Punk Vacation: An Unofficial Vinegar Syndrome Podcast (They Live By Film)

Punk Vacation - An Unofficial Vinegar Syndrome Podcast 

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

We're live! Kurtis Spieler was kind enough to join for our first episode. He is a restoration specialist at Vinegar Syndrome and is a filmmaker himself. Most importantly, a great guy who obviously loves all different types of movies and can switch between Cat-III and Robert Altman without missing a beat.

We covered all 7 of the August announcements, Chinese Torture Chamber Story, They Call Me Macho Woman, and the Ozploitation classic, Body Melt.

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

Episode 2 brings back a prehistoric monster, some prehistoric torture, and some histrionic punks. We find out if Demme will stop making sense, give our blood to the cult of genre cinema, and discover the identity of a true macho woman! No Polish police force can stop us, we're using all Eight Eyes to tackle Vinegar Syndrome's July release slate. I hope you enjoy!

THE Brandon Upson made time to join us for episode 3. Brandon, in addition to being one of the original VS team and co-founder of the archive, currently is an in-house restoration artist and the lead scanning technician. The man can do it all, and his passion for film shines through this entire episode.

We cover the 5 films released over 3 mainline releases: Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf, The Cruel Brittania set which includes Crucible of Terror, Penny Gold, and Craze, plus Lamberto Bava's Delirium! Outside of the mainline titles we also got to hear about the unedited version of Eye for and Eye they released, A large budget Gialli-esque visual feast starring Audrey Hepburn and Omar Sharif in Bloodline, plus the singular and trendsetting Go Fish. Another strong month all around including two very strong Fukasaku movies through one of their partners Film Movement.

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

Episode 4 brings in Justin LaLiberty to help us break down the August releases. This month gives us adults that don’t speak the way humans speak while being hunted by creepy kids, the best example of why women live longer than men ever filmed, and a very bloody bath. We see a father and son martial arts duo for the ages, and Garfield in a whole new light. We see not one but two criminal road trip films that don’t go to plan, and we even have a new segment!

I’m delighted that Celeste de la Cabra has agreed to come in and host a monthly deep-dive into the hardcore titles coming from Mélusine, Distribpix, and all their sister labels. Justin also joins Celeste for the kickoff of the adult part of the podcast. We continue to build Punk Vacation into a community event, please let me know what I can do differently or better, or anything you enjoy and want to hear more. Cheers!

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

Episode 5 truly connects us with the VS community. Jaden Christopher joins to talk about the VS Discord and his journey down into the dark surreal alleys of Vinegar Syndrome horror.

We cover announcements from October 1st and spend time at the end highlighting five horror titles from the catalog that are good for the season.

Spend time as we dance with ghosts, find new roommates, discuss one of the craziest and most interesting CAT-III directors, find a Bond girl in the announcements, take a look into the future as it was predicted in 1987, debate whether or not to take sweets from a stranger, plus two very exciting VSAs and an all-timer from Cinematographe.

Ryan and Jeremy join to cover new merch for the month as well.

The community is growing! Thank you all listening, following on IG, and to everyone who has reached out to say hi online.

VS Discord
https://discord.gg/R8jnrnaW

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

Episode 6 was a great conversation with two humble giants of film history. Armando and Joey joined from Trash Mex Podcast. They are amazing ambassadors of Mexican cinema who spend a lot of time booking screenings and writing and promoting the movies they love.

We introduce Armando and Joey, review the VS films from Mexico, and cover the September releases from the mainline as well as VSA, VSL, and Distribpix.

One thing different, and I hope fun, that we tried was to come up with a double feature of each of the VS releases. The theme of the double feature is a movie from Mexico with a similar theme or plot. For easy reference, here are the double features that were chosen:

Howling II
- Colmillos, el hombro lobo by Rene Cardona III (1993)

Cruel Brittania- Hector Shayne (Multiple movies and TV shows)
- Mujeres de media noche (1990)
- La muerte del chacal (1984)

Eye for an Eye
- Navajeros (1980)
- Pistoleros Famosos (1981)
- El Fiscal de hierra (1989)

Blonde on a Bum Trip
- Los desvergonzados (1962)

I also have to thank Celeste de la Cabra who is now officially embedded as a segment host that pays homage to The Smiths while covering the hardcore titles from VS when they have more.

The community is growing! Thank you all listening, following on IG, and to everyone who has reached out to say hi online.

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

Episode 7 brought back another important member of the Vinegar Syndrome staff. Oscar Becher is the vault manager and archivist and has been on the VS team for about 3 1/2 years.

In addition to going over the November announcements, we talk about the different ways Oscar gets involved in releases, who convinced him to sing for the Cannibal! promo, and get some idea of the size of the actual archive that started Vinegar Syndrome.

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

Episode 8 introduces Punk Vacation to another great content creator and rabid fan, Sam Dunkley. He watches, discusses, and produces reviews on filmbloggersam and Let's Watch Two, and imports way more VS to the UK then he ever intended. We're also lucky enough to have Celeste back to discuss the most elaborate and artistic adult films ever made.

We dance around the possible sensitivities of a Native American slasher, become a tenant in Polanski's vision of immigrants in Paris, decompose into one of the most egregious of taboos, feel forgotten as we unwrap a Mystere, flirt with Obsession, and learn not to take candy from a stranger. 

The Archive line has two titles this month, Weird Science in Montreal and a possessed beeper in a remote vacation villa. After all of this goodness we come to my favorite release of the month. William Castle's ode to puppetry, mimes, and the dark side of the performing arts.

Links for Sam:
Youtube for filmbloggersam- https://www.youtube.com/filmbloggersam
Everything else:
https://www.letswatchtwo.com/

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

Episode 9 introduces Punk Vacation to one of the leading writers of esoteric and outre cinema, Heather Drain.

We get to know Heather's and, in addition to so many titles she has worked on at Vinegar Syndrome, we get to speak about her amazing opportunity to collaborate with Umbrella on the recent Caligula mega-boxset. Heather's passion for all movies shines through, and I hope she continues to get lots of work at Vinegar Syndrome going forward.

In addition to Heather we have a pop-in from Erica Shultz who has two releases she's featured on this month and then end with a pirate themed Merch Mates. Thanks all who have listened so far, and welcome to anyone who's joining for the first time!

Links for Heather:
https://linktree.com/mondoheather

We did it y'all. 10 episodes in and we're still growing solidly with each one. Thank you to everyone who has listened to any of the episodes, and please seek me out if you've listened to all of them so I can thank you personally.

We wouldn't look this good without the amazing art of Adam Danbury (https://www.adamdanbury.com/film). We wouldn't sound this good without the regular segments from Celeste de la Cabra discussing the hardcore titles and Ryan and Jeremy wading through the merch jungle. And a special shoutout to Holly who inspired the convincing Holly segment.

For the final episode of 2024 I thought we would mix it up a little bit and throw a whole ass interview in the middle. I was toying with the idea, but when schedules worked out to record with the Richard Baylor I knew it was meant to be. His interview starts right around the 1 hour mark if that's what you came to hear.

But even before all of that I am very excited that David, or Professor Gascan, was able to join for what I hope is an annual segment. The man watches over 1,000 movies a year and has had an active blog since 2010. His knowledge of movies from every genre shines in this conversation, I'm excited for people to get to here it.

Taking us home was a longer segment where I actually get to sit down with Celeste and talk about the hardcore titles as well as some of the origin of her getting involved in the podcast to begin with.

I'll include some links below, but honestly just a huge thank you to anyone who has spent any time with Punk Vacation. 2025 will continue to have some exciting names from the VS team, some historians, critics, and hopefully some more filmmakers. Cheers!

David's Blog
https://myworldoffilm.blogspot.com/

David's Top 100
https://myworldoffilm.blogspot.com/2023/07/its-come-to-this.html

David's Letterboxd
https://letterboxd.com/wpqx/

Buy Richard's movie
https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/saturns-core/products/our-world-is-drowning-and-going-to-hell-the-underground-films-of-richard-baylor

Celeste's main YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/@celestedelacabra

Celeste's Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/CelestedelaCabra

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

In Episode 11 we meet Sam. That's the only name you need. Like Emanuelle or Madonna, Sam is a force in entertainment and most recently the genre film community. He's toured as a musician, done a good amount of voiceover work, has interviewed some amazing filmmakers in his own work, has been on a growing number of commentaries, has a podcast and a videocast, and is a like-minded personality so I knew I needed to get him on the kickoff 2025. Most of his work is centered through his branding of bandsaboutmovies. I'll link below.

Sam's energy for Vinegar Syndrome is infectious. He loves underseen or underappreciated movies and is a firm believer that every completed movie is a miracle. We talk about the Black Friday releases for VS Mainline and every Sublabel including the April Fools Day surprise.

It's a longer episode, but if you listen to Sam you'll understand why. We wrestle with the why behind the appeal of Vinegar Syndrome, where they are headed as a company, and what draws us to movies in the first place.

Starting on Feb 1 we'll get back to the usual schedule and mid February I hope to have a special porn-themed Valentine's Day episode with a guest I'm very excited about. Thank you for those who continue to listen and please let me know how I can make this better!

https://bandsaboutmovies.com/

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

In Episode 12 we cover the announcements from February 1st. The episode covers two lifetime TV directors that made a memorable splash with their feature films. It also covers an absolute stone cold genre legend who is getting one of his two cannibal films out. Between Cannibal! the Musical and the one this month it is cannibal season at VS.

Outside of the main line we see two Cinematographe releases that are both female directed and written movies about navigating sexual awakenings. And a Jodorowsky-lite director from Mexico getting a stunning release of one of his classic films.

Not to be outdone, the OCN releases this month are stellar. Abel Ferrara, Tsai Ming-liang, Tai Kato, Radu Jude, on and on with movies that would sell out at any arthouse theater.
Ryan and Jeremy are back with a quick hitting merch mates segment, and convincing Holly is back in rotation this month.

Looking forward to getting guests back in the booth on the 15th where we will have a Valentine's special. Thank you for those who continue to listen and please let me know how I can make this better!

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

In Episode 13 we mix it up a little bit and bring the hardcore titles front and center in a 90-minute segment with co-host Celeste de la Cabra and adult film expert, writer, and curator Eli Olsberg. We (but mostly they) cover the porn titles from November and December as well as a handy starter guide to dipping your toes into the Vinegar Syndrome adult film waters.

From there Eli and I cover most of the January releases in depth, and spend longer than we should gushing about what a pleasant surprise Deranged was. It's really good.

The first half of the year is already shaping up nicely with some Vinegar Syndrome employees who are coming on in April and May and some special feature experts lining up in between.

Thank you to anyone who listens to even five minutes of this. It means a lot and please don't be shy to tell me if there's something more / less / different you want to see.

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

In Episode 14 we cover the announcements from March 1st along with one of the absolute legends of critical thinking and special feature work around Italian cinema, Eugenio Ercolani.

Eugenio has established himself within Vinegar Syndrome as an Italian expert and produces the special features for entire releases on several of their recent films. He has four movies that he has helped produce in March so it was perfect timing to have him on to help me go through all of the new releases.

In the episode we cover a wide range of topics from Fernando di Leo to Federico Fellini to the interrelationship between genre and arthouse cinema in Italy. It's a history lesson, a dive into the culture of Italy around the time these movies were produced, and amazing insights from someone who not only studies Italian cinema but lived it and has been around it his entire life.

Mid month we will review the February releases with another one of the key producers from Vinegar Syndrome. It will be a first time guest on Punk Vacation and it is also one of the world leading experts on slashers. Thank you for those who continue to listen and please let me know how I can make this better!

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

In Episode 15 I am joined by Ewan Cant, the Associate Director of content, acquisition, and licensing at Vinegar Syndrome. We discuss the underrated February releases and spend a good amount of time talking about Ewan's love for unique slashers.

Before working at VS, Ewan worked at Arrow in a similar role. He is the producer behind iconic releases throughout his whole career, and at VS recently has put out Iced, Blood Tracks, Ghost Dance, and Mother's Day.

Coming up next we see the return of our very first guest, the manager of media and special features at Vinegar Syndrome.

Thank you for those who continue to listen and please let me know how I can make this better!

Finding the joy in unfettered creativity. A podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies of any budget, from anywhere, and during any time.

In Episode 16 I am joined by Kurtis Spieler, restoration specialist at Vinegar Syndrome. We discuss the April titles, Vinegar Syndrome's 500th release, and get a glimpse into how many hours are put into an excellent restoration.

Celeste de la Cabra is also back to discuss the hardcore titles in her recurring segment. If timing works out we'll be lucky enough to have her twice this month so fingers crossed.

Coming up next I hope we're able to secure time with a gooey, splooshy director that helmed one of the recent controversial VSP releases.

Thank you for those who continue to listen and please let me know how I can make this better!