Online Action Movie Fandom Birthed a New Film Fest Era

Young and Robinson weren’t readying connected entering the accumulation abstraction backmost erstwhile they were touring their movies, but those experiences did extremity up planting seeds for Big Bad aboriginal on. “The napkin scribbles were truly our experiences with Kay [Lynch] astatine Salem Horror Fest and Mitch [Harrod] astatine Soho Horror,” Robinson says. “They’ve been truly large resources for america successful presumption of however to enactment unneurotic a semi-home grown festival.”

Group Chat

Besides being the eventual successful communal cinematic experiences, different mode enactment movies reflector scary ones is the infinite shareability of bite-size nuggets pulled from their choicest scenes. A standalone clip of a combat country oregon adjacent conscionable a GIF of a single, eye-popping footwear to the look tin beryllium thrilling capable to gully radical into watching a full movie truthful they tin drawback that 1 moment. This makes Twitter, wherever you person the velocity of a scroll to drawback someone’s attention, fertile crushed for enactment movie fandom. Sometimes, full conversations are built astir fans conscionable saying names backmost and distant to each different with awesome media attached.

Boyka! *GIF of spinning footwear done the air*
Fist of the Condor?! *clip of Marko Zoror destroying a guy*
CYNTHIA ROTHROCK! *still of her with Michelle Yeoh in Yes, Madam!*

Dropping into the close Action Twitter thread tin consciousness similar falling into a top hits playlist of the coolest looking movies you’ve ne'er heard of. You tin either descend your teeth successful and spell the profoundly method way with accounts similar Shogun Supreme, an Action Twitter megamind known for their granular colour people and audio comparisons crossed the assorted carnal media releases for a azygous film. Or you tin conscionable punch successful and person a shot with handles similar Exploding Helicopter, which genuinely exists to papers each clip a chopper has ever exploded successful a movie.

Young says that relationship expanded his idiosyncratic ticker database by “hundreds" of titles erstwhile helium archetypal wandered into Action Twitter, and it was 1 of the feeds helium got hooked connected backmost successful the days erstwhile everyone was surviving astir exclusively online: the 2020 Covid lockdown. “I was waking up precise aboriginal and throwing connected the El Rey Network,” says Young, referencing the genre-heavy cablegram channel. “From 5 successful the greeting to 10 successful the greeting each they played was Shaw Brothers films, and I got obsessed with them and started looking for radical to speech astir them.”

From determination Young started pursuing writers connected Twitter similar Brandon Streussnig, who spearheads the now-annual Vulture Stunt awards; Priscilla Page, who does rigorous adjacent reads into movies similar Top Gun: Maverick and Mad Max: Fury Road; and Outlaw Vern, a seasoned of Ain’t It Cool News and autarkic professional who has written books connected the movies of Steven Seagal and Bruce Willis. Young discovered accounts similar One Perfect Headshot that were spreading the gospel of things similar Chinese DTV enactment movies. He started learning astir however those Shaw Brothers classics helium was mainlining “go hand-in-hand with the Scott Adkins and Isaac Florentines of the world.”

We’re Gonna Need a Montage

Twitter was teaching Young the connection of enactment beyond what gets the astir showtimes astatine your section AMC theater, and adjacent though Big Bad Film Fest wouldn’t spell unrecorded until 2023, it was those terrible, halcyon days of pre-Elon Twitter that spawned the thought of a festival made conscionable for enactment fans. A punctual went astir connected the level astatine 1 constituent for radical to make their ain period of imagination programming astatine Quentin Tarantino’s celebrated L.A. repertory theater, the New Beverly Cinema. Young’s slate ended up being astir wholly enactment movies, and that got him reasoning capable to connection Robinson astir it.

“Patrick conscionable texted maine 1 day. I consciousness similar each of our collaboration has been the drunken taxable of talking to your buddy and you’re like, ‘We should commencement a bar!’ Except we bash it dormant sober and spell ‘We should commencement a movie festival!’” But dissimilar astir bros who imagination of opening a bar, the longtime originative partners started doing the limb enactment to fig retired existent logistics: which theatre to acceptable up astatine (one they unrecorded adjacent to!), getting DCPs (Digital Cinema Package files that play connected projectors) made of movies truthful they weren’t conscionable putting Blu-rays up connected a screen; and corralling capable filmmakers to accidental yes to their unknown, untested festival to physique retired a full play of programming.