Tommy Turner

In the years before Ronald Reagan took office, Manhattan was in ruins. But true art has never come from comfort, and it was precisely those dire circumstances that inspired artists like Jim Jarmusch, Lizzy Borden, and Amos Poe to produce some of their best works. Taking their cues from punk rock and new wave music, these young maverick filmmakers confronted viewers with a stark reality that stood in powerful contrast to the escapist product being churned out by Hollywood.

Cinema of Transgression pioneers and participants (Lydia Lunch, Lung Leg, Nick Zedd, etc.) perform a series of acts as they submit to director Richard Kern's camera. Originally created for DTNY acid parties; Submit to Me was eventually edited down to 10 minutes and given an accompanying score.

Oddballs dancing, leering at camera, guy shaving a nontraditional part of his body and man ripping his own throat out, woman stabbing herself to death.

Loosely based on an infamous 1984 Long Island murder case involving Satan-worshiping, teenage drug freaks (Knights of the Black Circle), David Wojnarowicz and Tommy Turner’s Where Evil Dwells is a low-budget D.I.Y. movie that walks the jagged lines between splatter flick, experimental film and transgressive art. The original footage was destroyed in a fire and the only footage that survived is this 28 minute preview that was put together for the Downtown New York Film Festival in 1985.

“I Hate You Now” is about when you’re in a relationship, and the person you’re in a relationship with starts doing everything you do. So in the film the guy has a burned up face, and his girlfriend burns her face so she can be like him. — Richard Kern

In the unsettling, absurdist SIMONLAND, a grotesque, televangelist-style demagogue leads his studio audience and isolated viewers through a psychotic game of Simon Says with twisted results.

A series of short films by Richard Kern: Stray Dogs, Woman At The Wheel, Thrust In Me, & I Hate You Now.

The story of Ricky Kasso, an American teenager who murdered his friend, Gary Lauwers, in an alleged "Satanic sacrifice" during the summer of 1984.

A woman takes each of her boyfriends - one poor and one rich- for a drive in her new car. Each argues with her and insists on taking the wheel. She beats one of them up, before crashing into a group of youths and, finally, a wall.

After a vengeful sorceress is tortured and killed by a corrupt industrialist looking to harness the spectral powers of Red Spirit Lake, her niece arrives in snow covered Angel Falls to settle her aunt's estate.

A stark adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s short story A Good Man Is Hard To Find.

A gang of leather-clad, powerful women take over a traditionally male domain, and hairspray, eyeliner, and bare flesh are on full display in Beth B’s music video for the Arthur Baker–produced club hit from synthpop band Dominatrix. Banned at the time of release, it was acquired by The Museum of Modern Art.

This DVD features 13 provocative short films by Richard Kern. Color & B&W film shorts with Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins and more. Includes Death Valley 69 , The Right Side Of My Brain, You Killed Me First, The Bitches, The Sewing Circle, X is Y, Fingered, Horoscope, Submit to Me Now, My Nightmare, Manhattan Loves Suicides, Submit to Me, and Evil Cameraman. Music from Sonic Youth, Cop Shoot Cop, J.G. Thirwell, Butthole Surfers.

Loosely based on an infamous 1984 Long Island murder case involving Satan-worshiping, teenage drug freaks (Knights of the Black Circle), David Wojnarowicz and Tommy Turner’s Where Evil Dwells is a low-budget D.I.Y. movie that walks the jagged lines between splatter flick, experimental film and transgressive art. The original footage was destroyed in a fire and the only footage that survived is this 28 minute preview that was put together for the Downtown New York Film Festival in 1985.

Loosely based on an infamous 1984 Long Island murder case involving Satan-worshiping, teenage drug freaks (Knights of the Black Circle), David Wojnarowicz and Tommy Turner’s Where Evil Dwells is a low-budget D.I.Y. movie that walks the jagged lines between splatter flick, experimental film and transgressive art. The original footage was destroyed in a fire and the only footage that survived is this 28 minute preview that was put together for the Downtown New York Film Festival in 1985.

Loosely based on an infamous 1984 Long Island murder case involving Satan-worshiping, teenage drug freaks (Knights of the Black Circle), David Wojnarowicz and Tommy Turner’s Where Evil Dwells is a low-budget D.I.Y. movie that walks the jagged lines between splatter flick, experimental film and transgressive art. The original footage was destroyed in a fire and the only footage that survived is this 28 minute preview that was put together for the Downtown New York Film Festival in 1985.

In the unsettling, absurdist SIMONLAND, a grotesque, televangelist-style demagogue leads his studio audience and isolated viewers through a psychotic game of Simon Says with twisted results.

A no-holds-barred portrait of addiction, RAT TRAP is an unflinching portrayal of a junkie injecting heroin cut with footage of (already expired) rodents being tortured and maimed, all underscored by a fiery guitar rock solo, painting a grim picture of numbing daily grind, dependency, and domestic urban squalor.