Get off my case motherfucker!

As I've droned on about in other pages of this blog I'm a huge fan of Italian cannibal/zombie horror and have been ecstatic seeing some of the more notable "classics" get the deluxe re-release treatment on Blu-Ray. Movies that were only seen as a scratched, beaten negative in the smelliest dives on 42nd Street or via cloudy nth-generation VHS dubs are now being scanned into high-def with a host of fun bonus shit for sleazeophiles like me. Umberto Lenzi was the auteur behind 1981's Cannibal Ferox (astute trash cinema historians will know it by its VHS title Make Them Die Slowly), a poor man's cash-in on Ruggero Deodato's epic Cannibal Holocaust. While much has been written about the two directors' individual style, Lenzi was clearly the knock-off king of the two, riding an established genre wave to its inevitable completion. Cannibal Ferox effectively ended the minor Italian cannibal cinema renaissance - it's a mean-spirited canker sore of a film that features absolutely no likeable characters spitting spiteful dialogue from one to another with contempt and a sneer. It's a riot. And that's not even counting the inescapable violence that supposedly got this gem banned in 31 countries. Gluing the whole thing together is a solid synth-funk soundtrack by one "Budy Maglione," also known as composer Roberto Donati. Donati was a Lenzi regular in the early 80's, scoring his other cannibal/Guyana mishmash Eaten Alive! and oddball comedy Daughter of the Jungle. While nowhere near as coherent a soundtrack as provided by Riz Ortolani for Deodato's jungle films, Donati effort is much more poppy and terribly catchy. Some of the NYC jingles almost sound like they were recorded for some 1980's L'eggs commercials - they are that kitzchy (to be honest I think Donati was trying to sound like Ortolani's "Do It To Me" from La Casa Sperduta Nel Parco but that's just me). Anyways, the actual soundtrack is only 20 minutes or so long but there are a host of alternate takes to keep you interested - enjoy a trip down tit-piercing, dick-cutting, brain-eating memory lane.

Los Últimos Canibales

A little about me...

During the Superbowl there was actually a block of commercials long enough for me to stop my bitching and ranting about the inevitable Patriots downfall to discuss movies with a few of the other less football-oriented Sunday partiers. It all started with a discussion about various Coen Brothers films and mutated into a "best movies ever" challenge.

So here's my top ten films of all time. These are movies that I think reached true perfection - from cinematography to soundtrack to story, FX, whatever. Whether big- or low-budget, these exceptional pieces of celluloid either inspired me to create something myself or give up whatever project I was working on because they proved someone had already done it better then I ever would. I really think they are flawless works of art that can easily withstand most criticism and are (to me) more of an experience then just a "movie." Repeated viewings encouraged for sure.

1. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974 - ugh, do I even need to write that?)
2. Easy Rider
3. Alien
4. Pink Flamingos
5. The Shining
6. Combat Shock
7. The Big Lebowski
8. The Thing (1982)
9. Reservoir Dogs
10. Nekromantik

In addition, below are a couple guilty pleasures that could have made the cut if I had been a little more forgiving (or drunk) - even though it was extremely unlikely anyone at the party had ever heard of them (it took me almost twenty minutes to convince the unenlightened yokel that Nekromantik was a legitimate film). Either overly gruesome, twisted, low-rent or fucked up, these are flicks that I don't think are perfect by any means (although with some that only adds the charm) yet I've still managed to watch them a zillion times. Neither technically great nor watershed works of art, when I go through my DVDs for something to watch they always end up being regular grabs. Here they are in no particular order...

1. Threads

2. La Planète Sauvage
3. Cannibal Apocalypse
4. House By The Cemetery
5. Contamination
6. House On The Edge Of The Park
7. Last House On Dead End Street
8. Over The Edge
9. Black Devil Doll From Hell
10. The Angry Red Planet
11. Touch Of Death

These are all personal faves, fun movies for a 6-pack of tall boys and frozen pizza while the wife goes out for girl's night.

So what brought this up, do you ask? I was listening to Ennio Morricone's incredible soundtrack to Carpenter's The Thing today and figured I'd change it up and do the movie tip. If you've never heard the score, check it out. Now. Opening with funereal violins and piano, horns sweating ice-blue angst as strings stoke panic, "Humanity" and its tuba embodies menace without rationalization. "Contamination," a contagion of string-plucked hysteria that succumbs to eerie sawed violin feeds the overpowering "Bestiality." Employing the single-note piano ploy of Carpenter's score for Halloween, "Solitude" leads to "Eternity," which descends with a Phantom of the Opera cathedral organ. Crescendos of string stretch above a coagulating pool of bass on "Wait," prior to "Humanity (Part II)," which both opens and closes Carpenter's remake, its organic pulse of inevitability as taut as a German synthesizer, woodwind warning crowning sustained red organ agony. (thanks Austin Chronicle)

As far as movies this week goes, I've seen Dead & Buried (good but somewhat dated), Scum (excellent) and Shark Night (so fucking terrible it makes direct-to-DVD tripe like Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus look positively Oscar-worthy. $25 million for a gigantic 3-D turd that is somehow even made more worse after the closing credits with an agonizing cast rap video. You've got to see it to believe how bad it is.) OK, time to go class. Let me know some of your faves anonymi out there in Internet land...

 
Currently watching: The Believer

Currently listening to: Aposepsy Aposepsy

R.I.P. Krug Stilo

Man, what a drag it was to hear David Hess passed away on Saturday. Not only was he the lead villain in two of my favorite movies (Last House On The Left and the incredible House On The Edge Of The Park) but he was an accomplished musician who composed one of my favorite horror flick soundtracks (the aforementioned House... er... Last House). And he seemed like a cool guy to boot; enthusiastic over his cult stardom, a horror convention regular, never one to turn down a fan. There's already a wealth of info online regarding his early days as a songwriter for Elvis and Mercury Records A&R rep so I thought I'd skip all that and upload two albums of his - the soundtrack to Last House and his 2001 release Caught Up In The Moment. LHOTL is an amazing album, it reeks like a bad acid trip, full of post-60's influence but way way darker - the untitled "Road Leads To Nowhere"' ditties are almost suicidally bleak. "Ice Cream Song" could easily be used today as some random commercial ditty for Old Navy. "Sadie And Krug" is a wonderful polka-ish tune in the ilk of Zappa's "Jewish Princess" - and the full songs at the end of the album could have easily passed on some random England Dan & John Ford Coley LPs without turning a head. Caught Up In The Moment isn't always my cup of tea, some of the songs are a bit cheesy on the symbolism ("Animal Dreams" for one) to the point that you could imagine Trey Parker singing them. But he is easily redeemed with the hilarious "High" (my personal fave), "Vagabond" and "Nice Girl" - all which dip into the welcome territory of of his 70's sound. Actually, to any Ween fans who read this - he is on par with Chris Harford's music if that means anything to anyone. Anyways, check him out, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. You passed too early Dave, thanks for the memories and the music.

1972                                                                 2001

Currently watching: Look
Currently listening to: The Book Of Mormon

Don't Expect It To Tango...

What hasn't been said already about the most enjoyable horror film of the 80's? I speak of course of Stuart Gordon's epic Re-Animator, a roller-coaster of a movie that blew away the rest of the shit that came out in 1985 (and many years after). If you're like me you've probably seen the flick several hundred times (partially due to the fact that luscious Barbara Crampton was a near-constant "alone time" companion of mine during good 'ol puberty) and can recite it verbatim. Revisiting it the other night, I decided to rip it to my iPod and edit in the 20+ minutes or so of extended/bonus footage included as DVD extras. I even tacked on the deleted "dream" sequence which gives some interesting foreshadow to the film's climax (heh). I did the best I could to make the cuts seamless, some work better than others; hopefully if you haven't seen the movie in a while you may not even notice. There are one or two segments which I just couldn't get to cut in without a significant camera or music "jump" but I still think it plays ok. One extended scene I left out since it didn't jive with what was in the flick: Dan asking Megan to marry him when there was already an existing sequence covering that. No real loss. I inserted the dream scene into where I though it fit best, it seems to need a bit more of an outro but you'll figure it out I'm sure. Anyways, the film is a .m4v suited for iPod (320x240) and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it looks. It runs just over 107 minutes and is the most complete version you can find. Let me know what you think and enjoy.

P.S. the movie poster above is adapted from one I found at this guy's gallery - check out his stuff.

UPDATE 9.2.13: Unfortunately, none of the file hosting sites will house my file so I'll direct you to the far superior (and cleaner) cut available on FanEdit - the only real difference is his not intercutting the dream sequence into the actual movie. Enjoy.

 
Currently watching: Fargo 
Currently listening to: Nigel Pepper Cock 
                                    Fresh White Reeboks Kickin' Your Ass!

Ménage À Trois

One of my favorite films of all time is Jörg Buttgereit's super-8 masterpiece Nekromantik. Not sure what that says about me or my celluloid tastes but I have never viewed the contemporary horror film the same way since I saw what a bunch of West Germans were able to create with absolutely no money, no equipment and no fucking shame back in 1987. I'm sure the three people who check this blog out are more then likely familiar with this piece of cinematic corpse-fucking so I figured I'd post one of the more beautiful (?) sides of the flick - the music. The sadly defunct Barrel Entertainment's DVD release of Nekromantik 2 included a CD of the soundtracks for both films. So here I present one of the more twistedly original compositions to ever accompany a film about necrophilia. From the demented abattoir opus "Surprise" to the darkly sweet "At Home" and the suicidal "Drunk," it is a 25-minute joyride through chaos. I think the music to the second film is somewhat derivative so I didn't include it although if I get a comment or two maybe I'll get around to it. Regardless, enjoy.

Masturbatory Suicide

 
Currently watching: Re-Animator
Currently listening to: Windhand Practice Space Demo

42nd Street Sleaze

One of the more random flicks in my DVD collection is the 1970's Nick Phillips raincoat oddity Roxanna. A strange 50-minute softcore descent into big breasts, thigh-high boots, leather and tribbing; nicely blended with suicide and dementia. Too depressing to be considered a token skin flick, Phillips' movie absolutely reeks of 16mm Manhattan sleaze; it's gritty, low budget and unrelentingly fetishistic. And the music score is fantastic. Imagine generic 70's porno funk downtuned into a cheerless acid-trip dirge and there ya go. Recorded live and barely mixed, I would love to find the band that sat for this session. I ripped the soundtrack from the DVD and cut out most of the annoying narration - I couldn't find a movie poster of the film's original grindhouse release (only the yawn of a 2002 remake with Misty Mundae) but I discovered a pretty cool painting by some dude named William Wright.. his other artwork can be found here. Enjoy!

Uschi

 
Currently watching: Team America: World Police

Currently listening to: Wormcumshot Oh!! What A Fuck!!!

Disco-Ortolani

Of course we all love Ruggero Deodato's flicks for the über-violence (and some would argue for their socio-political agendas) but one high point has been his repeated employment of Italian composer Riz Ortolani. Known primarily for his (Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated) Mondo Cane score as well as the beautifully haunting Cannibal Holocaust soundtrack; Riz is an incredibly affluent composer, with over 215 scores across 50 years in the business. One oft-ignored score is for Deodato's sweetly mean-spirited House On The Edge Of The Park, David Hess's post-Last House vehicle where he plays nearly the same role and terrorizes a group of naïve partying socialites. Regardless, one of the few humorous points in the film is a catchy disco tune entitled "Do It To Me (Once More)" which, as with most 80's Italian horror film scores, sits completely out of place with the rest of the film. It eventually found release on his 1981 Phantom of Love (Fantasma d'Amore) album, an incredibly catchy tune which you'll find yourself humming for days. Go Riz.

For the audiophiles, I could not find a satisfactorily full version of the song (his CDs are out of print and the tracks I could find on the internet are minute-long 128 kbps edits) so I ripped it off of video and removed as much hiss as I could. The file is in AIFF format and I think it sounds pretty good. Enjoy.

Groovy

 
 
Currently watching: Return Of The Killer Tomatoes

Currently listening to: Body Count Body Count

Filth Music

What can you say... love it or hate it, John Waters' legendary Pink Flamingos is probably the sickest piece of celluloid to ever cross the lens of a film projector. I've seen some of the most unsettling horror films out there and they pale in comparison to this "exercise in poor taste." Remember the icky feeling you got watching Gummo's retarded poster boy eat a dripping plate of spaghetti in the bath tub? This entire movie is like that. Whether you're talking about Edith Massey greedily shoving hardboiled eggs in her face (while sitting in a crib) to Babs sleazily licking a pig's head at her birthday party, it's all so..... gross! And I'm not even touching the rape, puking, transvestitism, incest, kielbasas-tied-to-dicks, shit-eating or winking assholes - you can discover for yourself. One nice companion to the film's 25th anniversary re-release was this remastered collection of all the 45" singles making up the soundtrack. You've got Link Wray & His Ray Men, The Trashmen, and even Little Richard making an appearance. Waters' liner notes calls the soundtrack a compilation of "filth music... aggressively shabby, technically primitive, and always sexually ironic." I couldn't agree more. Although personally I think these songs are now much more "filthy" than Waters' ever thought they ever were just by being associated with his twisted cinematic triumph. And now you can say you heard "Surfin' Bird" long before Family Guy made it annoying.

Swag It

 
Currently watching: The Redsin Tower

Currently listening to: Bee Gees Main Course

On another tip...

One of the things people associate with me is the absolutely freakish obsession I have for horror/sleaze/weird flicks from today and yesteryear. I was one of those geeks back in the day who salivated for an 8th generation copy of Cannibal Holocaust with Portuguese subtitles burned into the picture. Trading videotapes was almost a second job. Yet with the wonderful advent (and relative cheapness) of DVD, so much of what was once nearly unobtainable is common fodder in your local Best Buy. Who would have ever thunk you could easily grab copies of Salò and Redneck Zombies while picking up some printer ink? 

But once you get your fill of the NTSC/U.S.-released stuff you gotta start looking elsewhere. Thank you, thank you, glorious Internet. Pick up a region-free DVD player at 220-Electronics (some starting at only $50) and check out Diabolik DVD - easily the best worldwide cult DVD market on the web. Yeah, you could try Amazon or go the next step and order direct from Amazon UK (or whatever country you're into), but Diabolik is in the U.S., compiles it all together, and has better prices, shipping costs, you name it. It's also run by average guys who are just as much hardcore genre fans as small business owners. I tell ya, once I got my first region-free player it was game over. I hardly buy the generic region-free DVDs anymore, the stuff that's available overseas tends to be packaged so much better. Extras, artwork, commentaries, etc. etc. - all unavailable in the U.S.... the world has got a way bigger selection!

OK, OK, but what if you have some flick in mind that you just can't find - at Wal-Mart or overseas? Welp, you're probably fantasizing about some offbeat cult nonsense that simply has no distributor or ownership rights anymore, violates copyright laws (hello Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam), or is even too obscure for the "obscure" DVD labels to hose off and release. Coonskin and Mardi Gras Massacre come to mind as does anything by Chester N. Turner. Welcome to the home-grown business of burning videotapes to DVD. Get a Samsung VCR/DVD recorder and you too can open your own online cult movie depot! There are lots of FAQ's on the internet that posit it isn't copyright infringement, blah, blah Berne Act, but in all honesty it's a bootleg operation and I LOVE it! It's the closest thing to old-school tape trading out there. Sure you get what you pay for, those skips and jumps on a time-chewed videotape are there forever on your burned DVDr, but for $5-$7 bucks can you really complain? With the boom in iOffer there are lots of these operations out there, some riskier than others (I've been burned several times) so it's wise to do your homework. The shops below (Revok and Stumpy) are my faves - I've ordered from each multiple times and have gotten true-to-form product (for what it's worth... can you really blame them if you can't see anything on an advertised grade-D copy of Begotten?). They answer emails, ship relatively quickly, and prices are reasonable. Check 'em out - it's ridiculous the amount of stuff you'll find, including old TV shows, cartoons, concerts, you name it.

Diabolik DVD

Stumpy Disks

Revok Film Prodigies

So shitcan your Netflix account and start checking out one (or all) of the above sites - I'm sure you'll find some lost gems or new treasures once you start digging around. Peace!