Frightfest 2024: ‘Boutique: To Preserve and Collect’ Review
Featuring: Chris Alexander, Bill Allen, Oscar Becher, David Blyth, Lizzie Borden, Luis Ceriz, Bradley Creanzo, Brian Damude | Directed by Ryan Levey
Throughout its 75-minute run time, Ryan Levey’s documentary takes his audience on a whistle-stop tour of how horror movies have contributed to helping shape the cinematic landscape.
Boutique: To Preserve and Collect is a celebration of cinema and its key players, including the companies, critics, and connoisseurs who have had varying degrees of influence and impact on keeping film alive. For any film buff, but particularly the geeks and nerds addicted to dissecting film and cinema, watching and re-watching until they become subject matter experts!
As the name implies, the film is about a particular cultural quirk of collecting, preserving, and restoring media and will certainly enrapt the senses. As one might expect, Boutique: To Preserve and Collect focuses on the recollections and stories of industry professionals, filmmakers, and movie aficionados who recant their earliest memories of the films that ignited their passion to pursue this art form as a career.
Much care went into writing and directing this project as it serves as a film history lecture showcasing how horror adapted into the mainstream to its fragmentation of niche sub-genres within horror. It was particularly interesting to learn how society’s views have changed, shifting from viewing exploitative horror, grindhouse horror, and body horror as a form of taboo to a celebrated cathartic cinema.
The overarching message that Boutique: To Preserve and Collect sends is that preserving the past is vital for ensuring the future. Having an archival repository at one’s fingertips will surely serve as a resource for future leaders and filmmakers who can draw down on a long and storied history of horror cinema and the quirky culture of horror fanatics.
It is sincerely hoped that resources such as Boutique: To Preserve and Collect will be relied upon as a base for future contributions.
**** 4/5
Boutique: To Preserve and Collect screened as part of this year’s Frightfest London.
