Alright, it's 2011 so let's kick off in grand style with...

Arrr, Poison Ivy! The coolness is so thick you can slice it!!! AND THOSE HEELS, MAN!! (obviously it's Lux I'm babblin' about here!). xD

"Too violent for Danish television (almost)" - but now... finally... ON MY TV SCREEN for the first time in 30 years!!!

Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! I've finally got it!!! RIKER!!!!! The complete TV series. xD xD xD

"Riker" is a brutal American TV cop show from 1981. It ran on Danish television shortly after its premier on American TV. I'm not sure of the exact year but around 1981/82. Riker was kind of a TV version of the Dirty Harry character.

I watched the complete run back then but unfortunately it was before we got a video recorder in my house and the show was never re-run on Danish TV. I've been trying to find the show for the last 4 or 5 years ever since a buddy of mine asked me if I remembered "Riker" and knew where to get hold of it. I must admit, until I was asked about it I had actually forgotten all about "Riker" but when he mentioned it I remembered it right away.

For several years I've tried to find info on it and if it was available anywhere. I've posted about it on about every movie forum I'm a member of, I went looking for bootleg versions at every bootleg store on the internet, I asked friends if they'd taped the show or knew of someone who had. And I came up with ZILCH!

If you've been with me for a while you'll remember I've posted and re-posted about it on this blog for the past two years (see the old posts here). At one point someone left a comment and claimed to have the series and they'd get me a copy and then... nothing! So for months on end I kept bugging them to get me the promised copy but they had one excuse after the other; "I got divorced and my stuff is in a mess", "It's at my mum's place", "It's buried in thousands of tapes in a basement", "My mum threw it away" (I think the only excuse missing was "My dog ate it"). And this went on for MONTHS!!! .\_/.

But LO AND BEHOLD today I finally got hold of the complete series!!! Argh, this is too awesome!!!

A while back, someone on the Danish film collector scene saw one of my FB posts about a very rare Danish music documentary (OMKRING EN SORT SOL - ET PORTRÆT AF SODS) which I taped off TV in 1984 and they asked me for a copy. Needless to say, I said "sure" and, for whatever reason, my film buddy had a look around my blog and noticed one of my posts about "Riker".

Imagine my surprise when he wrote and said something to the effect of: "By the way, I know this guy who's been talking about this recently - and he's got a copy!" Well, it took me about two inches of a split second to write back (with almost trembling hands) saying can you get me a copy?

And now... finally... I've got my very own DVD-R copy. It took a while to finally get it (my buddy is even slower than I am!!!!!!) but I've got it now. I feared that the guy who taped it probably only had one or two episodes, or maybe he'd have one and a half episode on an old video tape but as it turned out he actually taped the entire series (i.e. 5 episodes).

I watched the first episode tonight and what can I say... IT WAS LIKE TRAVELLING BACK 30 YEARS IN A FUCKEN TIME MACHINE!!!!!

I didn't remember the entire episode but I vividly recognised two scenes, one of them had actually stayed in my head all thru out these 30 years... in a restaurant shoot-out Riker shoots a crook three times thru a bar without being able to see the guy. Like I said, the show was very brutal for its time. The minister of culture (or whatever, and I forget her name) actually demanded that Danish television cancel the show because she thought it was too violent (fortunately they refused). I remember it was quite an issue in the media at the time.

Anyway, like I said, I watched the pilot tonight and it was bloody great! The picture quality was alright and considering the DVD-R is off a 30 year old video tape it wasn't bad at all.

Ultra huge big thanks goes out to the two fine gents who finally made me able to re-visit Riker!!!

I'll probably review the full series later in my "Jack J's 80s" series.




In my previous posts I've posted this episode guide which I got from an on-line source but either the guide is fucked up or American TV broadcast the episodes completely out of order as the first episode (which contains Riker's origin) is "Busted Cop" which is listed here as the last episode. :/

The complete series:
1: Honkytonk (airdate 14/Mar/1981)
2: Sisters (21/Mar/1981)
3: Gun Run (28/Mar/1981)
4: Crime School (04/Apr/1981)
5: Busted Cop (11/Apr/1981)

The Big Boss - original, rejected dub has finally been made public!

In the past, I've written about the possibility of this ever happening and now it's indeed reality!! Someone in the UK owns a mega rare 35mm print of the original English dubbed version of Bruce Lee's THE BIG BOSS and they've put it up for purchase. Not as a hardcopy but only as download.

Like I've said before, I'm not particularly interested in English dubbed versions of Hong Kong films but with this one it's a different matter. The background makes it interesting! After the original Mandarin language print was made, an English dubbed print was made for export and distributed to certain Middle Eastern territories. When Bruce Lee watched this version he completely hated the dub, and when the film was bought for American distribution the Americans (I assume) thought the dub was too crappy and had a new one made.

This new dub is the one that was distributed to the rest of the world. The original English dubbed version quickly disappeared and was never released to any home-cinema format. A few years ago VideoAsia in the US (yes, the bootleg company VideoAsia!!) announced they were going to release this rare version on DVD but it never happened! It's widely believed by fans that "someone" "asked" the company not to release it. Well, anyway, it seems it's finally here!

I've got confirmation from a fan that the uploaded version is real and not bogus (he's got a copy!) and it's finally out now. Unfortunately, con-artists who claim to have lost/rare prints in the Kung Fu community isn't an unknown phenomenon! I must admit I had my doubts as to this ever being released (altho, of course, it's not a real release but you know what I mean).

Now we just need someone to dig out THE BIG BOSS, PART 2 (the Lo Lieh film) from the realm of lost Hong Kong films, and not to mention the fully uncut Mandarin print of THE BIG BOSS (including the mystical saw-in-head scene!). How awesome would that be!!!

The original trailer with the rejected dub:

Crappy zombies from Denmark

If you're one of my international readers you may have wondered where my profile avatar comes from; Jack in a Halloween dress up? Jack at a normal day at home? Jack is a zombie for real? Nope, it's from my lousy 15 minutes of fame. Or rather three minutes of fame.

Eight years ago I was a zombie in the Danish amateur horror film RÅDDEN KÆRLIGHED (aka Raadden Kaerlighed) [lit. trans. "rotten love"]. The movie came and went, and would've been forgotten if I hadn't kept flogging the dead horse (yes I'm laughing my ass off here).

It had a quite limited VHS release but never made it to DVD. In fact the only way to get the film since the VHS sold out has been tru me and my blog for my underground publishing label where I've sold it on DVD-R for a couple bucks.

I'm only aware of two magazine/fanzine pieces on it; A review in my own Stay Sick! zine (reviewed by Jesper Moerch) and Henrik Larsen did an interview with yours truly in his mag Obskuriøst. As far as I know there are only three online reviews; Uncut.dk, Cinehound, and on Zombie Movie Data Base.

However, the probably coolest thing of all this was shortly after the VHS release when a friend of mine rang said "There's a poster of you on the door at 'Rock Uglen'!" Rock Uglen is a decade old legendary shop in Copenhagen that deals in heavy metal records and horror/gore films. And sure enough! The directors had made various different posters featuring the cast members but the one on the inside of the door at Rock Uglen was just me or rather my zombiefied self with the (fake) intestines of the unfortunate main actor in my hands.

The film's two directors, Kasper Marbjerg & Martin Forsbom, were interviewed here (in Danish).

Anyway, that's all well and done but it's old news so why flog the corpse once again? Well, cos my friend Fred Anderson just mentioned to me that the full film is now up on YouTube! That's why, LOL. The movie is divided into three parts, runs 27 minutes, and there's no subs. But then again you don't really need to capisce the dialogue (and some of it is so embarrassing that I wish I didn't understand it either!).

Like I mentioned at the beginning, I'm only in this for about three minutes but then again I got to devour the main character and get the last frame, PLUS the "zombie walk from the chapel" scene so I'm happy with that. Needless to say kudos goes to the other cast members, the directors (who I believe are completely out of film productions), and whoever else helped out.

Henrik Larsen was supposed to be in the film too but a fuck up on the day meant he waited for hours at a train station and nobody picked him up. They promised him an added end-scene but they screwed that up too. However, Henrik got his revenge in the movie DEN INTERGALAKTISKE GENVEJ [lit. trans:"The Intergalactic Short-cut"] (reviewed here) where he got to play a cool hit-man out to bump off innocent space aliens. The film is included on my DVD-R of RÅDDEN. RÅDDEN KÆRLIGHED was also shown on a local TV station in Copenhagen when it came out but as I mentioned earlier it has pretty much drifted into the abyss of obscure amateur films. Well, if nothing else it's on YouTube now. xD

The guy who played the main lead began making a new, bigger and better monster horror film a couple of years back that was going to be called PLANET HOLOCAUST (early title: THE MONSTER, THE GIRL, AND THE PROFESSOR) and everyone on the Danish underground film scene and the Copenhagen punk scene were to star in it.

Apparently, about everyone was filmed for the film (including me) but it's been two years now and altho these slow and lazy punks are known for being... well... slow and lazy, I doubt they'll ever manage to pull their shit together and finish the film. A great pity cos the footage I got to see on the day of my own shoots was great. I wrote about it here. Anyway, enough bable! Check the uploads!

[VHS/original fullscreen/Danish audio/no subs]

The complete "Tomb of Dracula" finally coming home

How cool is this! Zuzelo jnr with my pile of "Essential The Tomb of Dracula" volume 1-4 (reprinting every issue of "The Tomb of Dracula" from the early 1970s + crossovers). Argh! This is where the original Blade character stems from! This is Marv Wolfman/Gene Colan's awesome series which I used to read in its Danish translated editions (printed in 1974 and then again in the early 80s). But these reprints (most likely) smoke the old Danish ones; Original text, complete, black & white, uncut. Oh, and the fact that Gene Colan is one of my all time fave artists certainly cranks up the awesomeness volume a notch or ten. Thanks heaps to David (junior's daddy who incidentally does another "tomb") for this awesome (and certainly in my favour) deal! Dude, you're the best! You and Paul (Cooke) are both awesome and I'm happy to have gotten to know ya!


Bottom photo: Daddy Z

A snowy film on a snowy night

"Make yourself familiar with the classics" [Henrik Larsen in an old issue of "Obskuriøst"]

- I agree. But even so I don't always live by it. Yes, shock! horror!! I mean I've watched horror movies for a long time but often it's the weird, the obscure, the unknown, the forgotten movies I've seeked out. I'll tell you the lowdown on DR SATAN VERSUS BLACK MAGIC but I still haven't seen THE OMEN 2-4. I know THE RAPE AFTER by heart but until last night I'd never watched John Carpenter's THE THING!! (more shock horror!). I read about it in an old issue of "Inferno" zine in the early 90s but I still didn't bother to watch it till last night! Well, needless to say that was a mistake, LOL. It's "pretty good" but 6 trillion reviewers have already said that in 6 trillion reviews so I don't need to explain that even further. Now I just need to watch the original version. :D

Thunder Warrior 2 (aka Thunder 2) - trailer

Awesome stuff! And incidentally the only part of the series I've tracked down so far (on Japanese VHS). There are three films in the series.

Sourced from a Danish ex-rental VHS. Thanks to Diabolik for the upload.

Rumah Dara - new Indo horror!

Info from some site:


Darah (2010)
a.k.a : Rumah Dara / Macabre / Blood

Sinopsis

HORROR HAS A MOTHER

Darah tells the tale of a most horrifying night for 6 friends. Two newly weds Adjie and Astrid, along with 3 of their best mates decide to have an interstate road trip as a last attempt to reconcile Adjie with his estranged younger sister Ladya. Their drive is, however, cut abruptly when they run into Maya, a strange girl who wanders aimlessly out of nowhere into their path. "I've been robbed" is all she has to say. The friends unanimously decide to give her a ride to her isolated house in the deep of the woods. This is when the night turns into a crimson-hell for the 6 friends. They find themselves trapped and hunted by Dara and her three deadly protégés who have been born and raised to systematically eliminate unsuspecting passerbys for one nefarious reason. One by one they are slaughtered. Everybody will bleed. The dark of night has never looked so red.

Awards
Leading actress Shareefa Daanish won the 2009 Best Actress award at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan 2009) for her role.

Macabre, international title for Rumah Dara (Indonesian title), and in Singapore titled Darah) is an Indonesian horror/slasher film in 2010. The movie tells about a group who attempt to escape from a house that owned by mysterious lady named Dara and her family. And later is known that the family are killers and cannibal for getting immortality. The film was created based on Dara short film and character. This film cited by the directors as the long feature from the short film, and the short, will be the spin-off to this movie.

Before screened in Indonesia. This film had to screened in many festival and in 2009, Rumah Dara played in Singapore which got rating M18 (for Gore and Violence). Then, Rumah Dara played in Indonesia widely at January 22, 2010. The distribution to North America and Europe do by Overlook Entertainment.

In official twitter web for Rumah Dara, cited that this film is banned in Malaysia because its violence. The film is the first Indonesian film which banned in there

Cast:
Ario Bayu ... Adjie
Shareefa Daanish ... Dara
Julie Estelle ... Ladya
Ruly Lubis ... Armand
Daniel Mananta ... Jimi
Mike Muliadro ... Alam
Arifin Putra ... Adam
Dendy Subangil ... Eko
Imelda Therinne ... Maya
Sigi Wimala ... Astrid

Directors: (The Mo Brothers) Kimo Stamboel & Timo Tjahjanto
Genre: Horror / Slasher
Runtime: 95 mins

Language: Indonesian
Subtitles: English / Chinese (idx/sub)

Certification: Singapore:M18 / Indonesia:Dewasa

Her love rubbed off

Argh!! I just discovered this live video by the mightily awesome THE CRAMPS on YouTube! It's awesome! It's their cover of that old Carl Perkins track "Her Love Rubbed Off". I remmeber Lux talking about the song in an interview many years back where he said Perkins recorded it one time he was drunk in the studio and that he was in total denial of the song, haha. You can see why THE CRAMPS had to record it!!!

The video is from a gig in Holland 1990. I actually saw them the same year at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. Poison Ivy looks absolutely stunning here. I wonder how she's doing these days?


MORE CRAMPS

I just checked the uploader's account and here's more awesome stuff from that Dutch TV broadcast:

Les Diaboliques - cool Arte trailer

I love Arte! It's definitely one of my favourite TV channels. And it's not even a channel that some big ass film operator have decided you should pay big bucks to receive. It's free! All you need is a satellite dish (and to live in Europe, LOL).