THE FIRST HOLLYWOOD UNDERGROUND FILM? TAKE THE ACID AND CHECK THE RECEIPT

Hollywood in 1967 was undergoing a transformation. The old studio system was fading, the counterculture was expanding, LSD had moved from laboratories into popular culture, and exploitation filmmakers were paying very close attention.

Enter The Acid Eaters.

Directed by Byron Mabe and produced by exploitation veteran David F. Friedman, the film follows a group of weekend thrill-seekers into a psychedelic landscape of sex, hallucinations and increasingly surreal imagery, including its famous LSD pyramid.

The movie was advertised as “the first Hollywood underground film.”

That's a great tagline. As film history, it deserves some scrutiny.

By 1967, American underground cinema was already well established. Experimental filmmakers, independent productions and countercultural screenings existed far outside Hollywood's conventional distribution system. Calling The Acid Eaters the “first” therefore tells us less about chronology than it does about a remarkable cultural moment.

The underground had become marketable.

Exploitation filmmakers recognized an audience that mainstream Hollywood was still struggling to understand. Psychedelia, sexual liberation, drugs and anti-establishment imagery weren't simply cultural developments; they could sell tickets.

Nearly sixty years later, The Acid Eaters is receiving treatment nobody making a quick exploitation picture in 1967 could reasonably have expected. American Genre Film Archive and Something Weird have restored the film from its original 35mm camera negative, pairing it with Mabe's Space Thing for a new release.

That restoration represents a broader reconsideration of exploitation cinema. Movies once regarded as disposable grindhouse product are increasingly being preserved as cultural artifacts—films that captured attitudes, anxieties and visual experiments respectable Hollywood sometimes avoided.

Was The Acid Eaters really the first Hollywood underground film?

Probably not.

But the advertisement itself may tell the better story.

By 1967, Hollywood's outer edges had discovered the underground.

And they knew there was an audience waiting there.

Read more »

OIDAR RADIO: THE INTERNET IS FORGETTING THIS SHOW WHILE WE WATCH

The Internet supposedly remembers everything.

That's adorable.

Somewhere in the digital rubble sits OIDAR Radio — “Radio Backwards”: an obscure program whose surviving footprint now resembles the contents of a desk drawer after an eviction. A Facebook presence remains. Old references point toward “OIDAR RADIO BACKWARDS EPISODE 1.” Search results produce fragments, dead ends and the occasional unrelated Android application also called OIDAR wandering through the crime scene.

Nobody had to burn the tapes.

The algorithm brought a pillow.

And that's what makes OIDAR interesting to FMPU. This isn't presently a censorship story. There is no evidence somebody ordered the program erased, suppressed its hosts or dispatched the Men in Black to repossess a podcast server.

Something arguably more ordinary—and therefore more unsettling—appears to have happened.

Digital entropy.

Feeds die. Domains expire. Hosting companies disappear. Facebook posts sink beneath fifteen years of accumulated debris. Search engines reward whatever currently attracts clicks, while yesterday's underground radio program slowly becomes archaeologically indistinguishable from an abandoned app.

OIDAR may still exist somewhere. Somebody may have every episode sitting on an old hard drive between vacation photographs and a pirated copy of Photoshop. We simply don't yet know.

And that uncertainty is the story.

Early internet radio occupied a peculiar historical window: technologically advanced enough to broadcast globally, yet apparently too young for anybody to worry seriously about preservation. The cassette freaks often labeled their tapes. The podcast generation trusted the cloud.

Whoops.

THE RECEIPT

We can document that OIDAR existed through surviving pages and episode references. We cannot yet document its complete run, how much audio survives, or exactly why its public archive fractured. There is currently no evidence of deliberate suppression.

The internet didn't necessarily delete OIDAR.

It did something more interesting.

It forgot where it put it.

Read more »

Object Relations Therapy: Session 1

Session 1: THE COMPLAINT

He arrived at therapy in middle age with a surprisingly long list of people who had disappointed him.

Some deserved their place on it.

A former lover. A relative. Two employers. Several friends. People who underestimated him. People who used him. People who disappeared when usefulness ran out.

He wasn't looking for sympathy.

He wanted an explanation.

"I'm beginning to think I attract these people."

The therapist didn't disagree.

That bothered him.

For most of the hour, he presented evidence. Names, incidents, betrayals, contradictions. He was articulate and occasionally funny. Years of thinking about these things had made him an excellent prosecutor.

The therapist listened.

Finally she asked:

"What happens when somebody disappoints you?"

He looked confused.

"I just spent forty minutes telling you."

"No. You told me what they did. What happens inside you?"

Silence.

He hadn't come prepared for that question.

Anger, obviously.

But beneath the anger?

He searched.

The answer embarrassed him.

"They become different."

"Different how?"

"I don't know. It's like I suddenly see who they really are."

She wrote something down.

He disliked that too.

The session ended without diagnosis, revelation or reconciliation. Eight people remained guilty. Possibly nine, depending on how he now felt about the therapist.

Walking to his car, however, one sentence followed him.

They become different.

Object relations hadn't been mentioned yet.

Neither had splitting.

There would be plenty of time for names.

For now, the therapist had done something considerably more irritating.

She had made him notice.

Read more »

JOAN CRAWFORD ESCAPES FROM COPYRIGHT JAIL

 

Hollywood can forgive almost anything.

Bad reviews. Bad marriages. Bad accounting. Occasionally even a bad picture.

But paperwork? Paperwork will bury you.

In 1932, MGM released Letty Lynton, starring Joan Crawford opposite Robert Montgomery. Crawford is glamorous, dangerous and dressed by Adrian like the Depression had been temporarily cancelled for her personal convenience. The picture was a hit—and one of its gowns became enormously influential.

Then came the lawyers.

A federal court found that MGM's film infringed material from the play Dishonored Lady. An injunction effectively removed Letty Lynton from authorized circulation. And there it sat.

For decades.

No repertory revival. No normal television afterlife. No respectable home-video parade. While other Crawford pictures became staples of classic Hollywood, Letty Lynton acquired the considerably sexier reputation of the Joan Crawford movie you weren't supposed to have.

Naturally, people had it.

Bootlegs and collector copies circulated because cinephiles have historically regarded "unavailable" less as a legal condition than a personal challenge.

The delicious part is that the movie disappeared while Crawford's dress escaped. Adrian's extravagant white organdy gown became one of Hollywood's most copied fashions, reproduced commercially while generations of moviegoers couldn't legally watch the film containing it.

Now the sentence is over.

With the underlying copyright obstacle finally expired, Warner Bros. restored Letty Lynton in 4K, and in 2026 the movie returned to legitimate circulation after nearly nine decades in legal purgatory.

That's not merely a restoration. It's Hollywood archaeology.

A movie can be lost because the negative burns.

It can be censored because somebody gets frightened.

Or, apparently, it can spend most of a century locked away because several extremely well-dressed people disagreed about who owned the words.

Joan Crawford waited long enough.

Roll the damn picture.

Read more »

Triangulation - Seeking Your Comments!

"Ok - We are excited to present to you our brand of new-ish articles and I would like YOU to comment!  Anything goes, but try to keep it content-relative.  It's an experiment, but your participation is critical so see you all in the comments section.  If it's merited, a better platform will naturally occur."   - MMM & JP

Read more »

That's Ai

 

Read more »

SexWorld (1978): The Forgotten Adult Parody Every Westworld Fan Should Know About

Mr. Midnight Movie Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4.8/5)
JP Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4.8/5)

If you're a fan of the original Westworld starring Yul Brynner, or HBO's brilliant reimagining of Westworld, there's a very good chance you've never heard of SexWorld. That's a shame because this forgotten 1978 cult oddity is far more than a simple parody. It borrows the basic premise of Westworld—a futuristic destination where guests can fulfill their deepest fantasies—but then quietly evolves into something far stranger and, at times, surprisingly thoughtful.

Director Anthony Spinelli could have settled for a disposable exploitation picture. Instead, he delivered a polished science-fiction production with attractive sets, committed performances, and a genuine attempt at storytelling. It's one of those rare films that makes you wonder if the filmmakers secretly wanted to make a legitimate sci-fi movie first and happened to choose an unconventional genre to do it.

The cast helps elevate the material. John Leslie is as charismatic here as fans of the Golden Age of Adult Cinema would expect, demonstrating why he later became one of the industry's most respected directors. While Kay Parker does not appear in SexWorld, her work from the same era has become synonymous with the brief period when adult films occasionally aspired to real cinematic storytelling. Together, performers like Leslie, Parker, and filmmakers like Spinelli represent a fascinating chapter in film history that deserves far more serious discussion than it usually receives.

Then comes the scene that completely blindsided me.

One guest's carefully requested fantasy arrives, and his immediate reaction exposes his own racial prejudice. Faced with a Black woman instead of the partner he expected, he recoils. Rather than responding emotionally, the hostess calmly dismantles his assumptions with almost machine-like logic. It's one of the most unexpectedly intelligent moments in the film. For a few remarkable minutes, SexWorld stops feeling like exploitation cinema and starts resembling an episode of The Twilight Zone. The park isn't merely granting fantasies—it is exposing hypocrisy. The guest believes he's in control, only to discover he's the one being evaluated.

That sequence alone made me reassess the film.

Is it a product of 1978? Absolutely. Some attitudes and moments reflect the era in which it was made. But it also demonstrates a willingness to confront prejudice, desire, and human contradiction in ways I simply wasn't expecting. Hidden beneath the notoriety is a surprisingly sharp social satire.

Another surprise? There was never any major public backlash from Westworld, Yul Brynner, or the filmmakers behind the original classic. SexWorld quietly found its audience and eventually became one of the most fascinating relics from the Golden Age of Adult Cinema, earning a devoted cult following among collectors and film historians.

And yes, I still maintain the filmmakers missed the greatest joke in cinematic history.

Imagine an alternate version where Yul Brynner's overworked maintenance supervisor is named Stool Brenner. He's deadly serious. He's constantly filing incident reports, inspecting malfunctioning attractions, and wondering why everyone else keeps making his job harder. Nobody laughs at his name. Nobody acknowledges the joke. He simply exists as though he belongs there.

I would have applauded.

If you love the original Westworld, appreciate HBO's Westworld, or simply enjoy uncovering forgotten corners of movie history, SexWorld deserves your curiosity. It isn't memorable because it's respectable. It's memorable because it's fearless, bizarre, unexpectedly clever, and one of those rare cult films that occasionally brushes up against genuine insight when you least expect it.

Some movies become classics because they're masterpieces.

Others become legends because they never should have worked at all.

Mr. Midnight Movie Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars.
JP Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars.

If nothing else, SexWorld proves that even the most unlikely movies can have more on their minds than first impressions suggest. Sometimes the forgotten films are the ones that surprise you the most.

Read more »

BAT PUSSY: The Citizen Kane of Movies That Shouldn't Exist

 

Every so often cinema produces a masterpiece so gloriously detached from conventional filmmaking that all criticism simply evaporates.

Calling this ribald classic "bad" misses the point entirely. Bad movies usually have ambition. They strive toward competence before collapsing under their own weight. Bat Pussy never even acknowledges the existence of competence. It exists in its own bizarre gravitational field where editing is optional, dialogue wanders aimlessly, continuity has packed up and gone home, and the entire production feels like it was assembled by extraterrestrials who had only heard vague rumors about what movies were supposed to be.

I love it.

Not because it's polished. Not because it's well acted. Not because it makes a shred of narrative sense. I love it because it represents a kind of filmmaking that can never be manufactured by committee. Every awkward pause, every baffling creative decision, every inexplicable moment reminds you that somewhere, somehow, anonymous human beings actually believed this deserved to exist.

Bat Pussy also reminds me of my old friend Kings of Talk. He'd sit there happily bouncing up and down on his exercise ball while conversations drifted into wonderfully ridiculous territory on Discord. The movie has that same energy. It doesn't feel scripted so much as it feels like someone accidentally left a camera running while reality wandered off its medication.

Cult films are often celebrated because they're rebellious. Bat Pussy is something even stranger. It's accidental outsider art. It ignores every rule of filmmaking with such complete confidence that it somehow loops back around into entertainment. It becomes less of a movie and more of a shared endurance test among friends asking, "Did that really just happen, or is Kings already a movie star and didn't tell anyone?"

Some films deserve Academy Awards.  Other's, Darwin Awards.

Others deserve preservation simply because civilization needs proof they actually happened.

Bat Pussy belongs in the second category, standing proudly as one of the weirdest artifacts ever committed to film.

Read more »

Forgotten Hollywood The Last Starfighter: The Gamble That Changed Visual Effects

 

Released in 1984, The Last Starfighter occupies a curious place in Hollywood history. It wasn't the biggest science-fiction film of the decade, nor was it a runaway box office sensation. Yet nearly every blockbuster audiences enjoy today owes something to its remarkable technical gamble.

Directed by Nick Castle, the film tells the story of Alex Rogan, an ordinary teenager whose exceptional skills at an arcade game earn him an invitation to fight in a real interstellar war. It sounds like classic 1980s wish fulfillment, but the movie's true legacy lies behind the scenes.

Rather than relying on traditional miniatures for its spacecraft, the filmmakers embraced computer-generated imagery on a scale that had never been attempted in a feature film. At a time when most visual effects artists considered CGI experimental, The Last Starfighter boldly replaced physical models with fully digital spacecraft and battle sequences created by Digital Productions using Cray supercomputers.

The production cost approximately $15 million, a substantial investment for the era. It earned roughly $28 million domestically, making it a modest commercial success but not the blockbuster Universal Pictures had hoped for. Critics generally praised its charm and ambition, though some found the computer graphics unusual compared with the model work audiences were accustomed to seeing in films like Star Wars.

Time has been kind to The Last Starfighter. While its pioneering CGI may appear primitive by modern standards, historians increasingly recognize the film as one of the earliest demonstrations that digital imagery could carry large-scale action sequences. Long before fully digital worlds became commonplace, this film quietly pointed Hollywood toward its future.

Today, The Last Starfighter enjoys a devoted cult following. More importantly, it serves as a reminder that some of cinema's biggest breakthroughs arrive disguised as modest entertainment. Not every revolution announces itself. Sometimes it begins with a teenager, an arcade cabinet, and filmmakers willing to take a technological leap few others would dare.

Read more »

The Hidden (1987): The Cult Classic That Refused to Stay Buried

Long before audiences embraced body-swapping thrillers and high-concept action horror, The Hidden quietly arrived in theaters during the fall of 1987 and disappeared almost as quickly as it came. Today, however, the film has earned a reputation as one of the finest cult science-fiction thrillers of the decade.

Directed by Jack Sholder and written by Jim Kouf, The Hidden begins with what appears to be a routine police pursuit through Los Angeles. The chase quickly spirals into something far stranger: an extraterrestrial parasite capable of moving from one human host to another, leaving a trail of stolen Ferraris, heavy metal music, bank robberies, and spectacular violence in its wake. Kyle MacLachlan delivers one of his most memorable early performances as the mysterious FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher, while Michael Nouri provides the grounded perspective of Detective Tom Beck.

Produced for approximately $5 million, the film combined practical effects, energetic stunt work, and inventive storytelling without relying on blockbuster resources. At the domestic box office it earned roughly $9.7 million, a respectable return but not enough to elevate it into the mainstream conversation alongside larger studio releases of the era.

Critics, however, saw something special. Reviewers praised its clever blend of science fiction, horror, action, and dark humor, while audiences who discovered it on VHS and cable television helped transform it into a genuine cult favorite. Over the years, The Hidden has consistently appeared on lists celebrating overlooked genre films of the 1980s, admired for its brisk pacing, sharp screenplay, and willingness to embrace outrageous ideas without losing sight of compelling characters.

Looking back nearly four decades later, The Hidden feels remarkably modern. Its themes of identity, obsession, and unseen influence remain surprisingly relevant, while its practical effects and stunt-driven action offer a refreshing contrast to today's digital spectacles. It is the kind of film that rewards rediscovery—proof that some of cinema's most inventive stories never become household names, yet continue to find new audiences one recommendation at a time.

If you've somehow missed The Hidden, consider this your invitation. Some classics don't announce themselves—they quietly wait to be found.

Read more »