Who is this man named Chris Gore who dares to review the latest releases on Attack of the Show’s DVDuesday? He’s actually one of our most accomplished movie geeks, forging his own singular career as a film maker, writer and editor, TV host, and commentator on all things cinema.
As a college student in the cold streets of Detroit, he launched a film fanzine by the name of Film Threat, which he later convinced the infamous Larry Flynt to publish as a national magazine devoted to underground film. He later launched FilmThreat.com as a webzine renowned for its unabashed opinions (and its own DVD distribution arm, Film Threat DVD), and he became a contributor to print publications ranging from The New York Times, Details, and Spin to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. A passionate aficionado of film festivals, Gore’s first book was The Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide (Long Eagle Books); he also authored The 50 Greatest Movies Never Made (St. Martin’s Press). Meanwhile, he has also appeared on a variety of TV networks as a commentator or host, including IFC, E!, VH1, CNN, and FX. Finally, as a filmmaker, Chris directed the cult short Red, starring the one and only Lawrence Tierney, the tough guy actor best known for Reservoir Dogs. His latest movie is the comedy My Big Fat Independent Movie, which he also wrote.
Read on to learn more about Chris Gore’s dark (movie theater) past and his thoughts on film reviewing and filmmaking.
What are the movies that made you the man you are today?
The very first film memory I have is seeing in its re-release Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey. I was 5 years old sitting at the Berkley Theater in Michigan, and watched that movie with my dad. Didn’t have a clue what was going on, but was blown away and mesmerized. It was a combination of seeing that film, being obsessed with movies on television—I actually learned to read when I was 4 just so I could read TV listings of when the monster movies were on—and then Star Wars was my gateway movie. That was the movie that got me into movies—the very first, original Star Wars, not the butchered Special Editions. That just got me interested in wanting to know all the behind-the-scenes stuff, so I bought magazines like Starlog and Fantastic Films and Cinefantastique. I also began to buy magazines that were about the filmmaking process, like American Cinematographer, and that led to a lifelong passion and obsession for movies.
Another seminal moment beyond Star Wars and 2001 was Logan’s Run because it was the first time I actually saw nudity at the theater, and it was kind of shocking. It was in a PG movie, and there’s some really amazing nudity featuring Jenny Agutter, whom I was in love with as a kid. What was great was that my friend’s mom dropped us off, so we got to see the movie by ourselves—and then we went and saw it three more times, never with our parents. It was PG-rated, so no big deal. But it had all this nudity and implied sex—it was awesome! I love looking back at those old sci-fi movies that I watched growing up, like Tron is also a treasured favorite, and Rollerball.
What was your first job in the world of cinema?
I worked in a video store growing up. They carried porn and I actually lied about my age to get a job there. So I was 16 and went in, and they’re like, “You’re 18, right?” I said, “Hell yeah, I’m 18!” Porn was in a side room in the back. The thing that was funny was they would always return those videos not rewound, so if you popped in the videotape you could see the point at which they were "done." Ah, memories!
So how did you go from youthful movie fanatic to a movie career man?
I made Super-8 movies from the time I was 9, got into college and made films. But punk was a big part of growing up for me—I was into punk music, and I went to punk shows in Detroit, like the Dead Kennedys and the Clash and whatnot. I used to read a lot of punk skate ‘zines, and I loved the attitude, especially a magazine called Punk done by Legs McNeil and John Holmstrom and that gang. I was influenced by that. I thought I’d love to do a punk-attitude magazine, except have it focus all on film, and have that magazine cover only cult and underground and midnight movies. There wasn’t such a thing as independent films at that time. So I just came up with the name Film Threat right out of high school, and I did a fanzine.
The first issue of Film Threat was 500 issues distributed to my film history class at Wayne State University, and I wrote a bad check to Kinkos to pay for them. That was how the first issue of Film Threat was born. It since then grew into a larger magazine, and Larry Flynt bought the magazine in ’91 when I moved to L.A. It was published for a number of years, and the rights reverted back to me and I turned it into a website. The website was kind of a fallback plan, but I really believe that print is dead—the web is my preferred medium. The web offers a way to communicate and get feedback from your readers, the web is random access, the web is instantaneous in a way that print could never compete. So having worked in the mediums of television, magazines, books, and the web, my preference is the web—it’s just the way my mind works. And that’s why I put a lot of energy into our website.
