Back Row's Third Year in Movie Reviews, Podcasts & Lists
Oh geez, we almost forgot our own birthday! Well, it’s not for a lack of things keeping us busy, Back Row positively soared in its third year–we managed to triple our growth from last year! Our I Watched It So You Don’t Have To articles dominated our traffic hard, with A Serbian Film still in the lead from 2018. Okay, okay, we get the message loud and clear, you guys wanna be shocked and disgusted. Don’t worry, more of that to come! Speaking of, Dan and Carlo also launched Hoser Horror, the most popular segment on our Notes From the Back Row podcast. Part of our goal in launching this site was to not be the same ol’ horror-cult kinda site, so we’re glad you guys are trusting enough to follow us off the beaten path (and into the spooky forest where we may or may not sneak up behind you and bite you on the neck like some kinda land-based psycho pike. Sorry guys! Thems the breaks!).
Once again we are humbly thanking you, dear reader, for making it all possible. While I don’t want to turn this into a total cash grab, I will remind you we launched a Patreon not so long ago and you should join for early access, exclusive content and some year-end goodies! I am so proud that we’ve already hit our first goal of keeping the lights on, but the world of Patreon is ever changing and any dollar you wanna throw us counts big. Lets get the rest of the plugs out of the way: subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts, Heart us on Spotify, Like us on Facebook, and/or follow us on Instagram and Twitter!
So lets get right into it, taking a look at some of our most popular articles from Back Row’s third year:
Our most popular article of the year was Jenna’s look at Cannes shocker Liberte. For a glacially paced sadomasochistic sex movie, she found herself pleasantly surprised at how much Liberté actually had to offer outside of mere shock value.
Veronica watched The Greasy Strangler and now she’s not sure of anything anymore. Despite this, she’d still recommend it to everybody she knows. It’s John Waters through the mumblecore lens; an embrace of weirdness that finds a coherence within the fucked up family genre.
Dan and Carlo get Paul Corupe of Canuxploitation himself to join them on an episode of Hoser Horror! Paul discusses his history as a movie fan, how he became interested in Canadian cult movies and what exactly led him to create his website back in the late-nineties.
People often talk about the 80’s as the golden age of schlock, and they’re 100% right about that… but don’t sleep on the 2000s as time of cheese and gore. Carlo lists some picks he subjected himself to that you might want to revisit (or perhaps just read about).
Jenna takes a look at why Ishtar became a weird punching bag that everybody seems to love to hate it, despite the fact that nobody saw it. Spoiler, Ishtar is fun as hell and genuinely hilarious from its opening credits onward, and the story of why it was unfairly maligned will make you angry.
Veronica realizes that she’s just not into elevated horror because quite frankly all that well-framed artsy shit isn’t nearly as scary as some raw, low-budget jump scares. This article then inspired Dan and Veronica to spin off into a podcast episode on the same subject: Kingdom of Trash (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying & Love Junk Horror)
All of the Hoser Horror episodes are great, but you can’t sleep on the one that talks about Psycho Pike, one of the most bizarre Canadian offerings that is just dying to be rediscovered. I mean, it’s called Psycho Pike. C’mon.
Jenna and Veronica discuss Robert Sellers’ Hellraisers, a biography about Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole, and Oliver Reed, and how they come to terms with each of these actors’ drunken and highly abusive legacies. In a world of so-called #CancelCulture and the #MeToo movement, is it a truly an all or nothing scenario?
Carlo and Jenna focus on the films of Juzo Itami and Nobuko Miyamoto for this Post Anime Club segment. Learn not only about their fantastic collaborations, but also the disturbing allegations that surround this famous director’s death. If you don’t wanna listen to the podcast, click through for Carlo’s essay instead.
You all loved Dan’s recommendations for alternative halloween horror picks. From a movie about a group of elderly fight back against the forces trying to drive them out of their housing complex, to Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dan’s got you covered on fun films to slide into your October rotations.
Jenna and Veronica bring I Watched It So You Don’t Have To segment to the podcast to discuss Gaspar Noe’s hyper violent dance-torture film Climax. They suspect this is actually the superior remake of Suspiria and also they die at the end? RIP.
