Nick Cato - Suburban Grindhouse: From Staten Island to Times Square and all the Sleaze Between

A HEADPRESS BOOK

First published by Headpress in 2019

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE

From Staten Island to Times Square and all the Sleaze Between

Text copyright NICK CATO

This volume copyright HEADPRESS 2019

Cover design : MARK CRITCHELL :

Book layout & design : Ganymede Foley & Mark Critchell

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The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the Publisher.

Images are from the collection of the author and are used here for the purpose of historical review. Grateful acknowledgement is given to the respective owners, suppliers, artists, studios and publishers.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-909394-66-7 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-909394-67-4 (ebook)

NO-ISBN (hardback)

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Table of Contents

NICK CATO KNOWS HIS STUFF!

t amazes me when I realize how much SHEER VOLUME of movies there are out there. Im one of those people who got their film history education by watching tons of movies on TV, and then, in the 1980s, during the VHS boom, renting as many movies as humanly possible, taking in the good and the awful, the classics and the abominations. Doing what I could to become a sort of walking encyclopedia of cinema.

And then I talk to someone like Nick Cato, or our mutual friend, William Carl, and theyll mention movies that either I still havent had a chance to see yet, or (even more baffling) movies I havent even heard of, and then I realize I am not even close to knowing everything thats out there. And Im mainly talking about movies from the 1970s and 80s, and a big chunk before then. In this day of lots of movies going straight to DVD and OnDemand, I am so far behind on current output, I wont even try to catch up.

But Nick is one of those guys, like me, who devoured everything he could find about movies, with a big emphasis on horror movies and genre films (science fiction, action, and the downright surreal). He knows his stuff, and one of the things I learned when he started writing his column Suburban Grindhouse Memories is that, despite the video boom of the 80s, he saw a ton of these flicks on an actual theater screen, in places like the (now defunct) Fox Twin Cinema or the (now defunct) Amboy Twin Cinema on Staten Island. I always look forward to the name of the theater he saw one of these gems in, and its almost always now defunct, just like all those grindhouse movie theaters that used to be a part of Times Square. All gone now.

Because Nick knows his stuff, and because I knew hed dig up things I might be interested in checking out, I was more than happy to extend an invitation to him to write this column. One of the points of the (now defunct) Cinema Knife Fight website was giving movie nuts like Nick an outlet for their movie memories. The actual Cinema Knife Fight column itself was me and Michael Arruda reviewing new movies, mostly horror and sci-fi stuff when it was available. But when we grew that column into a whole website over 10 years ago, we knew we couldnt write something new every day, which is why our staff was so important to us. They kept the site fueled with new content, and they turned in some really entertaining prose in the process.

Nicks column even introduced me to a few movies Ive come to consider favorites, like Don Dohlers FIEND (1980), a movie Nick didnt care for, but which I love, because its so damn goofy. And GANJA AND HESS (1973), a serious milestone in so-called Blaxploitation cinema, featuring Duane Jones (yes, the guy from Romeros original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD) in an unusual take on the vampire legend.

The column itself began in early 2010 with Nicks recollection of going to see a Brazilian softcore sex film called GISELLE (1980) which opens with horse trainers watching two horses humping (full horse penetration is shown!) He was a freshman in high school at the time, on a double-date, expecting to see just another lame teen sex comedy. Boy, did he get a surprise! From that first column, I knew this was going to be something different.

In these pages, youll also see him champion the 1981 horror flick NIGHTMARE (also known as NIGHTMARES IN A DAMAGED BRAIN), a movie hes raved about for almost as long as Ive known him. At first, it seems like any other slasher flick from that time period, and then, whoa that ending! In fact, over the years, Ive come to associate the movie so much with him, that even the mention of it reminds me of Nick (which is probably how some people think of me when someone mentions BLOOD SUCKING FREAKS, 1976).

I was happy to hear that Nick was putting out a book of his collected Suburban Grindhouse Memories. In these pages youll meet lots of knife-wielding psychos, women-in-prison, strange aliens, fiends, sexy kung fu mamas, witches, flamethrower wielding vigilantes, and more.

Nick grew up on Staten Islandwhich we jokingly refer to as MILLIGANS ISLAND because trash-film director (and Times Square grindhouse icon) Andy Milligan used to make movies in a big house there. Hed film everything from horror movies to weird period pieces, all in the same place. I remember we tracked it down and its now a crack house. But growing up on the Island means that, for some reason, Nick was able to see more horror and exploitation flicks on the big screen than I ever did, and he was close enough to New York City to sometimes venture into Times Square during its heyday as the Mecca of grindhouse cinema, as well.