Skint/Alive!!!

Lissen, this goes out to my merry friends who often find me stuff: Please DON'T offer me rare stuff this month!!

I'm flat broke!! Skint!!! Without any dough whatsoever!!!

No, this isn't is question of "I don't have very much so I'm LIKE broke". Fuck no!! Usually I'm one pay-cheque from being on the street and this month my account is IN THE RED!!!

SO DON'T TEMPT ME WITH ANY RARE TAPES!!!

(but you can send me free money and lollies if you want)








PS: From today I have a flag counter so now I can see where everyone is from (only counting from today though, not from the beginning). What it doesn't show is that apparently some of my readers are without a country! Or located in countries without a name!! Haha, at least Google counter shows a number of readers with a blank spot instead of a country name. Bizarre!! Anyway, WAY COOL to see this crappy place has readers from all over the world. Not least from places I didn't even know existed let alone knew its location of. Nice to see you all! Well, most of you anyway. LOL.

Mordets Melodi (1943)

I've watched this Danish Bodil Ipsen directed horror/crime movie twice during the last two days and I almost wanna watch it again. It's a crime against all humanity that this film isn't released anywhere other than as a non English friendly Danish DVD. Anyway, for those of you who can enjoy it this shiny disc contains a beautiful crisp clear restored print (other Scandinavians might like to know it does have Danish subtitles).

The IMDb lists the English title as "Murder Melody" but I have no idea if that's the correct English title or a title translated by some Danish baboon who thought he'd provide an English title.

[click scan for bigger size]

AWE off the radar - update

I finally spoke to Another World Entertainment main man Jan Schmidt and it seems both he and Kenneth Eriksen were on holiday when their website, including blog and email, went down. Too bad. Good news is they have a spiffy new site:

Spiffy new site link.

It doesn't explain why Mr. Eriksen didn't state on his eStore front that's he's off for a lengthy holiday. If I were a customer who unexpectedly had to wait bucket loads of extra time without any warning I'd probably not be a happy customer, haha.

Anyhoo, do check out Messrs Schmidt and Eriksen's new site, as I said it's pretty cool. And I'm sure they would love it if you bought some stuff too. It's recession time folks and I for one wouldn't want an über-cool video company like AWE to bite the dust so please help them stay in the business. According to Pete Tombs (in posts over on Cinehound) Mondo Macabro aren't doing too well either and without these little companies that put out COOL stuff what would we have left. Would the bigger companies really put out weird little niche titles? Chip in a few dollars extra, buddy. Today. I'm not asking you! Don't make me come round to you house and sit on you!

Anyway, on to more important issues: Even though their link page doesn't include this here site (altho I barrack for their releases) on the other hand they do have a link for ONFILM.DK and that's obviously good! (altho those people know close to nothing about cult films and almost always trash AWE's releases). There's also a link to the cool EIGA.DK site and yay that's good too (altho that site hasn't been updated the past three years, haha).

Take my advise fellas and get yerself a link to Søren Jacobsen's very cool SKRÆK & RÆDSEL blog. He writes positively about your releases and he KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK HE'S TALKING ABOUT! No crappy NOFILM.DK (sorry, ONfilm.dk) "reviews" (and I use the term loosely) from his camp.

"...there's a blacksmith who knows a little about medicine..."

VHS/UK/fullscreen/English dub/no subs
(click scan for bigger size)

This afternoon I watched LION MAN (aka Kiliç Aslan) and it's without a doubt one of the most entertaining Cüneyt Arkin films I've seen! This really needs a DVD release that's for damn sure!! LOL. Oh, and don't get fooled by this "Steve" Arkin, haha. It is indeed good ol' Cüneyt Arkin. Actually, the last of his movies I watched, KARA MURAT SEYH GAFFAR'A KARSI (aka Der Rächer des Khan) had him credited as yet something else, "George" Arkin I think, haha.

The version I got hold of is an NTSC video tape that was released in the US back in 1983 - so obviously it's totally obscure and difficult to get hold of these days. But try and see if you can get a copy somewhere, it's totally worth it. The tape is dubbed into English and fullscreen. LION MAN was also released in Canada and the UK but needless to say those tapes are just as difficult to find.

The plot is like this; We're back in the days of the Byzantine Empire. The proud Turks have been overrun by nasty and cruel Christian crusaders. Yes, that's right! In this film the Christians (which are easily recognised by their big crosses on their chests) are bloodthirsty savages and the proud Turks are the heroes.

VHS/US/fullscreen/English dub/no subs

When you're someone who's born and raised on bloody Hollywood movies this is quite different. But never the less very entertaining and makes perfectly sense in my book. Just like you always root for the Chinese hero against the nasty Gwailos in a HK movie no matter how white you are. LOL.

Anyhoo, the Turkish emperor is killed by slimy Europeans (probably French people, or ze Englisch) but somehow his wife escapes and isn't killed until their son is stolen by a lion! (I didn't know they actually had lions in Turkey, lol, but maybe they did in the old days).

Anyway, much confusion later and the introduction of a dark-haired fair maiden (the same babatious chick who's name escapes me but who was also in THE BOY WHO KNEW TOO MUCH aka LITTLE EYEWITNES), and eventually the lion-boy becomes a mix of Robin Hood/Tarzan/Barry Prima (haha).

VHS/France/fullscreen/French dub
(click scan for proper size)

This is really entertaining cinema if I ever say any. Totally! And the film is quite gory too! The only down-point is the ANNOYING orchestral elevator music score! But I can live with that and I plan on watching this again. You should do the same. Apparently, the dubbed print is slightly different to the Turkish version (don't worry it's not cut) I haven't watched it but reportedly it's nothing serious.

By the way, the Turkish title for LION MAN is indeed Kiliç Aslan. Don't believe this "ASLAN ADAM" that the bloody IMDb will tell you! I have my info from this worlds biggest expert on Turkish cult cinema Ayman Kole (an Australian of Turkish descent).

PS: The headline is a quotation of some of the rad dialogue! I mean you have this scene where Cüneyt Arkin's character is truly and severely fucked up and some guy suggests they go to the blacksmith of the nearest village cos he knows a little about medicine, hahaha.

Thanks to Gokay of Ciko for the UK scan. Much appreciated!

Added French VHS scan (5/8/09): I love how the characters on the front cover look nothing like in the film, LOL. Thanks to Lurker of Cinehound forum for the French scan.