HORROR BUSINESS is a series of interviews with, and an advertisement for, some guys who call themselves "independent film-makers" when they're feeling mellow, otherwise they use terms like "guerilla", or "subversive". More than anything else, this is a documentary about lost souls, about people who rarely, if ever, understand how far it is that their reach exceeds their grasp.<br /><br />All of these guys are under the spell of a handful of horror classics from the '60's and 70's, and they seek to further develop these films and their concepts. But this is misguided thinking. Films like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD or DAWN OF THE DEAD make pretty complete statements all on their own. Making one or several imitative efforts, however flattering, adds nothing of value to the original, and does not make any meaningful contribution to the genre, or to film-making at all.<br /><br />Secondly, it seems that these unwashed youths, for all of their angry, bitter worshipfulness of these original films, don't really understand the films to begin with. For example, THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE is about far more than some maniacs and some lost teens; it is about the ability of limited, wrongheaded personalities to destroy more developed ones, and the tendency of the devouring mentality, as it appears in its many forms, to consume things of value while contributing nothing in return. For another example, it is only on the surface that NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is about shambling revenants; the soul of the film is far more about the how people react to widespread disaster and the destruction of their status quo by turning on each other. Both of these films ask the viewer to consider to what degree have predatory, merciless tendencies saturated human societies.<br /><br />All of this is apparently lost on the hapless, vaguely aggravated personalities that are the subject of HORROR BUSINESS. They imagine themselves as subversives preaching the gospel of grindhouse horror, when there's nothing subversive about that. Such films as they honor have already been acknowledged to be fine, worthy films by the movie critic community. There are no forces massing up to denounce or attack the original Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE. The fact that there ever were is simply a testament to the shocking nature of the films.<br /><br />It is really only these guys' own paranoia, and their natural status as superfluous, ineffectual people that causes them to frame their perspectives in such "us vs. them" terms. While they may like to think that they have made some dramatic choice and went down some dangerous, subversive path, they haven't turned away from mainstream film-making, because mainstream film-making never wanted them to begin with. They do not see that they have nothing to offer in terms of innovation, because their perspective lacks the stipulation that someone in entertainment, or any kind of story-telling capacity, should have to have anything to offer in the first place. They hold mainstream film-making and filmgoers in contempt for not embracing some horror classics from 30 years ago, and it is lost on them that if these films had been accepted outright and loved universally, they themselves would not be obsessing over them today.<br /><br />If they really wanted to be subversive, they would try to make the most intelligent films they could. They would study endlessly and mine the world for worthy material that would teach people things they didn't know. They would seek to make intellectual films about little known historical events, or scientific concepts. They wouldn't make an endless stream of bad zombie films, whose ultimate purpose is merely to fill out the empty spaces on the new release shelves at Hollywood Video.<br /><br />But these are men who hold to their illusions with a death-grip; one guy still wants to have long rock star hair though he's basically bald on top, which is a metaphor for how these guys avoid facing the truth; that they are not great filmmakers waiting to be discovered, but rather mere obsessives with eroded imaginations. Balding Guy even throws a hissy-fit like a prima donna rock star, except that it is directed at at some fast food guy in a drive-thru window. It is exactly like the Tenacious D. drive-thru skit, but he is actually serious.<br /><br />Warning: while Joe Bob Briggs and Sid Haig are featured in the credits, they are only in the film for a few seconds each.