One of the Greatest Unreleased Movies in History Is Finally Coming to Home Video

About a decade ago I had one of the best moviegoing experiences of my life. Brooklyn’s BAMcinématek was doing a retrospective of director Joe Dante’s work and as part of it, they held an ultra-rare screening of one of the greatest unreleased movies in history: The Movie Orgy.

Made by Dante in the late 1960s when he was still in college, it’s a massive compilation of films, commercials, newsreels, and all sorts of other cinematic detritus. Its length has fluctuated over the decades — at one point it was over seven hours long, but the version screened at BAM was more like five hours long — but at any length the film is funny and strange and fascinating. It also basically invented the idea of YouTube compilations about 40 years before YouTube was even invented. When I saw it at BAM I wrote, “Wait did Joe Dante invent supercuts AND binge watching simultaneously 45 years ago? This was like the 50 best times I've ever had at the movies all in a single sitting. After 5 hours I didn't want it to end.”

The film holds near-mythic status among movie dorks, partly due to the fact that it has never been released in any format because Dante made it using clips of things he didn’t own. As a result, the film can typically only be screened at non-profits or when Dante himself is in attendance showing his own personal copy of his work.

But now, for the very first time, The Movie Orgy is coming to home video, thanks to the efforts of the American Genre Film Archive and Vinegar Syndrome.

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The first-ever Movie Orgy Blu-ray includes an introduction by Dante, plus a booklet that contains a Dante interview, along with multiple essays. The film now runs 276 minutes (about 4.5 hours) and has been “preserved from the original 16mm film elements with digital SD inserts for missing footage.”

Here is its official plot synopsis:

THE MOVIE ORGY is a legendary found footage triumph from Joe Dante—one of genre cinema's most significant masterminds. In 1968, the future director of GREMLINS took an apartment’s worth of 16mm prints and, with the help of producer Jon Davison (ROBOCOP), meticulously created what is quite possibly the world's first found footage megamix. Comprised of commercials, news reels, feature film clips, TV bloopers, and much more, THE MOVIE ORGY is an essential cultural artifact and a psychedelic vortex of mashed-up magnificence. Never available on home video, the film has been preserved from the original 16mm elements by AGFA in partnership with Joe Dante and Jon Davison.

Seriously, this is one of the most exciting developments of the movie year. You can order a copy of The Movie Orgy at Vinegar Syndrome’s website right now.