Unknown Kino

My mate Matt over in Korea has begun doing a blog called Unknown Kino. It doesn't have that many entries yet but the ones he's already done are pretty interesting. You might wanna keep an eye on it. As I mentioned Matt is located in Korea but he's actually a French Canadian who has moved there. Whadda combination, ay. LOL. For Unknown Kino go here.

Bearded blog no more?

I have this long list of blogs that I check on a regular basis, and some of them (fewer) I check every day. One of the latter ones is Tales of a Bearded Movie Aficionado. If you've followed this here blog or Fred Anderson's ditto you'll be familiar with Patrick who's behind the bearded blog. You'll also be aware that he hasn't updated since Halloweeen (Oct. 31). I've written to that crappy Norwegian a couple of times without getting any reply but then a little while back I wrote him again and said Hey drittsekk, hvor er de 1000 kr du skylder meg [hey dickface where's the 1000 bucks you owe me] and this time 'round I got an answer, haha. Anyhoo, to make a short story excruciatingly and painfully long Patrick isn't coming back any day soon. Unfortunately (as I'm sure you're aware) he's an alcoholic bum (like most Norwegians) and proud of it too, and with an added coke problem it has all become too heavy a burden to keep the blog going. Well, what can I say. Call me boring if you will but I never understood the appeal of hard drugs or excessive drinking. Is that not being cool? Well, quite frankly I don't give a fuck what anybody thinks, I don't see the point in fucking up your life in order to be cool. "He overdosed? Arr man that's awesome!!"

Patrick, I'm only gonna say this once but quit that shit and come back to being a film fan. You don't need that drek.
End of rant.

PS: Oh, and that photo cracks me up every time. LOL.

The Evil Dead, an all-nighter 22 years ago, and wanting Steve C. to come back

The very first time I watched THE EVIL DEAD was in 1988 (or possibly 1989 or around that time anyway) at an all-nighter at the Scala Cinema Club, located in the King's Cross in London. The all-nighter consisted of THE EVIL DEAD, THE EVIL DEAD II, HELLRAISER, and HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER 2.
Ahh, what a night. Apart from my (then) girlfriend being annoyed (you could actually feel the temperature going down in the cinema) about my bringing her to see a film with "that" scene in it (the tree rape scene, you know) it was a night to remember. And FILMS to remember. Three of them were BIG classics to remember (and Hellraiser 2 is a guilty pleasure, lol).

I was living in London at the time and my entire film foundation was laid by going to all those all-nighters during those years in the late 80s/early 90s. As I'm sure you're aware, no matter where on the globe you're located, that the UK had very strict censorship regulations in those days (or "censorshit" as IN THE FLESH would refer to it). They've loosened up quite a bit although the BBFC still ban a movie once in a while.
The good thing about going to the old Scala Cinema Club was exactly that: It was a cinema club! There was a loophole in the censorship regulations that allowed clubs with members to show films that were otherwise cut on video tape or had to be shown cut in ordinary cinemas (all you had to do to become a member was buy a member's card that cost ya 50p and which was valid for a whole year and you were even allowed to bring a friend, LOL).
THE EVIL DEAD had been cut (about a minute) when it came out on rental tape (even though it was a pre-certification tape, i.e. before the British Board of Classification [BBFC] was introduced). So in other words, the version I got to watch on that cold and rainy dark night was a fully uncut version. Of course nowadays nobody cares about these old stories as you can buy your fully uncut EVIL DEAD DVDs in every video store on the corner in every city no matter where you are.

A couple of years later I discovered a Bristol based fanzine called IN THE FLESH run by a guy called Steve C. (who still owes me for an entire year of subscription!!!) and in their 7th issue Steve C. reviewed the film in their "A-Z OF NASTIES" and amongst other things he wrote: "Gore-wise the original Palace version was missing approximately 1 minutes worth of pencil twisting, eye gouging fun and frolics [...] I strongly advise you to look out for this everywhere. Even though there is now a version on sell-thru the original Palace release is head, shoulders and a few minutes gore above that!"
... and now, about 20 yrs after I read that piece I'm finally gonna get a copy of that legendary tape! Woo-hoo!! I won it on eBay last night and I must admit I can't wait. I know I know, don't tell me, it's not as good as a DVD or a blueinyourface-ray or whatever you kids buy nowadays but none of that new fancy stuff is gonna have the history this one has (or the damp smell of having been sitting in someone's basement for 20 odd yrs, probably). Sure it's cut but... HISTORY, man, HISTORY!!!

And if nothing else... it IS presented in its original format WHEREAS almost all of the DVD versions are presented in the wrong format as Sam Raimi caved in to the DVD companies and re-cut the film's format so now the top and bottom are missing from the film!! I'm not even fucking kidding! Did you really think a film shot on 16mm would be letterboxed? Well, it's not. It's fullscreen and that's the only way to watch THE EVIL DEAD. LOL (don't worry, if you've got the wrong version you can still get a proper one without having to find an old video tape as there's a release that contains both the original fullscreen and the crappy lbx version. Go check Dvdcompare.net).

But having said all of this I must admit I somehow miss the old days of trying to hunt down banned video nasties and reading splatter-movie fanzines. No, my friend, reading someones blog that has the same bloody layout as 17 trillion other blogs just isn't as fun, boo-hoo. Steve C. where are you now? We need you to put out one more issue. :-(

THE STICK (South Africa/Suid-Afrika, 1987)

Woo-hoo! Will be getting this soon. xD

VHS/Japan/fullscreen/English dub/Japanese subs

From IMDb:

The Stick is not only the best South African film I have seen, its definitely in my top 10 list of movies of any genre I have ever seen.

The direction is engaging and the photography top class. The script is solid and very good in that its believable if you familiar with eerie world of witch doctor medicine, which makes it very scary. Underlying the story; the senseless killing and confusion of the South African apartheid state of mind is portrayed in a controversial way, which I thought added an interesting tension to the script. Most of which caused it to be heavily banned. So I don't think there are many people on the planet who have seen it. Lucky for those who have. The landscape and content make this film uniquely South African, but its one any horror fan would enjoy.

Truly a great and very different horror film.


BANNED FOR FOUR YEARS

More from IMDb:
A masterpiece of anti-war psychological horror which was banned for four years in the country of its' origin. It has been described as an African version of PLATOON: well, no disrespect to Oliver Stone, but this gut wrenching tale is not a version of anything other than a brutal indictment of the terror that was the Angolan war, where men were sent off to die for something that not all of them believed in. Not all of them believed in the righteous crusade that the John Vorster and P W Botha governments launched against the so called "terrorists" who appear from nowhere, kill and vanish once more.
THE STICK is a brutal film with scarcely any humour in it (except for Gys de Villiers' startled reaction to the quick decaying witchdoctor). It has brilliant photography by the late Paul Witte, wonderful acting and a taut script. It is not available for sale on VHS and DVD, but really should be, as,along with films like THE WINNERS and KATRINA, it is one of the very few South African made films that people like myself do not have to wince at and apologize most humbly for.
To quote Don Coscarelli's PHANTASM selling line: "If this one doesn't scare you, you're already dead!"


Trivia:
When submitted for approval by the South African government they requested 48 cuts to be made. The director refused and the film remained banned until the 1990s.

More on these movies here.

This is history, man!

Metallica in 1983 doing The Mechanics (from the legendary No Life 'til Leather tape) i.e. the original version of The Four Horsemen with Dave Mustaine on guitar. I'm sure you're all familiar with how Dave got booted out of band soon after and later recorded The Mechanics with his new band Megadeth.

It's awesome to see this old video tape!!! (and if you've never been into this you're just gonna think it's shit, haha).

George Hilton not so dead after all

For chrissakes I should never have posted that photo!

- but thanks for the mention, guys! I'm flabbergasted! xD

Go here.

Videodromen is a cult film club in Copenhagen, Denmark. It's run by Adam and Lars and you should probably attend their screenings if you're in the neighbourhood.

Deformed Queen

I love Laila K's version of "Ca plane pour moi". I have an old documentary film about her called FUCK YOU VERY MUCH. She was messed up and always in opposition to everything you could be in opposition against. For that alone I liked her. xD

Cool ZOMBIE flick trailer on Saturday xD

About the trailer:
(from the YouTube uploader DarkAngel1182)

This is the extremely rare ORIGINAL full length 1978 UK theatrical trailer to George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead", which was released under the title "Zombies : Dawn of the Dead" when it first played UK theatres.

This trailer is longer than the ones found on the current box set from Anchor Bay and was taken from an old trailer tape I picked up from a video fair a few years ago. NO idea where they got it from.

So how you doin?

Been a while, sorry 'bout that but I'm still posting, not here but over on my other blog. Go and check it out here. Everyone is reading the trashy Vietnam blog so why don't you! (if you don't I'll keep looking insanely at you. Forever. Even at night. Me kill!). Hahaha.