Something Weird Video's DEVIL WOMAN is cut!!!

[Mexican lobby card for DEVIL WOMAN]

Today I finally got hold of the Filipino horror movie BRUKA, QUEEN OF EVIL which for years was thought to be lost. And before it was believed to be lost fans though it was an alternative title for MANDA aka DEVIL WOMAN. But it's not, they're two different moves (which Andrew Leavold has written extensively about here)

It's taken me about three and a half years to track down BRUKA and today I finally received it. Yay!!! Last year someone else got hold of a copy and shared it with friends, and copies off that copy are now doing the rounds in collector circles. I wouldn't be surprised if it's uploaded to torrent sites. Apparently, there's already some bootleg site that has got hold of it as well. However, I figured I'd get it directly from the person who provided Andrew's and everyone else's copy; i.e. the gwilo actor who got the film on vhs from one of the actors who starred in BRUKA and DEVIL WOMAN! The actor got the tapes directly from the films' producer. I'm really looking forward to seeing this film now!

But lets talk about the HEADLINE!!! In addition to BRUKA I ALSO received the Mandarin dubbed print of DEVIL WOMAN! In fact I got two different prints of the Mandarin dubbed version; One with English subs that originates from the film's producer (it says "Sample" on the print). And an un-subtitled print which is taken from an official VHS release from (I'm pretty sure) Taiwan!! He also sent me a Xeroxed colour copy of the vhs cover and I'll post it here once I get my arse in gear and a scanner organised! I think the two tapes from the producer are taken directly from 35mm or 16mm prints. These subtitled prints are not released anywhere on home cinema format. And BRUKA has never been released in any format to home-cinema anywhere in the world.

But BACK TO THE HEADLINE!!! [spoiler warning here!] My suspicion was right!! My suspicion which I've had all along THAT SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO'S EDITION OF DEVIL WOMAN CUTS OFF TOO EARLY!!! I was right!!! In fact the SWV vhs is missing the entire ending after the snake woman falls off the cliff!! There's about a minute of happy children and the snake woman crying in pain while she's burning in the flames of HELL!!! I wonder why it's missing from the SWV print. And it's highly annoying as SWV's fully letterboxed print otherwise looks so much better than the two Mandarin prints which are both presented in the fullscreen format. Anyway, I haven't watched any of my new dvd-r's properly yet but I'll write up some more (better) info once I do (and can make a proper comparison).

All very exiting!

VIDEO FEROX was a ZINE in the 90's. Now... it's a COFFEE TABLE BOOK!!!

Readers of my old zine STAY SICK! will undoubtedly remember Henrik Larsen's review of an issue of the legendary Swedish zine VIDEO FEROX. The zine is long gone but, lo and behold, the editor Johan Karlsson has reprinted every issue (i.e. 10) in book form! The book contains 608 pages and weighs a kilo (two pounds)!! Madre de dios!!!

Those original issues are RARE! (I never got hold of the early ones) and they go for inflated prices on the Swedish auction site Tradera. I've just ordered the book and paid around HALF of what one of the original issues went for on Tradera recently!!! According to their website the print run is limited to 160 copies and there's only about 30 left. Get it while you can. NB: All text is in Swedish.

For the Video Ferox site go here.

Prices: 297 SKR (Sweden) / 329 SKR (Denmark) (incl. postage). If you live in other parts of Scandinavia or elsewhere write and ask for price. They take PayPal and Bank-giro (the latter probably only within Sweden).

Juan de los Muertos (Spain/Cuba, 2011) - trailer

Check out this trailer for JUAN DE LOS MUERTOS [Juan of the dead] that I discovered via a Uruguayan blog, El Bizarro Mundo Nihilista (whose contents is mainly reviews of spanking sex videos, LOL). I don't know if there's a DVD release but it certainly looks cool enough to get if there is one!

"I love you Gordon Bleu"

No. 375 in our series of mistaken lyrics: SONIC YOUTH's "I Love You Golden Blue" which I seriously heard as I love you Gordon Bleu. Hahaha. Gordon Bleu is the often used Danish spelling of Cordon Bleu. Do watch the video, it's an awesome track. Oh, and it would have been more fun if she had actually sung I love you Gordon Bleu.




PS: I was gonna link to a recipe site to show you what a Gordon Bleu is and in honour of the single one Icelandic reader of this blog I decided to link is to an Icelandic site. Gee, if the Danes hadn't spent a 1000 years trying to improve our dialect of the old Viking lingo I would still be able to read that site. As it is I can only pick out certain words like Uppskriftir, kjüklinga and eggjahvïta, haha.

Witch With Flying Head (Cheung Yan-Git, Taiwan, 1982)

A few years back I watched a truly weird, wacky, wild, gory, and wonderful horror movie called WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD. Back then I thought it was from Hong Kong but it's actually from Taiwan, and it was directed by Cheung Yan-Git who also made the weird, wild and gory THE DEVIL (1981). He's made many more films but I haven't watched any of those (you can look them up on the HKMDB).

WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD is very rare as it's never been released on dvd or on any easy-to-find video tapes. The bootleg I got hold of years ago is the same version that everybody else has; it stems from a rare TAI SENG vhs that doesn't have any English subtitles. Until very recently I didn't think a subtitled print existed but then... someone on eBay put up a Mandarin language tape from TAIWAN that indeed includes English subs. I made a hefty bid on the tape but couldn't compete with the winner whose winning bid ended up on $155!! However, someone who had dealt with the seller before suggested I write to him and ask if he's sell me a dvd-r copy instead. Fortunately the seller said yes!

I watched my dvd-r tonight and what a difference it is when you can actually comprehend the WACKED OUT story line!! The Taiwan print is fullscreen and cuts off left and right but because it's also squeezed you can actually get it "down" in the correct ratio by using the 16:9 button on the remote. The film print that was used for the vhs is fairly scratched but, arch, screw that! It's subtitled!!!

Repo Man (Alex Cox, USA, 1984)

I've just re-watched REPO MAN which I hadn't seen properly for almost 25 years! (I did get hold of a fullscreen VHS dupe from Finland thru tape-trading in the early 90s but I think I only watched it very late one night and I fell asleep half way thru and never re-watched the tape I don't think). Initially, I watched it at an all-nighter at the old Scala Cinema Club in London in the late summer of 1988; If memory serves me well the all-nighter was entitled "Punk all night" and one of the other films was STRAIGHT TO HELL (also by Alex Cox) and I think SID & NANCY was shown too, and a fourth movie which I don't remember at all. Hmmm, no wait a minute... actually I do remember! It was DOGS IN SPACE, haha. I haven't actually re-watched any of those. I went with my friends Michelle G. and John Dodson - a big Aussie bloke who had died three times of drug overdoses and had just got out of a Spanish jail when I met him. The last time I saw him he left the UK in a hurry cos the tax authorities where getting on to him. Who was the last one there? Hmmm, memory is faint here. I think it was a Kiwi girl called Caileen. Haha. Anyway, I got hold of the reg. 1 dvd, the one that dvdcompare.net says is the best release of the film. And I must admit I thought REPO MAN was every bit as WEIRD and WONDERFUL as when I saw it almost 25 years ago. Alex Cox ought to pull his shit together and make some more films!

The last remaining stock of ONAR dvd's is now up for sale

Two of BILL BAROUNIS' friends in Turkey, film director Kunt Tulgar and film journalist Ali Murat Guven, are now working with Bill's widow Julia to make the last of the ONAR FILMS stock available!

Yesterday, they posted a list of ONAR DVD's that are available on the semi official ONAR Facebook page. Some are in great numbers and some are almost sold out. CELLAT (aka Turkish Deathwish) is almost gone (5 copies yesterday). I've got all of Bill's releases but I intend to grab a few anyway as a way to pay my respect one last time.

All the money goes to Bill's widow and their young daughter.

The list is here with info on prices and ordering. If you're not on FB you can also see the list here - but it's not yet translated into English.

Oh Anita!

ANITA LANE is quite wonderful. So weird and so cool musically. She belongs to that group of friends around NICK CAVE and his old band THE BIRTHDAY PARTY who went to live in Berlin in the early 1980s. She's been making music with various members from that crowd, most notably MICK HARVEY but also BLIXA BARGELD - and THE BIRTHDAY PARTY play on several of her recordings. Listening to those tracks is almost like discovering a long lost BIRTHDAY PARTY record.

Unfortunately, she's not very productive. She has kids and would rather spend time with them than make music. How odd!! (I hear the rumbling sound of mothers of the world coming this way to flatten me under their swollen feet. LOL). I remember sitting in the kitchen in Melbourne sometime in the 90s listening to an Anita Lane interview on the radio. She had just had a kid and she kept switching from trying to answer questions to trying to get the kid to stop crying. LOL. Check out these two videos. So cool.





And check out this li'l thing that I bought on eBay last night (i.e. this morning); Anita Lane's vinyl EP "Dirty Sings". I've actually already got the music as it's included on the CD version of her album "Dirty Pearl" but the cover was too cool not to own. It's pretty rare too!

Ol'e zombie fave to finally get uncut / un-tampered with / original DVD/BLU-RAY release!!!

Bloody great news!!! One of my all time fave horror flicks is fanally getting an uncut DVD release in its original format for the first time ever! Yes, NEEDLESS TO SAY, I am talking about the (studio) sequel to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD!!! It's Second Sight Films in the UK that are putting out the DVD/BLU-RAY. It's scheduled for release 04/06/12 (which everywhere in the world except the USA means means JUNE, not April!).

There's already been several DVD releases of RETURN but they all suffer from not being in the original format one way or another! I have avoided getting any of them because I already had an uncut letterboxed release that contains the original audio, i.e. the UK Tartan video tape! From what I've read the reg. 1 DVDs are in the right widescreen format BUT they suffer from having a truly truncated soundtrack: Some of the COOL punkrock music has been chucked out or changed (Rocky Erickson's awesome "Burn the Flames" has been shortened) and some dialogue has been altered.

The Return Of The Living Dead - Official Trailer - The most popular videos are a click away

The UK DVD from Tartan carries the original audio but is in fullscreen. If I want to see the film in fullscreen I can watch my Australian VHS (that I bought at the Melbourne Video Warehouse in the early 90s, check the scans in this post - although it's of ANOTHER Aussie tape, not mine. It's on eBay right now). Someone might claim the old DVD's were already uncut but I beg to differ: An altered soundtrack means cut in my book! But anyhoo, I for one am looking forward to this release heaps! Hell, maybe it's even time to get one of them hip BLUE RAYS everybody and his ugly cousin is talking about!

I've told you this a dozen times (all the way from the editorial of BANNED IN BRITAIN issue #1 in 1994) but here it is again; The very first time I discovered the fun and cool zombie genre was way back in the late summer of 1988 when I went to a "Dead all night" all-nighter at the old Scala Cinema Club in London (I used to live there in the late 80s and early 90s). The films they showed that night were: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, DAWN OF THE DEAD, DAY OF THE DEAD, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, and ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS (which I missed cos I had to leave for work Sunday morning!!).

Info abut the release from the Second Sight Films website:

THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (04.06.12)

NEWS JUST IN !!!!!
We are excited to announce the inclusion of 'original soundtrack' audio option !!
Available in a Special Limited Edition SteelBook Blu-ray and double disc DVD. The 5 hours of killer extras include:

MORE BRAINS! A RETURN TO THE LIVING DEAD: The definitve 2 hour documentary featuring interviews with cast, writers, producers, as well as behind-the-scenes footage, storyboards, conceptual art, publicity materials and archival documents

MORE BRAINS! 2 HOURS OF KILLER BONUS FEATURES: A conversation with Dan O'Bannon: The Final Interview, They Won't Stay Dead: A Look at Return of The Living Dead Part 11, Love Beyond The Grave: A Look at Return of The Living Dead 3, Stacey Q Live: Exclusive 'Tonight' music video, Even More Brains: Deleted documentary interviews, Return of The Living Dead in 3 minutes, Resurrected Settings: The Filming Locations Today

THE ORIGINS OF RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD with John A. Russo
THE FX OF THE LIVING DEAD with Production Designer William Stout, FX Makeup Artists William Munns and Tony Gardner
PARTY TIME with Music Consultant Steve Pross and 45 Grave Singer Dinah Cancer

Thanks to Derrick King who first mentioned this on Dvdmaniacs.

You are the worst band I have ever seen in your entire life.

This was posted on the (official I think) SONIC YOUTH facebook page today. This guy hates Sonic Youth's music, I mean hate to the extent that it's not just the worst he's seen in his life - but the worst he's seen in their life!! Hahahaha.

our fans writing:

"I'm going to be 100% honest with you.

I'm 13. I have a little band. We are so much better than you. Honestly. You are the worst band I have ever seen in your entire life. You are worse than Rebecca Black. The bass player just hacks the bass and plays one chord. The guitar players are playing out of tune guitars and... well not even playing actually chords. I couldn't sound worse if I tried. It actually sounds like a joke to me. The drummer is okay. But honestly the vocalist is completely out of tune. Oh and The Black keys have two people and are better than you.

From: Me, and pretty much everyone else who has accidentally stumbled upon your terrible music. "