Year in Review + Streaming Guide
A digest of Gutter Studies content for 2025.
The year 2025 marks the first full year of Gutter Studies on Substack. After the channel was banned on Youtube in spring of 2024, I relaunched here that following fall. Not only was I able to republish (and refine) my original run of content, but also enabled me to pursue the project on another level: with cleaner UX and content organization; more meaningful engagement with subscribers; and most importantly, full creative freedom.
As the year comes to a close, I thought I’d take a moment to offer a retrospective, as well as some tips on where/how to stream things.
Five-Part Jean Rollin Series
The major thing released this year was Voluptuous Melancholia, a five-part series on the career of Jean Rollin. The series covers all of Rollin’s major films, and divides his filmography through biographical narrative, context in film history, and my own critical analysis. Together, the five parts span a total runtime of 95 minutes.
Rollin is one of the most enigmatic and romanticized figures in film history. His work can be as impenetrable and confusing as it is intoxicating and beautiful. If you’re new to Jean Rollin, this is the perfect way to develop a thorough understanding of the man’s work, film by film.
In fact, you’re in luck. Criterion Channel is currently hosting a series of Rollin’s films available to stream now. The six films offered provide a great tour of his work, and can be perfectly combined with my series. Here’s exactly how to do it:
Start with part 1 of the series, Poetic Surrealism. This provides a general introduction to Jean Rollin and the artistic moment he was working in.
Watch Requiem for a Vampire on Criterion Channel. Pair this with part 2, which covers the first stage of Rollin’s career, his early vampire cycle.
Watch Lips of Blood (and The Grapes of Death for a bonus) on Criterion Channel. Pair these with part 3, In Search of Lost Time, which covers themes of nostalgia, eroticism, and loss in Rollin’s middle-stage career.
Watch Fascination and The Living Dead Girl on Criterion Channel. Pair these with part 4, Sorority of Sadness, which explores the major theme of female intimacy and doubling that dominated Rollin’s career.
Lastly, pair Lost in New York with the titular final part of the series, Voluptuous Melancholia, which covers Rollin’s postmodern turn toward meta-nostalgia and self-referentiality in his late-stage career.
Do this, and I can guarantee you’ll emerge with a thorough and meaningful understanding of Rollin’s work.
Expanded Nunsploitation Studies
Another major effort this year was to expand our content on nunsploitation. In many ways, Gutter Studies started as a book I was attempting to write on nunsploitation cinema. The project stalled as I came to realize nobody reads books anymore, and my tattoo artist suggested to me the new format of video essays. A few years later, the project has become something much bigger.
Still, nunsploitation studies still retain a major place in what I’ve been putting together here. It’s an niche genre in exploitation film history that is not only often overlooked, but just as often misunderstood and poorly elaborated. I’ve attempted to develop a more rigorous definition of what constitutes nunsploitation in the narrow sense. My interest is in isolating it as a specific and finite moment in international exploitation film history; a distinctive international film movement embedded within the more generalized “naughty nun” aesthetic that has been part of western culture for hundreds of years.
As luck would have it, Criterion is also running a curated series on nunsploitation. Due to the typical sloppy use of the term, here it’s even more important to narrow your focus:
Unfortunately, you’ll need to get your hands on The Devils. It was originally included in the Criterion series, but has since been removed. In many ways, it’s just as well. The version they had up was the heavily cut and censored British release. This not only removed the most notorious scenes that caused such outrage in 1973, but also removed all depictions of pubic hair (how Japanese of them). You’re better off seeking out a bootleg or pirated version somewhere. Once you do, pair it with Carnal Catechism, which offers a critical introduction to nunsploitation cinema and a close reading of Ken Russell’s foundational film.
Next, watch Alucarda and Killer Nun on Criterion Channel, paired with our video Four Key Nunsploitation Films. These are two of my favorites and provide great next steps after The Devils. Alucarda gives you an unforgettable taste of Latin American nunsploitation, and Killer Nun provides one of the most psychologically interesting examples of Italian nunsploitation.
As for the others in the Criterion series, I’d consider them optional. Other than Benedetta, Paul Verhoeven’s excellent neo-nunsploitation effort, the others aren’t really nunsploitation movies, but merely movies featuring nuns.
For advanced studies, our coverage has also been expanded to cover Bruno Mattei’s concurrently filmed pair of surrealist nunsploitation films, as well as part one of a two-part study on Japanese nunsploitation.
But wait there’s MORE!
Below you’ll find the one-off videos that I put out this year, along with suggestions for where to stream them.