Horror Business (2005): Not What You’d Hope For

Uninteresting documentary with some unsavory filmmakers.

This documentary kept popping up on my recommendations for Netflix, which is why I added it to my queue probably a year ago. Well, it finally snaked its way up the ranks and ended up in my mailbox a couple days ago.

Promising interviews with H.G. Lewis, Sid Haig, and Lloyd Kauffman, I thought this could be pretty interesting. I was wrong. The aforementioned names are only in the film a couple of minutes total. It appears as though the filmmakers happened to come across them at a convention and asked them to talk on camera for a bit; they don’t look like planned interviews. Instead, the main source of material comes from some very independent filmmakers you’ve probably never heard of, making crude movies on Mini-DV camcorders. They reflect on doing drugs, violence as a means of expression, and how they don’t fit inside the mainstream…how society is so repressed…how Americans live in a culture of fear…blah blah blah blah.


I did enjoy some of the musings of Mark Borchardt (the loveable subject of American Movie). His passion and unfettered hope for a future in the horror industry is bittersweet. He doesn’t care whether he is making studio films or independent films; he just wants to make movies. His desperation makes him so easy to follow and indeed, the documentary could have spent more time with him. However, doing so could lead to a carbon copy of American Movie (which I highly recommend for anyone that hasn’t seen it).

There are some interesting moments from behind-the-scenes of Zombie Honeymoon, which I still need to see regretfully. Yet, whenever something begins to get me intrigued, it is not developed and we never get to the meat of anything.

Although I know that this documentary is made with love for the horror film, it just doesn’t have any real substance to it. A documentary need not have big names in it to be successful. What it does need is a purpose and a clear story to follow; this had no such thing.