mins18
Originally produced as a police training video, the film demonstrates the dangers posed by knives and other handheld weapons through a mix of reenactments, interviews, and real-world case studies. Officers, medical professionals, and survivors recount violent encounters while the film breaks down how quickly ordinary situations can escalate into deadly confrontations.
Its reputation comes largely from the strange collision between instructional seriousness and unintentionally surreal presentation that feels like a cross between Killing of America and Deadbeat at Dawn. Detached narration, abrupt tonal shifts, and graphic practical demonstrations give it an uncanny quality that has transformed it from niche training material into a cult object of fascination.
Its reputation comes largely from the strange collision between instructional seriousness and unintentionally surreal presentation that feels like a cross between Killing of America and Deadbeat at Dawn. Detached narration, abrupt tonal shifts, and graphic practical demonstrations give it an uncanny quality that has transformed it from niche training material into a cult object of fascination.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings
BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL (ON VHS)
(1984, USA, Chester Novell Turner)
70 mins18
A lonely and pious woman finds herself drawn to a mysterious antique doll whose malevolent influence quickly escalates from unsettling pranks to violent, supernatural terror. As the doll’s control tightens, her life spirals into chaos, and those around her fall victim to its relentless, demonic will.
A shot on video masterpiece from former church organist, Chester N. Turner, Black Devil Doll from Hell revels in low-budget excess and devilish theatrics. The film leans into grotesque violence, uncanny puppetry, and unrepentant exploitation, creating a nightmarish energy that is as absurd as it is frightening.
A shot on video masterpiece from former church organist, Chester N. Turner, Black Devil Doll from Hell revels in low-budget excess and devilish theatrics. The film leans into grotesque violence, uncanny puppetry, and unrepentant exploitation, creating a nightmarish energy that is as absurd as it is frightening.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings