How does one describe the cult cinema juggernaut that is Larry Clow? He’s both dedicated and crazed, a winning combination that has enabled him to review some 350 cult films (plus a couple of hundred mainstream Hollywood movies) since 2004. He’s a gentleman and a scholar, living in his stately manor in Dover while pursuing an MFA in creative nonfiction at the University of New Hampshire. And, as a founder of both the annual Dover Zombie Walk and the Sub Rosa Drive-In film series, Larry is responsible for bringing some serious creep shows to town.

After seven years penning The Wire’s weekly cult film column Tales from the Video Vault, Clow is moving on to other projects. We sat down with him to talk about the origins of his B-movie devotion, his views on the ingredients it takes to generate a cult phenomenon, and what’s next for Larry Clow.

Do you remember the first cult film you ever saw?
The first I remember seeing, which I didn’t even know was a cult movie at the time, was also the first movie I did for Video Vault. It was “Videodrome.” I remember seeing it when I was 5 or 6 and it was on WLVI, late on a Saturday night. I had been at my grandparents’ house watching television and staying up way past my bedtime. I turned it on, and it was one of the scenes where James Woods sees the television morphing into Debbie Harry’s lips, and he’s sort of kissing the television. It freaked me out enough so that for years afterwards I became convinced that when you shut a TV off in the dark and it has that afterglow, that’s when the TV would come alive and possibly eat you. 

My parents watched a lot of horror movies back when I was younger, which, oddly enough, they don’t remember and are confused when I bring it up now. They were frequent staples in the Saturday afternoon video rentals.

How did Tales from the Video Vault get started? Was it something you had an idea for and pitched to The Wire?
Yeah, that was pretty much it. It was the late summer/fall of 2004, and I’d been watching all of these movies. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and this video store my friends and I went to was closing. It was a small family-owned video store that had been around for millions of years and they were selling everything. I went through and I tried to buy as much as I could before they closed.

Is it easier to see obscure films now than it was then?
Yes, most things are available on Netflix, but I have at least one thing that’s only on VHS. It’s really terrible. It’s called “Satan’s Blade.” I bought it at another video store that was going out of business. I’d never heard of it and got it when I was picking up movies based upon interesting box art. This one was in one of those clam-shell cases and it had a really cheesy cover, a creature holding a knife. It looked like something you might see painted on the side of a van. The movie has a weird following on the Internet. When I did the Video Vault for it, I found a “Satan’s Blade” scrapbook on YouTube. A former cast member had some photos from the shoot and put them together in a collage.

Can filmmakers choose to make a cult movie, or do they happen on their own?
I think they happen by accident.

I’m thinking of “Birdemic,” which seemed to try to be bad in order to create a cult around itself.
Well, I don’t think that was the filmmaker’s intention. James Nguyen really was trying to make a film. He got his start making the movie and bringing it to Sundance and driving around in a van with birds attached to it. He rented a hall to screen it because no one wanted it, and that’s how he got his distribution deal with Severin. And Severin is the one who’s marketing to the cult and getting it out there. It becomes a cult movie when the intent is pure and someone is really committed to making a movie. I don’t think you could make a cult movie like “Birdemic” intentionally.

How did you choose the movies you reviewed? Were they all ones you’d seen before?
Sometimes it’s stuff I’ve seen before and sometimes it’s stuff I’ve happened to find by accident. I read other movie review websites, like Shock Cinema that reviews more obscure movies than I’ve ever tackled, and I’ll find something that sounds interesting. Sometimes I go on a theme. Earlier this year, I was reviewing a lot of time travel movies. There’s not a lot of rhyme or reason to it.

Have you ever set out to do a review and the movie you chose was so graphic or horrible that you couldn’t keep watching it?  
They’re violent and disturbing, but I’ve very rarely ever stopped a movie and just walked away from it. Some of the graphic ones are the slasher stuff from the ’70s, or the ones from Italy where there was a big boom in cannibal movies where people would get lost in a jungle and be attacked by cannibals. Those are pretty gross, and I watched one of them because it seemed like a blind spot because I’d never seen an Italian cannibal movie. After I watched it, I thought that it was gross and disheartening and I’d wished I’d never seen it, and I hope I can prevent others from seeing it.

Do you think cult movies provide an opportunity to take on social issues that aren’t addressed in mainstream movies?
Something horror movies can do really well is address those underlying fears. A lot of the stuff that was being made in the late ’60s and early ’70s was a response to the Vietnam War. One of the best examples of this, and one of my favorite films, is Bob Clark’s “Death Dream.” For some context, this is the same guy who directed “A Christmas Story,” “Porky’s” and “Baby Geniuses.” So, make of that what you will, but he directed “Death Dream” and “Black Christmas,” which was one of the first slasher movies. “Death Dream” is about this soldier who’s killed in Vietnam, and as he’s dying, his mom back in her suburban home fervently prays for him to stay alive, and through some weird magic, he lives. He comes back, but he’s sort of a zombie and not quite right, which provides a subtext for the PTSD faced by many veterans. He then figures out that he needs to consume blood to stay alive, so he’ll attack people and drain their blood with a syringe and then inject himself, which provides a second subtext of veterans coming back hooked on drugs. His mother is covering up his crimes and in denial about his condition and that he’s falling apart. It’s a really creepy movie and it was made pretty early after the Vietnam War. Bob Clark was tapping into subjects that the mainstream media was not addressing and that people just weren’t talking about.

Do you have any favorite cult directors?
One of my favorite movie directors is David Cronenberg. And John Carpenter. Those guys are my top two.

If you were to make your own cult film, what would the plot be?
That’s a funny question. I was just in a screenwriting class, and we had to come up with four different movies and write synopses of the plots. Three of the four were cult movies of one variety or another. One was a postmodern slasher movie. Another was a reboot/reinterpretation of “The Testament of Dr. Mabuse,” which is an old Fritz Lang movie, which is all about clones and mind control. The third one I had originally conceived of as a short animated movie about an organization called “Smash Back” that brings poetic justice for the poor and politically aggrieved. You’d hire Smash Back to ruin the president of BP’s birthday party, or to fill Sarah Palin’s house with a bunch of pigs or something. My pitch for it was like “Jackass” meets “Fight Club” meets “Ocean’s 11.”

Apart from availability of the films, has anything changed theme-wise since you started Video Vault?
I think people are trying to make cult movies intentionally, which is what happened with “Snakes on a Plane.” Studios have realized that there is a market for cult movies and that people are actively seeking them out. Cult movies do their own marketing because once people see them, they’ll spread the word. But, you can’t intentionally make a cult movie. It usually winds up terrible.

I know you’re also a big classic cinema buff. Do you find there are overlaps between your favorite classics and the films you review for Video Vault?
I think so. A lot of classic films, like those of Orson Welles, were heavily influenced by German Expressionism, which led to film noir, which were the B-movies of their day. I think the reason why they are remembered now is because the directors then—Samuel Fuller is another one I like—the directors weren’t making the big budget studio films, so they had a little bit more control. There was more room to put their own touches on their films. And that’s similar to cult movies, in that they are very singular and are very much the product of the writers or directors or actors working on them. You don’t get that out of big budget mainstream pictures now, or even 50 or 60 years ago.

If you had to pick four people to have dinner with—living, dead or undead—who would you choose?
I would pick Bob Clark. And he’s dead, unfortunately. I would also pick Frank Henenlotter, who directed “Basket Case.” And, who else... David Cronenberg and Orson Welles. It would be insane. Welles would probably be infuriating, but I think those are the guys.

So what’s next for Larry Clow?
I’m in grad school and I have another year left. I’m working on my thesis right now, which is a nonfiction book, part memoir and part research-based. It’s about how the Internet and the open records movement have changed adoption in America, because I’m adopted. So it’s a personal project, but it’s also working with my background in journalism. It’s what I’ll be focusing on for the next year.

You’ll also be busy this summer with the Sub Rosa Drive-In (@SubRosaDriveIn on Twitter). Will you be showing any movies that you’ve reviewed?

Yes, we’ll be showing Brian DePalma’s “Phantom of the Paradise,” “Danger: Diabolik,” which is a Mario Bava spy movie from the ’60s, and “Birdemic.”

Did you intend for Tales from the Video Vault to go on for as long as it has?
I didn’t really have a game plan. I was like, “I’ll just do this,” and then one day I realized that I’d been doing it for seven years. I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from readers. I don’t get fan mail, per se, but I do get notes and people who come up to me in the street and talk to me about it. I guess people really like it and enjoy these movies.

Do you see yourself revisiting this at any point? Do you see an opportunity for your return to the Video Vault in the future?
There’s always a chance. I don’t think it’s gone forever, but it’s taking a well-deserved nap.

the best of the Vault
Larry Clow’s top 10 best and worst  cult films of all time

THE BEST

Primer: Probably one of the best ever time travel movies. Super low-budget, super clever, and worth multiple viewings.
Prince of Darkness: One of my favorite John Carpenter flicks. A nice mix of supernatural horror, metaphysics, and sci-fi. Very unsettling and strange.
Maximum Overdrive: Stephen King’s directorial debut. He’s sort of disowned the movie, but I think it’s a ton of fun. It’s got killer machines and an AC/DC soundtrack—what’s not to love?
Abominable Dr. Phibes: A psychedelic-art-deco exercise in excess featuring Vincent Price as a mad doctor who loves revenge, playing piano, and creating clockwork puppets. As a bonus, he exacts his revenge using booby-traps patterned after Biblical plagues.
Danger: Diabolik: Mario Bava’s super stylish Euro-spy thriller, “Diabolik” is like a pop-art Bond, but way better.
Charley Varrick: An unjustly forgotten crime flick featuring Walter Mathau in a rare tough guy role. “Charley Varrick” is an early precursor to “No Country for Old Men.”
Blood Diner: Talking brains, sarcastic puppets, a wrestler named Little Jimmy Hitler, and ancient Middle Eastern demons are just a few of the less cartoonish elements in this amazingly weird B-movie.
Skidoo: A lost Otto Preminger film featuring a cavalcade of old Hollywood stars, Groucho Marx as God and a Harry Nilsson soundtrack. It’s a righteously awful take on ’60s counter-culture, but it’s hard to pass up the cast and the film’s overwhelming silliness.
Phantom of the Paradise: Brian DePalma’s rock opera that borrows from “Phantom of the Opera” and “Faust.” A crazy, go-for-broke, freak-out musical.
The Manitou Tony Curtis plays a fake psychic who must defeat a Native American spirit that’s growing inside a tumor on his girlfriend’s shoulder. The spirit shoots lasers and Curtis wears a fake mustache—what else do you need to know?

THE WORST

The Gingerdead Man: Gary Busey stars as a murderous gingerbread cookie. You might think that sounds awesome, but it’s embarrassingly, tediously awful.
Flesh Eater: Bill Hinzman, the guy who played the first on-screen zombie in “Night of the Living Dead,” used his very limited star power to make this ultra low-budget zombie vanity project.
Slugs: An eco-horror film featuring murderous slugs. Slugs are gross, but there’s nothing scary about them. Also, blowing up a whole town to take out a few hundred slugs? That’s a bit excessive.
Open House: A “Friday the 13th” rip-off that replaces campers with real estate agents. Yes, a real estate themed horror movie. There are lots of scenes set in meetings. Unbelievably bad.
Satan’s Blade: One of the few VHS-era relics that hasn’t made it to DVD, with good reason. A possessed knife, which looks like it was purchased at Wal-Mart, curses anyone who owns it. Stupid and forgettable.
R.O.T.O.R.: An embarrassingly terrible “Robocop” rip-off populated with a cast of robot extras that look like they were picked up on sale at RadioShack.
Modesty Blaise: An attempt to make the Euro-spy comic strip a reality, “Modesty Blaise” trades the comic’s complex characters and tragic back story for some cartoony goofs and bad acting.
Frogs: Another eco-horror flick, this one featuring deadly frogs, which are slightly more frightening than slugs. A tedious flick that never manages to answer how, exactly, a frog can kill a human.
CHUD II Bud the CHUD: A bizarre sequel to a great B-movie, “CHUD II” has almost nothing to do with the original, but does feature a goofy zombie uprising and a theme song named after its protagonist.
Stryker: A low-budget Italian rip-off of “Mad Max” that looks like it was produced in a junkyard for about $5. “Stryker” has a very thorough commitment to being terrible.

calling all film geeks...

It is with great sadness that we report our “Tales from the Video Vault” correspondent Larry Clow will no longer be authoring his signature column. But it is with great anticipation that we now open up a new chapter and invite other Wire readers to continue feeding the Vault. Care to share a tale or two?

A few guidelines for those interested in contributing: As you probably know, each week, “Tales from the Video Vault” presents a review of an old B-movie or cult film, usually in the horror genre, but occasionally including action flicks or comedies. Each review is divided into three sections: the plot, providing a basic plot description, why it’s good, explaining what you like (or dislike) about the film, along with maybe a few highlights, and why you should own it, briefly describing whether the film is worth having and if the DVD comes with sweet bonus features. As a general rule, the film should be at least 10 years old and typically from outside the mainstream. Each review should be 400 to 500 words.

If you’re interested, please submit a couple of sample Video Vault entries to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . If it seems like a good fit, you could become a regular Video Vault contributor on a rotation with several others. Thanks in advance for your interest—and enjoy the show.