The American Genre Film Archive is a non-profit started by the Alamo Drafthouse. It is dedicated to preserving 35mm and 16mm genre films by scanning them in 4K and 2K. This is an important service; while we probably don’t have to worry about losing Citizen Kane or Casablanca, who really cares about the survival of our glorious heritage of schlock and gore? AGFA does. AGFA also distributes some of these films with the help of Something Weird Video.
Now AGFA is getting even bigger, adding catalogs from Arrow Films, Severin Films and Vinegar Syndrome to its already large catalog. This means they’re getting movies like Blood and Black Lace, Vampyros Lesbos, and the Dolemite series, just to name a few.
If you’re a fan of genre films, it’s hard not to see this as anything less than a huge deal. Think about it this way. When the aliens dig through the ashes of what used to be our civilization, they will find our canon of great films preserved and pristine, no problem. But if they dig a little deeper, they’ll also find The Human Tornado. And the really cool ones are going to flip the fuck out.