Mad Movies

Last updated
Mad Movies
Mad Movies magazine logo.jpg
EditorFausto Fasulo
Categories Film
Frequency11 issues a year
Founded1972
CompanyCustom Publishing
CountryFrance
Based in Paris, France
LanguageFrench
Website mad-movies.com
ISSN 0338-6791

Mad Movies is a French magazine created in 1972 by Jean-Pierre Putters, dedicated to fantastic and science-fiction cinema. [1]

Contents

History

Mad Movies started as a fanzine and put out 21 issues between 1972 and 1981. [1]

In 1979, Putters opened Movies 2000, a film bookstore that became a hotspot for Paris' horror fandom and fanzine trading community. [2]

From number 22 (February 1982), Mad Movies became a quarterly newsstand publication. [1] That first widely distributed issue featured a cover story about Italian director Lucio Fulci, which coined the term "Poet of the Macabre" (French : Poête du macabre), an Edgar Allan Poe-inspired nickname that has become one of the director's signatures. [3] [4]

The magazine became bimonthly in 1984. [5] Between 1986 and 2001, it was published alternately with a spinoff called Impact. [5] In 2001, following the sale of both magazines by Putters, new ownership merged Impact into Mad Movies, the latter thus becoming a monthly title. [5]

Spinoffs

Impact

Impact was a bimonthly spinoff of Mad Movies, with a focus on action films and the more action-oriented fantastic films. Its first run lasted from January 1986 to January 2001. [6]

The title was reintroduced in January 2009, [6] first as a booklet bundled monthly with Mad Movies, [7] then as a standalone bimonthly akin to its original incarnation. [8] It was discontinued again after the October 2011 issue. [8] Following Impact's demise, some Mad Movies special issues devoted to the action genre have been branded as Collection Impact. [9]

Mad Asia

The magazine published another bimonthly spinoff dedicated to Asian cinema, called Mad Asia, which ran between 2005 and 2007. [10]

Metaluna

Following his departure from Mad Movies, Jean-Pierre Putters co-founded Metaluna. The Metaluna brand, which took its name from a fictional planet in This Island Earth , encompassed a short-lived magazine dedicated to b-movies, [11] a film production house active between 2007 and 2017, [12] as well as a store (which replaced Movies 2000). [2]
Among Metaluna's productions was Among The Living [13] from directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, the latter a former Mad Movies writer. [14] As of 2021, the store still exists under different ownership. [15]

Involvement with film festivals

In the 1980s, Mad Movies organized an 8mm film festival, held at various Parisian theaters. [16]
Between 2003 and 2013, the magazine sponsored a special Mad Movies prize at the Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival. At its inception, it was part of the festival's Asian cinema competition. Later worldwide films became eligible. [17]
Mad Movies has been a founding partner of the Paris International Fantastic Film Festival (PIFFF), established in 2011. [18]

See also

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References

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  10. "Notice catalographique : Mad Asia". cineressources.net. La Cinémathèque française. Retrieved September 3, 2021.
  11. "Dossier Les survivants de l'infini". Metaluna. No. 1. Condat-sur Vienne: Cinefil du temps. First Quarter 2007.
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