#fandor

‘Basket Case’ – a Cain and Abel sideshow horror on Criterion Channel, Shudder, Arrow, and more

Frank Henenlotter shot Basket Case (1982), his gruesome little cult indie-horror drama of brotherly love, on location in New York to get just the right sleazy 42nd Street atmosphere. Kevin VanHentenryck shuffles through the low budget exercise in grotesquery and gore with a guilty conscience as the “normal” brother sent by his deformed Siamese twin to take revenge on the doctors who separated…

Aww thank you! I have no referral codes, aside from a few token passes to free movies and screeners I get nothing for doing this. It’s a pure labour of love! 

Okay I’ve rotated through all of those and here are my opinions. None are particularly focused on women directors though indie films are usually where you can find more films by women so they’re not bad about them either. 

Mubi: is good, great community but they basically pre-select their movies and you only have a month to watch them. Their model doesn’t personally work for me because I go through slack periods where I don’t watch any movies at all and then I’ll binge. 

Fandor: I’m shocked Fandor is still around, I cancelled my subscription when it looked like they were going to fold. I liked Fandor, decent selection and I believe they had tabs where it was easier to find movies by country and also by women directors. I believe they also had an agreement at one point with the American distributor of Lina Wertmüller’s films which made it super worthwhile to me at the time. I don’t know if that’s still true. Oh and I believe they also had Daughters of the Dust and The Watermelon Woman. 

Criterion: Okay, I don’t understand paying for Criterion because my library has a streaming service where I can watch them for free. Also Criterion isn’t super great for women directors because a lot of the older films made by women sold their distribution rights to other companies. They’re trying to rectify this with their more modern selections but it’s still pretty (white) male dominated. Great movies though.  

I guess if you are more interested in films by women I would recommend Fandor but if you’re interested in the (mostly white mostly western mostly male) canon, and you checked with your library and they don’t have Criterion films, then go with Criterion.

Fandor is dying and I’ll lose my articles there. So enjoy my piece about Star Wars Rebels while it lasts.

REBLOGS APPRECIATED