especially from the likes of you, yeah you

Look at this site - Movie Title Screens Page - where a man Steven Hill captured the title screen from all the movie in his DVD collection. I love title screens, and if I could screen capture one frame from every movie I review, 9 out of 10 times it would be the title screen. These can be as good as box covers for me. Steven Hill's collection is full of horror, so check it out.

Lets go off topic, some legal cases have fascinated me lately. They are not front page news, but you could take notice, if you've got a minute:

In a fake part of the war on terror - the part where we try to scare people so that we can control them... check out this paid federal agent who set some kids up for a big fall - see "Anna" in action in some photos.

Also, check out the band Sodom, ready for war anywhere you want to send them. I think this is a newer promo picture.



Don't forget...

We're fighting a war we can't win
But it's a war we can't afford to lose
Corrupt officials play the game
And America's habit is to blame

is oil the habit we should really worry about? now I will chop out some lyrics...

But there's no way to stop the flow
Watch your children's habit grow

Intimidation is the game.
Cut them down they're all the same
Send them all to hell...

a serious critique of Alfred Sole's 1980 film, Tanya's Island

In those plentiful days when Amoeba Records in Hollywood was new in town and their used VHS section was absolutely massive, I had a rule that I lived by stating that I would pay no more than four dollars for a tape. The section was stocked so frequently that I could bring home small bags of videos twice a day and spend less than $20. I had more rules at that time. The movies were supposed to either come from respected horror directors, foreign directors, be Poe or Lovecraft based, or be exceptionally gory to have been banned at one point. Before I let these rules go, I turned down a number of tapes, some of which I regret passing up to this day. Tanya's Island was one of those tapes. It was going for a pricey $14.99, but after I read about it on the imdb when I got home, I started to fiend for it. Of course it was gone the next day at Amoeba.

Well now it's on DVD from the sketchy Substance label, who probably do not pay any royalties to anybody who made the film, but that does make it a cheaper purchase. The quality of the DVD is ok, not good enough to please most dvd-philes, but at least it does not cost the big bucks. Mostly with these low quality DVDs it's the dark night scenes that suffer, which is a bad thing for horror fans, but Tanya's Island is filled with mostly day time action. Full-frontal nudity in broad daylight.

I was pretty disappointed, but I did have very high expectations based on the general premises of a story where a naked women becomes the object of a rivalry between a man and a gorilla. I had heard that the man becomes more ape like and the gorilla becomes more human as the film progresses. Fascinating, I thought, but in the movie the transformations are extremely blatant, fast, and obvious. The man is named Lobo, which really sounds like an ape name to me - Bobo. Shortly after he discovers his ape nemesis, we see him scarf down a banana in a less than refined way. Before you know it, he is aping, no pun intended, the gorilla's every move.

On the other hand, I was not as sympathetic to Blue, the gorilla, as I should have been. Blue is gentle with Tanya, but he kills Lobo's pet pig. I do not think that Lobo loved the pig, I think he was just showing it affection in order to win favor with Tanya, yet the killing was wrong in that it hurt the pig. What's more, their are the ethical issue of killing a real pig in order to make this movie. No, there is not an on-screen killing, but I assume the pig's head was real - not a prosthetic, and it could have been the real head of the pig that acted in earlier scenes. I do not know if this is true or not, but my position is that killing a pig to make a movie is not worth it, nor is killing a pig to make a sandwich worth it. Animal life has value to me and I will continue to explore the use of dead animals and slaughter house byproducts for special effects in horror movies. Perhaps times have changed and these effects are less prevalent today. As I get more familiar with the industry I aim to find out. The issue is complex. Is it any more wrong to use pig's blood on camera than it is to have ham sandwiches at the craft services on the set? There probably has never been a movie made that did not have meat on set. These are issues that I, as a vegan, think about.

Back to my faults with this movie. Believability is not a huge issue with me since this is the horror genre after all, but in Tanya's island there were scenes that left me shaking my head. For one, Lobo builds a huge fortress by himself in seemingly no time. Blue's assault on the fortress, by throwing coconuts over the walls, only lasts a couple of minutes, but after the assault is over, the number of coconuts on the ground is so many that Lobo cannot open a door from within a cage in the fortress' courtyard, due to coconut buildup that is waist deep. There are so many coconuts there, that it would take a Blue with ten arms to throw some many over the wall in such a short time.

Blue then traps Lobo with his own fortress door, that Lobo can no longer move, but he must have been able to move it, when he put it in place as he built this fortress single handedly.

Tanya's behavior is a mystery to me. I see why she kept Blue a secret, as Lobo is an insanely jealous man and wants to shoot Blue with his crossbow from the get go. I see why she is disgusted with Lobo, as he rapes her, hits her, and imprisons her in a cage as bait to kill Blue, but I do not see (Spoiler Alert) why she suddenly turns against Blue except for the reason that it facilitates the twist in the plot where Blue then rapes Tanya.

- Ultimate Spoiler Alert - Then Tanya wakes up. It was all a dream, but what is this gorilla scratch above her breast? Endings like that can just kill a movie. Tanya's Island has what it takes to catch attention, but mistakes like these have left it in obscurity.

Directory Alfred Sole made the excellent Alice, Sweet Alice in 1976. I can find no interviews with him online except for one regarding Veronica Mars, the UPN TV series that he is the production designer for.

Blue looks real and was made by special effects genius Rick Baker. With out Blue looking convincing, this movie would have fell flat on its face about twice as quickly as it did. I had assumed that he would be a white ape (I'd read that he has blue eyes), maybe a mythical creature or an anomaly. I think I also got this idea from the box cover where he is translucent and actually saw him as gray throughout the movie until Cub pointed out that he is brown and sure enough she was right. I have heard than there are black supremacists who believe that the white man is inferior due to his resemblance to the gorilla in the sense that whites have straight hair as do the great apes.

Those seeking the ultimate indecency in a movie of beasts are advised to seek out La Bête (1975), aka, The Beast, from Walerian Borowczyk. It has been available on DVD for some time and within the last year a 3 Disc version was released. The opening scene where two horses have sex will probably be enough for some of you, but that's just the appetizer and just sort of sets the mood. I don't want to give anything away, but there is stuff in that movie that will make your jaw drop. Don't think you've seen it all. You have not.

Evil Altar (1989) with Robert Z'Dar

I'd like to write a movie review this morning before I clean up all my bunny's dirty newspapers and stray turds, something that pisses him off because I guess he feels he put those turds there for a reason. I can only pray that he will drift off when I'm writing, and then if I'm stealth enough I can sweep up with waking him.

Evil Altar is an awful movie where I could not determine who in the cast was a teenager, a kid, a grown-up, a brother, a sister, a boyfriend, a step-mom, or a whatever. There are a bunch of important relationships making up the dynamic, but I just couldn't, or couldn't be bothered, to sort them out. From the start, with a coed baseball game, where I could not figure out weather it was little league or grown-ups playing. Then the father takes what seems to be his little boy hunting, but later after the baseball cap is removed, I see that this character is the female lead. If you think that this movie might be trying to challenge my preconceived assumptions about gender roles, it's not, it's just damn confusing. While trying shoot a woodland creature, the girl blows away a vagrant by mistake -not as funny as it sounds, who we already know to be the hired goon for the towns satanic priest. In fact the man is carrying a young black child in a sack at the time, but the father and daughter don't bother to rescue him, and once the town cop is on the scene, it's too late, for he too is in league with satan. The officer is played by Robert Z'Dar, Cordell in the Maniac Cop series.

If you are intrigued, don't be. It might seem like fun to watch a bad movie that borrows heavily from Nightmare on Elm Street and Phantasm instead of the usually plundered material from Halloween and Friday the 13th, but this is none the less a real bore. I'll share with you the two most amusing scenes. In one, the female target is watching TV and sees the news reporter get her throat slit by Freddy... I mean, the villain. We don't see the blood fly out of the television, but sure enough her shirts is splattered with the stuff. When her father runs to find why she is screaming, he does not believe her, insisting that the blood is "just pizza sauce" from dinner.

In the most amusing scene, a baseball flies in threw our heroines window and floats about, smashing up her room, and bouncing off of her somewhat gingerly as she screams in mortal terror. This scene is good for a laugh, but most of the movie will not entertain. For the most part we get bad dialogue and lots of tough talk from the movies male characters who all despise each other. The adults in this movie have mostly made deals with the devil, in a sense setting up their children to be punished for the sins of their fathers, giving this movie an unspoken Nightmare on Elm Street vibe where the disbelieving parents are responsible for creating Krueger through their past secret actions.

Are you familiar with the false horror stereotype, pushed by false horror fans and horror movie spoofs, that states that a black character is always killed first in horror film? I can't think of a movie where that actually happens (and you know I watch many genre pictures -tell me if you can name a single example), but Evil Altar was almost the one! Of course it turns out that the black child is still alive so once again the stereotype does not completely ring true. The child's father, a lawyer from the city who spends most of the movie trying to find his abducted boy, is by a mile the most sympathetic character, but still, even when he finally has to shoot his own possessed son at point blank range with a shotgun, Evil Altar fails to move the viewer. That scene worked a whole lot better in The Beast Within.

"Would that the Roman people had but one neck!"

I'm thinking of sticking a bunch of mp3's on the blog, but that's only the half of what I'm thinking of doing. If I can deliver 75% of what I've got planned, you guys will at least be a little interested in the end results, though sorry, my plan is not to turn the blog into a porno page.

Here are some links as promised:

monster mash talks Inside Deep Throat and dreams of opening a classier type of strip club.

Strange O Vision - our new friend Ghost obsesses over the Nightmare on Elm Street series (I mean in deapth) Also 80's cartoons and live action sci-fi horror episodic shows like Monsters and Amazing Stories.

see you in the pit douchebag! - hardcore has gone done the tubes, tell this kid to stop practicing, his scene is dead, the market went bust!

no future

What is next in horror? Crap probably, but don't worry about, I'll find some good stuff to talk about. Today alone I found two blogs with fresh new links to us here. Links from us to them coming soon, for they are both of interest.

I don't think I'll be able to make any horror movies this semester.

I'm waiting on a box of tapes to arrive with much anticipation, nearly more than ever before, but I always say that. In the meantime I went to dig through the bins at DVD Planet in Huntington Beach. Not many bargains, but I did find a budget DVD of a movie I really am looking forward to watching. Here are some NOT WORK SAFE teaser images for my upcoming discussion of Tanya's Island, a movie I though would never show up on DVD. By all accounts it is a masterpiece.

Remember that hardcore sucks today, listen to the music and see the kids dance. It's the 2nd lamest video I've seen on-line. Next time I'll post the number one worst douchebag-moshing-in-the-bedroom video on the net.

The Invisible Dead (1971) Pierre Chevalier - vhs on Wizard Video

I've got the Wizard Video edition of this movie that originally came in the big oversized box, though my copy's cover is cut to fit a smaller plastic case. It's got the same artwork on it as this tape I've got pictured here - though I can't be 100% certain that this is the Wizard version that I'm showing you. There is a DVD available now as Orloff and the Invisible Man as part of the EuroShock Collection. Director, Pierre Chevalier, has not made very many well known films. The Invisible Dead is often though of as the Jesus Franco film that Franco never made so as you can imagine it is not a masterpiece of European art cinema, but something more thrown together and padded with some sleazy material. Frequent Franco star, Howard Vernon, plays Dr. Orloff, a character he often played in Franco movie, even as late as Faceless in 1988. I also recognized the overweight and mustached Fernando Sancho, who played a funny investigator in The Swamp of the Ravens.

To make this here Wizard tape they did not bother with the pan n' scan to make up for the change in aspect ratio from very wide to televisions size. We get lots of shots where faces are cut off by the side of the TV, sometimes even a face on either side! This is especially noticeable since this is a very slow and sluggish picture with not a lot of cuts, so the shots tend to hold for a while. There are quite a few weird cutaways in the movie where the camera moves to an inanimate object (like the fire place) after the dialogue stops and holds on it for a seconds before the cut.

This movie was marketed as a zombie pic with it's Invisible Dead name, but really it is more of a traditional gothic horror with the villain being an invisible man. It's not awful, but it is slow as I mentioned before. Surely it is most notable for it's full frontal nudity where the camera gives you much more than a moments peek and one of the three females is subjected to a lengthy rape at the hands of the invisible man. Since he is completely transparent, the female being raped in the dungeon on a pile of hay is completely exposed for what seemed like several awkward, but very memorable, minutes.

Effects are decent, with objects being moved about be barely detectable strings when the invisible man is up to no good. Unfortunately, one effect, where a wall is meant to be closing in on a character, but is in reality just being zoomed in on slowly by the camera, does not work at all. A sound effect, a zoom, and a close up of a face in pain, do not, a closing wall trap make.



Cub Speaks this week contains spoilers about the nature of the invisible man in this movie, but it's worth a read anyway in my opinion.

Cub, I think that the scene where the invisible man raped the girl for sooo long shocked you? Didn't it?

The rape scene certainly shocked me. And you though "i spit on your grave" was brutal... just cause this time it was an invisible ape raping doesn't make it any less messed up cub.

Cub, you know when we saw the invisible man, and it was an ape-type man? Dr. Orloff said he had created a superior race to rule over mankind. Cub, is ape superior? As I have often hinted at this, there may be some truth. Was I right all along and humanity will fall?

I am still not convinced that the ape is a superior race, well maybe Kong was, but the invisible ape comes nowhere close.

Why, Cub, why did you not fall in love with the invisible 'man' - when it was ape - like so many people fell for King Kong in the Peter Jackson movie. Are some apes, it seems, more equal than others? Please tell me that you are still obsessed with fairness, among man and ape.

Kong is in fact an ape one can fall in love with, he's sweet, cute, sensitive, strong, and kicks ever other male's butt to show off for his woman (what else could a girl possibly ask for?)Kong is certainly superior to all other apes, cub, sorry but it's true.

Pizza Man (????) Obscure slasher from the way underground!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Spielberg or Cannibal Holocaust?

Before I dismiss horror movies and sell out big time, let's take a look at the changes of note in the horror blog world.

Stacie Ponder, The Final Girl, got a monthly column at pretty-scary.net.

Groovy Age of Horror was nominated for Best Website at the Rondo Awards.

now - the essay: gore movies vs. big budget movies with gore

The video nasties, banned in the UK! Movies that bring gore and sex in graphic detail just for the sake of selling more tickets. Cannibal films. Women in prison exploitation pics. I love these movies and review them here because they deliver a shock you just can't get from your mainstream horror like Halloween 4, I Know What You Did Last Summer, or Army of Darkness. Old 70's b-movies and today's cutting edge Asian imports deliver sickness on a level that the casual horror movie fan has not experienced, or so I usually believe - until I step back and look at the bigger picture.

Never mind mainstream horror, let's look at something even more normal than that, the movies of perhaps the most famous director of all time, Steven Spielberg. Take first, I movie that I really dislike, Saving Private Ryan. Now it does end with a force-fed feel good message meant to please the masses and that is the opposite what a sick shocker would deliver, but how about the opening war scenes in this movie? Real life veterans have said that Spielberg captures the horrors of the battlefield accurately with his graphic battle scenes. Gore fans, I ask you, what could be more splatter-filled than being in the middle of a real war? Perhaps nothing, other than working in a slaughterhouse or witnessing a terrorist attack.

Life ending brutally in an instant, could anything really be scarier? Death by zombie attack? Never going to happen and if it did you would see it coming from a mile away. Death by serial murderer? Improbable and if it did happen there is nothing that a slasher could do to you that an enemy soldier or terrorist would not. Death and rape occur in wars too.

On to Spielberg latest film, Munich, a movie that does NOT allow it's disturbing moments to be dismissed by an oversimplified morality lesson tacked on at the end. I don't think I've ever let a movie affect me as deeply as Munich did. The vivid bloody slaughter, some of it historically accurate, some of it fictional, left me hopeless. It's not the most graphic movie ever, but when it is graphic it feels more real than anything I've watched in the horror or exploitation genres. One factor is the extremely high budget a Spielberg movie has, but the other factor is Spielberg himself and the other A-list people who put this movie together. Face it, Spielberg is better than Joe D'Amato, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and even Takashi Miike. I may prefer their movies over his and spend my money on their movies other than Minority Report, which I don't cart to see, but I know that it is in most ways a superior product.

In another way Spielberg totally sucks. Could AI be more bloated and awful? When a mainstream movies falls, it falls hard and is worthy of much condemnation. When a smaller budget genre films is awful, well that's no big deal, I might like it anyway. Horror movies get a pass because they don't aim as high. At the same time, nothing ventured, nothing gained, but at the same time as that, what do I care about ambition, I'm a horror fan first and foremost. I don't even watch non-horror films very often because cinema is where I go to escape the emotions of day to day life, not a place I go to be profoundly effected and manipulated by a good production. Take Brokeback Mountain for example. Thanks but not thanks. The movie was excellent and brought me close to tears, but I didn't want to go there. I was left feeling down. Munich may have been worth it, because it opened my mind and I think the movie brings good ideologies to the table. As for Brokeback Mountain, I've been exposed to these issues before and did not need another reality check. I already know that gays have it rough, so subject someone a little less informed to this tale of longing and loss.

What I am saying is that gore movies do not have much of an effect on me. They please me to watch, I take an active interest in them and collect them, but they do not blow my mind in an emotional way. It's like I am a mortician looking at his 300th car accident victim and enjoying my work with out being disturbed by it. Show me a movie that connects with me on an emotional level and then throw in some graphic gore to that mix, that's like when the mortician sees that the mutilated corpse in front of him is that of his lifelong best friend, the carnage effects him again. I'll pass.

I recommend Munich to all. Critics love it, but the public has been less receptive because they think it's soft on terrorists. America really believes strongly in an eye for an eye, even if it means everybody includes ourselves gets blinded eventually. Call me selfish, but I don't want to die in some terrorist attack that was done in retaliation to some military action I had nothing to do with. All these pro-military types live out in states that the terrorists are not going to attack. How easy for them to back attacks on countries that might spread anti-American sentiments?

See the negative Munich reviews from American boneheads at Yahoo's movie site.

the worst of the worst, I will not post his username:

WOW! What a long, boring "I cant believe Spielberg produced it" piece of crap this movie was. Ten minutes into the film Spielberg shows us an agent sodomizing his pregnant wife, which is something my mother and 3 children did not have to see. There is barely any mention of the fallen athletes, just flashbacks of them being killed. Finally, after 90 minutes of this dribble we got up and walked out. My advice for Spielberg fans: Stay home and rent ET!

Sir, there is no sodomy in this movie, it is just a sex scene where they do not do it in the missionary position! Anyway, the movie is obviously Rated R, I can't believe you expected ET! Blame yourself for taking your mother and 3 children to the most disturbing movie of the year - and it's the violence, not the sex, that is gonna give your kids the nightmares.

horror consumer activist

You guys may have heard that Takashi Miike's short Imprint is not playing on Showtime's Masters of Horror series as was initially promised. The reason? Too graphic, but have no fear suckers, you will be able to buy it totally uncut on DVD from Anchor Bay. Never mind that you may have purchased the premium Showtime network just to watch this series! Boy am I glad I didn't.

Article at bloody-disgusting.

You may be the kind of idiot who has to buy every Masters of Horror DVD when it comes out because VHS recordings of the show are not good enough?!? Oh, the DVDs will include extras... I see. I hope they are worth the money when you buy the whole series two episodes at a time.

At least Anchor Bay can be guaranteed good sales for one of their DVDs, the highly anticipated, and I mean more highly than the others, Miike episode.

It better not turn out (it has not yet) that some of these were cut for cable and will be available for the first time uncut on the DVD. If so, someone ought to be punched.

"No one touches me. I don’t exist. I was never born."

We watched When a Stranger Calls, the original vision, not the one that will be coming up your ass in the near future from the maker of Con Air. Unfortunately curiosity will get the better of me and I'll waste some money on a pair of tickets to this one. I'm trying to boycott crap, I really am.

The 1979 original is the first movie from Fred Walton who brought us the good April Fool's Day and some perhaps bad TV movies like The Stepford Husbands. I really did not like Stepford Husbands. Stranger Calls stars Carol Kane and Charles Durning both still act frequently today and returned for the Walton directed TV sequel, When a Stranger Calls Back (1993), that I have yet to see. I'm surprised the two are not appearing in cameos for the remake, like I heard Michael Berryman will be doing for the Hills Have Eyes remake.

The role of the chilling killer in the original, one Curt Duncan, was the last to be played actor Tony Beckley who died in 1980. It's his voice that really did it, as the most memorable sequences in this movie involve telephone calls. I'm not so sure what this remake is going to do that Scream didn't. The phone-play scares in that movie are really still fresh in audiences minds since Scream sequels and rip-offs followed that movie on into the early 2000's. Ten years since Scream, but it really feels like ten minutes.



Are you ready to be subjected to my prank calls? "Why haven't you checked the children?" or worse "Why haven't you checked the bunny?"

Your voice hunny is too distinguishable. The pranks would not work. Plus, Buns would be sleeping right next to me in bed, so there would be no need to "check the bunny".

Admit it Cub, you just want to see the new one in the theater so you can hold hands with me in the dark.

Yes, the reason I want to see the new movie is so we can hold hands in the dark. ;)

The Boogeyman (1980) Ulli Lommel, not that 2005 bullshit.

First of all, I'd like to say, I've been doing some thinking and some reading, and none of us who don't own a house now will never be able to afford one. They say the market will go bust, because there are more houses out there than rich folk, but I think they forget that the richest can buy bunches of houses, own them all, and makes us all permanent renters. The only way out of the peasant class will be to see the world by joining the army for Bush. I just can't ship out to Iraq soon enough.

This is not a review of last year's Sam Raimi produced feature that we've all seen the preview for a thousand times, but hopefully avoided for real. As far as I can tell, that Boogeyman has nothing to do with this one.


Horror art sucks today. The new Sony DVD version of the 1980 classic vs. the original art on a poster I bought on ebay.
The Boogeyman, it rips off The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror so it probably was pretty much trashed by critics upon its release, but today it holds up for fans of the 70's and early 80's. Ulli Lommel, he's fallen from grace and makes shot on video movies today. Why? The Boogeyman was certainly a professional effort. It's got style, blood, John Carradine (a bit), and a bunch of memorable deaths, my favorite being the french-kissing-skewer death. This movie was a joy to watch.

Lommel's fall might, or at least should - if there is any justice, have something to do with the Boogeyman sequels. One of them is free on the new nicely priced DVD. It's Return of the Boogeyman or Boogeyman 3 and pissed me off to no end. Cub called it worse than "that island movie we saw...", she meant House of the Dead. Lommel is credited as co-producer. It's a shame. I'd say 80%, some estimate more - some less, of Return of the Boogeyman is footage from the original Boogeyman with poorly synced ominous music playing over it and terrible narration from a psychic in a trance describing in detail what is going on in the screen. It's like The Boogeyman with audio Cliff Notes for a two year olds - you can predict her next lines with astounding accuracy. The climax is the climax from The Boogeyman, with the annoying narration going on, and then that's it. Well, we get a bad final scare with the "man with no-face" appearing in her rearview mirror and then crappy video credits. Worse, they try to imply, with some nonsensical dialogue, that her vision of this shit going doing is what enabled the original survivors of The Boogeyman to make it, though she does not intervene in anyway. What a cheap way to attach importance to this nonsense. I watched some in fast forward and I was still yelling at the screen.

Oh yeah, they recap these Boogeyman recaps multiple times and in nonlinear order to really nail shit home.

The bathroom death in Return of the Boogeyman, the only new death shown (about a million times) and the only memorable sequence other than going into trances for flash back narration, is reportedly from another Lommel movie as well.

Boogeyman II, there is a DVD, I have not seen it, but the reviews of it are just as bad as the ones for Boogeyman 3. What do they say? They say it's a movie mainly made of footage from the original Boogeyman! To commit this same crime twice! Lommel is credited as director.

typical review 1:

I thought I was watching a special feature when I started this movie, and was surprised that it was the feature. This is not a sequel, this is one of the worst DVDs of all time. Thankfully, I only rented it and am only out the rental cost. Everybody, be warned, you barely see anything of the actual Boogeyman sequel, just scenes in fast motion. There should be some kind of law because this DVD is slickly packaged and is a complete and total rip-off. Everybody involved with the making of this DVD should feel ashamed. Those who bought it deserve their money back.

typical review 2:

All you need to know is that it is just a ripp off with old footage from the 1st movie.

DO NOT PURCHASE.

In Lommel's defense, word is that there is an actual Boogeyman II full movie (on tape? in theaters?) and that he hated it. People call this DVD Boogeyman Redux as it is a director's cut of The Boogeyman with the only salvageable scenes from Boogeyman II (some novel deaths) stuck into it. Confusing. More confusing, reportedly are the trailers included for other Boogeyman movies including Boogeyman 5 that is just footage from other Lommel sci-fi movies. Some wonder if the DVD is Lommel's joke on people that liked The Boogeyman series, a series that he himself hated to make. Who knows? I wanna know.

"Humans, they're living garbage!"

Pissing on a girl's face? They can't show that in Hostel! People, no matter what the director says about their film being a "hard R", you are not going to see the kind of violence at the movies that you can see in the comfort of your own living room. I've been watching a lot of low budget DVD's and for what the lack in polish and production values they make up for in explicate acts. If you can't make out what the image is on the screen cause it's too fuzzy, well it better be gore and sex that you are trying to see, otherwise it's just not worth it!

I reviewed volume 1 of the All Night Long trilogy not too long ago. Well volume 2 was gross, but the last, All Night Long 3: The Final Chapter really takes the cake. Are you a dust collector? Have you ever dumpster dived? I suspect some of my readers have. Me, I loved picking through the boxes in the trash room in the dorm at boarding school. I even applied for a job at the recycling center so that I could have a go at the entire campuses used magazines. Well, I got that job, but my supervisor was so laid back that he told me to not bother showing up for work the entire semester, I'd get the credit anyway. Seemed nice at the time, but think of the goods that I missed out on!

So we're dust collectors, but wait a second, no we are not! A dust collector, it would seem, not only keeps the salvageable good, but also stuff that I certainly would not even want to touch on accident. Pubic hairs, soiled underwear, and bloody pads - these catalogued in binders or or taped to the wall and dated to determine exactly what days the menstrual cycle is heavy or light. Half eaten food? The fact that the bites in the sandwich were made by the object of our obsession makes them test better. No, I've never done this, I really was grossed. It's the hair collecting that got to me the most - then taping it to the vaginal area of a crude female marker drawing. The extremely wet and bloody deaths that followed washed away some of the icky feeling I'd developed from watching weird perverts in action, but I'm still disturbed.

Celebrity actor in All Night Long 3: The Final Chapter - Tomorowo Taguchi of Tetsuo as the older dust collector. I read of this, I have not seen Tetsuo.

Humans are garbage is what Katsuya Matsumura's antisocial series tells us, and that is a very different message from that of Andrew Copp's Mutilation Man. This one is rough on the eyes as it's shot on 16mm and is at times employs effects that blur or obscure the images. What we end up with is a story of someone coming to terms with his pain via his self-mutilation touring show. In the end he walks away with an angel so I guess the "Life is Beautiful" tagline attached to this movie is not meant to be ironic. Of course along the way we get lots of gore and sex and pain and stock footage or real life atrocities and murders from wars past. Copp's not nihilistic, he thanks God and his parents in the closing credits. I would say that this movie shows excellent editing skills, though I don't know if I recommend watching it. The wasteland looks and awful lot like rural Ohio and the Mutilation Man's rabid followers look a lot the director's heavy metal-listening friends. Copp appears in a couple of Jim Van Bebber's movies, My Sweet Satan and The Manson Family, which is getting a lot of press right now, and some negative press from me right here. Van Bebber is billed 3rd in Mutilation Man, he's in here as the Mutilation Man's abusive murdering father, the source of all of his pain.


Mutilation Man (1998)
Everything is explicate in this movie - nudity, porno, gore, real pissing, carnage. There is almost no dialogue. From Sub Rosa, probably a cut above all the rest of their shot-on-video fair.

Off topic: Extreme gore can often become cartoonish no matter how high the budget. I don't think Murder Set Pieces is cartoonish, but some viewers, beaten over the head with the nonstop increasing violence in the film, find it hard to take seriously. One friend told me that A History of Violence had what felt like cartoonish violence to her, though I found it to be convincing. Hostel's scene with the dangling eyeball? That did feel very Toxic Avenger to me - the effect failed.

What's next? Aftermath, #2 from the Top Ten Sickest Movies. My friend Larry has this movie and next time I'm over there I'm going to see it. Hopefully this movie will remind me of the beauty of gore. There is such a thing, when good is simulated well it can be visually stunning and pleasing to the eye. Both the films I discussed tonight were ugly to look at, which doesn't necessarily mean that they failed, it might mean that they succeeded.

Hostel (2005) Eli Roth's escape from castle wolfenstein

First: The super sick video for the Captain Ahab song is up here at http://www.lawrenceklein.net - I'm doing Larry's web site. You have to watch this video, but warning - IT IS NOT WORK SAFE and the music is full of profanities. Wait till you get home before you watch the obscenity. Oh yeah, you might need Quicktime 7 and the video can also be downloaded at the Captain's site.

Hostel: Boy does Eastern Europe seem creepy. I know Cub's ancestors come from there, and that is why she is so beautiful, but still, I will have to watch out for my girl from now on.

Eli Roth's Cabin Fever was loved by some horror fans and hated by others. As far as I can tell, Hostel is receiving the same response. Mainstream critics are calling it average, but horror fans either are crazy about it or citing it as everything that is wrong with horror today. You either get it or you don't. Me, I get it. So far Roth can do no wrong in my eyes, at least as a director. Sure you could say these movies try to be clever like all those annoying scream clones, but Roth ups the dose by bringing in 80's excess, an obvious love for extremely violent 70's horror, and today's Takashi Miike movies. Roth's films are not typical 90's mall movies even if at a casual glance they appear to be. If taken at face value they might appear to be nothing special, but they go the extra mile to shock and I connect with that exploitation/shock element. Then again maybe Roth is a pulling a fast one over on the audience and is exploiting us. Maybe he is not so brilliant and worthy of hype and but that's the real beauty of it. I'm beginning to think it's the Great Horror Movie Swindle, might as well side with him because your giving him your money anyway.

My art history teacher once said that he did not think the paintings of Andy Warhol were art, but that the man himself was an artist, in that he created a persona to manipulate the press and public. Eli Roth? Not quite, because the public is not some much into his personal antics on red carpets and VH1, but still, he is getting people talking.

The movie reminded me of The Beach, the movie and the superior book by Alex Garland. That is a horror story about hedonistic backpackers in Thailand. In an anthropology class we had a bunch of readings that painted these young college backpackers in a bad light, though they certainly feel that they are more down to earth than wealthy tourists, they actually bring very little money to the area. They don't buy the souvenirs the locals make cause they won't fit in there backpacks. Instead they spend some on drugs making illegal drug dealing a lucrative business for the locals and then stuff goes to shit. The tourism industry becomes the drug and sex industry. Yeah, they spend on hookers too.

I don't want to say much about the specifics of Hostel expect for dropping these two spoilers one you.

semi-spoiler: Notice the scene where the ankles get sliced like in the final kill in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance? Eli Roth stated that the Chan-wook Park film was a direct influence on Hostel.

Eli Roth vs. Nick Palumbo

final death spoiler: Nick Palumbo, director of the straight-to-DVD gorefest Murder Set Pieces is going to be pissed when he sees the final toilet kill in Hostel that is much like the tub-drowning and throat-slitting scene in Set Pieces that is hands down the sickest. I'm telling you people, watch both scenes, they are similar and there is no way Roth did not see Murder Set Pieces because word is that Nick Palumbo talks shit on Roth's Cabin Fever in the Murder Set Pieces director's commentary. I have not heard the commentary, but I watched the DVD of the movie. It is a professional looking film with one hell of a villain (also Eastern European), but there is not much of a story. There is hinting at disturbing underground worlds of Nazis, smut peddlers, and child pimps, but we are not immersed in the sick like we are in Hostel which takes us to a foreign land. Set Pieces is just violent episode after violent episode in the killer's life - so if you ask me it can't compete with Roth's movies that are more engaging. Hostel even has round characters, something rare for a teen slasher. As I said, Murder Set Pieces has got one scary male lead, but he's basically the American Psycho guy with a job as a porn photographer instead of an executive.

On Nick Palumbo's movie:

Murder Set Pieces is for gorehounds only. Some say it is pornography for those who get off on gore rather than sex. I give it credit for pushing the envelope by having young children onscreen during brutal murders, though one infant crying child was too young to be acting. I must say that scene (where the child's real life mothers acts and looks dead) made me uncomfortable as did the real September 11th footage of the towers that only serves to remind us that all the crazy blood and guts in this movie is simulated. Seeing a real mass murder scene in this movie only serves to make everything else - as sick and well executed as it was - fairly cartoonish by comparison.

A quote from Nick Palumbo (interview at reallyscary.com) about Cerina Vincent who starred in both Cabin Fever and Murder Set Pieces:

And now, Cerina Vincent, who plays The Beautiful Girl, wants her name taken off the film! Her agent actually cussed me out after the screening and won’t take my calls. She was told what the movie was about – a serial killer who murders women and children – but she only read the part of the script her character was in. Actually, when I first talked to her agent and told him about the movie, he asked me “What are you trying to make? A serious horror movie like Cabin Fever? I tried so hard not to laugh and told him that Murder-Set-Pieces was WAY beyond Cabin Fever. His reply, and I still can not believe he said this, was “If you can come close to the horror that IS Cabin Fever, you would really be doing something.” Oh my God.

Cub speaks on Hostel:



Cub, no doubt Hostel is the story of your travels in Europe. Being a slutster I suppose... Perhaps someone should have taught you a lesson, crappy American Cub.

Yeah that better have been a joke. Crappy American? Hmmm.. were you merely describing yourself? For you know I am 100% European, and no I will not sit with you in a spa with everything hanging out those those Euro girls in the movie. Keep dreaming.....

Cub, you are not really American, see I was joking, you are Polish. Did you hear about strange Hostels back in the old country? Perhaps you have some extended family members who work at these places? How sick.

As for my ancestors in Europe running any of these strange places, I am sad to tell you that they don't exist. I know you don't believe me and want to go to Europe to scope things out yourself, I guarantee you will be extremely disappointed, you sicko. And if they did exist , i would never see you again, cause you know how it all ends. I get your head sent back via Fed Ex, saying "Greeting from Poland", and ....ok you get my drift. So, cub remember that curiosity killed the cat, and I want my cub alive and well to live happily ever after with me!

Captain Ahab music video premier the other night downtown

The Lawrence Klein video should be on the web before the end of the week. I'm going up to Los Angeles tomorrow to help him get it on-line so it could be up tomorrow, but of course there may be delays in getting the domain name transferred and that kind of stupid shit. It's a must see for those who like gore and bodily fluids and obscenity. The crowd reaction to the video being projected on a big screen at The Smell the other night was terrific. The video is nothing but nonstop money shots that will make you squirm. Check back and I'll have a link for you.

Captain Ahab's music... I don't want to offend anyone by describing it incorrectly, so I'll just take what it says of the myspace page, "Pop / Electronica / Post Hardcore". I've got the old album and it is sweet, but the new demos are more memorable, more diverse in style (booty bass, 80's pop, power metal?) and more memorable lyrically. The website has 4 mp3s and the myspace page has another 4, but you can't get all the new hits that the kids at the show all knew. I think that these can be found on a secret demo webpage that I'm not allowed to post a link to. Maybe if you ask somebody they will hook you up - I know we all tend to be passive internet users, by contacting someone can go a long way.

After "I Can't Believe it's Not Booty" screened we were treated to a full Captain Ahab set and now I am a believer. I mean it's just guy singing along to tapes off of his laptop and his buddy Jim dancing, but you get a real show out of that alone. Here come the pics:


"He said captain, I said wot" - bad post punk reference


the dancing...
That's it for now.

Fuck GIANT VILLAGE!

New Year's Eve - I was not close enough to the Giant Village bullshit in downtown L.A. to be affected by it - none the less it does indeed blow that the world's largest New Year's rave is held here. I'm lucky I did not get killed by one of those drunks on my drive back to the O.C., though I probably deserve to die for living here! (Note: I heard that Giant Village was cancelled - millions of hard-up dudes are pissed - no dropping rohypnol into drinks to the beats of John Digweed.)

My new year is guarenteed to be better than the last, though I started things off pretty well last January with my engagement, the next few months after that I spent in obscurity, accomplishing practicaly nothing. These days mental illness is on the decline. I am no longer a very sick person and am just sort of sick. I can drive a car now, it is true, but this blog is for horror. If you care about my personal life you can read this blog with it's fairly infrequent updates.

When Cub gets back, I'll check out the poorly recieved Wolf Creek, Kong, and hopefuly check out Hostel on opening night. Eli Roth, hero or jackass? The jury is out on that one. I'll make the call... soon.

Reveiws... I've got tons of out-of-print horror tapes to watch. I can't review them all, but I'll focus on the most interesting, which means reviews of the best lost treasures and worst partial-birth abortions.

lame thrills for scenesters

Three movies rented from the video chainstore in Chicago. All three were movies that it's hip to like and all three had fatal flaws. Let's get down to business.

The Machinist (2004) - We all know Christian Bale got sooo thin for this movie by eating a diet of only apples for several months. Director Brad Anderson (Session 9) made him quit, out of fear that he would kill himself.

fatal flaws! - Wow Christian Bale got really skinny on that starvation diet, but now that I've mentioned that, what's left? Does anyone give a damn about anything else in this movie? No, it suffers from Jacob's Ladder Syndrome, Carnival of Souls Syndrome, and perhaps the highly contagious Sixth Sense Syndrome. The plot sucks. They nail the points home to make it obvious. It's a weird movie for those who don't usually get weird movies and the only reason people like it is because of Christian Bale's 'sacrifice' which is something anybody could do. No Christian Bale, no movie.

The Manson Family (2003) - Have you seen the softcore serial killer worship of Monster? While that movie glorifies a true life killer, putting a hip feminist spin on it, this movie will not win sympathetic converts with it's simulated archival footage. The Manson actor hardly has any screen time, and the other family members are shown later in life, no longer hip and sexy, but come of as miserable and full of regret.

fatal flaws! - There is a subplot where mid-90's goth kids plan a Manson inspired attack on the media and I gotta tell you, this part is embarrassing because it's lifted right out of Natural Born Killers. Jim Van Bebber has some magical stuff here with phony documentary scenes, much of it run through the computer to look like old film footage. The 90's bit is a joke and it kills the movie. They don't even get the bit about the 'Charlie Don't Surf' Manson shirt right, though perhaps this is deliberate. Sadly I owned that shirt in high school. The poser-punk-type kid who is rocking this shirt in the movie is killed by a true Manson follower who is ironically wearing another t-shirt (Kill Yr Idols) that Axl Rose made popular in videos from the same time period. Is this an accident or a comment on the coolness of the 90's crowd? I'll give Van Bebber credit and say it's the latter.

Jim Van Bebber has made some great short films for Necrophagia videos and I had higher hopes for this movie, his second feature. Roger Ebert is quoted on the cover of the box. I read his review and he had mixed feelings on recommending this movie, but in the end gave it a positive 3 out of 4 stars. Ebert discusses the morality issues behind this movie as do most reviewers, but I think this is a fuss about nothing. Compared to the power of Natural Born Killers, which is loosely based on the Starkweather killings, this movie is a non event. The family members simply lack the charisma to inspire a following, which is another reason that the 90s action sequences are weak. I feel like there was an attempt to create a buzz about this movie and Ebert and others make the movie sound more important than it is. Shit is in here just make the movie feel dangerous, but the emperor wears no clothes.

Some of the controversy surrounding The Manson Family is that it explicitly recreates real life murders from the killers perspective. Call me insensitive, but that is just not a big deal. These murders have already been closely examined in books and documentaries over and over again. The dead are practically household names in America today. It's like the death of JFK, an event in American history, an it's getting closer to being ancient history. No controversy here. None.

The Woodsman (2004) - Here is a movie that deserves more controversy as it's from the P.O.V. of a convicted pedophile.

fatal flaws! - We learn that Kevin Bacon's character was lied to about the ages of the girls he molested. They told him they were teenagers (though still under legal age) and it seems that they were somewhat cooperative when being assaulted, though this behavior is still of course very wrong. Such an angle could be use to really get into the issue of whether or not some acts of pedophelia are worse than others, but that is not so much explored. It just felt like they were making Bacon's character less of a rapist when the movie is gripping because he is supposed to be the lowest of the low.

I'm already tongue-tied, I can't even talk about molesters and should be giving the filmmakers credit for touching upon the issue, but they really ought to have tackled the issue and showed how heavy it is instead of giving Bacon's character a free pass as they seem to at the end. That's political correctness gone bezerk, much as I discussed above when mentioning Monster.

spoiler - Credit where credit is due, the scene where Bacon almost molests Robin in the park made me squirm, but the other climax where Bacon punches out a fellow pedophile is a bad idea and just seems to be in there to make us feel ok.

This shit is not ok and the movie just does not work despite having great production values and an excellent cast. My biggest disappointment among the three because of the potential.

The moral of the story, I should stick to obscure 70's movies about satanic cults and leave these supposedly meaningful indie films to you guys who think you are smart.

you know I love my readers!

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Christmas Evil (1980) Lewis Jackson - the true meaning of Christmas

I mentioned last post that this was playing in my town at the modern art museum for free and I could not go. Well, I did go. I took my Great Directors of Cinema final exam as quickly as I could and got from Costa Mesa to Newport Beach in record time, running only one red light. The movie was not quite half over when I got there, but that was no big deal since I'd just watched it at home less than a week ago. I was disappointed to see that movie was being projected off of the DVD. As this must-read article explains, the museum cannot project 35mm. From the director's talk after the movie we learned that all DVD releases of this movie, and probably all VHS versions, have a washed out look and do not show that this movie was filmed in especially brilliant and vibrant color. A world-renowned cinematographer from France was hired for the movie and his lighting bill alone nearly doubled the film's budget! An official DVD release under the original title You Better Watch Out will be available in October 2006. John Waters, a major fan of the movie, will be doing guest commentary. The screening I went to was in conjunction with a John Waters art exhibit and film series.

After the film screened a lot of people split right away and did not stay for the deleted scenes and director's speech, which was the main reason I was there. Director Lewis Jackson counted nine fans still remaining and said that was the story of his life and career. This movie is the only one he has ever directed (in 1980) because it scarred his reputation so badly! Amazingly, he is still behind this film and has not disowned it as many others in his position would have. How he is not a bitter and angry man, I do not know. He clearly still loves this movie and is campaigning for it till this day! Talk about never selling out!


This European DVD cover not only says "Don't Fuck with Santa!", it also shows Santa with his gun, but there are no guns in the movie!
Check this out...

1. The movie is basically famous under the Christmas Evil title, which I must say is a pretty cool title, but it does not fit with the film's general message. Lewis Jackson never wanted the title to changed from You Better Watch Out. Note: there is another title, presumably unauthorized as well, Terror in Toyland. (Note: From what he said, I, for the first time, fell guilty for watching pirated movies. You guys know I am a big advocate for low cost DVDs, but unfortunately, they are often cheep because the movie maker isn't getting paid.)

2. As I mentioned before, the versions of this movie most people have seen all have very muted color and great pain were taken to make this an extremely bright and colorful movie.

3. Lewis Jackson has not, until very recently, owned the rights to this movie. Do to the numerous versions of this movie you can find from low end DVD companies, you would think that this movie was in the public domain, but Jackson explains that this is not the case. All DVDs of this movie are bootlegs, including the one I've got in the 50 Movie Pack, Chilling Classics. The Troma edition, is slightly more legitimate as you can read in the article I linked above.

Anyway, the movie aims high and I believe it hits the mark. It's a true tale of Christmas, a story of a man standing up for what he believes in. I personally relate. Can you? How are we supposed to react after being taught to believe in something as a child, only to find out as we grow that no one can stay true to their beliefs and ideals? I'm not talking just about the belief in the magic of Santa, but am taking a deeper look at the issue, as this movie does. Childhood is simple. There is good and there is evil. When we grow we find out that it's not a good versus evil world. Grown-ups are evil and are constantly struggling to become more evil. Life is a race to shed the innocence of childhood and become as evil as possible. People are eager to shed the simplicity of their true and correct childhood beliefs and to replace these with selfish relativism..

To think that these people even go to church? It is no accident that the finest kills in Christmas Evil take place after Midnight Mass on the step of a New York City church. The scum come out of the church with cruel intentions trying to joke at Santa's expense in order to impress a female friend. Fortunately, there is a butchering.

I mentioned that I had trouble transitioning from innocent child to predatory adult. I think the shock is what triggered me to become deeply involved in militant animal rights activism. It was like a Holy War for me, like one of the Narnia books come to life. Did we not believe in the messages these books taught us when we were young. As adults you say "that's nice in principal, but let's be realistic". Adults do not follow their hearts and as a result they lose their hearts.

I believe that Christmas Evil spreads the Narnia message perhaps better than the new Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe movie does. For the record, the Narnia movie is impressive, but falls short of being a masterpiece.

Anyway, I thanked the director Lewis Jackson for coming out to this screening, which I might mention, was free of charge. During his speech he also mentioned his movie getting lumped in with Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) and other Christmas slashers, which hurt his reputation further. I guess I'm too young to understand the prejudices that the serious film community held against slashers and horror movies in general before my time. These days I think it's much easier for a horror director to cross over into the mainstream. Horror movies get more respect. Minds are less closed. I think today that it would even be possible for a director to use genre films as a stepping stone to mainstream movies kind of like how bands today use the hardcore scene to break into the world of MTV2 metal, but I digress... I have yet to see an example of this phenomenon, but bullshit horror director Uwe Bolle has got something called In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (with a LOTR running time) in the works.

Back to a director that really matters, Lewis Jackson was on his way out the door and I was in my car talking to Cub. She knew how excited I was to go to this screening and I told her how I thanked the director and even now he was just getting ready to leave, just two cars away from me. She asked me if I told him how much I liked the movie and I said I did not because I did not want to bother him further. Fortunately she persuaded me to get out of my car and do so before it was too late. I can be pretty shy around talent that I am impressed by. I have a lot of respect for this guy because, as I mentioned before, he did not sell out and turn his back on this movie even though it has never been well received. He said it took something like five screenings to initially find a single person who liked it and then of course there were all the problems in this years following that I have already mentioned. After twenty-six years the film will finally get the proper treatment with the upcoming DVD release under the correct title and from a good print. What an ordeal it must been for him!

Anyway, I don't want to ruin the plot for anyone who has not seen this movie. It can be a funny movie, even if you take it seriously, as I obviously do. Here is a cub speaks from before I went to the screening, from when we watched the movie for the first time, about a week ago.



Cub, I even strung up Christmas lights to get you in the mood for this one. Were you happy?

I loved that you put up Christmas lights in our room. It was very romantic and it totally sets the mood and creates a warm fuzzy inside. It is a cub tradition to put up Christmas lights in our room during the winter holiday season. jeez ...if only we had some soy eggnog to drink and some brandy? ..I mean we would make it virgin for you of course. I can't wait until we go to Chicago and sneak off in the middle of the night to sit under the Christmas tree at my house and tell scary bedtime stories.

Is it annoying that I only let us watch these movies during the Christmas season?

It is annoying that you have us wait to see Christmas movies until Christmas... I mean how long does a girl really need to wait just to see a damn movie (a year according to some naughty cubs).

Christmas in the trenches!

I'm pissed because my new favorite movie, and the next movie that I'm going to review here, Christmas Evil, is screening tomorrow for free in the town that I live in. As seen in the OC Weekly (read this!), a publication I hate, but grab many copies off to absorb the piss and poo bits that come from my pet Bun Bun.

Puppetmaster vs. Demonic Toys is coming out on DVD from Anchor Bay on 1/17/06, a little too early for next years Christmas. Really, we are lucky we this movie is being released at all. Read my review of it from last Christmas.



oh no
Last years Christmas posts...

review - To All a Good Night directed by David Hess

X-mas bedtime story - Last X-mas Down the Way - Break out the soy eggnog for this new holiday tradition!

What's next?

this... I have not seen it.
The future of X-mas? Santa's Slay, trashed by bloody-disgusting.

finally some dissonance

Larry said my video was awful. Finally someone has spoken their mind. His rock video for this band Captain Ahab is finished and I saw it. Not sure if I'm allowed to talk about it, since it has not debuted. From the Captain Ahab website: "So, the insanely awesome music video for "I Can't Believe it's Not Booty" (directed by Lawrence Klein) will be premiering at the Smell on December 29. Holy shit. I can't wait." Yes that's right, there is a premier date in downtown Los Angeles.

What's similar about my video and his? Well, two of the same stars for one, though maybe that's the end of the similarities. They both have blood, but his has more blood and then some. There is dirty stuff in this that you can't even put into horror movies. You just aren't allowed to shoot these things. I will be at the premier.

News I read from UHM:

Marebito - Wow, what a letdown. From the internet buzz this film has been gettin' I expected more, especially since it's getting a limited theatrical run December 9th here in the US. Apparently director Takashi Shimizu shot this film in a matter of 8 days, between Ju-On: The Grudge, and its US remake simply entitled The Grudge. Takashi is goin' back to his direct-to-video micro-budget route with this film, basically shooting the movie in a consumer-brand digital video cam, so it has that gritty realism/low-budget look to it. The film does prove to be creepy at times, but it's ultimately left unsatisfying.

The rest of the review is here. It convinced me not to go.

Also: Puppet Master 10 to be shot in about a year. More Puppet Master news in my next post.

All Night Long (1992) Katsuya Matsumura

First this: Feedback for my short horror movie (on-line!) is remarkably positive. I would post some of it here, but that would bore you, besides, I think some people are lying to me. Tell me that it sucks, and I will post what you wrote.

and now the review of the Katsuya Matsumura film: This movie is the first in a series and I did not like it that much, but the next two movies, that came in the box set are supposed to be better. I guess I'll watch them, but I can't guarantee it since I don't think I've ever watched every disc that comes in a box set. All Night Long 2: Atrocity and All Night Long 3: The Final Chapter never came out in Japanese theaters, but this first movie did have a theatrical run. The fifth and six movies were straight-to-video and are still not available legitimately in the USA.

"Human beings are garbage" is the theme to this series though it may be more established more-so in the sequels. The first movie reminded me of Kids, but with, you know, murders and stuff. I'd say this movie is probably not so much an accurate view of Japanese teenagers just like Kids was not truly representative of American youth, but journalists like to point at movies and say "this is THE TRUTH, it tells us what the kids of today are going through!!" Yeah right, if all that shit in Kids really mattered the kids of this generation would still be doing it with rubbers, but safe sex is out and everyone is still alive.

I'm sure glad I got this box set wicked cheap, but once again, don't rule out numbers 2 and 3. I'd seen a bootleg tape of Atrocity around and it had some sick shots on the back, though I forget of what. I do believe that it is the tale a boy versus the homosexual gang that sexually abuses him. How strange.

Other movies: I got the rare Sergio Martino film, The Great Alligator on bootleg tape, but it was such a bad copy I could hardly see any of the night time action, which included the climax where the tourists are caught between the alligator and the angry natives. It sure looked like a bloodbath... I think? Everything I saw told me that this hidden gem ought to be available on DVD, but it is not. Fortunately Martino does not kill any animals in this movie, but they do blow up trees with bats in them, though the bats are not actually blown up. Also live animals are thrown into the water, not sure what kind, my tape was too blurry. Funny, the hero character remarks about how that is inhumane. The gator was eating dead animals I'm pretty sure. Any of this stuff is unacceptable if you ask me, but I did not support this movie with any money, keep that in mind. Let's hope that a superior bootleg version of this becomes available or just hope that whomever owns the rights to this one now is pretty far removed from the original producers. Since 1979 the movie has likely changed hands many times.

The Thirsty Dead, that's a great name for movie that is fairly average. Got the DVD from Something Weird Video. I think Cub was pretty into this movie and it had it's moments, like it's one zombie-type scene, but other the other elements are really dated. The cult leader outfits and the primitive jungle get-ups were not as cool as some of the retro fashion you see in older horror cinema. The Blood Island films and Vampire Hookers, also made in the Philippines, are much better. The best scenes in this one were shot in the real jungle versus the bulk of them show on a fake-looking cave set. I'd been waiting a long time to see The Thirsty Dead and I'm not sure why. The title, I guess.

Stuff to see: The Worst Record covers of all time! One from Exploitation Retrospect and one from Pitchfork. I've bought at least two of the records off of the Pitchfork list (Bloodrock and The Kinks) from dollar bins for their covers alone. Silly me, I thought they were two of the best album covers of all time!

I'm in full agreement with Pitchfork on most of the 90's artwork the dismiss. Pretty much anything made in the 90's with low production values does not stand up today. I like just about all the 70's record art shown. My real complaint with the Pitchfork list, too many jokes that give misinformation about the albums. For some of these stories, I want to hear straight versions.

Precursor - the horror short is online!

It's late at night and my commentary on the movie might not make a hell of a lot of sense, but the file is up and running here:

http://www.sceneholocaust.com/precursor.htm

It should be work safe for you people on lunch break. There is not a huge amount of blood it is more of a psychological horror movie. Just kidding, what the hell does that mean anyway? This is just a quick slasher. A typical bear-suit slaughterfest.

Cub Speaks? Yes Cub speaks on camera in this movie once again.

The video is roughly 5 minutes long. It's does not drag. So get with it.

the straight edge Battle Royale t-shirt. cool or lame?

I don't know, I think that there are too many ordinary Battle Royale t-shirts out there already, thought I was tempted to buy one for Cub. Not this straight edge shirt of course, she would probably die of embarrassment, and besides, she drinks. Me, I'm not tempted to buy an straight edge related paraphernalia at this point, especially while living in the Orange County with it's wack hardcore kids. Shirt available here.


straight edge? In the 90's they would have called this advertising sexist. shit was like a witch hunt back then.
Did anyone else see Battle Royale II? I doubt it. It's more controversial than the first, though not as good. I call it a reverse Saving Private Ryan with the exact opposite message as that movie and also with similar battle scenes including a storming of the beach. I'm not too wild about Saving Private Ryan's message and the way Spielberg shoves it down your throat, however I must say that the lessons Battle Royale II tries to teach are the greater of two evils and this is coming from someone who is generally against George Bush's warmongering. I won't give it away. See Battle Royale II. As far as I know there is no version of this coded for U.S. dvd players and I wonder if their ever will be. It was made in 2003 so it really should have come out here already.

My horror video is almost done. I just need to get some correct spellings for the names in the credits. I've had computer troubles throughout the editing and for the first time have found out what the limitations are when you buy the cheapest computer on the market. I'm going to write a lot more about the filming and what worked and what did not in the near future so I'll stop now. In any case, get ready for something interesting cause I'm going to put it online.

The P.S.A. that I was in part producer on, with the Halloween part and an anti-drunking-doing drugs-and driving message, was shown in a film festival. This could be the only time something I made will run in one of these things. Oh no, I don't intent to submit my little slashers to tons of festivals and pay all of their submission fees. Unfortunately I could not attend this festival since I had to act in someone else's short movie, which is made with some great equipment, so maybe that will be in a festival when it's done. I saw some of the edits and they were top notch. Anyway, the P.S.A. that screened was shot will professional TV equipment, which certainly gave it an edge over the other homemade stuff that was surely submitted. Our set resembled a Halloween party and the piece ended with the characters behind bars and being sized up by a smiling, much bigger, and older, inmate.

fuck you

I'm really pissed off. The rent is due and I'll never have enough money to pay it on my own. I'd better just pack up my shit and move to the hood. Want to live somewhere nice? Fuck you, you were born too late.

Anyway, here is a preview of the shit I am working on. It should play on it's own. There is no sound.

Victoria (in the bear suit) said she based her moves on Juon: The Grudge and Grizzly. Here are some of her projects.

The other night I had a long phone conversation about the works of Charles Band. I mentioned that his older label, Wizard Video, put out almost all good material including Driller Killer as well as some good Euro-horror. Yes, almost all good stuff with the exception of the movies directed by Tim Kincaid. Breeders (1986) was his best, but was pretty stiff. (Don't confuse it with the unrelated and even worse 1998 Paul Mathews Breeders with the 3-D box.) Mutant Hunt (1987), with it's little Wizard "too gory for the silver screen" emblem, is unwatchable shot on video crap. Worst of all is The Occultist (1987), which never came out on Wizard, but is produced by Charles Band and I found it on DVD on the Full Moon label. This movie is 'bottom ten of all time material'. It is not shot on video, but if it had been, the movie could not be any worse than it already is. There is plenty of gore, yet we have to deal with endless 24-7 voodoo rituals, preppy security agents, and bad fight choreography, that just makes for a shitty package. I don't want to get into details, but one man fights with a morning star with a skull that looks like the Corrosion of Conformity logo on the end of a chain. Also, we've got an agent with a member that turns into a machine gun, and then he zips up his fly with attitude. Stupid to the max and fortunately or unfortunately, depending on what you are looking for, the penis-maching gun shot is from the waist up only, leaving the weapon to the imagination.

Tim Kincaid directs gay porn under the name Joe Gage. For real. The Occultist was not gay though, it's aimed at straight kids.

Long Island Cannibal Massacre directed by Nathan Schiff was a joy and was made back when home made horror had to be shot on film, 1980. It's Super 8 film I believe. The DVD edition looks great and the only thing that separates this amateur movie from b-movies with a budget is that this one has some out of focus shots in it. You don't see that mistake often at the movies. Was my new video shot in sharp deep focus? I hope so, but I have not reviewed all the footage yet. In fact my computer ate the parts I'd edited all ready. Today has been shit from start to finish.