About

Film Threat’s mission is to champion up and coming indie filmmakers while speaking truth to the entertainment industry…

Film Threat began as a xeroxed fanzine started by Chris Gore and Andre Seewood in 1985. Only 500 copies of the first issue were printed and then distributed on the campus of Wayne State University on February 6th, 1985. It was on that campus that Gore and Seewood earned a reputation as disruptors by playing pranks on the film department and even going so far as to fake Gore’s death to promote a film screening. Seewood left after a year and Gore continued to grow the magazine beyond its xeroxed roots into a fully printed magazine.

Chris Gore moved the magazine to Los Angeles in 1989 and opened an office at the Cherokee Building on Hollywood Boulevard. In 1991, Larry Flynt acquired Film Threat which then split into two magazines – Film Threat was owned by LFP and Gore continued to champion underground filmmakers in the pages of the newsprint sister publication, Film Threat Video Guide edited by David E. Williams.

Gore briefly left the magazine in 1995 and Film Threat was then headed up by Paul Zimmerman. After Larry Flynt chose to cancel the magazine in 1996, the rights reverted back to Chris Gore. During the paper crisis of the late 90s, Film Threat printed its final issue in 1997

The Film Threat website launched just before the print magazine’s demise in 1996. Only two issues of this new incarnation headed up by Gore were published, a third issue which was completed never made it to the printer. Gore expanded the Film Threat website offering an email newsletter that contained reviews and news. The site expanded with extensive coverage of independent films and film festivals. Gore sold the website to Mark Bell in 2010. Bell headed up the site for the next five years with the rights reverting back to Gore in 2015. After an unsuccessful Kickstarter in 2015, Chris Gore chose to shut down the site for good. After public outcry over the site’s absence, Gore launched a new Kickstarter campaign in 2016 which succeeded. The website relaunched on February 6th, 2017, exactly 32 years after the first xeroxed issue debuted.

No matter the drama that occurred behind the scenes during its tumultuous history, Film Threat has always supported emerging indie filmmakers looking to make their mark. Our mission continues…

(It’s worth noting that the Wikipedia entry for founder Chris Gore is wildly inaccurate, while the Wikipedia entry for Film Threat is mostly fact-based.)