ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011) Joe Cornish, UK

Man, just wot ah needed! On the second day at my dad's his new wifey is already driving me nuts so tons of gore, violence, and bad attitude came in ALRIGHT! And all that and more is provided full-on by ATTACK THE BLOCK. Yay! Some nasty aliens land in a shitty part of London and for some reason they try and take on an even shittier block of flats. Bad idea: nasty teenagers live there. LMFAO.

I bought the 2-disc UK DVD and actually the extras are pretty cool for once.


PS: if anybody from fb is checking this blog; I couldn't be arsed with fb over Xmas and probably won't even check in till next year or something. Too many whiney cunts and their brown-nosing mates on there to deal with when it's fucking Christmas, haha.
- Oh, merry fucken Xmas by the way. Hope you got some good grub!

STAKE LAND (2010) Jim Mickle, USA

I've just finished watching STAKE LAND for the fifth time since I bought it on DVD in 2011! It's such an amazing film. I'll even use the word "wonderful" which is a term one can use much too seldom about new cinema. But STAKE LAND is a truly wonderful movie. The tone of the film is extraordinarily brilliant the whole way thru. There aren't that many movies that I've watched five times over a period of a year and a half!

STAKE LAND is a vampire movie but most teenagers who're weaned on good looking romantic vampires are going to get pretty disappointed with this movie. The vampires are NASTY and their clothes and faces are dirty with dried-up and caked old blood. And the same goes for the main characters. The story is basically two men's journey thru an America that doesn't exist any longer. A land that is no longer a country. Religious fanatics, crooks, cannibals (rumoured but not actually seen), and what else you'd expect in a territory with no law - it's all there. Oh, and vampires too.

STAKE LAND is definitely one of the best horror films I've seen the last couple of years. And the music is perfect for setting the tone. A tone of detachment and not belonging (two words that basically means the same to coin an old Damon Foster phrase from "Oriental Cinema"). Fortunately, there was no retarded producer who somehow felt it would be a grand idea to add a hip-hop track. Not even over the end-credits. Yay! Thanks. I usually never buy soundtrack CD's but this one I had to own! My DVD version is a reg. 1 2-disc release. Disc #2 has heaps of extras, obviously, but I'm not sure you need half of it. There are a bunch of "what happened to the characters prior to the storyline of the film" type videos and quite frankly, shit like that annoys me. They're almost "fan videos" or has the feel of paperbacks in the old days that were churned out to cash in on TV series like Star Trek or McCloud.

There are two commentary tracks, both feature the director and both have a ton of other people jabbering on about the film (sigh). I'll happily listen to an audio track by a director but when everybody from the guy who made coffee on the set to whoever made sure they had loo paper (I'm exaggerating to make a point here) I kinda lose interest. But forget about that shit, the film is what you definitely should watch if you haven't already.

STAKE LAND is highly recommended. And while you're at it you'll need to order another marvellous "the United States has ceased to exist and two guys try to make it thru the land to get to some other place" kind of film; THE ROAD (which I reviewed here). There aren't any vampires but it's every bit as awesome as STAKE LAND.

Screen grabs from the lost* LEWD LIZARD

*basically

The above subtitle line basically sums up what the film is about!


Here are screen grabs from maybe the sleaziest HK horror film!! LEWD LIZARD!!! It's not hard getting hold of a 4'th or 5'th generation dupe from a trader, a bootlegger, or a torrent site. However, I have just got hold of a fantastic looking DVD-R off a 1'st generation vhs dupe!! I believe it's the best copy there is anywhere!!! Well, "beautiful" compared to the washed-out 5'th generation dupes that is. The only release that ever existed in this world on home cinema format is a VHS in the US. I got my DVD-R from a collector who rented the tape many years ago. He made a VHS copy (i.e. a dupe) off the original tape and put his dupe in a box and forgot about it. It wasn't till last year when I made an online search for the film (after having got hold of two different WASHED-OUT 4-5'th generation dupes!) that he remembered his tape. Needless to say he couldn't find it and I've been bugging him about it for a full year. He finally found it and made the DVD-R that you seen screen grabs from here. If you read this, buddy, then: THANKS!!!

LEWD LIZARD (1985 - I think!) is the story about this guy, David, who goes overseas to study. His girlfriend says she'll wait for him and promises to marry him on his return. But after four years of studying he returns to an unpleasant piece of news; His girlfriend has married a local two-bit crook. David starts to hate women - and to cut to the chase as this isn't a proper review - he steals a handful of women's knickers and teaches venomous lizards to smell the women's "love juice" after which they get a "taste" for it. He proceeds to attack women he especially hates, sets the lizards lose on them and, well, you figure it out! Yes, the lizards sniff their way to the women's "love channels", slip in, the women write and moan in brief orgasms after which they die. LEWD LIZARD is so uber-sleazy I don't remember having seen anything remotely similar. It's a masterpiece in degradation. It's a crime to humanity (or horror fans anyway) that this isn't released in a proper version. The world needs to see this. The tape is dubbed in Mandarin, the picture is fullscreen, and the English subtitles are falling below the screen in three quarters of the film. And in the last quarter where you CAN see the subs they are cut off left and right, hahaha. But it doesn't matter much as the plot is almost as cartoon thin as a Turkish cult film from the 70s (and I'm not saying that in a critical way AT ALL).

Screen grabs from the lost* THE BRAIN STEALERS

*almost

Check Todd's cool review of the equally cool THE BRAIN STREALERS here. I watched it last night and it rocks!

High Fidelity (Stephen Frears, USA, 2000)

I made the mistake of actually trying to sleep thru the night and woke up at 2:30 (what was I thinking!! Night creatures don't sleep at night). Ate a pack of 3-minute noodles, a tin of tuna, drank lots of coffee, and went to the "Cupboard of Long Ignored Ex-rental Video Tapes" and pulled out the tape on top (almost) which happened to be HIGH FIDELITY. Cool film but that guy is a whiny bitch! He's got a (Danish) gf, a huuuge record collection, a nice apartment, and owns a record shop ... and yet the entire film has him complaining all the way thru??? And what's with Iben Hjejle?? She succeeds in getting what all Euro-trash actors want, a big role in a Hollywood movie (that actually happens to become a hit!) and she's offered more roles in Hollywood and what does she do? She says, "Nah, I'd rather pop back to Denmark and star in little shitty Danish films". Wauw. Awesome career move there, Iben!! :P

PS: the above shouldn't lead you to believe I don't like the film (altho I can see why you might, LOL) because I do quite like it and have watched it before (years ago and not on ex-rental tape but on TV (I think the TV version was even lbx. The tape is fs).

Gnaw - Food of the Goods II (Damian Lee, Canada/1989)

One of the films that I received in Kurt's box the other day is GNAW: FOOD OF THE GODS II. It's also out on DVD but the DVD cover looks like ass, and the VHS cover is hyper awesome if you ask me. I watched the film this afternoon and it was great fun. It's not a comedy but it's not all that serious either. The convoluted plot: Something goes wrong in a lab and mega huge nasty lab rats run amuck and cause terror and mayhem. There's boobs too. And splatter. You need to own this film! The Danish VHS is open matte so we are entertained by microphones in the top part of the fame. And in one scene when a lab professor starts to foam and goo splatters out of his face you can clearly see the tubes at the bottom of the screen where the blood and goo is pumped in. Haha. Highly entertaining and definitely recommended.

Kurt uploaded the scene where you see the tube (and some FX's guy's hand) going up the scientist's lab coat (left bottom corner of the screen at around 1m58s into the clip. And actually you can also see the tubes here in the thumbnail).



trailer:

"Jack J receives box in the mail and cuts off friendship with Member-x in Finland"

I haven't done any videos lately cos they're too crappy but here's one I did yesterday morning. The thing is I had received a box of video tapes from Member-x (aka Kurt Nyfors) of CINEHOUND forum and... it required a video comment. [insert facepalm smiley here]

Happy Friday the 14th. Here's THE SCREAMERS!

The above is a totally rad and rare video by the forgotten/unknown/never recorded band THE SCREAMERS. I wrote about them here.

Another crazy dream.

I’m in the kitchen of the house where I grew up (and where my dad still lives). The kitchen looks like in the old days and I’m in the front of the fridge with a thermometer in my hand trying to figure out where to put it: in the fridge or on top of it? There’s already one in the fridge so I decide on putting it on top of the fridge (which would have been impossible in real life as there was no space on top of the fridge) but before I get that far my dad enters the kitchen. He’s about to go to bed but just wants to tell me that if I plan on putting the thermometer in the street in front of the mailbox maybe it’s not such a good idea as it was very icy this morning, and three men already slipped and fell there. So I tell him not to worry I’ll put it on top of the fridge. Then he says he’ll go to bed and I say the same although I plan on going to the lounge room to watch TV. He goes to bed, I turn the lights in the hallway out and quietly walk to the lounge room and as I pass my parents’ bedroom I can hear my mum asking if I’m going to bed and my dad saying he doesn’t know and maybe I’ll go and watch TV. He knew. So I get to the lounge room, close the door, turn the lights on and discover that my mum is lying on one of the couches with a blanket over her. Hmm, how odd, I’ve just heard her in the bedroom. So I wonder whether she might be the ghost of my real mum. Not that the mum in the bedroom isn’t my real mum, but still, in a way she isn’t since she’s dementia stricken and much of her real self is gone. I’m thinking maybe the mum on the sofa is my real pre-dementia mum. So I call out to her but there’s no response. I touch her arm and finally she wakes up. I repeat “mum” but get no response. So I get an idea; what if I take her to the bedroom and she meets my dementia stricken mum. Maybe their shock of seeing the other version of themselves will somehow merge them and the result will be a non-dementia stricken mum. So I ask her to get up and we walk to the bedroom. But the lights are already on and my dad is changing the bed sheets. Maybe mum had an accident. So I realise the mum from the lounge room isn’t a ghost mum but just my ordinary dementia stricken mum. My mum begins to criticise my dad for changing the sheets again. He doesn’t complain, he was so good in those days although it was hard work living with an ill woman. I decide to go back to the lounge room and watch TV. The end, I wake up.
In real life my mum passed away three years ago. For five years we saw her drift into an awful state. My dad isn’t the big strong guy he was then either. He’s ill too now although it’s another nasty disease, the ugly C. Life’s a bitch and then you die. When I woke up my apartment was stuffy and too hot so I opened a window to get fresh air. The phone ran. “Oh bummer”, I thought, “Maybe it’s the people from the Job Centre”. It was my dad. “Hey, they’ve got cheap Ali coffee at Bilka’s!”

Scanner Cop (Pierre David, Canada/1994)

Two weeks ago I talked about having bought SCANNER COP 2 and now I've finally got hold of the first film, not surprisingly entitled SCANNER COP. It's not actually the real first film as it's a (kinda) sequel to the first three SCANNERS films. Anyhoo, remember how I said SCANNER COP 2 was great? Well, this one was even better! Resonator (aka Chris Ho) of Cinehound forum told me they were better than the real SCANNERS sequels and I can only agree on that. Both SCANNER COP 1 and 2 are full of action and gory violence and mayhem and shit. There's no head explosion in SCANNER COP but I'm sure you'll survive this one entry without. LOL. I bought the Danish DVD which has absolutely no extras that are connected to the film itself. There are a handful of trailers for other films - and that's it! The Danish subtitles are fucked up as they're totally out of sync (the other Scandinavian subs are fine). Fullscreen picture. Highly recommended.

Check this awesome cover for the French DVD release:

trailer:

...but how will I ever find these wonderful tapes again???

I dreamt I was on a bus and the bus driver suddenly went into the back of the bus to speak to some passengers. I noticed we were about to drive into a ditch and went and stopped the bus. And told the driver off. Then I woke up and went for a glass of water. Once back on the other side I found myself in another vehicle, this time my dad's car and we were just about to go onto the freeway but coming up to it I noticed a petrol station and suggested we go in. The attendant offered us æbleskiver and I went into the back and found a huge rack of ex-rental video tapes. Half of them were old porn tapes but there were some very obscure films as well that I'd never seen before. I began piling them up on the floor. They were 10 kroner each and I had 400 kroner. I didn't want my dad to see the porn tapes so I asked him to go get me a bottle of water from the car. I began piling again. Just before waking up I had tapes for 300 kr. and it had become a problem. The attendant wasn't there, he was probably stuffing æbleskiver in his face, there were too many tapes to carry and I couldn't leave them as there were other customers and paranoid me was worried they'd grab them if I left. I wanted a trolley but couldn't find one. Ohh, the horror. Then I woke up again. Damn dreams!

Flesh Feast (Brad F. Grinter, USA/1970)

Just finished watching FLESH FEAST (1970). The 15-20 minutes of maggots, corpses and Hitler are fun. The remaining 50 minutes are the longest 50 minutes of any film. Ever! Michael Weldon called it "tedious". I tend to agree. The cover of my Greek vhs is awesome tho. Actually better than the movie itself. LOL. It was Veronica Lake's last film. She was a film noir star in the 40s and I bet she would have regretted making the film had she known this was going to be her last. I bought the tape from Bill Barounis (RIP) four years ago and paid 10 bucks for it. Best line: "I had notsching to do vith it. It vas Eichmann und Göring!"

Paul Naschy's last werewolf movie: Unwatched, unwanted, unreleased

Here's the trailer for the Brazilian horror movie WEREWOLF IN THE AMAZON (Um Lobisomem na Amazônia) starring PAUL NASCHY as the wolfman - for the very last time. The film is from 2005 and apart from a very few screenings at film festivals it remains unwatched and unreleased. The film was shot in Portuguese but Naschy speaks Spanish. There's a trailer on YouTube and altho I'm sure we'll see a release somewhere down the road nobody knows how long we'll have to wait.

ARTE Film Festival: MAMMUTH

The French/German TV channel ARTE TV screened the French movie MAMMUTH last night as part of their annual film festival and while I found the film to be extremely funny I must admit I didn't see the two-guys-jerk-each-other-off scene coming; It's not the scene as such but the fact that it stars Gérard Depardieu!! (and some old guy). It was slightly unsettling, haha.

Anyhoo, as I said the film was really funny. It's about this guy who retires from work but he hasn't got enough money so he decides to travel thru the country (France) in order to seek out his old employers and ask for his old worksheets so he can get a higher pension (or some such, I'm not familiar with the French system). The film is basically a road movie. Very funny. Very weird. Very different from other road movies I've seen.

The ARTE screening was presented by Isabella Rosellini who also introduced the other two festival films that were screened last night, SINGULARIDADES DE UMA RAPARIGA LOURA and TOURNÉE. SINGULARIDADES was directed by Manoel de Oliveira who was born in 1908 and made the film when he was 100 years old! I believe he's still alive.

Trailer:


Unfortunately, I couldn't find an English friendly trailer so here's a German dubbed one. There are French, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese friendly ones on YouTube if you prefer any of those.

EDIT: Like so many other trailers this one got deleted from YouTube, but fortunately I found another one right away. This one is even subbed in English and it was uploaded to YT in 2011. I see I posted my original post in 2012 (ten years ago!!!), so how come I didn't find it back then but had to resort to a German trailer I have no idea. But here it is anyway. And I've downloaded it as well just to make sure in case they delete this one as well! (14.06.2022)

Scanner Cop 2

I watched SCANNER COP 2 a couple of night ago and had a whale of a time (plus I ate some tuna while at it, haha). SCANNER COP 1 & 2 are kinda official sequels to SCANNERS 1-3, and in some markets they're apparently even released as Scanners 4 & 5. I still haven't bought SCANNER COP 1 but I've seen the sequels to Cronenberg's original film and, altho it's been a good number of years since I saw them, I remember them as being kinda lame compared to the first film.

This one, however, was pretty cool and certainly great fun. I'm told the first one (i.e. the first SC) is equally entertaining. Basically there's an evil scanner out to get our scanner cop hero and in the process he snuffs a bunch of other scanners in the most gory ways (and no, don't worry, we don't get cheated of a head explosion!). There's also a pretty chick but no nudity (but I don't think there ever was in any of the SCANNERS if I remember correctly).

SCANNER COP is out of DVD in Denmark and a few other places, and SCANNER COP 2 is released on DVD in Germany, Thailand and Canada. I bought the Canadian DVD from a store in Quebec via Amazon Canada. It has one of those double sided covers where you can choose between text in French and English. The DVD has absolutely zilch extras. For some reason they recorded the film twice on the DVD, one version in English and one in French. And I do mean they included the film twice! In other words, you can't switch between the two audio tracks while watching the film, you'll have to stop, go to the menu, and start again. Very strange.

And even stranger is the fact that while they used the original NTSC print for the English version they used a PAL master for the French version!? This means the French version finishes about four minutes quicker than the English version (i.e. because the print runs faster, there's nothing missing). Go figure. o_O

trailer:




Thanks for the info on the SC 2 releases to Member-X and Joachim Andersson.

"I come in peace"

- "You go in pieces"



I've just heard that SHOUT FACTORY are releasing DARK ANGEL (aka I COME IN PEACE) next year and that it'll have a commentary track by fave B movie star DOLPH LUNDGREN (certainly a fave on this here blog). Awesome piece of news!

Gentlemen, we have called you together to inform you we are going to overthrow the United States' government.

From MINISTRY's excellent album "Rio Grande Blood".

Is that flesh in your bag, Cronie?

Here's a photo of David Cronenberg visiting the Criterion video label a couple of months back and needless to say fans are now wondering what he was doing there. Are Criterion working on upgraded blu-ray releases of their old DEAD RINGERS and CRASH releases maybe? Or did he just want a Criterion bag?? Personally, I think he just went in to borrow taxi fare as he forgot he only had Canadian dollars in his pocket. LOL.

Btw, talking of CRASH; check this out! My new US laserdisc release of that much beloved film!! Well, most beloved by ME anyway. A lot of fans seem to think Cronenberg went over the line in perversity with this films but I beg to differ! It's one of my favourites of his films. I already have the Danish VHS and the UK DVD. Unfortunately, this old and way out of print laserdisc is the only proper release there is. It's presented in Cronenberg's preferred format of 1.66:1 (the DVD's and video tapes are either 1.85:1 or fullscreen) and as the only release it has a commentary track by Cronenberg. There's also a making of which may not be on any DVD's either but I'm not sure about that.

Month of Halloween - horror film #9: THE NEST

Yeah, Halloween lasts another week in this house!!

I've just watched THE NEST for the first time and totally loved it. One of the most fun killer insect flicks I've seen for a long time. And very cool old-skool gore too!! I watched the old New Concorde dvd which is fullscreen and looks alright, however I've just discovered there's gonna be a bluray/dvd from Shout next year! Can we get a Woo-woo!!

In the extras department there's three trailers and a cool 12 page booklet. Unfortunately, the trailer for the film is nowhere to be found despite it being listed on the cover.

It's hard being a conservative

Iggy not being very conservative while doing "I'm a conservative" in 1981.


As I reported here I bought CD re-releases of three old IGGY POP LP's recently and I've been playing them ever since. Don't get me wrong, I love THE STOOGES but these early 80s records are pretty fucken cool too. In the first post I posted a live version of "I'm a Conservative". I've later discovered that the entire gig is up on YouTube in a brilliant picture quality (good enough for fullscreen viewing). The concert from November 25, 1981 was originally released on a TARGET VIDEO vhs in 1986. Watch it in all it's full mini-skirt & stockings glory here.

Funnel me this, Batman

So in my dream last night I’m trying to watch an old western on a new big tv but the picture is blurry so I try and adjust but nothing works. The good thing is that it’s a big screen and I can see the tv removes the black bars on the screen (in the dream it’s a video tape I’m trying to watch, obviously). After a while the tv screen is as big as a cinema screen and covers the entire wall. I get a great idea, why not tune the tv so I can actually watch tv programmes. So I start tuning but now I realise I ought to blow-dry the screen as that’s surely gonna help get rid of the blurry picture. I pull out a very weird blow-dryer with a kind of funnel at the end. I look into the funnel and see old food in there. Bummer, what if my dad sees I haven’t even cleaned it, he’ll think I’m crappy at living on my own. So I start digging old potatoes out of the funnel but suddenly I notice something else is in there: There’s a young caveman standing looking at the wall of the funnel (I’m now inside the funnel!) and then... zapp... he’s no longer standing but sitting on some big rocks that are also in there and next to him is a real Neanderthal man. This is too good to miss so I pull out my camera. “Stay there don’t move” I say and start taking photos of them. Suddenly something from behind grabs my attention and I turn around. The funnel entrance is now gone and there’s an open forest footpath and a naked young woman walks past. She's sporting a Brazilian wax and I’m wondering how I know that as I only see her from the side and behind. And with this bewilderment in my head I wake up. I have... no idea what it means.


My buddy Steve Nyland sent me this scan as a suggestion to what my dream was about. LOL.

Month of Halloween - horror film #8: GHOST SHIP

Uhh, I'm kinda way behind if I wanna make it just CLOSE to 31 films, haha. Actually, I HAVE watched more than the 8 but I just haven't bothered to write about them. Oh well, maybe later. I watched GHOST SHIP a couple nights ago. I thought the first half was good but the second half was, well it's not so much that it wasn't good but it just wasn't a good horror movie! The second half was an okay action movie but it ought to have been more of a horror flick than what it turned out to be. I mean I felt it was almost a Terminator kinda film. That ghost guy even fucken LOOKED like the bad terminator from TERMINATOR 2! I got the reg. 1 DVD from Amazon UK at one penny and it has a cool hologram cover. Unfortunately the film had been changed to fullscreen (they even made a point out of pointing that out on both the cover and on the DVD!). The extras were okay. The film was okay, good enough to watch again but not to upgrade to a better DVD. ^_^

TAXI HUNTER (Herman Yau, Hong Kong, 1993)

HERMAN YAU made the awesome horror flicks EBOLA SYNDROME and UNTOLD STORY that both star ANTHONY WONG. For some reason not a whole lot of fans of those films have watched TAXI HUNTER even tho that film is ALSO directed by Herman Yau and it ALSO stars Anthony Wong as a maniac on the loose. It's a pity cos it's a really good film. Gore fans who are only watching these films for the nasty scenes but don't give a fuck about characters or plot probably won't like TAXI HUNTER all that much as it's not as extreme and sick as the other two. But I'd recommend that everyone else watch it. I own it on HK video-cd and Malay DVD. The rest of you might find it a lot easier to just pick up the reg. 1 DVD (LOL). Here's the trailer:

Oh, Iggy

Everybody talks about THE STOOGES and people forget the many good years IGGY had in-between. "I'm a Conservative" is an awesome track from his "Soldier" LP from the early 80s. The studio version is the top video and here's a brilliant live version of the same track. You'll be excused for wondering if he's really a conservative. That's is until three minutes into the video and you discover he's wearing nothing but women's underpants.



I bought "Soldier" and two other early IGGY POP LP's in a cool and cheap CD box set recently. The cool thing is not least that as far as I can tell it's not been remastered and thus doesn't suffer from the "loudness war" effect. The set is simply entitled "Original Album Classics" and the other two albums are "New Values" and "Party".

The trouble with violent Italian cities in the 1970s (if your video tape screws up that is)

What a fershtunkener afternoon! Arr marone!!! I was gonna watch two poliziesco films of the finest calibre, VIOLENT NAPLES and VIOLENT ROME, both starring Italy's own Dirty Harry, Maurizio Merli. I'd pulled out the uncut, English dubbed, letterboxed Danish video tapes (released as "Helvedes Forgård" and "Rottereden"). I've got my coffee, I've got my lollies (which some of you call candy or sweets), I've got the blinds down, and I've got the phone off the hook. Perfect. Now, what I don't need is for the first tape to say, "Grrrrrrreeee". I try and fastforward and it sounds like one of those grindgore bands that some of you listen to. Major worry. So I try it on the other VCR. Same result. And now the tape won't even rewind. So I try the first VCR again. Now it rewinds but won't play at all.
I try 5 times. Same result. So I try it on the second VCR again, now the tape plays... and stops again after 10 seconds. I try 10 times. Same result. Major bummer. I consider to just skip it and watch the other film - but no, I'm like a spoilt brat now I W-A-N-T to watch that film. I'm about to have a hissy fit. I'm about to yell and throw things at the wall. So I do what I always do in those situations; have another cup of coffee and think rationally about the problematic situation! At this point I'm thinking I might as well skip the film viewing and try and repair the tape. I open the tape case and discover one teeny weeny little piece of plastic has come undone. I put it back and close the cassette again (which takes me 15-20 minutes cos those damn things are always a pest). Finally I put the screws back in, put the tape in the VCR, and it works like a charm. My gawd, it took like an hour to fix that tape. Anyhoo, fortunately the tape wasn't damaged and the picture is crisp clear and looks awesome. Brilliant! Halfway thru VIOLENT ROME I fall asleep. >_< (i.e. during the second film and only because I'd been awake for 24 hours, certainly not because the film is boring cos none of them are!)

Diabolik's upload of the Danish trailer for VIOLENT ROME.

GATOR BAIT finally on DVD soon!

Very good news indeed! The two GATOR BAIT films are finally gonna get released on DVD!!! They're cool "woman takes revenge" films set in swamp land. I tracked them both down years ago on NTSC VHS and was surprised they weren't on DVD (I've later got hold of #1 on a Danish ex-rental as well). Thanks to Bruce Holecheck for the info!! The films were directed and produced by the couple Beverly and Ferd Sebastian, and they're also behind the upcoming DVD releases on Panama Films. Hopefully that means they'll be using proper prints. The DVD's are listed on Amazon here and here.

Pulp!

I ordered a couple of books! :D

The cover for "Dig me a Grave" is awesome! It's a pity book publishing houses make shit covers nowadays (well, most of them anyway). "Grave" and "The Evil Star" are written by "John Spain" who was in reality CLEVE F. ADAMS. The "Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers" book calls him, "The missing link between Dashiell Hammett and James Ellroy"! Most of his books haven't been reprinted since the 1950s.

Random DVD from the pile

I got "Shock Cinema" #42 recently. It has an interview with BO HOPKINS. The article says one of his best films is THE NICKEL RIDE (underrated gangster film from 1974). I read the review and thought, "Man, I wish I had THE NICKEL RIDE!". Two days later I pull out a random DVD from my box of unwatched films (around 100 DVD's), I look at it and it's THE NICKEL RIDE!! Haha. I bought it 6 months ago on a hunch, "From Shout Factory, hmm, could be good". It turned out it was! JASON MILLER, the priest from THE EXORCIST, is also in it.

Read more about the release on DVDBeaver here.

"You may want to look away"

Check out these two trailers, they're both awesome! I haven't seen either of the films but I've got NIGHTMARE on Code Red's DVD, and I'll certainly check if CANNIBAL GIRLS is out on a proper (or even not so proper) DVD.

EDIT: CANNIBAL GIRLS is out on DVD from both Shout! Factory in the US and Nucleus Films in the UK. They both seem to carry the same extras except the UK disc has additional subtitles.

Month of Halloween - horror film #6/7: THE OMEN & THE EXORCIST

Apologies to international readers but this entry is on the "Dutch" part of this blog.

There's something wrong with you! Something missing someplace somewhere! Sometimes you just ain't all there!

I'm sure I'd complain about the lack of SCREAMIN' JAY HAWKINS records on the radio ... if I actually listened to the radio. ^_^

A new HITCHCOCK movie

Here's the trailer for the upcoming film about ALFRED HITCHCOCK. Maybe it'll suck, maybe it'll be great, but in any case hopefully it'll get Alfred back into the limelight. Cinemas ought to run his films again, and why not; they're better than most of the drek in cinemas today. I read somewhere that new film fans don't even watch Hitchcock films anymore which is, needless to say, a great pity. They ought to. Everybody ought to. Hell, I think I'll go a watch one now!

Baby Woodrose - "Dandelion"

Hmm, for some reason I haven't posted any cool music for a while so here's BABY WOODROSE's "Dandelion" from their latest LP.

Month of Halloween horror - film #5: DAY OF THE ANIMALS

I found DAY OF THE ANIMALS (aka "Dyrene hævner") on Danish ex-rental VHS at last week's Bloody Weekend festival in Copenhagen. The fullscreen release from Warner is quite rare (I've never seen a copy before) so I grabbed it right away. The guy asked $17 for it which could have got me the DVD but, hey, the VHS is more collectable!!

The plot is something we've seen before, our feathered/furry/fourlegged friends have finally had it with humanity and decide to do something about it. And all this while a group of city-slickers decide to go for an extended walk in the mountains. Chaos, death and bloody carnage follow. And funny guy Leslie Nielsen gets less funny when he kills a young guy with a spear and sets out to rape the dead guy's girlfriend. Oh, AND SEE HIM WRESTLE A BEAR!!

Like I said we've seen it all before but DAY OF THE ANIMALS is well made and entertaining. Good performances all round, even the kids are good. Having said that, there was one dog that couldn't act his way out of a beer bottle. Christ, he was bad! But, hey, I forgive him, he probably had a bad day on the set.

Scandinavians ought to check out the release from AWE.

Jack J's fave HK movies on "A Hero Never Dies" blog!

Yes, it's true. I was handed an invite to that exclusive Hong Kong film den entitled A HERO NEVER DIES. Every celeb in the HK film blog world is there with their Top 10 - and so am I (needless to say in grand tradition with my ol'e self I was later than late and it's only thanks to Mr Heroneverdies that I actually made it in before the doors shut. LMAO). For my list go here and click the label at the bottom of the post to see everyone else's lists.

Halloween horror film #4: Guided tour in the PSYCHO house by Alfred Hitchcock

This isn't a review but simply a very cool teaser trailer for Hitchock's PSYCHO from 1960. The cool thing about it that it's a little film on its own - and it's presented by Alfred himself! That's not something you see anymore. Nowadays teaser trailers are simply slightly shorter versions of the trailers. It's been many years since I watched PSYCHO the last time but I really ought to re-watch it soon.

Month of Halloween - horror film #3: SACRIFICE (Breck Eisner, USA, 2008)

Episode from FEAR ITSELF - season 1 (aka MASTERS OF HORROR season 3)



Last night, it had become too late for a real feature length movie but I still wanted to watch something in the field of horror so I pulled out the FEAR ITSELF set (which has been collecting dust on my shelf for about two years or so!!) and decided on BRECK EISNER's SACRIFICE (ultimately because I had read a comment that Fred Adelman made about the CRAZIES remake on his site where he said the film was really good and I figured I might as well give this one a shot then. See, it all hangs together in this universe, LOL). I notice on the box (the Skeleton box mind you!) that it said it was by the same director. It was a no-brainer, if Fred said the remake was really good I didn't need to consider the other episodes. And I'm glad I went with SACRIFICE because, well, it was a great one!

A bunch of crooks are stranded in the middle of a snowy nowhere. Their car is fucked and so is one of the guys who's been shot (or some such. An explanation is given but it's probably bogus). It's never explained what's happened prior to the film's start. They discover some buildings in the distance and start walking there. Thru the snow, thru the hostile (yet beautiful Canadian) landscape. Once they get there they find out it's actually an old fort which is only inhabited by three young women. Well, that is until they find out there's someone else there that the fair maidens aren't telling them about. Then blood, killing, hanging upside down, a bed that isn't very comfy, nasty breath, an ugly mug, and mucho sexy (yet scary) Rachel Miner!

I loved this episode and already wanna watch it again. The approx 45 minute running time means all the fat and unnecessary chewy bits are cut off the bone and we're left with an intense and tight wee horror film. So far I've only watched one other episode from this season (I count it as the third season as it's really the sequel to the MASTERS OF HORROR series that was retitled because it was broadcast by a different network. The complete season is out on DVD in the UK but I decided to get the reg. 1 release as it looks pretty fucken cool. xD
Highly recommended.

PS: I couldn't find a trailer for this specific episode so I've posted the preview trailer for the series. Almost all of the first 30 seconds are from SACRIFICE plus there's some footage towards the end.




NB: I've reviewed previous episodes here.

Month of Halloween - horror film #2: INFESTATION (Kyle Rankin, USA, 2009)

As the second film in my Halloween month series I watched INFESTATION last night and, incidentally, just like the first film, CLOVERFIELD, it was a film about nasty creatures that attack humans. These ones didn't come from outer space but from the dirt we step on. And somehow they got much bigger. It's never explained why or how that happened. The film is part killer bug feature, part comedy but fortunately the comedic part never takes over and the film never becomes a straight-out comedy.

I'm not gonna waste time on a plot description ... Ay? You want one?? Alright-alright, here's the convoluted plot: People are attacked by bugs, main character guy and friends try and get from one place to another in order to escape bugs and survive. Main character guy tries to hook up with brunette babe. Blonde chick shows tits. Main character guy and friends are attacked by more bugs. Brunette chick is kidnapped by bugs. Bugs have HC sex with blonde chick (I wish!). Black guy turns into half man/half bug. Explosions. Dialogue in Spanish. Emotional drama between main character guy and dad. Will they survive? Will the bugs survive? And will the brunette hook up with the main character guy or with the leader of the bugs?

No real gore but lots of blown-to-pieces bugs. Whatshisface from TWIN PEAKS is in there too. Fun flick that I'd watch again. I bought the Danish DVD second hand from Blockbuster. It had ZILCH extras.
Recommended.

Month of Halloween - horror film #1: CLOVERFIELD (Matt Reeves, USA, 2008)

Today is two things; My birthday (not something you look forward to once you're old enough to have friends half your age!!) and the first day of October, i.e. Halloween month! I went to celebrate the day at my dad's place, I was in a hurry and forgot to bring a film, but on the way out of my flat I emptied my mailbox and there was ONE parcel for me; a DVD I'd bought second-hand from Amazon UK for the whooping price of 30 shiny pennies!!! And the copy I received looks brand new. Niice!

I didn't know anything about the film other than it was a kinda post-apocalypse film - or some such (yes-yes, I know it's a well known big-ass film and everybody else has seen it four years ago - but remember: It may be 2012 out here but in my house it's still 1985!!). The story line; A group of friends are having a going away party for one of their friends who's moving to Japan. One of them is given a camera to document the night so that the poor sod who's going to Japan has something to remember his friends by.

The whole party segment of the film goes on forever and you kinda forget you're watching a horror film but, uh, I guess it's what's called characterisation - with today's bombardment of films that include expensive CGI effects and HOLLOW story lines and ZERO time spent on getting to know the characters' background you kinda get totally alienated to the whole concept of CHARACTERISATION! I'm not even kidding (very much).

Anyhoo, at some point New York is suddenly attacked by something. I must admit it looked familiar to something we've seen on TV ... but this is a piece of fiction and it's got no roots in the real past. I'm not gonna reveal what happens cos that would be too much of a spoiler ... arrh what the hell, we're talking creature feature here! Not Godzilla, not big ants, not a blob, but, well, something else!

Before watching the film I had a feeling it might turn out to be a kinda okay'ish film but actually now that I've actually watched it I think it was really good. Not the best film I've ever seen, and I wouldn't give it five stars out of five as Søren Hardy Rasmussen did in his Uncut.dk review, but I was pretty good entertained! I think I'm more inclined to agree with Caspar Vang ("DVD check" next to the review on the same page) who gave it three stars and called it "pretty entertaining without breaking any new ground or being inventive").

The UK DVD has a commentary track and some onscreen production info. That's it! Not even a fucken trailer! But the print is great and there are English and Scandinavian subs. And at 30 pence I can hardly complain.
Recommended.

"Slimetime" - by Steven Puchalski (1996)

I've ordered Steven Puchalski's SLIMETIME (which is a collection of reviews from his old zine by the same name). Needless to say Puchalski later started publishing his renowned zine SHOCK CINEMA. I've known about the book for years and years but you can't have everything at once so that's why it's taken me this long to finally get onto it. And of course it's OOP now. LOL.

This is the first edition from 1996. Amazon also has the reprint from 2002 but I thought this cover was better! I ordered a second-hand copy at £4.99. Unfortunately, Amazon is inconsistent with the page number info in reg. to the reprint. I checked with Amazon.com that says it has only under 30 extra pages but now I've just seen Amazon UK lists almost twice as many pages as the first edition has. Hmm, still a better cover!! (but I'll probably end up getting the reprint as well then).

Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, USA 1945)

I watched DETOUR last night. It's regarded as one of the best film noir movies and yeah I must admit it was really good. Basically it's a roadmovie about this guy who's down on his luck. At the start of the film all he has got is a suitcase, 10 bucks, and a girlfriend in another town. And it never gets that good again. So, with aforementioned 10 bucks in his pocket he decides to hitch-hike to the other end of the USA to hook up with his girlfriend. He gets a ride from a friendly guy. He offs the guy accidentally. Gets paranoid. Steals the guy's car, clothes, dough, driver's licence. Ditches the dead body. Drives off. Decides to ditch the car too - but before he gets a chance to do so he comes across a skirt. Trouble obviously. From then on his luck really "goes into the fucken toilet" to quote a James Ellroy line from that old Austrian documentary film DEMON DOG OF AMERICAN CRIME FICTION (1993, not '98 as listed on the eternally shitty IMDb).

DETOUR is great and I already wanna watch it again. Its short running time of around 70 minutes leaves you with a lean piece of film steak. No fat. No chewy bits. No boring moments. And all this even tho the film was shot in only 7 days and on a very small budget. MARTIN SCORSESE talks about it in the 4½ hour BBC documentary A PERSONAL JOURNEY WITH MARTIN SCORSESE THROUGH AMERICAN MOVIES (1995).

The DVD I got is from Image Entertainment and altho it's barebone it's probably the best release there is. The cover states it taken directly from a 35mm print and it certainly looks alright. There's a bit of scratches around reel edges but nothing that'll make you scratch your eyes out of their sockets. Not unless you're one of those format fans (in contradiction to FILM fans) that populate many a film message board. According to dvdcompare.net the French DVD has a documentary film about Ulmer, EDGAR G ULMER: THE MAN OFF SCREEN, but the print (of DETOUR) is shitty. I got the Image Entertainment DVD as I wanted the better print. And besides, the doc has its own release anyway so I'll probably order that one at some point.

DETOUR was remade in 1992 by Wade Williams but I can only find ONE release on VHS in the States and that tape is more difficult to get hold of than to get laid at a dike slumber party. I'll been trawling Cyberspace for months on end and I can't find it anywhere! Not even from the usual bootleggers or at iOffer!! Anyhoo, I highly recommend the original film!

PS: There's a bit of a bizarre twist to the story but it contains a SPOILER; in the film the main character, played by TOM NEAL, accidentally kills a woman. In real life Neal did the same 20 years later. He accidentally shot his wife in the back of the head and was sentenced to 10 years in jail (he got out after 6). He was originally tried for murder.

And how's this for weirdness; in the remake from 1992 it's his real life son, TOM NEAL JR., who plays the same character as his dad did in the original.

update

I have finally updated my post about Fred Adelman.

Poster found for mythical CANNIBAL MERCENARY sequel

EMPLOY FOR DIE 2 - THAI POSTER

Finally a bit of a breakthrough!! Not the video-cd I've been trying to hunt down for the past 2 years but the Thai poster for the film!!! I found it on eBay and scooped it up right away. This is the mythical sequel to CANNIBAL MERCENARY aka THE MERCENARY aka EMPLOY FOR DIE. One of the rarest fun and trashy war video nasties from Asia (i.e. Thailand). It seems nobody has this sequel!! As far as I know it's only ever been released on a Thai VCD. This poster reveals three gwailo names that aren't mentioned on the VCD cover (which I have a mere scan of from a Thai film site): Black Direct, Williams Summer, Audrey Laurie (if I'm reading them right that is).

The first CANNIBAL MERCENARY is only released uncut on VHS in the States (a very rare tape by now). There's a German DVD but I'd stay away from that if I were you. The Germans licensed the Hong Kong version that has been given the Tomas Tang treatment, i.e. they cut out a lot of gore and dialogue scenes, and added crappy new footage of Westerners and changed the dialogue. Screw the German DVD and get a bootleg DVD-R of the US tape instead! The original VHS is close to impossible to find nowadays. I had to pay thru the nose to get my own copy.

DEMONEN DER NACHT - finally being released on DVD!

My... gawd!! I have somehow completely overlooked the brilliant piece of news that the American branch of RARO (Italy) is going to release NIGHT OF THE DEVILS (aka La Notte dei Diavoli) on DVD and blu-ray in a few days!!!

A few of us oldtimers in the field of horror film collecting know the film as Demonen der nacht as that's the title of the old uncut Dutch VHS but regardless of whatever title is used this is certainly splendid news!!!

NIGHT OF THE DEVILS has never been released on DVD before and the old VHS releases are all few and far between. The film is directed by Giorgio Ferroni and it's based on the same story as Mario Bava's BLACK SABBATH.

The DVD is going to carry both the Italian and English dubs, and it'll have subs in English and German. Oh, and restored print too! NIGHT OF THE DEVILS is the best film you'll ever see! So see it!!

For more info go to RARO US's site here and go here for Richard Schmidt's (from dvdmaniacs aka Richard of DM) great review.






The Dutch cover isn't from my own tape but from Horror CK's blog. Cheers, mate.

The People Who Own the Dark (Spain, 1976)

I finally watched León Klimovsky's THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK last night. I'd kept off buying the Code Red DVD till the very last minute and, like, 7 seconds after I clicked the "buy now" button the DVD was sold out. Right on time I'd say. Som på et kussehår, haha. A group of upper-class deadbeats have gone to the countryside to revel in a weekend of sexual depravity and pigsty behaviour. But before anyone can say oink a nuclear bomb of some sort goes off and everyone else is hit by the blast - but not our main characters as they were oinking around in the basement.

Too bad for the survivors the people hit by nuclear blast weren't killed like in the old days but are blinded and become revengeful killer zombies. Or some such. When I watched the film I remember thinking, "Hmm, this being a Spanish horror movie I bet it's gonna end in a bad way". I wasn't disappointed. Read Fred's review here if you must know more.

trailer:


If you've bought into the whole grindhouse style thang you're gonna love Code Red's print as it's an old beat up 35mm print which is scratched beyond belief. Heaps of frames are missing everywhere. The audio track is hissing away. An entire bird shooting scene is missing at the beginning. It's easy to know what's missing as Bill Olsen was so nice as to include the old NTSC VHS version in the extras (not just a few scenes mind you but the entire film).

The VHS version looks good enough to watch (I plan on watching that version at the re-visit), the picture is fullscreen (the 35mm presentation is letterboxed) but the tape master was sourced from an unscratched print. There's no other extras apart from a few trailers. No Spanish audio, only the English dub. Highly recommended.

EDIT: How could I forget to mention El Hombre Lobo, Paul Naschy, is in the film as well!!

Insidious (USA, 2010)

I bought the horror movie INSIDIOUS on DVD a while ago but ever since I mentioned the purchase to my friend Metin Vardar he's kept bugging me to watch it cos "it's really good, dude". So altho it was down at the bottom of the DVD pile I thought I'd watch it just to get him off my back. Haha. And, yes, I agree it's pretty good! INSIDIOUS is a haunted house movie - kinda without being a haunted house movie (because "it's not the house that's haunted").

Just HOW MUCH can you do with haunted house moves that hasn't been done to death? Well, if you do it right you do it right in which case it does get creepy. And I reckon INSIDIOUS (directed and produced by Aussies) was pretty creepy. No, it's not up there with THE EXORCIST but then again nothing is - not in my book anyway. I got the UK DVD which has decent extras (at least there's no 10 fucking 25 second interview bits which I hate to death! Which everybody and his mum hates to death!!). Recommended.

Best ever cover on a night before FRIDAY THE 14TH!!

MOTÖRHEAD doing "Breaking the Law" (originally by JUDAS PRIEST)

"When Lemmy does a cover of your song - it's not your song anymore" - as someone said on YouTube. Yeah!! (and about 6000 times better than that dreadful cover by Doro Pesch).

"The RKO Story" - by Richard B. Jewell with Vernon Harbin

Octopus Books (UK), first edition (1982), hardcover, A3, 324 pp

I received this today. It's huge as a motherfucker! Almost 2 kilos. It's got 324 pages and contains descriptions of every film ever made at RKO! According to the cover info that's 1051 films! RKO made lots of horror films. The book was published in 1982 and it's not one you get for a few bucks. I paid £20 + postage for this second-hand copy from Amazon UK (cover in fair condition, pages look mint).

Legendary MERCYFUL FATE drummer in the local paper

Yep, that's him: KIM RUZZ (in the white shirt) the legendary original drummer of MERCYFUL FATE!!! He was featured in the local Danish paper UGENYT yesterday!! The other guys are members of his new band METALRUZZ (haha).

My scan of the picture is pretty crappy and the version in the online edition of the newspaper is much better. Go here (it should take you directly to the page but if it doesn't it's on page 30).

The journalist wrote about Kim's new band, about his (bad) childhood, and that he had "played metal music before". Mercyful Fate wasn't mentioned one single time, hahahahaha. That's like close to being the biggest fuck up of a scoop that I've ever seen!!!!!

Like, MERCYFUL FATE fans in the entire world have tried to find out what became of KIM RUZZ and then when he's finally covered by the mainstream press instead of publishing a double-spread on this original drummer from this cult band they just state he's played metal music before. I'm scratching my head in disbelief here!!! The worst part is they probably don't even fucking realise what a scoop they had on their hands.

A lot of MERCYFUL FATE fans stil think Kim is a mailman but he quit that job a long time ago. Now he's an unemployment consultant of some kind. And last year he was unemployed. We did the same unemployment course for three weeks, haha. A big secret for many years was his real name but you can see it in the notes to the picure, Kim Thyge Jensen.

Here's a picture of him and Lemmy from 1984:

And here's an old MERCYFUL FATE live video. The quality isn't very good and there are better ones on YouTube but I've chosen this one as there's good close-ups of Kim.




And finally a photo of Kim that I copied from Photobucket. Probably from a live video:

"Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers" - by Lee Server (2002)

I got this way cool book a couple days ago. It's a 384 page encyclopaedia that contains over 200 writers - the kind of writers who festered in the world of quickly written, quickly disposed of, and quickly forgotten fiction. Yes, the pulp fiction writers (of course many of them have since then been rediscovered and received their fame). Some of them I knew already and many I didn't (don't). The pieces on each writer are well written and interesting so it's not just a book for looking up specific authors; You can start from one end and work your way thru to the other end. It's a good read. I've already started. ^_^

I got the book from Amazon UK and altho it was a second-hand copy it was in absolute mint condition. Maybe it was a gift to someone who didn't care for it and put it away right away. I paid £2.74 for it!! That's 4 dollars 40!! The postage was more than the book. LOL. If you want a copy you might like to know there's also a hardcore edition (but the cover is a lot less cool than this one!).

Someone (I think it was in the customers' section on Amazon) mentioned the book was good when it came out but now it's made redundant by the internet now. What a lot of bollox! 75% of all information on the internet is written by morons who don't know shit, and it's practically worthless drivel. Nah, I'll take a book over fucken Wiki any day.