CAMP FOLLOWERS : Low-Rent Rendezvous

When Bruce and Robert Schaffner--the brothers who own the cult-video store Mondo Video A-Go-Go in Los Feliz--get to talking on the history of cult movies, they speak of a sad, slow decline of absurdity, something like the arc of Jerry Lewis’ career in film; a career that, as it happens, Robert is keen on adding soon to their shop. Likely, the Lewis oeuvre would sit somewhere between the sections Beasts/Insects From Hell and Naughty Nazis.

“You can make a cult movie, but you can’t purposely make a cult movie,” Robert is saying while Bruce looks on, slurping coffee from a Thermos and standing near his favorite section, Bigfoot.

A customer with a large forehead and a skinny chin walks up to the brothers, hesitates, and then asks, “Where can I find ‘Cottonpickin’ Chickenpickers’?”

“Look in Rockabilly,” says Bruce.

“You got a whole lot of people making so-called cult films today,” Robert goes on. “They come in here all the time with their videos, wanting us to buy them. But you can’t achieve cult status on formula. ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space’ wasn’t made as a schlocky, funny thing--that’s just the way it was perceived. It was actually made as a serious motion picture.”

A man with hair both blue and green and short and long holds up a title to Robert and asks, “What do you think of ‘Escape’?”

“It’s a great women-in-prison film,” says Robert, “but I’d go with ‘Love Camp’ over it.”

Examples of the type of filmmaking the Schaffner brothers lament is in decline line the shelves at Mondo: “Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies,” “Mistress of the Apes,” “I Spit on Your Corpse,” “Don’t Torture the Duckling” and, a film that Bruce believes is vastly underrated, “Lunch Meat,” whose label warns: “If decapitations, cannibalism and brutal savage acts of suspense and gore turn your stomach, this film is not for you.”

Having taken their affections and offered them to the world--for the low rental price of a $1.50 most weeknights--the brothers have built a following that you would call community. That afternoon, Titus Moody, the actor-director who played Boo-Boo in the classic “Rat Phink and Boo-Boo,” stops in to talk about the upcoming in-store wake for his pet Chihuahua, Chi Chi, who died at the age of 28 and shares a section with her master (“Chi Chi’s Night Out” leads it off).

“I want to build up a section of white trash films from the ‘70s,” Robert goes on, “you know, stuff like ‘Flatbed Annie’ and ‘Truck Stop Women.’ But I can’t think of anything done recently considered campy or culty, besides ‘Crumb,’ that I would carry.” Even cult god figure John Waters, whose last film starred Kathleen Turner running around with a human liver speared on a fireplace poker, has sold out in Robert’s eyes. “It’s just garbage,” he says.

A decade ago, the brothers Schaffner opened their first store, in San Pedro, but moved north after realizing, Bruce says, that it was a Blockbuster town, and after two customers fell into a fistfight over a copy of “Die Hard 2.” “We still have all these movies hanging around from the San Pedro shop, like ‘Top Gun’ and ‘3 Men and a Baby,’ ” says Robert. “But we’re going to burn them one night soon in a ceremony.”

Hearing this, the recent renter of “Love Camp” says, “Hey, I like those movies.”

Robert looks at the guy as if he’s beyond saving.

“Man,” he says, “you’re really sick.”