LIVID (France, 2011)

Original title: LIVIDE
dir: Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury



I watched the French horror movie LIVID tonight and once again I could kick myself in the head for paying too much attention to retarded comments on dvd sites, and thus postponing getting hold of the film for too long, comments that claim this is a so-so film. Argh!!! When I saw that the film won the prestigious HORROR'S BALL award for best film in 2012 I knew I had to watch it, and mein gott this is so good it's better than sex!! (with a flat inflatable rubber doll anyway).

The convoluted plot is as follows: Three juvenile delinquents break into an old house and shit starts to happen. Scenes of blood and yukky stuff ensue.

You really ought to watch this flick. It's pretty fucken rad! And just the fact that it's directed by the director couple who also did the equally awesome INSIDE (aka À l'intérieur) from 2007. The very sexy Béatrice Dalle is also in this one (albeit only as a dead woman - but still sexy, I'd deffo do her anyhow. No, wait, that probably sounded wrong. Oh screw it, I don't care! I'd go nekro for Béatrice Dalle!).

I bought the UK dvd and it looks great. I haven't checked the extras yet and I can't check what they are as the cover is over by the telly and I couldn't be arsed to get up.

Highly recommended!

"A veteran of genre cinema"

Yeah-yeah, it's probably the vanity in me that makes me post this link here but what did you expect! It's what we vain'ies do!! ^_^

SWV founder MIKE WRANEY has passed away

Unfortunately, Mike Wraney, founder of Something Weird Video, one of the coolest video labels ever, has passed away due to lung cancer. Wraney was only 56. A memoriam notice has been posted on Something Weird Video's website. I hope they don't mind I repost it here. R.I.P.


From SWV's website:

"We regret to inform you that Something Weird's founder, Mike Vraney, passed away on January 2nd 2014 after a long heroic battle with lung cancer. He was 56 years old, way too young to leave this planet. There was still so much Mike wanted to do in his life, so many films to be found, and adventures to be embarked upon.
This sad news may come as a shock to most of you. Mike was a very private person and didn't want anyone, except his closest friends, family and colleagues, to know about his illness. He went through aggressive chemotherapy and radiation treatments for over a year, but sadly the cancer spread and cruelly took him from us.
Mike had a larger-than-life personality and a genuine enthusiasm for movies. Something Weird was his heart and soul, he was obsessive in his pursuit of tracking down the weirdest, wildest movies out there. And it wasn't enough to find a few forgotten films, he was always in search of the movie motherload. (Making 370 two-hour volumes of Nudie Cuties loops is a good example of this. Who does that?! Mike Vraney!) Even as a child, Mike loved movies. During his teenage years, he worked at the Bel-Kirk Drive-In, and then later as a projectionist at the Green Parrot and Apple Theaters in Seattle. Then around 1990, Mike went in search of as many old, unusual, obscure, and lost low budget exploitation movies as he could, and preserved them for prosperity. Mike amassed thousands of these rare movies and had them transferred to video so that people could relive the good old days of going to the drive-in or grindhouse theater, in their very own home. We have him to thank for introducing fandom to the wonderful world of sexploitation sinema, rescuing it from the dark recesses of forgotten film vaults and defunct movie theatres.
Some of you may know that prior to Something Weird, Mike was involved in the early Seattle punk rock music scene. He was a partner in Modern Productions, the group who started Seattle's seminal rock venue, The Showbox, in 1979. Mike then went on to manage such well-known bands as The Dead Kennedys, TSOL, and Seattle's own The Accused. Mike always seemed to be at the forefront of whatever was happening and cool.
Mike's second greatest passion in life was collecting old comics, vintage toys, movie memorabilia, and pop cultural ephemera. He enjoyed going to the swap meet and always had a magical ability for finding great stuff. But when he wasn't working, collecting, or telling great stories, Mike spent quality time with his beloved family. Mike adored his wife and business partner, Lisa, and two (now young adult) children, Mark and Danielle. These three were the center of his universe, and his reason for getting up each and every morning.
The folks at Something Weird fully intend to keep Mike's incredible legacy intact. Mike may be gone, but his remarkable achievements will live on. One of the happiest days of Mike's life was when legendary David F. Friedman and Dan Sonney called him "the forty-first thief," which to him was the ultimate compliment and recognition for his work. We'd like to think that Mike's now hanging out with his old pals Dave and Dan, reminiscing and talking shop with Dwain Esper, Kroger Babb, Barry Mahon, Joe Sarno, Doris Wishman, Bob Cresse, Dale Berry, Michael Findlay and all the other exploiteers and smut peddlers who've gone to the great grindhouse in the sky.
We will miss Mike with all our hearts. Goodbye dear friend, husband, father, and fearless leader…
-- Lisa Petrucci, Tim Lewis, Kendall Bechtel, Mark Vraney, Danielle Vraney of Something Weird Video

Mike Vraney Memorial Tribute Page on Facebook www.facebook.com/mikevraneymemorial Feel free to write your condolences and let us know how much Mike and Something Weird have meant to you. Or share a memory, picture or story about Mike!

In lieu of flowers, we ask that memorial donations be made in Mike's name to the Lung Cancer Alliance"

JACK J's diabolic grip of the world you live in

...all I have to do is squeeze my hand and you'll suffer, muhahahahaha*
 
Alright, I've got a few ideas for new posts but while I get cracking on those I thought I might just post a list of where you can find me in Cyberspace apart from here on ye olde Lejemorder blog:

Backyard Asia
- the Lejemorder blog is not a film blog as such as many seem to believe but basically a blog about, uh, me, myself and I. However, since my life has always orbited around film and pop culture that's what I write about to a certain degree. On the Backyard Asia blog I "reprint" my posts from here that deal with the more obscure Asian cinema. Backyard Asia is basically for people who don't wanna read me rave about me (do such people really exist?). If you follow the Lejemorder blog you don't really need to check Backyard Asia as well.
 
When the Vietnam War Raged... in the Philippines
- this is my blog dedicated to cheap B movies from the Philippines set in the Vietnam War! It's also the only blog of mine that anybody in the film industry has discovered! Every year I get invites from the Stockholm Film Festival because of this blog, and thru out the years a bunch of old ex-pat actors from the Filipino film industry have gotten in touch with me because I cared about their old films. Some of the films I post about are 100% Filipino productions, while others are co-productions with other countries (often Italy), and finally some are basically foreign films (again, often Italian) shot in the Philippines. I do also write about other crazy Asian war flicks (like for instance the wild Thai film CANNIBAL MERCENARY) but I try and sell off the blog as only dealing with Filipino films. All blog posts on the Vietnam War blog are original posts written for the blog, i.e. not reposts from the Lejemorder blog.

When the Vietnam War Raged... in the Philippines - on facebook (imaginary link)

Komix
- like with Backyard Asia this is a repost blog; I use it to reprint my stuff about comics, both from my English and Danish blog posts here on the Lejemorder.

Psychotronic Broadcasting
- this is the blog companion to my YouTube channel. I figured that whoever follows my YT channel would also want to read a blog about the same stuff but ... nope! It seems youtubers don't read blogs, lol. And so while the channel itself does alright the blog hardly got any traffic. As it is now it just floats aimlessly in Cyberspace like an old abandoned Mir space station. I'm not going to update it but, needless to say, you can still read the old posts.

Psychotronic Broadcasting - on Youtube.

Hmm, I think that's about it. I also co-moderate Cinehound forum and Uncut.dk forum (which now lives its own life separated from Uncut.dk).


You'll find links to my various blogs by clicking the "about me" link on top of the bar on the right.



* NOTE TO SELF: Jack, remember to delete your megalomaniac crap before you post this. People might not be fooled into believing you're not being dead serious!!!

update

I'm in the process of changing the look of the blog but the layout over in the Danish section is giving me a fucking headache so it'll remain closed for a bit. Don't fret, it's only for the time being. :P
Also, so far this is only a crude version of how it's gonna look, there's gonna be some more changes to the main section (i.e. this page).

Spastik Children!!!

There are things that'll bug me even after I rottenly return from my grave to eat your brains.

Like for instance, why did no one release a record by SPASTIK CHILDREN? What kind of insane world do we live in where a SPASTIK CHILDREN record doesn't exist!!! James Hetfield on drums and Cliff Burton on bas, at one point Kirk Hammett was also in the band, and also other well known people from the SF metal scene back then like Paul Baloff and Fred Cotton. They had songs like "Burp" and "Cunt".



PS: the official spelling IS with a k, not a c.

TROLDKARLEN (1999) Anders Østergaard, Denmark/Sweden

How does a film manage to create a shiver down your spine when you've watched it heaps of times already? And how does a bloody documentary film create that feeling? I don't know but that's usually how I feel when I re-watch Anders Østergaard's Danish documentary TROLDKARLEN (aka Trollkarlen) about Jan Johansson. I pull out the movie ever so often and it's always the same, and last night was no exception.

Jan Johansson was a Swedish jazz musician who lived long ago and who died untimely in the late '60s. There's one point in the film where his brother vividly talks about having had dreams about seeing Jan in the Stockholm underground after Jan passed away. In his dreams he meets Jan and says to him, "We thought you had died. Where have you been?" to which Jan explains he's been away to play in Russia. His brother then continues in the doc, "But then I woke up and everything was the same". It gets me every time. So sad.

I highly recommend TROLDKARLEN, even if you're not a fan of old jazz music. The Danish dvd has subs in Danish and English (of the special kind we call Valby-engelsk, argh).

Look into these eyes and tell me you love me

Wauw!!! You know there are songs you hear in your youth and they just stay with you forever - even if you don't listen to them for years on end. For me once such track is GREEN ON RED's awesome "The Drifter" which I first heard via a live recording on a Danish radio station in the early '80s.

I taped it and played the tape over and over again. The song about being a drifter made me dream about leaving the camp (i.e. home) and piss off to faraway lands (which I later did). What I never knew was that the song is actually about... Ted Bundy!! Haha.

Diabolik from Uncut forum (aka Hans-Jørn Reimer) recently sent me the photo you see in the above and said, "recognise him?" and all it took was looking into those eyes. He appears to be reading a book ... but click the scan and you'll see he's looking right at YOU. Creepy beyond belief.




Thanks to Diabolik for the scan.

What you expect - I'll never be (Stay Sick! dance party Vol. 1) - #1

STAY SICK! TURN BLUE!

Here's some crap (or crank) info you don't know about. Sometime in a long gone decade I put out a bootleg record as a soundtrack to my fanzine STAY SICK! (it was a freebee so record labels need not sue. Thanks). The platter was entitled "What you expect - I'll never be", a title both a ref to rockabilly and wild trash film culture - as well as the obvious response to, well, you know! The track list was all awesome stuff from before these times that we squad in that are truly awful pop-culture wise. Hey, I did not eat the cranberries from a dented can! Not much anyway. I'll try and post the ol'e tracks here in days to come (or not. In the words of my friend George Costanza "I'm an enigma" so who knows). Chronological orders are so square so let's kick off with number 10: KILLDOZER doing "Cranberries" from their EP "Burl" (which if I remember correctly they dedicated to a guy called Earl, and then years later they found out he hadn't died at all). I discovered Killdozer via an interview in Moshable fanzine in 1990 when I lived in Baron's Court in London and they were one of my fave bands for so many years. They run their own fb page here somewhere but don't update much. They took their name from a telly flick by the same name which isn't on dvd and that's a bloody shame as it's the coolest killer "car" movie. I mean, a film about a slooow moving demon possessed killer bulldozer, how could that not be cool. There are bootleg dvds out there.

For those who can read it, the original liner notes from the bootleg sleeve:
"Eet af mine favoritbands gennem alle tider. Nu desværre opløst. Totalt psykotiske sange, man skrandgriner bare hele vejen igennem!! Alle numrene er fra EP'en Earl." (det sku' ha' været "Burl")

James dishing it out in 1978

I'm told that crooked ex-KGB agents are working on a time machine somewhere in a secret bunker under the Gulag, and my man behind the old rusty iron curtain tells me it'll be ready soon. I can't wait for them to put it into production. I'm gonna get a five round ticket for 1978 and I'm gonna stay there for five years straight (every time we hit December you'll get thrown back to January) and I'll go to every gig by every NO-WAVE band that ever existed! And I'll get all the records (and buy extra copies and sell them at inflated prices when I get back here). This is JAMES CHANCE & THE CONTORTIONS with "Dish it out" from the fabulous "NO NEW YORK" LP. James is a Wildman so bug off!!!

Lost stock of ONAR FILM's "Turkish Death Wish" dvd found and for sale!!!

From the semi official ONAR FILM facebook page:

"CELLAT"... "THE EXECUTIONER"... LEGANDARY REMAKE OF LEGENDARY "DEATH WISH"... IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST REMAKES OF TURKISH CINE HISTORY... BLOODY, SHOCKING, BRUTAL... AND SOMETIMES IT WAS BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL!

ONAR FILMS' CELLAT WAS OUT OF ORDER FOR LAST ONE YEAR. IT WAS TOTALLY OUT OF STOCK. BUT, WE FOUND SURPRISINGLY 60-65 NEW COPIES LABELED / NUMBERED BY ONAR IN A SMALL DVD SHOP.

NOW, WE START TO SELL THEM AS A GREAT SURPRISE... AND A GREATER SURPRISE: WITH THE SPECIAL SIGNED MINI POSTER OF TURKISH ACTION ACTOR MR. SERDAR GOKHAN (TURKISH ARCHITECT OF THE STORY IN THIS REMAKE).
DON'T MISS THIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY!
FOR ORDERS:
onarfilms.lastfilms@yahoo.com

Onar Film on facebook

Killer toone on a Monday

Don't you just love the moment when a serial killer gets into your car and sings along to "Always on my Mind"?

Needless to say I chose a version that has Karaoke lines in Chinese (next to being an Aussie Londoner by heart I'm also fake Hongkongese).

En Lejemorder Ser Tilbage and Psychotronic Broadcasting presents...

Another of my Dogme style YouTube videos on my Psychotronikc Broadcasting channel; Bad sound, bad filming, bad intro in bad German, and let's not talk about the info provided (i.e. lack of!). But at least the jokes are bad.

Best MATTEI OF THE DEAD ever!

One of my fave YouTubers is Pete aka Mondo Squallido and his channel Mattei of the Dead. He's just so fucking interesting! Pete is this super cool pommy guy who divides his time between the UK and Deutschland. This month he goes against the grain and instead of doing horror film reviews he's reviewing 31 documentary films! How awesome is that. Too fucken right it is!

I'm embedding his review of CORMAN, HOLLYWOOD'S WILD ANGEL here (I've got the vhs, it's not on dvd) and I urge you to check out more videos on his channel. If Pete were an icy pole I'd get a whole box right away from the ice cream parlour. And I say that in a strictly non homo erotic way.


PS: I realise the headline is confusing. It doesn't mean that this video is the best MATTEI OF THE DEAD video but that there are no other MATTEI OF THE DEADs out there as good as t-h-i-s MATTEI OF THE DEAD. lol

Knowing the difference

This song and this video by EELS are just wonderful. It also strikes home with this writer. Oh well. You just gotta make the most of it.