Netflix Streaming Friday - "Nightbeast"

It's an experience I think every horror fan has; you and your friends wind up at a video store one night with nothing better to do, so you scour the aisles for the stupidest looking horror film you can find. Usually, that film's not so great and the evening devolves into conversation carried out over the movie. Sometimes, it's actually a pretty enjoyable flick with some moments here and there to interrupt the conversation and get everyone laughing. But every now and then, you hit that absolute gem. That film so amazingly bad that everyone will remember their first time seeing it. You then go and tell other groups of friends about it and get them to sit down and watch it. You're secretly worried that they'll hate it and wonder why the hell you're making them watch this piece of shit but inevitably it shuts them up as well. That's when you know that you've found a real winner.

And that's when you hit up IMDB. You research the director. Find out what other movies they've made. You get them, hoping each one is as good as the others. You hold viewing parties with multiple films. Sure enough, they're all winners. And like that, you've found your cult director.

Some people will go further. Sometimes they'll make a documentary about that director. "Blood, Boobs & Beast" is an excellent documentary about the cult director Don Dohler. In addition to being a great look at what goes into the production of these super-microbudget films, the documentary itself is pretty moving. If you haven't seen it, you really owe it to yourself to go check it out. Immediately after viewing the documentary, I loaded my Netflix Queue up with his work, starting with the 1983 "classic" "Nightbeast". I had some friends over and was instantly hooked. While the rest of his work is pretty difficult to track down in this age of DVDs and Blu-Rays, "Nightbeast" can now be streamed whenever, where-ever and however many times you'd like.

Chances are you'll be watching it more than once.