Starring - Brinke Stevens (October Moon, The Slumber Party Massacre), Lynn Lowry (I Drink Your Blood, The Crazies), and Kevin Van Hentenryck (Brain Damage, Basket Case)
Release Date - 2020
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Grindhouse horror of the 70s and 80s"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection)
Rating (out of 5):
Filmmaker Dustin Ferguson is a director that is hit or miss with me. I could never question his dedication to the genre because he has spent the last year turning out some fairly clever films. The downside to that is that he is filming with a small crew or having cast members mail him clips of the their scenes in order to prevent the spread of Covid. This has resulted in some pretty rough movies. With that being said, he has turned out some seriously fun horror documentaries as well. Because a documentary can be done with little to no contact with the person being interviewed Covid has not restrained filming of these. After watching Arachnado I decided to dive into his grindhouse horror doc Stale Popcorn and Sticky Floors.
The documentary features interviews from actors, actresses, producers, directors, and effects artists from several genre classics like The Crazies, I Drink Your Blood, Spookies, The Slumber Party Massacre, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The exploitation horror films of the 70s and 80s are some of the most memorable of the decade and because of this there has been numerous documentaries and so forth based on most of these films. In fact, most of these movies were covered in shows like Searching for Darkness, Eli Roth's History of Horror, American Nightmares, and so forth. Hell, Spookies had it's own feature length documentary released with the blu release of the film last year. It's nothing we haven't heard before but it was still fun for a one time watch. The interviews in this one covers the entire film being discussed but the issue I have with this is that each film is being represented by just one person. Each person interviewed discusses one particular film, aside from one or two people, which makes for a one sided look into that. As I stated before, Spookies has a feature length documentary made about the film which goes to great lengths to show the viewer how the film became the way it is. However, in this film we just have a one-sided look at the film. If we are listening to interviews about particular films it would be nice if we had multiple people share their experience with the making of said film. The topics in this documentary change from person to person. There is no real order to the interviews and what is discussed like most documentaries have. Instead, we move from person to person as they discuss the films that were apart of that was considered grindhouse horror. However, I'm still confused as to how Halloween III: Season of the Witch is considered a grindhouse horror title. Finally, the editing in this one is smooth enough but the lack of order to the interviews doesn't really leave enough room for any kind of transitions. We just jump from person to person as they tell their story. Overall, Stale Popcorn and Sticky Floors is a solid horror doc. It doesn't bring about any new real history to some of our beloved films but it's cool seeing some familiar faces talk about our favorite films again. Check it out.
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