Mental Health Through Pop Culture

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Time Warp, Volume One: Midnight Madness

Time Warp is a fun documentary that covers some of the best Cult Classics of all time. From the sing along drag queen goodness of Rocky Horror Picture Show, to Blaxploitation greats like Coffy and Foxy Brown, and further still down a road of grotesque with Pink Flamingo; we cover all of the midnight greats in the first installment of this series. It covers a great variety of films from Comedy to Drama to Action and even Horror. It also covers a timespan from as early as the 30s to modern day.

Volume 1 opens with John Waters, Kevin Pollack, Ileana Douglas and Joe Donte discussing what is a Cult Classic. From there, we move on to a large segment on Rocky Horror Picture Show. They praise the film while discussing what makes a cult classic exactly that, a cult classic. Being ahead of its time with large group following and still in theaters today, Rocky Horror is the definition of cult classic, complete with sing-alongs and interactive midnight showings all over the country. Following it with The Big Lebowski, Time Warp moves on into another great and different film that people quote at every turn. This film details the insane story of a white Russian drinking pot head who accidentally becomes a detective. After the first major few films is where the documentary starts to falter. We spend the first 30 minutes or so covering 3 films and then move on to a flash round with film after film spending just a few minutes on each one with a little background. The next film comes up with little time to take in what you just saw on the last movie. After a bit of that, it slows back down with films like Pink Flamingo and Eraserhead, taking the time to talk about various aspects and background information of the movies. Then we go back to another round of mentions and facts of multiple movies and back to a couple more with substance. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the first volume and learned about a few classics I had not seen yet like Freaks or Reefer Madness. However, I think that it would have worked just a touch better going with less films and more detail about them than toss in a bunch to almost bulk up the running time.

All in all it is a great documentary with lots of fun facts. It may even introduce you to some classics you haven’t seen or even heard of in some cases. It is definitely worth a viewing to learn more about some great films and the history of cult classic midnight legends. My only real complaint is that the added sections of movie clips that were almost nothing more than mentioning a title and showing a clip, hurt the pacing and turned what could have been an excellent hour and twenty minute documentary into an almost two hour venture.

If you or someone you know is reading this right now and you are struggling with suicide, depression, addiction, or self-harm - please reach out. Comment, message or tweet to us. Go to victimsandvillains.net/hope for more resources. Call the suicide lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Text "HELP" to 741-741. There is hope & you DO have so much value and worth!

Victims and Villains is written and produced by Josh "Captain Nostalgia" Burkey. Music by Yuriy Bespalov & Beggars. This post was edited by Erica Burky. Time Warp Vol.1 is available now on VOD.

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