I just added
Tax Shelter Terrors (2017) to Criticker, which is a decent if very brief (barely an hour) overview of the craziness out of which a lot of these movies sprung.
In the late '60s and early '70s, the Canadian government began to commit more money and resources to the country's fledgling film industry. This included the expansion of "CanCon" regulations, which essentially mandated broadcast quotas for Canadian-produced content, and some generous tax incentives.
The intent was to jumpstart production by allowing producers to write-off the production costs of an unsuccessful film, with little oversight. This naturally descended into a free-for-all in which way too much money was being raised for low-grade films that went totally undistributed so that they could immediately be written off as losses.
As the film takes pains to point out, we have this system to thank for the career of David Cronenberg who, it's safe to assume, would not have flourished like he did in a less permissive environment. Even the directors who aren't David Cronenberg say it was worth it not because of their own films, but Cronenberg's. (Cronenberg declined to be interviewed.)
A compelling argument indeed, but it can't really be evaluated. Cronenberg's films may be worth lotsa dross, but in this case it is impossible to see just how much dross, or what kind. The majority of films made to exploit this system do not survive even as VHS tapes, let alone DVDs. Then again, that simple fact, that 'lost generation', may be its own counter. (This, though, is a not uncommon fate of Canadian films from that era, shelter babies or otherwise. There are films that won the Canadian equivalent of ten Oscars that never received a home release past 1989.)
Another way to look at it: was Cronenberg "worth" slasher films?
A silly question, but with a real basis:
Halloween would not have existed without Bob Clark's
Black Christmas, an OG tax shelter terror, and a good many more of the cycle's formative works were so funded:
Prom Night,
Rituals,
My Bloody Valentine,
Terror Train,
Happy Birthday to Me.
I'm not the right person to ask. I think
Prom Night is nothing at all to be proud of, yet I hope to never run out of films like it.
Thankfully, the abolishing of the tax shelters did not stop my great country from funding perversion, despite the best efforts of the pearl-clutchers. I consider it a point of national pride that Canada remains the only country whose national awards nominated for Best Picture, in the same year, two government-funded films that graphically portray extreme paraphilia: Cronenberg's
Crash and Lynne Stopkewich's extraordinary necrophile romance
Kissed.
True patriot love.