Saturday, June 28, 2008

L'OSSESSA



I watched Mario Gariazzo's Italian THE EXORCIST rip-off L'OSSESSA tonight. It was even made the same year (1974) as the original and contained some of the scenes we've become accustomed to by now; the possessed girl writhing on her bed, spewing green goo, and being just generally blasphemous and swearing. I must admit she was a major letdown to the film; I mean instead of Linda Blair we get a twenty year old Italian girl with black hair and a perfect body. She ruined every frame she was in! (picture Homer Simpson, head lump-sided, drooling, and going "arrrrrr"). No, actually the only real letdown was the atrociously bad print from Alpha Video (in the States). Fullscreen, a master so obviously taken from a bad video master, and with colours so faint they looked as thought the print were recorded using a cheap two headed vcr! Anyway, none of that ruins the film which was enjoyable. Not quite in the same league as the film it rips off but pretty cool never the less.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

The devil within

The very first extreme horror movie I ever watched was THE EXORCIST back in '84 when it was shown here on television. I'd just got my first vcr back then and obviously had to tape the film. I'm sure you'll find it entertaining to hear that I never actually watched my tape. I simply found the Satanic stuff too scary and eventually erased it without one single viewing! Yes, much has changed. Yesterday I mentioned watching LEGACY OF SATAN and while going thru my last couple of weeks' purchases it occured to me I've incidentally bought a bunch of horror films and related lobby cards that deal with the subject; First up is my new Italian double disc release of LISA AND THE DEVIL / HOUSE OF EXORCISM and a HOUSE OF EXORCISM lobby card from Mexico:


- And then we have my new dvd + very cool Mexican lobby card of L'OSSESSA (aka The Sexorcist/The Tormented):


- And believe it or not but today I got BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL on dvd!! Maybe I should start to listen to heavy metal music again. Hmm, where did I put my Iron Maiden records?

Legacy of Satan


I watched LEGACY OF SATAN last night and I'm gonna watch it again tonight. Yes, it's THAT enjoyable. It's trash, it's horror, it's... strange, odd, and weird. Three words that basically mean the same - and it's that weird! It's almost hypnotic. It draws you in! It sucks you in and you can't get out. Oh, and the music (and I use the term loosely) is...
However, why would I write a review of it when Joseph A. Ziemba already did a really good one here: Legacy of Satan.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Fantastic Turkish Cinema

Ahh, the long back-order wait is over and I'm finally getting this:

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Fantastik Türk Sineması; the bible on Turkish films in the "fantastic" genres! And no I'm not getting it from Turkey but the US. 31 bucks + postage from www.tulumba.com

Monday, June 23, 2008

It doesn't really concern you but

I'd slept exactly an hour and a half when the mailman banged on my door. "Another pile" he uttered and disappeared again. I live on the third floor (or "fourth floor" if you're American) and that annoys him greatly. Usually it's really none of your business what I get thru my door but, hell, just this once then: First up was a dvd box set from our friends in the high quality department; Brentwood! The box is entitled "Blood Bath 2" and I bought it because it contains LEGACY OF SATAN which I've wanted to watch ever since someone wrote about it in some Danish fanzine five or six years ago. I don't think it received a very good review, it is of course utter trash, but I was quite eager to see it back then (but never got hold of it as it was one of those films from that big pile of films that only use to be available on very rare Greek ex-rental tapes. In Europe anyway) and now that it's here I wasn't gonna miss it again. Needless to say, I'm sure the picture quality sucks major ass but screw that, I wanna see it. The other films in the box (which if nothing else has a pretty cool cover, blood soaked of course) are JACK THE RIPPER GOES WEST (!!), THE BRIDE, and BLOOD SONG. THE BRIDE is of course reviewed in an old dusty issue of STAY SICK! (I forget which issue. You figure it out). Next up in the pile was EL CHARRO DE LAS CALAVERAS (aka Riders Of The Skulls) from Mexico 1966! I made bids for this rare Mexican lobby card for the film (cos it looked goood) and althought I unfortunately lost the auction obviously I had to see the film anyway. The description from the place where I bought it reads: "Very rare maniacal Mexican horror, complete with a werewolf, a Zorro character, skull monsters and a lot of atmosphere...[ ]" How could you NOT wanna watch something like that! LOL.


Then we get to the music part of the pile: Pussy Galore: "Maximum Penetration" - I said MUSIC part of the pile, not hardcore porn part, haha. Pussy Galore was a pretty good garage band from the 80s. Jon Spencer (of Jon Spencer's Blues Explosion) was in the group. I'm really thrilled about this tape, it's very rare by now and did I find an old beat up second hand copy you ask? Nooo, I found a brand new, never played, copy from an eBay record store in the US. Ahh, God bless eBay (no, I'm not being blasphemous it's just a phrase). And from the same store: a big flat parcel containing 1) Pussy Galore: "Live in the Red" LP, 2) Buzzcocks: "Live at the Roxy Club, April '77" LP, and finally, 3) a Barry Adamson/Anita Lane 12"!! Ahh, Anita Lane! I remember listening to an Anita Lane radio interview while I was living in Melbourne in the early 90 and she'd just recently had a baby and during the interview the baby kept crying and she kept interrupting the interview saying: "hold on a second", LOL. Anyway, that's it. I'm outta here for today. My holidays are over but today I discovered I miscalculated the amount of days that I have left so actually I've got another seven days left I can use. I think I'll just ring various official people tomorrow and tell 'em I'm having another week off (from being unemployed). I'm sure there's difficult phone conversations ahead but it's not like I'm prone to not call 'em up anyway. If anybody out there in blog/internet/cyberspace land has a vacancy for a brilliant writer then just gimme a buzz (and I'll tell him, haha).

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Bleeding Skull

Back in the day, in the longlongago, before man created the dvd player and the cell phone, we didn't have too many movie magazines around. Or at least not in my neck of the world anyway. And less magazines dealing with "alternative" films. Nowadays, of course, you can't turn on your computer without being bombarded with new flashy, exiting and hot (or so they claim) movie eMagazines. And movie forums. And movie data bases. They are everywhere. Cool. Yeah, well, no not cool! Most of them range from being not very good to utter shite. The forums are inhabited by "experts" who know very little but distribute a lot (a lot of faulty info that is!) or they're more conserned with slagging off other forum members. Or you take 50 film sites at random and they all repeat the same screwed up info (rumours often) that some schmuck listed on IMDb as facts. Actually, I read something on a film site yesterday where someone referred to the IMDb as a very reliable source! Yeah right, take away the 50% of the UNreliable info and you've got a fairly reliable site!

And then you have all the sites that are mere adverts for video companies, people who are just happy getting stuff for free and out the window goes any objectivity they might have had to begin with. Uhhh, better not criticise this release too harshly or we probably won't get any more free copies. Well, I'm sick of all these useless (or semi useless) film sites and I'll tell you what I'm also sick of: all those film sites that DO write well about movies but don't venture into territories beyond this month's big dvd releases. Just like the 6 trillion other sites. But at least they took out time to write well researched reviews. Great big fucken deal when we've already read about those movies a zillion times.

So tell us some'ing we don't know guv I hear you cry out oh you wee ones and yes I will; Lo and behold, a couple of weeks ago I was scouring the Net in search of a new big Hollywood blockbuster called BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL (I kill me) and in my doing so I stumbled over this review site called "Bleeding Skull"! And, mein gott, it's a blessing in disguise! It doesn't look "flashy" (thank god!) and there's no ads jumping into your face like a creep from ALIEN, and there's no stoooopid videos going off left and right to make slow Internet up-links (like mine) take a zillion years to load the page!! This is like a one man army against BORING film sites. Against BAD review sites.

Joseph A. Ziemba's "Bleeding Skull" is a very enjoyable place to spend your afternoon. His site concerns itself with horror and psychotronic films from the 50s and thru to the 80s (it's VERY refreshing that he doesn't go beyond the 80s. Actually, the 80s seem to be alien land to him). His writings are funny, compelling, and well written. Did I mention they're funny. One thing that sometimes annoys me is when reviewers write long ESSAYS on films. You want to read a review and you get a piece that might as well have served as the script for the fucking film! Not so Ziemba's reviews. They are short but not too short, and long enough to contain what needs to be said. Oh, and he's funny too.

"Bleeding Skull" has two other writers but most of the stuff is done by Ziemba himself. A slightly odd (but cool) feature is that the review section is divided onto two; one for films on dvd and one for vhs. There's also a section with longer pieces (of the kind we often refer to as "articles", haha) and some pretty cool interviews, among others one with Herschell Gordon Lewis!! Good on ya, Mr Ziemba!! Oh, oh, and there's a Nathan Schiff interview! I'm not exaggerating when I say "Bleeding Skull" has quickly become my fave review eZine along with Fred Adelman's "Critical Condition"! I urge you to read it.

You can find "Bleeding Skull" here. You'll need a lot of coffee, there's a lot to chew into.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Blame it on Nick and Robert

Today my pizza was wet. My PayPal is on strike and stuff I bought is hanging in the void. My new rare Japanese vhs had had its cover cut in a faulty way from the factory so too much was missing left and right. I've got the shingles (helvedsild) again. And it poured down from day break till sun set. Oh happy day. Good thing I listened to all those Cure and Siouxsie & the Banshees records in the early 80s. You either become depressed or learn not to. And a lifelong friendship with saint Nick (i.e. Nick Cave) helps too. LOL.


Thursday, June 19, 2008

Aarrrggghhhh

I bought an Einstürzende Neubauten cassette tape the other day. It's an album called "2 x 4" and it came out in 1984 on ROIR CASSETTES. And that IS the correct name of the "record" company. They were a record label that only put out cassette tapes! And only dub and punk/noisy music!! The album contains a recording of Neubauten live on stage. It's faantastic! I could kick myself in the head for not having got into this band yrs ago. There's one moment on the tape where Blixa Bargeld (the lead singer) sounds like he's got something stuck in his throat and he goes "aarrrggghhhh". Amazing! I want more.

(PS: No, you don't have to trawl eBay for the next three years in order to find a copy of this tape! The album is now out on cd and ROIR has long since become a cd + vinyl label).

Sunday, June 15, 2008

"Do you ever have a night when you don't dream about The Fall"

My cd player is fucked. My record player is fucked. I'm left with playing old cassette tapes. Do you ever get into a rut where you only play the same record? Well, this week I've played over and over again an old cassette tape that I taped off "The Peel Show" from a period where John Peel played every session he'd done up until then with The Fall. And he did one every year. In 1990 he had done eight!! Of course, now you don't have to resort to old recordings on a long deleted format to hear these sessions. Each and every Fall session John ever did has how come out in a collected box. Wauw! But me, I'm still playing old wobbly cassettes. And of course, although the sound is probably much superior on those (probably expensive) cd's, there's one thing you don't get on them: John Peel!! To get his comments on those brill sessions you have to listen to old cassettes. Hah!
[and yes, the headline is a Peel quotation from the tape]

About John Peel and The Fall; As I mentioned he would ask them into the BBC studio every year to record a session. They were his favourite band for so many years. I remember a Peel interview once where he said both he and Mark Smith were a bit awkward whenever they'd meet and just slap each other on the shoulder or something. I don't even know if The Fall still exist. They probably do. They're like The Cramps. Or the 9 o'clock news. Or The Ramones in the old days. They're always going to be around. And in the case of The Fall they're never going to change. It's funny really, just like with The Ramones all their records sound exactly the same. It's like they've re-recorded the same record over and over again. My girlfriend M. many years ago (and on the other side of the planet) once said to me about The Ramones' songs; "They all sound the same!" to which I grinned and said: "Yeah, isn't that great". Haha. She reminded me about it over the phone a little while ago. And yes, I can see why someone would think that is, ahm, boring. And it would be if it wasn't for the fact that all these bands did something that is so hypnotically enchanting that it grabs you every time. Even if the difference is the same. Oh, and I just bought a Ramones bootleg LP; "Joey is a Punk", haha.

Maybe I should buy a new tape-deck. Hmmm.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Lejemorderen der græd

I dag er der koncert ikke langt fra, hvor jeg bor. Når jeg åbner vinduet, kan jeg høre musikken. Når jeg lukker vinduet, kan jeg høre musikken. Grupperne, der spiller, er Ace of Base, Big Fat Snake, Lars Lilholt Band, Peter Viskinde m. Band, Gnags, og OneTwo. Når jeg åbner vinduet, kan jeg høre musikken. Når jeg lukker vinduet, kan jeg høre musikken. Når jeg sætter hænderne op for ørene og skriger, kan jeg høre musikken. Hvis det så i det mindste var musik, de spillede.

Friday, June 13, 2008

FRIDAY THE 13TH!!!

Hey, it's Friday the 13th! Compulsory horror movie viewing night! I spent my last F13 at work but fortunately I'm unemployed now (and in the middle of my holiday away from being unemployed, LOL). So, paesano, what ya got planned for tonight I hear you cry out. Well, thanks for asking I've got William Fruet's "Death Weekend" lined up, that's what. Have wanted that one ever since one Mr. Sørensen wrote about it some 6 or 7 yrs back in some mag whose title escapes me now (ahm) but of course it just haad to be one of those most wanted horror movies that was never granted a dvd release, and the video versions are more rare than your chance of getting laid at a dike slumberparty... h-o-w-e-v-e-r... I just received it on Greek vhs from Bill whatshisface (mr. Onar himself) in downtown Greece so it'll be screening at Scala J tonite. Woo-hoo.
How you doin'?

Monday, June 9, 2008


Nothing like a black vampire scorned! Maybe I should watch some blaxploitation movies again. Very cool lobby card me thinks!

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Kanun Gücü




You win some, you lose some. And tonight I won this crime flick (on Greek VHS) which Onar-Bill calls: 'Turkish bloodiest crime colossus'! It not only stars Cüneyt Arkin, it's also directed by Arkin! Yay!!