Why restore cult films is a public service, according to the legendary director of horror Joe Dante (exclusive)

There is a quiet but disturbing change in the era of transmission, one that threatens not only the entertainment business but its legacy in general. The entire films and series, sometimes years of manufacture, are being eliminated from the platforms during the night. Not because they are controversial or because they “failed”, but because the studies can cancel them for a tax exemption or any other reason they provide to justify it. That’s all. An executive decision and something in which dozens or hundreds of people were in just … disappears.

What worsens this is that sometimes these titles were never launched in Blu-ray, DVD or even made available to download. They lived exclusively on a server, and now they don’t live anywhere. There is no hidden dusty tape in a video rental store. There is no album to trip over a garage sale. Just silence, as if it never existed at all. It is a gloomy reminder of how fragile media become when it exists only in the cloud. When you don’t have what you look, someone else decides if there is tomorrow. And if you care about the survival of strange, daring and out of the conventional stories, of the type that used to find a new life as cult classics, this should scare you.

Fortunately, there is a Savior in the form of domestic media companies interested in the restoration, preservation and distribution of cinema. Even the lover of casual films is probably familiar with the criterion collection, but some of the best guardians are those that specialize in gender cinema, such as the worship and terror submarket of Shout Factory, Shout from the factory. To commemorate its 13th anniversary this year, Scream Factory celebrated an event in Los Angeles with “Piranha” projections by Joe Dante and the world premiere of the new 4K restoration of the “Dead Day” by George A. Romero. I had the privilege of talking with Dante about his relationship with the company that restored and distributed his films such as “Piranha”, “The ‘Bubbs” and “Explorers”, and called what they do in Scream Factory by keeping the physical means “a public service” alive.

I interviewed Joe Dante in front of the Vidots video store in Los Angeles, California, only to the right of his “not transmit” shelf of films that can only be seen if you can get a physical copy of them. Scream Factory had an emerging table on the back, selling copies of his last releases and, of course, Dante’s work. “You must remember these boutique labels, such as flames, they are the people who take things that the collection of criteria will probably not run,” he told me. “Although (criterion) has made some strange exceptions over the years, there are many cult films that you used to exist on the Sinister Cinema website.”

For those who do not know, Sinister Cinema (which Dante strongly recommends) is an online Catalog of B movies, correct, horror, exploit, CIE-FI and Schlock cinema, with an extensive collection of titles that limits with definitive. The website He looks exactly the same way as he did when the Internet was still in his childhoodBut that is definitely part of its charm.

“But these new outfits, including Scream Factory, not only bring these photos of darkness, but also restoring them, and are giving us the best versions of these films,” Dante explained. “Many of us saw these films in terrible prints or on television, all cut, with splices and scratches and all that kind of thing, and now these things are impeccable.”

Especially now that the homemade video experience has been advanced so much in its sound and image, having restorations of physical media so that it coincides is a gift from heaven. Certainly, there is a charm in the crunchy and distressed quality of the aged VHs tapes, but each film deserves to be seen of the way it was always intended to be seen.

“Every time they have an opportunity, they are as close as possible to the original negatives, and these images never looked better,” Dante said. “And now that we have the ability at home to evaluate these things and make them look so well or better than in the theater, as does ‘Piranha’, it is a public service.” Having seen the restoration of the “Piranha” shout factory, Dante does not exaggerate here. You have never seen that the puppets of mortal fish look so well.

But improved image quality is not the only benefit for these companies like Scream Factory. For example, The launch of the “Piranha” collector’s edition is exciting because it includes the 2022 Restoration of the 4k scan of the original Camera Negative, but it also features a new interview with dante driving speepelly for the relaase, an audio commentary track with the legendary roger corman, to commentary track with dante and producer jon davison, to “Making of” Mini-Doc, Behind the Scenes Fotage, Bloop and Outtakes, A Gallery of Still Photos and Behind the Scenes Photos (Including Pieces from the designer/creature animator Phil Tippett’s Archives), additional scenes of the television edition of the film, commercial television places, radio points and multiple theater trailers. Loving a movie is really understanding it, and with these releases, fans receive all the necessary tools to do exactly that.

Happy 13th Anniversary, shout factory. Hordes of fans of films everywhere (including a legend like Joe Dante) Thanks for your service.