Tomorrow is the day of a million coffees and sodas. It is moving day - the worst day ever and the only way to get through it is sugar and caffeine. The 2nd worst day ever was yesterday - Memorial Day - traffic was sooo bad cause we live near the beach - we seriously could not leave the house. I walked down the hill to take in the sights - young alcoholics everywhere. The people looked good in their swimsuits, but I'm not fooled, they will be fat slobs later on down the line. I got rated a 9 out of 10 by some girls on a roof (weekly rentals) with signs drawn up to give each pedestrian walking by a number. Another one of the girls did not like my reaction (unenthusiastic) or just thought I was ugly and gave be a "10 minus 9", but then everything was ok again cause an even drunker girl said I'd always "be a 10 in her book". What rating the tattooed muscle guys (blasting Social Distortion) gave me, I don't know. That because they keep their feeling for other dudes to themselves.Funny, everyone is moving down to the O.C. for fun in the sun at the same time we are moving away. Perfectly timed.
It seems like just yesterday that we moved to Newport Beach. I put up ocean themed horror posters to fit in with our locale. Two Humanoids from the Deep posters, Blood Beach, Pirhana II, and the Italian movie Crocodile. We watched Tentacles (Tentacoli) on our first night in. It's been one year and nine months and we are going back to Hollywood with more crap than ever. The big day has been planned out, but will there be a disaster? It might be awhile before you find out because a move means a little bit of time without internet.
We will be back with news from the streets of Hollywood.
I've seen yesterday's metal pussies become today's yuppie pussies. Well, really I've not seen this at all, but I've seen the shows they are watching on heavy metal Vh1. Some of these band members have been on three different reality shows now! Biggest sellout, Scott Ian, a metal muppet who you might see buying hair dye for his goatee at your local Hot Topic when on the road with.... SuperGroup. This new "band", the subject of a new TV show, also includes Sebastian Bach and Ted Nugent. Here's hoping Nugent goes psycho and blows away his bandmates in an argument, and then takes his own life in order to avoid future prison rape. A shotgun suicide would be the only thing metal on that show.
Do you dig Thin Lizzy and Kiss? Then you will dig the rock performed by The Clowns, the factitious glam band who star in the 1980 slasher, Terror on Tour. The music ain't that bad, and the stage show, with simulated slashings and dismemberment, is pure fun. Too bad someone in Clown get-up is taking it too far, killing girls for real in the arena and back stage area. Is it one of the band members? The roadie who dresses like them in order to get laid? Or someone else? If we can sit through the endless partying, drug use, sex, and violence, then maybe we will find out. It would seem impossible to fuck this up, but director Don Edmonds (Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS) somehow managed to make it all a little boring. Really, the movie is very poorly paced, with dull subplots that go nowhere. The kills are not memorable, though they could have put more money into the FX budget. It's not an amateur movie otherwise, production values are pretty good and the cinematography is impressive, it just is not really a blast, and it should be. I mean... look at the cover!
From Media Home Video, no DVD, a very complete review is here.
Anchor Bay, they were the only DVD company practically endorsed by VideoHound's horror review book and, besides Something Weird Video, the first company I saw to bring long deleted horror vhs titles and foreign horror to DVD or letter-boxed clamshell vhs. They are still going strong today, with the June 13th reissue of Cemetery Man that I got an early copy of yesterday, but this direct-to-video title, It Waits (2005), totally sucks.
The only good thing about the movie is the creature make-up. Imagine a smaller Pumpkinhead. Ok, there are some good dead-body prosthetics as well. CGI is not this movie's friend. Is there a rule that every straight-to-DVD or premiering-on-cable horror flick must contain computer graphics? It looks so stupid. The dialogue here blows as well - it's painful. "I should've changed his oil." All the horror blogs are going to review this title and if any of them give it a positive review they are liars. I'll be watching you guys - don't cave into the pressure.
So Cerina Vincent, hot or not?
She is no Nastassja Kinski or Asia Argento, so I must say that she is not my particular cup of tea when it comes to hotness, however she is a cute girl.
How come the only character we cared about was Hoppy? Hoppy was the best! He deserves all of the credit because he was the only good part of the movie. The movie was pretty awful. What was up with the Jeepers Creepers rip off? Were they attempting to make it Jeepers Creepers 3? Sorry cub. It was a flop (terrible dialogue I must add).
Hey you know, my old roommate Lawrence Klein directed the video for "U Want Me" by Captain Ahab. It can't be played on M2 or probably even youtube - watch it all and see if you don't feel the pain and grief.
link: http://www.captain-ahab.com/larry/%20UWANTME-Final.mov (busted) try this: lawrenceklein.net.
insider fact: Larry subjected himself to certain My Chemical Romance videos in order to study-up on the scene - oh shit.
In the news: you may have read that we are leaving Orange County behind for Hollywood with a big "fuck you OC" for a good-bye. It's true. I finished another semester at OCC today. We had the producer of cable access' Graveyard Shift interviewed in the television studio this afternoon - I worked engineering for this short segment. Host Scarabus could not attend. It was speculated that perhaps he does not come out in the daytime. I will be commuting to Costa Mesa several times a week come next fall, but for the summer we are making a clean break.
I had a long debate on the phone with a certain unnamed individual on the merits of See No Evil. My stance remains that this is the worst movie to hit the horror scene - maybe ever. This time aiming low did not save shit. It is from porno director Gregory Dark (New Wave Hookers - 1985) and produced by WWE films. I can only imagine how Vince McMahon is promoting this on his television shows. I read something about storylines where Kane become upset when the release date of his movie is mention. Way to drill that bit of info into the viewers' heads.
I remember 1989, on Superstars of Wrestling, there being bits telling the fans to get out there and see No Holds Barred one more time. Problem was, they kept running these bits up to three months after No Holds Barred had vanished from the theaters! Then came No Holds Barred on PPV. A pay-per-view movie costs what, $7.50? They tacked on a match with Hogan and Beefcake against Macho Man and Zeus (Tiny Lister from No Holds Barred) and ran the movie for $25! Go Vince!
This bit form Online Onslaught about the financial success of See No Evil. My friend believes this movie can easily make it's money back through DVD sales. It opened Friday.
Many people wrote in trying to revisionist-history their way to calling Kane's movie a success. All of them tried to use the "dollars per screen" heuristic as their lead measurement.
So: in the interest of fairness, I will report that Kane's movie actually *was* the #3 movie of the weekend in terms of dollars-per-screen.
But in the interests of pragmatism, I will also report that it still did pretty sucky. The "dollars-per-screen" measurement really only has usefulness at the very top-end and the very bottom-end of movie distribution. Major blockbusters, you use the "dollars-per-screen" to determine whether you lost any incremental revenue by not booking more screens. Art house/indie flicks, you use "dollars-per-screen" to measure your movie's success in a very limited/regional release.
But "See No Evil" is neither of those cases. It was an attempted Major National Release that wound up on a meager 1300 screens. All the high "dollars-per-screen" number means is that movie theatres all over the country picked EXACTLY RIGHT in terms of deciding how many screens to dedicate to "See No Evil." It does *not* mean that "See No Evil" would somehow have made 3 times as much money if it had opened on the same number (3800) of screens as "The DaVinci Code." That's just dum-dum logic.
If you read my last post you might be interested that there is a Starbucks at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba! Are they selling the sodomy too? Yes, I know that those pictures were from Abu Gharib (pic below is on the way to Guantanamo) and of course I would not want to criticize anything our government is doing cause it might lower prison guard moral.
Ok, I lied, I don't care. I feel for the troops who might get wasted, but Guantanamo Bay is not a danger zone and they have Starbucks!
My review of Escape from Blood Plantation after these words...
I can't believe I forgot to bitch about Thursday nights TV taping. Some wanker director in TV1 class was doing a mini-mystery based on the game Clue - how can wicked short mysteries make sense? They can't, but I was not watching the production, I was working the lights, which is a really easy thing to do, so I only made one mistake that resulted in a scene being re-shot. I think I had my cues out of order. The lights go out (allowing for a murder to happen) and then I brought up the lights that must have been on another set. This was probably pretty funny, but I could not see it because the sets will filling up the whole studio and the computer and myself were parked behind a phony living room wall. These shows are pretty fun to work and if I were getting paid they would be really fun to work thanks to all the unnecessarily delays. I can't wait to get a job in the industry and get paid to sit around. I'm enthusiastic.
Less than two weeks till the big return to Hollywood. We are excited. You may be sad that their have not been any Cub Speaks shorts lately. Well she has written some, but I have not finished my portions of the reviews of these particular movies. I'm usually writing a bunch of things at once.
Escape from Blood Plantation on Marathon Video. I've had this tape for a while. The cover sure looks killer and it's got a sweet title, but I was worried it would not live up to those things and would be, you know, a lame action/adventure tale. Well, my fears were off-base and once again I can tell you that just because there has been no DVD reissue, that does not mean that the movie is forgettable. Actually, an internet search has discovered that a legitimate DVD of this might exist in Eastern Europe, but in the US, it's strictly used video where you can find Die Insel der blutigen Plantage, I mean Escape from Blood Plantation - but if you look below observe how the European DVD rips off Apocalypse Now.
The talented Udo Kier (Andy Warhol's Dracula) stars as the only good Nazi guard on an island (filmed in the Philippines) where the native girls have been enslaved. The native men are no good either, as they pal around with the Nazis and some may or may not have sex with the Nazi who thinks he is the Roman Emperor Tiberius.
The Nazis has lost their way, laments Bloody Olga, the lone female sadist on the island, who is also has the hots for Kier. Kier's plans to free his native girl friend are constantly foiled. He is forced to publicly give her 50 lashes to the delight of the head dictator's private guard of voyeuristic native midgets. The degradation does not end their - a few days later Olga forces Kier to have sex with her at gunpoint when she she interrupts him and his lady during their make-up sex. Yes, the girl has forgiven him for the whipping.
That's about the 1st two thirds of the movie right there, minus twenty or thirty offensive episodes that you should discover for yourself. I don't like to give too much away. At times the movie goes for epic moments (you should hear the score) but for the most part this is a cheaply made movie with a small cast and a lot of extras. The draw is the movie's cruel sleaziness (torture and humiliation) combined with inappropriate vulgar comedy, not the pitifully low-budget final action sequence. Hands down, more tasteless than movies that can be made today.
first, a link: Horror Movie Realism and its Truthfulness - not just on the subject of slasher movies, but blogging on the state of the world today. This is kind of what I like to do... now listen up!
Today I was sitting at a Starbucks in the Gas Lamp District of San Diego reading an article, the cover story of the USA Today, about Starbucks becoming more than a beverage, but also a lifestyle. Yes, they intend to convert their success with coffee beverages into success in the music industry, Hollywood, and entertainment in general. Seriously, because people love the coffee so much, they are gobbling up whatever Starbucks endorses. That is the power of the brand name. Well I do like to get Starbucks drinks, but I don't think their strategy will work with me. Forget about those Stones cds and quirky indie movies they are pushing! Still, I can't deny that the trick works with many others and I should do the same thing with this blog, which I am probably going to change the name of to 150 Days of Sodom since I wrote that randomly on a graphic among other phrases I changed just a little bit to make my own.
Yes, I am going to change the name of the blog, but you may go on calling it what you want, if you prefer the old names. The new branding, however, will have to do with the new name. No I'm not talking about printing T-shirts - though logos and names are important. I want to do a reverse Starbucks. They are looking for a lifestyle to match their coffee. I've got the 150 Days of Sodomy lifestyle to offer you in detail already. Sit around like a grub, watch old horror tapes, get wired for no good reason. Eat a whole box of cereal and take a nap. There you go.
Move to Hollywood and sit and that coffee shop all day watching people walk by like I used to do and am going to do again. Now if only I could be selling you the coffee when you sit their and use wireless internet to view my horror/lifestyle reviews on your laptop computer. That should be my ambition. 150 Days of Sodom brand coffee and snacks.
I see the Killer Workout DVD for America on ebay, but it really looks like a bootleg. I think that this movie is currently available in Europe only.
The alternative title "Aerobicide" is spray painted on a wall in one scene, along with "Death Spa", which presumably has nothing to do with the unrelated Prism Video release Death Spa (with Ken Foree) two years later in 1988. Death Spa is a better movie about a computer-controled health club where the computer becomes possessed. Killer Workout is your more typical slasher fair. Unfortunately the weapon of choice is an oversized novelty safety-pin. Shitloads of kills in this movie, but they are all pretty lame. What is equally lame, but far more watchable, would be the number of sexual aerobics routines that run in short clips at intervals throughout the movie. In one instance the routine shown includes characters who have already been killed in previous scenes. Let me tell you, this stuff is very funny and the music ("Aerocbicide" the song!) and the outfits make for some serious 80's cheese that even 80's fanatics who've seen it all will have to admit is up there with the most ridiculous.
The death toll in this movie is way up there, but the people just won't stop working out until... well, they never stop, the club is still hot when the credits roll. Not a well written movie. There is a little bit more of a story towards the end with a mildly twisted surprise, but on the whole just check this one out as a pop-culture novelty rather than a horror movie. From David A. Prior, action director of the awful war/horror crossover film, The Lost Platoon.
Stacie at Final Girl loves this movie and even put the slasher (who is it? I won't say) on one of her famous top 10 lists, ok, in the Hall of Infamy, but Stacie loves this movie, I swear. She says she could not do it justice in a review, but I think she could, in fact I think she could probably do some great commentary on the DVD if an American version ever comes out. Extras: Slasher expert Stacie Ponder on the significance of Killer Workout in regards to fitness craze that rocked the 80's.
1. No, I did not watch anymore of The Jar, Cub can't stand it and sadly she is not alone - imdb reviews.
2. In the meantime we watched Killer Workout (1986, David A. Prior) which will certainly get a review here. I think this movie is actually still in print overseas as Aerobicide.
3. Cub and I are moving back to Hollywood in two weeks. Blog updates from where the action is? I guess so.
4. Zoey has a new blog - chronicle.
5. One of the only good films of the 90's and from one of the greatest directors...
(press release)
On Tuesday, June 13th, Anchor Bay Entertainment, an IDT Entertainment company, will release the eagerly-awaited U.S. DVD premiere of Cemetery Man , one of the most requested horror titles of the last decade. Revered by consumers and industry critics alike for releasing classic and cult horror films, Anchor Bay continues that tradition for Cemetery Man (aka Dellamorte Dellamore ) with a new anamorphic widescreen transfer, and resurrected with a SRP of $19.98.
Directed by Michele Soavi, Cemetery Man stars Rupert Everett ( My Best Friend's Wedding and the voice of Prince Charming in Shrek 2 ) as Francesco Dellamore, a cemetery caretaker who finds that his seemingly dead-end job has recently become a little harder. Along with his sidekick Gnaghi (Francois Hadji-Lazaro), Francesco spends his days interning corpses and his nights killing “returners” – those who have risen from their grave seven days after burial. Life changes for Francesco when he falls for a beautiful, mysterious widow (Anna Falchi). When fate intervenes, Francesco must choose between Love Eternal and the Living Dead…
I'm part way through The Jar, a weird little film which I'm guessing is a student film that somehow made it on to Magnum Video in the 80's. It's not very linear and is ultra-cheep, yet has got a good look to it and has good music, though I guess it more like beeps and tones than music. I'm pretty sure they shot without audio and added all the dialogue in post-production. Expect a full review of this one when I finish.
Lady Vengeance hit theaters in Southern California this weekend. I caught it at the University Theaters in Irvine where I saw the 1st two parts of the Chan-wook Park trilogy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and Oldboy. That means I have lived in Orange County for too long, but that is coming to an end. In fact, during Lady Vengeance I got the phone call (on vibrate - and I stepped out of the theater to take it - obviously) confirming that Cub and I were approved to move into our new apartment in Los Angeles. Good-bye O.C. theaters, there are some good ones, but I won't miss the ad reels known as "The 20" which run for 20 minutes before the previews start in all of the Edwards Cinemas.
Lady Vengeance blew my mind. It was awesome and I've yet to find a single negative review.
Check out Omega Channel for more horror blogging.
We got approved on one apartment, but can I find better for cheaper? I will tear all of my hair out making up my mind. Cub is sick from food poisoning and has been sleeping all day - well when she is lucky she is sleeping - she is miserable.
It's been busy, the semester is ending and I go up to Los Angeles every other day to look at apartments. For L.A. people I recommend Boulevard Nights before the O.C. kids get wind of it and the place is ruined.
I tried to blow the lid of that modeling scam by logging on as this ugly girl from Boston and creating a profile. Wow, this chick is gross and the ruined the d.i.y. hardcore scene by getting gross in the pit. Of course some boys may have a thing for her, but if they are into girls this manly they ought to come out of the closet and move to West Hollywood, be my future neighbor. Actually no, stay away, the hardcore scene causes "gentrification" and that shit will raise my rent.
Anyway, my plan would have been hilarious, this super ugly would be on the modeling site and I'd contact so many people under her name. It would be a massive disgrace, but this did not work cause they wanted my credit card number - I've got to rethink this prank. There will be away to make the beast an agent for Impact Worldwide Talent.
I think that the last VHS tape I watched was Twisted Nightmare, a boring Friday the 13th rip-off. I think it has one racist scene, when the oil explodes on the sheriff's face and he crawls out from under the car and looks at the lazy black guy. Did anyone else pick up on this? I'm not one of those people who makes up some sort of racist injustice everywhere I look. No DVD.
Wow, we are looking for places in West Hollywood all the time now and have just had to downgrade our search drastically due to money issues. We blow.
I am not going to review Model Massacre right now. I'd like to compare and contrast that movie, better known as Color Me Blood Red, with A Bucket of Blood, but I have not watched that one yet.
Now, we all love scams, they are very amusing and scandalous indeed. I've known a couple of people taken for a ride by 'talent' agencies in Los Angeles. I've met the 'scouts' and even been to one of their offices. These organizations disappear after word spreads and then show up again with a new name. Here is a new one - impactww.com and here is their agent who contacting me over myspace via a poorly written spam message. He's probably getting scammed himself, a victim as well as a victimizer. He thinks he has a job as a talent scout - that's a good one!
The real story:
http://www.klaasdevriesjr.nl/k-files/talentrock/impact210.htm
http://www.easybackgroundcheck.com/impact210.html
People should be ashamed - look at this discussion - the scammer posts first, then someone quickly points out that it is a scam with links and evidence. The kids pay no mind and keep saying that they are interested. Egos before brains - it's really funny. I could write about this forever, but that is it for now, till I dig up some more dirt - by contacting the scouts and seeing what bullshit I can get them to try and sell me.
There will be investigative journalism!
"Unrated Edition" does not mean much.
Check out these suckers, duped by the Unrated Edition of Hostel that came out about half a month ago. See the conversation or just read these two quotes below.
Welcome to the world where uncut means jack shit. It just means that the featurettes and maybe two new lines of dialouge werent submitted to the MPAA, hence a new unrated version. Unless it is an extended directors cut dont expect anything new and exciting to be added to the movie.
and
For those disappointed in the dvd, I take it you weren't listening when Roth spoke up and announced that the Unrated cut was only 27 seconds longer? He stressed that the cut we saw in theaters was the cut meant to be seen but the studio knew slapping UNRATED on the cover sells better horror, so they kept in "more eye goo."
new horror blog alert - Fatally*Yours - from a girl in Costa Mesa, read it.
Went to see D.I. about 4 blocks from my house in Costa Mesa the other night. I will only be going to one more punk show in Orange County before movie next month, The Dickies in Huntington Beach. The crowd at these punk bars is pretty tough, a little more menacing than what I was used to in Boston. A random girl ran her hands threw my hair at the show. I bet she regretted that instantly, it has been a few since it was last washed. I had to hide in the corner, hoping not to attract any more attention, perhaps from thugs and gang members - going to shows alone is a bit of a drag - with all that in between band time and other people being there and all.
offensive band alert: The Cliftons. Even though these guys brought lots of friends with them to the show, it looked like the Cliftons were playing to an empty room. I guess there friends know enough not to get too close or already know they don't want to see what goes down on the stage at all when the Cliftons are playing their Meatmen-style anthems. These guys are very hostile, claim to be "fags" and "gays" and whipped their dicks out, sending anyone with 30 ft of the stage running in the opposite direction. They got the lights turned off on them and then smashed all their gear for an audience of like me and two other guys. It seems weird that this crowd of Orange County lowlifes could be offended by anything, but clearly they can be and this was it.
The band is named after Andy Kaufman's asshole alter-ego, Tony Clifton.
horror: So three or so months ago, 2001 Maniacs finally came out on DVD. They really wanted this one to get a theatrical run and had been holding off the release. Cub and I have seen the director and cast speak a number of times, including Robert Englund and Lin Shaye. We have also seen the majority of the gore scenes, as Tim Sullivan screened a reel of them at Fangoria last year. Word is that Sullivan may be getting his own Masters of Horror episode, which seems premature. Still, 2001 Maniacs is pretty damn funny and recommended for almost any horror fan and Herschell Gordon Lewis fans will not be disappointed with the adaptation.
Brian Yuzna's latest since Beyond Re-Animator (2003), is Rottweiler, which came out on DVD about a year ago, but was flying low under my radar at least until I noticed it at the video store a few weeks ago. Why I would pick up a DVD with this junk on the cover? I should be ashamed, but it was like looking at a car wreck that you gotta see. Imagine my amazement when I saw it was a Yuzna movie. I looked it up when I got home and saw that it stars Spanish horror legend Paul Naschy, one of my favorites. I guess this movie qualifies as Euro-horror as it is shot in Spain and may have had a theatrical release there. Naschy can't save this movie, which is total crap (surprise) and besides, he is not on camera that much anyway. What can I say that is good about this movie - well for one the picture is crystal clear - it looked terrific on my TV screen. Also, there is a lot of gore (and not much CGI), but Yuzna's worst film, Return of the Living Dead III, also looked very crisp and had terrific FX, but there are something's about this movie and that one, probably the dialogue and storylines, that just makes you hate the shit out of them.
I praised Yuzna recently in a post about James Gunn's Slither where I wrote about his best and first movie, Society.
Rottweiler has a lame 80's sci-fi type of script where an escaped American prisoner travels through the wastelands of post-apocalyptic Spain, always just a few steps ahead of a robotic Rottweiler. Enough said? Perhaps, but I'll add that the hero, Dante, also rescues a little girl, who is briefly his travel companion. A bunch of sentimental bullshit ensues.
How about the sex scene? I won't say much, but it is the least erotic I've seen, as the female seductionists grunts out her life story to Dante as she bangs him. Painful to watch.
"They call me Riverman." Does anyone else remember a line like that from Return of the Living Dead III? That might as well have brought that guy back, because Dante is visited by a know-it-all black mystic in ghost form as he comes across a graveyard in his travels. As goofy as the moment is, I felt more sympathy for the unfortunate mystic than for Dante himself. You see, Dante is a cocky American asshole, traveling through fascist nations for kicks as some sort of extreme sport. He mocks the real black refugees in an early scene, moments before they are massacred by the Europeans. I suppose we are supposed to see Dante's transformation over time as the film progresses, especially regarding his sexist/jealous behavior (I won't spoil this with an example, it's the most interesting factor...) or - maybe Dante is put before us as an anti-hero, either way, he resembles Kid Rock. You'll hate him and fifty bucks says you are gonna be rooting for the fuckin' robot dog anyway.
I'd like to say that this movie does not belong in Blockbuster horror section, alongside Sci-Fi channel crap like Frankenfish and Spring Break Shark Attack, but it most certainly is at home among the crap.
