Benn Hadland has possessed a fascination with weird movies since his youth; his earliest film-related memories include watching films like Army of Darkness, The Wraith and Spaceman on WGN and the Sci-fi Channel at one in the morning.
Although he initially entered Cal State Long Beach as a music major, he eventually switched to English Literature. In order to compensate for the lack of film in his studies, Hadland pursued the film section of his campus library where he discovered the films of Humphrey Bogart, Daniel Day-Lewis, Mickey Rourke, David Lynch, Howard Hawks and Martin Scorsese.
After graduating college, Hadland continued working at his local independent movie theater and co-created a Web site called Lockstockandtwofilmgeeks.com, in which he and his writing partner published reviews on a variety of films — both new, old and obscure — wrote articles about trends and issues concerning the film industry, and released bi-weekly podcasts revolving around a number of genres, topics and filmmakers.
In the summer of 2010, Hadland moved to Lawrence, Kansas to pursue a Masters in Film Studies (believe it or not, they do have a strong program. No, really). After a semester of doing undergraduate prerequisites, he moved back to Southern California, figuring that starting out in Los Angeles is far more impressive to potential employers than anywhere in Kansas. That, and he was really starting to miss the myriad art house theaters in LA.
Currently, Benn Hadland is applying for his MA in Media and Communications at Cal State Fullerton, writing reviews and articles for Working Author and his own Lock Stock and Two Film Geeks site, and abusing his Netflix “Watch it Now” account, watching anything from Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva to Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls to anything from Mystery Science Theater 3000.