Local Boy Makes Good.....then makes cuts.....

Garo Nigoghossian did everything right. He raised the money, produced directed and acted in an intense ultra violent homage to 1970's drive in exploitation flicks, he fought with his DP, hired & fired, held out for excellence, and made it as gruesome as his vision demanded. And that was, the story of "Dangerous People" (2016) Now Amazon Video-On-Demand wants artists like Garo to cut out the gruesomeness and naughty bits and take it down a peg or three from a potentially completely necessary "Hard-R" rating. Mind you they don't demand this of Sony or Columbia or any of the outfits with serious cashola behind them, but they do have an entirely arbitrary and artificial hierarchy for filmmakers and content that can't push back. Alas Garo, a true friend of the movies in every way can't push back, lacking access to big name screen talent and studio backing he has to opt for the traditional allies of exploitation filmmaking intensity and gore...just the things that Amazon VOD doesn't want competing with a menu suffused with hopeless remakes of Japanese horror films and literally thousands of dubious-ass zombie flicks. I think this is wrong, no one is asking Rob Zombie or George Romero to remove the viscera from their respective films, why should Garo? His film is, make no mistake pretty intense and gruesome, but it's supposed to be!!! Just as you his audience are supposed to draw a free and fair opinion about "Dangerous People" unfiltered by Amazon VOD's entirely corporately driven biases. Movie going as an experience is changing, I suspect the days of movie houses may be numbered. Oh they won't vanish any more than live theatre vanished when Chaplin started twirling his cane, but the movie house is no longer going to be the prime money maker for movies in general distributions. features like "Dangerous People" face long odds, with little hope of cracking legit movie house distribution beyond the inconstant festival circuit. Various iterations of VOD are the wave of the future, and those platforms should be administered fairly and without any double standards. Right now Amazon VOD isn't being a good corporate citizen...I favor the democratic approach insofar as the audience should be allowed to decide a film's worth in the classic fashion, no cuts, no biases no chicanery. Anyway Garo has broke new ground here in the exploitation department, I won't say how, that would be sinister spoilage, but it is pretty awesomely gruesome which is exactly how it should be. and for that alone he deserves praise as an artist, not this sort of double dealing.