Exhumed Films: the Philadelphia fiends bringing exploitation cinema back from the dead
We’re living in an age doomed by blockbusters and clinical multiplex movie theatres, all homogenised and lacking in character and community (but certainly not lacking in overpriced snacks), so, if you’re remotely interested in cinema that goes a little deeper than the mainstream, it’s essential now more than ever to seek out underground and alternative film communities.
DIY film clubs and local indie theatres screening rare gems or indie movies that won’t get screened in your local Cineworld keep interesting cinema experiences alive, and while it was once easy for fans of horror and exploitation B-movies to catch these sorts of strange, gory, transgressive cinema on the big screen through the prominence of grindhouse theatres, drive-ins, double-bills, and midnight movie screenings, this all but disappeared once the home video market rolled around in the 1980s.
But what horror fan doesn’t crave the experience of watching a grainy big-screen projection of a ‘70s classic, terrible fake blood and all? Since the 1990s, Exhumed Films has been making sure that the communal aspect of cinema-going and the ability to watch B-movies in a movie theatre hasn’t become an extinct practice.
Starting out in Harwan Theatre in New Jersey by a small group of friends in 1997, the group were inspired by the punk proceedings of The Cabbage Collective, which was run by future Exhumed member Joseph A Gervasi.
He went from putting on raucous punk gigs at the Harwan to putting on films, and with a double bill of Lucio Fulci’s Zombie and The Gates of Hell acting as the group’s first screening, they were pleased to see a large number of people show up. Clearly, if events like these are regularly put on, encouraging a sense of community and friendship among like-minded individuals with a taste for cinema that exists outside of the Hollywood mainstream, people will come to them.
People crave that sense of belonging, of immersing themselves in an experience entirely dedicated to something like a gloriously cheap-looking yet fabulous B-movie. These are the kinds of films that practically beg to be watched on the big screen alongside others, because they’re just not as fun if you watch them at home alone.
It’s rare that you get to see movies on the big screen that aren’t new releases, so it’s groups like Exhumed who are keeping their legacies alive, in a way. The group even advertise themselves as bringing ‘dead things back to life’. Despite their formation occurring almost 30 years ago, they still regularly put on events across different venues, mainly in Philadelphia.
When Exhumed’s status began to grow, it wasn’t long before they hosted special events featuring celebrity guests, including The Evil Dead’s own Bruce Campbell. If you seek them out, I can guarantee that you’ll find groups like this fairly local to you, although not every city is home to a group as dedicated as Exhumed to bringing B-movies back to the big screen in old-school double bills, screened on film, no less.
There’s an inherently punk relationship between these kinds of B-movies, which are so innately rebellious in their rejection of convention, and DIY screenings, the perfect match in bringing people together in an active rebellion against shiny Hollywood vapidness.
