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.