Back in the day, in the longlongago, before man created the dvd player and the cell phone, we didn't have too many movie magazines around. Or at least not in my neck of the world anyway. And less magazines dealing with "alternative" films. Nowadays, of course, you can't turn on your computer without being bombarded with new flashy, exiting and hot (or so they claim) movie eMagazines. And movie forums. And movie data bases. They are everywhere. Cool. Yeah, well, no not cool! Most of them range from being not very good to utter shite. The forums are inhabited by "experts" who know very little but distribute a lot (a lot of faulty info that is!) or they're more conserned with slagging off other forum members. Or you take 50 film sites at random and they all repeat the same screwed up info (rumours often) that some schmuck listed on IMDb as facts. Actually, I read something on a film site yesterday where someone referred to the IMDb as a very reliable source! Yeah right, take away the 50% of the UNreliable info and you've got a fairly reliable site!
And then you have all the sites that are mere adverts for video companies, people who are just happy getting stuff for free and out the window goes any objectivity they might have had to begin with. Uhhh, better not criticise this release too harshly or we probably won't get any more free copies. Well, I'm sick of all these useless (or semi useless) film sites and I'll tell you what I'm also sick of: all those film sites that DO write well about movies but don't venture into territories beyond this month's big dvd releases. Just like the 6 trillion other sites. But at least they took out time to write well researched reviews. Great big fucken deal when we've already read about those movies a zillion times.
So tell us some'ing we don't know guv I hear you cry out oh you wee ones and yes I will; Lo and behold, a couple of weeks ago I was scouring the Net in search of a new big Hollywood blockbuster called BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL (I kill me) and in my doing so I stumbled over this review site called "Bleeding Skull"! And, mein gott, it's a blessing in disguise! It doesn't look "flashy" (thank god!) and there's no ads jumping into your face like a creep from ALIEN, and there's no stoooopid videos going off left and right to make slow Internet up-links (like mine) take a zillion years to load the page!! This is like a one man army against BORING film sites. Against BAD review sites.
Joseph A. Ziemba's "Bleeding Skull" is a very enjoyable place to spend your afternoon. His site concerns itself with horror and psychotronic films from the 50s and thru to the 80s (it's VERY refreshing that he doesn't go beyond the 80s. Actually, the 80s seem to be alien land to him). His writings are funny, compelling, and well written. Did I mention they're funny. One thing that sometimes annoys me is when reviewers write long ESSAYS on films. You want to read a review and you get a piece that might as well have served as the script for the fucking film! Not so Ziemba's reviews. They are short but not too short, and long enough to contain what needs to be said. Oh, and he's funny too.
"Bleeding Skull" has two other writers but most of the stuff is done by Ziemba himself. A slightly odd (but cool) feature is that the review section is divided onto two; one for films on dvd and one for vhs. There's also a section with longer pieces (of the kind we often refer to as "articles", haha) and some pretty cool interviews, among others one with Herschell Gordon Lewis!! Good on ya, Mr Ziemba!! Oh, oh, and there's a Nathan Schiff interview! I'm not exaggerating when I say "Bleeding Skull" has quickly become my fave review eZine along with Fred Adelman's "Critical Condition"! I urge you to read it.
You can find "Bleeding Skull" here. You'll need a lot of coffee, there's a lot to chew into.
