Horror fans, two reviews on the way, including a Nightmare on Elm Street rip-off from 1988 that you can't die without seeing.
Well, the ten best I found on youtube.com actualy. See, I've been looking on youtube and finding that a lot of my favorite bands have videos. Who knew? Not me, I never had cable and if I did would probably just have been watching Poison videos at the time. Now I'm discovering tons of thrash videos. How exciting? Yes, and then dissapointing. This videos did not have the best of budgets and by todays standards many could be replicated with i-movie. What's worse, many of the videos lack creativity. I bring you, not a list of the best videos necisarily, but definately the best songs that had videos which I could find on youtube. Some are awesome, others less so.
Don't tell me Motorhead should have been number one or that I should have put Metallica on the list.
Warning! These videos play instantly, sometimes faster than they load. In order to avoid annoying interuption, I pause the video first and let about half of it download before playing through.
1. Anti-Nowhere League - So What - I had this on a bootleg tape of British punk videos. This file I found on youtube is of pretty decent quality. Warning: you cannot play this video on cable TV!
2. Lawnmower Deth - Kids in America - Ah, the thrash novelty cover. I'd already seen this on a Lawnmower Deth fan site. Good stuff.
3. Motorhead - Killed by Death - A classic that all will love, I had it on a Kerrang! tape before Kerrang! became the teeny-bopper bullshit it is today. Video quality is pretty good and I knew this would be an easy find on youtube.
4. Cro-Mags - Path of Perfection - Never saw this one before, but wow. 1) If you are a hardcore kid you probably love the Cro-Mags. 2) If you are a hardcore kid you will probably hate this video and 4 out of the 5 Cro-Mags albums. The explanation? Hardcore kids are douche bags. Forget the 108 reunion, the is krishnacore! File quality is not too good.
5. Tankard - Space Beer - This shit is rare, never seen a Tankard tape or CD in a store. I want this album bad.
6. Youth of Today - No More - Seen this on a tape with an older Royal Rumble on it. Not gonna say where that mystery tape came from, maybe from someone's psycho ex. Anyway there has been mutch talk in certain circles about this video. Too bad the file quality here is awful and does not do it justice.
7. GBH - Give Me Fire - Never saw this before. I'm going to see GBH play this weekend. Video has potential, but is repetitive.
8. Gang Green - Alcohal - I know there is another Gang Green video out there as well, this is worth a watch for thrash fans and party metal types, if there is such a thing as party metal.
9. M.O.D. - True Colors - Love the song, love 'Gross Misconduct', the album. See Billy Milano give Slash the boot and rip on glam metal. Semi-funny vieo, could be a lot better, but good quality file so maybe worth a watch.
10. Crumbsuckers - Trapped - This is what hardcore should be if you ask me. High energy video because of the crowd shots, not just a band in an empty room. Crowd shots go a long way and probably don't triple the video budget. Some of the other bands/directors should have taken notice.
That's ten - I'll post runners up later, including a thrash video with Leatherface in it and some Boston honorable mentions.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
I better watch it with my diary shit - plus the proto-giallo
This post has been sitting around in draft form for a few days now. I think I out-nerded a kid at school today and scared him with my knowledge of CED Selectavision Discs. Awesome. I was sick when I started the post and I'm getting worse day by day and running on no sleep.
horror: I skipped the Haunt X convention in Los Angeles. I could not figure out their schedule for shit and it looked like I would only be paying $25 for access to dealers' tables and stars eager to sell me $25 signed glossies.
One of the most shocking moments in TV history: El Duce on Jerry Springer. I saw this when it first aired so I've seen the bits that are not included. Duce came out and told the crowd that he and The Mentors rape underage girls on stage at their shows. Obviously he is so full of shit, but the Springer crowd are falling for every word in this "Rape Rock" expose. This tape shows the most tense moments as a woman confronts El Duce. Later on Gwar comes out and the show becomes very PG as they feed Springer to the Ragnarok monster on video. Don't let that take away from the heavy shit that goes down in this clip. Note: the clip seems to get cutoff, well you can watch a little.
Later Duce asks the lady when exactly she was raped. She cites the date and he says "because I think you look kind of familiar". The crowd is too disgusted to even boo this one.
Says a commentor on You Tube, "That is fucking sick and so are you for watching it !!!!"
record shopping: It's been some holiday weekend, Flag Day, or something. I started it off by going to Disneyland in the rain and getting sick which sucks because I always say that vegans don't get sick. My mom is in town and I showed her Laguna Beach today which is by far the most attractive part of Orange County, at least that I have seen. I dragged her into the little punk rock record shop on the PCH and bought some bargain bin stuff cause I can't afford rare punk records. Can you? I tried to make small talk with the clerk, but it not go to well. He did not know anything about the CDs I was buying so I mistakenly tried tell him a little bit about them and I'm sure he did not give a fuck. Plus I mentioned the words "straight edge band" when I was talking about music so I surely became the subject of shit talk between him and the two fashionable dirty rockers who were shopping. I'm saying that they would or did probably talk shit right after I was out the door and just about any other kid talking about straight edge hardcore would be deserving of shit talk - so who can blame them? My mom talked the clerk up quite a bit, she is the master of small talk.
Back in the 90's we would boycott any record store that sold racist records and this store did have Skrewdriver shirts (and not from the "pre-racist" period for any of you record dorks wondering) and some white power record label t-shirts. I'd really like to ask what the fuck they are thinking carrying and displaying those, but you can't bring that stuff up when your near-60 year old mom is with you. She would probably worried that I would get shot, though I doubt I would be in any immediate danger. It's true though, everyone should put as must distance between themselves as possible between them and the white power movement, as if that is not a given. A lot of people in California have grown up with nazi classmates in their schools, but as a transplant to the area, that stuff is more shocking to me, but I digress. I would really like to know the history of that store. I think I should start by learning the name of it.
It all so fascinating because Laguna Beach is an extremely affluent town.
On to another subject: scene teens - spoken word douche bag video brought to you by The Coalition.
I got a hold of the Sav-On Drugs version of Dario Argento's Cat o' Nine Tails, that is a big drug store chain where they often have bins of two dollar budget DVDs. It's not made by Sav-On, but it sure has some budget-looking packaging, perhaps the crappiest I've seen - from Vina Distributor who also sell a lot of Spanish DVDs which cost a dollar more! I gotta find their version of Death Race 2000! Over at their site I saw all the DVDs that those guys put out and most were familiar since I've looked through the bin at many a Sav-On.
So how does this look? Ok. I've seen the Anchor Bay version and obviously that blows this away. Some of the dark scenes from the killer's p.o.v. at the beginning are hard to see on this Vina version and the DVD in general has a fuzzy look to it, reminding me of some of my oldest VHS tapes. The brutal train killing appears to be completely intact, but (spoiler) at the end when the killer slides down the elevator shaft with his hands on the cable, I guess that was to disturbing and got cut from this print some where along the way. I'm sure more is missing, but it's pretty funny to find Cat o' Nine Tails at the drug store.
Have you seen The Thorn Birds mini-series from 1983? Oh wow, I saw a lot of it this weekend lying sick in bed, but that's not all I watched. Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory (1962) sounds like a crappy movie, but the title is deceiving. It's actually a bit of a proto-giallo originally called Lycanthropus in Italy. I'm not wild about sanitary horror with no blood or sexuality, and that's what it looks like you are gonna get here with the campy "Ghoul in the School" theme song (probably added for the U.S. version) that starts this movie off, but put that out of mind because you can't take all the Euro-horror out of this movie. There is a lecherous professor who pays students for sex, a black gloved killer, and suicides. The movie is written by Ernesto Gastaldi who later wrote Torso, The Whip and The Body, and Blade of the Ripper. He wrote movies for Mario Bava, Antonio Margheriti, Umberto Lenzi, and Sergio Martino.
You can usually get this movie pretty cheaply. I think it's fallen into the public domain which makes the loud pirating warnings on that start off the Killer Creature disc seem pretty hypocritical since I doubt they pay the filmmakers anything.
horror: I skipped the Haunt X convention in Los Angeles. I could not figure out their schedule for shit and it looked like I would only be paying $25 for access to dealers' tables and stars eager to sell me $25 signed glossies.
One of the most shocking moments in TV history: El Duce on Jerry Springer. I saw this when it first aired so I've seen the bits that are not included. Duce came out and told the crowd that he and The Mentors rape underage girls on stage at their shows. Obviously he is so full of shit, but the Springer crowd are falling for every word in this "Rape Rock" expose. This tape shows the most tense moments as a woman confronts El Duce. Later on Gwar comes out and the show becomes very PG as they feed Springer to the Ragnarok monster on video. Don't let that take away from the heavy shit that goes down in this clip. Note: the clip seems to get cutoff, well you can watch a little.Later Duce asks the lady when exactly she was raped. She cites the date and he says "because I think you look kind of familiar". The crowd is too disgusted to even boo this one.
Says a commentor on You Tube, "That is fucking sick and so are you for watching it !!!!"
record shopping: It's been some holiday weekend, Flag Day, or something. I started it off by going to Disneyland in the rain and getting sick which sucks because I always say that vegans don't get sick. My mom is in town and I showed her Laguna Beach today which is by far the most attractive part of Orange County, at least that I have seen. I dragged her into the little punk rock record shop on the PCH and bought some bargain bin stuff cause I can't afford rare punk records. Can you? I tried to make small talk with the clerk, but it not go to well. He did not know anything about the CDs I was buying so I mistakenly tried tell him a little bit about them and I'm sure he did not give a fuck. Plus I mentioned the words "straight edge band" when I was talking about music so I surely became the subject of shit talk between him and the two fashionable dirty rockers who were shopping. I'm saying that they would or did probably talk shit right after I was out the door and just about any other kid talking about straight edge hardcore would be deserving of shit talk - so who can blame them? My mom talked the clerk up quite a bit, she is the master of small talk.
Back in the 90's we would boycott any record store that sold racist records and this store did have Skrewdriver shirts (and not from the "pre-racist" period for any of you record dorks wondering) and some white power record label t-shirts. I'd really like to ask what the fuck they are thinking carrying and displaying those, but you can't bring that stuff up when your near-60 year old mom is with you. She would probably worried that I would get shot, though I doubt I would be in any immediate danger. It's true though, everyone should put as must distance between themselves as possible between them and the white power movement, as if that is not a given. A lot of people in California have grown up with nazi classmates in their schools, but as a transplant to the area, that stuff is more shocking to me, but I digress. I would really like to know the history of that store. I think I should start by learning the name of it.
It all so fascinating because Laguna Beach is an extremely affluent town.
On to another subject: scene teens - spoken word douche bag video brought to you by The Coalition.
I got a hold of the Sav-On Drugs version of Dario Argento's Cat o' Nine Tails, that is a big drug store chain where they often have bins of two dollar budget DVDs. It's not made by Sav-On, but it sure has some budget-looking packaging, perhaps the crappiest I've seen - from Vina Distributor who also sell a lot of Spanish DVDs which cost a dollar more! I gotta find their version of Death Race 2000! Over at their site I saw all the DVDs that those guys put out and most were familiar since I've looked through the bin at many a Sav-On.So how does this look? Ok. I've seen the Anchor Bay version and obviously that blows this away. Some of the dark scenes from the killer's p.o.v. at the beginning are hard to see on this Vina version and the DVD in general has a fuzzy look to it, reminding me of some of my oldest VHS tapes. The brutal train killing appears to be completely intact, but (spoiler) at the end when the killer slides down the elevator shaft with his hands on the cable, I guess that was to disturbing and got cut from this print some where along the way. I'm sure more is missing, but it's pretty funny to find Cat o' Nine Tails at the drug store.
Have you seen The Thorn Birds mini-series from 1983? Oh wow, I saw a lot of it this weekend lying sick in bed, but that's not all I watched. Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory (1962) sounds like a crappy movie, but the title is deceiving. It's actually a bit of a proto-giallo originally called Lycanthropus in Italy. I'm not wild about sanitary horror with no blood or sexuality, and that's what it looks like you are gonna get here with the campy "Ghoul in the School" theme song (probably added for the U.S. version) that starts this movie off, but put that out of mind because you can't take all the Euro-horror out of this movie. There is a lecherous professor who pays students for sex, a black gloved killer, and suicides. The movie is written by Ernesto Gastaldi who later wrote Torso, The Whip and The Body, and Blade of the Ripper. He wrote movies for Mario Bava, Antonio Margheriti, Umberto Lenzi, and Sergio Martino.You can usually get this movie pretty cheaply. I think it's fallen into the public domain which makes the loud pirating warnings on that start off the Killer Creature disc seem pretty hypocritical since I doubt they pay the filmmakers anything.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
shit talker's paradise and The Flesh and Blood Show
No class today, but usually Thursdays are for TV engineering where we sit in a locked soundproof room and tape the show and shade the cameras. It's different from being in the control room, where the director, sound guy, and switcher, are all stressing the fuck out. Engineering is where you just kick back. Our professor pretty much told us that this is where you talk shit on the broadcast journalism and TV1 kids and their projects and hard work. Awesome. I was on the other side last semester and can only imagine what people said about the quality of my jobs on and off camera. I was jealous of those engineers.
I thought the control room was bad. In there you get the outbursts from the stressed out director. Lots of swearing cause they gotta put their name on this thing. Engineers are farther removed from the project and have nothing to do while the cameras are rolling but to watch the monitors. Better make sure that communications mic is off. If it is, speak your piece of mind. The professors told us, that when he worked for the networks, he once went on and on a big star and the God Mic was on. That's a mic that can be heard on the studio floor. Bad microphone!
So without class today I'll have time to give my rabbit a haircut. No more nasty dreads on Bun Bun. I bought a buzzer the scissors are too dull. As people in the know say, "Punk's Not Dread". For Bun Bun to look fashionable he's gotta clean himself up.
Watched a big box tape of The Flesh and Blood Show (1974) from the surely defunct Monterey Home Video from Pete Walker who directed Schizo, The Confessional, House of Whipcord, and Frightmare. The Flesh and Blood Show is an interesting British film about a troop of actors called to rehearse for am improvised play. Rehearsals are in an abandoned theater built on a pier in a lonely seaside down. The director does not quite know who the producer is. How strange.
Actors and actresses couple off for sex and then get killed off one by one as expected. Lots of nudity here. The movie is great and takes a weird flashback twist at the end with Shakespearean dialogue (Othello, the more educated Cub tells me) and a tale of infidelity in the packed theater during it's prime, which coincided with a dangerous WWII bombing blitz.
My only complaint is that the movie did not have enough characters to really surprise us when the murderers identity is revealed. Just don't play 'Guess the Killer' with this one It's far too easy. No DVD of this movie too my knowledge, though Pete Walker's better know films are available in the EuroShock Collection.
After the credits, three previews came on for other Monterey Bay tapes. The Slasher Is the Sex Maniac, He Kills Night After Night After Night, and the butchered version of Joe D'Amato's Antropophagus, known as The Grim Reaper. I have not seen the first of these three titles and it supposed to be killer! Keeping my eyes open for The Slasher Is the Sex Maniac.
I thought the control room was bad. In there you get the outbursts from the stressed out director. Lots of swearing cause they gotta put their name on this thing. Engineers are farther removed from the project and have nothing to do while the cameras are rolling but to watch the monitors. Better make sure that communications mic is off. If it is, speak your piece of mind. The professors told us, that when he worked for the networks, he once went on and on a big star and the God Mic was on. That's a mic that can be heard on the studio floor. Bad microphone!
So without class today I'll have time to give my rabbit a haircut. No more nasty dreads on Bun Bun. I bought a buzzer the scissors are too dull. As people in the know say, "Punk's Not Dread". For Bun Bun to look fashionable he's gotta clean himself up.
Watched a big box tape of The Flesh and Blood Show (1974) from the surely defunct Monterey Home Video from Pete Walker who directed Schizo, The Confessional, House of Whipcord, and Frightmare. The Flesh and Blood Show is an interesting British film about a troop of actors called to rehearse for am improvised play. Rehearsals are in an abandoned theater built on a pier in a lonely seaside down. The director does not quite know who the producer is. How strange.Actors and actresses couple off for sex and then get killed off one by one as expected. Lots of nudity here. The movie is great and takes a weird flashback twist at the end with Shakespearean dialogue (Othello, the more educated Cub tells me) and a tale of infidelity in the packed theater during it's prime, which coincided with a dangerous WWII bombing blitz.
My only complaint is that the movie did not have enough characters to really surprise us when the murderers identity is revealed. Just don't play 'Guess the Killer' with this one It's far too easy. No DVD of this movie too my knowledge, though Pete Walker's better know films are available in the EuroShock Collection.
After the credits, three previews came on for other Monterey Bay tapes. The Slasher Is the Sex Maniac, He Kills Night After Night After Night, and the butchered version of Joe D'Amato's Antropophagus, known as The Grim Reaper. I have not seen the first of these three titles and it supposed to be killer! Keeping my eyes open for The Slasher Is the Sex Maniac.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
photo class misery and the Dark Age of '87
Photo sure is frustrating. You guys almost got an angry rant last night filled with threats of violence, but this morning I feel better. This weekend it will be time for me to turn on my video camera, as I'm going to have to use some of the advanced features for some technical stuff. Shit!
I am most comfortable with editing now, the Final Cut class is a piece of cake. As for photo, you won't see me on the side of the stage taking blurry photos of hardcore bands. Band photography sucks and I think only girls do that anyway.
The last tape I watched was an Australia supernatural horror film called Alison's Birthday from 1979. Pretty budget, but they managed to get a whole mini-stonehenge up in this one. I enjoyed it very much and it may warrant a full review.
As always, I've seen a lot of stuff that I have not been able to write about. Stay away from Dark Age, another Australian movie, but it sucked to the max. Directed by Arch Nicholson in 1987, it's the tale of a giant croc. Could not tell what was the real croc and what was the fake, which is impressive, but then I'm no wildlife expert so maybe I'm just a fool and all of you are like "dumb wooden croc!". They do a car chase with the massive crocodile on the back of a flatbed trailer truck, but unfortunately it's covered by a tarp. Seeing the fake crocodile speeding down the highway could have a very memorable image, though people already compare this movie to Free Willy due to the on-land rescue mission of a sea creature. This is a salt water croc, so does it live in the sea sometimes? Anyway, cool how the conservationists, who don't want this bloodthirsty croc killed, are the heroes, and the poachers are the scum who get munched, but this is almost too Earth Day for even a militant vegan like me. You know how these 80's enviro movies can be - I'm all for the cause, but the preaching gets old. Almost funny subplot where Burnham Burnham has personal mystical ties to the croc, man, I hope I'm not being culturally insensitive to the Aborigines. Actually, this did work for me at the end when they bring his remains, in a ritual, to this very same killer croc who does escape to the way back wilderness - oops, I guess that was a spoiler! Burnham Burnham was also in Howling III: The Marsupials.
I swear I get the feeling that the whites in Aussie are the worst after this movie and Zombie Brigade. Self-hating whites in the Australian film industry? Animal liberation in the movies. It's never been done right. Never have I been less moved by animal liberation than in 28 Days Later. I've talked about this before, so enough for now.
I'm feeling a bit of fondness for Dark Age right now, thinking of the late Burnham Burnham and some of the movie's more sentimental moments. What's with me? I totally hated it and those better not be real crocs getting shot in the massacre scene! Yes the worst violence in this movie is against crocs and if the shotgun carnage is real, then it pretty much undermines the purpose of this film much like René Cardona Jr.'s Beaks: The Movie. If it was simulated croc killing, well, impressive FX then.
I am most comfortable with editing now, the Final Cut class is a piece of cake. As for photo, you won't see me on the side of the stage taking blurry photos of hardcore bands. Band photography sucks and I think only girls do that anyway.
The last tape I watched was an Australia supernatural horror film called Alison's Birthday from 1979. Pretty budget, but they managed to get a whole mini-stonehenge up in this one. I enjoyed it very much and it may warrant a full review.
As always, I've seen a lot of stuff that I have not been able to write about. Stay away from Dark Age, another Australian movie, but it sucked to the max. Directed by Arch Nicholson in 1987, it's the tale of a giant croc. Could not tell what was the real croc and what was the fake, which is impressive, but then I'm no wildlife expert so maybe I'm just a fool and all of you are like "dumb wooden croc!". They do a car chase with the massive crocodile on the back of a flatbed trailer truck, but unfortunately it's covered by a tarp. Seeing the fake crocodile speeding down the highway could have a very memorable image, though people already compare this movie to Free Willy due to the on-land rescue mission of a sea creature. This is a salt water croc, so does it live in the sea sometimes? Anyway, cool how the conservationists, who don't want this bloodthirsty croc killed, are the heroes, and the poachers are the scum who get munched, but this is almost too Earth Day for even a militant vegan like me. You know how these 80's enviro movies can be - I'm all for the cause, but the preaching gets old. Almost funny subplot where Burnham Burnham has personal mystical ties to the croc, man, I hope I'm not being culturally insensitive to the Aborigines. Actually, this did work for me at the end when they bring his remains, in a ritual, to this very same killer croc who does escape to the way back wilderness - oops, I guess that was a spoiler! Burnham Burnham was also in Howling III: The Marsupials.I swear I get the feeling that the whites in Aussie are the worst after this movie and Zombie Brigade. Self-hating whites in the Australian film industry? Animal liberation in the movies. It's never been done right. Never have I been less moved by animal liberation than in 28 Days Later. I've talked about this before, so enough for now.
I'm feeling a bit of fondness for Dark Age right now, thinking of the late Burnham Burnham and some of the movie's more sentimental moments. What's with me? I totally hated it and those better not be real crocs getting shot in the massacre scene! Yes the worst violence in this movie is against crocs and if the shotgun carnage is real, then it pretty much undermines the purpose of this film much like René Cardona Jr.'s Beaks: The Movie. If it was simulated croc killing, well, impressive FX then.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Tough To Kill (1978) Joe D'Amato
I'm not wild about action films, but this is not really in action film. There is only one machine gun battle sequence. On the whole it's an adventure story in Africa filled with betrayal, racism, and cruelty - may the most hateful man win.
I grabbed this movie because it was in a clearance bin for $3 and it is a Joe D'Amato film. He is the director of Erotic Nights of the Living Dead and Emmanulle and the Last Canibals as it say on this DVD's cover, as well as Porno Holocaust, Antropophagus, Buio Omega, Black Cobra Woman, and a bunch of the Emmanuelle movies with Laura Gemser. He did not disappoint me with this trashy tale, which one imdb reviewer states "uses its badness to dig a filthy hole in the ground and wallow in it". There is literally some wallowing as one despicable soldier makes a young black civilian sit neck-deep in a concrete barrel of shit. He gestures that on three he will be running his sword across the top of the barrel and the young man is forced to submerge himself. The racist line that follows is equally vile and though it can be matched in offensiveness by many of the lines from the hardass Major who leads this group of mercenaries. I wondered for some moments whether these were anti-heroes and are we supposed to laugh along with their hateful lines, but then the movie throws a twist in there that changes everything and makes the viewer feel like a fool. I did not see the end coming, which is a testament to the point it proves. The last ten minutes of the movie are a joy to watch, but getting there is not consistently fun for the reason that this is a very uneven movie. The budget is very low, though it is shot in the Dominican Republic. There are very few effects, including gore effects, and most of the depravity is exhibited by the characters' actions and words.
The movie's most disgusting visual is the fat prisoner's eating of a cooked rabbit on a spit, where he stuffs nearly the entire carcass in his mouth in a display of greed - of course it is poisoned, he pays the price. I find it distasteful as I have a rabbit and would never let him be eaten, but you guys already know my stance on meat eating, if not, see Farm Sanctuary.
Tough To Kill is recommended for a casual view. IMDB critics have said that the DVD version is poor quality, but I found it to be fine and it is WS.
I grabbed this movie because it was in a clearance bin for $3 and it is a Joe D'Amato film. He is the director of Erotic Nights of the Living Dead and Emmanulle and the Last Canibals as it say on this DVD's cover, as well as Porno Holocaust, Antropophagus, Buio Omega, Black Cobra Woman, and a bunch of the Emmanuelle movies with Laura Gemser. He did not disappoint me with this trashy tale, which one imdb reviewer states "uses its badness to dig a filthy hole in the ground and wallow in it". There is literally some wallowing as one despicable soldier makes a young black civilian sit neck-deep in a concrete barrel of shit. He gestures that on three he will be running his sword across the top of the barrel and the young man is forced to submerge himself. The racist line that follows is equally vile and though it can be matched in offensiveness by many of the lines from the hardass Major who leads this group of mercenaries. I wondered for some moments whether these were anti-heroes and are we supposed to laugh along with their hateful lines, but then the movie throws a twist in there that changes everything and makes the viewer feel like a fool. I did not see the end coming, which is a testament to the point it proves. The last ten minutes of the movie are a joy to watch, but getting there is not consistently fun for the reason that this is a very uneven movie. The budget is very low, though it is shot in the Dominican Republic. There are very few effects, including gore effects, and most of the depravity is exhibited by the characters' actions and words.The movie's most disgusting visual is the fat prisoner's eating of a cooked rabbit on a spit, where he stuffs nearly the entire carcass in his mouth in a display of greed - of course it is poisoned, he pays the price. I find it distasteful as I have a rabbit and would never let him be eaten, but you guys already know my stance on meat eating, if not, see Farm Sanctuary.
Tough To Kill is recommended for a casual view. IMDB critics have said that the DVD version is poor quality, but I found it to be fine and it is WS.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Dolly Dearest (1992) exactly what you think it is
First, pictures of me showing up on the internet again, now on a website (an older site, but I never saw it before) about how to be unique by looking like someone else - pretty funny writing on this site that takes a bit of a dig at everyone pictured on it. "If you don't resemble one of these ultra chic people on the right, then you, my friend, are not unique. You're neither cool nor special, the way they are collectively cool and special. So what sets you apart from these super stylish hipsters? THE HAIR, my friend, the hair...it's all in the hair. So you think this is a bit too superficial and that you're "cool" just because you have a "good personality?" Well nobody cares what's inside the package if the gift wrapping is ugly; especially if the bow is carelessly knotted together."
The pictures are all from the club where I met Cub. I swear we are the only 2 people who ever met there who got engaged. Every other hookup among the kids was doomed to fail due to the slutty times. I used to know a lot of the kids in these pics, but friendships do not last, oh no.
I'm on this page and the caption for my pic reads "Not exactly the unique striped bangs, but unique all the same" and then there is another pic of me right below it with my friend that I moved to Hollywood with. These pics are getting close to 3 years old and now I think I look a strange in them.
Dolly Dearest came out after the first 3 Child's Play movies. For some reason I always avoided renting this one and it is pretty much brainless and irritating except for the doll effects and supernatural elements. Dolly herself, is pretty fascinating, with an expressive face and good puppet work, though Cub and I think that some on the long shots were done with a little person in a Dolly suit.
The story here, the spirit of the devil child from an ancient civilization has been disturbed by archeologist and has flown from the tomb and into the dolls at an abandoned factory. An American family, the father having bought the doll factory, moves down to Mexico. Actually all the dolls in the factory are possessed, but at first we only have to worry about one, the doll picked by the family's daughter, who also becomes possessed, drawing demons, speaking in the ancient language, and sounding like the Exorcist child. Of course the father thinks all of this is nonsense and refuses to move back to Los Angeles despite the mother's insistence. I really wish that at least one of the four family members, perhaps the nerdy son, who I could not stand, would have lost their lives to Dolly by the movie's completion. The only victims, besides a crushed archeologist in the movie's first scene, are the Mexican help, who I guess are more expendable. Unlike the mildly racist filmmakers, I found these characters more sympathetic than the ignorant and bold Americans who are down there to get rich with their third world Dolly sweatshop.
There are some good creepy moments, but there should have been more. Towards the end the dolls' faces turn ugly, in an Exorcist style, and I'm pretty sure one of them even levitates. See it for the Dolly action, but the movie has little else to offer.
Cub, how come I had to hold you tight, because you were so afraid of this little Dolly? Isn't that embarrassing?
No bear, you have it flipped around. It was me who had to hold you because you were terribly frightened and would jump everytime dolly would scuttle around or utter a sound. But I kept you safe.
How come you liked the nerdy brother? I hated his guts.
I liked the brother in the beginning but I have to admit and say you were right, I got totally annoyed with him by the end of the movie.
I hate pretending that horror characters are real, but don't you think that Chucky, if he ever met her, might have the hots for Dolly Dearest? Or for the whole pack of Dolly Dearests, if he was lucky...
Actually I think Dolly could kick his ass to tell you the truth. Plus , she is a tall girl and would not want some short short man.
The pictures are all from the club where I met Cub. I swear we are the only 2 people who ever met there who got engaged. Every other hookup among the kids was doomed to fail due to the slutty times. I used to know a lot of the kids in these pics, but friendships do not last, oh no.
I'm on this page and the caption for my pic reads "Not exactly the unique striped bangs, but unique all the same" and then there is another pic of me right below it with my friend that I moved to Hollywood with. These pics are getting close to 3 years old and now I think I look a strange in them.
Dolly Dearest came out after the first 3 Child's Play movies. For some reason I always avoided renting this one and it is pretty much brainless and irritating except for the doll effects and supernatural elements. Dolly herself, is pretty fascinating, with an expressive face and good puppet work, though Cub and I think that some on the long shots were done with a little person in a Dolly suit.
The story here, the spirit of the devil child from an ancient civilization has been disturbed by archeologist and has flown from the tomb and into the dolls at an abandoned factory. An American family, the father having bought the doll factory, moves down to Mexico. Actually all the dolls in the factory are possessed, but at first we only have to worry about one, the doll picked by the family's daughter, who also becomes possessed, drawing demons, speaking in the ancient language, and sounding like the Exorcist child. Of course the father thinks all of this is nonsense and refuses to move back to Los Angeles despite the mother's insistence. I really wish that at least one of the four family members, perhaps the nerdy son, who I could not stand, would have lost their lives to Dolly by the movie's completion. The only victims, besides a crushed archeologist in the movie's first scene, are the Mexican help, who I guess are more expendable. Unlike the mildly racist filmmakers, I found these characters more sympathetic than the ignorant and bold Americans who are down there to get rich with their third world Dolly sweatshop.There are some good creepy moments, but there should have been more. Towards the end the dolls' faces turn ugly, in an Exorcist style, and I'm pretty sure one of them even levitates. See it for the Dolly action, but the movie has little else to offer.
Cub, how come I had to hold you tight, because you were so afraid of this little Dolly? Isn't that embarrassing?
No bear, you have it flipped around. It was me who had to hold you because you were terribly frightened and would jump everytime dolly would scuttle around or utter a sound. But I kept you safe.
How come you liked the nerdy brother? I hated his guts.
I liked the brother in the beginning but I have to admit and say you were right, I got totally annoyed with him by the end of the movie.
I hate pretending that horror characters are real, but don't you think that Chucky, if he ever met her, might have the hots for Dolly Dearest? Or for the whole pack of Dolly Dearests, if he was lucky...
Actually I think Dolly could kick his ass to tell you the truth. Plus , she is a tall girl and would not want some short short man.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
men armed only with words can commit genocide
A bit of off-topic crap from me. Up next will be a review of the killer doll flick, Dolly Dearest, but first, this:
A trip to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angles has taught me that words have power and that I have been very irresponsible with my language. Free speech, I'm all for it, but what if someone's incendiary words trigger violent outbursts that result in deaths, hate crimes, and terrorism? We have to take responsibility for our words if they are going to be read by the American masses.
What about this blog? I can still write what I want, right? I can, because my readers are smart. They know, that even though I may call for the death of admissions officers at a certain north eastern American college, that it would be in fact unwise of them to go drag these scumbags out onto the streets and beat them until the blood runs red. You see, we are all very bright. God may will the deaths of these people, but just because what we are doing what is right, does not mean that society is ready for these righteous actions.
My following is not huge, in fact, your numbers are so small, that the odds of their being even a single easily influenced and unstable fellow among you are quite unlikely. Now if I was on cable TV, or had a book on the best sellers list, and I published and posted maps to this school where the administration works hours each day trying to prevent me from becoming a financial success, an all out attack on these offices would surely place some blood on my hands.
Irresponsibility... the museum - and it was awesome - had a lighted bulletin that displayed news stories of dangerous words that are too current to actually be part of the exhibits. On the bulletin: the news that European newspapers are publishing cartoon pictures of the Prophet Muhammad with his turban being a bomb. It is an offensive cartoon and the world would be better of without it ever having being printed because of the violence that is a direct result of the reaction to it.
Of course with that attitude, do we have to police everything that might be controversial because it might provoke a bad reaction? No, the bomb cartoon is different for one big reason. It sucks. It's the dumbest cartoon I've ever heard of. "Let's see, I think Muslims are terrorists. What do they look like? They wear turbans! Who is the king of Arabs? Prophet Muhammad! What is a symbol of terror? A bomb! How can we combine the two? A bomb in the turban! Ha Ha Ha". This is like the first political cartoon a racist sixth grader would draw for the school paper. Even in the Midwest, or somewhere like that, the teacher would say, "now Billy, I know you want to make a point, but we can't publish this..." The drawing screams of hatred, and it's not funny no matter how twisted you are and how much you like to push taboos. The reason? Cause it's not sophisticated enough to be funny. If anyone can think it up, it's not funny. Funny people should make cartoons, people with talent, not just rudimentary drawing skills and a limited imagination.
This cartoon is NOT the cartoon I'm talking about, it's just one I found in an internet search, but it proves just how unoriginal the crap I'm talking about is. At least THIS cartoon manages to poke fun at the "What Would Jesus Drive" anti-suv campaign at the same time, so it's far more sophisticated, but at the heart of it, it's still garbage.
Political cartoonists, why do you draw? To express your opinion which you surely believe is right. I no longer understand the point of preaching to the choir. No one on the other side is going to be won over by hateful and insulting drawings. You are not winning any converts to your cause. Maybe if you could be just a bit clever.
Next subject:
Can't a Muslim man get a break? This time it's the crazy protests over the cartoons. Protesting the cartoon is all well and good, but this is getting out of hand and if I was Arab I'd get sick of saying "I'm not like those crazy guys." Even in the movie Crash the Middle Eastern man comes of like a bastard and that's supposed to be an anti-racist movie. Michael Moore sold out Arabs to try to get people not to vote for Bush by showing how chummy Bush and certain Saudis are in an extended sequence. The message: Arabs are demons and Bush is in league with them. I know the movie was partially intended to stop the war effort, which could save Iraqi lives, but to use American Muslim-phobia to sell them on the deal is plain shitty. I plan to make a political cartoon of my own on this issue.
I'm sorry if I scared anyone with my militant talk at the begging of this entry. You see, I spend all day listening to punk rock records about insurrection and revolution, though I'm not stupid enough to think that any of these bands are going to take up arms or even attend a protest. They are two busy selling t-shirts and CDs so it's just a bunch of bullshit preaching with the bottom line being the money. Those pussies never do time while anarchists listen to their CDs in the car on the way to committing crimes against the government. Well maybe not anymore, punk is not very inspiring these days.
Right now I'm pissed because I keep getting warnings from the Homeowners Association about my mess down in the basement. I swear, if they both me once more, the people will rise up and head will roll. We will then put these heads on sticks for all to throw stones at.
A trip to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angles has taught me that words have power and that I have been very irresponsible with my language. Free speech, I'm all for it, but what if someone's incendiary words trigger violent outbursts that result in deaths, hate crimes, and terrorism? We have to take responsibility for our words if they are going to be read by the American masses.
What about this blog? I can still write what I want, right? I can, because my readers are smart. They know, that even though I may call for the death of admissions officers at a certain north eastern American college, that it would be in fact unwise of them to go drag these scumbags out onto the streets and beat them until the blood runs red. You see, we are all very bright. God may will the deaths of these people, but just because what we are doing what is right, does not mean that society is ready for these righteous actions.
My following is not huge, in fact, your numbers are so small, that the odds of their being even a single easily influenced and unstable fellow among you are quite unlikely. Now if I was on cable TV, or had a book on the best sellers list, and I published and posted maps to this school where the administration works hours each day trying to prevent me from becoming a financial success, an all out attack on these offices would surely place some blood on my hands.
Irresponsibility... the museum - and it was awesome - had a lighted bulletin that displayed news stories of dangerous words that are too current to actually be part of the exhibits. On the bulletin: the news that European newspapers are publishing cartoon pictures of the Prophet Muhammad with his turban being a bomb. It is an offensive cartoon and the world would be better of without it ever having being printed because of the violence that is a direct result of the reaction to it.
Of course with that attitude, do we have to police everything that might be controversial because it might provoke a bad reaction? No, the bomb cartoon is different for one big reason. It sucks. It's the dumbest cartoon I've ever heard of. "Let's see, I think Muslims are terrorists. What do they look like? They wear turbans! Who is the king of Arabs? Prophet Muhammad! What is a symbol of terror? A bomb! How can we combine the two? A bomb in the turban! Ha Ha Ha". This is like the first political cartoon a racist sixth grader would draw for the school paper. Even in the Midwest, or somewhere like that, the teacher would say, "now Billy, I know you want to make a point, but we can't publish this..." The drawing screams of hatred, and it's not funny no matter how twisted you are and how much you like to push taboos. The reason? Cause it's not sophisticated enough to be funny. If anyone can think it up, it's not funny. Funny people should make cartoons, people with talent, not just rudimentary drawing skills and a limited imagination.
This cartoon is NOT the cartoon I'm talking about, it's just one I found in an internet search, but it proves just how unoriginal the crap I'm talking about is. At least THIS cartoon manages to poke fun at the "What Would Jesus Drive" anti-suv campaign at the same time, so it's far more sophisticated, but at the heart of it, it's still garbage.
Political cartoonists, why do you draw? To express your opinion which you surely believe is right. I no longer understand the point of preaching to the choir. No one on the other side is going to be won over by hateful and insulting drawings. You are not winning any converts to your cause. Maybe if you could be just a bit clever.
Next subject:
Can't a Muslim man get a break? This time it's the crazy protests over the cartoons. Protesting the cartoon is all well and good, but this is getting out of hand and if I was Arab I'd get sick of saying "I'm not like those crazy guys." Even in the movie Crash the Middle Eastern man comes of like a bastard and that's supposed to be an anti-racist movie. Michael Moore sold out Arabs to try to get people not to vote for Bush by showing how chummy Bush and certain Saudis are in an extended sequence. The message: Arabs are demons and Bush is in league with them. I know the movie was partially intended to stop the war effort, which could save Iraqi lives, but to use American Muslim-phobia to sell them on the deal is plain shitty. I plan to make a political cartoon of my own on this issue.
I'm sorry if I scared anyone with my militant talk at the begging of this entry. You see, I spend all day listening to punk rock records about insurrection and revolution, though I'm not stupid enough to think that any of these bands are going to take up arms or even attend a protest. They are two busy selling t-shirts and CDs so it's just a bunch of bullshit preaching with the bottom line being the money. Those pussies never do time while anarchists listen to their CDs in the car on the way to committing crimes against the government. Well maybe not anymore, punk is not very inspiring these days.
Right now I'm pissed because I keep getting warnings from the Homeowners Association about my mess down in the basement. I swear, if they both me once more, the people will rise up and head will roll. We will then put these heads on sticks for all to throw stones at.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
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...
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...
Friday, February 03, 2006
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.
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.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
"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!
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!
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
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.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Pizza Man (????) Obscure slasher from the way underground!
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Tuesday, January 24, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
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.
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.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
"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 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. ;)
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
"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.
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.
Monday, January 09, 2006
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!
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!
Monday, January 02, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
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.
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.
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