The Resurrection of Son of Celluloid

Don’t call it a comeback.  I’ve been here for years.  Well, a little over two, but that still counts.  Don’t call it a reboot either.  After the last few years, that word needs to be kept as far away from the horror genre as possible.  What I will call it is a relaunch.  A resurrection if you will. It’s been quiet here at Son of Celluloid since April Fool’s Day.  That’s a freakin’ eternity in blog-world.  I didn’t forget about you guys.  In fact, I’ve missed you all and it feels good to be back in the saddle. You see that spiffed up version of my logo up top?  The Graphic Wizard himself, Frank Browning, made that for me, and it represents a fresh start for the blog.  Before I talk about what’s involved in this new beginning and your role in the macabre fun to come, let me explain the factors that led to my almost four month hiatus. 

First of all, I was suffering from some good old-fashioned burnout.  I realized that I had hit a wall one night when I looked at the milk crate of screeners that always sits beside the TV and I didn’t want to watch a horror movie.  Sure, that happens now and then.  We all need a palate cleanser once in a while.  Then I realized that it was the third or fourth consecutive day that it happened.  For the first time since my mid-teens, I just didn’t want to watch horror movies at all.  Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I recognize it as the same reason I stopped reading for a long time after college.  I had always been a bit of a bookworm, but at that point I had read so much stuff for the express purpose of writing about it or being tested over it that I couldn’t image reading for pleasure.  Same deal.  I had forgotten how to watch movies, and write about movies, simply for pleasure.  I needed some time to relearn that.   Watching movies came back before writing did, so I decided to focus on a different project that had been eating away at the back of my mind for a while.

I’m referring to reason number two for my hiatus, the long awaited and oft-delayed The Son of Celluloid Show.  Yes, the one I’ve worked and worked on that just seems to get derailed at every turn.  Well folks, here’s the skinny.  It takes a long time to do anything when you have a budget of exactly nothing and have to beg, borrow, and steal everything.  There’s a lot of trial and error going on too.  I’m no filmmaker.  None of the people directly helping me are either.  Once I figured out the absolute basics (to a degree) and got some good footage shot, my camera died and took my footage with it.  At the moment I’m working on getting a new camera, which is fairly close on the horizon.  I also have to figure out a couple of post-production issues.  Once I do those things, that hell-train will lurch back to life.  The Son of Celluloid Show will live, dammit!  A lot of people (and myself) have put in too much work and I’ve gotten too much great support from all off you to let it fade away.  I will not, however, give you a premiere date at this time.  I have a bad habit of giving myself deadlines right before catastrophe hits.  Just know that it’s coming, and that I will unleash my beast when you least expect it.

Then there’s reason three.  This is where we get into some real talk, and some stuff I feel like I oughta say even though I don’t really want to.  In the interest of a fresh start, though, I guess I have to clear the air.  I had a little identity crisis about who and what Son of Celluloid is.  I lost sight of why I started doing this.  At the same time I was feeling that burnout I discussed earlier, I was looking at other sites.  I was seeing one paragraph reviews without a single grammatically correct sentence or a post consisting solely of pictures of an old horror toy getting two or three times as many comments as a post I worked forever on.  That old green-eyed monster of jealousy reared his ugly head.  I started to wonder if anyone was really reading what I was writing, if good writing even mattered to readers any more, and if the effort I was putting into it was worth it.  Yep, I started to doubt myself and you, and it sucks to have to admit that.  Once I took a break, I found myself forming reviews in my head as I was watching horror flicks that I had no intention of publishing.  That’s when it clicked.  I realized that numbers aren’t what it’s about.  I write because it’s what I do.  It’s how I express myself and celebrate this genre that I care so much about.  It’s how I have a dialogue with all of you awesome people.  Championing the cause of independent horror and getting to see and talk about amazing movies is cause and reward enough.  More than enough.  When you start worrying about your numbers and the popularity of your site above simply expressing your horror love, bad stuff happens.  I’d be willing to bet that’s how this recent plagiarism scandal came about.  You know the one I’m talking about.  Anyway, I had to step away for a moment to realize that I was starting to look at things the wrong way.   I just needed to get back to being me and doing what I do.  That doesn’t mean that I haven’t re-evaluated a few things.  I’m aware that my writing, particularly my reviews, tend to be a lot more in depth than many people are looking for.  I like to really get elbow deep in the guts of a flick and give it a thorough autopsy, and I’m gonna keep doing that.  I do, however, think I should start diversifying a little bit.  That’s where you come in.  

Art by Jeff Maynard

 Yes, you, the Cellmates, have a big role in the rebirth of this blog.  I want this to become a much more interactive site.  Please tell me what you’d like to see.  I wanna know what you wanna read.  Don’t worry, the same old SOC is back to stay, but think of it as a new 2 disc special edition of your favorite exploitation classic.  It’s the flick you remember, just shined up and with some new features.  Maybe I should write more editorial, “my thoughts on the genre” type articles.  Perhaps more focus should be given to horror related music.  I intend for the Atlanta Horror Scene to be a big theme of the show, and blog could reflect that too.  I could start doing more nostalgic posts about the days of horror past.  I’m playing with some ideas, but I need your help.  Please leave comments below or feel free to drop me a line at fromhell13@aol.com.  I’ll throw entrails on the wall, but you gotta let me know what sticks.  Together, we’re gonna use the reanimation of this site as a chance to make Son of Celluloid a bigger, badder, bloodier, and badasser (shut up, it is too a word) place.