Satan's School for Girls (1973)

First a little bit on info on who is coming to read this blog. A lot of you are horror fans, naturally. Other people come here from search google after searching terms like 'scenesters' and 'fashion' which makes sense because I cover the scenester pop culture from time to time. I even venture into political movements when they offer some entertaining or controversial ideas.

There is one keyword I'm sick of getting hits from, the term 'moshzilla'. I wrote an entry about this internet phenomenon that everyone was talking about in perhaps January or February of this year. There was a funny pic of a girl dancing at a hardcore show that was made funnier after countless kids took the image and photoshoped it onto pictures of famous events or basically anything. Things got funnier when the girl's parents threatened to sue, but today I think I can say that it is time to let moshzilla go. The joke is getting old. Hardcore kids love their inside jokes a little too much, anyone remember the 'Rick ta Life on a horse' picture or the Atom and His Package Youth of Today cover? How about the band Good Clean Fun? Yes, these are jokes that are only funny if you are a hardcore kid in the know. I'm sure this makes a lot of people feel superior and connected to a super exclusive scene, but drop this one. I should not still be getting 20 hits a day from people looking to read about what I wrote about moshzilla. That shit is dead.

Satan's School for Girls is a made for TV movie brought to you by producer Aaron Spelling who I guess has been around forever, proving today that the old will never give up their grip on popular entertainment. Did anyone see that article in Rolling Stone about a year back about who is responsible for breaking all the new rock/pop stars? Old and uncool, but very rich and powerful people are choosing for all of you which bands you should see on your MTV. They won't retire. How could they give up their money and power?

This movie is good, but not great. More info in the Cub Speaks.



Cub, internet research after watching this movie turned up two shockers. One, this movie was made four years before Suspiria. Two, this movie was remade in 2000 with Shannen Doherty staring! What do you think? (Note: the new version is not available on vhs or dvd)

I am surprised that this movie was made 4 years before Suspiria (my all-time favorite movie).

What held this movie back, because it's not an awful movie by any means, is the lack of splatter, since it was made for TV. What do you think, add some Technicolor blood and we would have a keeper?

This movie was good but I have to say that even if there was Technicolor blood, it still would not attain Suspiria superiority. It is in a league of its own. Argento is in a league of his own!

Cub, as a psychology major, how did you feel about the way the psych teacher was portrayed?

The psychology teacher was obviously portrayed in the stereotypical dull, stern, narcissistic male role of the Freudian type. But it was the 70's so I don't blame the way he was portrayed... psychologists have come a long way cub!

If the teacher had a lab full of bunnies in a maze, instead of a maze of mice or rats, you would say "set the bunnies free!", right cub? I don't think animals should be used in research, especially in the schools.

I would free the bunnies. I agree that animals should not be used in research or school settings, that is why I saved our little Buns from the torturous life of being a school bunny. (note: we adopted a bunny that a school was giving away, at first he would not let us pet him, but after improving his conditions, diet, and giving him supervised freedom and attention, he has become extremely affectionate) He loves his life with us! He gets to roam the entire apartment. I love Buns!

Once again Cub, you figured out who the villain was before I did. Good job Cub. It's always the one you least expect who turns out to be the devil.

I always know who the villain will be, cub. I am just that good!

a matter of bad taste: masturbation of horror

I wrote this a couple days ago and I get on the subject of bad horror soundtracks. I guess I should say that a good horror soundtrack would be the one to Devil's Rejects that uses classic rock that will not date the movie in unintentional ways as the years go by.

Coming soon, a review of Satan's School for Girls with a Cub Speaks... but for now, this:

I always like to say that most people I know have pretty unique and good taste in music, but generic bad taste in movies. Yes I'm talking about your video (ok, ok, DVD) collection! I'm a big fan of movie-to-music analogies. Your DVD shelf, translated movie by movie into albums, gives us rather ordinary results. You have Pulp Fiction and Royal Tenenbaums (Criterion Edition), that translates into Nirvana: Incesticide and Radiohead: OK Computer. Fine records I suppose, but rather ordinary and easy to come by. Your guilty pleasure DVD (so cute to have these?), Coyote Ugly, is the equivalent of one of the Lemonheads later albums. Not very cool.

I'm not being fair. I take a risk that I can't ask everyone to take. It's called 'buying blind'. You buy a DVD you've seen, know you are going to like, and are going watch multiple times. I buy something I've never seen, can't find at a rental store, and know very little about before pressing 'play'. How can I afford to do this? Practically everything I buy is used, dirt cheep, shitty quality, maybe even damaged. Even most horror fans don't buy blind. I am weird, but I estimate my horror collection to be 2000+. I have boxes and boxes of unwatched tapes and even DVDs.

Back to bad taste. I listen to shitty metal music, generic 80's thrash metal, and metallic British punk rock. It can be established that I am not a connoisseur of fine music, but I feel comfortable saying that today's metal is a big mess. It makes 90's Victory Records metalcore look pure by comparison. The shit you see on Headbanger's Ball mixes Ross Robinson rap-metal with radio rock, screamo, melodic goth metal, power metal, black metal, and of course metalcore to create one super-produced huge sound. Sure, we won't miss the jock metal and track suits, but watch out, Papa Roach have reinvented themselves by putting on eyeliner just like 18 Visions.

Sex is back and that's fine. 90's hardcore was very puritanical and the alternative rockers were too sensitive to objectify women, but now we have returned to an eighties level of excess.

That's leads us to the soundtrack (myspace page) for the promising Showtime Masters of Horror series. Mudvayne, Alkaline Trio, It Dies Today, Avenged Sevenfold... there is your proof that metal hardcore has merged with the mainstream. Look at the pictures for an Amp Magazine cover and a real tacky pinup complete with tribal graphics and a dog collar. There was at least one person with a brain who commented. "i cant wait for dario argentos episode... to be ruined by screamo and nu metal.."


"wow i just got cum on my computer from jacking off to this pic" read one commenter, asserting his questionable heterosexuality. Dudes don't know what to like unless it's got big tits and make-up. That's why they are such easy prey for cross dressing hookers with their members tucked between shaved legs.
here is one more: "she is the most beautiful women i have ever seen i always had a crush on her damn i hope one day i can meet her "

don't support their bullshit (once again)

So the new Fog sucks and nobody liked it. Yay! Well "It opened up number one!" you say. Unfortunately yes, but this blog post at about.com puts it in perspective.

With an $18 million production budget, the remake of John Carpenter's 1981 horror picture will likely be profitable for Sony, but it's no The Grudge nor even a Boogeyman. It's on par with the melted House of Wax and below what has come to be expected for a major horror movie in October. The original, considered a disappointment for Carpenter at the time after the success of Halloween, grossed $21.4 million, which would equal over $50 million today adjusted for ticket price inflation—a figure the remake will fall well short of.

A lot of people say, "well the original Fog was not that great, so I don't mind them trying to improve on it". A true point is made that this is not sacrilege on the scale of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, but I would still argue with people who make that statement. This remake culture weak and lazy. Who dares wins. The studios are conservative and know than can make an easy profit of a remake, what with nostalgia and all, but they never make history. It's horror stagnation.

I'll take a sequel over a remake any day. Dawn of the Dead, the remake, was barely ok. Land of the Dead, the sequel, was phenomenal.

Let me tell you this. I did not go out and see The Fog! That would have a total waste of time and money and insult to me easily offended brain. Supporting it is supporting stupidity in the name of horror. If you buy the DVD you do double the damage you would do seeing the movie in the theaters. You nerds don't have to buy every horror new release and then replace it with the next special or anniversary edition of the same movie that will come out down the line in the following months or years. Don't be a chump, buy a reissue of something obscure and learn something that every other douche bag studying the Firefly family history does not already know.

Think of the video selection in the stores a few years down the road. Do you want multiple copies of The Fog and Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes taking up shelf space where classic Mario Bava and Larry Cohen films could be?

Skip the Fog, here are some random quotes from the bloody-disgusting review board:

hunter daniels: i walked out, and i never walk out of movies. it was just painful.

Firstperson i: This was the worst movie I have ever seen at the theatres! This movie has nothing at all going for it, I can't see how anyone could like this shit. We need to let hollywood know this shit needs to stop!

Jadin: The thing i don't understand is why the people who said that they dont like the movie went to go see it. I kinda knew the movie was not going to be good so I stayed home. Sometimes I think some of you guys want to complain and cause drama for the hell of it. Well I have said my piece.

That last one rings true to me. I'll still cause the drama, but I won't be supporting what I'm complaining about financially. Last year I went to too many movies in the theaters.

Crystal Force (1990) total shit

It's been a little while since I posted, but last post was a video so I hope everybody watched it. You still can.

I still intend to post my review of the Exploited show. I saw the Misfits last night in Santa Ana and that was pretty fun. D.I. opened again (I reviewed the Misfits Trilogy of Terror last Halloween in Anaheim) and this time I did not sit out their set chilling in the car with Cub. I'm glad because these guys were very charismatic and catchy. I need to get all of their old records. I only have one of the new ones.

Another band that played last night was Orange, who recently signed to Hellcat Records. Just because they are only fourteen years old does not mean that I had to be impressed, the little guys sucked big time and reminded me of that annoying Australian band The Living End. The kids should all start dating Kelly Osbourne, but she would like, not be into them cause they are soooo middle school.

Some kids are ok though. About a month ago we saw a San Diego band called Wrecking Crew who were much tighter and catchier and probably all under 18. Sure it is sacrilege to use the band name of Boston hardcore legends (do an internet search guys - when choosing a name), but they did tear it up.

On to the subject of the extremely shitty Crystal Force:

Crystal Force contains the second most awful climatic sequence I have ever seen in a movie. The first would be from Blood Red Planet, made by the Polonia brothers and Jon McBride, whom I like. I've praised them at times in this blog and just yesterday or the day before that got comment on one of my older posts from an actor in Blood Red Planet. Guys, I have to say sorry, but the ending of Blood Red Planet is awful, though at least I've had fun watching it over and over. Crystal Force, I will never watch that again.

What's with this movie? It's not shot on VHS. There is a bit of a budget. The monster looks cool, if not a little rubbery. Unfortunately in every scene his appearance is enhanced by awful video effects that make him look like shit. He flickers or is only partially superimposed on the screen. In a particularly lame moment his head hovers inside a toilet bowl that is shot from directly above. It looks horribly 2-D and besides, this is not Ghoulies is it? We are supposed to be dealing with a demon here.


Crystal Force directed by Laura Keats
The final sequence involves the beast goring a whole bunch of middle-aged suburban woman, which is fine, the gore is not bad, but as I said, the monster is obscured by video effects. As the shit goes down, the human villain peers through the window and laughs. He did this a couple of times earlier in the movie as well. The shot each time is a close-up of the window, with this guy's upper body pretty much filling in 2/3 of the frame. At no time is this window shown in the context of the rest of the room with the people in it. If they showed that we would say, "hmmm, how are they not noticing that guy audibly laughing and standing about six inches away from that open window for an extended period of time".

More about the climax. For some reason most of this movie takes place in a home that is also a beauty parlor where all the yuppie woman hang out. I can see why a movie maker might set the movie in a beauty parlor. So the hero can blow up the monster with aerosol can of hairspray. It does not happen, the cans are all set up, but that plan is abandoned when we see that an ordinary spray bottle, with some blue fluid in it, can do the job on it's own. That's it really, the monster can't handle the squirts and it's not a joke or a spoof, it just a really stupid ending.

This is not some Troma movie or deliberate project to make the stupidest movie of all time. It just is total shit. What about the rest of the movie. It's just talk, talk, talk, from a bunch of older women. I feel bad for them, like they all probably thought they were making a real movie like Close Encounters Of the Third Kind or something, but really it just junk with a bunch of unappealing female masturbation scenes. Aren't these movies aimed at adolescents? You'd think they could get some younger girls so that kids could get into it. The women gossip about getting hot for Billy Idol and David Lee Roth and that is oh so scandalous and there is much giggling. Was this movie really made in the year 1990?

There are so many extraneous characters and the movie tries to deal with real themes like deaths in the family and loneliness from time to time. The filmmakers were not in touch with the horror market. At least I hope they weren't, though I know the 90's were a shitty time for horror.

And why is there a Crystal Force 2?! It's not even made by the same people. The only explanation is that a lot of people rented Crystal Force because the box looks cool and it hints at sex. I think that Crystal Force 2 is available in a very cheap four movie DVD bundle from Brentwood Video, but I'm not certain.

The Precursor is the pending title for my video class final and it's based on a speech that the human villain in Crystal Force made to his two Dobermans. He speak of some kind of ancient force that created God. No, I'm not making a Crystal Force spin-off, but it's funny how we can find inspiration is some of the lowest places.

witchfinder video staring Cub and Dallas

This video has sound, so TURN IT UP, I did not use a boom mic and we've got
lots of white noise. You are lucky I even used a tripod. Once again you have to press play to get this video going.

If I run out of bandwith see the file here at Putfile.

Not working? YOU PRESSED PLAY? Ok, then go watch it at Putfile.

Can't hear some of the dialogue? You're lucky. All the important bits can be
heard so don't sweat it. Once again this was an assignment I handed in unedited
with all the raw footage. It was edited for the internet. The music is by Jim
Paterson from mfiles.

a pre-vue of what's to kum

I've had some terrible ideas and I'm forced to hand them in for school. Expect me to generate hype for my shitty projects in this blog. Comming soon, a review of the awful Crystal Force (1990) and how it inspired me.


the literature of the suburban witchfinder...
Also, a review of the Exploited playing to a small crowd in Santa Ana. The may not be relevant, but man do they play fast. Speed metal's not dead!

A History of Violence (2005)

1st - The random news: I just finished my second super-short video. The good news is that this one has sound. The bad news is that you are going to hate the sound because it sounds like something you would get from Video Outlaw or worse. Everything was shot in one take. I had another in-camera-editing assignment, but when I post the short on the internet, it will be edited and cleaned up a bunch.

A History of Violence: You either loved this movie or you hated it. That seems to be the general reaction I'm seeing on the net. Cub and I had a blast, a couple of my friends up in Los Angeles thought they had seen this movie done better before. Violence is an issue often addressed by directors today and I'll admit that this movie did not break new ground philosophically, but it did go over the subject matter in a way that at least made me think, even if I had already thought the same things through before.

10/10 on bloody-disgusting.com



Cub, I have to say that at times I found this movie very funny, like in the scene where the guy gets shot in the head and we see he face half blown away, I almost spit my mouthful of Coke on the two or three rows in front of us, I was going into seizures. There were lots of laughs, maybe some as a coping mechanism for the audience members who did not know what to do with such graphic violence, but I think that the scenes which follow the violence change the tone quick and make us remember that there are costs. Violence does not happen in a vacuum. I think that particularly the scene where the son acts out violently at school (met by cheers from the audience) is followed by a sobering scene where we all are almost chastised for enjoying the violence. The Dad says something like "hey, we could get sued for this, it's serious."

Wow honey... I am really impressed at your reflections over the movie and I could not agree with you any more on all the issues you have touched on. Shoot... you pinpointed everything down so nicely that I can't argue or debate with you on any of it. I agree that people laugh at the most gruesome of things simply as a defense mechanism and not that they actually think it is funny. The psychologist in me can tell you that. People tend to laugh at the most inappropriate times simply cause they are uncomfortable and can't sit in their own anxiety (oops getting way too ahead of myself and starting to ramble). Anyway we all tend to do this, it's a part of being human I guess.

Some internet people, perhaps not experts, think David Cronenberg might get nominated for Best Director. Do you think that could happen? I hope so.


I hope Cronenberg does get nominated because this movie was amazing. I give it 10 bears!


One thing about this movie I don't see people talking about, is that it's not very realistic. The town is a fantasy, the action scenes could not really go down that way. I like this because they do away with realism in order to have the extreme variables that can really nail the point home. If the movie were lifelike as it appears in the rather dull preview, I don't think it would be as effective. I guess I just like overkill and shit that is over the top. How about you?

I totally loved it and rave about it to everyone I know!

Progeny (1998) Brian Yuzna

Progeny, a late nineties effort from the people that brought us the Re-Animator movies. Stuart Gordon directed the original Re-Animator along with the stellar From Beyond and Dolls. He wrote the story for this movie. Brian Yuzna, whose first film wish the fascinating Society, directed the Re-Animator sequels and directs Progeny. Screaming Mad George, effects wizard for the two Re-Animator sequels, does the effects here. Unfortunately they are the only thing worth checking out in Progeny, an unimpressive work in every other respect.

Even some of the creatures are pretty weak. At first the white gummy-like aliens were captivating, but they got a little too much screen time in the white light. An insemination scene with bug-type organs looks cheep and has been done better in other movies. One birthing scene was memorable, but lost some points for turning out to be just a dream sequence. I hate those. The last shot of alien baby FX was absolutely fantastic, but that does not come until the final five minutes of the film. It too could have been a dream sequence, things get foggy. When this movie loses it's grip on reality it just heads right to the shitter. We get a truly lame twist and ending to this film with lots of unexplained bullshit that we don't even want to know the answer to. Think X-Files. I've had enough of that shit for life.

I'm not feeling charitable, so no points awarded for this movie taking place in Newport Beach, the city I live in right now. Hoag Hospital is right next door to me. The medical center where this movie takes place is fictional and I'm pretty sure the movie was not shot on location. Is there alien mayhem going down at Hoag? Oh shit.

In one scene the mother tries to abort the evil seed with a coat hanger. In the next she is angry because her husband wants the pregnancy terminated. What we get here are random outbursts without explanation.


The trailers that aired before this movie were so fucking bad, except for Stuart Gordon's Space Truckers.
One bid of wisdom from this movie in the form of dialogue, seriously. The subject at hand is alien probing.

"Why would they do this?"

"I don't know. I don't know if we can know. What do you figure animals think when we experiment on them?"

Think about that.

take your MST4K and stick it!

Don't you hate when you are looking up a movie you've just enjoyed watching and you find a smart ass little reviewer (on a site like imdb or yahoo - that allows user reviewers) saying "this film is begging to be MST3K'd". I'm talking about those little bitches in the corner of the screen and their fans who are like the kid who comes over to watch the wrestling pay-per-view and has to keep remind you the wrestling is fake.

No fun for me, but some of you need these guys and maybe I should live and let live. I don't think so, these snobs suck dick. Let me quote one for you. "This is another one of those horrible horrible movies that are only good if you watch it on Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you watch this movie without seeing it on MST3K and listening to the bots rip it apart then you are in big trouble my friend. The movie is a lame excuse for a monster movie. Complete with cheesy (and i mean really cheesy)special FX, horrible acting, and ridiculous plot line. You have to wonder if some of these movies were made intentionally for MST3K because it is so horribly bad that it makes you wonder how the directors sleep at night."

That's from Slipmud95 on the imdb (the word 'slackergod' is in his e-mail address) on Lamberto Bava's not-too-awesome Devil Fish which I believe really played on Mystery Science Theater. It's a bit of a dull Piranha/Jaws rip-off, but surely it deserves a review where at least one specific example from the movie could be mentioned. Still, I suppose 'slackergod' could be working on making a much better movie himself. In fact the '95' marks the year he started penning the script for his Reality Bites sequel. Don't worry guys, he will be done soon! Now he's been giving the movie a Royal Tenebaums feel so it will be just as derivative of other Wes Anderson movies as Devilfish was of Jaws. I'm just teasing, I like 'slackergod' and hope one day that he does get a letter back from his idol, the smart movie maker, Quentin Taratino.

Wait no, Quentin Tarantino, and Slipmud 95 are not birds of a feather. Check out this Tarantino quote.

"Laugh when its funny, not to prove you’re superior to the movie. Just Give yourself to the movie. Then at some point in the film you’re realize that you really fucking care about these characters and you’ll ask yourself when did you start to fucking care. They’ll sneak up on ya."

That from an article about Tarantino hosting an all night 80's horror marathon. Found via Blog By The Cemetery.

amateur hour - short shock video of Cub

If I run out of bandwith (sceneholocaust.com is hosting) and nothing downloads you can see the video here at Putfile. It was made for an assignment called 'camera test' in my film class.

It is silent. I added the Fear song 'Beef Bologna', but that did not work for me. I tried the Carnivore song 'Sex and Violence', but did not like that either. This video is very short.

You must PUSH PLAY to view the video. May not work in some browsers, leave a comment at the bottom if you have trouble. It is is WMV file and can be downloaded here if you need to view it outside of this page.

DID YOU PUSH PLAY right above these words?, then it should work, leave a comment if trouble...

fun facts:

The assignment was for in-camera editing. Despite lots of planning in advance, everything went wrong and the video did not meet some of the requirements. I did edit it for this internet screaning so you can't see what was wrong, but some shots ran too long and two takes of the same shot were on the tape. I decided to do shoot another video quickly because I feared that this one would land me a low grade. The next tape was of Cub in a bikini by the pool. She looked great, but the tape was unimpressive. I decided that the unedited desert tape may have been better and was glad I had not scrapped it. I screaned both to the class. Grade: unkown at this point.

The video was shot in Palm Springs near the visitor center. Initialy cub was supposed to be crawling through the dirt in the middle of nowhere, but we found all this junk and decided to go with a post-apocalyptic thing on the fly.

We had to split moments after the last shot where Cub raises her hands in front of the sun. A schizophrenic desert person was comming over the hills straight towards us. He was about 50 yards away, talking to himself, and unaware that we were there. Cub is lucky I did not make her do a scene on his matress, which was lying near the junkpile. I wanted to reshoot that last scene, but did not because this guy was comming. Cub was out of there so quickly that she did not even pass to me the headless lizard prop that she is holding in the scene. It was still in her hand when we reached the car. I gathered up my shit so quickly that I'm lucky I did not leave the tripod or the lense cap or the manual out there. The lizard heads remains in that spot. I placed it on top of the abandoned dishwasher shown in scene one. I dare anyone to go out there and grab it, that is if the crazy desert men did not stash it away somewhere. Happy hunting.

Nightmares (1983) Lee Ving

Lee Ving is not top billed in this movie. After all, other segments star Lance Henricksen (Pumpkinhead, Alien, and regrettably The Mangler 2) and Emilio Estevez. He does not even get a speaking line as the killer William Henry Glazier, who attacks and then is shot in Nightmares' first of four short horror tales.

The most I've seen Lee Ving act is in Dudes, the Penelope Spheeris movie that is not unlike her Suburbia in that it's also fictional, has punk protagonists, has Flea acting, and includes a live performance by the Vandals. Suburbia and Dudes both suck, but at least Dudes has got Lee Ving as a mean badass villain. The best Spheeris movies I've seen are the documentaries The Decline of Western Civilization and The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. Part III reportedly blows, but maybe I'd dig it. I don't know. Spheeris did write Summer Camp Nightmare (1987), a fun movie where campers revolt and become evil Communists. Some kids in heavy metal wigs lipsinc to Fear's 'Beef Bologna' in a raunchy talent show scene that you gotta see.

Fear music is present in Nightmare's second tale. 'I Don't Care About You' opens with it's "fuck you" line noticeably absent. 'Lets' Have a War' plays as Estevez battles a Mexican teen in arcade action. People generally seem to pick this segment 'Bishop of Battle' as the favorite. Clearly most of the effects budget was spent here as an arcade is trashed and there is extensive computer animation. I was impressed. My companion Cub was not. Punk fans take note, Black Flag's 'Rise Above' can be heard I think during the scene where Emilio Estevez fights with his Dad. There is also music by X.


I bought the poster for this movie as well.
The third tale is my least favorite. I like Lance Henricksen and could get into the first few scenes about a priest who is losing his faith, but the action stuff lost me. A menacing black truck chases Henricksen on the highway. There is great effect when it emerges from the ground below, but I was disappointed that the driver's face is never revealed. We do see an upside-down cross hanging from the mirror, which I found kind of tacky, like something a satanic teen would have. Does a demon from hell really need an upside-down crucifix?

Segment four? By far the best, with great characters and some gross stuff involving a giant rat. A few of the effects misfire, but they are still fun to see.

imdb.com bio fact about Lee Ving: Lee's tattoo on his right arm "Lee James Jude"(possibly real name) which is what he goes by when credited on the movie "Nightmares".

In a Citizine interview, Derf Scratch says Lee Ving's real name is Lee James Jude Capalero.

Unfortunately Lee Ving (along with some other cool actors - Roddy Pipper and Reggie Bannister) will be in Sin-Jin Smyth, a stupid looking horror movie with a star who I can only say fronts a band responsible for some of the lamest trends in 90's metal. Now those douche bags are washed up and he's gonna act. Fuck this. Yeah, I did not put that guys name down cause I get enough idiots coming to the site already from looking up the stupidest shit on the search engines.



Were you excited to see Lee Ving in a movie? No doubt it brought back memories of our date to a Fear show on Sunset Strip.

It was great to see Lee Ving in a movie, except for the fact that we hardly got to see him at all. He had a tiny role and you had to look closely to make sure it was even him. What a rip! Hmm.... memories with cub at Fear show (that was a nice night!)

Were you touched by the final shot of the rat in what the movie called 'Chapter 4'. I saw you even imitate the rat's roar of sorrow.

I did feel sorry for the Big Rat. All she wanted was her baby. RRRRAAAAAAWWWWWRRRRRR!!!!! Come on cub, don't try to deny it.... I saw a tear in your eye. Big boys do cry ;)

The last chapter reminded me a lot of the last segment in the anthology Cat's Eye (1985). They both had hateable parents (the do-it-yourself father in this one and the cat hating mother in Cat's Eye), both had a sweet little girl, and both had a creature living in the walls. What do you think?

I can see what you mean when you speak of the similarities, however I had not really made that connection when I was watching the movie. But good job cub! Sharp eye.

vault of punk horror?

So there is a written Vault of Punk Horror in the works and it's got a bit of controversy attached to it. A look at editor Gabriel Llanas's blog (punk parent) will tell you what is up.

The main problem is that coeditor David Agranoff is in jail for refusing to take part in a grand jury. What's this? Well Agranoff is not charged with a crime, a jury is merely meeting to interrogate some people in order to figure out whether or not someone out there should be charged for a crime. They are gathering the dirt, to charge someone with something. Agranoff is a long time animal rights activist, they figure someone he knows must be up to know good, upsetting the system, you know, maybe they could be put away.

I found this story by following some links on the Rue Morgue message board. Coincidentally I've met Agranoff a couple of times, maybe over five years ago. The last time I saw him was at the Hellfest in Syracuse when Earth Crisis played their last show. If you must know, Earth Crisis was pretty fun to watch, but nearly every other band sucked. There was very little punk-based hardcore booked at the Hellfests back then. Trustkill bands were blowing up that particular year and it was just never ending metal hardcore, 90s style, not much black metal in the mix yet.

I had no idea Agranoff was a horror fan, but he's been at it writing for some time. Me, I've only been watching these horror movies seriously for the past four or so years, but man have I made up for lost time. It seems like the only thing I can do right is collect these tapes. Today I attempted to film some horror and it was a disaster. The shit has to be scrapped. Too bad, because we went way out into the desert for the assignment. I have a project due for one of my film classes tomorrow and will have to reshoot something in the morning to hand in. The plan is just to have Cub pose by the pool in a bikini and shoot that from a bunch of angles. That's not a joke. I'm totally serious.

Here is Agranoff's website. What's my take. Well I think this grand jury shit is completely fucked. Here is what I mean, but in someone else's more eloquent words.

The 9th Circuit Court has ruled against San Diego animal liberation activists David Agranoff and Danae Kelley, denying their appeal. The activists have maintained that the grand jury is acting in bad faith and is not actually investigating a crime, but harassing activists.

"The questions [the grand jury is asking] seem to be focused on activists, their affiliations and a lecture. In my assessment, they are attempting to gather intelligence on dissenters, and are not really investigating any crime. In a grand jury setting, people are forced to relinquish their Constitutional rights and are not allowed to have an attorney present…We aren’t surprised about the 9th Circuit’s decision given that they are still a part of a government which is exercising more and more control over its citizens; the same government that invaded Iraq illegally and has held prisoners in Guantanamo Bay for years without charges. I’m grateful for citizens like David and Danae who are willing to fight to defend the First Amendment", said Erin Dean, a San Diego resident.

That text from here, but there is more controversy. Apparently the web provider for Vault of Punk Horror has problems with Agranoff and has dropped the sight. I'd like to know what these problems are, no doubt they are political in nature. You can imagine that Agranoff would get under the skin of right wingers, that's obvious, but the story could be more complicated. Two punks can have two radically different philosophies. Not all of them are cookie cutter liberals with a standard set of beliefs, sometimes there is conflict, as there should be in a world of free thinkers.

I hope he gets out of jail soon.

As for punk rock, I had a shitty experience at the Angry Samoans show this weekend, so I'm not too psyched on punk right now. The guy who messed with me was not a punk rocker, just a party dude who could have been at any bar, but still, it reminded me that punk is extremely mainstream here in Orange County, and your average Joe Fuckface is into it, flashing devil horns and drinking a brew.

the war to settle the score

The Groovy Age of Horror blog is feuding with some right wing blog that in a post celebrates a bunch of old racist comic book artwork. (See the racist post - scroll all the way to the right, this conservative blog is all fucked up in the layout)

I think the Groovy Age would with agree with me that those issues should not be banned or destroyed, nor does it make one a racist to argue that the issues have some artistic value, however, praising the hateful sentiments expressed there is just plain ugly. I dislike political correctness, and am for allowing offensive ideas to be interpreted in different ways, but overt racism is something that should not be tolerated.

Controversy is fun, but I would never want to end up on the side of stupidity and hate.

Unrelated: I did a bit more research on the filmmaker Michael and Roberta Findlay. I discussed them in my recent review of Blood Sisters. The second movie these two made was called Satan's Bed and stars the then unknown Yoko Ono getting brutalized and repeatedly raped. Looks like you can get it from Something Weird. I learned what I now know from this article here at Lowcut Magazine.

News: Who asked for this? From the makers of the horribly unfunny Decampitated comes Mangler Reborn. The trailer opens with quoted praise from someone who considers the first Mangler a "classic." Why would I believe anything that guy has to say? Reggie Bannister stars, which raises the question, what is wrong with a world where Mangler 3 can get funding, but the final Phantasm movie has yet to be made? Death to 90's horror franchises.

So perhaps I will never get around to writing about my vacation and giving you reviews of each roadside haunted house I wasted money on. Here are some are some glimpses of what you are going to miss out on since I'm not writing that post.


from a haunted house on Mackinac Island, fuck off, Rawhead Rex, this guy is cooler


in Wisconsin Dells, typical bloodshed, but wait...


why is that tree so happy? It's the scariest thing I saw on that whole trip...
Taking flash pictures in the dark made me momentarily blind over and over again. I walked head on in to walls more times than I can count. Thanks for reading.

King Buzzo talks shit

This is just the kind of news we like to discover here at bloodbath horror blog. A story that is nothing but nasty. I'll just quote the whole article from chartattack.com, written by Keith Carman from June 13th.

the headline: Fantomas Guitarist Hates Rob Zombie Movies

With all of the hoopla surrounding Rob Zombie's forthcoming flick The Devil's Rejects, we here at ChartAttack thought it might be a great idea to get an opinion from one of the music world's most intense film addicts around, Fantomas guitarist Buzz "King Buzzo" Osborne.

After all, Osborne has a vested interest in horror films. Both Fantomas and his other band The Melvins have honoured horror in some format, although Fantomas' (the band are completed by drummer Dave Lombardo, bassist Trevor Dunn and vocalist Mike Patton) latest effort Suspended Animation is more about cartoons than killing.

Little did we know that Osborne hates Rob Zombie though — with unbridled passion that borders on discomfort to endure.

"He's a total fucking asshole," grumbles Osborne. "A complete prick whether you believe it or not. I don't have appreciation for his talentless plagiarism. We did a tour with him and it soured me on the whole experience."

Finding issue with most horror-based bands, Osborne makes no bones about his feelings.

"[My fascination with horror] just isn't all-encompassing like The Misfits or Rob Zombie, where they rip off every element of everything about horror films. Those bands are a bastardization of Alice Cooper. I have no interest in fakes like Rob Zombie. There's no mistake why his name is 'Rob.'

"You want to do something more with it," he continues. "I like the overt stuff but you want to see how many people get what you're trying to do instead of shoving it down their throat. Unlike those guys, we don't steal our whole shtick from horror."

That's all fine and dandy in regards to the filmmakers, but just what is it about House Of 1,000 Corpses that Osborne hates? Well, he feels that the film is nothing more than a regurgitation of older, more original ideas.

"That is exactly what I don't like about him. His movie was great for the first 15 minutes, but it was total bullshit. If I'd never seen the movies he was ripping off, I might have cared. It's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 30 years later. Who gives a shit? It's no good. I shouldn't talk about him anymore, 'cause no press is worse than bad press. I'm gonna stop talking."

See the article here.


Buzz Osborne, at left
It's not the first time Buzzo has took a shot at Rob. Said on stage once before - "Were you guys as surprised as I was to find out Rob Zombie was gay?"

Hey man, that's not even PC.

Blood Sisters (1987) Roberta Findlay

Roberta Findlay is one of horror's most prolific female directors. Unfortunately her work seems to be disliked by all. As for all the pornos she shot, I know nothing. Pornos, it seams are rarely written about or analyzed or I just don't know where to go to find that info. I'm not kidding.

Roberta Findlay and her husband, Michael Findlay, wrote and directed the bulk of the movie that became Snuff when a simulated snuff killing was tacked onto the end of it to turn the movie into an urban legend. Michael Findlay's best known horror film was the awful Shriek of the Mutilated from 1974. Tragically, he was... well, I'll just post from the short bio on the imdb.

Horror film maker Michael Findlay was killed in a helicopter accident on the roof of the (then) Pan Am Building in New York city. On his way to John F Kennedy airport to connect with a Paris-bound flight, Findlay was planning to demonstrate his new 3-D camera to potential backers in France. Findlay and three other passengers were about to board the helicopter when its landing support collapsed. The helicopter fell onto one side and its spinning rotor blades decapitated Findlay and killed three other passengers. A woman on the street below was also killed when she was hit by a detached rotor blade from the helicopter.

That's a disturbing story and a bit more than I needed to know, but that is the most prominent information about Michael Findlay on the internet! I don't know if the camera, used in his 3-D porno, Funk, is still used today. Imaging getting your hands on one of those! I'm in the market for a camera myself for one of my film classes. Unfortunately we are working with the lowly video medium.

After the death of her husband in 1977, Roberta Findlay continued to direct movies for twelve more years, finishing her career with a handful of horror films in the late eighties. Blood Sisters is one of those last movies. Apparently a couple of these titles are available on DVD with interviews and full commentary from Findlay where she tells crazy stories and rips on the horror genre and her fans in general. I'm not usually one to give a shit about special features, but the reviews I've read of these discs have been very positive and I am intrigued.

I've got Blood Sisters on tape, no extras, no documentaries, just a bad slasher that I did not enjoy watching. Sorority girls spend the night in an abandoned whorehouse where a fat hooker and her client were shot 13 years earlier. Of course there are all sorts of scares. Some are just gags set up by the fraternity boys, others are more serious, there is a killer in the house, and a number of ghosts. The appearances by the ghosts are just about as goofy as the plastic toys and spiders that the frat boys left behind. One by the girls are picked off by a psycho as they wander through this house, never crossing each other's paths, on the endless scavenger hunt. The script is the problem. It's just not very tight, original, or engaging in any way.


generic box, generic titile...
Unrelated links!

Groovy Age of Horror tipped me off to this must see flickr gallery of movie posters.

The strange blog dirtpoet gives a negative review to The Zodiac Killer, directed by Ulli Lommel and featuring an appearance by David Hess.

a new controversial device: The "Rapex" device is inserted into the vagina by a woman who feels she is at risk of rape, and if she is attacked, small burr-like teeth will attach themselves to the tip of the rapist's erect penis, explained inventor Sonette Ehlers.

As he withdraws and becomes flaccid, it is only possible to remove the device by surgery, Ehlers said ahead of a launch and demonstration at Kleinmond near Cape Town. (article 1)

I'm all for it, here is one reason why: It also reduces the chances of a woman falling pregnant or contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases from the attacker by acting in the same way as a female condom. (article 2)

Curtains (1983)

I've got one vhs copy of Curtains, but I'm supposed to have two copies. Why? Well one time a batch of movies I won on ebay arrived with two tapes missing. Curtains and Iced. A duplicate of Curtains I can do without, but I wanted Iced, since it's made by a Jeff Kwitny who directed the bizarre Beyond the Door III. I demanded that the 2 missing tapes be sent. They never were.

The initial box took two and a half months to arrive, the longest I have ever waited for something I won on ebay. The seller took down his feedback page, which if you ask me, should not be allowed. He whined like a bitch about family problems and having to close up his ebay shop. Good. Known as tallasainchic, this man C. Patterson is no longer on ebay. If he comes back, I'll post his e-mail address so we can all sent hate mail.

Curtains is a respected Canadian slasher that is well put together despite being known for having lots of production problems and having been shelved for three years. The first reel, taking place in an insane asylum, is a little slow. Things don't really get rolling until after the first killing and it's the appearance of two props that really makes the movie work. One is a miserable looking doll, the other, a rubber mask of an old hag. The slow motion shot where the masked killer attacks on ice skates on a pond in the forest will never be forgotten.


Curtains - this box cover image is the same as the one on this poster, which shows the upper part of the old hag mask and the dolly
Directed by Richard Ciupka as 'Jonathan Stryker', which is also the name of the filmmaker character in this movie.



Cub, your moment of genius was recognizing the lead actress in this movie (Samantha Eggar) as the actress who played the Mom in David Cronenberg's The Brood. How did you make that connection?

I knew that she looked very familiar because she has a distinctive look ( I think it was the eyes and mouth) and then it just came to me that she had to be the mom in the Brood. It was also around the same time period so I figure I had to be right. Damn I'm good!

Cub I think this movie wins for most effective use of a creepy doll. Something that has been done dozens of times. Would you agree? I think it's cause the doll is sad looking.

I totally agree with you 100%. It was due to the fact that the doll was sad looking and that it was standing in the middle of thestreet while it was pouring outside with it's back turned to us. That was a unique take on things that worked for the movie.

Off-topic question: Cub your mission to be photographed in a spread with Asia Argento only resulted in you getting tons of pathetic voice mails from a sleazy producer asking you to hang out in Malibu. How do you feel about this set back?

HA. I can't believe you are posting this. I guess it just goes to remind all the people out there that if an individual does not call you back there is no need for you to have to try and contact them 5 times (let alone a second time). Sorry boys and girls, your rationalization of "oh, maybe they lost my number" or "perhaps they never received any of the messages I left" is simply not true, and you are just kiddingyourself if you think that there is a chance. You would think that one would get the point after trying to call a girl the second time around with no luck... but that just goes to prove that some of us out there really have no clue. (I can ramble on and on about this sort of thing, cub.... so I will stop now).

how we rock

Sometimes I like to talk current events in this blog, but I'm at a loss for words about the hurricane. I'm watching the news, but I can't draw any conclusions. No one is too blame. It's not fair and it's a horrible disaster. I can only be thankful that I'm not there. Sorry to everyone affected.

Well, that was awkward, perhaps more so than my posts about abortion.

downloading rare records - because downloading rare movies is too hard. Disclaimer: I don't think these bands are getting screwed by the downloads. This exposure should just get people to go out and find their in print records and reissues. I've course I always buy used records, so I'm of little help, but I guess even that keeps the demand up. Besides, the people who scream 'support the scene' the loudest are the ones who get all the free promos and guest passes. Send promos my way...

um... never mind, I'm not putting my address up on here.

something I learned today - bunches of songs from older American punk bands including The Angry Samoans (they are playing again this month in Huntington Beach) and the Big Boys whose singer Randy "Biscuit" Turner passed away this month. R.I.P.

dressed for the h bomb - selections from The Mob (awesome NYHC), Gism, and Fear on Saturday Night Live. You can watch two of the songs on an mpg file! Introduced by Donald Pleasance, though that bit is cut off.


dressed for the h bomb put this pic up in their blog too - as far as I can tell it's the only picture on the web pertaining to that episode...
Middle Aged Youth - I downloaded the Coroner demo. Also, great stuff from the Verbal Assault album Trial. On the Verbal Assault website you can download ten live from songs from 1988!

Church of Thee Nihilistic Goat - once again, there are a bunch of records for download in the comments sections...

medication: a buddyhead mp3 blog - This one I like for the writing, and they put up mp3 samples of every overlooked 90's band that they write up. Their blog may be on the path you took to get here, since it is often my largest provider of traffic besides the search engines.


I have not forgotten, that true rock music is only played by the Octopus Garden... I mean, I have not forgotten about my vacation pictures with four haunted houses and more roadside attractions to show you.
More horror reviews to come...

Silent Madness (1984)

Can't somebody else review it? Well yes they can, as you will soon see. Did not know this was a 3-D movie until reading the other online reviews just now. That explains a few things, like the cartoon-looking ax flying at the screen before the title appeared. I also remember a sledgehammer-to-the-face in a p.o.v. shot. I bet that was impressive on the big screen.

imdb user J. Theakston (<---- full review) gives us the scoop - Some notes about the film: Apparently it opened in LA in 3D and pretty much did a roadshow tour. By the time it hit NY, it was being shown flat, which goes to show it really sort of hit the tail end of the 3D craze of the early 80s, which is too bad, because the photography in this one is tenfold that of anything else that was being done at the time (it was done with the over-under polaroid process, not anaglyph, and this was the way it was presented to me). Several murders have some great effects that really work well in the 3-D.

That was from an imdb user comment. Anyway, the director of this movie, Simon Nuchtern, is probably (people don't seem to know for sure) one of the men who shot the famous final scene in the false snuff film, Snuff (1976)...

Rad. Here are all the spoilers courtesy of Hysteria Lives with my commentary in black text.

BODYCOUNT 14 female:9 / male:5

1: Male teenager killed by sledge hammer to the head

2: Female teen gets a BAD 3-D axe thrown at her, which hits her back (I thought this looked cool)

3: Skateboarding female teen gets her head squashed in a vice (this is a nasty one)

4: Sorority sister steamed to death (better than it sounds, a stylish kill)

5: (In black & white flashback:) 4 sorority sisters nailgunned.

6: Sorority sister stabbed to death whilst playing 'Dragon's Lair'

7: Sorority sister has a rope put round her neck which is attached to a dum bell and chucked out of the window while she's doing aerobics!

8: Hospital attendant gets a drill through his head whilst trying to rape Dr. Gilmore (the best kill, Cub saw this coming, I did not)

9: Hospital attendant gets a crowbar through his chest (ridiculous, not too convincing, the films weakest moment)

10: Policeman stabbed in the chest

11: Man stabbed in the back with a shard of broken mirror

The whole review from Hysteria Lives here... check it out!


The name and the box are not too memorable, but ok I suppose. That would be the corrupt Dr. Kruger on the cover. Or not... I don't know. The mental hospital staff in this movie are far nastier that the psychopath, though we don't feel any sympathy for him either.
So my sources are credited. I just wanted to mention this movie because it was particularly mean and cruel. I'm waist deep in unwatched tapes here. Next should be the slasher Curtains with a cub speaks for the fans.

susceptible...

About twenty minutes into The Brothers Grimm yesterday I found myself thinking, "what a terribly awful film, why the hell was it that I wanted to see it?" I racked my brain, but I could not remember why. Then came a scene where two of the Brother's funny-voiced friends were hung upside-down, above boiling oil, with cases of snails strapped to their head. The sight and sounds were so familiar, like they were in a movie I'd seen. Ah.... much like that Baron Munchausen movie I liked as a kid! That was it, I remembered that I wanted to see this movie because Terry Gilliam (Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Time Bandits, Twelve Monkeys) was the director!

From that point one, scenes that otherwise would have got under my skin, were charming to me because I knew it was the Terry Gilliam style. So, though I say I "tell it like it is" and am not swayed by hype, I saw myself move from disliking a movie to thoroughly enjoying it when an outside factor, in this case the hip director, came into play. So I'm pretty much full of shit, sorry.

At least I still hated the Stepford Wives remake when I found out it was directed by Frank Oz of The Dark Crystal and Little Shop of Horrors (1986) fame. Some crap is just crap.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance from Korean director Chan-wook Park is playing now in theaters in New York and Los Angeles. It was tough to follow follow the story towards the beginning of the movie. For the first few moments of each scene I'd feel like I was trying to put together a puzzle in figuring out what was going on. Of course dialogue would eventually reveal the mystery every time and I think this confusion is deliberate on the part of the director and not a result of cultural translation difficulties.

Two people feel compelled to get revenge on each other in this film. The viewer feels sympathy for both of them. It's pretty heavy stuff with tragedy, misfortune, misery, suicide, accidents, you name something dark and it's in there. Of course there is vengeance as promised and I expect that is the main draw for most horror fans. Be prepared to sit through quite a bit of despair before the bloody payoff. At least one of the graphic kills will go down in cinema history for it's graphic gore.

Chan-wook Park made a sequel (none of the same characters, it's a sequel in theme only) to this movie called Oldboy and it has already had a small theatrical run in the United States. That movie has more to it with an elaborate bizarre plot that is more engaging. Beware, a U.S. remake is in the works. By most accounts Oldboy is a better movie though I could see some purists arguing that less is more. To get what I mean, try comparing Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) with the original (1974). The second Chainsaw is just as violent, has an excellent big name actor, and far more elaborate sets, but the first movie is just plain better with it's raw simplicity.

coming up is a cub speaks on Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, but first, a preview pic from one of the horrors I witnessed in the backwoods of the Midwest...


This creature will be showing up again an again in the background of the new cub speaks graphic, but here is a better look at him. He is obscured by Cub's reflection in the other picture.


So there is a third movie in this trilogy. Old Boy is considered the second movie and the newest one is the recent Sympathy for Lady Vengeance... Would that be the story of you Cub? You seem like some who should not be messed with.

It would certainly be about me honey... me = Lady Vengeance. I believe that whatever goes around will eventually come around and bite you on the ass. So please, for your own good, refrain from messing with me, cub ;)

You liked Oldboy better than Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance?

I liked Oldboy quite a bit more because there was so much more to it. It was more suspenseful and gruesomein my opinion. I also loved the ending (I will not spoil it for those of you who have not yet seen it). It is a quality movie that would be rated 10 bears (only you cub know just how much that is.)

You gotta admit, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is not for the squeamish. I don't want to give away the kills, but some are very bloody. Did any of this stuff make you cover your eyes?

I must admit that there were several times where I did have to close my eyes... you know where cub, cause you saw me do so. I also squeezed your hand harder during those parts!

metal breakout

Porno Holocaust has come out on DVD. I don't know when, but it must have been recently. Anyway, the list price is $29.99 and you know what? It just might not be worth it.

A post about metal, I won't make it a habit - I mentioned in my last post that I don't like black metal, but I do like the legends who started it all, Venom. Over at this blog is an mp3 of between song banter from a Venom show that they played with Black Flag in 1986. Go to the WFMU blog and read the story and check out the sound clip.

If you really like punk and metal, go to Church of Thee Nihilistic Goat and check the comments section for this post. Get the program WinRAR to extract any files that you might download, such as Venom's Canadian Assault. I enjoyed the N.W.O.B.H.M. of Witchfinder General and their album Friends of Hell. You can only download so many files per hour.

One of metal's weaker bands is suing Burger King. I know there a lot of legit reasons to sue Burger King, they are not making the world a better place, but this case is hilarious and an embarrassment to the band involved. Get the scoop at the smokinggun.com with the real legal papers and everything.

Want to see a fan of that same band chopped in half, entrails everywhere. This site, MTVhell, has great comics and angry rants from metal fans.

So it's old news, but you simply must read this piece (the whole story, it loads slow) about the feud between Iron Maiden and America's first family of cable television. The bands who attacked Maiden, Black Label Society (of course) and the metalcore band, Bury Your Dead. What a disgrace. Considerably less cool than when Ink and Dagger threw yogurt on Earth Crisis. Or perhaps it was the roadies for Mouthpiece. I'm getting two stories or more mixed up here.

Bruce Dickinson telling off a beer thrower - audio!

more rants in mp3 (bruce 1, bruce 2, and Sharon)

I get real upset when customers at work look for performers alphabetically by their first name. This shows that not only have they never shopped at a record store before, but they also have never been to the library.

Expect a horror review and vacation photos shortly...

ain't it fun

Still want to see Toolbox Murders 2004? Well this stupid list of questions from a message board on the imdb ought to discourage you... (spoilers all over).

I see the possibilities of this movie, but I feel like they cut out half of the story. Who was the killer? Who was Lusman? What were the symbols for exactly? Who was Chas? How did he know all of the buildings secrets and not get killed too? Why was Saffron nailed to the ceiling after she was already nailed to the wall? Why did her eyes open after she was dead? Why did everyone's eyes open after they were dead like they were blinking? Why were the teeth in the wall? Why did the symbols on Nell's arm stop him? How did he get away with this all of those years? Didn't the manager wonder why people kept disappearing? Why was Nell knocking on all the symbols? Why would they have been hollow behind only the symbols and not the walls they were on? Why was the killer so mangled and using needles? Why did the killer need to keep killing in order to stay alive, or whatever he was? What did any of this have to do with Lusman or his black magic? What was the spell that the building was under? What was the deal with the rocker on the roof? Why did the killer keep hammering all night? Why was he so obsessed with killing people with tools? Why did he try to stop the building from being finished originally? Lusman worked on it for 10 years himself to finish it because the killer kept killing the workmen. Did Lusman even know the killer was there?

I hate when people go to the internet to answer questions about a movie. They are either asking to learn the answers to questions that are not meant to be found out or they are morons who don't get the obvious or, like in this case, they are asking about a shitty movie. In the words of the next poster on the board...

Man, I haven't seen it, but you've shown it's so full of holes, I never will!

Well said.

Last post I put up a link to a gallery of bootleg DVD scans. Here is the article about bootleg DVDs that mentioned that gallery. It's worth a read. From the often shitty L.A. City Beat.

I really not into black metal, that trendy European cousin of death metal. A site called Ruthless Reviews has posted, for a 2nd round, the ten most ridiculous black metal pictures of the all time. Number one is really something you don't want to see. All that pic is missing would be an Orange County hardcore kid kneeling down at the foot of that stage with his mouth open. What?

Toolbox Murders (2004) the remake

I'm back from the Midwest, home for a day, then off to a wedding in Visalia, California. I am going to post pics from the past week's trip - pics that will interest horror fans - I promise. I also really want to review the movie Nightmare Weekend, a weird, weird, mess of a movie that Troma released in the 80's on Lightening Video. That will have to wait.

Pirated DVDs - they are bankrupting the industry, costing people jobs, and are hand delivered by Bin Laden to the guy on your street corner. None of those things are true, so check out this gallery of DVD cover scans hosted on Flickr.

Vegan horror filmmaker Scott Goldberg will be putting his movie The Day They Come Back online on his website for two days, October 30th and 31st. DVD release is November 21st. He's working on a movie with Felissa Rose (it's called Danielle's Revenge), the actress who played the original Angela in Sleepaway Camp.

Over the break we hit up Blockbuster Video, a place that every horror fan hates, other than the readers of Fangoria who no doubt believe it is dope or fly cause they've got all the new CGI monster movies and Sci-fi Channel features. I picked Toolbox Murders because I wanted to see if director Tobe Hooper is back on track. This guy once brought us The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist as well as the cult slashers Eaten Alive and The Funhouse. Unfortunately his last well known movie was The Mangler. Released in 1995, it's a terrible Stephen King film that bears, of course, barely any resemblance to the original short story of the same name. Sadly, it got worse. In 2000, on video, appeared the Lake Placid knockoff, Crocodile, with a giant CGI beast. Oh that movie did certainly suck as you can better imagine.

People are talking about Tobe Hooper again because there has been some buzz about this Toolbox Murders, a gore-filled remake of a 70's bloodbath. Is this the awesome movie we've all been waiting for? Hell no.

The original The Toolbox Murders is not that memorable, but it has got one really great kill before ending on a slow note. At least the film goes down as one of the video nasties, banned in Britain. I really don't remember it well, but am pretty sure it drifted off on a dull kidnapping plot tangent. That's all irrelevant now, because Tobe Hooper's movie only shares the killing tools with the original. He brings in a bunch of other shit though... and it's all awful.

- a kid who hacks into his neighbors webcam, to watch her changing, but did he get that murder recorded?

- mysterious runes of magic decorating the building, this supernatural element is never explained. I mean that in a bad way, I know ambiguity often works in horror, but in here it's either laziness or too much crap ended up on the cutting room floor.

- a Trent Reznor-type brooding handy man, so obviously weird, that he could not be the killer.

- a cast of moody generation x'ers, look... the nineties are over, but here we are. A lot of rain too, sure there is a rainy season in L.A., but that looked like Seattle.

- a sleazy building manager, who seriously, did not seem at all bad to me next to an actual building manager that I had when I lived in Hollywood.

- piles of rotting corpses, like we discovered Leatherface's secret room, which is out of place in a movie that aims to be believable for the first two thirds of the way through.

- the movie did not feel 70's, despite the quote on the box cover, it felt very now... and it sets us up for a sequel!

- don't see it

you like short posts

Cub and I are going out of town for ten days! Maybe we will post some vacation pictures when we get back.

Anyway, it looks like everyone should avoid The Skeleton Key, here is a very negative review at Freeze Dried Movies. No way I'm watching that shit.

Legend of Blood Castle (1973)

First, a few random notes: Move over Japanese Guinea Pig movies, here is something called AV Horror! I don't know what watching a whole movie of this is like, but it would appear that these are made up of simulated scenes of Hara-Kiri. See this nasty video clip or these sets of images (one, two, three). I don't know where to get these DVDs, I just saw a post about it on a message board and the source is not credited. The company that made these movies is called Fuji Kikaku.

one more thing: praise from Mondo Schlocko about this blog - "speaking of fantastic and brilliant here is a great site of reviews of the some of the many cult VHS horror flicks and Brentwood collections out there today. Besides Warrenzone's reviews is also interesting side commentaries from Cub. A guy who digs Brentwood and Polonia flicks is okay in my book." Thank you.

The Legend of Blood Castle is a rare one. Not on DVD to my knowledge, though one of director Jorge Grau's other films, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, has received the Anchor Bay treatment. I'm pretty sure my tape of this movie was cut, but I like what I did see. The uncut version is allegedly titles The Female Butcher.

The movie centers around an evil royal couple who come into their wicked ways separately.The nobleman Karl is more interested in watching his hawks kill doves, than having sex with his wife. In a gruesome scene we see a hawk eat a real dove alive. I Could have done without that. Karl becomes a vampire deliberately by wearing some sort of cursed amulet.

Why is the Countess Erzsebet Bathory not attractive to Karl? It seams she is old and has lost her youthful beauty. Well, there is hope, a witch advises that bathing in the blood of a virgins removes the ravages of age. Of course one bath alone will not do. You can imagine where this leads.

It sounds like a conventional horror film, but this movie is a bit nastier than the average gothic tale and it has some unique touches. The relationships between the characters in the movie are a little odd. Witches seem to play a somewhat accepted role in this society and no one appears in the least bit surprised when a corpse in a clear coffin is given a large public trial. The royal husband and wife keep tabs on each other by looking through a little hole in the attic floor and bedroom ceiling. This hole doubles as a spout for a blood shower.


a Spanish/Italian production
the reviews on the imdb site are worth a look for this movie. No Cub Speaks this time (she did enjoy this movie), but I'll get one on the next movie we watch together.

quickly we rot

The first thing you guys gotta know is... that the man who brought the most horror to your small town video store, now has a blog. Charles Band, started Media Home Entertainment, produced Tourist Trap, Troll, TerrorVision, Ghoulies, and then of course worked on all the Full Moon movies. He is on the road with the resurrected Full Moon label.

So now there is a page that tells YOU when each of your favorite horror blogs is updated. Yes, this blog ('bloodbath' or 'warrenzone', take your pick) is reported on, so the list must be complete. Check it out: Where the Monsters Go: The Horrorblog Update Page and also stop by the blog by the guy who created that resource, a writer named Sean.

Mondo Schlocko, I've never linked to that one before, but the writer likes cheap-ass Brentwood DVD sets (as do I) and cheaply made Polonia brothers films (as do I) so take at look at that blog. We will find out if he is a fan of my writing. I don't get much negative feedback, but if I invite feedback and get no response, I can only imagine that some people wonder why the fuck I even bother.

CineSchlock-O-Rama brings us some news from an actor reminiscing about his role in Color Me Blood Red. I guess that would be an internet exclusive! This writer appears to have met all the horror stars at Comic-Con. I really should have gone to that.

A bunch of new sites rising up, trying to be the next bloody-disgusting. I hope they blow it the fuck away.

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Ok, it's up to you if you want to read this. I wrote a fantasy story for cub a couple of years ago when we were first dating. It's not really horror, but the payoff is pretty good if you get all the way to the end...

In any case, more reviews to follow. I have bought so many videos lately, the floor is gonna cave in on my rich Newport Beach neighbors below. I mean, I just bough a box that had two copies of Maniac Cop in it and two copies of Nightmare Weekend. I thought that being away from Amoeba would slow the flow of horror product into my place. I thought wrong. Stop me from my ebay addiction.

Long before Cryter's death, though not long after Panchan was but dust on the streets, she came to a break in her travels to visit with a wealthy suitor. Indeed he was wealthy, and indeed he was old, as most of her suitor's had been and would be, but she did not love him. Still, she stayed with him at his estate and told him, of all things, that his age would not deter her from staying with him. Perhaps he believed her, perhaps he just wanted to, but he was always conscious of showing his age whenever she was around. As they walked his ground each evening, holding hands, he would always push on when Cryter exclaimed "oh you must be tired". In fact each evenings walk became longer, until the night when passing over the seventh hill, they entered a grove no man had ever wandered into before. The last rays of sun illuminated a twilight setting where a sleek young forest cat arched it's back by a crystal stream to drink the mountain water. Cryter lit up at the sight, but it displeased the older man. He quickly pulled an arrow from his quiver and shot the cat through the heart. Cryter cried out and ran towards the dying animal and the man felt like a fool for reacting out of jealousy. The cat looked up at Cryter and said "I know you would not hurt me, so I will help you. Look at my whiskers, they are solid gold. Pluck them and be rich, they are of no use to me now..." Then the cat closed his eyes forever. Cryter wept. She could not take the gold whiskers and buy happiness as a result of the cat's end. Cryter turned to walk away, then turned back, and pulled one whisker. She would not want to forget this cat.

Every spring came the squirrel games where the mountain squirrels would roll boulders in a race with the humans. The man had never beaten the squirrels, but this year he amassed a new team, recruiting the strongest athletes from the university to play for him. He bragged constantly to Cryter of his upcoming victory and she finally contended, "You may win, but only because of the young men you have paid to play. Even when you were young, you did not beat the squirrels." After hearing this the man's stomach dropped. How could he prove himself? He would role the winning boulder.

Before dawn he rose to go to the plains where he practiced boulder rolling as a youth. He spotted the same boulder he once had practiced with, now covered in moss, but surely a great place to begin practicing. He threw his weight into a push, but then every muscle erupted in excruciating pain. As he lay on the ground convulsing, he began to weep.

The walk home would be long he new. He crawled like a sick fool towards the pond to get some drink and was horrified by his reflection. He was covered in dirt from his convulsions and he looked haggard and old. Surely he could not be seen until he cleaned himself, shaved off his grey stubble, and perhaps even put on a wig. Had it come to that? He did not want to be seen by anyone in this state and decided to walk home through the poor neighborhood where no one he knew would see him limp.

The houses in the poor part of town where dilapidated and the smoke off burning excrement in the streets was quite thick. To avoid the sight of creature's corpses in the road, he paid attention to the signs on the buildings which said queer things like "Here there be Grog", "Mercenaries for Hire", and "Fountain of Youth"... Wait, what was the last one..?, he looked again. The shop's windows were too dirty to see in, but the door creaked open. A muffled voice can from within. "Come in..." There was no one else on the street to obey the command, so he did just that.

The man sat before an old crone of perhaps 489 years. Her tattered robes covered her face, but not her scent. She smelled like garlic and spices mixed with vinegar. It was not common for the man to be confronted by the offensive, but he did not leave. He found himself nodding as she asked him if he wanted to be young again. Did he know he would have to do evil to achieve his wish. He knew. All he would have to do would be to take something from a loved on and carry it with him always. She could not know he took it and it would have to be something dear to her. Well that would be a small sacrifice for his new found virility, would it not? "How true.." cackled the witch.

On Cryter's table sat her prized possessions and the man picked up each one to see what weighed the least. After all, he would have to carry it with him always. Her brush? Made of hard stone. Her music box? Light, but too bulky. Wait... there in a crystal vase stood the golden whisker. He slid it into the waistband of his pants, just in time, as Cryter entered the room.

"What are you doing in here?", she asked. "Nothing." He smiled and felt good as he fled scene, bounding down the spiral steps with ease. Before he new it he was outside looking at his own reflection in the mote. He looked ten years younger, no!, twenty. "What's gotten into you.." yelled Cryter out the window. He looked up at her. He would just have to bound back up those stairs. His new youth made him feels excitement. But then, a sharp pain between his legs. In horror he saw his pants turn red with blood. As he tore off his trousers, his final act in life, he saw that the gold whisker was no longer tucked in his waistband, but was stuck through the head of his penis.

epilogue - where the old man died and where his blood fertilized the ground by the moat, only weeds would grow. Even today, when gardeners are equipped where gasoline motors and genetically engineered grass seeds, that bank is still a thorny tangle.