Some readers have been asking what I mean by my frequently used term “Psychotronic movies”. It’s a nice reminder that not everyone is as immersed as people like me are in Bad and Weird Movie Culture.
Psychotronic Video started in 1980 as a fanzine published and written by Cleveland record store employee Michael Weldon, who wrote film criticism on the side. The publication dealt with the kind of movies that seldom got mainstream attention back then, like extreme horror, exploitation films, bloody action movies, superannuated black & white sci-fi and monster flicks, and so on.
It was perfect timing as video stores increased in number nearly every year of the 1980s, so the reviews, articles and interviews in Psychotronic Video appealed to more and more readers since they could now rent those films from their local video stores. Movies formerly seen only by going to arthouse theaters or rundown Grindhouse theaters or fringe Drive-Ins were now available to watch in the safety of one’s own home.
Bad and weird movie fandom grew in tandem with Psychotronic Video to the point where Michael Weldon began a companion service of highlighting old, weird movies being shown on late-night tv in one’s area. In 1983 he published The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, a collection of reviews of … well, Psychotronic movies.
That volume stood alongside other works like the Medved Brothers’ Golden Turkey books and ReSearch’s publication Incredibly Strange Films. And yes, I was among the movie geeks buying all of them. Quentin Tarentino and others praised The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, plus it was mentioned in the King Dinosaur episode of MST3K in 1990.
In 1996, Weldon came out with a sequel, The Psychotronic Video Guide, jam-packed with even more Psychotronic movies which had hit home video as that explosion continued. Michael Weldon published his magazine until 2006, writing most of the material himself.
Over the decades the Bad Movie and Movie Host subcultures have thrived and expanded ad infinitum. Sorry to folks who didn’t know what I meant by “Psychotronic” films. If you use a term so often for so long it just seems like everybody knows what is meant.
Balladeer's Blog 
Pingback: PSYCHOTRONIC: MICHAEL WELDON’S LEGACY – El Noticiero de Alvarez Galloso
Logged, thank you sir!
Thanks for this explanation of psychotronic movies! Hopefully you’ll mention them again sometime; they appeal to me a lot, actually! “The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film” sounds like a fascinating read. 😊🌸
Glad to do it! I sure will mention them again. Yeah, that book was a necessity in the pre-internet years. Quentin Tarantino even called it “The most dog-eared book in my possession.”