Bruno Mattei's last cannibals on vhs

Bruno Mattei's two last cannibal movies (that are among his much neglected post 2000 movies) were LAND OF DEATH (2003) and CANNIBAL WORLD (2004) were probably the last of his films to come out on video tape. And only in Japan! His later film, including THE JAIL: A WOMAN'S HELL, ZOMBIES: THE BEGINNING, THE TOMB, and ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD didn't make it to VHS as far as I'm informed (and neither did his post 2000 soft-porn films but I don't know much about those). Feel free to correct me but I've certainly never seen any video releases of any of those films. His last film was ZOMBIES: THE BEGINNING from 2007. A third film in the series was planned by sadly Mattei passed away before it was made. So sad. We could have had yet another masterpiece by this true il Maistro di italieno horror film. ^_^

I already had the two films on DVD (one on official Japanese dvd and the other on American bootleg from Pan-something off the Japanese dvd). But when I saw the other vhs versions from a seller in downtown Japan I knew I had to have them. Yay! Both tapes are ex-rentals and both carry English dubbing with Japanese subs. You'll notice there's a plastic box with the tapes in them inside the case itself. This is something I believe only existed in Japan and was a way for rental shops to be able to on one hand quickly get the tape out of the case and at the same time let the customer rent the tape in the plastic box while the case (and the cover) stayed in the shop. This way other customers could see and (I would assume) pro-order renting the tape once the first customer delivered it back.

If you look at the covers you'll notice the two films were marketed at sequels to CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, the Japanese titles carry sequel numbers 2 and 3 and the Japanese title itself is the same as for CH. Also the English (i.e. English in Japan) titles were changed to resemple sequels; LAND OF DEATH became "Cannibal Holocaust: Cannibal vs. Commando" while CANNIBAL WORLD became "Cannibal Holocaust: The Beginning" (notice: the Japanese titles include the sequel numbers but the English titles don't). Bruno Mattei's two late cannibal films are fun on a very trashy level but there's no way in hell that they compare to Ruggero Deodato's masterpiece from 1980.




- and check this crazy trailer...

Time flies when you're having a ball

I haven't posted much recently but that's life. Sometimes you do other things (or no things) but everything has a way of going round in circles. If you stick with it it usually comes back whatever it is. Yeah, deep! o_O

Check out the track in that YouTube video. It's from NICK CAVE's soundtrack record to some cowboy movie that I haven't watched but the album is pure gold!

Oh, and I'm on a BLACK SABBATH high these days! I'm in the process of collecting all their early records from what I reckon is the real BLACK SABBATH, from 1970 to around 1977; i.e. the original Ozzy Osbourne years when they were heavy as fuck and dark as a motherfucker. The soundtrack to any occult devil worship film that Hammer studio never got made. I paid attention to my friend Henrik Larsen's recommendations and made sure I got hold of old non-remastered CD versions that aren't ruined by "loudness war" decompression. So far I've received: "Black Sabbath", "Paranoid", "Master of Reality", "Vol. 4", and "Sabbath bloody Sabbath".

Jesus (Jess) Franco - RIP

Jess Franco has passed away. Most of this world's genre film blogs will probably have write-ups about it the next couple of days so I won't try and write anything incisive. I've seen far too few of old Franco's films to do so anyway. His muse, Lina Romay, passed away last year. The first of his films that I ever watched is the third (and unofficial) Ilsa sequel, ILSA, THE WICKED WARDEN (aka Greta, Haus ohne Männer / Ilse, Slageren fra junglefængslet). Incidentally, both Lina and Jess are in that film. I wanted to post the trailer for WICKED WARDEN but the only one I could find looks like a fake one - but, hey, maybe that's not such a bad idea - many of his films were hacked up on video anyway. And some where apparently hack jobs. I'm also posting a short interview that Jess did recently about Emilio Schargorodsky's new film DRACULA 0.9 (Schargorodsky also did the interview with Jess). For a proper piece on Jess Franco's passing check out my buddy Jason's article here. RIP, Mr Franco.

update: BLACK SABBATH 1970 gig back up

The BLACK SABBATH Paris gig from 1970 is now back up again. Go here. This is the best period of BLACK SABBATH's career if you ask me. Hard garage-rock.

Alright, bring on the virgin apocalypse!

I wrote about the upcoming German dvd release of ANGELS WITH GOLDEN GUNS aka Virgin Apocalypse here. The dvd is coming from the video label CineClub and altho there's still no word no a release date, Spannick, who works for the video label, posted some cool screen grabs from the release over on Cinehound forum. The screen grabs in the proper aspect ratio certain look much better than the fullscreen version of the film that I've got! Spannick has also uploaded a clip from the print and re-uploaded the film's original IFD trailer. Check them both out! (the trailer is posted in the post just before this one).

So, should I blame David Lynch or a bad childhood?

I had a dream again last night. In my dream I suddenly feel there's something under my right foot so I sit down on my bed and pull off my sock. There's a little head sticking out under my foot! Not a human head but it looks like some weird bird or some shit. Kinda like the baby's head in Eraserhead. It strikes me I actually saw it several days ago but it was still undeveloped under the skin of my foot, and I hadn't bothered to do something about it. Bummer! What to do now! It's Friday (in my dream anyway, in reality it's Monday but actually it wouldn't have made things any better as it's a public holiday here) and my MD's office closes at 12:00 on Fridays. Hmm, maybe if I'm quick I can find another doctor who's open and ask him to do something about the head under my foot. But then it occurs to me I should probably wash my foot first. How do I do that? Where do I go? ZAAP!! and as it happens in dreams I suddenly find myself somewhere else. I'm in a place that looks like a hallway in a school or factory or some such. Hey, there's the loos, great I can wash my foot there. But I probably need some help, so I start yelling, "I need help, can some pirates help me"! I have no idea as to why pirates would be good at helping me with washing my foot that has a head attached to it and soon I realise it was a daft idea cos although two pirates do turn up, they are members from some youth gang that just happen to... dress like pirates. I realise I'm in trouble but fortunately I woke up. Damn dream!

Note to self: Don't ask pirates for help if you've got a weird growth somewhere. Bad idea!

Too cool for school!

PUSSY CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST!!!

I've never heard this band but the cover of their CD along with their name is too cool not to post regardless!! Info about them is scarce but one blog describe them as "primitive punk". Yeah, I believe that. The CD is from 2001 and they've probably broken up long ago and have become hausfraus or kindergarten teachers.

EDIT: Hmmm, all that Japanese writing confused me, haha. Apparently, "Pussy Cannibal Holocaust" is the title of the record, NOT the band. Bummer! That would have sounded much better than that real name which apparently is ANADOREI.

 Thanks to Kenno for tracking down this video on the ol'e tube:



According to Discogs.com the band have released two albums and two 7 inch EP's:

"Pussy Cannibal Holocaust" - CD (Captain Trip Records, 2001)
"This is the beginning of the end" - CD (Captain Trip Records, 2006)
 "We'll break male's fantasy fuck your myth of musculinity full of anger" - 7" (Captain Trip Records, 2002)
[untitled] - 7" (Freaked out frequencies, 2003)

You'll find the listing on Discogs here.

Aenigma! #2

(Not published yet!)

Here's the cover for the next issue of AENIGMA! Nigel says it'll probably come out in about two week's time or so. And yes, that is indeed Danish Bodil Joensen on the cover. The ish will have an article on her (if you don't know her do a google, there are Wiki pages in English and Danish) and obviously some other stuff that I don't know about (duh!). Bodil Joensen was known in Denmark as "Ornepigen Bodil" [Bodil the Pig Girl]. With THE CRAMPS added song title on the cover I'm sure you get the idea.

AENIGMA! on Facebook.

Battle of the Wonder Women

I bought Something Weird video's dvdr release of the Filipino/US film WONDER WOMEN (1973) and wrote about it in February 2011. Bruce Holecheck commented that Code Red were going to give the film a proper release on dvd and blu-ray.

I quite like the film and have been waiting impatiently for Bill Olsen to get his finger out his arse and release this cool Filipino film (along with the wild Filipino/US production RAW FORCE which Code Red also announced many, many moons ago!). Then about a month ago, Bill Olsen posted on his blog that Code Red were going to chuck everything else aside because they (i.e. he) were going to concentrate only on the WONDER WOMEN release! And the reason? Apparently another video label in the US, Fred Olen Ray's Retromedia, were also planning to release the film!

I've been trying to follow this confusing mess on Facebook and where ever else in Cyberspace there's been news about it, and it appears that both labels somehow have gained copyrights for the film! So as of right now, it seems we can expect a dvd release of WONDER WOMEN from both Retromedia and Code Red! The cover posted here is for the Retromedia release. I haven't seen a cover for the Code Red dvd yet. I must admit Retromedia's cover looks pretty fucken awesome! The extras sound great too:

16x9 35mm HD transfer
Commentary Track by director Bob O'Neil
Super 8mm Home Movies behind the scenes in Manila
Radio Spots
TV Spots
Theatrical Trailer
European scenes missing from US theatrical
and more...

The only Code Red extras that I'm aware of is the commentary track that was mentioned on their blog and which features director O'Neil with Nathaniel Thompson (it's a different track than the one for the Retromedia dvd).


Here are some screen grabs from the SWV dvdr: