CANNIBAL MERCENARY 2 (Thailand, 1989) - now on YouTube!!!

Original Thai English title: EMPLOY FOR DIE 2

I posted about this sequel years ago and eventually I got hold of the film on a video-cd from Thailand. Now somebody has actually uploaded the full film to YouTube. And they have even corrected the 4:3 fullscreen format from the VCD to letterbox. The picture looks alright.

Cannibal Mercenary 2 - video-cd (Thailand)

The film is in Thai with no subtitles. The running time is approx. 78 minutes. The first CANNIBAL MERCENARY is truly a wild and gory film and it's fun to finally be able to watch the sequel.

But let me say it right away: Don't expect the same level of insane and gory craziness! You'll be mighty disappointed. The first half of the film drags. The second half is somewhat better but it never touches the first film.

As far as I'm aware this version from Thai VCD is the only official release worldwide. Somebody put the film out as a bootleg in the USA but it's directly ported over from a VCD and they didn't bother to subtitle the film so you would be no better off getting the boot than downloading this upload.

The picture quality of the upload is only 360p but maybe that actually equals the quality of the VCD.

IMDb entry. 

Thai poster for Cannibal Mercenary 2

Severin to release the original PENGABDI SETAN (1980) on blu-ray!!!!!

On may 26 Severin are going to release Sisworo Gautama Putra's PENGABDI SETAN aka SATAN'S SLAVE on blu-ray in the USA. This is indeed fantastic news!!!

In English the film is known as SATAN'S SLAVE - not to be confused with a UK film by the same title. And not to be confused with the Indonesian remake of the same title from 2017 either! The original film is from 1980.

The ONLY English friendly release of the original 1980 film so far – worldwide – is the old long gone Brentwood bootleg DVD which was sourced from the old - also very rare – Japanese VHS tape. The tape is letterboxed and the bootleg DVD has English subtitles in the black bar.

But now... we get a blu-ray!!!!! (yes, an unheard-of number of exclamation marks – and it's indeed called for!) This is indeed great news (yes, I said that already and I'll say it sagain so you'll understand this is indeed a great piece of news!). You can preorder here.

Indonesian poster for SATAN'S SLAVE

I haven't watched the film for a long time but I remember it as being a cool watch. It's not a masterpiece by any means. However, it it's a cool worldweird horror film from a country that we don't see too many horror films from in the West.

It's a film that Jared Auner certainly would have written about on his old Worldweird Cinema blog a long time ago. Jared's last post on his blog was 9 years ago, it was partly about the (very cool) video label Mondo Macabro, and incidentally he is now with that very same label! A label that has given us quite a few cool films from worldweird territories. Hopefully, we'll see more films like that from MM and Severin.

I highly recommend you preorder/buy PENGABDI SETAN and convince the label to put more money into releases of this sort.

I'm not too fond of the cover for the upcoming release, the old Malaysian VCD cover (also used for the Japanese VHS) looks heaps better but, hey, it's just a cover. The most important thing is we get the film! xD

SPECS FOR THE UPCOMING BLU-RAY:

Disc Specs:
*Brand new scan from the original negative in Jarkarta
*Indonesian mono audio (with English subtitles)

• Satan’s Box Office: Interview with Producer Gope T. Samtani
• Indonesian Atmosphere: Interview with Screenwriter Imam Tantowi
• Satan’s Slave Obsession: Audio Interview with Remake Director Joko Anwar

 

Video-cd from Malaysia (front)

VCD from Malaysia (back of cover)

VHS release from Japan (Indonesian language with Japanese subtitles in the black bar).
This version was used for Brentwood's bootleg DVD (they call
it public domain in the USA but we all know that's bullshit – it's a bootleg)

For one week only: THE LAST PINOY ACTION KING - the Rudy Fernandez story

About a year ago I posted the trailer for Andrew Leavold's documentary film THE LAST PINOY ACTION KING. Now Andrew has uploaded the full doc to YouTube - for one week!

It's a quite different type documentary to his THE SEARCH FOR WENG WENG in that Andrew Leavold takes a step back. Whereas he was a huge part of SEARCH on screen you don't see him at all in ACTION KING.

On the surface the film is about the Filipino action film star Rudy Fernandez but it's also about the Filipino film industry – and it's about the Philippines!

If you have an open mind for worldweird cinema (why wouldn't you!) I highly recommend this film. Go watch it before it's gone. Andrew tells me he has no idea if we'll ever see a DVD release of his film.

EDIT 8.1.2022: Either Andrew Leavold forgot to take the film down, or he changed his mind about it only being up for one week, cos the film is STILL on YouTube!

A handful of goodies arrived at CASA J today

I got three issues of "Shock Cinema" from Fab Press (UK) today. The zine has been going for 30 years now! Big congrats to editor Steven Puchalski. I wish "Psychotronic Video" had kept at it as well. If there's one zine that I miss it's Psychotronic Video! (and Damon Foster's Oriental Cinema!).

Also, I got the first dvd in what I believe was supposed to become a series of dvd releases from Scream Factory: TV TERRORS! i.e. telly horror/thriller/fright flicks from 1970s American TV: THE INITIATION OF SARAH (1978) and ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE (1978).

I've just finished INITIATION and I was entertained. No blood, gore or rude words but good acting and a cool little thriller. In his book "Television Fright Films of the 1970s" David Deal uses adjectives such as: pitiable, shameless, inept, half-hearted. Oh well, I beg to differ.

I alredy own ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE on a sell-thru VHS, and actually I reviewed it for a fanzine called "Ultimo Mondo Franko" 16-17 years ago. But it's nice to get an upgrade. I think I liked the film back then but I don't actually remember what I wrote, nor do I know where said zine is hiding in the piles of magazines scattered around this big mansion of mine that I live in (i.e. the shoebox sized flat that I fester in).

I wish more of these TV horror films would get released but I guess people just aren't interested (hence the series being cancelled). Quite a few of them are on youtube but I'd love to see them in a better picture quality (this dvd presents the two films in a quality that is as good as it's probably going to get I reckon).

"We Destroy the Family: Punks vs Parents" (doc, KABC TV, USA, 23 min, 1982)

I found this wee telly documentary about teenage punks and their loving (!) parents. You should watch it – even if you're not a punk ... or a teen. Or a parent.

Lee Ving of FEAR is in the doc briefly. 


Original YouTube info:
"I think LA's KABC won some award with this short documentary on how punk rock is destroying families -- somehow missing the point that family dysfunction is the culprit, not Lee Ving. Nice shots of a Fear concert. This ran as a week-long 5-part special report on the KABC-TV news, and then ran alone late one night as an expanded special."


NB: The original uploader divided the film into three parts. I put them back together!
 

SATAN'S CHILDREN on blu-ray

I bought SATAN'S CHILDREN (Joe Wiezycki, USA, 1975) on DVD a long time ago. The DVD came out from Something Weird Video and now they've rereleased the film on a spiffy blu-ray! It's a coproduction with AGFA. I got the new release the other day and watched it right away. A very cool upgrade! A long time ago someone on dvdmaniacs forum said they needed a shower after each viewing of the film. I get that! SATAN'S CHILDREN is sick, sick, sick. Not overly gory (or gory at all) but the tone of the entire film is just dirty! And sick. If you're into exploitation films this is highly recommended. The second film on the blu-ray is SATANIS - THE DEVIL'S MASS which I haven't watched yet.

Check out Shock Cinema's review here.

Fan made trailer (at least it *looks* crude enough to be fan made!):