Blood, Boobs and Beast

Scouring the program schedule for the upcoming 2007 Maryland Film Festival (May 3-6), I made my picks and Blood, Boobs and Beast is at the top of my list. For one thing, it's got local connections, being a documentary about B-movie horror director and Perry Hall-native Don Dohler (who passed away last December at age 60), it's made by a MICA film grad (John Paul Kinhart), and it even features my pal, former City Paper editor and perpetual Marc Bolan lookalike Michael Yockel on camera commenting on Dohler. And who better to comment? After all, Yockel wrote the definitive profile of Dohler and his work in a beautifully-illustrated front cover story for the City Paper four years ago ("Fast, Cheap & Out of This World," April 23, 2003). The credits also list MFF programmer honcho Skizz Cyzyk as an interviewee, so that will be interesting as well.

I really don't know much about Don Dohler beyond the basics. He was the creator/editor of Cinemagic magazine, which he later sold to the Starlog Group. He also created and edited the magazines Amazing Cinema and Movie Club. He later edited Baltimore's Times-Herald newspaper. His son Greg is a talented photographer and all-around nice guy. Beyond that, I know not, so I'm looking forward to seeing the documentary and learning all I can about a film buff who tried to make his passions come true by creating his own horror flicks.

Word has it that the Maryland Film Festival will also be screening two of Dohler's films in the Filmmaker's Tent in the parking lot across the street from the Charles Theatre.

From what I could find out, Washington, DC-based filmmaker John Paul Kinhart started out as a painter at the Maryland Institute College of Art, but developed an interest in documentary filmmaking during his junior year. His films Non-Player Character (Best Documentary and Audience Pick Award at the Dusk Till Dawn Film Festival in Texas) and Futonmaker have been shown at several film festivals throughout the United States and he even made a documentary about Baltimore's CAmm Slam 48-hour film project. Kinhart currently runs Video Kitchen, a video and film production company. Here's his bio from that site.

Blood, Boobs and Beast's title is, of course, a reference to movie critic Joe Bob Briggs' three-fold quality standards for watching drive-in movies, a standard Joe Bob concocted after consulting with exploitation master Roger Corman. In an interview with Mediabistro.com, Briggs (the alter ego of John Bloom), recalled "I had a conversation with Roger Corman, and asked him what elements he put in all of his movies, and I've refined that into my formula for movies - it has to have the three Bs: Blood, Breasts, and Beasts. And that became the rating system, you had to have all those elements to get four stars."

Sounds reasonable to me.

Related Links:

Blood, Boobs and Beast (Official Website)

Cinema Crazed Review of BBB

Twitch Review of BBB

Timewarp Films (Don Dohler Website)

Times-Herald Obit

Blood, Boobs and Beast Trailer

Fast, Cheap & Out of This World (Michael Yockel, City Paper, 4/23/03)

Don Dohler (Wikipedia)