I so hate the internet right now!

Yeah I know. The headline is one that you'd be more likely to see on Patrick's "Bearded man" blog (and where the hell is Patrick??) but, man, I really so do hate the sack of shit that is the internet right now. Thing is I had been waiting for an auction for the über über rare Ocean Shores VHS release of MIRACULOUS FLOWER (aka WOLF DEVIL WOMAN 3) to end. And since I knew I would be there when the auction would close I'd only put $15 on the damn tape. Didn't wanna reveal how much I was willing to cough up. And then my internet connection went out to fucken lunch all night!!! Ahh man, for fuck's sake!!! And NOBODY made bids for the tape except one single asshole (probably a nice guy) who scooped it up for 15.50 dollars!!! Arrrrrrggghhhhhh!!!!!!
Oh well. Can't win 'em all I guess, haha. Well, congrats to the winner, whoever you are (and it's not like I don't have the über über rare Danish release of the film, LOL, but that cover there is just so much cooler than the lame one I've got!).

A boring night at the office.

I know, I know, you're gonna wanna hang out with me cos I'm now the owner of these two AWESOME and mega rare tapes but, sorry no can do, you're on your own buddy. Haha.


Here's the mega über rare ntsc vhs release of THE WARRIOR AND THE NINJA on the "All American" label!!!

(click scan for proper size)

Ahhhh, finally coming home to daddy!!! The über mega overly rare release of THE RAPE AFTER on vhs from Hong Kong. In contradiction to the NOT SO RARE Japanese vhs this is subtitled in English. From someone unknown to Pete in Holland to Lars in Sweden and via Scott in Australia and, now, finally, on its way to yours truly!!! Now, gimme a WOO-WOO! xD xD xD

Friday the 13th

As you know Friday the 13th is a public holiday for horror movie fans and watching at least one horror movie on the day is COMPULSORY in celebrating the day. xD.
My film tonight was the amazing and very spooky Norwegian horror film DE DØDES TJERN (aka Lake of the Dead) from 1958. As regular readers will know (cos I've talked about it endlessly) it was released recently on a spiffy English subbed DVD. Read more here.



PS: Welcome to the latest subber, Lord_Garvals Khalikov.

Tough to Kill

Ahh, I received Paul Cooke and David Zuzelo's cool book "Tough To Kill" in the mail today. Excellent! More later.

I ordered the book from Paul and David's blog dedicated the book.
Go here.

Kabrastan (1988)

Not every horror movie from India is made by the Ramsay family (although it's a biiig family!) even if it may seem that way sometimes (to Westerners anyway). Here's one you might remember seeing the cover of if you've read Pete Tomb's "Mondo Macabro" book; KABRASTAN directed by Mohan Bhakri. I have this on an unsubbed (and so far un-watched) VCD. Check out this clip. It's without a doubt the best, awesomest and most horrifying horror movie every made. Okay, maybe not at all but it looks fun! LOL (altho Omar Khan, the director of HELL'S GROUND aka Zibahkhana wasn't terribly happy about it and said:

Kabrastan is unforgivably putrid and tedious crap of the worst kind and gives even the gutter level genre of Bollywood Horror a bad name!

Hong Kong Film Archive

I now have a link to the Hong Kong Film Archive. Very useful! It's in the "Useful Movie Data Bases" section.

PS: Obviously the jolly gif is only to liven up an otherwise dull post.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I... am... getting... THIS!!!




Arrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

This is the single best movie ever made. E-V-E-R!!! In the history of film making!!!

This is one of the RAREST tapes around!! It doesn't exist ANYWHERE!! Almost NOBODY has it!!! It's like a LEGEND!!! It does exist on dvd but only on a westernised and heavily cut German DVD!!! This is the ONLY uncut version!!! It runs 5 hours longer than the DVD!!! Yes, I'm exaggerating heavily now but, arrgghh!!! Flpff pff pff pff mouth won't work.....

This is how rare it is:

Cinehound member goblin:
this comes close to being my fave film!!!! in 10 years of searching ive never found one

Big thank-you's go out to Romps and Member-X of Cinehound!!!

Read Fred Anderson's review of the film here and Günter Müller's ditto here.

GOROTICA (1993)

Woo-hoo!! I've finally secured getting the third and last of Hugh Gallagher's underground gore trilogy from the early 90s!! The film is GOROTICA (1993) which I've been trying to find for ages! For some reason the only film from the series which gets listed on eBay is GORE WHORE (1994), however, a couple of days ago I noticed that no less than four different sellers had it on Amazon.com. I tried to place an order with every one them but they all had it listed for purchase in the US only! :/ So I wrote to the first one and asked if he would sell it to me directly. He said no. I asked the second one. He said no. Then today I got word from the third one and fortunately he said yes. Luckily I didn't have to try the last one as his tape was 20 dollars more expensive then the first two. The one I ended up buying was $5 more expensive than the first two but I can certainly live with that. Great stuff indeed!!! Read my review of GORE WHORE here. The last film in the series is GOREGASM from 1990.
[EDIT: haha, that last bit there is obviously not quite right. As the film's from 1990 it's obviously the first one in the series. DOH!!]

You call that a zombie movie? That's not a zombie movie! THIS is a zombie movie!!!

Yes, it's Andreas Schnass' epic German zombie movie ZOMBIE 90 from, ehh, when was it made again... LOL. Just fantastic! Made right after VIOLENT SHIT.

In the Flesh zine printed reviews of both films way back when they first came out. Ahhh, such glory memories. Forget about past Christmases, past holidays, and past everything else. Living in the UK and reading the original reviews (and interview) of these films in that long gone fanzine is what really matters. What really counts. Hahaha.

Originally released on oldskool video tape of course but now available on DVD. I hear there's a 3 disc BluRay edition on its way (no, not really!).

Also, check out this guy's review of the film. It's almost as fun as the film itself (I'm not sure if that's sad or what) [the sound is a little low during the first 20 sec. or so but it gets better. Stick with it!]



And before we close for today, here's one more clip. Romero, you watch and learn something from this, goddammit!!!



Oh, and I couldn't help myself so yesterday I found a store that still had a brand new copy of ZOMBIE 90 on glorious video tape. It's on its way as we speak. xD. Ahhh.

When there's no more room in Hell the dead shall walk the Earth. Again, and again, and again.

Man, it seems like there's almost as many zombie movies now as there are zombies IN THEM, haha. But hey, I'm not complaining!!!

Underground splatter

I was watching Andreas Schnass' VIOLENT SHIT from 1989 on video last night and thinking it's a pity gore movie fans don't make cool little over-the-top splatter movies anymore like they used to a decade and a half ago!

I know people who would (and do) dismiss stuff like the VIOLENT SHIT series but me I quite like these movies, maybe because I don't expect anything they're not! I mean these little flicks are made by splatter movie fans in their mum's backyard on a 10 dollar budget. They're just fun amateur/underground movies to make and fun with. I never quite understood how come some "serious" fans dismiss them on the grounds that they're badly made? I mean... DUH! Of course they're badly made. Anything made by "filmmakers" whose "schooling" comes from watching THE EVIL DEAD, RE-ANIMATOR and DAWN OF THE DEAD is obviously gonna be crappy, haha. But I still enjoy them heaps!

Uhh, and talking of which... look what I just bought from my good mate Kurt (aka Member-X of Cinehound) in Finland:





ZOMBIE BLOODBATH 1 & 2. There's also a part 3 but he didn't have that one. Part one was listed on Amazon.com yesterday and the price was a whooping 999 dollars!!! I'm not kidding! Needless to say, I didn't pay anything in that vicinity. Besides, if you're curious about these films now you can get them (all three of them) for very little on a double disc dvd - and yes I have that too but, you know, I collect video! :D

Santa Sangre

I watched SANTA SANGRE something like 15 years ago on a video tape from the UK (a 1'st generation dupe off a tape actually) and I've wanted to re-watch it for quite some time but instead of pulling out the ol' tape I've been looking around for a good DVD release for quite awhile and, well, lo and behold, here is it: A 2-disc release from Singapore! It seems it has all the extras from the UK release except for the commentary track and I didn't have to fork over the $99 as is the price of the UK Anchor Bay release (it's £50 on Amazon UK). This (official) release was only $24 including postage. Yay! Check it here. And the cover art is certainly heaps more beautiful than the UK cover and the old video tape.

Features:
• 2-DVD Edition
• All-Region
• UNCUT
• English Audio/Subtitles
• QUALITY English Subtitles
• Anamorphic Widescreen
• "Echek" - A short film
• Deleted scene with commentary
• "La Constellation Jodorowsky" - An 86 minute documentary
• Rare Interview with the director

Night Caller 平安夜 (1985)

Why would anybody in their right mind spend 25 dollars on a VCD from Hongkong (notice the old spelling, LOL) when they've already got the film on VHS. Twice!? Uhh, I dunno but I just kinda did. Haha. The film is Phillip Chan's HK film NIGHT CALLER from 1985. It's something as rare as a Chinese Giallo movie! It stars Pat Ha (who's obviously a big hero on this blog as she played one of the coolest hitmen ever in ON THE RUN, and in that movie she certainly has thee coolest hairdo of any hitman!!), Melvin Wong, Phillip Chan and Pauline Wong. And altho it often gets so-so reviews I quite like it (obviously!, haha). My VHS versions are the UK and Dutch releases from Eastern Heroes in Cantonese with English subs and slightly lbx.

Fellow blogs that fly under the radar but that you OUGHT to know about

Our good friend in Malmø (yes, the part of Denmark that the Swedish savages stole from us but which we will conquer again some day very soon, as soon as we finish our coffee and pastry) Lars Jacobsson has opened a spiffy new blog about peplum films! Yes, these films about big, muscular, well oiled men from the Roman empire and beyond.
Obviously his blog couldn't be entitled anything but
Maciste and Friends!

Check it out, it's pretty cool and if you're someone from the old Danish collector scene I'm sure you're gonna go: "Is this a pseudonym for Henrik Larsen?", LOL, but no it isn't. And as far as I'm aware Henrik is out of the Pepla fandom and like some King Kull Lars has claimed the throne of the Peplum insanity. xD. Please just don't make me sit thru all those films! Haha.



PS: I'm sure Lars would hate for you to think he himself were a muscular he-man so the pic on top of this post is obviously one of Lars being pissed on the train. xD

PS. PS: And do click the label at the bottom of this post for the other entry to this series; Jared's Worldweird blog!

MISSION THUNDERBOLT

Most of Godfrey Ho's movies are... well, how shall I put it... they are basically CRAP!! Cut and paste awfulness galore! xD. However, with a few (very few) of his films something obviously went terribly wrong... they actually became totally entertaining! It didn't happen very often and I'm sure Godfrey Ho would apologise to each and every one of us if he were here now, haha.

Here is a trailer for one of these very few films that are said to be over-the-top entertaining; MISSION THUNDERBOLT. But you'll have to take someone else's word for it cos I haven't actually watched the film (very difficult to find by the way, but luckily for me I'm awaiting the arrival of the Greek tape as we speak. Yay!). However, I've just discovered that some very nice gent uploaded a trailer of the film to YouTube just a few days ago. And what a wonder it is; It's NOT a crappy fullscreen trailer from a wobbly video tape but something as rare as a letterboxed trailer from a film print! Awesome.

Please notice: Due to Blogger's shit video window you can't actually see the full letterboxed picture so I recommend you watch the first video on YouTube instead.

I'm also including another trailer (bastard fullscreen and from video tape) which is shorter and differently edited. And you'll notice how awful the pan & scan format looks compared to the letterboxed trailer. Unfortunately, almost ALL the various releases of these Godfrey Ho films are presented in this useless shit format. Anyhoo, enjoy the trailers.

More Hong Kong madness: FURY OF THE HEAVEN

Thanks to Andras for posting this on Cinehound.

NB: I don't know if the title in Chinese characters read Gong Tau but this clearly isn't the English language title as GONG TAU is a different film by Herman Yau (and also the Chinese title for BLACK MAGIC). The title of this film is FURY OF THE HEAVEN and I just discovered I have it on one of my shelves!! I HAVE TOO MANY VIDEOS!!! Haha (no not really). Anyway, check out the clip, it's pretty WILD!!!

Hong Kong madness

I just won these two video tapes on eBay. The seller was an unlikely seller as it was a record store in the US that doesn't normally deal in HK video tapes so I guess that's why I'm happy to be able to report I was the only bidder! Yay!

The scan on top of this post is OPERATION PINK SQUAD 2 which is a film I remember from the old splatter fanzine days. It was one of the films that tape traders would swap as it was one of those crazy, wild and right out over-the-top horror flicks that splatter movie fans had just discovered at the time. Forget the first one, forget the (kind of) third one. This second entry to the series is where it's at!!
And needless to say I'm pretty stoked about getting this one!! I mean, it's on DVD and all but... you know... this is the original tape that you just couldn't buy in the old days!! It's pretty awesome!!!


Here's what Thomas Weisser said about it way back in the special "cinemasian" edition of the US fanzine Naked! Screaming! Terror! #4/5 (back when he had just discovered these wild films and he was still an entusiastic fan):

"The original OPERATION PINK SQUAD was a winner action/adventure film that featured beautiful girls with machine guns similar to the ANGEL series. This time, director Jeff Lau takes the girls, puts them into a horror motif and adds a touch of humor. The result is a remarkable excursion into the outlandishly bizarre. Especially enthralling is an awesome villainess who has the power to disjoin her head from her body. As her body continues to chase The Pink Squad through the corridors of the haunted castle, her head zooms at breakneck (pardon the pun) speed chomping, biting and nipping at everything in its path. The Squad then uses miniature helicopters to chase it and (in scenes reminiscent of the "ball" in PHANTASM) the copters eventually surround the head; however she chooses to self-destruct in an amazing explosion of blood and gore. And the FX are so good that one almost believes it all. There's lots more, including legions of "Living Dead-type" zombies and four Kung Fu mystics who arrive through a "door to heaven." These priests, armed only "with the power of musical instruments," go into battle against the creatures and (like an MTV video) kill them with music. This film is a must see extravaganza."

Thomas Weisser gave the film top marks of four stars. When he later reprinted the review in his Asian Cult Cinema book his enthusiasm had cooled off quite a bit as he lowered the marks to these wild horror films from what he had originally given them back in N!S!T! In the book OPERATION PINK SQUAD 2 only gets three stars and he omitted the line "This film is a must see extravaganza".

Unfortunately, I have a feeling he had "grown up" and somehow couldn't enjoy wild and crazy Hong Kong films anymore. I guess Japanese spanking films became what gave him his kicks (plus made up spaghetti westerns that never got made, LOL). Don't get me wrong, I love all his enthusiastic reviews and ramblings from the early years. I love them a lot actually. That issue of N!S!T! became like a bible to me and Weisser's and Timothy Paxton's ramblings were partly what got me off on a never ending trek for Hong Kong cinema's wildness and weirdness, a trek that lasts to this day. And for that I thank them wholeheartedly! (anybody know what became of Paxton and Dave Tordarello???).

The other tape I won is ENCOUNTER OF THE SPOOKY KIND 2. Yes, that one!! The sequel to ENCOUNTER OF THE SPOOKY KIND (aka Close Encounter of the Spooky Kind/Spooky Encounters) which has yet to be released subtitled to English on DVD (there's a beautiful French DVD but sans the English subs. Oh, and I have a very cool DVD-r of this version with added subs thanks to one very nice Cinehound member, Mr. White in the UK! xD!!!).

Dark Hong Kong: BLOOD SORCERY (1986)

aka THE CURSE



Ahh, yet another dark & nasty Hong Kong horror flick that'll be coming my way soon (I need to pay for it first, LOL). BLOOD SORCERY! This is one I've actually never seen so I have no idea of how good or bad it is. But, uh, I had to have it. I've been after it for a while (you might remember I ordered the TaiSeng version directly from the company a little while ago but it turned out they had tons of VHS titles listed on their site that they didn't actually have anymore!). It's directed by Do Gong-Yue who also did THE DEVIL SORCERY from 1988 which is out on DVD and which I quite like.

PHANTOM OF THE TOILET (1995)

I thought we'd seen it all with all the long dark-haired spooky girl films from Japan... but then comes this one along: a dark haired spooky girl... who... comes... outta... your... loo... arrrrggghhhhh

Crazy Japanese people, haha. Believe it or not this film is really called PHANTOM OF THE TOILET and it's Chiaki Kuriyama (you know, the lethal school girl killer chick from KILL BILL part 1. I haven't watched the film and may never get hold of it as the only English friendly release, believe it or not, is the OOP video-cd from Hong Kong (shown here). It's not even listed on IMDb which surprises me considering the legions of trendy fans of J-horror. However, someone wrote a review here.
Check out the screen grabs as well. I must admit it doesn't look too exciting but, hey, you never know.


And welcome to new subber Sehnzeleid. Spiffy blog there, dude! Basement of ghoulish decadence.