another video store rant - also Thor is playing tonight on Sunset...

The Bleeding Skull webmaster is interviewed over at the new Blood Freak blog and just about twenty video store classics are discussed (will they ever be on DVD? do we care?) including all of the heavy metal horror movies.

quotes...

about the site: "VHS rarities were getting a bum deal. No one was covering them, yet there were (and still are) thousands of unknown genre films that could only be seen on that format."

about finding movies on strange video labels: "Will it be uncut? Will the title card be replaced with vector graphics? Will the audio run out of sync? Who cares! It's a VHS."

Plus some shit on the mystery of the movies that made no sense in a time before DVD extras and featurettes.

and let's not forget that you can get these tapes dirt cheep - I've got a tape collection bigger that say 90% of the horror sections in any video store you would come across a few years back - and you would be hard pressed to come across a video store with any horror tape section today cause most of them have liquidated their shit! Anyway, it is hard to say what I paid on average per tape, because I bought so many bulk horror lots, but most of the tapes I bought individually were two or three dollars and these are good tapes - mostly obscure stuff. I don't buy much 90's bullshit, the older the better.

Basically my point is that my tape collection cost me way, way, less than it would cost a video store to stock - especially an old video store that had to buy their tapes in the $40 - $80 price range in the eighties.

What about the horror DVD rental section? Problem: no history or back catalogue. Just the movies from the last few years - since DVD became the dominant format - and the occasional classic like Amityville Horror in there just so the store LOOKS like it has a back catalogue. Old video stores, their back catalogue went back legitimately 20 years with tapes still working that were purchased when they were released in like 84'!

Anyway, enough for now, but I have been inspired to right a rant defending Rick Sloane even though I don't like his movies. Also, Thor is playing tonight at the Key Club and I'm pretty pumped for this shit.

stockholm syndrome with aliens and Flea does product placement with a pack of Oreos

Everyone is talking about Snakes on A Plane so New Line Cinema is at the top of the world (see Entertainment Weekly), but every studio has had it's moments that they wish would be forgotten. I have not been reviewing to much old stuff lately, but remember I have a massive tape library and I did have time to grab a tape last night. From the executive producers of Critters and A Nightmare on Elm Street, or so the back of the box informed me - I sat through the terrible 1987 horror/sci-fi disaster, Stranded.

What's up? Teenage girl and Grandma live in the woods. A family of aliens, looking like Star Trek TNG cast members, beam down into their living room. Bad time for the local hicks to drop by and deliver a bag of unnamed something -I don't know what, was it supposed to be weed? The younger hick shoots one of the aliens on site, cause it looks different from him, you know. The hick is laser blasted. By the time the cops show up Grandma has already made friends with one of the aliens, played by Flea, though I did not recognize him in the make-up. After a review pointed this out it clicked - of course - and the review also pointed out that this was the most annoying alien of the bunch. A kind of monkey-like creature nicknamed Jester, he says "Grandma" in the movie's last scene - barf! By the, what is up with this version of the video art - Ione Skye is not that famous!

Of course there is a teenage boy alien who comes pretty close to making it with the human teenage girl, or maybe they would just cuddle. Cops are surrounding the place, led by nice guy black sheriff Joe Morton, star of Brother from Another Planet. The hicks show up for a lynchin', of the alien I mean, but maybe the sheriff too, this is a real redneck rampage and you can't stop em' from saying the 'n' word.

Inside the aliens, and the humans, and the sheriff - he comes in to negotiate - are trying to prevent a massacre on the part of the hicks or the feds, who will be there by dawn. Here come all the touchy feely scenes including a shameless one where Grandma teaches Jester how to eat Oreos. The Oreo package gets some serious screentime. The mushiness goes on for a bit, but, and thank God, this ain't Harry and the Hendersons - it's rated PG-13 for fuck's sake! A bunch of humans and aliens die.

Now I hated just about every minute of this movie while watching it and I could not get my roommate to stay in the room with me as she thought it sucked, but in retrospect, this is a must see movie that I will treasure forever as of course it is out of print. The alien make-up is pretty decent and the laser and light effects are good. The story is beyond abysmal. It's wicked lame as you have probably figured out, but this is a perfect representation of the time period and you collectors better get yourselves a copy of Stranded just so you can predict every move and feel you have figured out perfectly, the formula for 80's sci-fi.

Later that night the redneck rampage would continue as I put on a tape of Brotherhood of Death. It's the KKK versus the Brothers, just back from a tour of duty as Special Forces in Vietnam. From Gorgon Video, the tape opened with previews for House of Exorcism and Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things. I won't review this as their is tons of stuff on the web about it already.

did these horror fans go to far?

Too me, the cops look really stupid in cases like this - 'zombies arrested'. It's as if the cops are bunch of pussies or something, they had to whip out their guns? So said another article I read somewhere else...

Maybe the cops wanted medals of honor pinned on them directly by George Bush, but then found out it was kids in make-up (not turbans) with stereos (not bombs)... too bad for them. America is wicked scared. Go midwest! yellow alert.

Found by The Horror Blog.

and... yes we did put that video online, but now it having an official premier date(monday?) so I can't post the link yet.

Oh yeah, I'm sick to death of zombies too, but I guess in Minneapolis they are still in. Since the kids full names are printed I found some of them on myspace and tried to add them - cause they're famous...

new Tooth Fairy movie to bury all copies of Darkness Falls in Atari landfill...

I think that the video for Captain Ahab's 'Snakes on the Brain' from the Snakes on a Plane soundtrack will be put up tonight by myself and director Lawrence Klein and this version will be a Quicktime file.

Did you notice that my review for Pulse is one of the only ones up on the web so far? Read it.

All those crushed E.T. Atari cartridges are being dug up to make room for burying large quantities of Darkness Falls DVDs that are gathering dust on retailers shelves and in Sony warehouses. The reason? A new Tooth Fairy movie has been made to revitalize the genre and do tooth fairy splatter right. The press release from Anchor Bay:

Remember the innocence of putting a tooth under a pillow at night and finding it mysteriously transformed into a reward the next morning? My, how times have changed…Anchor Bay Entertainment, an IDT Entertainment Company, extracts the dark side of a beloved childhood ritual with The Tooth Fairy ! Co-written and produced by legendary producer Stephen J. Cannell (“The A Team”, “Hunter”, “Profit”, “21 Jump Street”) and featuring such horror alums as P.J. Soles ( Halloween, The Devil's Rejects ) and Jesse Hutch ( Freddy Vs. Jason ) , The Tooth Fairy turns the innocent fairy tale into the ultimate nightmare! Presented uncut with never-before-seen footage, The Tooth Fairy also offers bonus features, including an audio commentary and behind-the-scenes interviews, that viewers can really sink their teeth into! Open wide for The Tooth Fairy on August 8, 2006 , with an SRP of $19.98. Pre-book date is June 28th.

Directed by Chuck Bowman from a teleplay by Stephen J. Cannell, Corey Strode and Cookie Rae Brown and starring Carrie Fleming (“Masters of Horror: Dario Argento's Jenifer”), The Tooth Fairy rips to shreds the whimsical icon. Amid the idyllic splendor of the Northern California woods, a quaint country inn offers respite for the weary traveler. It also harbors a dark secret. Almost sixty years earlier, it was the crumbling home of a malevolent witch who lured in children, stole their teeth, butchered their bodies, and cursed their souls to wander the earth forever. Now, the witch's slumber has been disturbed, and her vengeful spirit seeks the slaughter of all who stay there. And for one eleven -year-old girl with a loose molar and an active imagination, the ultimate horror begins with a visit from The Tooth Fairy...

plenty of extras, uncut version, etc...

image from about.com

the US version of Pulse - I saw it - the (negative) review

Yesterday I got a chance to see the troubled American version of Pulse at a prescreening here in Hollywood. Kairo, the original (not hard to find on DVD here in the US), was directed Kiyoshi Kurosawa in 2001 and is thought by many to be an extremely scary film, though I find the what the film is saying about society to be far scarier than the ghosts themselves - see my review. Jim Sonzero's 2006 remake wants to nail the same point home, but as you can imagine, especially if you have compared Japanese and American movies before, the new film is far too obvious when it comes to delivering the message. It basically explains itself to death. Kairo had no problem leaving doubts in the viewers minds and letting us reach our own conclusions. The US Pulse, aimed at younger teenagers, gives the audience very little credit when it comes to viewer comprehension of the theme as well as the origin stories of the ghosts. Loneliness is death and we are alone save for our computers and cell phones. We think these devices are our lifeline to the world, but are really they are our lifeline to obliteration. The devices isolate us from each other. We are all together in the physical sense, but all engaged in solitary activities with e-mail, myspace, and text messaging. "Isn't this a form of social interaction?" you ask. I once read an account of a backpacker's journeys in Thailand that should shed some light on just how social this man/machine behavior. The backpacker observed the behavior of his countrymen in a crowded internet cafe and was profoundly disturbed. Not one person was speaking to another and each stared ahead zombie-like. What was it that they were missing out on? Real meaningful communication that face to face interaction can provide.

Look, we are all on the internet here, right now, but let's not fool ourselves, even if you leave me a comment this is a solitary activity.

Anyway, I don't need to drill the point into your head, this Pulse remake will do that for me. The movie opens with a montage of internet behavior, close-ups of text being typed into field on the internet. It's overkill really. Later scenes of the characters' over-reliance on technology are obvious as well. One girl finds a hookup on a myspace related site (although this scene is poorly constructed and hard to figure out) and another character text messages Kristen Bell when he is right next to her.

Now I would like to critique the part of the plot that gives too much background information on the origins of the ghosts so expect spoilers for the rest of the review.

Bell and the male lead aim to track down Ziegler, the man responsible for unleashing the ghosts upon the earth. When he is found (quite quickly I might add, this movie moves so fast that it's silly) the characters offers us full disclosure as to why everything in the movie is the way it is. That is not something that Kairo did. The fact that Pulse has to explain itself explicitly with a narration and flashbacks makes it evident that the movie could not explain the story in a better creative way. A subplot, also not in Kairo(it really seems like it ought to be a bigger part of the movie - though it goes nowhere) involves an antidote virus that can defeat the ghosts. It fails and is the subplot forgotten, perhaps due to lameness as the whole virus thing is played. Seen the Mangler 2?

How convenient that the gateway where the ghosts pass through into the human world happens to be beneath the computer lab in Bell's own college. I suppose though, that one could draw parallels to the lame Ziegler character and the graduate student in Kairo that devised a program where dots are drawn to each other, but then can never collide on a computer monitor. However the graduate student is for more enigmatic.

Now lets talk about moments in the film that are just cheesy, some of which brought unintentional laughter from the audience. Bell's friend apologizes the moment before she turns to dust. The characters in Kairo were far to gone to do this at their times of annihilation. Certain lines were just bad and a scene where the heroes find themselves in a cafe in the half-deserted world contains characters and dialogue that had everyone in the theater practically falling out of their seats. Couple these problems with no character development and you have got a movie that can't be taken seriously despite many attempts.

Perhaps my main qualm in this movie is that there appears to be a main villain when there should just be ghosts. For some reason (not explained - I don't know why, the movie painstakingly lays everything out) we get this reoccurring ghost, a baldheaded naked guy. Does this movie need a Freddy Krueger or a Pyramidhead? I did not go for him, nor was I impressed with the effects where when this guy 'gets' you he screams in your face and your soul gets sucked into his or something. Not too scary and looking like a parody of 90's and contemporary horror. I will say that one scare, in the same style of a ghost attack in the original Kairo, is done very well and is pretty terrifying. It is the slow motion ghost attack.

I know that in the original preview for this movie, and the commercials that aired months ago when the movie was supposed to come out, there were effects scenes lifted directly from Kairo. People wondered if these were going to make it into Pulse or if the would make their own damn effects already. Well, the plane crash scene is in the cut that I saw (though this may not have been the final cut), but unfortunately I could not tell if it was the same effect or not. You be the judge.

It gives me no pleasure to say Pulse is not that great although I had the impression that it was going to have serious problems due to stuff like the delays and the presence of the Japanese 2001 special effects showing up in the trailer for an American 2006 movie.

get yourself some quicktime cause...

We are going to put up the Captain Ahab video, 'Snakes on the Brain', probably tomorrow in quicktime format. Not sure if you need to update to the newest version, but that might be a good idea.

Also, last night I saw a screening of the American version of Pulse, a film that it seems has had its release date (now August 11th) pushed back several times. I'll tell you what is wrong with it in a review I hope to put up tonight.

some stuff

Everyone is learning shit at Comic-Con. You know I did not learn dick when I went (last post), but I feel better about that now - I'm gonna write a letter of apology to the New Line people.

Comic-Con news with links!

Evil Dead remake - it is gonna happen sometime... boooooo!

2 more Kill Bill movies are gonna come out, but they will be animated.... boooooo!

The movie Grind House, though to be made of 2 shorts is gonna be two full movies for one... fuck yes!

The Snakes on A Plane roundtables I missed - mentioned here!

Samuel L. Jackson whipped the crowd into a frenzy - ain't it cool news.

"It's a jaw-dropping catastrophe"

So says Atlanta Journal-Constitution reviewer Eleanor Ringel Gillespie about M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water, but the quote could also apply to my trip to Comic-Con this morning. Despite waking up at 4:30 this morning and thinking I had everything planned out, I did not pull it off. I was outside of the Convention Center at 9:30, on time, but still in my car, and was not able to have the car parked until a few hours later when the scheduled times for my interviews with Samuel L. Jackson and Snakes on A Plane director, David R. Ellis, had passed. The New Line people called me a few times wondering where I was and I explained that I was there and not there at the same time - cars were not moving, it was just a complete jam. I'll have to write the promotions people a letter of apology. The will probably be the last time New Line hooks me up with anything, but obviously I did not deserve this interview opportunity or else it would have happened, right? See I'm not bitching. What happened, happened. Now forgive me as I bitch about it a little bit...

What I did after I parked was return to my car and drive the fuck out of San Diego. Why I would do this immediately following a four hour drive is hard to explain, but here goes. I had not paid to get into Comic-Con yet and was facing a fifty yard nonmoving line ahead of me. It had been extremely painful sitting in the car watching the clock go by as my interview times came and went - they were roundtable interviews and could not be rescheduled. I was not feeling the Comic-Con spirit or the Comic-Con love. I was alone and down everyone else was in big festive groups. I did not have on elf ears or a fury amine tail and as you can see these excuses could go on forever. My choice was to drive back to Hollywood making it so that I drove from 5:30 in the morning until 1:50 - really going nowhere. A shit day to the max and that's the story.

Anyway, I don't write blogs for the perks, but this one would have been nice. I bet I can get New Line to send me a tape of the other interviews so I can report on it anyways for you guys.

The good news is that the Captain Ahab video for 'Snakes on the Brain' is done and I love it. In fact, securing this video this morning at an editing facility in Venice Beach - the director finished it at about 5:30 after working all night - was part of the reason I was late. Taking the chance on showing this video off to people at Comic-Con was why I took the poorly calculated list. So, I've watched it about a dozen times. I'll have a lot more to say when it is playing on the web so this news is premature. I just want you guys to get excited for it.

Some people evidently had just as bad a time at the Ahab shoot as I did sitting in my car outside of Comic-Con. A few posts ago I wrote about finding an article in a local free weekly about the shoot. Well in this issue some letters to the editor badmouthed the scene. Check them out - link - or read below, but don't pay it too much mind - these guys could not have seen an of the footage or final product.

Snakes & Spelling Mistakes (the letters' headline given by this weekly - I would not make fun of people's spelling mistakes for obvious reasons)

I was at the shoot [re: “Snakes on the Brain,” vol. 5 no. 33], and this is the lamest video ever, and that ugly chick that balances the can of MGD on her butt is the trashiest thing I have ever seen. Everyone in this vodeo should get a realy life [sic] instead of trying to win some white trash award.

-Tony McGullen

I agree with Tony. Everyone in this vodeo should get a realy life [sic].

-DG3

the pilgrimage to San Diego Comic-Con - parade of nerds

Looks like am waking up in the wee hours Friday to drive down to San Diego for Comic-Con to do Snakes on A Plane research and interviews. I gotta pay my own way, but it is not as ridiculously expensive as you would expect.

You know the Captain Ahab snakes video I have been talking about? Larry tells me it should be done today, though I don't know when it is going to hit the internet.

Over at The Horror Blog, the weekly roundtable question should be going up Friday and I participated once again, sounding off about who deserves (and who does not) a Masters of Horror episode.

snoops on a plane

So I'm going down to San Diego to meet with some Snakes on A Plane people on Friday. Some bloggers have got the chance to see the Snakes booth at Comic-Con today. I got sent some pics of the booth construction to put up, but snakesonablog.com has already done so. Check them out here.

Expect updates very soon.

Let's talk about A.I.D.S. - City in Panic (1986) Canada - plus Hep C warning

Snakes: In this guys column, Diarrhea of a Madman, the Captain Ahab video video for the song from the Snakes on the Brain soundtrack is described by a writer who was on set as well and in fact plays a part in the video.

L.A. news: I found the cheapest place to buy used DVDs in L.A. and it's not Amoeba. Today I picked up Kong Island for three dollars. Lots of three dollar DVDs at this place. Most DVDs from the last few years are between four and seven dollars. Horror shit is generally cheaper, though the selection is totally random. Oh yeah, where? 20/20 Video.

City in Panic: I thought this 1986 slasher about A.I.D.S. in the city was amazing. Sure the shots are a little awkward at times and certain scenes play like fan tributes to classic movies, but Canadian director Robert Bouvier did a lot of stuff right.

I should mention that the movie is allegedly available on a low-priced DVD bundle called Serial Psychos with what looks like five recent shot-on-video full lengths that have never appeared elsewhere. I hope for the fans sake that this movie looks sharp in that package and that they did not chop it up or anything. They probably stuck a new name over the title shot as City in Panic has another name in this bundle. The titles, opening and closing, are particularly silly looking on the Trans World Entertainment tape, appearing as if they were made on the kind of tape-to-tape video editing equipment they had at schools in the pre-digital days. That aside, the picture on the tape looks great so I don't know why they paired it with credits you usually see filling out shot-on-video movies.

The homage's to Fritz Lang's M and Psycho are a little odd, the M one being a major plot element as the killer is inspired by that movie and even goes by the name "M". Bouvier replicates the Psycho shower scene with a man instead of a woman in one of the movies opening scenes. Nearly all of the victims are men. Most are gay men all nearly all of them have A.I.D.S., as the killer's motive has something to do with this. I don't want to give it away completely, but the A.I.D.S. issue here is at the heart of the movie, a movie made when talk about A.I.D.S. was more taboo - though I'm not sure how much more, I was young at the time. I don't know when A.I.D.S. prevention became mainstream. Recently I've heard Reagan criticized for not mobilizing against the disease until it was too late for many gay man who had already become infected. There are gays today who insist that A.I.D.S. is a gay disease and that the public should hold this view, not to blame gays, but to acknowledge that the reason A.I.D.S. became an epidemic right under our noses is because people turned a blind eye to homosexuals during the early days of their plight and still do so today. Next America is gonna be hit hard by Hepatitis C, not exclusive to gays by any means. Not that this puts a whole in the gay theory about A.I.D.S. being under the radar for so long, but I don't hear anybody talking about Hepatitis C these days. See what epidemic.org has to say...

It is suspected that there are, at present, more than 5 million people in the United States that are infected with Hepatitis C, and perhaps as many as 200 million around the world. This makes it one of the greatest public health threats faced in this century, and perhaps one of the greatest threats to be faced in the next century. Without rapid intervention to contain the spread of the disease, the death rate from hepatitis C will surpass that from AIDS by the turn of the century and will only get worse. Ok, there you go, now back to the movie.

Several reviews claim that City in Panic offended and outraged gays when it came out, but I would like to see actually evidence of the outrage. Campblood.org, a horror site for homosexuals, mentions the outrage, but the actually reviewer on the site does not appear to be offended himself. He does refer "this most egregious affront to gays, and pretty much anyone with any taste" when mentioning the movies most brutal scene. A security guard makes his way to a public restroom, enters the stall, and removes the toilet paper holder to reveal a glory hole. Another patron enters the room and then the adjacent stall. Security guard puts his member through the whole, where of course we find that the person on the other side is the slasher who chops off the member. The shots of the security guard writhing in pain are sick and bloody. Certainly it is one of the most grim deaths in a horror film that I have ever seen and it was reserved for a gay man and yes gay men are killed brutally in this picture, but let's not forget that the showing brutal deaths should at least elicit some sympathy for the victims. I don't think that the gays are robbed of their dignity. A handful of the deaths involve stereotypical gay locations and activities, but some of the guys are rather normal. I don't think it is wrong to put a gay character in a gym even if it is fits a stereotype. Look, if every gay killed in the movie was on the way home from the roman baths, well that would be too much, but it is not the case. One cop is extremely homophobic, but he is a shithead in every way and it follows that homophobia is another one of his negative traits.

I'd like my analysis of this film to be somewhat thorough without blowing it for all of you. The final showdown in a mannequin factory - brilliant. A climatic shot shown through the hallucinating killers eyes - one of the best I've seen - the killer sees everyone as a carrier of A.I.D.S. and sees something personally haunting too.

The movie is loaded with talk as the protagonist is a talk radio host. We get lots of psychological musing and stuff that was probably pretty topical in the 80's. Is it society's fault that M is driven to kill? Is M mentally ill? M says that the city will thank him for what he is doing when they find out his motives. Now that is pretty sick shit, don't you think?

what Burger King wants to feed movie fans - a blogger who eats it - plus grindhouse

I read this article in the LA Times this morning and I'll just paste the whole thing. It's short.

A Whopper Gets Star Billing?

Product placement apparently isn't cutting it in the movie business anymore. Not satisfied, say, with a mere passing shot of a mega-star munching a Whopper, Burger King is developing a film whose main character lives above one of its burger franchises, according to a story in this week's Advertising Age, a trade magazine.

No, it's not a horror film. And it's also not going to be what would seem the natural sequel to 2004's nutty teenage comedy "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle." Instead, Burger King, along with ad agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky, which is overseeing the script, envision a "character-driven" story along the lines of "Garden State" and "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," according to Advertising Age.

ADVERTISEMENTA spokeswoman for Burger King declined to comment, while officials at Crispin Porter & Bogusky did not return phone calls. Both firms are based in Miami.

If you all think I'm a dumb blogger, how about this guy who wants to see it?

What surprises me even more than the very fact that an advertising agency is producing a feature film is the fact that I actually have a desire to see it! Here’s how I see it. First, I find the Burger King spots quite entertaining and fresh. Couple that with the curiosity of how a group of agency CD’s would handle a feature film (‘cause face it, we CD’s all want to direct a feature film) and you’ve got a recipe for flame-broiled cinema.

Here’s an idea for the DVD release. The viewer should have the ability within the DVD-ROM portion to edit the film however they want so that they can “Have It Your Way™.”

Is Burger King paying this guy? Probably yes, in fries.

not operating at full capacity: My internet is slow, perhaps because of spyware, perhaps not because my roommates computer is slow too. My cell phone in not working 50% of the time. My digital still camera is broken - sand in the shutter - and this is the unfortunate because my new policy is going to be that I bring a camera everywhere to capture the Hollywood action. This morning on my walk to Amoeba, passing the El Capitain, where they are showing the new Pirates of the Caribbean movies, I encounter a protester's large sandwich board propped up on the sidewalk that made me stop dead in my tracks laughing. In fact, the person behind me walked into me. The protesters were all getting ready for a media frenzy with press kits and what not, so I did not see any action, and I'll admit that I don't understand the protest because the sign was completely in Spanish, but the image on it completely blew my mind. It was Mickey doing the sieg heil in a nazi uniform complete with swastika armband, hitler mustache, and hitler haircut. I really should know Spanish, but I don't, what I could grasp from the text was that this was something about Disney being racist. I don't think it was a sweatshop labor thing.

grindhouse this month and next New Beverly Cinema - 7165 Beverly Blvd. Los Angeles: July 18th, two Italian movies. Doctor Butcher M.D. and Joe D'amato's Grim Reaper. Hopefully this is not cut like my Grim Reaper tape, which is just not the same with out the fetus eating scene, the movies most famous moment. A couple months ago when Gates of Hell screened, there were groans of disgust when a bit of the drill killing was cut short. August 15th, Mausoleum and Lamberto Bava's Demons, my favorite film of the 80's.



Why am I hiding this girl's identity. Well she was a friend of mine, a frequent visitor to the apartment, and a photographer herself, but very camera shy. It seems my old roommates got a kick out of this cause there are just tons and tons of photos of her hiding in some old folder on this computer. I blame one kid, who we referred to as "Kyle" in previous Hollywood Memories for most of them, but in his defense, the collection of photos amounts to an interesting body of work.



Hollywood Memories is really about pictures of stuff, not snapshots of my friends, so it is blurred out as I'm sure she would like it to be.

snakes on a plane... again

The "Snakes on the Brain" video shoot was today for the Captain Ahab song that is on the Snakes on a Plane soundtrack. Everything is hush hush about it now, but not for long cause Larry says he is gonna edit this in a week. There is some deadline or something.

For now watch this snakes-related video from Rob who was in the shoot today and is doing some post-production work on it as well.

Even better, his Bubble Bobble song.

It was a busy weekend and I did not get to watch any horror tapes. I did make it to a show to see my favorites, The Angry Samoans, sing about big time music industry whore, Rodney Bingenheimer, The Mayor of the Sunset Shit. Openers, Black Fag, surprised me by not being pissed off real gay dudes singing Black Flag songs, but rather being potentialy-non gay performers (or real gays?) who act in a flaming manner, you know, the front man sings the hits with a lisp and stuff. The next big thing I'm sure.



I though I was done with the Hollywood Memories, but no.



This was one of our roommates who slept on the floor. He got bit by a spider and then lost his job because he could no longer brew coffee with all the bandages on his hand. I got bit by the same kind of spider three times of the next few months. My bites were extremely painful, but I never went to the doctor which is for the best because they butchered this kid - I'm surprised they did not chop his finger clean off! At one point he had a hole in this extremely swollen finger that was a centimeter deep.

I never saw a spider. Those fuckers got us in the night. I've got scars from my bites to this day. All three are on my right arm.

why are the innocent dead and the guilty alive? where is justice? where is punishment?

I know for a fact that there are gonna be big snakes at the Captain Ahab video shoot, 'Snakes on the Brain', their song on the Snakes on A Plane soundtrack. I know the girl who is the keeper of the snakes and they are monster snakes that have appeared on TV before and in the movies. To be a part of the video on Sunday: check this out. Guys are told to dress like it is a Biohazard video and girls dress like it is a C&C Music Factory video. As you can see this is a celebration of a glorious era in recent pop culture.

I submitted my piece to this week's Horror Roundtable Discussion a little late once again, but I'm betting it will up with the rest by the end of the day.

It's too hot to go out in L.A., but I'm gonna make the thrift store rounds looking for a new boombox today. Also, it looks like the gallons of water collecting in my ceiling are not going to bust through and soak everything. Hold on, it has not rained for months and I live on the top floor. Where did the water come from? Well it turns out that their is a water tower on the roof. Who new? Also, I still intend to write reviews of City in Panic and the new Anchor Bay horror release, The Garden.

New street "performer" sighted on Hollywood Boulevard, a Chucky with a bloody knife, played by a real little person or else that is serious child abuse in this heat. Hope he kicks the ass of the Jason and Freddy, who stand around with their masks off by the open doors of the Virgin, where a little bit of the air-conditioning wafts out. They can't hang.

even the defamer.com writes about Captain Ahab , also r'n'r highschool graveyard screening

My old roommate, Lawrence Klein, is directing a third Captain Ahab video (see the other two - I've posted about this a million times) for a song from the Snakes on a Plane movie. The defamer.com, one of the most popular and nasty blogs out there, reposted Larry's craigslist post on their site. If you wanna be a "dirty dirty booty girl" this weekend - well you might get your chance if you respond to the ad. Shoot is in Burbank, CA.

Next horror review will be of the brutal A.I.D.S.-releated slasher, City in Panic (1986), from the legendary TransWorld Entertainment tape company.

Last night, I saw Rock 'n' Roll High School projected onto the side of a mausoleum (someone said Marilyn Monroe's body lies inside) at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery last night. It was surreal, Ramones music blasting in the cemetery, the movie playing not a hundred yards from Joey Ramone's grave. I believe Dee Dee is buried there as well. On hand were director Allan Arkush, star P.J. Soles, Sex Pistol Steve Jones, Henry Rollins, and Marky Ramone as well as some wack loudmouth (not Jones) from local corporate rock headquarters - "Indie" 103.1.

Fantastic, never before seen, Ramones concert footage (It's Alive) preceded the movie.

who will be the first to delete a link to the 150 Days - plus real 'tales from the crapper'

I promise I will talk to you guys about horror movies soon, but allow me another Hollywood Memory please.



This kid, who I will only refer to as 'Kyle', was crashing on our floor for a while and got into the spirit of making websites. His site, krazykyle dot com, which only lasted a little while, offered such gems as this picture of our communal toilet. You could eat a slice of cake off of that toilet seat. You'd get A.I.D.S. doing it, but you COULD actually do this.



Seriously, that toilet had nothing on the toilet I saw when I was given a special all-access tour of the Guantanamo Bay prison. Fortunately I had my camera with me to document the abuses.

only stupid bastards help...

I love how the big chain record stores come in dead last in Los Angeles - not just when it comes to being, well cool - but also when it comes to profits. Tower Records on Sunset! The history! The legacy! The Rip-off! They claim that at the New York Dolls in-store (7/28) you will need a to buy the cd to get the limited wrist-band. We shall see.

I used to make a cool $5.50 an hour at the Boston Tower. By now you've all heard my story about how the store manager and regional manager were asleep at the wheel and the landlords leased the building to Virgin on their watch. The big shots got fired and were laughed out of the downtown area. I hear that one killed himself by putting a shotgun up his ass (was it suicide or something kinky gone wrong) and the other got A.I.D.S., but everyone just says that's what they deserve. At least my readers care and well shed a tear for those noble old retail rockers. Right friends?



Over on scenefashion.com, things had been getting slow due to an increase in real life fun which resulted in an equally proportionate decrease in internet fun. Funny how that goes. The people demanded an update and we did not have enough pictures of real kids so I tried to pass off this floppy rubber pig as an acceptable substitute for a profile of a hot new "fashionista".

The pig was a prop from the little boutique I managed. Apparently, before my time, they had been going with an Asian-grocery motive with dead gag chickens and this pig in the window.

a cool reception for - Night of the Living Dead 3-D

Horror messageboards... I've tried to avoid them. Too much stupid shit and when it comes to the myspace ones where you can actually see the people you are dealing with, well then that's even more embarrassing. Horror Crowd is a LARGE group I'm ashamed to be a member of, but once in a while bordom drives me to see what is being discussed.

I gained some respect for the kids (though they ain't kids in age) for tearing this guy Maxwell apart. He posts apparently to brag of his involvement as Art Director/Production Designer of a handful of new movies - Night of the Living Dead 3-D, The Brotherhood of Blood, Somebody Save Me - and links to his resume. Only one reply from the crowd is somewhat neutral. All others, mean.

"Worked on the Night of the Living Dead 3D remake, huh?

Well, I hope you die."

"Don't get pissed on us cuz you felt the need to help piss all over a classic."

...and after the rebuttal...

"He even called in reinforcements to stick up for him...

Creepy

What was it like working with Sid Haig? Did he hurt your feelings too?"

I hope the myspace will allow you to view the thread without logging on. I'd never heard of this Night of the Living Dead 3D myself.

Thor coming to Los Angeles!

Just a day after I find a Thor CD for three bucks at a Santa Monica record store I get the great news. Thor is on tour and hitting the Key Club July 31st. Not from Los Angeles? Perhaps no need to despair. The rest of the Thor dates listed here. I've also got Thor's latest album, 'Thor Against the World', but this older Thor disc (1998? - the oldest one goes back to the 70's on RCA, never released on CD) I found is even better. What a steal. Whoever priced it was not familiar with the power of Thor and did not know that the CD was actually the most killer piece of metal in their whole store.

By the way, Rock N' Roll Nightmare just came out on DVD. Can Zombie Nightmare be far behind?

Check out the horror round table discussion at The Horror Blog and see my two cents on this week's question. Some good stuff from a bunch of horror blogs including a few cool looking ones that I'd never even heard of. Could it be that those blogs new to me have writers who have never heard of this here 150 Days of Sodom? Well, I'd certainly be shocked if they had not!! We are a household name, right?!?

Thanks to Steven for printing my whole piece. What a good sport. I think mine had the highest word count - though by just a little bit.