First, a word on The Devil's Rejects which I saw this past opening weekend. It was pretty good and certainly violent and disturbing. I'm not sure if fans knew how to take this movie. Rob Zombie said that people are not supposed to root for the bad guys like they did in his last (awful) movie, House of 1000 Corpses. Not surprisingly, debates about the movie are in full effect throughout the world of internet movie forums, even more so than for the recent Land of the Dead. A lot of stupid people on both sides of the "it was gay"/"it owned" line. The movie opened poorly, but it should still make it's money back without a problem. My prediction is that Rob Zombie will make a mainstream movie, a thriller, or a dark comedy, within the next five years. Maybe he will even drop his stage name and go by something more normal, but that could be ten years down the line.
On to the review:
Here we discovered an overlooked Canadian movie that's up there with Nightmare in a Damaged Brian (my review) or the disturbing later films of Philip Yordan (my review). It's the tale of a filthy rich horror writer, his neglected wife, and spoiled kids. Well, I guess the kids are not that bad, just unlucky. Our hero writes his books and movies to be comments on the degradation of society, but of course the world sees his work as just plain trash. The guy makes buckets of money, but gets no respect, even at his own alma matter where a class room of college students verbally tear him apart.
The writer strives to find the ultimate horror and eventually does in his own household. Everyone is in this movie is a total bastard, though at times we can feel sympathetic to each of their situations. The movie is loaded with pure 80's excess, fur coats, private jets, and two cocaine parties, reminders that there is misery at the top. Most reviewers remark that the writer, named Stephen Young, is meant to represent Stephen King, though I never heard about any turmoil in his family life. Maybe I missed some scandal back in the early eighties when I was two years old.
Deadline from TV director Mario Azzopardi, on Paragon Video, another one not on DVDThe best scenes are the horror sequences inserted throughout the film, meant to be the writer's thoughts and/or clips from his films. We get cannibal nuns, children as brutal hooded executioners, and a post-punk band, much like Siouxsie and the Banshees, that plays through a device making captive homeless listeners shit themselves and explode.
and now, a dialogue with cub, for cub speaks...
In my favorite scene, a goat shows up. The guy cleaning the industrial sized snowplow says something like "you again!" and chases the goat off. The man goes back, working with the huge propellers or whatever they are called and the goat comes around again. We see a close up of the goat. Goat looks to the sky and mysterious music plays. The snow blower turns on (by itself!) and rips of the mans arm. Blood shoots from the stump. Then his leg is torn and and gets twisted by the blades. The final shot shows his head rolling away. I will never forget this moment. Cub, why did I love this scene with an evil telepathic goat?
As many people might not know, you have a strange fascination with goats which is probably the reason for you liking the evil telepathic goat. You thought the goat was the cutest thing you have ever seen and you rooted it on, throwing your hands up in the air and showing me an evil grin.
Did this scene make me hug the goats at the zoo closer? Why did I not fear them?
I do believe that this scene made you hug the goats closer because you felt spiritually connected to them. Doesn't that seem kinda bizarre? You were secretly hoping that the goat could read your mind and deliver that which your evil little heart desires. You have no fear for goats, only love....
Just a quick word on Dark Water which I saw in the theaters Sunday. I'm sure this is becoming the cool movie to hate, after all, everything that was right was horror a couple of years ago (Japanese horror influence and remakes) has become everything that is wrong with horror today. Wes Craven even knocked it from the stage at Fangoria, saying that the industry does not know what horror fans want, they think that horror fans want movie about 'dark water'. Well, Cub liked this movie, I was underwhelmed, but as far as the ending goes - and keep in mind that I have not seen the Japanese version nor do I want to spoil this one for you - I think that the sort of feel-good finish to the movie is a welcome change, though that sort of thing might go over better in a less cynical Japan. Remember The Eye?
Eyeball, from Umberto Lenzi (Cannibal Ferox, City of the Walking Dead), is considered by some to be the worst giallo ever made. I avoided this one after seeing a pretty weak preview for it on another Prism video tape. Later, I regretted passing it up in the bargain bin when I found out that a horror publication went so far as to name itself after this movie. Was I missing a classic?
After watching it, I think so. I loved seeing these vacationers - on a bus tour of Spain - get killed off one by one. Sure, in the real world the tour would have ended after the first person lost an eye. I also doubt that pigs could eat a dead body as quickly as they did in this movie. But me, I never sweat those small details, a little bit of style more than makes up for it. Here we have a killer in a sharp red raincoat, borrowed from Don't Look Now. We have lesbians on a fashion shoot. We have big Italian sunglasses that Cub would die for. No, my girlfriend did not watch this movie. As some of you may know, she has a phobia of eyes being punctured or torn out. The name of this movie alone was enough to tell me to watch it when she was out. Now she is pissed as I've been raving about it for a couple of days. Cub will be back for the next review where we are going to discuss a rare tape I discovered that could be the Holy Grail of Horror that we have all been looking for.
"If you're not reading Warrenzone, you're missing some good stuff--especially "Cub Speaks," where Warren posts brief interview snippets with his girlfriend (at least I think that's what he's doing). I think the girlfriend is Cub, but then she also calls Warren "Cub" too." Those are kind words (here) from the Groovy Age of Horror, thank you.
I helped out my friend over the phone with some web sight technicalities. Her work is awesome and I look forward to posting a link when she's finished, but in the meantime, visit her blog, shoots of stars for comics and personal stuff.
So this guy smooth krayminal posted some news in a myspace horror forum that I have not read elsewhere. I though he seemed pretty cool, so I messaged him and he was kind of a dick, so we won't be myspace 'friends' after all.
Here is the complete text of his post:
George A Romero signed a deal to make 2 more Dead pictures.
City of the Dead, 2006
Memories of the Dead, 2007(Working title)
This is not BS, two of my friends, are slated to work on both as producing designers. The second film, takes place more in the context of wasted city landscapes and will take a new direction ala large cityscapes of nothing, decay and some new twist to the Zombie genre.
The idea behind Land of the Dead was to put to rest some ideas and create new directions for the Zombies, the evolution is not what you think. The next movie is to be longer running time with a larger budget, which is slated, for creating a large scope.
My friends are vague but basically the other movies are in response to how well Land did at the box office.
In the sense that a lot of kids, some of you think George is selling out, The Dark Half was actually his largest grossing film to date and most of everyone has seen it.
See, I like this guy's writing. No idea if his info is real. He added this about the Romero video game City of the Dead as it shares a title with one of these new movies:
Even though City of the Dead is the title to the Game being put out, the idea is to have a game lead in. Supposedly COTD is going to be just a plain blood fest.
In crappy news, over at bloody-disgusting, I learn that that two of the world's biggest mall rockers are going to be in acting in one horror film each. Of course the BD crowd is pumped because they love to rock out to the rap metal and lunchbox industrial music. I will further distance myself from the mainstream horror crowd.
I don't know if this is a trend, or was a trend, but it's a phenomenon I've come across twice. Once at the Videosmith in my home town I came across a copy of Surf Nazis Must Die with, alongside the typical video store labels, a single Thanksgiving turkey sticker on the front. Who put it there? Well I don't know for sure, but I imagine it was a dissatisfied customer, who placed that sticker on the tape to warn future renters that the movie does blow. The next time I saw a turkey sticker was eight years later at another Videosmith, this time in Alston Mass. It was on the box for the Linda Blair movie Grotesque, if you must know.
So I've been reviewing horror movies here and been dishing out mostly good reviews for some movies that probably have not gotten very many good reviews before. Low budget, trashy, unoriginal shit movies that I like because they satisfy my cravings for splatter. I've been getting a good amount of traffic here, and maybe, and this a definitely a maybe, people might take one or two of the recommendations I've made seriously. Everybody should know that it's not a bad idea to listen to my rants, even if I have rated movies on bodycounts alone. See, I don't like everything. I made a list. It had some of the usual suspects on it, Children of the Living Dead, Halloween: Resurrection, etc... I removed those and left the more obscure titles, so here are some titles I don't like and a short explanation for each as to why. Nine films in three categories.
One more thing, I like turkeys in real life, but there is one turkey nobody likes, the Gobbly Gooker, who has showed up on the internet before.
I just could not get through it...
New Year's Evil (1980) - A crappy slasher from Cannon Films. I remember sinister phone calls. I remember rock bands that I could not get into. I remember wishing this movie would end and then making it end with my remote control.
Fade to Black (1980) - It seemed so endless. The killer, a movie buff, dresses up like old film characters to kill those who disrespect the art. I know a lot of people dig this movie, but I could not sympathize with the tormented high-strung killer, nor did I fall for his Marilyn Monroe.
The Nesting (1981) - A movie about an agoraphobic author. Feels like a bad paperback, that you of course, would never finish.
Does not live up to the name...
The Corpse Grinders (1972) - Ted V. Mikels has a cult following. Astro Zombies is ok, but this one is a total bore. Guys, where is the gore? It's on the cover of the box, but not really anywhere else.
even overseas, the Gooker shall be knownSchizoid (1980) - Yeah! Klaus Kinski killing people with a scissors! Sounds great, but it's a lame Cannon Films feature.
Sleepy Hollow High (2000) - "Scream meets Dawson's Creek", could you ask for a better crossover?! Wait... no, you guys don't want that. I kind of did, so I deserved this movie.
Rock Bottom - the worst
Back Woods (2001) - This is the worst movie ever made. It had to have been an experiment, where they only allowed for one take per shot. Really, very little effort was put into this movie, I can't stress that enough. The birth of the "300 pound retard-genius" is shown on screen in what has to be the worst effect ever, next to Mangina, the mythical creature of the Back Woods, who is just a naked guy with his dick tucked between his legs.
Cutting Class (1989) - A teenage Brad Pitt in a slasher with Donovan Leitch, son of 60's rocker Donovan and now a member of the truly shitty Camp Freddy. If you live in L.A. and you've heard their radio show on 'Indie' 103, you know what I'm talking about... Oh yeah, this movie sucks.
hollywood royalty, Camp Freddy, boooo...At Dawn they Sleep (2000) - Made by death metal guys, they even manage to get in a line where they diss Metallica. So a vampire is going down down on a woman and bites off her vagina. How do they pull off this effect? By having the guy pop up with shreds or roast beef in his mouth. A new low in home movies, this blows.
I'm gonna slip another punk rock review into the horror blog here, as I've done twice before, though the most recent one was back in October. That last show I reviewed had the same lineup as this one and was at the same venue so I had to go back and reread that post to make sure that I don't just write the same exact thing over again. Yeah the show was similar in set lists as well, even down to the order of the songs! This weekend I did catch Channel 3, who I missed last time, though I later read a printed review of that show and they were not mentioned, so perhaps they no-showed in October.
Channel 3 were a few songs into their set when we came in and the first two songs I heard I did not recognize which is funny because I have their cd anthology and a cassette of one their original Posh Boy releases. They brought out a girl to sing some of the lines on "You Make Me Feel Cheep" and I whispered in Cub's ears what I believe to be the story behind that song, though I doubt she cared. The original version put out by Ch 3 did not have a female part. It was added later as a sample by DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, for his radio show Rodney on the Roq. I must admit that this works well, though I'm not a big Rodney fan, am not sure if he is alive or dead, and am avoiding the movie about his life (Mayor of the Sunset Strip) like the plague. I guess I'm partial to the Angry Samoans song that got them blacklisted from punk rock, "Get Off the Air" - lyrics here at their site.
Dawn of the DickiesThe Dickies had all the same props that they used in October. I love this band and their obnoxious between-song banter. Guitarist Stan Lee revealed that vocalist Leonard Graves Phillips voted for George W., which brought mass boos from the crowd. Graves Phillips used the occasion to rub it in everyone's face... that Bush won. Incidentally, the venue was packed, since it was a Saturday night. Way more kids out than last time, which means more liberty spikes, leather, studs, and patches.
Same shit, different day, but it was good shit since these are a couple of my favorite bands. With the Adicts we get hero-worship that is rare in punk rock, kids reaching out to to touch Monkey, like he is Elvis or Neil Diamond. I thinks it's because of the clockwork costume and mime paint, which turns this guy into a mythological character instead of just a punk singer. That, and the songs, which are some of the catchiest in punk. Even new ones - those that are not on the records everybody owns - are hypnotizing. It amazes me that they've never broken through into the mainstream, at least to an Adam Ant degree.
cub speaks on the show
I was able to discern that your favorite Adicts songs were "Chinese Takeaway" and "Bad Boy". I am right of course.
You are right about my favorite Adicts songs. Aww cub, you know me so well. That is true love to the max.
Are we going to put face paint and a bowler hat on you for the next Adicts show?
NO white face paint, but we can dress me up in a tight white tee with braces and a mini instead ;)
bonus links:
top ten punk frontmen according to me
Channel 3 website
Angry Samoans website
punk vault blog - best punk blog I've seen
