MFT: VanTassel2 - Schlocky Horror Movies Excerpts Without People

Low budget schlocky horror films of old are fascinating to watch. Not only it is a bizarre showcase of conspicuously poor visual effects, on the nose creative decisions and unintentionally experimental narrative choices - it is also a fine battleground for ironic overthinking. The amount of inconsistencies and oversights is reaching the point thinking about such things are more fruitful and satisfying experience than actually watching it. You just can't help but to try to connect the disjointed dots in a comprehensive way. (although watching them is still fun).

But how about taking things to the next level? I've found one thing that does exactly that.





There is a YouTube channel where you can watch excerpts from trashy horror movies with shots of people viciously edited out. Why? Because why not! Who needs these boring people who only do these unbearably cheesy and corny and tacky stock reactions? They only sleepwalk through plot without reason and take away the precious screen from the monsters. Eventually, it turns out that editing out people out of trashy horror flicks is rather reasonable thing to do. It makes the rest of the film substantially better.

People edited out of picture makes a completely different watching experience. At first it is really disorienting - you can see a bunch of shots but there are no slips into badly acted stock reaction shots - the thing just goes on as if it is supposed to be like that. And it works. The film is virtually the same but it feels different. And the difference is big enough to turn perception on its head. The attention goes from the narrative itself to the details, textures and cuts. Which come together in some sort of a narrative in the head.

That is absolutely fascinating transformation. What user VanTassel2 does is not simply reediting old movies to a comedic effect - he shows how different editing affects the perception of the piece and how unconventional editing can make a piece of trash worthwhile.



From an aesthetic point of view - these edits can be considered a fine example of defamiliarization. By omitting one of the key elements of any traditional movie - VanTassel2 manages to derail its perception to a point it becomes a thing of its own.

For example, a film like "Attack of the Eye Creatures" turns from a schlocky z-grade fever dream to a Dziga Vertov level of audio-visual rampage. None of it makes any sense anyway, but without people it becomes strange enough to be mystifying and thought provoking. In a way, it is a clever albeit unintentional dig to symphony films of the 1920s - sprawling abstract tales of awe.

On the other hand, there is a visible link between these edits and Bill Morrison's hauntological explorations of "Decasia". These edits turn schlocky flicks into artifacts beyond comprehension. There is something mystifying in a disjointed mess of images mostly without context and seemingly at random. The strange thrill they bring is priceless.