Review of Blood, Boobs & Beast (2007) by Andrew S — 10 Apr 2009

I only knew Don Dohler's films via the shitty screeners Brain Damage used to send me, and had no idea of the kind of stuff he used to make. This documentary is the first of its kind to truly show what it's like making no-budget horror these days, and showcases a lot of the things we struggle with.

Not just how to make a cheap movie on the weekends with your buddies without going insane, but also about how to reconcile your personal feelings with the commercial aspect and the business side. There's so much to Dohler that I never knew, for instance, he gave birth to the underground comics movement that made R.

Crumb famous, and started Cinemagic, a special fx magazine that instructed Tom Sullivan how to do the makeups for Evil Dead. Though at one time he was to horror filmmaking in Baltimore what John Waters was to comedy there, he never went on to the kind of success and notoriety the pope of trash did.

It's documentaries like this that shed a light on an otherwise obscure figure, bringing some much-deserved (albeit too late) attention.