Mark Johnston: The Mr. Skin Interview

First off, where the hell do you find these movies?
Ah yes, the question on everyone's lips. Needless to say it wouldn't be in my best interests to answer this one too specifically, so I'll go with my standard answer: "All over." I know that sounds flippant, but it's also true. I spend a great deal of time--and a ridiculous amount of money--buying and trading for this stuff with people and companies all over the world.

What was the first nude scene you ever saw?
A brief but disturbing flash of my mom's beav as she was dashing from the bedroom to the bathroom. Oh, you mean, like, televised? Probably a pair of boobies on Monty Python's Flying Circus back during its original PBS run.

Incest . . . I like it. But what was the single BEST nude scene you ever saw?
A brief but disturbing . . . Uh, never mind. Nude scenes all kind of run together for me (there goes my job at Mr. Skin!) but the most influential sexy movie that I saw as a kid was Kitten with a Whip starring Ann-Margret. I caught that on local TV one afternoon and sat there like a deer caught in headlights through the whole thing. Man, what a wonderfully sleazy flick that is. Plus it's got one of my all-time favorite lines: "Open up, Doc. I'm bleedin' booze!"

Ouch! A lot of the gems on your site once graced the cinematic cesspools of 42nd Street in New York City. Tell me, did you ever get to visit the Deuce in its heyday, or did you just have to settle for second-hand recollections in Gore Gazette and Sleazoid Express like I did?
I did get a chance to visit it briefly during its last dying days. Most of the theatres had already been boarded up or torn down, but Show World and a couple of other joints were still limping along. Kinda sad, but keep in mind there was an earlier generation that mourned the passing of a completely different 42nd Street before the grindhouses had their day.

You make a good point, but no one I know is pining away for the return of Frank Sinatra and off-Broadway plays. But turning away from sleaze and to the milder but no less bizarre world of the boob tube, I have to ask: You release a lot of truly incredible TV movies from the '70s and '80s like Cotton Candy, Bates Motel, and Stoned. Do you think we'll ever see the TV movie make a comeback?
I hate making predictions like this because I'm inevitably proven wrong. Years ago, when Hong Kong movies were first catching on a buddy of mine asked me if I thought they'd ever attain wider popularity, and I said absolutely not, citing excessive violence, disjointed plotlines, the lack of Anglo faces, and most of all subtitles as reasons. The very next week there was a week-long Asian film festival at one of the theatres in town (I lived in Arizona then).

But back to the question: If you mean network TV movies along the lines of the titles you just mentioned then no, I can't see it. That was long ago and far away during a time when you had maybe a half dozen stations to choose from on a given evening. There's still plenty (well, maybe plenty's too strong a word) of brilliant content on television, but the majority of it is on cable and takes the form of series. Stuff like The Wire, Dead Like Me, and Entourage all hit the mark far more often than not, which, come to think of it, is as it should be considering how much it costs to have this stuff piped into our homes every week.

Don't forget The L Word. My Lord! We take nudity for granted here in the Land of the Free, but are there any countries that absolutely never produce films with nudity? I used to think India was one of those until I saw Love and Kill.
I can't say that I know for sure. But my best guess would be countries whose names end in "an". Countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran . . .

What countries produce the best and the worst (however you want to define those terms) sex movies?
Best: America in the '60s and '70s, running neck and neck (hehe) with France during the same era.

Worst: No such animal. "Worst sex movie" would necessitate there being such a thing as a "bad sex movie", which would imply that there's such a thing as "bad sex" and, as everyone knows, sex is like pizza: even when it's bad it's still pretty good.

And sometimes when it's bad, it's REALLY good! Do you ever travel to obtain rare prints or are you pretty much stationary down there in West Virginia?
"Down there"? Save that shit for Kentucky, Tennessee, and the like, brutha. In case you hadn't heard, West Virginia fought for the North in the Civil War. As for me being "pretty much stationary," do you mean am I like a shut-in or on home confinement or something? Thankfully, no. My wife and I travel quite a bit but it's primarily for pleasure. By the time I get out of here I'm usually so burnt out on non-stop movie mania that I don't even want to look at a DVD or videotape for at least a couple of days.

I can see that. You put out some pretty controversial stuff. Have you ever gotten any complaints?
I had one guy a few years back write and ask that I not send him any more catalogs because, and I quote, "I'm into Jesus now, not movies." But other than that, no.

Frankly, I don't consider the stuff I offer to be all that controversial. But then, I'm a pretty open-minded, tolerant kind of guy. You have to understand though, I'm forty-three years old. I came of age not only in another era but on what might as well have been a different planet. The watch words of the day when I was a lad were "If it feels good, do it" not "Just say no." Whole different ball game.

I know, that's right! Speaking of feeling good and doing it, let's talk about availability. A lot of previously impossible-to-find stuff is being released by companies like Anchor Bay and Blue Underground in high-quality DVD format. How does that grab you? Do you welcome the competition or what?
Most of the stuff they're releasing wasn't "impossible" to find, unless the only places you were looking were Best Buy and WalMart. But they are releasing these titles in much nicer quality than what was available before and at very reasonable prices, both of which grab me just fine. Companies like Anchor Bay and Blue Underground aren't my competitors, and I'd be suffering from delusions of grandeur if I thought that they were. We operate on different planes entirely. Although I'll admit there's some occasional crossover.

Bill Lustig of Blue Underground has gone on record as saying that he goes through the bootleg catalogs and browses the dealer tables at conventions looking for interesting titles. And I recently supplied Anchor Bay with an alternate title sequence as one of their extras for their Turkey Shoot DVD release.

Basically I'm a fan first, and I just want to see the movies I enjoy presented in the best quality possible, so more power to whoever's able to make that happen. Sometimes I see my role as film "historian" or "archaeologist" or whatever overblown title you want to slap onto it as nothing more than finding these obscurities then metaphorically doing CPR on 'em and keeping them alive until the paramedics get there.

How much of your time is spent watching movies?
Not nearly as much as used to be or as I'd like. One of the ironies of what I do is that the more successful I get at it, the more time I spend filling orders, answering emails, working on the website, blah, blah, blah, and the less time I have to do what's the most fun: watching and reviewing ("reviewing" isn't really the right word as it implies criticism, what I do is more in the role of advocate than critic) weird, obscure, and offbeat movies.

Well, here's a reviewing question for you: Were you as mad as I was when you saw that the Friday the 13th box set contained the edited American editions of the films?
Considering that I didn't know that there was a Friday the 13th box set, much less that it contained the edited American editions, I'd have to say no, probably not.

If I'm a typical American moviegoer who's never been exposed to anything weirder than Tim Burton and I want to get my mind blown out the back of my fucking head, where should I start?
The gun shop? Oh, you mean movie recommendations? Okay, try these on for size: Singapore Sling, The Turkish Star Wars, Darktown Strutters, The Telephone Book, The Boxer's Omen, Mister Freedom, International Guerillas, Bald-Headed Betty, Gimme Gimme Octupus, and If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do.All of which, I'm happy to report, are available at my website at www.RevengeIsMyDestiny.com. Thanks for your time!

Thank you, Mark Johnston. You're a national treasure.