B-Deviled

At long last, Doc Freex, one of the Grand Masters of the B-Movies Cabal, has returned. With the happy masthead "Face It--We Love Crap," Freex's Bad Movie Report was one of the first b-movie review websites I bumbled across nearly a decade ago, and even though the updates more or less ceased two years ago, it has remained my most-read one. Freex tackles a lot of the low-grade horror, science fiction, and sexploitation flicks that graced the grindhouses and drive-ins of the 1960s and 1970s--tubs of buttered junk he grew up watching and now returns to with an older, more cynical eye. Even though many of these movies simply aren't my thing, Freex's analyses are both intelligent and hilarious--simply good reads by themselves. In addition, Freex has experienced the other side of cinematic "art," writing his own b-movie, a little gore flick called Forever Evil, and he chronicles the tortured making of that opus at the Report. I finally got to meet the Doc at this past year's B-Fest 24-hour marathon in Chicago, and his grand appearance, complete with cane and salt-and-pepper Orson Welles beard, matches his reputation in the online b-freak community. After I painfully endured all 14 features and various tortured shorts, Freex greeted my bed-dragged mug with a proud smile and intoned in his best Sage, "Now, you are a Man."

Thanks, Doc, and welcome back.