Director(s) – William Hellfire (Duck! The Carbine High Massacre, Orgasm Torture in Satan’s Rape Clinic) and Ross Snyder
Starring – Gary Whitson (The Mummy’s Dungeon, Psycho Sisters), Aven Warren (Vampire Brides, Hayride Slaughter), and Clancy McCauley (Witchfinder, Sleepover Massacre)
Release Date – 2020
Rating – 3.5/5
I love a good horror documentary and I love them even more when they focus on other aspects of the genre aside from the pop horror classic of the 80s or VHS collectors. I grew up on horror and I lived through what I call the message board age. A lot of my spare time was spent on different horror forums, especially Upcoming Horror Movies, and over the years I’ve learned what I consider horror common knowledge. However, these tidbits that most horror fans know has still been the subject to so many horror documentary and series.
I’m not knocking these docs but they offer very little knew information to genre fans. The same can be said for the dozen or so documentaries centered around VHS and tape collectors. A few weeks back Vinegar Syndrome posted their newest partner label releases and among them was Mail Order Murder: The Story of W.A.V.E. Productions. I knew nothing about W.A.V.E. Productions but I had seen a few of the films they were associated with. As soon as I could pre-order a copy I quickly snagged it. Glad I did because this is the most fun I’ve had with a documentary in a long time.
**Spoiler Alert** The documentary takes a look at filmmaker and pioneer Gary Whitson who took the Ed Wood approach S.O.V. filmmaking. His love for horror movies inspired him to call out for locals actors and effects artist to make films. Soon he was being commissioned by fans to turn their own visions into films. Along the way he gathered a following and turned some young actresses into recognizable b-movie scream queens. **Spoiler Alert**
This is the type of horror documentary that I want to see. Stop shoving films everyone and their mother has been obsessed with down our throats. We get it, you love movies like Fright Night and Return of the Living but lets focus on other aspects of the genre that most people don’t know about…like W.A.V.E. Productions. Honestly, while Hellfire is at it he might as well put together a documentary on Seduction Cinema. Most of the movie fans and collectors my age started collecting when these films were being released and still crush on Misty Mundae even to this day. Anyway, my point is we don’t need all these documentaries on pop horror films. What we need is docs about companies like Wave, Troma, Full Moon, Alternative Cinema, and so on.
The interviews were informative for the most part but I feel like only a small portion of what it meant to be W.A.V.E. Productions was discussed here. We get some history behind the company, what made Gary decide to make his own films, how it spiraled from S.O.V. horror to horror for hire, the many different scream queens that worked with W.A.V.E., and how the company still has fans today after 3 decades of movie making. I found myself really getting into the interviews featuring the cast and crew of the films. I liked hearing the stories they told, the humor of the behind the scene antics, and how they inspired a whole generation of no-budget filmmakers. It was also cool seeing some fans talk about what it was like to discover a W.A.V.E. flick. With that being said, I would have loved less stories from fans and others that knew of the company for some time and replaced it with more history about the company and a little more look into their filmography.
The topics discussed run in a chronological order which works for someone like me that is knew to this wild world of W.A.V.E. We move from the beginning, to when they shifted from their original films to directing ideas of other people that paid for them, and how their scream queens would go on to make a name for themselves in the indie horror community.
Finally, the editing is very smooth and we transition from topic to topic very naturally. Each topic perfectly unfolds into the next with very little effort and the cut scenes featuring segments from their films is the icing on the cake. As a fan of S.O.V. and no budget horror I’ll be the first to admit that a few scenes sold me on these movies. I was so invested in these that I placed an order for a few of their movies before the film was over.
Overall, Mail Order Murder is the type of documentary the horror community needs. Series like Eli Roth’s History of Horror and Cursed films, along with movies like In Search of Darkness, rarely delivers new information to horror fans. I’m a fan of the movies discussed in them but when I watch a doc I want to see something I didn’t know about. W.A.V.E. Productions is my new obsession and I look forward to the next doc that brings me something obscure from the genre we all love. Please, do yourself a favor and watch this!
