Nose to the grindstone

Most moviegoers became familiar with the term “grindhouse” after Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez released their tribute to the genre in 2007.  But before grindhouse became a household term, local film buff Dan Halsted was already hosting an annual film festival devoted to showcasing these forgotten films.

Halsted began working as a projectionist at age 19, and has always had some involvement in the technical side of moviemaking—whether it was audio-visual work, video production or filmmaking.

An ardent fan of kung fu and horror movies, Halsted has, over the years, connected with other fans with similar interests as he sought out more obscure material.

“There’s just so much stuff that hasn’t been released on video that there’s no way to see other than on film,” Halsted says.

In 2004, Halsted organized the Grindhouse Film Festival at the Hollywood Theater to showcase some of these films.

“There are a lot of movie events and film festivals in Portland, but there wasn’t really anything that catered to my interests,” says Halsted. “And when people show older movies, it’s usually stuff like The Big Lebowski—stuff everyone loves, but that everyone’s already seen. I wanted to show these actors and directors that people have forgotten about, or never knew who they were, that I think are some of the best of all time.”

Until 2007, the Grindhouse Film Festival was an annual weekend-long event, featuring a combination of prints from Halsted’s collection and films from collectors around the world. Recently, Halsted has moved away from the weekend-festival format, and has been screening double features.

“It was getting popular enough that I could show a movie every month, and the festival format was dividing up the audience,” Halsted says of the change in format. “Most people were only going to watch one or two movies—they’d pick one or two and miss the other ones.”

Halsted clearly seeks to create a movie-going experience with his events. He’s responsive to his audiences as well, creating such crowd-pleasing events as the Grindhouse Trailer Festival.

“I was getting all these emails asking about the trailers that I was showing in between the movies, so I decided to just show a bunch and have a separate event,” says Halsted.

Halsted splices old movie trailers together by hand for the Trailer Festival. His commitment to film makes his events even more of a rarity among festivals.

“Video projection provides nowhere near the same quality or experience that film provides. Watching film engrosses an audience, and draws them into the movie in a way that video can’t match,” says Halsted, though he acknowledges that showing film is expensive, and can be “a hassle.”

Halsted transported a 500-pound 16mm projector to show a print of Black Belt Jones, and arranged to have the only known print of Invincible Pole Fighter transported from Hong Kong. 

“Showing Invincible Pole Fighter kind of put me on the map with other collectors,” says Halsted. “Just that I went through that much trouble to show such an obscure movie—it hadn’t been shown since it came out in ’82 or ’83. That was just a blast, the audience went nuts with it.”

On Saturday, Halsted will screen Sergio Martino’s Torso and Pieces, featuring Christopher George.

“It’s the hacksaw/chainsaw double feature,” Halsted explains. “They work really well together, but have really different tones, representing the two types of horror movies that were popular in Europe.”

“Pieces is the other kind of European horror, where, again, the plot wasn’t necessarily the most important thing, but these movies were more concerned with violence, shocking the audience,” Halsted says. “There’s more of a splatter style—like the Fulci movies, like Zombie or Cannibal Holocaust, where that whole subgenre started.”

This commitment to the minutia of various sub-genres is what has helped Halsted draw people into his obsession and, once there, incorporate them into his genuine love for these films.

“When people think of Italian directors, they think of Fellini, Pasolini … these really canonical directors,” says Halsted. “Martino is another great director that doesn’t get much credit.  There’s this really narrow view of film history—that these directors are really good, these are the movies you should watch. But there are so many great movies that for whatever reason have just slipped through the cracks. My goal with [the Grindhouse Festival] is to get those movies out there.”