Help keep Sinister Cinema going

In a weird way Sinister Cinema is directly responsible for Unseen Films. That may sound like hyperbole but it is to some degree true. Because Greg Luce and his company made a wide variety of off the beaten track films available to my deranged mind I fell in love with all sorts of films I might never have seen.

Sinister is a direct mail company specializing in genre films (horror, science fiction, mystery, western films). They have been responsible for putting out the best quality prints of many of the low budget films that used to fill the late night slots on TV. They are largely responsible for making sure that many classic and not so classic B films could be seen in the best way possible.

I have been dealing with Sinister probably since they started some 33 years ago. I used to give my mom the list of films and she’d order them. Once I got my own credit card I started to do the ordering for myself. The result is that a large portion of the thousand titles in my film collection are from the company. If you’ve been reading Unseen for any amount of time you’ve read reviews of dozens of films that I saw because of Sinister.

Sinister is perhaps my most favorite place to get movies anywhere in the world.

And it was with a touch of sadness that I read in the current catalog that after a multi-decade run Sinister may be closing up shop. The market is changing, and the audience is shifting (or in some cases such as westerns simply dying off.) It was a realization that hit me later than many other Sinister customers because when the catalog came during the Tribeca madness and I didn’t read it until yesterday- but now that I have I want to cry and scream “no please don’t go!” Of course that won’t happen, but I’d like to delay it as long as possible.

In the hope that I can help prevent Sinister from going away I’d like to ask that you all go to the site and buy something- or many things (They are running their killer customer appreciation sale which will get you tons of stuff cheaply).

Why should you buy stuff from Sinister? A couple of reasons…

First if you take the time to go through their catalog you are going to find films you won’t find anywhere else. Seriously Sinister has hundreds of titles you won’t find anywhere else. Many films like the Soviet scifi films ROBOTS OF RIPLEY and COMIC VOYAGE are only available from them with English subtitles.

Second the prints Luce and his crew put out are more often than not the best you can find. They search out the most complete prints I can find. I can attest to this since in dealing with Sinister for the last 3 decades for thousands of films I’ve only found one print that was shorter than another. You cannot find better copies of the films they offer.

Please do yourself a favor- go to the Sinister site and look around- really look around. If you look around I know you are going to find films you’ll want to see. Trust me.

Please go look and go buy and help keep Sinister Cinema going for another 33 years. Please help me make it impossible for Greg Luce to retire.

Thank you.