another mom and pop era VHS tape hits DVD - 1985's Future-Kill

Sorry I've not been posting frequently enough. Don't worry, by no means is the blog dying a slow death - this is just a heavy time for me with 3 TV/video projects that I'm heavily involved in each coming to a busy time. There are a lot of horror bits I want to cover - for now a new DVD release has caught my attention...

Future-Kill is out on DVD. I remember hating this when I rented the tape a few years back, but maybe I'd be a little more into it now. It's no Young Warriors, that's for sure, though it is similar in the way that it matches frat hi-jinks with graphic street violence. Am I'm gonna pick up the new DVD? No chance in hell, but you might be interested. Edwin Neal and Marilyn Burns from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre are in this movie, as was advertised on the original box cover, making thousands of fans excited to rent the tape and then letting each of them down one by one.

video store dork test - can you identify this picture by pretty much just rabbit images alone?

What was this? I swear I remember it being just a tad different - from my teenage years - of course I won't get into it now. Yes, I'll post the answer later and explain what I'm talking about.

12/2/06 - answer: is here

David DeCoteau

Frequent Charles Band film director, David DeCoteau, is on myspace. Sure, everyone is on myspace, but I think that this might be HIS actual page in that he actually uses it himself. I was reminded that I wanted to put up a link to his very interesting (and very gay) myspace page as I picked up Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (a hilarious film) at a yardsale today for a dollar. By the way, today's yardsale in Studio City was supposed to have a special celebrity special guest, Irwin Keyes (Friday the 13th, House of 1000 Corpses, The Exterminator), but he was nowhere to be seen.

David DeCoteau may have made his best films early in his career. Creepozoids, Dr. Alien, Puppet Master III (probably the best of that series). Later Band movies were not as good - Shrieker (1997), The Killer Eye (1999), Prison of the Dead (2000). Today he makes gay slashers for here! Networks. See his imdb page.

Anyway, I'm a big fan. I'll hopefully bring you that Young Warriors screening review I promised. Did I mention that Debbie Gibson was in attendance? No joke, she was attending the double feature on a date.

Umberto Lenzi's Man from Deep River (1972) to screen in Hollywood November 25th

Attention Hollywood locals, Adam Trash is showing The Man From Deep River on November 25th at midnight, for, of course, Regent Midnight Movies. I believe that this movie is the one movie that jump started the Italian cannibal film craze. Adam personally warned me not to attend as this movie unfortunately also set the bar for the amount of animal slaughter in these films. Thanks for the warning, I will not be there, but some of you may be the heartless bastards who dig that shit. Unfortunately for me, I'm a big fan of the cannibal films minus the real horror involved, but screenings of Cannibal Ferox (also Umberto Lenzi) and Cannibal Holocaust have left me cold. I recommend Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals for those seeking cannibal mayhem minus the ugly specter of animal abuse. Also coming soon - Grindhouse Film Festival on December 19th with Silent Night Bloody Night and Black Christmas, with Bob Clark possibly in attendance. I will surely speak more on that double bill as the date becomes closer. Last night's Grindhouse will also be receiving a full review here in the near future, perhaps a very in-depth review, as I loved 1983's The Young Warriors.

Night of the Living Dead 3D (2006) with Sid Haig, who can't save this movie from being perhaps the worst of the year

Night of the Living Dead 3D is without a doubt the lowest budget film I've seen in a first-run movie theater. There is of course, nothing wrong with that, unless the film is Night of the Living Dead 3D, a total bore that also looks like shit. The 3D is extremely underused. Not guts or blood fly at the screen period, because there is only one gore scene in the entire movie - and that ain't much to see. Twice, joints extend from the screen into the audience, but this trick is only funny the first time. The weed jokes are not very funny. The characters are not very interesting or compelling. Yes, Sid Haig is in this movie, but not enough. I don't know if they just gave him all the good lines, or if he is amazing with even shit material, but all the scenes with him in them are good in a way that make them seem out of place along with the rest of the sterile boredom.

This movie is already dated by the terms used in the film. There are mentions of Mapquest, playing Doom, and the Horror Channel (does that even exist beyond the internet?), as well as the phenomenon of a zombie text messaging, which you've seen if you have suffered through the movie's commercial. I sure hope the text messaging scene will date this movie as I prefer phone calls to texting and hope that this behavior will go out of vogue. I don't think I will be so lucky.

Zombie movies have run their course. It's getting old. Zombie walks, zombie porn, "what would you do if zombies came?" hypothetical conversations... stop it already! By the way, the glasses for this movie are the shitty blue and red kind.

In July I posted about Night 3D for the first time when I found it getting slammed by fans online just for existing. Many feel that a classic film is being raped.

I would put this movie in league with the original Night of the Living Dead star's directorial retread from 1988, Bill Hinzman's Flesheater. Sure Night 3D is more innovative with the script, but both movies are dull, murky, forgettable, and completely uninteresting to the eye. These movie is dead on it's feet, yeah, that's like a zombie, but one that's stuck in a box with no food to eat and just bangs its head against the wall.

R.I.P. Jack Palance

My next review will be of the awful Night of the Living Dead 3D that hit a few theaters yesterday, but first, this sad news...

Famous western actor Jack Palance died yesterday, November 10th, 2006, of natural causes at age 87. Most famous for City Slickers, and his one-handed push-ups at the Oscars that year at age 73, fans of horror and low-budget cinema should also note that he acted in a number of sleazy Italian movies earlier in his career. Films include Mister Scarface, Black Cobra Woman (directed by Joe D'Amato), and Marquis de Sade: Justine (directed by Jess Franco). Other horror genre movies include Man in the Attic from 1953 (he played a man who may or may not be the Ripper), Dracula from 1973 (Dan Curtis, Palance played Dracula), Without Warning from 1980 (a movie that inspired Predator) and of course Alone in the Dark from from 1982. I know I'm leaving tons of films out, check the list for yourself or see some of the films that you have missed, in honor of this bad guy legend.

Borat is more real than I thought, they pulled it off, I can't believe it...

All the Borat fit to print. Previously in my writings about Borat I questioned weather or not these tricks with real non-acting Americans were as real as they had been on the HBO TV show. I figured there was no way they could make this gag work again and it all fit together too neatly in the film. Well, I may be still be right in some cases, but journalists have been doing some work and what they have dug up proves that that much of these pranks were not simulated. Stuff in this Borat movie really is TRUE and many of the characters are Americans being themeselves - read these fascinating stories.

We will start off with a quick one, "Duped Woman Blames Borat for Losing Her Job".

This Newsweek article explains to some extent how they got away with it. It still blows my mind even after hearing the methods.

Tons of links from the USA today to stories about Borat's happy and unhappy victims.

Feminist sculptor Linda Stein's page with a list of articles about her Borat experience.

Linda Stein writes about her experience, a must read.

Even more accounts from FHM. Look at the picture they've got of frat boy David Corcoran downing two beers simultaneously. Are you trying to clean up your rep or not?

You can attempt to read this tell-all Borat expose on MTV's shitfilled/hard-to-navigate website.

The frat boys sue. Fox says the lawsuite "has no merit."

Thanks to this site, Magic Smoke, for finding all the info. I've got a friend who was working the Virgin signing where Pamela Anderson gets abducted. I find it hard to believe that he was not in on the joke, as I know he is familiar with Ali G and loves cable tv and whatnot. I did not think to ask him if he knew what was going on, I just assumed that he did. I'll get back to you guys on this.

Young Warriors X-Rated print is coming to Grindhouse - plus a review written worse than all of mine put together, about that Marie Antoinette movie

Grindhouse Film Festival, next week, Tuesday, November 14th in Hollywood. Be there, the only uncut print in existence of Young Warriors is playing along with Malibu High. Lawrence D. Foldes of Don't Go in the Park fame will be there.

So many of the user reviews on the imdb are bad, we know this, but what about the imdb message boards. Oh my God. Check out this defense of Marie Antoinette that starts off one thread.

I watched Marie Antoinette yesterday with my older sister who's 21 and she was absolutely disgusted with the movie, whereas I thought it was beautiful, moving and lavish. I tried to talk to her about the movie, but she told me that there was nothing to talk about because the movie was so terrible--there was no storyline...what was the point blah blah blah.

I thought her being the older sibling, would understand the depth of the movie...but she didn't.

So I guess I've taken the liberty to explain something to everyone who thought the script was terrible and everything else that was terrible about the movie.

Sofia Coppola is a genius and I thought this movie was genius. The whole movie is about Marie Antoinette and her life...it's kind of like a documentary but at the same time...not so much of a documentary. The details are so accurate and everything is so precise...can people not appreciate that? I mean, it was about her life, why would there be a storyline or a plot? As for the script, I imagine it was how Marie Antoinette and her friends and everyone else would talk back then.

What exactly did people want/expect from this movie? Did people expect a fairy tale life of a 14-year-old Austrian girl who came to marry Louis XVI?

Did they expect a warped version of her life that would make the movie more interesting in their opinion?

I just feel that sometimes people can't spot a good movie from a bad movie.

What the fuck was that? Anyway, what of this Marie Antoinette movie? Acording to this review from the ultra-leftish Nation, the film is superficial garbage. I've heard some complain that Sofia Coppola only directs movies that tell the tales of people of privlidge. I guess that claim is not so far fetched and Marie Antoinette is I suppose the ultimate example as this movie ignors the really nasty historical details of her life (the execution) and sticks to her depicting "Marie-Antoinette's life as relentlessly tedious". Oh the pain of being rich with nothing to do. I can relate, all my worries are school related while my bills are magicaly paid, yet my life is still a fascinating struggle, right? ...Right?

150 Days!! - my non-review of Death of a President (2006)

Death of a President, as you may have heard, is the fictional account, a mocumentary actually, of the assassination of George Bush. Many have said that this movie brings forth the truth in a way that only fiction can, and I agree that these filmmakers do predict accurately what would happen in the aftermath of a presidential assassinating, but you know what, it's an easy call. Basically the death of George Bush is 9-11 part 2. In the film a new Patriot Act passes, we bomb Syria due to false intelligence, and Muslims are unfairly treated. Wow, how about surprising us with something new?! I agree all this things are wrong, but seeing a fictional account of all this news going down is just so boring as none of it is any different than recent and current news. The twist ending (a mocumentary with a twist ending? oh no) is basically a retread of the Timothy McVeigh case, the liberals' favorite terrorist story.

I saw this in the theater, very few others will. I feel that a lot of the praise for this movie is due to people being impressed with the use of real news footage being combined with scripted filmed footage of actors to form new scenes - like the assassination scene - to name an obvious example. Well, I'm not impressed. By now we've seen it all technology wise and it is not worth your money to rent this just to see some magic that could be created on just about anybody's Macintosh these days.

Death of a President, it's not total shit, but it's no more fun than an hour and a half of CNN.

150 Days of Sodom is back - Blood Diamond is under attack!!

Sorry I was gone during the horror season of Halloween. It's been busy, but the main problem was an unreliable internet connection.

Here is a link to a tale of a very jaded Halloween weekend from the LA Weekly. I actually went to the Dia de los Muertos festival in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and contemplated that Pumpkinhead screening.

Here is a link to the fascinating article about the Blood Diamond controversy. When I was younger I said I would never buy a diamond for anyone, as they are products of slavery and murder or something, but then, two years ago I bought one - in fact old entries of this blog (don't go back there!) chronicle that adventure. Oh well, I fucked up.

Well, here is a great poster teaser for a movie that does not and sadly will not ever exist, created by my adorable friend Anniee, enjoy.