Something's Happening with Something Weird

What it is ain't exactly clear, however. Back on December 2, PopMatters published "So Long, Something Weird," which made it sound like locally based exploitation/sexploitation distributor Something Weird Video was going out of business.

It’s time to call out the carnal color guard and get the bugler to blow a rather trashy and tawdry Taps. After nearly seven years celebrating the best of exploitation, Something Weird Video has parted ways with chief home theater distributor Image Entertainment. It was a split fans long felt was coming. Where once a regular schedule of releases would offer between 24 and 36 titles in a year, 2007 saw five. Even more telling, directors the Seattle based company used to champion - Joe Sarno, Doris Wishman - were suddenly finding new homes at places like Seduction Cinema. To drag out the “whore-y” old cliché, a change was definitely in the wind. To continue the truisms, it marks the end of an era.

Play taps? Looks like this is the end -- or is it? Buried in the second-to-last paragraph is this caveat: "this could be a very premature burial, but it’s still sad to see the company that made the grindhouse a post-millennial institution walking away from the standard business pattern."

Something Weird's website doesn't say anything about the news. And Sean, a commenter on Nerve.com's Screengrab says that that "i don't think they're dead. my understanding is that they're going back to DVDRs. doing straight-up DVDs really cut back on their releases, while DVDRs allowed them to get the schlock out the door ASAP."

And, indeed, you can order Buxom Beautease (featuring Blaze Starr! Hubba hubba!) on VCR or DVD-R, but not DVD. So is this good news for Something Weird, or are they slowly circling the drain, unable to reach the longest tail that's been dangled for them to grab hold of?