Nico B. (editor) - Cult epics : comprehensive guide to cult cinema

Copyright 2018

Cult Epics: Comprehensive Guide to Cult Cinema

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All reviews, interviews and commentaries contained in this book are those of individual writers
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video label, and are used for promotional purposes.

Digital Edition

ISBN: 978-0-999-86271-1

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Edited by Nico B

Designed by Mark Berry

Proofread by Sienna Bruinsma

Published by Cult Epics

cultepics.com

Distributed by SCB Distributors

TABLE OF CONTENTS

First Cult Video catalog, 1990

INTRODUCTION BY NICO B

Quentin Tarantino in front of the Cult Videotheek, Amsterdam, 1995

I grew up in the countryside of Northern Holland and was first introduced to cinema through retrospectives of classic movie directors and stars, back when there were only two TV channels. In order to watch a movie in theaters, I had to ride my bicycle ten miles to the nearest village where I discovered horror and modern Hollywood films. However, rather than film, my first love was music. I remember listening to the radio all day long, taping every song I loved, and starting to collect vinyl at the tender age of eight. My first jobs in Amsterdam were as a freelance music magazine editor and a music distributor. However, other ambitions took my career along a different path.

I remember well my time spent at the Academy of Fine Arts in the Hague. We once had an experimental filmmaker named Franz Zwartjes as a guest, and he saw my first Super 8 film and asked me what it was aboutbut I did not tell him because it was too personal. Regardless, the fact that an experimental filmmaker had no clue as to what my film meant, made me feel like I was on the right track. At the same time, my teacher, filmmaker Babeth van Loo (whose Kiss Napoleon Goodbye I later released and who personally introduced me to Abel Ferrara), told me that the films I wanted to make would not get financial support and advised me that I would be better off making money first to finance my out-of-the-box projects.

I took her advice and shortly after, Cult Video, a sell-thru mailorder for rare but wanted films was born. As a movie fan for many years, I possessed an array of film rarities from swapping VHS tapes with other fans and recording Amsterdam pirate television channels at a time when the only other way to see such cult films as Salo, Clockwork Orange, Pink Flamingos, or other shockers, was in midnight theaters long after their original release. This all happened when sell-thru video did not yet exist and rental stores rarely sold their movies to consumers in Amsterdamthe city in which I lived by then. So, I went directly to the distribution companies, such as Warner Bros. and other studios. I entered their warehouses full of treasures and simply asked them if they would sell me a hundred copies of an original rental tape. My first catalog included rare films on VHS such as Eraserhead, Combat Shock, Nekromantik, and hundreds more. Pretty soon, I received requests from stores all over Europe to purchase VHS tapes from me. Holland was also known to have uncut versions since there was no censorship. Unlike the UK and Germanythis was video paradise. At that time, and still today, my main audience included horror fans, erotica collectors, and arthouse cinephiles.

Thereafter, I started my own rental and sell-thru storesthe Cult Videotheek (located in Amsterdam and Rotterdam), and a couple of franchise stores in other Dutch towns. With members including directors Quentin Tarantino and Roberto Rodriguez, the Cult Videotheek in Amsterdam grew an international popularity in the press. People soon began to ask me about films that simply were not available in Holland or Europe at the time.

Nico B and daughter Sienna, outside the Cult Videotheek, Amsterdam, 2001

In 1991, I founded Cult Epics out of necessity. Around that time, I acquired the rights to, and released in the Benelux, films such as The Exotic Dances of Bettie Page, Henry: Portrait of a Serial killer, Cannibal Holocaust, Tokyo Decadence, and The Driller Killer. Subsequently, I started with Jan Doense (Weekend of Terror) the Cult Cluba cult film Sunday night at the Mazzo disco in Amsterdam with guestsand the sub-label Cult Classics on which we released the films of Ed Wood, Troma and some erotic classics. During this time, I traveled all across Europe to find rare tapes for rental and sell-thru. I even went to Hong Kong to meet with the executives of the film company Golden Harvest in an attempt to buy the rights to Bullet in the Head. Although it turned out that they no longer had the materials of the film, they took me to a screening room and showed me the latest John Woo releaseHard Boiled. I politely refused the deal for the Benelux rights for the movie, which seemed to me too polished at the time. I discovered some years later that Fox Lorber had bought the rights and paid five times more than what they offered me. My mind was set on more controversial, artistic, and original films and I continue to rarely follow the traditional outline of my profession, such as going to film markets and acquiring the rights that way. For me, it happens organically. I tend to meet a director or producer by chance, or through a friend, and from thereon release their works. This method has allowed me to work with such notables as Abel Ferrara, Tinto Brass, Radley Metzger, Anna Biller, Maria Beatty, Irving Klaw and, my favorite pin up, Bettie Page.

In 1997, I moved to the US and changed my name to Nico B. This altered name was not only much easier for Americans to pronounce than my real one, but also served as a pseudonym for the films I desired to direct. My first Cult Epics releases in the US, which were also released theatrically on 35mm, were