If you're into horror movies and you live in the Philadelphia area you have no doubt heard of Exhumed Films. If you haven't let me fill you in about theses guys. In this day and age of remakes, re-imaginings and countless obligatory sequels it's nice sometimes to see movies from a different time, a simpler time, where practical effects were the standard, and where politically correctness was an option and not a rule. Exhumed films is an organization that holds double bill screenings throughout the year at the International House of vintage horror and cult films on 35mm, none of this digitally projected stuff here all films are shown in their damaged and worn celluloid glory. It's that grindhouse experience but without the fear of a going to some of the theaters that were showing those films back in the day.

With normal admission at $10 for two films the screenings are almost like mini conventions with Diabolik DVD in attendance selling DVDs at every one, and sometimes other various vendors stopping in on occasion. Diabolik DVD is in my opinion on of the best and most reliable places to pick up rare and import horror and cult DVDs, unlike eBay where your hit with insane shipping prices and sometimes getting bootleg low quality DVDs. I have found quite a few treasures on Diabolik over the years like my Region 2: 6 DVD Grindhouse box set, one thing I have found is if you don't pick it when it's in stock you never know when you'll see it again . The genesis of this interview is when I got the gig to write for Geekadelphia I wanted to spread the good word about some of my favorite things to do in the city and the Exhumed films screenings were at the top of my list. So here is my interview with Jesse from Exhumed Films and Diabolik DVD.



First question is if you don’t mind letting my readers know what Exhumed films is from the horse's mouth if you will, and who is involved?
There are four of us total, Harry Guerro, Joseph Gervasi (co-owner of DiabolikDVD.com with myself), Dan Fraga and myself
Are you all from the Philadelphia area?
Actually, we are all from South Jersey originally and three of us remain there.
I know you have been doing this for going on 12 years now, how did the idea for the Exhumed Films showings start and was it always to show 35mm horror films on the big screen?
The genesis of the group came from screenings we attended at Montreal's Fantasia Festival. Grindhouse Releasing was there screening Cannibal Ferox and The Beyond and after some conversations we found that they had prints of other films that would be great to see on the big screen such as Zombie and Gates of Hell - both of which comprised our first show. Yes, we never wanted to show video, though we have had to, on a few occassions, for one reason or another, but we are never opposed to using 16mm film sources either.
Did you think it would have the longevity it has had?
We never thought we would get past the first show, but we have had a loyal audience all these years, which is great. Our intention all along has been for us to be able to see these movies on the big screen which is only really financial possible with an audience.
How do you come up with the ideas for the double bills you show? Because the movies in my opinion, always seem to compliment the other so well. With you usually showing one well known horror or cult film with one lesser known film?
Many times are screenings depend on what is available. Often we will see something is screening in LA or in Austin and our collector member Harry immediately looks into it. He is really the backbone group and has become a master of tracking down rare and odd prints. But once we find something we all agree is an A title, we always try to find something we screen as the B feature that is something that thematically goes with it and something we enjoy. We rarely, if ever show anything we don't like. We have on occassion shown films we regretted such as CURTAINS - which we all remembered fondly from late night HBO showings, but turned out to be a real dud on the big screen but for every CURTAINS there is always something like WICKED WICKED that just comes out of nowhere to wow the audience.
I know finding some of these films on dvd is not that easy(Believe me I’ve tried), so where do the 35mm prints you show come from?
They come from all over the place. Grindhouse Releasing, Media Blasters, Swank Releasing and other various sources. The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin basically does what we do, but does it every week, so they have really created an unbelievable network of film prints.
In between each film and before you start the first feature, you show old trailers that are themed to match the double features your showing that night(Much like the theatrical run of Grindhouse) do you do any research? I know I like to fancy myself as knowledgeable about horror films but I always see something I wasn’t aware of before and end up spending the night afterwards googling trying to find the movie for the trailer I saw.
Again, this goes back to our member Harry who not only has an amazing collection of film trailers, but has a wealth of knowledge - an unbelievable wealth of knowledge - when it comes to films. You can ask him anything about Westerns, Crime Films, Horror Film, etc and he knows.
Did the showings evolve over the years as you have been showing the films in different venues I know you originally were doing the shows in Camden,NJ at the Hoyts and now in the newly renovated International House in Philadelphia?
We actually started at the Harwan in Mt Ephraim NJ and moved from theatre to theatre as they closed down. (The Harwan is now a Walgreens). I don't think our shows have evolved much at all as far as format and style. Why mess with the format? The only thing we really do differently is that we tend to keep our shows to Double Features these days except for what has become our Annual Halloween Show - The 24hr Fest.
I know we live in an age where its all about the content and not the medium with everything being digital, but what is it about those old movies and showing it on 35mm projector in a room full of people that packs the seats showing after showing?
Exhumed has become more of a community than a place to see movies. Of course most of the people come to watch the movies, but we have a core audience that comes to hang out, chat with friends and we even have people that hang out in the lobby and socialize the whole time. Aside from that, there is something about seeing a horror movie with an audience that can't be duplicated in your living room.
Speaking of packing the house how do you manage to keep the prices down to a mere $10 a showing for two films back to back? I doubt anyone could find a better bargain theatrically with movie prices being about $10-$20 for tickets to one film?
Exhumed has never been about making money, it is about showing the films, so sometimes we make some money and sometimes we lose some money and we try stablize things by selling shirts and just keeping our costs low.
What was your favorite showing and why?
I think it would be hard to say it was anything but when we had Bruce Campbell out the first time. It all came together at the last minute, he just called and said he would be there on the Wed before the Friday night show. We weren't sure if we would be able to get the word out, but we packed the theatre and Bruce stayed until 4 in the morning signing autographs.
My favorite showing so far had to be the one where you showed a double bill of Christmas Evil(You Better Watch Out) and Silent Night Deadly Night. Where you actually got the director to come out for a Q and A. Simply because you got a very internal look into how some of these films came about and even though the film was not an Evil Dead you could honestly tell how much he believed in it. (which honestly changed the way I look at films to this day) Could you tell me how that showing came about?
We like do a Christmas show, but we don't always have films available for the theme. In this case we had contacted the director about borrowing his print of Christmas Evil which he agreed to, but then later didn't want to lend it unless he personally flew it out from LA - which was not really financially feasible, but in the end it came down wanting to do the show so we flew him out. Frankly, we probably could have scrapped the whole show if we had time to rearrange our schedule, but it was all to late to do anything else.
Have you ever had something planned for a showing that went really wrong?
Sure, it just goes along with showing old films. We have had films not show up, films show up, but not complete, films labelled wrong so the reels were put together in the wrong order and once the theatre forgot we had a show and already sold a ton of tickets for PASSION OF THE CHRIST and couldn't cancel the show, so the entire exhumed audience watched the film before we started our show. I can't remember what we showed, but it wasn't as gory!
I know some of you are the founders of Diabolik DVD which I am also a huge fan of and they usually have a table selling DVDs at all your showings, I think it makes total sense and saves me a bundle on shipping BTW. I can still fondly remember buying my first copy of Versus way before it was officially released over here and many others since then, if you wouldn’t mind telling me a bit about that as well, how that all started?
Diabolik formed out of us selling VHS tapes at Exhumed shows. Joe and I are the owners of Diabolik and back in the day we would hunt down rare horror movies at flea markets and Video stores and then resell them for $10 at the shows. It all worked out great until people started to not care about VHS so we just evolved with the demand.
And my final question with me being a huge fan of Japanese zombie films any chance of a double bill of Wild Zero and Versus in the future?
Well, we always try to show older films instead of newer ones. I know we have shown a few new things in the past such as ICHI and CHARLIE'S FAMILY, but those were both things that hadn't screened in Philly where as Wild Zero and Versus both played at the Film Festival - so likely not. But you never know.
The Next Exhumed Flims showing will be on Friday, July 10 at 8pm and they will be showing Cannibal Apocalypse aka Invasion of the Flesh Hunters and Terror-Creatures from the Grave aka Cinque tombe per un medium get details here, see you there!