Ricky Hui - RIP

Unfortunately I've just learnt that Ricky Hui has died (8/11/11). He was only 65. So sad. :(

Ricky Hui was one of the funniest comedians ever. He was "the human Droopy" and he starred - and was the funniest character - in the Hong Kong movie CHICKEN AND DUCK TALK (and many other films). I taped that film from a now defunct Danish TV channel in the 1990s and I must have watched it at least 10 times if not more. Here's a link to the news bit on ihktv about his passing. The page is translated by Google so it's NOT that all HK translations are in wonky English like the old VHS subtitles. Usually I'd ad a "LOL" but now it's not even funny. Ricky died. RIP buddy.



Above: Someone posted a collection of funny scenes from CHICKEN AND DUCK TALK.



Ricky Hui was also a Canto pop singer and here he is on stage with his brother Sam Hui and some other guy. I accidentally stumbled over a concert on a HK TV channel that I was able to watch (via satellite dish) in the 90s. I seem to remember it was a channel broadcasting from the UK but it was HK TV. The concert was Ricky Hui and I could not stop laughing. He was doing this probably romantic love song but he just had THAT face! He cracked me up.

Scared to Death (USA, 1947)

Nicking a review isn't a very nice thing to do but I'm gonna do it anyway cos this write-up is great fun! Over to you, Michael:

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By Michael Weldon
This almost surreal little film is remarkable for three reasons: it's in color, it's narrated by a woman's corpse, and it's the closest thing to a horror movie released in the lean year of 1947. Bela Lugosi (in a crooked, wide-brimmed hat and a Colonel Sanders tie) acts like he's in a trance. He lurks around peering in windows with dwarf pal Angelo Rossitto. Angelo, who was in two other Lugosi movies, also appeared in Freaks and played an alien in Galaxina. With villain George Zucco, idiot Nat Pendleton, one-time star Joyce Compton, and Douglas Fowley (who later directed Macumba Love). It's only 65 minutes long. Watch it closely and decide: Had the actors ever seen the script? Were some of them under the influence of a very disorienting drug? Fascinating in a different way from Bela's Ed Wood films.

- Michael Weldon, from "The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film" (1983)

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I watched the film tonight and I wholeheartedly agree with Weldon; Almost surreal! But despite the qualities of whatever film Bela Lugosi was in he always gave his fullest! And I must say 1947 really WAS a lean year!! The year isn't even listed in "The Encyclopaedia of Horror Movies" book!!! O_O

There are 20 different public domain versions of this film out there. If you wanna purchase a copy I recommend you either get the reg. 1 DVD from Miracle or the reg. 2 DVD from Network. Someone who collects Lugosi films told me these two releases are head and shoulders better than the rest of the PD drek out there. I've got the Network DVD and can confirm it's of decent quality. There's no extras other than the trailer.

The Velvet Vampire (Stephanie Rothman, USA, 1971)

I re-watched the weirdo horror movie THE VELVET VAMPIRE yesterday on the new reg. 1 DVD from SHOUT! Factory! I own an old rare VHS but it was awesome to finally be able to watch the film in widescreen and with perfect colours. The print used for the DVD had a slightly crackling soundtrack in places but was otherwise very, very good.

Years ago, I remember reading reviews that would flat out dismiss THE VELVET VAMPIRE as a terrible horror movie but, well, if you expect something and it doesn't turn out to be what you expected needless to say you're bound to get disappointed (unless you're an open minded person - which a lot of reviewers just AREN'T! Or weren't in the old days anyway) and I think most reviewers aren't familiar with (or open to) these weirdo horror films and simply didn't get what they expected.

THE VELVET VAMPIRE shouldn't be viewed as an "ordinary" horror movie like a Hammer horror movie etc. In my view the film is rooted firmly in the WEIRDO horror genre, much like LEGACY OF SATAN (which is basically as if David Lynch had popped some baaad acid and made a horror movie, lol). THE VELVET VAMPIRE is awesome! I really DIG it. And the end... I mean THE END!! How weird is that ending!! (i.e. the scene of people with crosses and the vampire).

The film takes place in a present day setting (well, present day when it was made in 1971 anyway) and is the story about a young couple who're invited to visit a female art collector who lives in the desert. She turns out to be a vampire! There are a few other people in the film but it's a quite small cast, and we never really get to know any of them but the three main characters. From a male pig viewpoint I'd like to point out that the woman who plays the vampire, Celeste Yarnall, could give the dead a boner! Mein gott! The other woman (of the couple) is a babe too but nothing in comparison. Ahm, uh yeah, we were talking about... the plot!!

There are surreal scenes of the couple and the vampire making love in the desert and (not least probably due to the film being set in the "hippie era") a loose moral with the couple that might seem odd nowadays (or not). And very refreshingly the film doesn't blindly follow every vampire rule in the book; Just the fact that most of the film is set in broad daylight would make you scratch your head if this were a Hammer style film. Don't watch this movie and expect to be scared, it isn't very scary at all. And it doesn't have to be because like I said it has other great qualities.

There's a bit of blood in the film but no real gore. But it doesn't matter at all, it's just not needed. The filming is great, the sets are great, and the film's short runtime (under 80 min) makes for a very tight viewing without unnecessary filler. I wish more films were shorter. One more detail that makes THE VELVET VAMPIRE interesting is it was directed by a woman. There weren't that many female directors in those days in the horror genre (are there now?) and the fact that she made a fairly erotic movie (it has both male/female and lesbian scenes) makes it all the more interesting.



The new DVD is part of SHOUT! Factory's "Roger Corman's Cult Classics All-Night Marathon" series which is praised (and rightfully so) by fans for presenting the old films in fantastic versions! In the extras department there's an old scratched trailer (as much as I love these restored films I also love watching old scratched-beyond-belief grindhouse style trailers!) and a very cool commentary track by Celeste Yarnall. A highly recommended film!

It seems no one has yet posted the trailer to YouTube but I found another one from the early 70s from when the film ran as a double bill with SCREAM OF THE DEMON LOVER (which I sadly haven't seen).

The Road (USA, 2009)

I watched John Hillcoat's post-apocalyptic movie THE ROAD last night. I've wanted to get hold of it for a while but you know how it is... THERE'S SIMPLY TOO MANY MOVIES IN THIS WORLD TO KEEP UP!!

Anyhoo, I watched it and all the good stuff I've heard about it was true! It's really, really good. It's about a father and his young son and their travel thru a grey (as in very, very grey) destroyed America after some kind of apocalypse. It's never explained what happened in the last days and it doesn't matter at all. What matters is the result and what they have to go thru. The movie is a lot like STAKE LAND which I also watched recently and which is also about an older guy and a young boy travelling thru a destroyed land. However, altho I totally loved STAKE LAND this seems more grim as it's set in a realistic future that could actually (easily?) happen.

Altho STAKE LAND is also made to look very realistic it is of course within the boundaries of the old Marvel Comics moniker, "What if..." (What if Peter Parker had become The Hulk, etc). In this case it's just "What if we assume vampires really exist" - and due to the lack of, ahm, vampires THE ROAD is just all the more real.

I started off calling it a post-apocalypse film but that label almost doesn't fit! It is set in a post apocalyptic setting but we're missing the ingredients we usually connect with the genre (a genre all perfectly spawned by George Miller and MAD MAX II and the 20 Italian knock-offs that came right after). There are no road warriors, no funny helmets, no hunt for petrol, no funny (cool?) looking biker gangs, etc. etc. And no one wears clean clothes as in those films; In THE ROAD everyone looks like they haven't been washed for three years.

THE ROAD is quite long but doesn't overstay its welcome. Actually it just seemed to fly by and I don't think there was one single moment in the film that could have been omitted. One funny (interesting funny) detail is that this very American film about a fucked up America was made by a British director and the main cast is played by a Danish American and a South African! (Viggo Mortensen & Charlize Theron). The boy is played by Kodi Smit-McPhee (who is perfect for the part). Robert Duvall, the star from the best gang film ever, COLORS, is in there too - altho I didn't actually recognise him till be began speaking!

The soundtrack is awesome too, it's by Nick Cave and whatshisface and I actually got the soundtrack CD way before the DVD.

The trailer that I'm posting here has an introduction from Clever TV and the only reason I'm using that version (as there's also a YT upload without the intro) is that the presenter is just too fucken hilarious!! She doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about and tries to make it look HIP to introduce a grim, bleak and unpleasant film about the end of the world (or the end of American anyway). Haha.

The version I bought is the Danish DVD (50 kr. from Kvickly) which has a Making of, deleted scenes, and a commentary track by the director. I find it extremely annoying they didn't include the trailer but otherwise it's a good release.

I highly recommend THE ROAD (and STAKE LAND!!).

Tom Waits - "9th and Hennepin"

Some guy on YouTube made this awesome fan video for Tom Wait's "9th and Hennepin". <3

And the Finnish reality show on JACK J continues...

...this is exactly how I remember those early days of my laserdisc collecting!


PS: I have nothing to do with these uploads!!!

Jack the Ripper! A zombie! What's next? A devil doll from Hell??

As you'll remember I bought the complete KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER set recently and I've finally got started on the series - and they're great fun! Kolchak is a night reporter on an old-fashioned newspaper (printed on paper! Remember those ones?). In the first episode he happens to run into Jack the Ripper hisself (yes, still alive after all these years and doing what he does best!) and in last night's episode Kolchak encountered one of the walking dead, a zombie! Two episodes down, 18 to go!! :D

... >_< ...

Could someone just go over to Kurt's (aka Member-X) house and whack him over the head with a dead fish or something!!!

Black Devil Doll

I watched BLACK DEVIL DOLL tonight and what an entertaining piece of exploitation / blaxploitation / sexploitation / dollsploitation / whathaveyouploitation it is!!! I got the reg. 1 DVD which is loaded with fun extra stuff (like approx 700 different commentary tracks!!). It's NOT a remake of Chester Turner's BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL but they were clearly inspired by it and as I've mentioned here before they tried to get Chester's film included on the DVD which I'm sorry to say they didn't succeeded in. Hopefully we'll see the original released on DVD some day. Now watch the trailer. It's the uncut one. :D

Watched "THE BUTCHER OF LA VILETTE" - can't wait for more!

Local television ran the third season of the gritty and very well written French crime show ENGRENAGES a few weeks ago and I don't remember the last time I was that captivated by a cop show!



ENGRENAGES (or "Spiral" as it's re-titled for the international market) is head and shoulders better than anything I've seen from the US for a looong time. I wonder if there's more stuff this good on French television and if there is it's one more reason to shake one's angry fist at Danish TV for having given us nothing but Anglo-Saxon films and TV shows for so many years! It wasn't till two or three years ago that some of the smaller channels began to screen films from other countries in Europe, other than Scandinavia that is.

I have the first season of ENGRENAGES on DVD and as soon as the third season finished (which I dvd-r'ed every episode of!) I could do nothing but race my imaginary sports-car (right out of The Persuaders) to the nearest Amazon store and order the missing season 2 right away! I received it today. xD



All three seasons are released on DVD in France and the UK. Unfortunately, I need the subs so I have to go with the UK sets - word is the quality of the French sets is better as they are 4 disc sets whereas the UK sets are squeezed down to 2 disc sets - but even so they look alright. The English subs are alright altho I wish I'd taped all three seasons from TV as the subtitles are much better translated in the Danish editions (which also means I won't bother ordering the third season on DVD).



Will there be a fourth season? I have no idea but somehow I kinda fear it could be a letdown, I mean how can you top season 3???

If you haven't already checked out ENGRENAGES I highly recommend you do. You'll find a brief beginner's guide from "The Guardian" newspaper here.