In his younger years, Damon Foster was fascinated by monsters, demons, dinosaurs, slapstick comedy, social parody, and kung fu superheroes. While other school children (at his elementary school) were playing sports, young Damon was scouring the TV GUIDE for unique foriegn films & TV shows. From Japanese monsters to British comedy to Chinese martial arts to Italian farces to Mexican wrestling, the impressionable youngster found no shortage of unique inspiration which would forever keep him on the outside of the mainstream.
By the time he grew into a green-haired, punk/goth teenager, the previous topics had already left a permanent affect. By the 1980s, he had begun to imitate & critique the genres which enthralled him since he was a toddler. Damon's fanzines & newsletters (JAPANESE MOVIE SCI-FI, JAPANESE MONSTERS & SUPERHEROES, and new wave/rock n' roll publications like BRAVEAR and PACK) eventually evolved into the successful, internationally distributed magazine ORIENTAL CINEMA.
O.C. inspired Damon to research, study, translate & critique Asian productions at a time when there was no internet. Back in the 1970s & 1980s, there were numerous fan-made publications of this nature, but what set O.C. apart was Foster's insistence that most of the writing be humorous, instead of being the normal dry, dead-serious journalism that other no-budget fanzines were known for. O.C.'s Golden Years were the pre-Internet 1990s, when people actually went into stores to PAY for reading material. Today, O.C.'s infrequent schedule makes it a mere shadow of what it once was, but Damon continues to release one issue about once every two or three years.
With O.C. and the short-lived zine HEROES ON FILM forcing Damon Foster to analyze many film genres (Godzilla, Jackie Chan, Gamera, Bruce Lee, Ultraman, etc.), it became difficult NOT to satirize them, or be inspired to mock them. So Foster began writing scripts & screwing around with super 8mm movie cameras as far back as age 6 or 7. Whether attempting some karate action or animating toy dinosaurs, Damon and his young friends & classmates made several crude (AKA "unwatchable") shorts & skits in the 1970s. When the VHS revolution gained momentum in the 1980s, Foster fell in love with the videocamera. By then, the 20-something Foster had studied enough martial arts and gymnastics to perform some decent action/stunts, but you could only go so far with clunky videocameras and messy video-editing (which relied on a VCR's 'Pause' button)!
Needless to say, most of Foster's 1980s movies (i.e. ULTRA CYBORG, ANDROIDMAN, I WAKE UP SCREAMING) are best left forgotten. But as experiments, they helped Damon and his fellow Northen CA video-makers gain enough experience to create somewhat worthwhile entertainment for Community Access cable stations: The STUCK IN A RUT series of comedies, the MIGHTY WRESTLER MYSTERON capers and the vulgar sketches of INCREDIBLE PUS MONKEY CIRCUS (banned from TV after just two episodes). As Damon and his buddies mastered analog video, they made the satirical kung fu cheapie, HOT DOGS ON THE RUN-- the first of their productions to be sold commercially.
In the 1990s, Foster finally got his "15 seconds" (not minutes!) of fame. 1992's AGE OF DEMONS is not 'high quality' when seen today. But this action comedy was ahead of its time and went as far as analog VHS technology could go. When Damon advertised it in his magazines ORIENTAL CINEMA & HEROES ON FILM (in their hey-day, both were sold in comic-shops all over the world), AGE OF DEMONS made a profit and sold into the thousands.
By the mid-1990s, many young whippersnappers and wannabe 'film-makers' got their hands on videocameras, and with an increase in shot-on-video productions to confuse things, Damon's next horror video (the Satanic comedy DEVILS DRAGONS AND VAMPIRES) didn't sell as well. Released back around 1999, DEVILS DRAGONS AND VAMPIRES only barely tapped into the new digital technology, and still relied on obsolete analog techniques and other dated camera tricks.
In the 21st-century, suddenly anybody with a camcorder is an independent film-maker. It just goes to prove that everybody hates their day-jobs! Despite feirce competition from the millions of no-talents (who would never have been revolutionary enough to make 'movies' if they didn't have the latest editing software on their computers), Foster continues to make movies & videos, just like he did as a child when all he had was a silent movie camera. Being modern times, he too utilizes CGI tricks, and combines them with 40-something years of experimentation, imagination, & experience. Several of his movies (MARTYR X, DEVILS DRAGONS AND BLOOD-SUCKING BATS, SHAOLIN VS. TERMINATOR, etc.) are available here, for the first time.