Creating spaces to celebrate the unfettered creativity of lesser-known movies: My conversation with Chris Haskell
Chris Haskell (pictured above) plays a vital role in promoting the amazing films being curated by boutique Blu-ray labels like Vinegar Syndrome and Mondo Macabro with his podcasts, online reviews, and active participation on Reddit and Discord.
In this conversation with podcast host, writer, and movie enthusiast Chris Haskell, we discuss his many avenues to watching obscure movies, how he found the online Blu-ray community, and how all that led to the launch of his shows They Live By Film, Punk Vacation, and Wild Side: The Official Mondo Macabro Podcast.
Chris’ origin story
What's the Idea: Thanks for meeting today.
Chris Haskell: It’s really good to talk to you.
What's the Idea: When did you start watching movies and collecting?
Chris: We joke now that I'm older, but my mom and dad’s parenting philosophy was to throw me in front of the TV and then go do what they wanted for a few hours. I just grew up watching the screen. It was in the ’80s, so there were only a couple channels, but I was just consuming everything. I loved it all, and I was fascinated by this big tube that shot lights out and had stuff that I wanted to see. Saturday morning cartoons were a big deal in the ’80s. And then that naturally transitions, right, because you start seeing movie trailers. There were a lot of good movies in the ’80s and ’90s, especially kids movies.
A Nightmare on Elm Street was a seminal gateway into horror fandom for Chris, me, and many others.
I had a sense that I was going to be geared towards horror movies and exploitation movies because I saw A Nightmare on Elm Street when I was five and I loved it. I was laughing at it. I was having fun with it, I wasn't scared, and I was just like, I want more of this, this is fascinating. Obviously a lot of that wasn't allowed in the house, but as I got older, I started to seek it out.
What's the Idea: I try to remember when I first got into horror movies, and it must have started with the video store and the VHS covers of horror movies.
Chris: If you talk to a lot of the people that make a career or a hobby around horror and a lot of exploitation stuff, it's kind of self-selecting. I think, no matter what, you're exposed to horror at some point in your childhood, and you're either repelled and know it’s not for you, or you're kind of drawn to it. I think we just naturally find our own, right?
What's the Idea: Yeah, I agree. I had one professor who said that creative people tend to like horror and imagine scary things because their minds are open to more possibilities.
Chris: You take the stuff that [David] Cronenberg does or something like Society. I mean, it's so easy to watch that and be like, man, this movie's fucked up because there's all this body horror and goopy stuff. But if you can kind of just sit with it and get to the story, there's usually something really cool happening behind the gore.
What's the Idea: Did growing up overseas influence your movie watching or even your idea of community?
Chris: That's actually a pretty insightful question because I have a personality where I make friends fast, but I don't make deep friends, and that's because of my childhood. I was moving every two years, so my way of coping with that was to be good at making new friends, so I learned how to adapt with that.
But the flip side of that is that I had a lot of time to myself because it took six to nine months every time you moved to get anybody that wanted to hang out with you. I had a lot of time to myself, so I read a ton. I was always with a book and if I wasn't with a book, I was with a movie or a TV show or something. So, that was one part of it.
The other piece is living in Asia. I went to high school in Indonesia, which most people don't understand. It's a Muslim country, so they get a bunch of perceptions of what the country is like because of the ties to Islam and Arabic cultures, but it's not an Arabic culture. It's an island, and Southeast Asian culture is full of folklore and dark demonic fascinating imagery.
They have this theory in Bali, which is part of Indonesia, where if you can make a demon figure that's in your nightmares out of paper, it'll capture the evil thoughts and the bad things that are going to happen to you and kind of protect you in a weird way, so they make these gnarly figures that are straight out of a horror movie. I was exposed to that and saw people have that be a part of regular life. They'll bring their kids to these festivals, and they're just around this horrific stuff, but it's in a more positive way. I guess it's somewhat similar to Dia de los Muertos here in the [United] States and Mexico, a similar kind of idea with just more of a comfort around death and the darker forces. It's not something that you shy away from. So that certainly influenced me very, very positively.
What's the Idea: I wonder if our fear of death is part of why horror still has some taboo around it. We don't really want to talk about death, but if it’s being done by Freddy Krueger, we’re open to it.
Chris: There's been a lot written about the slasher genre about the knife being a phallic thing. There's tons of literature on that, but not a lot of what you just said. I would support it. I certainly think that there's a way you can have a conversation about your fears through horror.
One of the statues from Indonesia that Chris described.
What's the Idea: I imagine Wes Craven must have been inspired by what you just shared about the practice of protecting yourself from dream demons.
Chris: I would believe it. Deaf Crocodile is doing a good job of bringing out some of this Eastern European folklore. I think we forget sometimes that most cultures are older than the US, and these old cultures have ways that they were telling religious stories before Christianity came, so there's fascinating folklore and stuff that's embedded, a thousand years old or eight hundred years old or whatever, in some Eastern European cultures.
What's the Idea: That reliance on folklore and shared ideas has always been so fundamentally important to art.
Chris: I'm trying to think of a good example for a metaphor. Did you grow up with the one where you say Mary in the mirror three times?
What's the Idea: Yeah, Bloody Mary.
Chris: Right. In five hundred years, there are probably going to be stories built around that. It just takes time.
What's the Idea: I imagine figures like Batman and Superman are bound to become folk tales in five hundred years.
Chris: That’s a good point. This is American mythology, right?
What's the Idea: But you were also influenced by these different cultures, like seeing the way that Indonesia handled folk tales and the way the culture integrated them.
“If you can imagine, walking in as a 14 or 15 year old and there were just thousands of movies bookended all the way around this store. He had everything. He had action, he had horror, he had comedies, and he had adult movies. He had everything in the store, and I was just by myself and he didn’t care what I was renting.”
Chris: There's a very specific guy that owned a video store in Jakarta, where I went to high school, and he was the coolest guy. He built his business just through hundreds of movies that he somehow fit on the back of a motorcycle, and he would drive around and deliver movies to people, and he got enough money to open up a little store.
Another statue representing the demonic imagery present in Indonesian culture.
It's going to sound weird, but every family over there, if you were an expat, had a driver that the company paid for, so I had freedom in the sense that my driver and I could go anywhere, and we would go to this video store. If you can imagine, walking in as a 14 or 15 year old and there were just thousands of movies bookended all the way around this store. He had everything. He had action, he had horror, he had comedies, and he had adult movies. He had everything in the store, and I was just by myself and he didn't care what I was renting. It's just money for him, right? When you're 14, it's not the best idea to have unlimited freedom, and I just watched whatever I wanted. So, I watched a ton of pornography. I watched a ton of action movies, a ton of horror. And I watched the classics. I saw The Shawshank Redemption. I was like, “It's a good movie, but I want to see some bush.”
If you're looking at my history of what really converted me from somebody that likes movies to someone who loves movies, it was probably that video store. I would rent four or five at a time and be back before the weekend trying to get more.
What's the Idea: I still had restrictions on what I could rent, but I remember when I moved to Ontario, where I live now, there was a video store we went to all the time that had a deal for seven movies for seven days for seven dollars. I cared the most so I probably got to pick three or four each week, and I would just constantly be trying new things.
Chris: That’s amazing; even if you had some restrictions, you still get to experience a lot with a setup like that.
What's the Idea: Why were you moving around as a kid? What business were your parents in?
Chris: My dad was with one company his whole career, and he developed a reputation for helping turn offices around that were either struggling or had some concerns from the American headquarters that they might be dabbling in corruption. In some countries, corruption is just more accepted, but as an American publicly traded company, you can't do it. It's just a black and white, like, you can't do it. So if you had an office manager over in Jakarta, for example, and if he'd been there for 15 years, that temptation might creep in. My dad had the reputation of somebody who was kind of a boy scout and a hard worker. He would just go in and be like, here's the facts and here's what's happening. They liked that, so they moved him around to all these different posts, and Jakarta was one of them where I was lucky enough to spend four years.
What's the Idea: At least you got to stay in one place for high school.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And then back to Texas, where I went to a regional university called North Texas. I then graduated in 2005 and moved to Austin, where I slept on my buddy's couch until I got a job. And during those three months, I was watching movies. There's a video store down here called I Love Video that's kind of famous in this region for being a film lover's dream. They must have had 100,000 VHS tapes and DVDs. Amazing store, and they had a deal where you could get a free movie for every 10 movies, so I was getting a free movie once a week until I got a job. I've been in Austin ever since.
What's the Idea: There were several times when you had access to amazing resources for movie collections, and you had the time.
Chris: Yeah, they say that the reason that Bill Gates was successful was because his high school at the time was the only one in the world that had a computer, so he had unique access and time.
I think that's certainly part of it. If you listen to Samm Deighan talk about her story, she was around this culture in Pennsylvania that was just so obsessed with movie watching. They had this drive-in, The Mahoning Drive-In, and she happened to grow up in that area, around Jesse from DiabolikDVD, and that whole crew is now the center of this boutique Blu-ray world. So yeah, sometimes you're just kind of born in the right place, right time.
What's the Idea: Were there other movie communities that you were involved in at the time?
Chris: When I moved to college, it was a creative university. It had the number one jazz program in the country, over Juilliard, and all the best jazz musicians played at University of North Texas. I wasn't in the jazz program, I was in the business program. I got a finance degree, which the school was not highly rated for, which is why I was unemployed for three months.
But I loved the college, and as you can imagine, with a music community there was naturally somewhat of a film community. I found a cadre of fellow nerds, and I worked at a Blockbuster Video for three years. The combination of working there with film majors and having friends outside of work that wanted to drive down and see all the new releases that were coming out—the independent new releases, not the Hollywood ones; that was my snobby phase, we were super snobby back then—was powerful.
At one point, Dallas had 25 or 26 independent screens. It was some insane number of screens playing independent and foreign movies, so every single Friday, it was this glut of options. Like, do you want to see the new Takashi Miike, or do you want to see the new Claude Chabrol movie, or do you want to see blah blah blah? There were just incredible options, so it was really lucky for me to be there at that time too.
What's the Idea: You’ve spoken before about the Troma section at the Blockbuster you worked at. Were there any other big discoveries from that time?
Chris: It was an interesting Blockbuster, even as a franchise, because it was somewhere in the top 10 busiest Blockbusters in the country, so we had maybe 18 people on staff;in any given shift, we would have six or seven people in the store, and with maybe one or two exceptions, everybody was a film major.
Because it was a franchise, the store owner was just a movie fanatic. He built up a whole Troma section, and on top of that, there was a really good art house section with tons of foreign movies, which I don't talk as much about, but that was cool as well. He was really big into ’90s movies, so even just the standard sections Blockbuster used to have, like comedy or drama, were really built out.
We would just constantly challenge each other. I didn't have anything to say for a while, because they had all the background, but after a year or two, I kind of formed my own interests and I would push them, and we'd all kind of push each other. It was like this Petri dish for two or three years of not showering, playing Smash Brothers, and then watching movies. It was super fun.
What's the Idea: You’re more well-known for your love of the wild cinema curated by companies like Vinegar Syndrome and Mondo Macabro, so it’s interesting to hear that you love filmmakers like Federico Fellini and Ernst Lubitsch as much.
“There was a time in my life where I had not seen “Action U.S.A,” and then I had, and I was a different and better person because of it. I’ve also been on a quest to find as many of those types of movies as I can.”
Chris: If I were to be independently wealthy and could do anything I wanted, I used to joke about becoming a monk. I don't know if I would actually do it, but I love spirituality. I love philosophy. I'm fascinated by discussions on what motivates or drives people, but not to be successful. I mean, that's somewhat interesting, but I'm really motivated by why, at that very core, fundamental level, people take that next step and don't just give up, and there aren’t a lot of horror movies that tackle those topics. Some do. There are certainly some philosophers within horror, but for the most part, that's happening in Swedish movies, Danish movies, French movies, Italian movies. That's where most of that discussion sits, so I was really drawn into the European classic canonical filmmakers for that reason.
I remember being bored by Bergman movies when I first discovered them, but thinking about them afterwards. And then a lot of Dreyer's movies are these polemics against religion, but he's so comfortable with religion that he's making fun of it almost in the way that South Park does now, but maybe slightly less incendiary. For sure, there were less fart jokes and dick jokes, but they're similar in their approach. They know the topic first, and then they make fun of it.
And then there’s the fun part, the lizard brain. I saw Action U.S.A when I was in college, and it was just one of these foundational moments where there was a time in my life where I had not seen Action U.S.A, and then I had, and I was a different and better person because of it. I've also been on a quest to find as many of those types of movies as I can.
Collecting, finding an online community, and They Live By Film
What's the Idea: Was Vinegar Syndrome’s release of Action U.S.A how you discovered Vinegar Syndrome?
Chris: It was through Action U.S.A. I was collecting a lot from 2000 to 2008, 2009, and then my career was chaotic. I learned a lot but I didn't have control, which was my main stressor, so I stopped collecting for a while. And then around 2019, I started again. That break was exactly when Vinegar Syndrome grew from just a porn company to Vinegar Syndrome. They put out Action U.S.A in 2021, and it just took a very quick dive into the company to realize I was in love pretty fast.
What's the Idea: I discovered them around November 2023, so the last two years or so have been a lot of fun discovering the catalog.
Chris: What movies stand out to you that you've seen from them?
In the Amityville Horror sequels released by Vinegar Syndrome, various objects from the haunted house end up doing the haunting, including a clock in Amityville 1992: It’s About Time.
What's the Idea: There are so many, but the ones that really hooked me in was the Amityville sequels collection.
Chris: Hell yeah.
What's the Idea: I loved that the haunted objects were objects like a dollhouse or a clock. The images were so simple that it allowed them to just be fun. There weren’t huge stakes, and they weren’t particularly gory.
Chris: Amityville 1992 is the one where it's about time and, at the end of the movie, they say, “it's about time,” and with that, I was fully in.
What's the Idea: Exactly. I watched those quickly over a weekend, loved them, and kept going from there.
Chris: You've been talking about creative people, and there was an interesting moment I had watching the Taboo box set, because that writer, in a really interesting way, took the topic of incest and made it from a singular incident to a global pandemic over four movies. The way they did it like a horror movie was fascinating. It started off as this one incident, and then the friends heard about it, they tried it and liked it, and then by the third movie, it's like, everybody's into incest. There's radio shows about it and stuff. I was watching this and I was like, man, there’s actually quite a bit of thought that went into this movie. Those movies actually had quite a storyline throughout the four movies, which was cool.
What's the Idea: When did you start writing movie reviews and what made you start doing that?
Chris: Back in the old days, I used to write directly on IMDB. The very specific reason I did it was because it's about a 45 minute drive from Denton, where I went to college, to Dallas, and there was this video store—shout out to Premiere Video. I hope they're still around and thriving—and I sort of got a job there. The guy got to know me, and I was always watching these obscure Japanese movies or Korean movies or whatever. So one day, I was like, “Man, I'd love to just work with you, not get paid, but just work with you for free rentals.”
He thought about it, and then I came back two weeks later and he's like, “Look, I'll make a deal with you. I get all these movies from Asia mostly, some from Europe, and there's no English on the cases. So, if you can help me put an English translation of what the movie's about onto the back of the DVD cover, I'll let you rent my VHS tapes for free.”
I looked up, and picture this: it was like a typical bookstore, where they have those shelves that are maybe seven or eight shelves high, but it was like that shelf was on top of the video store. So they had the typical DVD section, and then on top, built into the wall, was this incredible bookshelf circling around the whole store, bookended all with VHS tapes. I have no idea how big his collection was. 10,000, 20,000 easily. I was like, “Done.”
So I went and bought a VCR, and I was like, how do you even break into this? I didn't know what to do, so I just started working left to right, and I was like, I’ve got to chronicle this, because some of these movies don’t have more than 10 people who have seen them. I just started writing little things on IMDb. I like writing, and I tend to write like I speak, which I think is horrible from a critical writing perspective, but it's okay. I'm not trying to make any money out of it.
I started doing that, and then I discovered Reddit when I came back to collecting, and then Letterboxd, and I was like, “Hell yeah.”
“For some movies, like some of these from Vinegar Syndrome, Severin, or especially when you start getting into Saturn’s Core, some of these will have 80 people that have seen them, so then it’s more about just creating exposure than writing a synopsis about what this movie’s about.”
I discovered Reddit first and started posting just nonsense on the Boutique Blu-ray subreddit and the Criterion subreddit. Those were the two big ones at first, and then I realized that nobody really wanted to talk about movies, so I started my own subreddit, which I know is random, but that is the place to journal. And then from there, I eventually moved to Letterboxd.
What's the Idea: It's cool that you're controlling the conversation and moving it away from the physical product back to the actual movies. It’s great to read your informal takes on these movies, especially given your wide variety of watches.
Chris: What do I have to say about The Seventh Seal? There's real writing on that, so I'm just kind of saying what my experience with it is. For some movies, like some of these from Vinegar Syndrome, Severin, or especially when you start getting into Saturn's Core, some of these will have 80 people that have seen them, so then it's more about just creating exposure than writing a synopsis about what this movie’s about.
What's the Idea: It’s such a valuable resource to have a review from someone whose taste you know, so you can try to figure out if you align with the reviewer’s opinions.
Chris: Yeah, exactly. My job is not creative, so I just have to have an outlet to be creative. I don't really have any illusions of making money at this. I just need to get it out. So if people get something from it, that’s great. And if people hate my take on Vertigo, because I don't like it that much, that's okay. I'm not trying to win anybody over. I just think the guy's an asshole, and I don't enjoy watching the beautiful movie. It just doesn't resonate with me.
What's the Idea: It reminds me of listening to They Live By Film. I listen to your conversations, and sometimes I agree with you guys, and other times I have a different take altogether. It’s fun and interesting to be able to engage with your takes and reviews and compare them to your opinion.
Chris: First of all, thank you for listening, and I just want to go on the record saying Adam [Lundy] and Zach [Bryant] have terrible taste. I want that in writing somewhere.
We have a lot of fun just giving each other shit. Yeah, honestly, we do have very different tastes in movies, which is really fun because it's very rare that we're all three just like, “that was a banger.” One of us is usually either the wet blanket or the only person that liked it, which makes for fun discussions.
Somebody posted on the Criterion subreddit in, let's be realistic, probably 2020, that they just wanted a film discussion group. So, I was like, “Okay.” I think I posted on the second one. Time went by, and I kept coming back every Friday to post the discussion for this and engage in other people's discussion.
“We’ve fumbled around with the format a few different times, but we love each other, and we love talking about these movies and watching different stuff. December is going to be five years of doing this now, which is crazy.”
Eventually, I got invited to join the admin side, which is on Discord, so I then got to know those folks. There were two people in that Discord on the admin side. One of them was Zach, the other was Adam. We decided to make our own subreddit, which is Criterion Conversation. It's like every pandemic hobby; the amount of discussions have decreased since 2020, but we still have 10 to 30 comments, depending on the movie. And then Adam was like, “Any of y'all ever want to get into a podcast?” Zach and I said yes.
The first call we had was a voice call just to kind of meet each other and talk about what it was going to be and all that, and I was like, “man, this is awesome.” It's an Irish dude, a dude with a pretty typical Southern accent that's difficult to place because he's also very eloquent, and then myself, whose accent is fairly neutral, I think. I thought that would be a unique experience to tune in. There are not a lot of podcasts with that diversity in there. So I got excited about it, and then we've fumbled around with the format a few different times, but we love each other, and we love talking about these movies and watching different stuff. December is going to be five years of doing this now, which is crazy.
The later work of Fellini, Chris’ favourite director, combines many of Chris’ favourite elements of film, including transgressive avant-garde imagery and a fountain of creative energy.
Can I ask, how did you discover the podcast?
What's the Idea: It was likely part of the Vinegar Syndrome exploration phase that I’ve been going through. I was probably looking for recommendations and trying to learn more, and I must have seen you guys commenting online, and sometimes I’d see mentions of your podcast, so I checked it out.
Chris: We have a small, but very consistent listener base, so if anybody else is reading, thank you. I still don't really know who they are because we do nothing to promote ourselves online. I'm around on Reddit and I'm around on Instagram and stuff, but I’m very bad at promotion. It's been really fun to see that fan base be there every week or every month.
What's the Idea: I feel like a lot of the people in this industry and community are all so grateful to have people they can talk about movies with. There might only be several thousand of us in the world, and we’re all over the world, so it’s really hard to know each other without this online community.
Chris: And there's so much love here, too. I think my favorite thing about film discussion is when you start getting deeper into it that you get that toxic online culture, but it's in a playful way, not a nasty way. You get to just give each other shit, but you're all interested in the same thing. The Vinegar Syndrome Discord is an absolute shit show, but I love it because everybody's there with more or less similar interests. It becomes this kind of dysfunctional family in a really fun way. I've really leaned on the online film community the last few years because work's been crazy busy. I travel a lot for work, so it's hard for me to find IRL friends, because the ones I had from my earlier life have all left Austin. I really leaned on this film community a lot just to stay sane and stay plugged in and feel some kind of human connection. I love it.
“The thing that I like about the Vinegar Syndrome Discord is at the end of the day, it’s all in fun, and it’s like fun chaos. It reminds me of being back in college and playing Super Smash Brothers and eating Taco Bell at 2:00 in the morning and just giving each other shit.”
I have to mention the most wholesome place anybody can go online. Give Ryan Verrill three bucks a month or whatever it is and join his Discord, because that is the most wholesome, awesome place on the Internet for film discussion. It's so good.
What's the Idea: I totally agree. He's such a welcoming part of the community, and his Discord server is very different from the Vinegar Syndrome Discord. Even in the Canadian Blu-ray Collectors server, we’re all pretty civil to each other, but then you go to the VS Discord and you’re all bashing each other and have very strong feelings about the company. It’s a little wild.
Chris: A good example is I kind of enjoyed We're No Angels from Vinegar Syndrome. There were 10 comments of “that movie's shit, it’s terrible.” But the thing that I like about the Vinegar Syndrome Discord is at the end of the day, it's all in fun, and it's like fun chaos. It reminds me of being back in college and playing Super Smash Brothers and eating Taco Bell at 2:00 in the morning and just giving each other shit. It kind of reminds me of that experience again, and I never really matured or grew up, so I appreciate that.
What's the Idea: The older you get, the harder it can be to replicate those experiences. It’s great to find a way to do it via the Internet. It reminds me of your conversations on They Live By Film, during which you guys have a nice way of disagreeing with each other and still have good discussions, even if it's a movie you don't like. And you’re all open to thoughtfully exploring why it didn’t work for you and what you did like.
Chris: Exactly. Thank you. It's fun for me because Adam comes from a strict art house, like the canonical top 10,000 films ever made, background. Though he also loves horror—he would be mad if I didn't say that he loves horror—but I think he's branched out and watched a lot of just the rest of what's out there because of the podcast. Zach comes from a horror and exploitation background, and he's seen a bunch of the art house stuff.
And then for me, I just love movies in general, but they probably made me watch more mainstream stuff than I would watch otherwise. And not just mainstream, but also just famous top 1000 movies that I would have typically kind of rolled my eyes and not watched. It's been a nice balance of pushing each other a little bit, but like you said, respectfully. And that's why I love it so much.
Adam's about to take a break, so it's going to be Zach and me for a while. We'll figure out exactly what the format's going to be for what’s coming.
Chris often travels for work, forcing him to watch more movies on planes than the average cinephile, but he finds time for his monthly Vinegar Syndrome subscription box and whatever was picked for They Live By Film.
What's the Idea: I like how adaptable it is. Part of what really intrigued me were the interviews with so many of the boutique labels. How did you make those happen and what made you do that?
Chris: The only time I used my sales background for the podcast was in just reaching out to people. And I have to say, when doing interviews was just a brand new idea, I reached out to a few people and the first ones to say “yes” were Craig [Rogers] and Dennis [Bartok of Deaf Crocodile]. They said, “We’re just about to form this thing called Deaf Crocodile. It's going to be out in about a year, but give us a month or something, and we can at least talk about it.”
They came on, and I looked up Dennis Bartok, and I was like, “Holy hell, this dude is a legend. I can't believe I'm talking to him.” I had all these computer issues, my Wi-Fi was going out, and they just sat there for 15 minutes while I figured it out. I was so blown away by their kindness.
Now that I know Craig better, he’s got a heart of gold, and Dennis too. But I mean, I didn't know that at the time, right? They couldn't have made it easier for me to conduct the first interview. They were so nice. Dennis has amazing stories.
After I got them, I was like, if I can get Dennis Bartok on, I mean, surely I can get other people that are just not even close to that level of accomplishment, in terms of film production and writing and being in the industry and all that stuff. And they just kept saying yes. Everybody's just been amazing.
The boutique Blu-ray, now 4K, community are just a bunch of people kind of similar to you and me. They just happen to be doing that for their job. But they're very relaxed. I've never come across ego… well, one ego in four years. That's an amazing ratio.
What's the Idea: I think things like your interviews will be important resources to looking back and understanding what was happening at this time to try to preserve film and expand the canons.
Chris: Thank you. Yeah, it's us, Chasing Labels, and The Disc-Connected who are the main three, I think. I know there's a bunch more. Cereal at Midnight does a good job of it. There's a few of us, but not 20 of us, so I'm just happy to be a part of that discussion at all.
I think for me, it's all just the human story, right? My interviews always focus on who's the person behind this label? Why are you here? What are you doing? And people have opened up in cool ways. Some people say stuff where I'm like, man, I can't believe you're being this cool, talking about personal struggles and saying things like, “If I didn't know how to do this, I'd be on the street. I have nowhere else to go. This is all I know." I don't know, it's cool. People are pretty good, if you're gentle and kind and just treat them with respect. And these people are not always getting forums to talk. People aren't always asking them, so there's a genuine appreciation. It's similar to what you got with Deaf Crocodile and that kind of early scoop, where you get people at these really passionate moments.
I don't know if anybody's reading that has money and wants to throw it at somebody, but go find Jason from Crescendo House, because I was so excited for that label. Their first release was Labyrinth of Cinema, and his story is crazy. It's not my story to share, but he has a crazy story of why he's not putting movies out now, but if anybody wants to invest in someone, that dude has a vision and is locked in. And if he had the right partners, he'd be one of the labels that was a household name by now. Justin LaLiberty is doing a pretty good job at Vinegar Syndrome. So, Justin, if you're reading this, give Jason some money.
Punk Vacation, Someone’s Favorite Productions, and championing discovery
What's the Idea: What inspired you to start Punk Vacation?
Chris: There's a certain type of film that I am drawn to, and I think early Arrow Video, a lot of Severin stuff, and Vinegar Syndrome is my sweet spot. It's like these movies that might have a 3 to a 3.5 rating on Letterboxd because people are trying to compare them to The Godfather and they're like, “This movie sucks.” But there's passion in it, there's fire in it, and there's intent in the writing. And for me, the perfect example of this is Scooter McCrae.
If you see Sixteen Tongues, you might be offended. That's one possible outcome, for sure. But you have to be impressed that this dude in New York made that movie for under $10,000 [USD]. It's such a huge vision. He's zooming in on this massive world that he creates, and he's just giving this chamber piece story inside this massive world. And you can feel the bigger world, even though he doesn't show it.
To me, those stories need to be championed and called out as excellent, and there needs to be voices out there talking about Richard Baylor over in the UK, who stopped making movies in the ’90s because he just sort of got a job and moved on, and now, 30 years later, is having a chance to have people gush over his work. What a cool feeling that is for that dude who’s getting validation at his later stages of life that what he was working on 30 years ago has value; that's amazing.
“I was like, how the hell is there not a Vinegar Syndrome dedicated podcast? That’s so weird. There are ones for smaller labels, right, but not this. I was like, ‘Surely someone’s going to do it.’ So, I waited a month or two, but I just wasn’t seeing anything.”
I was talking to Ryan, who has this production company called Someone's Favorite Productions, and we were talking about possible shows that could be on there. We were just brainstorming ideas back and forth, and there were two ideas that kind of spawned right around the same time.
He’s got a very good strong relationship with Mondo Macabro, so there's a podcast called The Wild Side, the official Mondo Macabro Podcast. For some reason, Jared let us run it as the official podcast, which is great. They started talking and I was like, man, if there's an option for a second host, that's the one I want, because I love Mondo Macabro and they're a company that needs to be championed. Philosophically, very few other people are doing what they're doing. They're going deep into the cinematic jungles to undiscovered tribes and bringing them to people and being like, check this out. The work that Pete does there, and now that Jared does there, is just incredible.
And then at the same time, I was like, how the hell is there not a Vinegar Syndrome dedicated podcast? That's so weird. There are ones for smaller labels, right, but not this. I was like, “Surely someone's going to do it.” So, I waited a month or two, but I just wasn't seeing anything. I mean, there's YouTube channels that talk about unboxing, and they do a great job, and you can tell they love Vinegar Syndrome. So, it was out there in some capacity, but nothing just dedicated to it.
Then I was like, okay, how do I structure this? One of my favorite film critics and thinkers and historians working today is Samm Deighan. The way that she structures the naming of her podcast is finding a movie that she likes and naming the podcast after that as something that sets the tone for what the show is going to be about. So, I used that as a template. So Samm, if you read this, tell me if I owe you royalties.
Chris promotes many favourites among the films curated by companies like Vinegar Syndrome and Mondo Macabro, including The Caller and the films of Rudy Ray Moore.
I was going through the Vinegar Syndrome catalog of movies that I like that maybe are underappreciated, and I came across Punk Vacation, and I kept going back to that title, because I just sort of liked the title. I then worked with this incredible artist named Adam Danbury. He's based out of the UK, and he works in the graphic design industry, so designing logos and planning logos and banners and stuff for movies is just like a hobby for him, a side project. The only instructions I gave him were that I would love it to be Rudy Ray Moore, but as Andy Warhol would have seen him. That logo was what he gave me, and I was like, what? You nailed it.
Adam from They Live By Film then helped me write the music for it. We had a show, so I tried to figure out what to do. And then, I want to give credit to Celeste De la Cabra, who reached out to me pretty soon afterwards, and she was like, “Hey, why aren't you talking about the porn titles?” And I was like, “No reason, really. That's just not my thing. I don't typically buy them and watch them, but if you want to do it, please, I would love for them to be covered.”
Celeste has been an incredible addition. I’m so happy to call her a host, and I love the work that she's doing. I feel like the same way I've been talking about giving a voice to these movies and trying to give them respect, she's doing that every month. So I love it.
What's the Idea: Yeah, absolutely. A really nice aspect of what you're building with Punk Vacation is your openness to anybody who has ideas or wants to be involved. It’s always changing a little, and you’re continuing the work of building the community, which is really cool.
Chris: That's a very nice way of saying I have no idea what I'm doing, and I appreciate it. I know that I want to talk about movies, so everything else is just kind of like, hey, let's try it. There is going to be a reoccurring segment though. Every December, I'm bringing Professor Gascan back to talk about that, and we'll figure out a year-in-review type of thing.
“I just want people to know and discover Ryan [Verrill]... he just shows up every single moment, positive and constructive, and he tries to be a healing force in people’s lives. ”
Outside of that, I need to find some recurring segments. You've heard Oscar [Becher]'s enthusiasm [in episodes 7 and 18]. He's just incredible when he comes on, and Kurtis Spieler is amazing when he comes on. I mean, everybody's been so great. I try to find a way to make it somewhat more reliable, but it's not really my personality. So, I'm just gonna keep having fun with it.
What's the Idea: What does it mean from your perspective to be part of Someone's Favorite Productions?
Chris: I just want people to know and discover Ryan. I can't think about how many times I’ve talked to him, and he's like, “Yeah, I just got off a three-hour phone call with this dude that is having a hard time in life, and I just had to sit there with him.” That's who Ryan is. He's got an insane life at home trying to balance everything, and he just shows up every single moment, positive and constructive, and he tries to be a healing force in people's lives. He's just a pure soul. He has horrible taste in movies, so I'm not going to give him a pass on that. I want that to go on record, but outside of his taste, I just want people to discover him and be around him.
I'm very happy to be a part of his network and very happy that he invited me. There's so many cool shows on the network. One of my favorite listens is Unsung Horrors. I really want to drive people to that. Lance [Schibi] and Erica [Shultz] are very intelligent but also have a lot of fun, so that's a great listen. I've been listening to the New World Pictures podcast. There's an amazing series on the New World Pictures Podcast, where they're going through Jack Hill’s movies. Force Five is great. It's a quick listen, and you can scroll through hundreds of episodes and just pick a topic of a top five that you're interested in and go listen to that.
There's just so many cool shows on the network, and obviously, Ryan's Re-Connected live show. If you have four hours to listen, somehow those are always actually really engaging, and he has really good guests on top of getting the new releases. Someone’s Favorite Productions hits all the right nerves for me of what I want to talk about with movies, so I'm very happy to be with it. Everything is out there and you just kind of pick depending on what you're interested in.
What's the Idea: It’s amazing to find a space that you can be part of where, no matter what part of this hobby you're interested in, there's something for you to engage with. For example, Beyond the Blood.
Chris: The commentary podcast. That's so cool.
What's the Idea: Right? What an interesting idea.
Chris: And the western podcast, Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys. What a cool idea, because he's covered all these different kinds of westerns. It's amazing.
What's the Idea: How do you see your role in the online community?
Chris: Interesting question. I have this sort of idea or this vision or whatever of just, whether it's on Reddit or through the people I meet on Discord or whatever, being a safe place to come just be yourself and learn about movies. I'm never going to claim to be a film historian, but I'm fascinated. I love the discovery process, so I'm very interested in people that are in their own discovery process.
There's an online personality called KritPick, and his YouTube channel is called KritPick Productions. Every time I meet him, we fight, because his taste in movies is the worst I've ever seen. But I still love that guy and we connect well because we fight in a fun, playful way, and he thinks I have the worst movie taste he's ever seen, and he can't believe some of my comments and stuff. I think in a lot of online communities like this, you hate those people, but the thing I love about these different online film communities is you get to love those people and just have fun with it. That's kind of how I view it, and I hope people continue to view me as a place to come help them discover. And if all that is not true, and I just get to have a safe place to come be creative after my job for a few hours a night, then I'm selfishly getting everything I need out of it.
“I want to help bring that level of appreciation for movies and film in some small way, because they’re interwoven into our history and culture. Every movie has that top level of what the movie is about and the bottom level of the world that it’s in. And both of those things, I think, are equally important in preservation.”
What's the Idea: You're making the best of your subscription and watching and engaging with the movies, at least. It can be intimidating to look at a Vinegar Syndrome catalog or a Mondo Macabro catalog, and people are looking for people to make recommendations, to serve as friends and people they can trust. In that sense, I definitely think you are playing that important role of going beyond the individual Blu-ray reviews with Punk Vacation. You’re trying to actually promote the bigger picture of what these companies are doing.
Chris: Thanks, I'm trying. As you said, there's only something like 10,000 or 15,000 of us in the world, so just the fact that we found each other is winning enough to me, right?
I feel like I should say it once, even though most people are going to roll their eyes when they read this, and that's okay. I get it, but I do want to help preserve art. I personally don't like ballet. I don't like opera. Those aren't really my things. I have a lot of respect for people that do like those things; I just can't fathom how you could sit through a whole one without getting bored.
But I want to help bring that level of appreciation for movies and film in some small way, because they’re interwoven into our history and culture. There's modern history, some movies that tell period history, but every movie has that top level of what the movie is about and the bottom level of the world that it's in. And both of those things, I think, are equally important in preservation. And I do want to help.
That's why I'll call it a collection casually, because I don't want to sound like a douche, but personally, I call it my library instead of my collection because I'm trying to build a library the same way that people would build one with books. If you saw 6,300 books on a shelf, you wouldn't be like, “You're wasting your life.” You would just be like, “Wow. This guy loves books.” Right?
What's the Idea: And it needs this word of mouth. The media is not doing it. Many of these small companies literally need it. If you have the funds to support a Mondo or a Deaf Crocodile, or a Terror Vision or Gold Ninja Video, it can make a huge difference.
Boutiques are starting to draw attention to how it isn’t only silent films or old films at risk of getting lost. There are so many movies that play at festivals, if they’re lucky, and that might be the last time they’re seen.
Chris: It's true, and that's becoming a big problem now, because if it doesn't get picked up for streaming, it's essentially gone after a festival run.
What's the Idea: Do you have any other big plans for the podcasts? You recently launched a Substack.
“I love the discovery process, like I said, and I love new people getting into the hobby and being like, “Holy shit, have you seen this?” That’s a really cool moment, I think, so I want to try to help encourage that.”
Chris: We have maybe three articles. It's They Live By Film’s Substack. Substack is a little bit more broad in how you can use it; you can have videos and pictures and text and everything kind of together. So the hope is to have that be a replica of the old They Live By Film website that we had for years. I love that website. I'm sentimental about it, but there was no way to engage. It was static. It was just not modern. It looked like a bunch of eighty-year-old men had put it together, so I'm happy that this Substack feels easier to manage.
What's the Idea: Is there any way you want people to reach out to you in particular?
Chris: I'm probably the most chatty on Reddit. The subreddit is there. My username on Reddit is viewtoahrill, a play on the Bond title. The subreddit is /personalhistoryoffilm. I'm super chatty there. Otherwise, on Instagram, I am under theylivebyfilm. I think it's personal history, without any vowels in it. And I'm active on Discord as well.
I just want to talk about movies, even if it's not something I'm already talking about. You just want to ask about something, I'll either answer or help find an answer. I love the discovery process, like I said, and I love new people getting into the hobby and being like, “Holy shit, have you seen this?” That's a really cool moment, I think, so I want to try to help encourage that.
What's the Idea: It's great to have your voice out there, and I'm sure it's helpful for people to know that there's somebody there to help navigate all these obscure movies. There’s a huge catalog for you still to talk about with future Vinegar Syndrome releases alone.
Chris: Matt, thank you so much for doing this. I didn't ask you a lot of questions. Where do you want people to find you?
What's the Idea: My website is a good place to go, and I'm happy to receive emails and get in touch. I’m also on a lot of the same social media channels you mentioned
Chris: If anybody has some copy-editing they need done, this dude's a great, fantastic editor. So use the services.
What's the Idea: I appreciate that, Chris, and I appreciate this time you spent with me. I love what this industry is doing right now, and I think it's a really good, positive community. I'm happy to promote anyone who is part of it. We're all doing interesting things, and it can go under the radar or be missed amid the wave of new discs every week and every month.
Chris: Yeah, for sure. I really enjoyed talking to you, and I hope to see you online in a big way.
Listen to Chris Haskell on They Live By Film, Punk Vacation, and Wild Side: The Official Mondo Macabro Podcast, and follow his subreddit r/personalhistoryoffilm to keep the conversation going.
The interview was recorded using Google Meet in August 2025.
The transcript was edited by Matt Long, with additional copy editing by Anthony Nijssen of APT Editing.
All photos are the property of Chris Haskell unless otherwise noted.