Superstar

Virus - inferno dei morti viventi on DVD from AWE

Christmas is coming early this year, at least in Scandinavia! In August/September Another World Entertainment will be releasing Bruno Mattei's huge masterpiece Virus - inferno dei morti viventi (1980) aka HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD aka Night of the Zombies! Awesome. The film isn't difficult to get hold of as it's out on a spiffy reg. 1 DVD (which includes an interview with Il Maistro himself) but, regardless, it's pretty cool it's coming out on Scandinavian DVD. One minor detail I'm puzzled about is AWE's way of reasoning; About 18 months ago I spoke to AWE head honcho Jan Schmidt and suggested they put out Bruno Mattei's last two zombie films, ZOMBIE: THE BEGINNING and ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD. I mentioned it would be a scoop as these two films weren't released ANYWHERE in the world. It would have meant a lot of DVDs over the counter to costumers from other countries but the reply I got from AWE was they didn't want to put these two films out as they were probably "too crappy" ("probably" cos AWE didn't actually check them out). And now they're releasing HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD instead!!

HAHAHA. I mean... how is that the better choice??? HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD is just as crappy as the other two (but in a completely entertaining way, of course). The difference is just you can buy HELL anywhere online. Beats me if I understand their reasoning. Oh well, I'm certainly not complaining over finally seeing HELL on Danish DVD and I'll be first in line to scoop up the film (altho I've already got the reg. 1 disc). Thanks to AWE for providing Danish fans with local releases. Even if I don't quite comprehend their reasoning. LOL.

The two cover scans are from Japanese and Turkish VHS.

Friends of Danish ex-rental tapes unite!

In northern Europe we always hear about the serious Swedish VHS collectors (of Swedish tapes). I've often scratched my head as to why these people were so eager to collect severely censored tapes. It's well documented that Sweden, Norway and Finland had harsh censorshit regulations and thus had video releases missing all the fun. However, in the sinful Scandinavian south aka the Babylon of Scandinavia aka Denmark, we had no censorship board to secure us from nasty video films and their bad influences on us and how these vile video tapes would corrupt our minds.

Gore and sleaze could be released here as over the top as could be. The only limitations were the lack of a film director's lack of imagination (and in a few cases lazy distributors who didn't check that they didn't receive tapes that were meant for other markets and thus were already cut). We had the only uncut, English dubbed and letterboxed release of NIGHTMARE CITY. We had the only uncut, English dubbed AND letterboxed release of EMMANUELLE IN AMERICA. There were quite a few uncut tapes here that didn't exist anywhere else.

Anyhoo, so what's all this about? Well, Hans-Jørn Reimer (aka Diabolik from world famous film forums such as Cinehound and Uncut.dk) has just opened a new Facebook group entitled DEVAG. At first I thought it was a Montana militia group but lo and behold it means Danish Ex-rental VHS Appreciation Group.

Finally a useful FB group! Go here and join. Even if you're not collecting Danish ex-rental video tapes you can still check out the hundreds of rare VHS scans.

Fellow blogs that fly under the radar but that you OUGHT to know about!!! ... "GOLDEN NINJA WARRIOR CHRONICLES"

This is really good news! Regular reader and commen-tator on my Filipino blog, Jesus Manuel, has finally set up his blog about Joseph Lai's IFD company, Tomas Tang's FILMARK, Godfrey Ho, and all those gwilo actors who starred in the inserted sections of the cut & paste films from Hong Kong. Yay, way to go, Jesus Manuel!!


Jesus Manuel originally hails from Spain but is now residing in the Philippines (and no, in contradiction to the other gwilos there he didn't star in trashy war movies, LOL). Those of you who are spaghetti western fanatics are probably also familiar with Danish expert on the genre (and eXtase magazine editor/publisher) Nils Markvardsen. Jesus Manuel and Nils actually met at that old spaghetti western town in Spain where all those films were filmed (whatsitsface?? I forget).

Jesus Manuel in Hong Kong with Mike Abbott

I've known about his upcoming blog for quite a while but had to keep my mouth shut as Jesus didn't wanna let the cat out of the bag too early. Well, now his blog is afloat. At first I must admit I thought it was a liiitle too messy but now he's getting there!! Good job, J-M!! Check out today's post where he's (with Nanarland friends) have interviewed Nathan Chukuake!! Or how about a useful complete filmography on Mike Abbott films!!!

This is going into my link section. But right now: Go here.

I made Jesus Manuel do pix for me of his multo rareo HK VCDs and here's some of them. I can only drool in awe. These VCDs are impossible to find and I don't have ANY of them in original Ocean Shores versions!!! :-(

De Skrigende Halse: "Riders of Depression"

Arrrgghhh, awesome!!! xD

Turn on the web camera and you'll see me kicking myself in the head for not having bought the record, the CD, and the VHS when it all came out. All I have is a stinking DVD-R off telly :o(

Heey, my old SORT SOL betamax tape from 1987 is now on YouTube! xD

SORT SOL (aka SODS)
Three tracks live (DR TV, Denmark, 1987)

1) Blood on the Saddle
2) Searching Down the Block
3) Pinocchio Loose (aka Pinocchio on the Loose)

This is SORT SOL at their best! In 1987 Danish state tv ran a series of music shows entitled "Musicbox" and to me this was definitely the highlight of the series.

SORT SOL started out in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1978 as a full-on punk band under the name of SODS. Their debut LP "Minutes to go" is a mile stone in Danish punk music but soon after the release they got bored with the three cord limitations that punk music offered and on their second LP "Under en sort sol" they had moved in a more avantgarde'ish direction.

Their third LP "Dagger & Guitar" is the first one where they use the name SORT SOL but what many new fans don't realise is the band actually used both names for years to come. And if you were a "real" fan you kept calling them SODS. "Sort Sol" was for wanna-be fans, haha. I don't think I started using the Sort Sol moniker till 1990 or something. LOL.

On "Dagger & Guitar" SORT SOL recorded two tracks with LYDIA LUNCH. If you do a YouTube search you'll find their "Boy/Girl" track that features miss Lunch. It's uploaded by someone else in Canada (G'day mate, whoever you are) but (via other traders) the clip comes from a recording I did in 1984 when television in Denmark broadcast a documentary about the band called "OMKRING EN SORT SOL - et portraet af SODS".

There was a pretty big gap between the third and fourth LP and when "Everything that rises must converge" finally came out in 1987 their sound had become the violent music you'll hear on this live recording. Like I said this is the band at their best in my opinion. Later records never quite reached the intensity and violent rawness as on "Everything".

The original title of the LP was actually going to be "The Violent Bear it Away" but they change it before it was released. The CD version of the album, which wasn't released till many years later, contains a bonus disc for which they used the title.

THE LOUSY PICTURE QUALITY

My gawd, it is pretty crappy isn't it. LOL.
When I taped this concert in '87 I used a Betamax VCR and obviously I loved the recording and almost played it to death! And it shows!!! You'll notice my tape is in less than perfect condition... TO SAY THE LEAST... but actually I think it kinda fits the band. SORT SOL was a raw band, their music was raw and violent, and this recording is raw and rugged almost to the point of not working anymore. It almost makes it better.

And even if you don't agree there's not much to do about it as there's a good chance I'm the only person who actually has this on tape; I have never come across anybody else who has it nor have I seen it mentioned on fan pages.

I also taped the 30 minute documentary film I mentioned and I'll probably upload it later.

Arr man, those dwarfs sure have fun

LA FEMME NIKITA, not the HK way, not the US way, not the telly way... the FILIPINO way!

BURADOR, ANG BABAING SUGO (Philippines, 2000)



Check this trailer out; it's a remake of the French classic LA FEMME NIKITA from the Philippines!!! And it looks awesome! The Nikita character is played by Filipino actress January Isaac who starred in a bunch of action film from 1997 thru to 2004.

I posted the trailer on my Filipino blog recently but it NEEDS to be posted here as well cos it's just too cool!! And, uh, also cos my extensive search for a copy of the film has brought me... nothing. I'm pretty sure it was only released on VHS and maybe there's a VCD in the Philippines. The trailer was uploaded by Dvdmaniacs member Robert who's located in the US and he tells me the trailer stems from a locally released tape (with a different film) that his parents rented many years ago.

Unfortunately, Robert doesn't have the film either. If any of you have a copy... well, you know in which direction to send a DVD-R (hint hint). Unfortunately, I have a feeling a copy isn't gonna turn up any day soon. Boo-hoo.

ID this man-with-deadly-iron-hand movie

Time for the annual re-posting. Oy vey. :-(

I remember something Damon Foster once said in an issue of Oriental Cinema: 'I'm so old dust comes up when I cough'. That's how I feel too. Well, at least now that I'm going to explain all this about some mysterious film I watched in my childhood:

In 1971 I was in my first grade (yes, nineteen seventy fucking one!!). My mum thought it would be a grand idea to sign me up for the film club at my school (thanks mum!) and a couple of the films had a lasting impact on me. One was about some cool supermen and the other... I'll get back to that one.

Of course being 7 yrs old I didn't bite into film titles or which country they came from so it took quite a while to find out about any of the films. A couple of yrs ago a friend of mine got hold of a video tape and his description over the phone sorta rang a bell: a flick with three cool supermen: and yes, there it was: THE THREE FANTASTIC SUPERMEN (I Fantastici tre supermen, Italy, 1967)!!! It was a bit of a let-down though. I had enjoyed it tremendously as a seven year old but in adult life it just seemed too silly.

However, the other film is still a big mystery to me. I remember it as being a kind of a crime movie. There was this evil dude who had an electric iron hand and when he wanted to hurt someone he'd just grab their face and just burn their puss to a crisp. The images of their burnt faces was pretty scary. At the end of the film the hero fought the evil dude and knocked him over so his hand touched a train track (I think) and electrocuted himself. Phew! Scary stuff when you're a first-grader

Anyway, obviously I'm still anxious as to find out which film this is. Does any of you know? Does it ring a bell? Since I was so young I didn't notice finer details such as which language they spoke. I think it would've been a western flick but I guess it could've been Asian. Any help is appreciated.
[originally written as a post over on Dvdmaniacs]


PS: The film is none of these films: The Projected Man, The Glove, The Black Hand, Creature with the Blue Hand, Hand of Death.

Thanks to everyone so far who has come up with suggestions.

Asian Trash Cinema is folding

Bummer! I just received today's newsletter from Asian Trash Cinema (i.e. Asian Cult Cinema for you kids) and due to personal issues they're closing down the mag right away. The ish that's already out will be the last.
At least for now.

I'm aware quite a few fans of HK movies don't like Thomas Weisser because of, well, heaps and heaps of faulty info especially in the ATC books, plus info that was purely made up!! (and a friend of mine who collects spaghetti westerns told me Weisser wrote a book on the genre and reviewed a number of films even tho those films were only planned but never got actually made!! Haha).

And not least due to his being behind Video Search of Miami (VSoM) in the early days (not so much because he was behind it as such but because their video dupes were often crap, to put it bluntly).

But, hey, I bought the mag in the early days from when #1 came out. Actually from when the first incarnation of the mag, Naked! Screaming! Terror! the special HK issue (that later got re-released as ATC #1) came out! And back then, when Craig Ledbetter was onboard, it was a lotta fun.

Sure the mag hasn't been "fun" for a long time, the old excited fan feel went down the drains a long time ago but they still published good interviews and info. And I just love to read a REAL magazine instead of always staring into a computer screen. I was looking for a misplaced tape today and found an old issue of European Trash Cinema (from '92) and I thought Gee, why doesn't anybody do real fanzines anymore (and where the fuck is Craig Ledbetter?? I'd buy every issue if he put out ETC again!!).


Thomas Weisser/ATC newsletter:

The current issue #64 of Asian Cult Cinema magazine is the last.
Effective immediately, I am shutting down publication of ACC magazine.
Personal family obligations force me and my wife Yuko to retire from this business and - at least temporarily - to relocate in Japan.
This may be a brief venture. Or Yuko and I could be gone for a much longer period of time. Simply, we are uncertain of our immediate future; however, I have already passed company responsibilities to my assistant, Archie Cole.
Most of you already know Archie. He has managed the Asian Cult Cinema and World Cult Cinema website for the past eight years. Although he does not feel qualified to helm the magazine (see his comments below), Archie Cole is committed to continuing - and excelling with - the ACC E-Commerce website. So, most importantly, you will continue to have access to all the Asian and World Cult DVDs.
I want to personally thank you for your support. It's been a good 18 year run.

The above post was originally posted on Dvdmaniacs, yesterday. I simply couldn't find the energy to write a different post for the blog. Live with it! xD