Here's the trailers. So pretty please, with sugar on top, release the fucken DVD's!

The other day I mentioned that SHOUT! FACTORY might not release the three announced Filipino films SAVAGE (Cirio H. Santiago), THE WOMAN HUNT (Eddie Romero) and THE HOT BOX (Joe Viola) after all. So I thought I might as well post trailers for all three of them and that way at least you'll be able to see what you (possibly) aren't going to have! Well, "aren't going to" on good looking legit DVD from SHOUT that is. Needless to say all three films are available on video tape and crappy bootleg and PD DVD.







Big thanks go out to Diabolik for two of the tapes, a dvd-r of the third, and for uploading one of these trailers!!!!!

Sports, boo!! Films, yay!!

(click the scan for full size)

This cool photo was posted on the Facebook page LONDONIST today. And obviously we (that's a royal we obviously) agree completely around here. ^_^

PS: Notice the film they're showing. LOL.





Disclaimer: the above photo isn't mine blah blah blah, please don't sue me I'm fucking skint anyway.

Previously announced Filipino titles from SHOUT! FACTORY may or may not get released

In the past I've mentioned that SHOUT! FACTORY had announced they were going to release three Filipino/USA co-productions on DVD. The films are SAVAGE, THE HOT BOX and WOMAN HUNT. However, lately it has been speculated that these films may have been cancelled as it's reportedly been announced that SHOUT!'s Roger Corman line will soon be coming to an end.

I've been looking forward to DVD releases of these three films (I already own them all on VHS) and didn't wish to neither take mere rumours as facts - nor be content with being in the dark. So I got in touch with Cliff Mac of SHOUT! and asked him about it.

I guess his reply could have been more optimistic - but then again it could also have been more pessimistic!! He simply doesn't know if they are going to release these three films! In the email that I received he says all three films need new transfers and that those are expensive. He also mentioned that the titles probably won't sell an awful lot - so (reading between the lines) the question is will SHOUT! want to pour money into some old Filipino films (that don't have a selling point like a Pam Grier in them)!?

If SHOUT! decide to put them out - and Cliff stressed if - we won't see them this year.

So, that's the info I have on SAVAGE, THE HOT BOX and WOMAN HUNT as it is right now. I'm certainly crossing my fingers that we'll see DVD releases of the films at some stage.

Definitely amongst the ten

A Hero Never Dies asked me to take part in his upcoming TOP 10 of favourite Hong Kong films (and thanks for the offer!). I first encountered the Hong kong film via the old UK fanzine IN THE FLESH when I lived in London in the late 80s. Editor Steve C. was among the very first to dig up those unknown treasures via tape-trading (and you still owe me for a full subscription, Steve C.!!!). And later on Jonathan Ross did an edition of his The Incredibly Strange Film Show devoted to HK cinema. I watched and re-watched that episode over and over again. Shortly after a number of the films started turning up on Channel 4. I think I still have some of those tapes with ad snippets in them. LOL.

So, almost 25 years as a HK movie fan, what do you choose as your favourites??? I thought it would be a piece of cake, just take the 10 most loved ones from the early days! But, usch, 10 quickly turned into 20 and there's more popping up like there's no stopping them. Too many faves!!

But one film that sits firmly placed in the back of my mind and has done so ever since that first viewing via a 3rd generation video dupe from UK TV is ROUGE. This is ANITA MUI's film. And Leslie Cheung's. It's a ghost movie about loss but in contradiction to, for instance, A CHINESE GHOST STORY it's not full-on ghost fighting at breakneck speed. And there's no scenes set in the realm of death. It's a quiet and sad love story about a woman who should have died but didn't and thus have to go from one eternity to the next in search for the love she lost.

It's a gripping, sad, wonderful, and awesome film. And the main actors' reality isn't any less sad; A few years after the film was finished Leslie Cheung killed himself (he couldn't stand getting older) and soon after Anita Mui died from Cancer. She was just over 40. Both were big film and pop stars in HK and in the Chinese markets. Anita Mui had a big audience in Canada (many Chinese live in Canada).

So that's ONE down. Now I just gotta settle on the remaining 9. @_@


I posted the cover for my VHS here. Unfortunately, it's been reported (on ADG) that the most recent HK DVD has the top and bottom chopped off. The old HK DVD and the VHS uses the original picture format.

Looking smug

Gee whiz!! Today this place reached 100 subscribers! Who shoudda thunk that!!! For the longest time the count number has been steady at 98 but then yesterday Brian Harris of Wildside Cinema subbed and today one Onkel Tydefar (lol) turned the dial to 100. Cheers mate. I ought to give him a prize but on his blog I see he's just been on a fantastic trip to the US so that'll do. LOL.

Sure, one hundred isn't all that much in Cyberspace but for an underground blog it's pretty cool. Hmm, can you even be "underground" in Cyberspace or is it just "unknown", haha. And needless to say, I might have 5 subscribers cancelling their sub tomorrow but, hey, it's 100 right now!


Not surprisingly, the Dell cover comes courtesy of Member-X in Finland.

When the milk goes off in the morning evil is lurking near by

Hmm, but then again I'm not Amish and maybe my milk is off cos my good friend The Fridge died today. So sad. He was here ever since I moved in. And I probably won't get a replacement until next week. Argh! I can already hear the maggots eating their way thru my now rotting food in the 25 degrees (Celsius) hot fridge. How long does it take for meat to go off?? Or cheese?? Or my frikadeller from Fakta?? The Milk is probably already chunky (and I'm still not Amish, maybe I should see if a flame can't burn in this house or if a horse would perspire - but where would I get a horse!? Or even get it to the third floor?). I guess I'll have to eat dry food from now on. Fun week ahead. But then again that would give me an excuse to order a take-away pizza every day.

KARATECILER INSTANDBUL'DA - trailer (international edit)

The trailer for the English dubbed version of KARATECILER INSTANDBUL'DA!! This is the international version which has about 15 minutes of new scenes from Hong Kong. I don't know if they are from another film or were shot especially for the international version. The English title is NINJA KILLER. This version is released on a UK DVD which is available from Amazon UK (it's very cheap, I paid 1 penny for mine!). There are VHS versions all over the place (it's on VHS in Denmark). The German version is the same edit as the Turkish one, i.e. no extra scenes. The entire Turkish version is on YouTube (not subbed). The film stars CUNEYT ARKIN and BOLO YEUNG is also in it (but only in the new footage).

Thanks to Hans-Jørn for uploading the trailer.

THE TROLL HUNTER (André Øvredal, Norway, 2010)

I watched the Norwegian TROLDJÆGEREN (or "Trolljegeren" - why do they have to misspell everything in Norway!) and I thought it was really good. The first 15 minutes or so reminded me of a bad ripoff of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT but as soon as they're in those woods we're off to a wild ride. Highly recommended. The Scandinavian DVD has quite of bit of cool behind the scenes footage but oddly enough there's no trailer. The UK DVD seems to have the same extras and a trailer. I got the DVD from the Fona2000 webshop where it's 50 kr.

NB: the drunk monkeys at IMDb just don't seem to get much right; No, the English title for the movie isn't "Trollhunter" but The Troll Hunter.

Oh Nina

My cousin and I were big NINA HAGEN fans in 1980 and all thru the 80s. She was the queen of punk. She came from East Germany but she was too wild for the authorities so THEY KICKED HER OUT OF EAST GERMANY!!! How's that! Haha. Everybody else had the roughest time trying to climb that wall. Nina was shown the door. O_O

Check this live recording from ROCKPALAST (from West German TV, 1978), it's pretty fucken awesome!

PSYCHO - poster

Check this cool poster for Hitchcock's PSYCHO. It's from a Yugoslavian re-release in the 80s. I can't figure out if that really is Janet Leigh or a lookalike model they used for the poster. But a very cool poster never the less.

New edition of MUCHAS GRACIAS SEÑOR LOBO finally on its way

The new re-print and expanded volume of the book "MUCHAS GRACIAS SEÑOR LOBO" is finally on its way!! This is certainly great news. I discovered the old edition years ago but at the time it was already way out of print and I never found a second-hand copy. Well, lo and behold, a newsletter dropped thru my digital letterbox this morning; The new book is up for pre-order from the editor/publisher. He's also behind the cool fanzine CREEPY IMAGES which I've written about before. He's located in Deutschland but no need to worry, the book will be English friendly! (i.e. it'll have dual German and English text).

Here's some scans and info text that were posted on the CREEPY IMAGES site. I've already pre-ordered a copy as I so do not want to lose out on it again (and there's a discount). You can also pre-order from Diabolik.com in the US but they have listed the book at 57 euros ($70) whereas the German publisher charges 35 euros. Even with the added postage it'll be cheaper for Americans to order from Europe!

Go to the website here and for more and bigger scans go here (it's a pdf file). The book isn't printed yet and the info text mentions they haven't proof read it yet which is probably a good thing (in "contents" I noticed it says, "The coloful world...", haha).

From CREEPY IMAGES website:

MUCHAS GRACIAS SEÑOR LOBO deals with the advertising material from the movie of one of the true icons of (European) horror movies: Paul Naschy and contains the largest collection of posters, lobby cards and other promotional items from his movies ever published.


MUCHAS GRACIAS SEÑOR LOBO focuses on Paul Naschy‘s horror movies of the late 1960s until the 1980s. 30 movies of this period will be featured in form of seperated chapters in the main part of the book while advertising material from his non-horror-movies and his newer films will be compiled in an additional chapter.


Besides high quality reproduction of movie posters, lobby cards and other memorabilia items, the book contains details insight into the distribution history of the movies and we are sure that some facts will even surprise the most dedicated fans of the Spanish Lon Chaney.


Important facts:

Limited hardcover edition
approx. 370 pages, completely in color, measuring 21 x 29,7 cm
(approx. 8.3 x 11.7 inches)
more than 1.200 pictures, including more than 160 movie posters, almost 750 lobby cards, over 100 press stills, a large part of which have never been published yet, more than 100 reproductions of admats, rare sales material that was only handed out to distribution companies and much more from more than 20 different countries.
Introduction by Paul Naschy‘s son
Sergio Molina
Complete Text in German and English
Besides the countless images the book also contains detailed information about distribution history of the movies
It took more than 18 years to put together the collection that serves as a basis for this book


Pre-order now!

The official streetprice will be 39,50 Euro, but until September 25th 2012 you can pre-order the book for only 34,50 Euros.

Everybody who pre-orders the book will get a small, but nice gift that is only available during the pre-order period.

I now own a VIDEO-CD player and you don't. ^_^

- and there's really no reason why you should own a VCD player, haha. Now that you can play VCD's (i.e. video-cd's) on most new DVD players it kinda renders the VCD player void. There's no reason to own one, at least not in the West. In some territories in Asia and Turkey it may still be an option for low income people. Films on VCD are definitely much cheaper but the picture quality is also equally crappy (unfortunately, a lot of HK films are only released on VCD, not DVD).

So why did I buy one? Because of the novelty of it! I've bought VCD's for years on end but I've never actually seen a real video-cd player before. I was a VCD virgin! And so when I found this player second-hand at an indoor market I knew I had to have it - if the price was right. I offered the man the equivalent of 8 bucks US and he went for it.

The player seems to be in working order (it turns on and I've tested it with a CD but I haven't had it collected to a TV set yet). The brand name is Sunny and I'm told it's a Turkish brand. There are many Turks in the area where I bought it and I would assume it probably came from an immigrant family. They still use the VCD format in Turkey.

A couple of days earlier I also bought two second-hand Panasonic Superdrive VCR's but they're certainly not just for the novelty but for BACK-UP! LOL. They were also $8 each and both have perfect playback.

The postie was here...

In today's mail:
FLÆNSET (Danish splatter movie), EEN GANG STRØMER (TV series sequel to the movie SKYTTEN aka The Marksman), FEARMAKERS Vol. 2 & 3 (these vhs boxes contain the complete 13 part series. The dvd release is omits 3 episodes and is edited. Vol. 1 hasn't arrived yet), SALVAGE (second hand but mint condition. It was $1.50), THE SAINT (awesome complete box sets of the colour series from the 60s. Vol. 3 contains the two films), THE SEVERED ARM/SO SAD ABOUT GLORIA (the dvd from Code Red that was pulled back right after release!!). And finally, THE TELEVISION FRIGHT FILMS OF THE 1970S book!! ($64 from Bookdepository in London incl. pp).

If you're in Denmark and you're into cool British TV series from the 60s you might wanna pick up the SAINT sets from Fona2000 in Copenhagen. They're only 50 kr. ($8) each, and Vol. 1 & 2 contain the complete Colour series from the 60s. I bought them thru mail order and the postage fee is only 30 kr. I also got EEN GANG STRØMER (40 kr.) and FLÆNSET (50 kr.) in the same order.

Amish? No, Mennonite!

I watched Steve Miner's WARLOCK from 1989 last night for the first time in at least 15 years. Actually, I don't think I've watched it since sometime in the mid 90s. Back then it was on a fullscreen video tape and last night it was... also on a fullscreen video tape. Haha. As far as I know the only letterboxed version is the UK DVD. Anyhoo, I watched the film and liked it much better this time around! I think the "problem" back in the old day was that everything that wasn't gory was scourned upon. Well, at least by hardcore splatter movie fans like myself. Joachim Andersson mentioned something similar to me a few days ago and he's right. Often we didn't like films if they lacked in the fake blood and dismembered latex limbs department!

Well, I still love me a good gallon of the red gooey substance but I'm happy to say I can also appreciate a good well-acted story! And WARLOCK is definitely really good and I'm gonna order the DVD! And just HOW OFTEN do you get to hear the line, "Over my rotting corpse!" NOT OFTEN ENOUGH!! But you hear it in WARLOCK. There were some sequels of which I've only seen one and hated it. I should probably give it another chance. The main character is played by Richard E. Grant who was also in the English cult flick WITHNAIL AND I which I've watched many many times over the past twenty years. Lori Singer is his female sidekick and I remember her from the forgotten (but cool) TV series "Fame" (I taped them all on Betamax, haha). Highly recommended.

Friday the 13th

Needless to say Friday the 13th is a religious holiday to horror movie fans and much like at Halloween horror movie watching is mandatory. Last night I watched MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981) which, incidentally, is set on Saturday the 14th. ^_^

Thou shalt not... break the Motion Picture Production Code

(click scan for full size)

Check this truly awesome still that was printed in an issue of LIFE MAGAZINE sometime in the late 1930s as a response to the film censorship regulations in the USA called the Motion Picture Production Code aka the Hays Production Code which came into effect in 1934 and lasted until 1968. Like the Comics Code it was created to ensure that films didn't have a negative or demoralising effect on its viewer.

In the still are listed the basic "Don'ts" described in the code - and if you check the picture every one of them is broken! I would looove this as a poster. I've seen one on an auction site (thanks for the link, Jay) but it was sold in 2008 and I haven't been able to find any others.

John Waters and a fag

John Waters is the coolest person alive.

No severed arm for you! Now go to your room!

Am I the last person in the world who's gonna get CODE RED's new double DVD release of THE SEVERED ARM / SO SAD ABOUT GLORIA (aka Visions of Evil)?? Hmm, maybe. I've ordered it, I've paid for it, and I'm hoping to receive it soon. The DVD was released recently and pulled back almost immediately. The reason? The cover promises an uncut release. Unfortunately, what the good people at Code Red didn't know is that the British print they used was indeed a cut print!

Apparently, not cut for violence mind you (all the gore is reportedly still in the film) but dialogue etc. is cut simply to make the film shorter (???). Code Red pulled the DVD off their website and have announced they're gonna chuck out their remaining stock - and they won't be re-releasing an uncut version.

I must admit I'm puzzled over this decision not least as it means you won't be able to get hold of the other film on the disc, SO SAD ABOUT GLORIA (but who knows, maybe they'll re-release that one later). (and check BLEEDING SKULL's review here)

If I were head of Code Red I would simply choose to sell the DVD as a direct sell only release with an info note on the website about the print's cut status. Members at DVDMANIACS who have already received the disc say the print looks great. SEVERED ARM has only been released once in its uncut form, on VHS in the US from Video Gems in 1981.

I got the video scans from BE KIND, REWIND where you can read more about the VHS release.

PS: if you need to see the Maria Kanelli cover in a much bigger size to, uh, read the text then click a couple time and you'll get it in mega size.

A maid, a chainsaw, zombies...

I've just watched this awesome stop-motion short film, CHAINSAW MAID, and what can I say other than it's more fun than an open casket funeral! It's really good!! (and since everyone suffers from short term attention span on the internet I should point out the whole film only runs 6 minutes so you won't have to waste your whole afternoon on it. LOL).

And turn up the sound when you watch it, the music is fucking great too!

Thanks to Mette Trier for making me aware of the film.

Worthy of its own fan club

Somebody should launch a fan club only to worship this single one SCREAMIN' JAY HAWKINS tv clip!!! The SOUND, the SKULL, the SMOKE, the VOICE, the LYRICS, the HAND (!!!), THE INSANITY. Man, they oughtta force kids in schools to watch this!!!

New horror movies (post 2000)

About a year ago I copied two lists of films from DVDMANIACS forum. The original forum threads were similar in that members were posting horror movies that they really like and that are new. "New" meaning films made after 2000. I'm never up-to-date cos I spend my time watching so many old films, worldweird films, films that are simply not horror, AND WHAT HAVE YOU! But we're in 2012 so it's time to try and catch up!! Haha. So without much checking for quality I'm simply gonna try and get hold of these movies in the coming months. Like I said, I'm not gonna read up on any of them so I'm bound to post about flicks that you think are the worst crap ever. But, hey, I wanna make up my own mind about this stuff.

Out of the four films I ordered this morning I paid LESS than a pound for 3 of them (each). Yes, they're second hand but I tried to get copies that had specific descriptions describing them as being in a close to mint condition. Sometimes you're lucky and sometimes the seller in question sends you shite. That's the name of the game when you buy used stuff.

The old list of "new" horror movies is here. If you know of new good horror films I ought to check out feel free to make a suggestion in the comments section. Cheers.

I see a darkness

Here's a pretty cool fan video for JOHNNY CASH's cover version of "I see a Darkness".

The Supernaturals (USA, 1986)

I received THE SUPERNATURALS on video from the US yesterday. I didn't empty the mailbox till very late and I was pretty tired but since I hadn't had anything to eat I thought I'd grab a bite and watch the beginning of the movie before turning in. I didn't know anything about the film other than I'd seen the cool Greek video cover and knew it was a low-budget zombie film and that it wasn't released on DVD. That alone spurred my interest enough to make a bid on the Greek tape, and when I stumbled over the NTSC tape on eBay I thought what the hell, the US tape might very well have a better picture quality. Greek tapes can look fine but often they equal watching a television programme from an outskirt TV station while someone on the roof is holding the aerial trying to pick up the weak signal. From foggy to more foggy. I still don't know what my Greek tape looks like as it's still located at the Church Moors in Finland but the US tape looks pretty good. Sharp picture and the tape has only minor traces of being worn.

Incisive plot description:
The film starts off during the civil war in the United States in the 1860s. It's towards the end of the war and a group of soldiers from the North have caught a bunch of soldiers from the south. They force them to walk over a mine field. Some stuff happen. And then we switch to the present (well, the present of the 1980s anyway) and a group of recruits arrive to the very same forest where the beginning took place a hundred years earlier. And then... cut to the chase... they're attacked by civil war zombies!

I thought THE SUPERNATURALS was great and I was entertained all the way thru. As I said at least enough entertained to finish it altho I was really tired and only planned on watching 10 minutes before going to bed! It's low-budget but it's well filmed and the actors are good. The dialogue wasn't corny (altho there's nothing wrong with corny dialogue of course). There's at least one STAR TREK actor in there and a brief cameo from one of the Gibb brothers (apparently. I don't know shit about that band but that's what I read anyway). The zombies look great. Not like your regular George A. Romero or Lucio Fulci zombies but more like skeleton zombies. There's no gore or nudity but I can live with that.

For some reason the film belongs in that big pile of films that have never been granted a DVD release and that's a pity. This film deserves to be seen again by a broader audience. If you can stand watching films on YouTube someone has uploaded the entire film there.

EDIT: Fred Anderson of Ninja Dixon informed me that there is actually an English friendly, uncut German DVD release! I'll post the cover at the bottom of this post.

I copied the American VHS cover from VHS WASTELAND which is a great site where they upload video covers in hi-res. My own cover looks better as theirs isn't in the best of conditions. The Greek cover is the exact one I bought from Member-X's eBay listing. I think the Greek front cover is the by far cooler one.


I couldn't find a trailer so here's the clip from the Greek tape that Member-X posted with the auction:

Thanks to Fred for the info and German DVD cover. Fred reviewed the film over on his NINJA DIXON blog. Man, he even mentioned the film director's name! >_<

mihk's THE KILLER ltd edition sell-thru vhs box set finally coming home

When I discovered the HK movie there was only one way to get the films; thru tape-trading with other fans. Some of those fans would live in cities that had Chinatown video stores; They'd rent films and dupe them onto a blank video tape. This was a time when you couldn't just BUY original tapes cos they didn't sell them anywhere. At least not the HK movies that some of us had wet dreams about. Feverish wet dreams.

Then something quite wonderful happened; In the UK two labels sprung up to distribute these films. One label was the (notorious? Infamous?) EASTERN HEROES label run partly by Toby Russell. The other label (and in my view the better one of the two) was MADE IN HONG KONG. Out of a sudden you could chuck out your 4th generation vhs dupe of A BETTER TOMORROW, THE KILLER or A CHINESE GHOSTSTORY. Now they came out on letterboxed and subtitled sell-thru vhs with cool box art and for the most part great info written on the inside of the sleeves.

Most of the films have since then been granted DVD (and now blu-ray) releases (altho some of these tapes are still the only/best way of watching the films!). But in contradiction to most other collectors I haven't got rid of the old MIHK tapes to make room for dvd's. To me they have value! These were the tapes that kind of SAVED the UK and Euro Hong Kong film collectors.

Anyhoo, quite a number of the tapes I never got hold of back in the day and so I'm actually buying them now. And one of the coolest releases that I never got hold of was the limited collector's editon box set edition of THE KILLER!! I got the ordinary (but still highly cool edition as it was subtitled and letterboxed!) MIHK release of the film. And before that I'd bought the fullscreen, English dubbed vhs (also from the UK). But now... a couple of decades down the line... I have finally got hold of said box set. Or at least I have won it on eBay UK and will hopefully get it soon - but of course you never know with mail these days. Let's cross our fingers and hope that I also actually RECEIVE the fucker! Hah!

PS: Check out the response post over on A hero Never Dies.

When you post about LYDIA LUNCH you don't really need a headline. Just watch the fucking videos!

WILL WORK FOR DRUGS/Lydia Lunch/ Book Trailer from TanKMutaTion on Vimeo.

The past few months I've been a wild and insane hunt for the old NO WAVE bands, the records, the people, the books, the stories, the rumours, the pictures - ohh, the pictures - and indeed the pictures of a young LYDIA LUNCH are nice to say the least. And talking of which, I stumbled over this trailer for a French translated edition of one of Lydia's books that was made public recently. The book is "Will Work For Drugs" (or Déséquilibres Synthétiques in the lingo of the frog eaters). I haven't read it. Or any other books by Lunch. But the pictures are nice and TEENAGE JESUS AND THE JERKS is mandatory listening.

And the VIMEO uploaded video lead me to THIS other video, a new(ish) music video from Lydia. Watch them both, they pretty cool.

Your Love don't Pay My Rent from TanKMutaTion on Vimeo.

PS: I realise the videos are a bit too big for the video space that this blogger layout allows and I could fix it but updating to one of the newer fancier layouts but screw that I'm gonna stick with this old one (that you can't even choose any longer as Blogger has deleted it in the layout section). Alternatively, go to VIMEO and watch the videos in their full size.