DEAD MEN WALK (Sam Newfield, 1943).

I watched this excellent horror movie last night (I've seen it before). George Zucco stars in a double role as a doctor and his own evil, deceased brother who dabbled in the occult while he was alive. And maybe still does in the beyond. Dwight Frye is also in there more or less repeating his part from DRACULA. Don't believe this deadbeats at IMDb who rated it 4.5/10!

There's probably awful PD dvds around but the Retromedia disc I bought uses a great looking print.


PS: the 4-film dvd I linked to is the same as the one I bought. Amazon has listed it as an Image Entertainment release but the copy I have clearly says Retromedia on the cover and on the disc.

FILIPINO A BETTER TOMORROW (1992) - dir: Willy Milan, Philippines

aka Dalawa Man Ang Buhay Mo, Pagsasabayin Ko (original title)

Today, Jesus Manuel mention to me that a Filipino remake of John Woo's awesome breakthru film, A BETTER TOMORROW, had been made back in 1992 and had been posted on YouTube. Needless to say, A BETTER TOMORROW is the film that kicked off a thousand movies in that genre a lot of us came to love as the "heroic bloodshed" genre.

I've just finished watching the movie and, wauw, just... wauw!!! It's not just a remake of the first film, it remakes BOTH #1 and 2 all in one! The film runs for 109 minutes and it's just as explosive and shoot-em-out'ish as the Hong Kong original versions! And altho the film is spoken in Tagalog there's enough English dialogue to follow the plot (which we know already anyway).

A lot of the well known scenes from the original films are copies frame by frame but there's also minor differences; Chow Yun Fat's character isn't the brother of the younger policeman but his dad, and there's quite a few scenes with the young policeman's mum and his girlfriend. And of course half way thru, Chow Yun Fat's character's brother arrives from the States (and does an over the top rendition of a Filipino having been brought up in the USA. OVER THE TOP I tell you!!! LMAO). The one thing that probably stands out as being different it's the fact that the Filipino version isn't as stylish as John Woo's masterpiece; it's a more crude film.

The well known music score from the original film is used all throughout this remake as well. Actually, the few times they used some different music I wish they hadn't as it's just bland rock music.

The version posted on YouTube is from a video tape but it looks great most of the way thru. There's some unfortunate drop-outs half way thru and towards the end but nothing serious, and this may very well be the only way to watch this film anyway. I downloaded the film with the Firefox downloader which gives you the option to DL in different formats and qualities. I downloaded it in the best possible quality and made a dvd-r of it (as I much dislike watching films on a computer, I'm old-skool I wanna watch my films on a TV set!!). The quality of the dvd-r is actually better than most HK VCD's so I can recommend downloading it (who knows when YouTube will remove these films again). Highly recommended!


Recognise this scene? Yes, the "Chow Yun Fat walks into restaurant and shoots everyone" scene. Just in this film the gunman is slightly older.

The full film:




PS: I should point out "Filipino A Better Tomorrow" is our own fan-title, not the film's real title. Duh!

The healing power of Danish. Now, pass me that Wienerbrød!

I discovered this video yesterday and thought here was one more weirdo American (the USA being such a vast country means there's a LOT of them over there already. lmfao. Fortunately it's mostly the other ones I'm in touch with. lol) - but it turns out the video is fake. It's still very funny though. And interestingly enough, I'm apparently more of a journalist than the reporters at Danish national radio, Danmarks Radio, who covered the story believing it to be real. Suckers!!

But granted, she has done her homework to make it look real, she even has a blog and a facebook page. Go here. But leaving videos on her YouTube channel in Perfect Danish (and having her bio on IMDb) kinda ruins it. LOL

Random collection shots

EXTRAS: big Greek subs

Recently, I mentioned the upcoming dvd of THUNDER OF GIGANTIC SERPENT (aka Terror Serpent) from ATTACKAFANT ENTERTAINMENT and also mentioned that I was going to order a bootleg off eBay since the official dvd might still take a while to get released. I've finally received the dvd and as I expected the disc is a bootleg off a vhs and... yes, it's off a Greek video tape. LMAO. The picture quality looks like a second generation vhs dupe. I wish I could have got a dvd from that guy from Global in South Africa (as his dvd is probably off a real film print) but, oh well, at least I get to watch the film. I'm still looking forward to the official dvd, of course. It's bound to look better than this.

Murder by Decree - NL video cover

Thanks to Cinehound member KindOfB who posted the Dutch video cover for MURDER BY DECREE on Facebook on response to yesterday's post. Pretty cool cover I'd say!

MURDER BY DECREE (1979) - by Bob Clark, USA

It's been 6-7 yrs since I last watched MURDER BY DECREE (1979), a film in which Sherlock Holmes meets none other than Jack the Ripper! DECREE is directed by Bob Clark who made a bunch of cool horror movies (DEAD OF NIGHT, CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS, BLACK CHRISTMAS - and he also made PORKY'S but that's an entirely different story. LOL). The film has a good atmos and is pretty good. Not a masterpiece by anbody's standards but worth the rewatch (every 7 years, lol).

The version I watched is the Aussie fullscreen ex-rental VHS.

PS: FINAL EXAM is from one of the trailers on the tape.

TRAILER:




PS.PS: Big thank yous fly out to Henrik Larsen who gave me the tape a long time ago.

VINEGAR SYNDROME to issue director's cut of mysterious CIRIO H. SANTIAGO film!

The info I have on this is more insufficient than insufficient but... it's just been posted on AVManiacs film forum that the new video label VINEGAR SYNDROME will be releasing *a* CIRIO H. SANTIAGO film and the version they have is a long director's cut version.

No hint at which film it is. Could this be the unrated version of NAKED VENGEANCE???


This is the exact text from AVManiacs:

VINEGAR SYNDROME's Drive-In Collection!

Was wondering when Jack J would make the scene ;-)

Feast your eyes on this...

"We have a few [Cirio films], including an ultra, ultra long version of one of his less seen epics [. . .] we'll be issuing it in its original director's cut and under its original title!"

New cool stuff from CODE RED

Check this rad shit out!! The new release from CODE RED is here and it's a cool Spanish horror double bill; THE VAMPIRES NIGHT ORGY and DR. JEKYLL VS. THE WEREWOLF both by Leon Klimovsky. And if that wasn't enough... I'm told that they are the UNCLOTHED versions!!! The versions that came out from the folks at Mondo Macabro a few years back were the clothed versions!! This is great news. JEKYLL is taken from a 16mm print and carries the English dub (if I remember correctly the MM dvd is in Spanish with subs) and NIGHT ORGY is from a 35mm print (I don't know what the old dvd is as I only have an old vhs). The dvd is up for grabs at the Code Red store now.

Trailer for ORGY (I couldn't find one for JEKYLL):

VIRGIN APOCALYPSE to be released on dvd - fully uncut from 35mm print

aka Angels with Golden Guns / Terror in a Woman's Prison / Anger

Back in 2009 (almost to the date!) well known HK film aficionado Spannick mentioned on Cinehound forum that the German label he's working for, CINECLUB, was planning a DVD release of the rare VIRGIN APOCALYPSE. Now, 4 years later, it seems it's finally on its way! Yay! Spiffy!!

Spannick's info from today says the upcoming DVD is from a 35mm print and the film is presented in 2.35 anamorphic!! That's very good news indeed. It's well known that Joseph Lai's IFD company can't provide proper prints for most of their films. In fact, according to Spannick the print for VIRGIN APOCALYPSE was, "the IFD Master delivered was in Fullscreen and horribly framecut".

And Spannick adds the IFD master was also 4 (four!) minutes shorter than the uncut print. Although not quite as butchered as IFD's fullscreen master the 35mm is missing about a minute's worth of footage. On the DVD the missing footage has been replaced by a few inserts from a German VHS (also presented in widescreen). Fortunately there's no need to worry about English friendliness! The DVD will contain both a German and an English dub!

In the extras department we find the English language trailer and an entire extra movie: COMMANDO FURY! This film is included (in the extras) as it's sourced from a Japanese video tape (2.35 widescreen). Spannick's label wanted to release the film on its own but the master from Joseph Lai was "unwatchable Fullscreen".

This is certainly great news! VIRGIN APOCALYPSE is very difficult to find. The cover scan here is from the UK label 4-BIDDEN ASIA who released it in Holland (most likely cos they weren't allowed to release it uncut in the UK due to harsh censorshit regulations there at the time) many years ago. I don't know how many different VHS releases that exist but they are indeed all very rare.

The web isn't exactly spilling over with reviews. The one I did manage to find says about the plot: "Sound's pretty simple right? Well, it took me two sober viewings to figure this thing out."

No final release date has been published yet.