By Keri O’Shea
It’s strange to think that, for many people who may be reading the likes of this site today, there has never been an alternative to the internet as a chief means of exposure to all that’s weird and wonderful in the world of cult cinema, or indeed outsider literature, art or music. In many ways, you might expect this to mean that the younger generation would be the most enlightened, liberated and open-minded individuals ever to walk the Earth. With round-the-clock access to everything and anything, surely people’s tastes should by now be incredibly diverse and equally, routinely satiated by the types of fare which would put the old cut-out-and-photocopy fanzine brigade to shame?
Funnily, this isn’t generally the case at all. Speaking for myself as someone who was just about sitting up and taking notice at the tail-end of the print ‘zine heyday (though we’re talking metal ‘zines, rather than the type of publication to be discussed here), it now seems that the more access you have to the strange and unusual, the less of a thrill it is to get your hands on it. In a way, the internet has turned into the ultimate in diminishing returns. Then there’s the odd effect whereby even those on the outside of the mainstream now seem guided more by the prominent voices to be heard there than by their own imaginations (and how a lot of those voices come to prominence in the first place is a mystery all of its own). For example, those of us who even moonlight in what has come to be known as ‘the horror community’ will no doubt have noticed that at least once per year, a certain film will somehow gain massive momentum because it gets the formula right, getting the notoriety, the ‘likes’ and the shares – which aren’t necessarily linked to its merits. Conversely, impertinent or unfashionable opinions can today bring down a tsunami of indignation on a scale which just wouldn’t have existed pre-internet.
To put it bluntly, shit has changed, and one of the absolute joys of reading Sheer Filth is that it comes from before all of this was a going concern. This isn’t, I hope, a straightforward rose-tinted spectacles moment here. Rather, the honesty, enthusiasm and enjoyment of all things sleazy and strange to be found in this collection of articles, reviews and interviews seems to stem, at least partly, from the fact that received wisdom or the Next Big Thing didn’t matter or even exist for these contributors.
For those of you unaware, Sheer Filth! was a UK-based ‘zine which appeared, as many similar ‘zines did, in the wake of the Video Nasties débâcle. As the censors hardly seemed about to hang up their scissors during those days (quelle change eh?) a host of ‘zines – ‘part of what felt like a movement’ according to Flint – kicked back against this state-savvy prudishness by championing a hell of a lot of the things deemed unsuitable or otherwise too lowbrow for the masses. Flint cites Fangoria as setting an important precedent in those days; colourful, grisly and glossy, it didn’t much care that sex and gore were considered beneath a lot of ‘proper’ film writers and publications and it featured them in spades anyway. Its rejection of received wisdom was very influential on Sheer Filth, and Flint’s insistence that his contributors never conformed to one authorial style or voice. The results are to his, and to their credit – and a lot of excellent writers cut their teeth here too (such as David Kerekes, to name but one).
This Sheer Filth collection spans all of the editions of the ‘zines themselves. Some of the highlights: an examination of the life of David F. Friedman, a chat with a very wet-behind-the-ears Buttgereit, a never-before-seen chat with British director Norman J. Warren, an interview with the doyenne of porn Annie Sprinkles, and a look at what is probably the first example of nunsploitation. You might also feast your eyes on film festival reports, educate yourselves on everything from the discordant noise stylings of Coil (who almost, almost did the soundtrack to Hellraiser) to the best of 50s surf rock, check out just what all the fuss is about when it comes to seeing De Sade on the shelves, read agog about the art-house weirdness of the movies of La Ciccolina, see some seriously renegade comics, read all about lost cinematic gems like Death Bed: The Bed That Eats and The Bride And The Beast, and also familiarise yourselves with some lively potted histories of America’s loveliest long-gone starlets, such as Jayne Mansfield and Bettie Page (back when there was far less of a Bettie cult and the lady herself was still lost to obscurity). I’m aware of the irony of this, but my Amazon Wishlist got a lot more extensive as I was reading this book…Sheer Filth is one of those tomes which can provide a great starting point for tracking down a lot of ‘new’ books, films and names.
As you might gather from the above, there is a lot of sex and nudity in this book – easily as much sexual content as there is horror, though those of course go hand in hand (ahem) a lot of the time – and it should hardly take me to say that this is therefore not going to be a book for everyone. Sheer Filth is unashamedly pro-sex and pro-porn so, as it takes issue with censorship, it of course takes similar issue with attitudes and legislation which try to limit any activities between consenting adults. So much as the book can be said to have a prevailing outlook, this is it, and so beware if this isn’t something you want to take on board. Personally, I think it’s interesting to see that we’re still seeing a lot of the same blanket statements made about, say, adult entertainers some twenty years after a lot of the interviews in these pages took place, but that’s another of the ways that this is a genuinely engaging book.
As mentioned, a lot of the content here has been around for a while now, so where Sheer Filth contains articles about those who are now no longer with us, or where the content of a feature has been changed/disproved over time (such as, ahem, a treatise on the imminent disappearance of the cumshot in modern porn, feasible perhaps in an innocent, pre-bukakke world) then a series of footnotes provided at the end provides a bit of up-to-date context on these, even giving the nod where a certain Mr Flint got it wrong about a certain Ms Linnea Quigley…This being a FAB Press book, it is also lavishly illustrated throughout and fully indexed – looking like a very happy marriage between a ‘zine and a collectible volume.
Full to bursting with meticulous, earnest and often tongue-in-cheek journalism, this book is an education as much as it is eye-opening entertainment. As an irreverent and charming trek through some lesser and better-known exploitation fare, it’s hard to imagine better. And, ultimately, this collection is shot through with optimism. The hotbed of creativity which gave rise to the ‘zines of the late 80s was after all born out of moral panics, clampdowns and public misinformation. We’re hardly shot of that sort of thing now, with increasingly prescriptive mores seemingly always around us, maybe now to an extent even from within the ‘alternative’ scene as well as without. Sheer Filth is a reminder that you can shape your own zeitgeist and kick back against restrictions by embracing taboos. Highly recommended, sleazy good fun.
Sheer Filth has an official launch part on 4th April 2014 at Nottingham’s Broadway Cinema, where there will be a special screening of the new Video Nasties documentary, Draconian Days, followed by a Q&A and an after-party. Book orders will be dispatched on 9th April: for further details, check out the FAB Press website.