Dead Men Walk (B&W, 1943) George Zucco has a dual role as kindly Dr. Clayton and his evil, deceased brother Elwin, whose studies of the black arts have given him the power to return as a vampire. Raging with hate, he targets Clayton's niece and starts vampiric attacks on her, aided by his assistant, Dwight Frye (in a more restrained role than usual, and also one of his last). Clayton and his niece's boyfriend struggle to stop Elwin's evil but the local law thinks Clayton's the one responsible since they' believe his twin to be dead. A low-budget B-picture but actually pretty good, with Zucco giving the evil role plenty of unrestrained malice, and the finale is impressive.
Fog, The (C, 2005) Unnecessary remake of John Carpenter's classic isn't a disgrace or anything (although I could definitely get an argument out of that claim) but it adds nothing but more face-time for the monsters... and since they look fakey SyFy-Channel monsterfied, that's not exactly a special feature. The story's basically the same -- undead leper pirates killing the townspeople of Antonio Bay in the middle of a supernatural fog. Instead of stolen gold they want revenge on the descendents of the people who stole their land and murdered them all. There are lots more special effects of varying quality but it's not an improvement. Nor is it unwatchable, and it won't bore you.
Monster Maker, The (B&W, 1944) aka The Devil’s Apprentice. Pretty sick (by 40’s standards, anyway) PRC horror in which a mad doctor (J. Carrol Naish) gets a serious crush on a pianist’s daughter, because she looks like his dead wife. The doctor gives the girl the creeps, though, so her dad tells the doc to get lost. In revenge, he injects dad with acromegaly, a disease that causes grotesque, deforming swelling of the extremities. Rondo Hatton, who wasn’t in this film but who starred in several others around that time, actually had this condition. The pianist grows deformed... and angry. He wants to kill the doctor for infecting him, so the doctor has to chain him up, and then tries to force a marriage on his unwilling daughter. There’s also a rampaging gorilla and some powers of hypnotism to keep things moving. One of the better PRC films, with more bad taste than was usual in the timid 40’s. Glen Strange (who was weird-looking in his own right; he was Sam The Bartender on Gunsmoke) has a small role as Naish’s assistant.
Grave Encounters (C, 2011) Faux-reality show in the Blair Witch mode. This kind of thing has become very familiar but can still pack in some tension and scares if it's handled well... and this one's handled very well. It never quite manages to come across as real -- it always looks like acting -- but it does manage plenty of creepiness and some highly effective shocks, and it builds to some heavyweight darkness. A TV crew locks itself inside an abandoned mental hospital for the night to film an episode of one of those ghost-hunter reality shows. At first they're disappointed that the place is quiet and boring, but then little things start happening... and then they get a whole lot more than they bargained for. Doors that used to lead to exits now just open on to more labyrinthine corridors, and they're populated by some very spooky and disturbed spirits. And morning never comes; it remains dark outside no matter what time it is. They're left in the dark with limited light and something seems determined to keep them as patients in the hospital. It's a bit derivative but it works well and ranks high on the disturb-o-meter, and builds in creepiness as it goes, ending up intense and packing lots of dread. Recommended.
Condemned to Live (B&W, 1935) aka Life Sentence, Demon of Doom. Thoughtful vampire film in which kindly Professor Christian (Ralph Morgan), cursed by the bite of a vampire bat his mother received while he was being born, suffers a Jekyll-and-Hyde existence as he blacks out and becomes a bloodsucker by night. The village relies un the professor's endless kindness to the poor, but live in terror of the vampire murders that are decimating the populace. His hunchbacked assistant tries to stop him from killing while keeping his secret, and the professor -- who only wants to do good -- is troubled by what he suspects is happening. Things are further complicated by his young fiance, who's in love with another guy but is very honored to be marrying the saintly professor and is devoted to him... but may become a victim. He makes a fearsome-yet-sympathetic monster, and it's good to see an old horror movie that's not so cut-and-dried. Similar in some ways to The Vampire Bat, which used the same music, sets, and director.
10.27.2011
Showing off my Halloween(r): I Call It "Norman"
So, unbeknowst to our reading audience, the diabolic zwolf challenged the rest of our crew to post a horror short story this month, to commemorate Halloween. And, of course, I failed miserably. Years of not really writing - aside from this kinda bullshit, which requires little to none of the creativity necessary for writing good fiction - has left me rusty + rough, like that old nail you steppt on when you were a kid...
Anyway, not to be completely left out, here's a Halloween song I wrote, recorded + posted for ya.
The intent was to honor the classic horror of the 60s, so the music's sorta early rock-influenct, intended to evoke The Cramps. Except the theremin-esk synth line, which is s'posta sound like every scary UFO from those films. And, of course, all of the words you'll hear are by Robert Bloch + Alfred Hitchcock, voiced by Tony Perkins.
Check it out + lemme know what you think. It'll play straight offa the browser + runs under 2minits.
Happy Halloween!
Anyway, not to be completely left out, here's a Halloween song I wrote, recorded + posted for ya.
The intent was to honor the classic horror of the 60s, so the music's sorta early rock-influenct, intended to evoke The Cramps. Except the theremin-esk synth line, which is s'posta sound like every scary UFO from those films. And, of course, all of the words you'll hear are by Robert Bloch + Alfred Hitchcock, voiced by Tony Perkins.
Check it out + lemme know what you think. It'll play straight offa the browser + runs under 2minits.
Happy Halloween!
10.24.2011
More movie thing for October thing yeah
This marathon stuff is making me bleary. Man, do I wanna just turn off the TV and read a freakin' book! And I'm not anywhere near the goal... I'm gonna fail almost by half. But, still, whatever. Dropping ya'll a raw-feed again 'cuz what the hell, nobody actually reads these anyway, do they? Not that I can tell... :)
Paranormal Activity 3 (C, 2011) The tricks are getting a little familiar and losing their ability to terrify -- it's kinda becoming a chain of "oh, that again" -- but the series is still solid and hasn't had a bad one yet. This is a prequel, consisting of video tapes shot when Katie was having her first supernatural troubles as a little girl. Her sister starts a weird friendship with an imaginary friend named Toby... who turns out to be neither imaginary nor friend, as he terrorizes her family. Like the others this starts out with little creaks and movements that get her stepfather obsessed with filming them all on his videocameras, but he conveniently captures more than he counted on. A little less is left to the imagination than in previous installments, and it still unfolds pretty slowly, but it pays off with some freaky special effects and an ending that explains maybe too much. They should probably end it here, but it's not a disappointment.
Blood and Black Lace (C, 1964) aka Sei Donne per L'assassino, Six Women For The Murderer, Fashion House of Death. Formative giallo masterpiece created by Mario Bava has a masked killer (he looks just like The Question from the comics, with a featureless fabric mask and a fedora), murdering models in various gruesome-for-the-time ways, such as pressing a face to a red-hot heater or slamming a spiked metal glove into their face. He's after a diary left by his initial target and is killing anyone connected to it. The film is so classy and well-done in Bava's hands that you forget what a hack Cameron Mitchell turned out to be. Plot-wise it's more murder mystery than anything else, but Bava's eerie directorial touches (later copied wholecloth by Dario Argento) make it horrific, using lots of colored lighting, surreal sets, and expressive camera angles to create an otherworldly atmosphere. It can be a bit hard to follow but it's essential (repeat) viewing and well worth the effort.
Frozen (C, 2009) Open Water on a ski lift. Three not-terribly-lovable (but not so bad you'd enjoy seeing them suffer) skier/snowboarders try saving a few bucks on ski lift fees and end up paying for it big time when they're accidentally forgotten about midway up the mountain when the ride shuts down for the week. They're too high up to jump down, there's a pack of hungry wolves running around, the cables are too sharp to climb on, and there's a winter storm. If they stay they'll freeze to death, but they don't seem to have much other alternative. Attempts to get themselves out of the situation don't turn out well and they're getting frostbite. The further along the movie goes the more desperate the situation grows, and it's suspenseful but also kind of a bummer to watch. It makes me glad that winter sports have never appealed to me in the first place. If you're into survival horror, this should work for you.
Ghoul, The (B&W, 1933) Classic Karloff that was considered almost a lost film for a long time; there was only one print and it was in terrible condition. Then, oddly and without explanation, a beautiful, pristine DVD showed up. Karloff is a dying professor who's spent a vast fortune on The Eternal Light, a jewel that he plans to present to the god Anubis after death so he'll be admitted to Paradise. He has it bandaged to his hand and warns that he'll return from the dead seeking vengeance if it's stolen. And, of course, it is stolen, and on the full moon Karloff rises from his tomb and goes on an angry rampage. Karloff puts out a very emotive performance in a mostly-silent role, and the decaying-zombie makeup is effectively morbid. A scene with him carving a symbol in his chest is pretty gruesome for the 30's. Could have used more monster stuff and less skullduggery involving the theft-and-re-theft of the jewel, but the film is a classic worth saving.
Chambermaid, The (C, 2004) aka Lovesick: Sick Love. A young lady (Fiona Horsey) loses her job as a hotel chambermaid when a guest who paid her to jerk him off accuses her of stealing. She was only resorting to the minor-league prostitution because she's desperate for money to help her metal-musician boyfriend pay off some drug dealers who keep beating him up. While riding her bike one night she finds her boss completely drunk and takes him home and makes him believe they had sex so she can manipulate him. She also makes him believe the guy she jerked off tried to rape her, so she gets her job back. Her boss - a pitiful nebish who's browbeaten by his invalid mother - thinks he and Horsey have a relationship and starts to become possessive. She turns the tables and convinces him that he raped her and got her pregnant, and tries to blackmail him. She moves into his house with her boyfriend and torments her boss by taunting him and having sex with her boyfriend in front of him, and tries to treat him like their slave. But he goes psychotic and kills his mother and her boyfriend and chains her up in the basement so he can have children with her. She's been resourceful (and evil) about scheming so far, but can she get out of this? No-budget British production isn't all bad for an almost-homemade film, and the acting is good in spots even though it always looks clumsy and super-cheap. Much is made of Horsey's nudity but there's not really that much of it. Available on Mill Creek's cheapo Blood Bath 12-movie set.
Headless Ghost, The (B&W, 1959) Hopelessly corny silliness in which three college kids (two American boys and a girl from Denmark) hide out in an old English castle, hoping to see its famed ghosts. The ghosts do appear, stepping out of their portraits, but they look and act just like normal people in period costumes so the spooky factor is zero. They explain that they can't rest in peace until one of them is reunited with his missing head. They attend dinners with the ghosts and take part in other goofy things that are about as scary as a Topper episode. The whole thing is painfully obnoxious and irritating but might be fun for an eight year old.
Paranormal Activity 3 (C, 2011) The tricks are getting a little familiar and losing their ability to terrify -- it's kinda becoming a chain of "oh, that again" -- but the series is still solid and hasn't had a bad one yet. This is a prequel, consisting of video tapes shot when Katie was having her first supernatural troubles as a little girl. Her sister starts a weird friendship with an imaginary friend named Toby... who turns out to be neither imaginary nor friend, as he terrorizes her family. Like the others this starts out with little creaks and movements that get her stepfather obsessed with filming them all on his videocameras, but he conveniently captures more than he counted on. A little less is left to the imagination than in previous installments, and it still unfolds pretty slowly, but it pays off with some freaky special effects and an ending that explains maybe too much. They should probably end it here, but it's not a disappointment.
Blood and Black Lace (C, 1964) aka Sei Donne per L'assassino, Six Women For The Murderer, Fashion House of Death. Formative giallo masterpiece created by Mario Bava has a masked killer (he looks just like The Question from the comics, with a featureless fabric mask and a fedora), murdering models in various gruesome-for-the-time ways, such as pressing a face to a red-hot heater or slamming a spiked metal glove into their face. He's after a diary left by his initial target and is killing anyone connected to it. The film is so classy and well-done in Bava's hands that you forget what a hack Cameron Mitchell turned out to be. Plot-wise it's more murder mystery than anything else, but Bava's eerie directorial touches (later copied wholecloth by Dario Argento) make it horrific, using lots of colored lighting, surreal sets, and expressive camera angles to create an otherworldly atmosphere. It can be a bit hard to follow but it's essential (repeat) viewing and well worth the effort.
Frozen (C, 2009) Open Water on a ski lift. Three not-terribly-lovable (but not so bad you'd enjoy seeing them suffer) skier/snowboarders try saving a few bucks on ski lift fees and end up paying for it big time when they're accidentally forgotten about midway up the mountain when the ride shuts down for the week. They're too high up to jump down, there's a pack of hungry wolves running around, the cables are too sharp to climb on, and there's a winter storm. If they stay they'll freeze to death, but they don't seem to have much other alternative. Attempts to get themselves out of the situation don't turn out well and they're getting frostbite. The further along the movie goes the more desperate the situation grows, and it's suspenseful but also kind of a bummer to watch. It makes me glad that winter sports have never appealed to me in the first place. If you're into survival horror, this should work for you.
Ghoul, The (B&W, 1933) Classic Karloff that was considered almost a lost film for a long time; there was only one print and it was in terrible condition. Then, oddly and without explanation, a beautiful, pristine DVD showed up. Karloff is a dying professor who's spent a vast fortune on The Eternal Light, a jewel that he plans to present to the god Anubis after death so he'll be admitted to Paradise. He has it bandaged to his hand and warns that he'll return from the dead seeking vengeance if it's stolen. And, of course, it is stolen, and on the full moon Karloff rises from his tomb and goes on an angry rampage. Karloff puts out a very emotive performance in a mostly-silent role, and the decaying-zombie makeup is effectively morbid. A scene with him carving a symbol in his chest is pretty gruesome for the 30's. Could have used more monster stuff and less skullduggery involving the theft-and-re-theft of the jewel, but the film is a classic worth saving.
Chambermaid, The (C, 2004) aka Lovesick: Sick Love. A young lady (Fiona Horsey) loses her job as a hotel chambermaid when a guest who paid her to jerk him off accuses her of stealing. She was only resorting to the minor-league prostitution because she's desperate for money to help her metal-musician boyfriend pay off some drug dealers who keep beating him up. While riding her bike one night she finds her boss completely drunk and takes him home and makes him believe they had sex so she can manipulate him. She also makes him believe the guy she jerked off tried to rape her, so she gets her job back. Her boss - a pitiful nebish who's browbeaten by his invalid mother - thinks he and Horsey have a relationship and starts to become possessive. She turns the tables and convinces him that he raped her and got her pregnant, and tries to blackmail him. She moves into his house with her boyfriend and torments her boss by taunting him and having sex with her boyfriend in front of him, and tries to treat him like their slave. But he goes psychotic and kills his mother and her boyfriend and chains her up in the basement so he can have children with her. She's been resourceful (and evil) about scheming so far, but can she get out of this? No-budget British production isn't all bad for an almost-homemade film, and the acting is good in spots even though it always looks clumsy and super-cheap. Much is made of Horsey's nudity but there's not really that much of it. Available on Mill Creek's cheapo Blood Bath 12-movie set.
Headless Ghost, The (B&W, 1959) Hopelessly corny silliness in which three college kids (two American boys and a girl from Denmark) hide out in an old English castle, hoping to see its famed ghosts. The ghosts do appear, stepping out of their portraits, but they look and act just like normal people in period costumes so the spooky factor is zero. They explain that they can't rest in peace until one of them is reunited with his missing head. They attend dinners with the ghosts and take part in other goofy things that are about as scary as a Topper episode. The whole thing is painfully obnoxious and irritating but might be fun for an eight year old.
10.22.2011
That thing I'm doing, some part of it... yeah...
Jeez, it's 2 a.m., I'm an idiot! Here's another un-edited dump o' reviews so I can get to bed. Have a good weekend, all!
Woman Eater, The (B&W, 1958) Mad Dr. Moran believes the sap of a rare Amazonian tree he keeps in his lab can bring the dead back to life, but the only way to get it to produce sap is to feed girls to it. A guy who's trying to pick up a carnival girl gets her fired instead, but manages to get her a housekeeping job...for Dr. Moran. The doc takes a liking to her and disposes of his previous housekeeper. He's likely to feed the new girl to the awkward-looking tree (a bunch of furry arms sticking out of a trunk -- the funnest thing about it is figuring out how all the people inside it are standing) but you can probably guess what actually ends up happening. Deservedly obscure.
Angel, Angel, Down We Go (C, 1969) aka Cult of the Damned Oddball hippie-era relic in which an overweight, disillusioned rich daughter named Tara Nicole is eager to get laid and break away from her vain mother and secretly-gay father. She's easy pickings for Bogart, the narcissistic sociopath singer of the band that plays Tara's coming-out party. Bogart wants to use her to get ahead, and she wants to hang out with the band. Bogart tries to convince Tara's parents he wants to marry her, but he's after her mother instead. Tara hangs out with the band (including Roddy McDowall and Lou Rawls) and hallucinates that she's stuck to the ceiling while everybody babbles about society and Bogart absurdly seduces the mom. The farther the movie goes the more pointlessly nonsensical it becomes until it's nothing but songs and disjointed, self-impressed dialogue. It leads up to a skydiving accident. There are some similarities to the Manson family thing, but it's coincidental because this came out first. Lots of weirdness and crazy 60's filmmaking, but not much to it but quirk.
Book of Stone (C, 1969) aka El Libro de Piedra. Obscure Mexican masterpiece of creepiness. A woman named Julia takes a job as a governess to a little girl named Sylvia. Sylvia's father and stepmother think she's mentally ill, partially because of her obsession with an imaginary friend, a boy named Hugo. Hugo's actually a statue of a boy holding a big book, located in a swampy area on the family property. Kindly Julia plays along with Sylvia's fantasies but starts to become disturbed by things about Hugo. Sylvia names an Austrian town that Hugo supposedly came from, and Julia discovers it existed. She also learns that Hugo was supposedly a real boy turned to stone by his wizard father, so he could guard a book of black magic. The stepmother starts having mysterious pains and Julia discovers that Sylvia made a voodoo doll of her. Once everyone gets wise to the fact that black magic is going on, more sinister things start happening and an extremely-creepy Hugo starts showing up. Sylvia's godfather tries moving the statue away to end the obsession, but Hugo has no intention of leaving. Extremely spooky, atmospheric, unjustly-obscure film that seems to have some Mario Bava influence. Worth the effort to seek out.
Eerie Midnight Horror Show, The (C, 1974) aka L'ossessa, Enter the Devil, The Devil Obsession, The Sexorcist, The Tormented. Sleazy Italian demonic possession flick in which a pretty young art student named Daniella brings home a life-sized carving of one of the crucified thieves, taken from a church that was deconsecrated because of all the orgies that took place there in centuries past. The statue comes to life (as demonic-looking Ivan Rassimov, perfectly cast) and has sex with her. She's left a screaming slut who tries to seduce her father, has visions of being crucified that result in stigmata, and screams and thrashes around whenever in the presence of a priest or crucifix. Chanting nuns cause her to run through the streets yelling like a lunatic. A priest tries to exorcise her, but the demon makes her pretty so she can seduce him. When he still resists, she pukes up what looks like melted lime sherbet and does some more screeching. Cheap and pretty artless rip-off of The Exorcist, with some really hilarious dubbed dialogue, but it's weird enough to be creepy in spots and I've always had a soft spot for it.
Woman Eater, The (B&W, 1958) Mad Dr. Moran believes the sap of a rare Amazonian tree he keeps in his lab can bring the dead back to life, but the only way to get it to produce sap is to feed girls to it. A guy who's trying to pick up a carnival girl gets her fired instead, but manages to get her a housekeeping job...for Dr. Moran. The doc takes a liking to her and disposes of his previous housekeeper. He's likely to feed the new girl to the awkward-looking tree (a bunch of furry arms sticking out of a trunk -- the funnest thing about it is figuring out how all the people inside it are standing) but you can probably guess what actually ends up happening. Deservedly obscure.
Angel, Angel, Down We Go (C, 1969) aka Cult of the Damned Oddball hippie-era relic in which an overweight, disillusioned rich daughter named Tara Nicole is eager to get laid and break away from her vain mother and secretly-gay father. She's easy pickings for Bogart, the narcissistic sociopath singer of the band that plays Tara's coming-out party. Bogart wants to use her to get ahead, and she wants to hang out with the band. Bogart tries to convince Tara's parents he wants to marry her, but he's after her mother instead. Tara hangs out with the band (including Roddy McDowall and Lou Rawls) and hallucinates that she's stuck to the ceiling while everybody babbles about society and Bogart absurdly seduces the mom. The farther the movie goes the more pointlessly nonsensical it becomes until it's nothing but songs and disjointed, self-impressed dialogue. It leads up to a skydiving accident. There are some similarities to the Manson family thing, but it's coincidental because this came out first. Lots of weirdness and crazy 60's filmmaking, but not much to it but quirk.
Book of Stone (C, 1969) aka El Libro de Piedra. Obscure Mexican masterpiece of creepiness. A woman named Julia takes a job as a governess to a little girl named Sylvia. Sylvia's father and stepmother think she's mentally ill, partially because of her obsession with an imaginary friend, a boy named Hugo. Hugo's actually a statue of a boy holding a big book, located in a swampy area on the family property. Kindly Julia plays along with Sylvia's fantasies but starts to become disturbed by things about Hugo. Sylvia names an Austrian town that Hugo supposedly came from, and Julia discovers it existed. She also learns that Hugo was supposedly a real boy turned to stone by his wizard father, so he could guard a book of black magic. The stepmother starts having mysterious pains and Julia discovers that Sylvia made a voodoo doll of her. Once everyone gets wise to the fact that black magic is going on, more sinister things start happening and an extremely-creepy Hugo starts showing up. Sylvia's godfather tries moving the statue away to end the obsession, but Hugo has no intention of leaving. Extremely spooky, atmospheric, unjustly-obscure film that seems to have some Mario Bava influence. Worth the effort to seek out.
Eerie Midnight Horror Show, The (C, 1974) aka L'ossessa, Enter the Devil, The Devil Obsession, The Sexorcist, The Tormented. Sleazy Italian demonic possession flick in which a pretty young art student named Daniella brings home a life-sized carving of one of the crucified thieves, taken from a church that was deconsecrated because of all the orgies that took place there in centuries past. The statue comes to life (as demonic-looking Ivan Rassimov, perfectly cast) and has sex with her. She's left a screaming slut who tries to seduce her father, has visions of being crucified that result in stigmata, and screams and thrashes around whenever in the presence of a priest or crucifix. Chanting nuns cause her to run through the streets yelling like a lunatic. A priest tries to exorcise her, but the demon makes her pretty so she can seduce him. When he still resists, she pukes up what looks like melted lime sherbet and does some more screeching. Cheap and pretty artless rip-off of The Exorcist, with some really hilarious dubbed dialogue, but it's weird enough to be creepy in spots and I've always had a soft spot for it.
10.17.2011
Whatever-month-it-is holiday movie thingie whatever I'm doing some number
Goin' in raw this time 'cuz I gotta get a shower and get to fucking bed already... I'm ridiculous, doing this stuff! You can find YouTube stuff, you're big kids... Anyway, enjoy, if anybody's readin' this stuff!
Voodoo Black Exorcist (C, 1974) aka Vudi Sangriento. Bizarre, talky obscurity that owes a lot to Karloff's The Mummy. A native couple in the Caribbean (neither black, although they are wearing some brown makeup) accidentally kill the girl’s father in a fight over their forbidden love. In a voodoo ceremony the girl is decapitated (all the heads in this movie appear to be made-up styrofoam wig stands) and the guy voes to return for vengeacne upon the reincarnations of his tormentors centuries later. Cut to the modern day (established by NASA footage) and the coffin holding the mummy of the vengeful lover is loaded onto a cruise ship. He comes back to life and un-shrivels so he can control passengers with jabs from a drugged snake-ring and romance a girl he thinks is the reincarnation of his lost love. He tries to win her affection by putting a severed head in her bed. He also has another guy rolled over with a steam roller (unfortunately they don’t try to show us the aftermath). He gives interviews about being a living mummy! He also searches for his lost snake ring. On the way he kills a couple more people. This is a real mess of nonsensical scenes put together, and I can’t imagine what they were thinking when they made it, because I can’t imagine anyone thinking that it was going to be coherent. It’s interesting just for the weirdness and obscurity, but it’s crazy and also kinda dull.
To The Devil A Daughter (C, 1976) aka Child of Satan. Christopher Lee is an excommunicated priest (“it is not heresy, and I will not recant!” - if you ever wondered where White Zombie stole that line in “Supercharger Heaven,” you’re welcome) who’s out to bring the child of Satan into the world. As its vessel he’s targeted a young nun (Natassja Kinski, who was only 16 but still did full-frontal) who’s visiting London. Richard Widmark is an expert on Satanism who’s out to protect her. Lee and his Satanists do a rite involving a pregnant woman giving birth, which impregnates Kinski. They also terrorize her father through supernatural means, trying to force him to keep a pact. Kinski has been brainwashed to believe Astaroth (depicted as a guy who appears to have a giant inverted crucifix up his ass) is good , and she wants to serve him. She has visions of Christopher Lee in a golden mask having sex with her while she’s tied down. Widmark realizes he’s up against serious trouble and tries to rescue Kinski from an evil fate, but the deluded Kinski doesn’t help much. Lesser Hammer but still not bad (although a hand-puppet devil is so hilarious it ruins all the creepy mood that’s built up), adapted from Dennis Wheatley’s novel (although Wheatley hated it, due mostly to the ridiculousness of the ending). Hammer folded its tents shortly afterward.
Don’t Look Now (C, 1973) Donald Sutherland is in a very clammy-looking Venice restoring an old church, and his daughter drowns in a canal. Sutherland and his wife Julie Christie are devastated until his wife meets a pair of sisters, one of whom is a blind psychic who tells her the daughter’s happy. Later the sister predicts disaster for Sutherland and he almost falls from some scaffolding. Then Christie returns to London to check on their son in boarding school but Sutherland thinks he sees her in Venice, as part of funeral procession. He also thinks he sees his daughter running around, and since there’s a murderer loose in Venice, he becomes frantic. The movie is self-impressed with its artiness -- Nicholas Roeg seems to be more interested in making postcards than telling a story -- and has a very sterile, formal feel (even the softcore sex scene is very stagey, though fairly explicit). and it ultimately doesn’t make a lot of sense. The ending is creepy even if it’s inexplicable, though. The film does have a certain giallo-ness and it’s good in moments, even if it doesn’t hang together as a whole. It’s one of those pretentious films that people are afraid to say is badly flawed because it looks like you‘re supposed to find it intellectual. Don’t believe the hype, but it’s still worth seeing. From Daphne DuMaurier’s superior novella.
The Devil’s Rain (C, 1975) Absurdity and nonsense can be surpremely creepy, and this disjointed devil-worshipper classic has that working for it big time. I first fell in love with this weird movie when the CBS Late Movie used to show it in the 70’s (or early 80’s?) and I’ve seen it dozens of times since, and it’s still never made much sense. Damn if it doesn’t work, though, and has a strange atmosphere and a unique climax, and a cast you can’t believe would be in such a movie. William Shatner and his mother Ida Lupino and brother Tom Skerritt try to protect a 300-year-old book of signatures of renegade pilgrims who signed their souls to Satan. Devil-cult leader Corbis (Ernest Borgnine, who’s having a ball with his role and sometimes appears in ram’s-head makeup) is after the book and happy to subject the family members to all sorts of demented temptations. He leads a cult of black-robed eyeless followers (including Anton LaVey in a gold mask, and John Travolta, who’d go on to become a cultist in real life). There’s a lot of mumbo jumbo as Shatner (at his overdramatic worst -- he gnaws the scenery like it’s slathered in butterscotch) tries to survive demonic assaults and Skerritt and Eddie Albert face Borgnine in his church while the cast melts into puddles of was and slime in the rain. Once seen you’ll never forget it, even if you never fully understand it. The special effects are a lot better than the acting and are plentiful and creepy. The eerieness lasts right through the end credits.
Enter The Devil (C, 1972) aka Disciples of Death. A deputy sheriff doing a Clint Eastwood imitation is sent out to the West Texas desert to look for a missing rock hound. The man’s body is found burned in his car, and the deputy discovers a cult of Satanists is active in the canyons. Since deer season just opened, potential victims abound, and the icewater-eyed sheriff is election-obsessed, so the deputy’s under pressure to shut the cult down. Meanwhile they’re throwing people into rattlesnake pits and barbed-wiring-and-crucifying more victims. A lady reporter who thinks it’s a cult of penetenties gets too close and ends up in trouble. It’s a little too ordinary (aside from one unusual plot twist midway through) to be very effective, but the acting from the cast of unknowns isn’t bad and there’s some atmosphere and low-budget charm. A shot of a cultist with a stone (charred wood?) dagger made it into a prominent spot in Famous Monsters. The Sinister Cinema DVD-R edits over the memorable “Green, Green, Green, Everything’s Turning Green” opening song.
The Vampire Bat (B&W, 1933) aka Blood Sucker, Forced to Sin. This old indie stacks up pretty well with the Universal classics, partially because it shares some sets and actors. A plague of bats falls upon a European village, and drained corpses with fang-marks in the neck keep turning up. Everyone thinks the village idiot (Dwight Frye at his unhinged best) is responsible because he’s a giggling creep who likes to play with bats (“They’re soft, like cat!”). The sheriff thinks the vampire business is a load of bunk, but he doesn’t know that mad scientist Lionel Atwill has created what looks like a giant raspberry that he keeps in a tank. A strange, atmospheric little film I find myself re-watching a lot. If you ever wondered where the band Dog Faced Hermans got their name, this movie might answer that for you.
Strangler of the Swamp (B&W, 1945) One of PRC’s finest hours (although it’s not their best film - the people who claim that are forgetting about Detour), this ghostly tale of vengeance shows how much atmosphere you can build with no money, just a couple of sets, and a fog machine. Swamp denizens hang a ferryman for a crime he didn’t commit, and his accusers start dying from mysterious strangling accidents. When the replacement ferryman falls victim to the shadowy ghost, his daughter takes over the ferry. Blake Edwards shows up in the village after being away at school and starts romancing her... but he, too, is a target of the ghost’s relentless will for vengeance, and so their love may be doomed unless drastic measures are taken. Fast-moving and spooky little B-flick.
The Virgin Witch (C, 1972) aka Lesbian Twins. A couple of sisters run away to London, hoping to become models but become witches instead in this British horror with an emphasis on nudity and softcore porn instead of anything scary. Looking for work, one of the girls is drawn to a model scout named Sybil, who’s a lesbian and practices witchcraft. At a weekend of photo shoots at a country estate things soon start getting creepy, with weird people peeping at the girls and a lot of preoccupation over their virginity. They soon figure out they’re in the company of witches but think it’s innocent and interesting and they want to take part in a ritual, which basically consists of sex while everyone frugs naked around them. The model sister wakes up naked with Sybil, but doesn’t seem to be all that fond of her, and wants to become a witch and take Sybil’s place. Her sister’s boyfriend shows up all freaked out because Sybil’s a lesbian. He’d be much more justified in worrying about the virgin sacrifice the coven has planned. Not badly done but not much of a horror movie; it’s more of a nudie with exotic setpieces, playing to the 70’s fascination with witchcraft. Some of the ring-around-the-rosie dancing gets pretty hilarious and kills whatever minor creepiness this bloodless “horror” film might have created.
Mystery of the Wax Museum (C, 1933) Early two-stripe Technicolor horror with mad sculptor Lionel Atwill covering corpses in wax to create historical figures for his side-street museum. He’s a legit artist at first, but his partner sets fire to the unprofitable business for the insurance money, melting Atwill’s masterpieces and leaving him horribly scarred -- physically and mentally. He finds people who resemble the historical figures he wants to create and arranges their deaths. When he meets Fay Wray, he thinks she’s the perfect Marie Antoinette, and she may be in for a horrible fate if she can’t be rescued by a smartassed girl reporter. Well-done classic remade as House of Wax and ripped off by countless other films.
Who Can Kill A Child? (C, 1976) aka Quien Puede Matar a Nino?, Island of the Damned, Death is Child’s Play, Would You Kill A Child?, Trapped, The Killer’s Playground, Lucifer’s Curse, Island of Death. The prologue answers, apparently a lot of people -- it shows how wars tend to make things hardest on children. Then we’re off to the beach where butchered bodies have been washing up. Our protagonists, a couple on vacation in Spain, decide to get away from the festival crowds by taking a trip to the island of Almanzora... which turns out to be the source of the corpses that have been washing up on the beach, because the children of Almanzora have banded together to play a game where they kill all the grown-ups. Upon reaching the island, the couple is weirded out by how deserted it all is, and how unfriendly the children are, but things grow increasingly sinister. They get frantic phone calls from someone speaking German but they can’t speak the language. They see a laughing little girl (the creepy kid from Demon Witch Child) beating an old man to death with a stick, and then a group of them use the corpse as a pinata... with a scythe. They start finding more corpses and decide they better get the hell off Almanzora, but the kids aren’t quite done playing their horrible games, and to survive the tourists will have to fight back. But an adult having to overcome the taboo of using deadly force against children is a disturbing factor, too. Why this masterpiece isn’t better known I have no idea; it builds an eerie atmosphere of isolation and dread that grows more and more intense until it’s full-blown horror. If any “killer kid” movie ever scared you, be aware that the next-best one is still miles and miles behind this, which plays like a combo of The Birds and Night of the Living Dead, but with the added taboo of having to kill children to fight back. And gore makeup on kids is a disturbing sight. This is an absolute must-see for anyone who takes horror seriously.
Shriek of the Mutilated (C, 1976) aka Mutilated, Scream of the Snowbeast. If only this was as good as its title. Hell, I’d settle for half as good. A third as good. Michael and Roberta Findlay are at the exploitation sleaze again with this cheap Bigfoot horror. A professor leads an expedition of college kids to an island looking for some Yeti-type monsters. The lone survivor of a previous expedition was left homicidally insane and gets electrocuted by having a toaster thrown in his bathtub. Once on the island the professor has his Indian cook (who looks more like a Mafia goon in a headband) feed the students “bear pie” and fills them with Bigfoot stories. One is soon attacked by one of the fuzzy monsters (the costumes look like they’re stitched together out of white bathmats). A search for him recovers only one of his legs, which they used for bait to try to catch the monster. When that fails they try the corpse of a girl. And that leads to a disappointing secret being revealed. The movie has a little mild gore but balks when they could really have gone for some splatter; when every other aspect of a film is a big failure, why try underplaying something that would have been easy enough to deliver upon? Throw some meat around! DVDs substitute canned music for the extremely annoying synth song, “Popcorn” by Hot Butter.
The Most Dangerous Game (B&W, 1932) Joel McCrea is a famous big game hunter who gets shipwrecked on the island of deranged Russian hunter, Count Zaroff, who’s gotten so good at hunting that animals bore him and now he hunts men instead. Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong are also there, having survived a previous shipwrecked, and they’ll all end up hunted. After showing them his torture chamber and trophy room of human heads, he sets McCrea and Wray loose in his jungle, evading their traps and trying to nail them with his bow and arrow, rifle, and dogs. Incredible sets, lightning pace, and an atmosphere of menace add up to a compact, hard-hitting classic with major re-watch value. Led to King Kong.
Voodoo Black Exorcist (C, 1974) aka Vudi Sangriento. Bizarre, talky obscurity that owes a lot to Karloff's The Mummy. A native couple in the Caribbean (neither black, although they are wearing some brown makeup) accidentally kill the girl’s father in a fight over their forbidden love. In a voodoo ceremony the girl is decapitated (all the heads in this movie appear to be made-up styrofoam wig stands) and the guy voes to return for vengeacne upon the reincarnations of his tormentors centuries later. Cut to the modern day (established by NASA footage) and the coffin holding the mummy of the vengeful lover is loaded onto a cruise ship. He comes back to life and un-shrivels so he can control passengers with jabs from a drugged snake-ring and romance a girl he thinks is the reincarnation of his lost love. He tries to win her affection by putting a severed head in her bed. He also has another guy rolled over with a steam roller (unfortunately they don’t try to show us the aftermath). He gives interviews about being a living mummy! He also searches for his lost snake ring. On the way he kills a couple more people. This is a real mess of nonsensical scenes put together, and I can’t imagine what they were thinking when they made it, because I can’t imagine anyone thinking that it was going to be coherent. It’s interesting just for the weirdness and obscurity, but it’s crazy and also kinda dull.
To The Devil A Daughter (C, 1976) aka Child of Satan. Christopher Lee is an excommunicated priest (“it is not heresy, and I will not recant!” - if you ever wondered where White Zombie stole that line in “Supercharger Heaven,” you’re welcome) who’s out to bring the child of Satan into the world. As its vessel he’s targeted a young nun (Natassja Kinski, who was only 16 but still did full-frontal) who’s visiting London. Richard Widmark is an expert on Satanism who’s out to protect her. Lee and his Satanists do a rite involving a pregnant woman giving birth, which impregnates Kinski. They also terrorize her father through supernatural means, trying to force him to keep a pact. Kinski has been brainwashed to believe Astaroth (depicted as a guy who appears to have a giant inverted crucifix up his ass) is good , and she wants to serve him. She has visions of Christopher Lee in a golden mask having sex with her while she’s tied down. Widmark realizes he’s up against serious trouble and tries to rescue Kinski from an evil fate, but the deluded Kinski doesn’t help much. Lesser Hammer but still not bad (although a hand-puppet devil is so hilarious it ruins all the creepy mood that’s built up), adapted from Dennis Wheatley’s novel (although Wheatley hated it, due mostly to the ridiculousness of the ending). Hammer folded its tents shortly afterward.
Don’t Look Now (C, 1973) Donald Sutherland is in a very clammy-looking Venice restoring an old church, and his daughter drowns in a canal. Sutherland and his wife Julie Christie are devastated until his wife meets a pair of sisters, one of whom is a blind psychic who tells her the daughter’s happy. Later the sister predicts disaster for Sutherland and he almost falls from some scaffolding. Then Christie returns to London to check on their son in boarding school but Sutherland thinks he sees her in Venice, as part of funeral procession. He also thinks he sees his daughter running around, and since there’s a murderer loose in Venice, he becomes frantic. The movie is self-impressed with its artiness -- Nicholas Roeg seems to be more interested in making postcards than telling a story -- and has a very sterile, formal feel (even the softcore sex scene is very stagey, though fairly explicit). and it ultimately doesn’t make a lot of sense. The ending is creepy even if it’s inexplicable, though. The film does have a certain giallo-ness and it’s good in moments, even if it doesn’t hang together as a whole. It’s one of those pretentious films that people are afraid to say is badly flawed because it looks like you‘re supposed to find it intellectual. Don’t believe the hype, but it’s still worth seeing. From Daphne DuMaurier’s superior novella.
The Devil’s Rain (C, 1975) Absurdity and nonsense can be surpremely creepy, and this disjointed devil-worshipper classic has that working for it big time. I first fell in love with this weird movie when the CBS Late Movie used to show it in the 70’s (or early 80’s?) and I’ve seen it dozens of times since, and it’s still never made much sense. Damn if it doesn’t work, though, and has a strange atmosphere and a unique climax, and a cast you can’t believe would be in such a movie. William Shatner and his mother Ida Lupino and brother Tom Skerritt try to protect a 300-year-old book of signatures of renegade pilgrims who signed their souls to Satan. Devil-cult leader Corbis (Ernest Borgnine, who’s having a ball with his role and sometimes appears in ram’s-head makeup) is after the book and happy to subject the family members to all sorts of demented temptations. He leads a cult of black-robed eyeless followers (including Anton LaVey in a gold mask, and John Travolta, who’d go on to become a cultist in real life). There’s a lot of mumbo jumbo as Shatner (at his overdramatic worst -- he gnaws the scenery like it’s slathered in butterscotch) tries to survive demonic assaults and Skerritt and Eddie Albert face Borgnine in his church while the cast melts into puddles of was and slime in the rain. Once seen you’ll never forget it, even if you never fully understand it. The special effects are a lot better than the acting and are plentiful and creepy. The eerieness lasts right through the end credits.
Enter The Devil (C, 1972) aka Disciples of Death. A deputy sheriff doing a Clint Eastwood imitation is sent out to the West Texas desert to look for a missing rock hound. The man’s body is found burned in his car, and the deputy discovers a cult of Satanists is active in the canyons. Since deer season just opened, potential victims abound, and the icewater-eyed sheriff is election-obsessed, so the deputy’s under pressure to shut the cult down. Meanwhile they’re throwing people into rattlesnake pits and barbed-wiring-and-crucifying more victims. A lady reporter who thinks it’s a cult of penetenties gets too close and ends up in trouble. It’s a little too ordinary (aside from one unusual plot twist midway through) to be very effective, but the acting from the cast of unknowns isn’t bad and there’s some atmosphere and low-budget charm. A shot of a cultist with a stone (charred wood?) dagger made it into a prominent spot in Famous Monsters. The Sinister Cinema DVD-R edits over the memorable “Green, Green, Green, Everything’s Turning Green” opening song.
The Vampire Bat (B&W, 1933) aka Blood Sucker, Forced to Sin. This old indie stacks up pretty well with the Universal classics, partially because it shares some sets and actors. A plague of bats falls upon a European village, and drained corpses with fang-marks in the neck keep turning up. Everyone thinks the village idiot (Dwight Frye at his unhinged best) is responsible because he’s a giggling creep who likes to play with bats (“They’re soft, like cat!”). The sheriff thinks the vampire business is a load of bunk, but he doesn’t know that mad scientist Lionel Atwill has created what looks like a giant raspberry that he keeps in a tank. A strange, atmospheric little film I find myself re-watching a lot. If you ever wondered where the band Dog Faced Hermans got their name, this movie might answer that for you.
Strangler of the Swamp (B&W, 1945) One of PRC’s finest hours (although it’s not their best film - the people who claim that are forgetting about Detour), this ghostly tale of vengeance shows how much atmosphere you can build with no money, just a couple of sets, and a fog machine. Swamp denizens hang a ferryman for a crime he didn’t commit, and his accusers start dying from mysterious strangling accidents. When the replacement ferryman falls victim to the shadowy ghost, his daughter takes over the ferry. Blake Edwards shows up in the village after being away at school and starts romancing her... but he, too, is a target of the ghost’s relentless will for vengeance, and so their love may be doomed unless drastic measures are taken. Fast-moving and spooky little B-flick.
The Virgin Witch (C, 1972) aka Lesbian Twins. A couple of sisters run away to London, hoping to become models but become witches instead in this British horror with an emphasis on nudity and softcore porn instead of anything scary. Looking for work, one of the girls is drawn to a model scout named Sybil, who’s a lesbian and practices witchcraft. At a weekend of photo shoots at a country estate things soon start getting creepy, with weird people peeping at the girls and a lot of preoccupation over their virginity. They soon figure out they’re in the company of witches but think it’s innocent and interesting and they want to take part in a ritual, which basically consists of sex while everyone frugs naked around them. The model sister wakes up naked with Sybil, but doesn’t seem to be all that fond of her, and wants to become a witch and take Sybil’s place. Her sister’s boyfriend shows up all freaked out because Sybil’s a lesbian. He’d be much more justified in worrying about the virgin sacrifice the coven has planned. Not badly done but not much of a horror movie; it’s more of a nudie with exotic setpieces, playing to the 70’s fascination with witchcraft. Some of the ring-around-the-rosie dancing gets pretty hilarious and kills whatever minor creepiness this bloodless “horror” film might have created.
Mystery of the Wax Museum (C, 1933) Early two-stripe Technicolor horror with mad sculptor Lionel Atwill covering corpses in wax to create historical figures for his side-street museum. He’s a legit artist at first, but his partner sets fire to the unprofitable business for the insurance money, melting Atwill’s masterpieces and leaving him horribly scarred -- physically and mentally. He finds people who resemble the historical figures he wants to create and arranges their deaths. When he meets Fay Wray, he thinks she’s the perfect Marie Antoinette, and she may be in for a horrible fate if she can’t be rescued by a smartassed girl reporter. Well-done classic remade as House of Wax and ripped off by countless other films.
Who Can Kill A Child? (C, 1976) aka Quien Puede Matar a Nino?, Island of the Damned, Death is Child’s Play, Would You Kill A Child?, Trapped, The Killer’s Playground, Lucifer’s Curse, Island of Death. The prologue answers, apparently a lot of people -- it shows how wars tend to make things hardest on children. Then we’re off to the beach where butchered bodies have been washing up. Our protagonists, a couple on vacation in Spain, decide to get away from the festival crowds by taking a trip to the island of Almanzora... which turns out to be the source of the corpses that have been washing up on the beach, because the children of Almanzora have banded together to play a game where they kill all the grown-ups. Upon reaching the island, the couple is weirded out by how deserted it all is, and how unfriendly the children are, but things grow increasingly sinister. They get frantic phone calls from someone speaking German but they can’t speak the language. They see a laughing little girl (the creepy kid from Demon Witch Child) beating an old man to death with a stick, and then a group of them use the corpse as a pinata... with a scythe. They start finding more corpses and decide they better get the hell off Almanzora, but the kids aren’t quite done playing their horrible games, and to survive the tourists will have to fight back. But an adult having to overcome the taboo of using deadly force against children is a disturbing factor, too. Why this masterpiece isn’t better known I have no idea; it builds an eerie atmosphere of isolation and dread that grows more and more intense until it’s full-blown horror. If any “killer kid” movie ever scared you, be aware that the next-best one is still miles and miles behind this, which plays like a combo of The Birds and Night of the Living Dead, but with the added taboo of having to kill children to fight back. And gore makeup on kids is a disturbing sight. This is an absolute must-see for anyone who takes horror seriously.
Shriek of the Mutilated (C, 1976) aka Mutilated, Scream of the Snowbeast. If only this was as good as its title. Hell, I’d settle for half as good. A third as good. Michael and Roberta Findlay are at the exploitation sleaze again with this cheap Bigfoot horror. A professor leads an expedition of college kids to an island looking for some Yeti-type monsters. The lone survivor of a previous expedition was left homicidally insane and gets electrocuted by having a toaster thrown in his bathtub. Once on the island the professor has his Indian cook (who looks more like a Mafia goon in a headband) feed the students “bear pie” and fills them with Bigfoot stories. One is soon attacked by one of the fuzzy monsters (the costumes look like they’re stitched together out of white bathmats). A search for him recovers only one of his legs, which they used for bait to try to catch the monster. When that fails they try the corpse of a girl. And that leads to a disappointing secret being revealed. The movie has a little mild gore but balks when they could really have gone for some splatter; when every other aspect of a film is a big failure, why try underplaying something that would have been easy enough to deliver upon? Throw some meat around! DVDs substitute canned music for the extremely annoying synth song, “Popcorn” by Hot Butter.
The Most Dangerous Game (B&W, 1932) Joel McCrea is a famous big game hunter who gets shipwrecked on the island of deranged Russian hunter, Count Zaroff, who’s gotten so good at hunting that animals bore him and now he hunts men instead. Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong are also there, having survived a previous shipwrecked, and they’ll all end up hunted. After showing them his torture chamber and trophy room of human heads, he sets McCrea and Wray loose in his jungle, evading their traps and trying to nail them with his bow and arrow, rifle, and dogs. Incredible sets, lightning pace, and an atmosphere of menace add up to a compact, hard-hitting classic with major re-watch value. Led to King Kong.
10.14.2011
Glad to Be Unhappy (1997) Go! Dog! Go!
Dateline: 1997...
Never mind that the fuckin' album didn't even come out til we'd been back a month from our 7 week tour to support its release...
Our record label was actually nice enough to make sure that we had some copies to take out on the road with us, along with a box of our t-shirts...
Never mind that the fuckin' van broke down so many times that we started (half-)jokingly calling it the PepBoys tour...
We actually got to learn quite a bit about the inner workings of a piece-of-shit van. Rather useful, that...
Never mind that the fuckin' booking agent lied repeatedly about 'confirmed' shows that we were later told by him were cancelled (only to find out in at least one case that he'd never even contacted the club til that week)...
We had some excellent shows to help make up for that sorry piece of shit not doing his fuckin' job... + even bookt some while on the road - in a pre-cellphone, pre-internet world...
Never mind alla that shit, cuz we didn't know any of that was gonna happen a year earlier when we recorded this album, Glad to Be Unhappy by Go! Dog! Go!
In January 1996, we were fortunate enough to spend two weeks recording with now well-noted producer (and Drive Like Jehu drummer) Mark Trombino (Mark's on the right, trying to get out of the picture, I'd imagine...) at Big Fish Studios in Encinitas, CA.
We met with Mark in LA a couple of times, once notably in the bowels of the Capitol Records building, where he was using some of their classic studio space to work on some mixes for the then-soon-to-be-released self-titled Jimmy Eat World record (their first on Capitol, I think). And he was a decidedly nice guy, very easy to work with even though he'd just quit smoking prior to our fortnight of recording.
And below's the result, for yr downloading pleasure, recorded + mixt by Mark Trombino at Big Fish, produced by Mark Trombino + G!D!G! (except Bloated Worm, recorded + produced July 1995 by Andre Champagne + G!D!G!)
(<--That's Tim B. + me in Andre's bad-ass gingerbread home studio)
track listing:
Eric Beetner. guitars/vocals
Tim Boyd. alto+soprano sax
Tim Christopher. drums
Craig Smith. bass/backing vocals (lead on Borrowed)
(Eric, Tim C., Craig, Mark Trombino. trumpets on Spinch)
(Oh, and the cover photo credit: Marie's dad)
Our record label was actually nice enough to make sure that we had some copies to take out on the road with us, along with a box of our t-shirts...
We actually got to learn quite a bit about the inner workings of a piece-of-shit van. Rather useful, that...
We had some excellent shows to help make up for that sorry piece of shit not doing his fuckin' job... + even bookt some while on the road - in a pre-cellphone, pre-internet world...
Never mind alla that shit, cuz we didn't know any of that was gonna happen a year earlier when we recorded this album, Glad to Be Unhappy by Go! Dog! Go!
In January 1996, we were fortunate enough to spend two weeks recording with now well-noted producer (and Drive Like Jehu drummer) Mark Trombino (Mark's on the right, trying to get out of the picture, I'd imagine...) at Big Fish Studios in Encinitas, CA.
We met with Mark in LA a couple of times, once notably in the bowels of the Capitol Records building, where he was using some of their classic studio space to work on some mixes for the then-soon-to-be-released self-titled Jimmy Eat World record (their first on Capitol, I think). And he was a decidedly nice guy, very easy to work with even though he'd just quit smoking prior to our fortnight of recording.
(<--That's Tim B. + me in Andre's bad-ass gingerbread home studio)
____________________________________________
track listing:
- Intro (It Could Happen)
- Socket
- Engine
- Drive, Turn Left
- Rolled into One
- Intent to Change
- Soft Spot
- Bacon Shrinks (All My Blue)
- Lobby Song
- Ceiling
- Borrowed
- Pillow Soft
- Spinch
- Platter
- Spacegirl (Live)
- Bloated Worm
Eric Beetner. guitars/vocals
Tim Boyd. alto+soprano sax
Tim Christopher. drums
Craig Smith. bass/backing vocals (lead on Borrowed)
(Eric, Tim C., Craig, Mark Trombino. trumpets on Spinch)
(Oh, and the cover photo credit: Marie's dad)
10.13.2011
Until I get all of your skulls, posters will have to do...
...for wall decorations.
One of my most-favoritest-ever people on Twitter is the lovely and talented RonnieWK, who is a must-follow - she's so double-plus funny she doesn't even need to be pretty (but oh my god she is - call me weird but I think that may be my favorite picture of a human being) and was almost elected National Lampoon's Most Offensive Female on Twitter (although the winner was definitely worthy of all acolades, I still think Ronnie wuz robbed!). She also runs a highly-addictive blog, Radmobile, where you'll find extremely weird 'n' funny pictures by the godzillions. She's also always been a sweetheart in my limited interactions with her, which not everyone on Twitter will take the time to do. So, I full-on-raging recommend that you visit all those links and follow/bookmark/all that stuff to improve your life before you die miserable in a puddle of your own befoulment! Anyway, back on point: recently she posted a picture of one of her walls, sporting a kick-ass collection of primo horror posters. Gotta love anybody with Make Them Die Slowly featured in their den. I told her it reminded me of mine, so she told me to show 'em... and, since I always try to do what cool chicks tell me to, here 'tiz!
First, my house isn't nearly as neat as hers, or as well-presented. I'm incredibly lazy and sloppy and hoarder-ific (if you could see the mountains of VHS tapes/skulls/boxes/assorted weirdo ephemera that are out of frame in these pics, you'd scream and call that TV show and tell them to send their SWAT team after my ass), so my posters aren't nicely matted like Ronnie's. I think I got some fairly cool shit, though, and, this being Halloween, I thought ya'll might like a tour. The two huge ones I ordered through the mail, and the others I scored for about a buck each from a comic book store in the 80's that had no idea what they had. The pictures may come out small, but click on it and it'll get bigger (as the farmer said to the milkmaid *rimshot!*). If my long-winded Captain Obvious act bores ya, just skip me look at the pitchers!
There's the infamous zombie gorefest Burial Ground, with a poster for Something Waits In The Dark, aka Screamers and Isle of the Fishmen. You can see the edge of my massive Devil's Rain poster, and assorted lil' things I tore out of video magazines that a video bootlegger friend used to send to my dogs. (Yes, he signed my dogs up as owners of a video store and had them send me promo publications). These things have all been gummy-stuck to that wall since around 1990. Look close and you'll see a postcard of George Bush I flipping a bird that I thought was punk-rock enough to stick up there with the horror stuff. He doesn't seem nearly as bad now that we met his idiot son, though. He's almost... quaint. In the stacks around you can make out my beloved VHS of Messiah Of Evil, (go watch that if you haven't!) Assonitis's Madhouse, a really old Goodtimes tape of Scream Baby Scream, and I dunno what-all. There used to be a Tombs of The Blind Dead poster under Burial Ground but it fell down behind the TV and I haven't fished it back up out of the giant nest of cables.
And, yes, that's right, my walls are fucking purple. I've got another room where the walls and ceiling are black. I don't decorate - I defile!
Onward...
The Devil's Rain poster is HUGE, the same size as the Suspiria one I'll show ya in a minute. The picture is beautiful, but the text makes no sense. "Heaven help us all when THE DEVIL'S RAIN!" When the Devil's Rain does... what? Falls? Then I'd understand it. That text is like a little papercut on my mind, that is. Anyway, there it is, the movie that made John Travolta get wet! Then he went from devil-worship to something far more frightening and detrimental - Scientology. Heaven help us all when XENU RAINS! Yeeaarrggh. Even William Shatner can't save us from that. Anyway, next to it, Fulci's gutmuncher, The Gates of Hell, known to the DVD generation as City of the Living Dead. Below it is a little video-two-sheet for Terror, aka Last House On The Beach, that was sent to me by the same old video bootlegger friend of mine. Last time I heard from him, he was in some trouble with the Mafia for selling dupes of some of their porn. Oi. I bought Scooter Trash from him, so I guess the Sons of Anarchy'd be after me. In the corner you can see part of my Tales From The Crypt poster, hiding behind some ancient stereo equipment and a stack of VHS. Here's a better look at that...
Ronnie's got a different version of this poster. I'm not sure what the story is on why there are different ones, but I like the one I got because it matches the Bantam paperback I've had since I was five.
Here's the back:
When I was in first grade I was reading at pretty much a high-school level, and I got in trouble for bringing this book to school. While the other kids were watching Dick & Jane run after Spot and Sally, I was reading the killer-Santa-Claus story. Later my grandma caught me reading The Exorcist. I don't think it did me any damage, though, really. "Let Jesus fuck you!" was pretty much how I was viewing Southern Baptist society, anyway.
On the bookshelf there you can spot some VHS... an El Topo pre-rec I scored somewhere, a bootleg of Love Camp Seven, ultra-gory Spaghetti Western Cutthroats 9, Splatter: The Architects of Fear, The House That Vanished, and Succubus, which is a retitle of The Devil's Nightmare.
Anyway, back to the walls...
Giant Suspiria (plagued by glare). That thing's pretty much the size of a mattress. On the window frame you can see a lil' collage of mini-pictures I put up there in the 80's. I Spit On Your Grave, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, Slaughterhouse, Lady Frankenstein, and above the curtain you can see part of magazine ads for the punk-rock Western Dudes, and a bit of Anguish. Most of the shelves are empty (while the floors are piled - I make no sense) but you can spot home-dubs of stuff like Christina Applegate's Streets (why is this still not on DVD?), grindhouse sleaze classic Headless Eyes (Code Red, bring us that one!), Conqueror Worm, Pet Sematery, The Girl Hunters, and... The Battleship Potempkin. (Yeah, sometimes I watch stuff that's not splatter).
On the back of the door to the room I got... Infra-Man!
To your left there's a torn poster for Midnight, aka Backwoods Masscare, the John Russo splatterfest. And you can see a corner of a My Bloody Valentine (original, not remake) poster that I really need to repair one of these days, because I freakin' love that movie. And there used to be a poster for Death Ship above that, but I'm not sure where that one went. Somewhere in the house are also posters for Holy Terror (aka Alice Sweet Alice), the Italian Road-Warrior rip-off Styker, schoolgirl-by-day, Hollywood-hooker-by-night classic Angel and its sequel Avenging Angel, and one of those six-foot-tall Vampirellas they used to sell in the back of Famous Monsters. Oh, and the Chinese thing to the left... I don't know what that says, but my mom taught college and one of her students gave her that and I thought it was cool so she gave it to me. There's a lot of Chinese stuff scattered through the room. And a good many knives.
Elsewhere on the walls of the room (not pictured) are ads my lil' punk-rock self doctored, like an old Buck Cigarettes ad that I Liquid-Papered so it read "FUCK THE SYSTEM!" and another sign that read "WORSHIP AT THE CHURCH OF OUR CHOICE THIS WEEK." (It originally said "YOUR" but I trimmed the Y out to more accurately reflect the knifefight interactions I'd experienced from my Baptist "friends.").
Now, as a bonus for sitting through all that, and in the spirit of Radmobile that inspired this post in the first place, here are some covers of actual comic books I scanned out of a book for ya. No, I haven't ever actually seen or read any of 'em, but an old T-shirt company called Mutilation Graphics used to sell a Leather Nun shirt I was really tempted to buy back in the 80's. You'll have to click Teen Age Romances to find out what's so funny about it.
And, speaking of Twitter, you can let Zwolf fuck you! (by telling you stupid jokes about pee and farts and Rascal Scooters and mimeograph paper and stuff - you know, the same way Jesus does it). And while you're there, follow our Blowhole buddy, Kicker of Elves, who's a highlight of my timeline every day and can be one of yours. It's all free like a punch in the face!
One day I'm just gonna do a big Twitter post and tell ya'll everybody you should follow. Which is, basically, my whole follow-list. Good people on that. You cannot go wrong giving any of 'em a test-drive.
And, stay tuned to this blog 'cuz in just a couple weeks you're gonna be getting horror short stories by yours truly and (hopefully) these other guys, too. Also, free!
One of my most-favoritest-ever people on Twitter is the lovely and talented RonnieWK, who is a must-follow - she's so double-plus funny she doesn't even need to be pretty (but oh my god she is - call me weird but I think that may be my favorite picture of a human being) and was almost elected National Lampoon's Most Offensive Female on Twitter (although the winner was definitely worthy of all acolades, I still think Ronnie wuz robbed!). She also runs a highly-addictive blog, Radmobile, where you'll find extremely weird 'n' funny pictures by the godzillions. She's also always been a sweetheart in my limited interactions with her, which not everyone on Twitter will take the time to do. So, I full-on-raging recommend that you visit all those links and follow/bookmark/all that stuff to improve your life before you die miserable in a puddle of your own befoulment! Anyway, back on point: recently she posted a picture of one of her walls, sporting a kick-ass collection of primo horror posters. Gotta love anybody with Make Them Die Slowly featured in their den. I told her it reminded me of mine, so she told me to show 'em... and, since I always try to do what cool chicks tell me to, here 'tiz!
First, my house isn't nearly as neat as hers, or as well-presented. I'm incredibly lazy and sloppy and hoarder-ific (if you could see the mountains of VHS tapes/skulls/boxes/assorted weirdo ephemera that are out of frame in these pics, you'd scream and call that TV show and tell them to send their SWAT team after my ass), so my posters aren't nicely matted like Ronnie's. I think I got some fairly cool shit, though, and, this being Halloween, I thought ya'll might like a tour. The two huge ones I ordered through the mail, and the others I scored for about a buck each from a comic book store in the 80's that had no idea what they had. The pictures may come out small, but click on it and it'll get bigger (as the farmer said to the milkmaid *rimshot!*
There's the infamous zombie gorefest Burial Ground, with a poster for Something Waits In The Dark, aka Screamers and Isle of the Fishmen. You can see the edge of my massive Devil's Rain poster, and assorted lil' things I tore out of video magazines that a video bootlegger friend used to send to my dogs. (Yes, he signed my dogs up as owners of a video store and had them send me promo publications). These things have all been gummy-stuck to that wall since around 1990. Look close and you'll see a postcard of George Bush I flipping a bird that I thought was punk-rock enough to stick up there with the horror stuff. He doesn't seem nearly as bad now that we met his idiot son, though. He's almost... quaint. In the stacks around you can make out my beloved VHS of Messiah Of Evil, (go watch that if you haven't!) Assonitis's Madhouse, a really old Goodtimes tape of Scream Baby Scream, and I dunno what-all. There used to be a Tombs of The Blind Dead poster under Burial Ground but it fell down behind the TV and I haven't fished it back up out of the giant nest of cables.
And, yes, that's right, my walls are fucking purple. I've got another room where the walls and ceiling are black. I don't decorate - I defile!
Onward...
The Devil's Rain poster is HUGE, the same size as the Suspiria one I'll show ya in a minute. The picture is beautiful, but the text makes no sense. "Heaven help us all when THE DEVIL'S RAIN!" When the Devil's Rain does... what? Falls? Then I'd understand it. That text is like a little papercut on my mind, that is. Anyway, there it is, the movie that made John Travolta get wet! Then he went from devil-worship to something far more frightening and detrimental - Scientology. Heaven help us all when XENU RAINS! Yeeaarrggh. Even William Shatner can't save us from that. Anyway, next to it, Fulci's gutmuncher, The Gates of Hell, known to the DVD generation as City of the Living Dead. Below it is a little video-two-sheet for Terror, aka Last House On The Beach, that was sent to me by the same old video bootlegger friend of mine. Last time I heard from him, he was in some trouble with the Mafia for selling dupes of some of their porn. Oi. I bought Scooter Trash from him, so I guess the Sons of Anarchy'd be after me. In the corner you can see part of my Tales From The Crypt poster, hiding behind some ancient stereo equipment and a stack of VHS. Here's a better look at that...
Here's the back:
When I was in first grade I was reading at pretty much a high-school level, and I got in trouble for bringing this book to school. While the other kids were watching Dick & Jane run after Spot and Sally, I was reading the killer-Santa-Claus story. Later my grandma caught me reading The Exorcist. I don't think it did me any damage, though, really. "Let Jesus fuck you!" was pretty much how I was viewing Southern Baptist society, anyway.
On the bookshelf there you can spot some VHS... an El Topo pre-rec I scored somewhere, a bootleg of Love Camp Seven, ultra-gory Spaghetti Western Cutthroats 9, Splatter: The Architects of Fear, The House That Vanished, and Succubus, which is a retitle of The Devil's Nightmare.
Giant Suspiria (plagued by glare). That thing's pretty much the size of a mattress. On the window frame you can see a lil' collage of mini-pictures I put up there in the 80's. I Spit On Your Grave, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, Slaughterhouse, Lady Frankenstein, and above the curtain you can see part of magazine ads for the punk-rock Western Dudes, and a bit of Anguish. Most of the shelves are empty (while the floors are piled - I make no sense) but you can spot home-dubs of stuff like Christina Applegate's Streets (why is this still not on DVD?), grindhouse sleaze classic Headless Eyes (Code Red, bring us that one!), Conqueror Worm, Pet Sematery, The Girl Hunters, and... The Battleship Potempkin. (Yeah, sometimes I watch stuff that's not splatter).
On the back of the door to the room I got... Infra-Man!
Elsewhere on the walls of the room (not pictured) are ads my lil' punk-rock self doctored, like an old Buck Cigarettes ad that I Liquid-Papered so it read "FUCK THE SYSTEM!" and another sign that read "WORSHIP AT THE CHURCH OF OUR CHOICE THIS WEEK." (It originally said "YOUR" but I trimmed the Y out to more accurately reflect the knifefight interactions I'd experienced from my Baptist "friends.").
Now, as a bonus for sitting through all that, and in the spirit of Radmobile that inspired this post in the first place, here are some covers of actual comic books I scanned out of a book for ya. No, I haven't ever actually seen or read any of 'em, but an old T-shirt company called Mutilation Graphics used to sell a Leather Nun shirt I was really tempted to buy back in the 80's. You'll have to click Teen Age Romances to find out what's so funny about it.
And, speaking of Twitter, you can let Zwolf fuck you! (by telling you stupid jokes about pee and farts and Rascal Scooters and mimeograph paper and stuff - you know, the same way Jesus does it). And while you're there, follow our Blowhole buddy, Kicker of Elves, who's a highlight of my timeline every day and can be one of yours. It's all free like a punch in the face!
One day I'm just gonna do a big Twitter post and tell ya'll everybody you should follow. Which is, basically, my whole follow-list. Good people on that. You cannot go wrong giving any of 'em a test-drive.
And, stay tuned to this blog 'cuz in just a couple weeks you're gonna be getting horror short stories by yours truly and (hopefully) these other guys, too. Also, free!
10.12.2011
October Movie Challenge # Godzillion-million-billion!
Earth Vs. The Spider (B&W) 1958 aka The Spider. A giant spider living in a cave on the edge of town attacks a girl's father on his way home to her birthday. Searching for him, the girl and her boyfriend discover the spider, and her father's withered corpse. They come back with the cops and spray the monster with DDT. Thinking it's dead, they haul it to the school auditorium, where a rock & roll band's practice session wakes it up and sends it on a rampage through the town. Surprisingly, they show a blood-covered toddler wandering around the rubble! When the spider returns to the cave the townspeople want to blow it up, but a couple of the teens are lost in there. Classic Bert I. Gordon giant-bug horror is more engaging than most and sports good special effects (although the size of the spider does seem to fluctuate from shot to shot; sometimes it's big as a house, other times it seems about the size of a car).
Welcome to Arrow Beach (C, 1973) aka Tender Flesh, And No One Would Believe Her This was chopped to hell before it was released, and now it's rarely seen at all (there's rumored to be only one print left in existence), which is way too damned bad because there's something about this movie... Icy eyed Meg Foster (who has nude scenes) is a hippie girl hitch hiking around California and she ends up having dinner with Lawrence Harvey (who died of cancer before this was released) and his skittish sister Joanna Pettet. They eat some extremely rare meat that's apparently pieces of a dead cop. Harvey developed a taste for cannibalism during the Korean war, and suffers from flashbacks that drive him to kill. Meg spends the night and wakes up to a weird chopping sound and eventually finds him in a basement meat locker hacking up a corpse with a cleaver. She escapes and goes to the cops (John Ireland and Stuart Whitman) but they think she's just been taking drugs and had a bad trip, and won't believe her accusations. Meanwhile Harvey lures an aging local slut to his house so he can take pictures of her... but he kills her in an extremely stylish scene composed of quick flash cuts patterned after the still pictures an automatic camera is winding off. Meg eventually finds someone willing to suspend their disbelief enough to go back to the house with her... Nice, atmospheric horror really gets butchered when shown on TV; they cut so much of it that you can't even really tell he's a killer, much less a cannibal. Uncut, it's pretty gory, but in a suggestive way - you only see quick glimpses of bloody meat, so you're not even quite sure exactly what you're looking at, but it's morbid, brutal, and highly effective. The theme song "We Are Born To Die" sets the atmosphere up right off the bat, and it's also strange because it's done by Lou Rawls! DVDs are scarce. Videotapes supposedly run 99 minutes, but I'm not certain about that. One of my absolutely favorite horror films, seek it out.
Hands of Blood (C, 1974) aka Stepsisters, The Texas Hill Killings) Small-budget (around $17K) Texas-shot drive-in horror with a slow pace, confusing plot, and a certain S.F. Brownrigg-type of atmosphere. A couple of sisters living in a huge creepy old house have sex with men who drop by. One of the sisters is married to a man she doesn't like very much, and he starts an affair with her sister. Together they plot to kill his wife. The plan's not all that ingenious -- he thinks he can just come home, catch her with another man, and kill her in a fit of jealous rage and the law won't touch him for it. Things don't work out like he thought, though, and the sisters have a secret of their own. There are a few killings - an axe murder, guts blown out (literally) with a shotgun blast, some stabbing - but overall it's a mess, with too much time spent driving cars back and forth, flying a plane back and forth, and people sitting around bickering. It seems to want to be a noir-type crime story as much as it does horror, and it's a little too talky, with an attempt to build a web of intrigue around stuff we don't know enough about to be very interested in. And there's not nearly enough killing. But, it does have that old 70's sleazy drive-in charm, and the world can always use more of that.
The Omen (C, 1976) C'mon, I don't really have to review The Omen, do I? This is a full-blown classic, the horror film as an A-picture. Ambassador to Great Britain Gregory Peck accepts a substitute baby when wife Lee Remick’s baby is born dead. When young Damien reaches age five they start noticing some strange things; he’s terrified of churches, animals hate him (other than a malevolent rottweiler that guards him), and people die in mysterious ways around him (including a classic impalement and maybe the best-decapitation-ever). Peck gets warned that the boy is the AntiChrist, and he starts believing it and getting ready to do something about it. Very well-made horror that’s become one of the cornerstones of the genre, and part of the American idiom; people know this movie even if they haven’t seen it.
Welcome to Arrow Beach (C, 1973) aka Tender Flesh, And No One Would Believe Her This was chopped to hell before it was released, and now it's rarely seen at all (there's rumored to be only one print left in existence), which is way too damned bad because there's something about this movie... Icy eyed Meg Foster (who has nude scenes) is a hippie girl hitch hiking around California and she ends up having dinner with Lawrence Harvey (who died of cancer before this was released) and his skittish sister Joanna Pettet. They eat some extremely rare meat that's apparently pieces of a dead cop. Harvey developed a taste for cannibalism during the Korean war, and suffers from flashbacks that drive him to kill. Meg spends the night and wakes up to a weird chopping sound and eventually finds him in a basement meat locker hacking up a corpse with a cleaver. She escapes and goes to the cops (John Ireland and Stuart Whitman) but they think she's just been taking drugs and had a bad trip, and won't believe her accusations. Meanwhile Harvey lures an aging local slut to his house so he can take pictures of her... but he kills her in an extremely stylish scene composed of quick flash cuts patterned after the still pictures an automatic camera is winding off. Meg eventually finds someone willing to suspend their disbelief enough to go back to the house with her... Nice, atmospheric horror really gets butchered when shown on TV; they cut so much of it that you can't even really tell he's a killer, much less a cannibal. Uncut, it's pretty gory, but in a suggestive way - you only see quick glimpses of bloody meat, so you're not even quite sure exactly what you're looking at, but it's morbid, brutal, and highly effective. The theme song "We Are Born To Die" sets the atmosphere up right off the bat, and it's also strange because it's done by Lou Rawls! DVDs are scarce. Videotapes supposedly run 99 minutes, but I'm not certain about that. One of my absolutely favorite horror films, seek it out.
Hands of Blood (C, 1974) aka Stepsisters, The Texas Hill Killings) Small-budget (around $17K) Texas-shot drive-in horror with a slow pace, confusing plot, and a certain S.F. Brownrigg-type of atmosphere. A couple of sisters living in a huge creepy old house have sex with men who drop by. One of the sisters is married to a man she doesn't like very much, and he starts an affair with her sister. Together they plot to kill his wife. The plan's not all that ingenious -- he thinks he can just come home, catch her with another man, and kill her in a fit of jealous rage and the law won't touch him for it. Things don't work out like he thought, though, and the sisters have a secret of their own. There are a few killings - an axe murder, guts blown out (literally) with a shotgun blast, some stabbing - but overall it's a mess, with too much time spent driving cars back and forth, flying a plane back and forth, and people sitting around bickering. It seems to want to be a noir-type crime story as much as it does horror, and it's a little too talky, with an attempt to build a web of intrigue around stuff we don't know enough about to be very interested in. And there's not nearly enough killing. But, it does have that old 70's sleazy drive-in charm, and the world can always use more of that.
The Omen (C, 1976) C'mon, I don't really have to review The Omen, do I? This is a full-blown classic, the horror film as an A-picture. Ambassador to Great Britain Gregory Peck accepts a substitute baby when wife Lee Remick’s baby is born dead. When young Damien reaches age five they start noticing some strange things; he’s terrified of churches, animals hate him (other than a malevolent rottweiler that guards him), and people die in mysterious ways around him (including a classic impalement and maybe the best-decapitation-ever). Peck gets warned that the boy is the AntiChrist, and he starts believing it and getting ready to do something about it. Very well-made horror that’s become one of the cornerstones of the genre, and part of the American idiom; people know this movie even if they haven’t seen it.
10.10.2011
October Movie Challenge entry # 437, why not?
Butt first! If you don't like this song, fuck yooooooou, maaaan!
And, this is the most sense I've ever heard come out of Rick Perry:
Enjoy the hot yella Kool-Aid!
Beast of Blood (C, 1970) aka Beast of the Dead, Blood Devils, Horrors of Blood Island, Return to the Horrors of Blood Island. Immediate sequel to Mad Doctor of Blood Island picks up where the first one left off, with John Ashley's boat getting attacked by the great-looking chlorophyl zombie (with an ax!) and sunk. Ashley and the monster make it to shore, and Ashley and friends chase through the jungle trying to rescue a kidnapped girl, while fire-scarred Dr. Lorca continues his experiments, trying to transplant different heads onto the monster. The head and body still want to be together, though, and the head has more control of the body than Lorca has counted on. There are some gruesome surgery scenes and effective monster makeup, but too much of the time is spent on gun battles and jungle stalking; it looks almost like a war movie with a few horror movie scenes stuck in. And it gets pretty funny when the head starts talking...
Trailer
whole movie:
Bloodlust (B&W, 1959) Robert Reed from the Brady Bunch and his friends are out boating when their navigator passes out drunk near an island. They decide to go explore it until he wakes up, not knowing the island is run by a maniac whose hobby is hunting is hunting humans. Once he kills them he has them soaked in preservative, skinned, stuffed, and mounted in his private museum. The level of gruesomeness is surprisingly high, with severed legs, severed heads, a big wet pile of skin, gushing blood, and a guy dissolving in an acid bath. Nobody's going to mistake it for The Most Dangerous Game, but its got its sketchy charms.
Whole movie:
Nightmares (C, 1980) aka Stage Fright, Nightmare on the Street. A little girl is in the car when an accident kills her mother, slicing her throat with windshield glass. The mother's boyfriend really caused it by groping her while she was driving, but he blames it on the girl. She grows up to be an aspiring actress, but people in the play she's in start getting stabbed and slashed to death by shards of broken glass. Her fellow actors are soon unnerved by her erratic mood swings and odd behavior. She has visions of the killings, which she thinks are nightmares, but worries that she might be the killer. Is she? Bloody Australian version of a giallo focuses a bit too much on the works of the play and somehow doesn't draw you in as much as it should, but it's a classy looking film and sports plenty of nudity and nasty slash wounds. Brian May did a great music score (very reminiscent of his Mad Max work) but it's used so much here that it becomes overbearing, trying to make every scene come across as some pinnacle of terror. Max Phipps, who plays the director here, played The Toadie in The Road Warrior. Not entirely successful, but well worth seeing.
Room 205 (C, 2007) aka Kollegiet. Katrina is new at college in Copenhagen, sharing a dormitory with other students (male and female). They're a little mean and she's a little awkward but she gets along okay until she pisses off Sanne, the popular girl in the dorm, by fooling around with Sanne's ex-boyfriend and overreacting to a prank. This lands her on the uncool side of the pecking order, and Sanne and her friends like to hound any "uncool" people out of the dorm. They start bullying Katrina and telling her that her dorm room is haunted... and perhaps it is, because Katrina starts seeing things. She talks to the guy who was bullied out of the room before she had it and he tells her a girl was murdered in the bathroom, and that there's a legend that the spirits of the dead can get trapped in mirrors. Since Katrina had broken the mirror in the bathroom, the ghost is freed and causes havoc, killing off her dormmates. Katrina and the former resident try to get rid of the vengeful ghost before more people die. The pace is a little slow and too much is underplayed, and the haunting stuff is a little too conventional to be as effective as it could be, but it's not a bad little horror movie, made with some style. Basically a Danish version of a Ring type story.
Eyes Without A Face (B&W, 1959) aka The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus, Les Yeux Sans Visage. Groundbreaking, artistic French horror kicked off the whole surgeons-trying-to-restore-a-loved-one's-damaged-face subgenre. A plastic surgeon, wracked with guilt after causing the car wreck that left his daughter with a giant open wound for a face, kidnaps girls and peels their faces off to transplant them onto her. The donors always end up dead and the grafted faces always end up rejected and rotting, leaving the girl to resort to wearing a mask again. The mask is very creepy, a beautiful, expressionless, porcelain-like thing with holes for her large, expressive eyes -- the effect is really eerie. And speaking of effects, the film had ground-breaking gore, holding a cold, clinical, unflinching shot as a girl's face is peeled away in surgery. That one remains unsettling because of the way it's filmed and the expectations that they'd cut away from it. The girl ends up wanting to die but is as much a victim of her father's mania as the girls he kidnaps for her supposed benefit. The final image is haunting.
Surgery scene:
And, this is the most sense I've ever heard come out of Rick Perry:
Enjoy the hot yella Kool-Aid!
Beast of Blood (C, 1970) aka Beast of the Dead, Blood Devils, Horrors of Blood Island, Return to the Horrors of Blood Island. Immediate sequel to Mad Doctor of Blood Island picks up where the first one left off, with John Ashley's boat getting attacked by the great-looking chlorophyl zombie (with an ax!) and sunk. Ashley and the monster make it to shore, and Ashley and friends chase through the jungle trying to rescue a kidnapped girl, while fire-scarred Dr. Lorca continues his experiments, trying to transplant different heads onto the monster. The head and body still want to be together, though, and the head has more control of the body than Lorca has counted on. There are some gruesome surgery scenes and effective monster makeup, but too much of the time is spent on gun battles and jungle stalking; it looks almost like a war movie with a few horror movie scenes stuck in. And it gets pretty funny when the head starts talking...
Trailer
whole movie:
Bloodlust (B&W, 1959) Robert Reed from the Brady Bunch and his friends are out boating when their navigator passes out drunk near an island. They decide to go explore it until he wakes up, not knowing the island is run by a maniac whose hobby is hunting is hunting humans. Once he kills them he has them soaked in preservative, skinned, stuffed, and mounted in his private museum. The level of gruesomeness is surprisingly high, with severed legs, severed heads, a big wet pile of skin, gushing blood, and a guy dissolving in an acid bath. Nobody's going to mistake it for The Most Dangerous Game, but its got its sketchy charms.
Whole movie:
Nightmares (C, 1980) aka Stage Fright, Nightmare on the Street. A little girl is in the car when an accident kills her mother, slicing her throat with windshield glass. The mother's boyfriend really caused it by groping her while she was driving, but he blames it on the girl. She grows up to be an aspiring actress, but people in the play she's in start getting stabbed and slashed to death by shards of broken glass. Her fellow actors are soon unnerved by her erratic mood swings and odd behavior. She has visions of the killings, which she thinks are nightmares, but worries that she might be the killer. Is she? Bloody Australian version of a giallo focuses a bit too much on the works of the play and somehow doesn't draw you in as much as it should, but it's a classy looking film and sports plenty of nudity and nasty slash wounds. Brian May did a great music score (very reminiscent of his Mad Max work) but it's used so much here that it becomes overbearing, trying to make every scene come across as some pinnacle of terror. Max Phipps, who plays the director here, played The Toadie in The Road Warrior. Not entirely successful, but well worth seeing.
Room 205 (C, 2007) aka Kollegiet. Katrina is new at college in Copenhagen, sharing a dormitory with other students (male and female). They're a little mean and she's a little awkward but she gets along okay until she pisses off Sanne, the popular girl in the dorm, by fooling around with Sanne's ex-boyfriend and overreacting to a prank. This lands her on the uncool side of the pecking order, and Sanne and her friends like to hound any "uncool" people out of the dorm. They start bullying Katrina and telling her that her dorm room is haunted... and perhaps it is, because Katrina starts seeing things. She talks to the guy who was bullied out of the room before she had it and he tells her a girl was murdered in the bathroom, and that there's a legend that the spirits of the dead can get trapped in mirrors. Since Katrina had broken the mirror in the bathroom, the ghost is freed and causes havoc, killing off her dormmates. Katrina and the former resident try to get rid of the vengeful ghost before more people die. The pace is a little slow and too much is underplayed, and the haunting stuff is a little too conventional to be as effective as it could be, but it's not a bad little horror movie, made with some style. Basically a Danish version of a Ring type story.
Eyes Without A Face (B&W, 1959) aka The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus, Les Yeux Sans Visage. Groundbreaking, artistic French horror kicked off the whole surgeons-trying-to-restore-a-loved-one's-damaged-face subgenre. A plastic surgeon, wracked with guilt after causing the car wreck that left his daughter with a giant open wound for a face, kidnaps girls and peels their faces off to transplant them onto her. The donors always end up dead and the grafted faces always end up rejected and rotting, leaving the girl to resort to wearing a mask again. The mask is very creepy, a beautiful, expressionless, porcelain-like thing with holes for her large, expressive eyes -- the effect is really eerie. And speaking of effects, the film had ground-breaking gore, holding a cold, clinical, unflinching shot as a girl's face is peeled away in surgery. That one remains unsettling because of the way it's filmed and the expectations that they'd cut away from it. The girl ends up wanting to die but is as much a victim of her father's mania as the girls he kidnaps for her supposed benefit. The final image is haunting.
Surgery scene:
Horror-larity Abounds... H.P. Seusscraft
Read the whole damn'd thing online at deviantart.com, starting here.
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