What do Dungeonmaster, Ghoulies, Creepozoids, TerrorVision, and Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama have in common, other than them being excellently-named ’80s B movies? Answer: They were all made by Empire Pictures.
The company was founded in 1983 by Charles Band, who promised Empire would release “2,000 movies by the year 2000.” Though prolific, Band was ultimately unable to achieve that figure, but there was a time when video stores were full of Empire’s movies, which also included Re-Animator, From Beyond, Troll, and Robot Jox.
The rise and fall of the company is being chronicled in a new documentary called, rather wonderfully, Celluloid Wizards in the Video Wasteland: The Saga of Empire Pictures. The doc is directed by filmmaker Daniel Griffith, who has just launched a kickstarter campaign to complete the project. He has also released a trailer packed with footage from Empire movies, which you can see below.