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!