VIDEOOZE - Zine Week Part 11

Subtitled Your Guide to Obscure Horror and Exploitation on Videotape, Videooze focused primarily on European films. Unlike many of its contemporaries, this zine always sported a professional looking layout and featured writing that would range from good to downright scholarly. The article "Bedeviled Bava" from issue #4 compared in great detail Mario Bava's Lisa and the Devil to the heavily tampered with version that was released as House of Exorcism. It was because of content of this caliber that Videooze often reminded me of Tim Lucas's Video Watchdog. There were some great interviews too, featuring European exploitation veterans like Christina Lindberg from Thriller-A Cruel Picture, a.k.a. They Call Her One Eye, and Spanish horror star Paul Naschy.


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DREADFUL PLEASURES - Zine Week Part 10

While New York City's 42nd Street had long since cleaned up its act, the cinematic sleaze of The Deuce lived on in the pages of Mike Accomando's Dreadful Pleasures. Liberally peppered with admats, the zine reviewed every form of exploitation film including horror, martial arts, blaxploitation, sexploitation, and gerbilsploitation. OK, I made that last one up, but had there been a rodent-related exploitation genre, Mike would have found it.

The first handful of issues I saw were photocopied and typewritten. Mike eventually switched over to a saddle stitched magazine with good printing on high quality paper with glossy covers, but I always felt the original format lent itself better to the subject matter.

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TEMPLE OF SCHLOCK - Zine Week Part 9

Now this one really takes me back. Not to be confused with Schlock, Temple of Schlock came long before I was writing for Factsheet 5. In fact, it's the first film fanzine I recall ever seeing. If memory serves, I subscribed after seeing an article on zines in High Times in 1988.

In addition to having the single coolest zine logo of all time, Temple of Schlock reviewed only the best and sleaziest of cinematic swill. In 1988 home video was only a six or seven years old (give or take), making this zine something of a trendsetter. Typewritten and pasted up, the look was downright crude, but it was cheap, dependable, and you sure as hell weren't going to find reviews of Warlords From Hell, Shanty Tramp, or Scream, Blacula, Scream in Premiere magazine.

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THE HUNGRY MAGGOT - Zine Week Part 8

Ah, The Maggot. This zine had a lot going for it. There was a fascination with the Illuminati, Men in Black, and the like. X-Files was pretty popular in those days and conspiracy theory was being elevated to an artform. "Crazy Christian Conspiracy Comics" used artwork from those vile Jack Chick religious comics in an all new way. "Groovy Fry Movies" offered quickie reviews of movies to watch when you're stoned.

Yeah, there was lots of cool stuff here, but what really kept me coming back (other than the fact that review copies were free) was the absolutely nightmarish artwork of Eric York, who was listed in the masthead of issue #6 as "Editor, Layout, and Supreme Dictator For Life." His artwork, which often displayed a distinct Lovecraftian bent, graced every cover, and Eric would also do comic strips and/or centerspreads inside.

I believe this is Eric's Myspace page.


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SHOCKING IMAGES - Zine Week Part 7

For whatever reason, I only remember seeing this one a few times, which is a shame. As the title implies, Shocking Images was all about extreme horror. The copy I have here features Cannibal Holocaust on the front and back covers. Inside were reviews of Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Dolemite, Darkness (which only just now is making it onto DVD), blaxploitation, nazi-sploitation, and Coffin Joe. A zine like this would keep me busy for awhile. The interior was photocopied onto decent quality papter, and the zine made a stronger attempt than most at a professional looking layout.

Mark Jason Murray was the Publisher/Editor and I believe he is currently behind Film Fanaddict magazine.

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PSYCHOHOLICS UNANIMOUS - Zine Week Part 6

I always looked forward to this one. Joni Lee described her zine as "dealing with whatever I think fun, bizarre, or interesting, like 'psychotronic' movies, drive-in theatres, true-crime documentation, trashy star autobiographies, profiles of cult stars, popular culture, dreams, etc." The contents were a delightful hodgepodge of film reviews, ad mats, and newspaper clippings, exemplifying the cut-and-paste style of zine design (see sample spread below). Joni loved drive-in theatres and they were an ongoing subject of the zine. She once even went so far as to hand write the locations of all the drive-ins in my home state on the inside of the review copy, just so I knew where to find them. I also found her love for trashy made for TV movies (the type that is now played on the Lifetime Channel) quite endearing.


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KAIJU REVIEW - THE JOURNAL OF JAPANESE MONSTER CULTUREZine Week Part 5

This one had a fairly high page count for a zine. The two issues I have on hand are 40 and 64 pages. There was plenty of coverage of Godzilla and Gamera, but it was the articles and pictures of lesser-known kaiju films and TV shows that set this one apart. Publisher Dan Reed and his contributors really knew what they were talking about. Everyone knows Ultraman, but this is where I first learned about Ultraman Taro, Ultraman Leo, and the other Ultraman spin-offs. The likes of Kamen Rider and Jinzoningen Kikaida were also covered. There was some really cool fan art too. Check out Keith Aiken's interpretation of King Kong Vs. Godzilla below.



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LET IT BLEED - Zine Week Part 4

Let It Bleed
Zine publishing schedules were often less than reliable. On the other hand, Dan Cziraky's Let It Bleed was one of the most consistently published zines that I dealt with. Dan used a straightforward newsletter style without any flashy design tricks. Let It Bleed covered horror related news and gossip and the latest happenings in model and toy circles, as well as reviewing films. Dan's writing style pulled no punches. If he liked your work he said so, if not, may God have mercy on your soul. Let it Bleed published a horrorscope in every issue: “Leo: Beware of Libras carrying chloroform, a surgical gown, a full set of operating knives, and seeking liver donations.” Sound advice.

I see Dan's byline on reviews in Phantom of the Movies' Videoscope, and you can see some of his book and film reviews at Amazon.com.

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FLUBBER SOUL - Zine Week Part 3

Flubber Soul
To the best of my knowledge, Flubber Soul was a one-shot zine. Remember what I said about zines focusing on very specific subjects? This twelve-page booklet was dedicated—with tongue firmly in cheek—to the sage wisdom of actor Fred McMurray, and consisted of several very well done comic strips. In addition to the “Secret Origins of Popular Idols” piece shown here which traces the common lineage of Fred McMurry, Elvis, and Captain Marvel, there was also “Teenage Mutant Ninja Freds,” a “Fred Foto Funny” captioning contest and a few other bits of general Fred-ness.


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SCHLOCK - Zine Week Part 2

Schlock
My connection to Schlock actually pre-dates my time with Factsheet 5. The Journal of Low-Brow Cinema and Culture, as it was subtitled, was the first publication to print my film reviews (Thanks, John!). Schlock experimented with many sizes and formats, with the tabloid newspaper style being the one used most often. Video reviews weren't so much concerned with recent releases as they were with mining B Movie gold from the least traveled video store shelves. Articles included pop culture ephemera like “Will the Real Darrin Stevens Please Stand Up?!,” which compared and contrasted the merits of the two actors to play Samantha Stevens's better half. Music reviews focused on lounge music and the like, with a healthy dose of kitsch. Beth Accomando's Asian Files was an ongoing feature covering Asian cinema.

Schlock was the brainchild of John Chilson who currently runs the Stumptown Confidential website, which is “Documenting Portland, Oregon, [and occasionally the entire Northwest] architecture, history, and culture through photos, postcards, and words.”

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FACTSHEET 5 - Zine Week Part 1

I discovered Factsheet 5 magazine in the early 1990s, and it was my first real exposure to zine culture. This was before mainstream acceptance of the internet, so finding a review of Geek Maggot Bingo or a retrospective of monster films starring masked Mexican wrestler El Santo was next to impossible. Zines, however, were (and still are) small personal publications that often covered highly eclectic subject matter and gave voice to any film geek with a little ambition and access to a photocopier. Factsheet 5's task was to review and catalog as many zines as possible, and to tell readers where they could find those zines.

Eventually I contacted Seth Friedman at Factsheet 5 and asked if I could review film-related zines for him. The magazine had a section specifically devoted to B movies, and I felt it calling to me. "Hell, yeah," he said. Soon I was receiving stacks of zines large enough to clog a suburban sewer. Some of the items sent for review like Psychotronic Video straddled the line between prozine and fanzine, while others like the fabulous euro-horror book Immoral Tales were clearly professional publications.

I loved them all, but my favorites were the small xeroxed zines filled with equal parts passion and bad grammar. There were a nearly infinite number of formats, and no two ever looked alike. Computers were still far from being as common as they are today, so many zines cultivated a punk-esque look, consisting of typewritten text literally pasted into layouts. In many ways the zines I was reviewing then were the predecessors of blogs, consisting of self-published material geared toward extremely tight niche markets. So in the spirit of that blog to zine kinship, here are some of my favorite zines from my time writing for Factsheet 5 from the early nineties until 1997 or so.

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Clerks Kick Keister at Cannes

According to Kevin Smith's MySpace blog, Clerks II recevied an 8-minute standing ovation following its premiere at The Cannes Film Festival. Congrats to Kevin and his cast and crew. The movie hits U.S. theatres on July 21.

Darkness—The Vampire VersionTRAILER

I found the link to this trailer on I Spit on Your Movie (LOVE that name). I remember seeing Darkness covered in Film Threat Video back in the day, and I believe it also made the cover of Fangoria. It was being hailed by many as a sort of rennaisance underground horror film, shot on 8 millimeter film stock. The movie looks low tech, but enthusiastic. I've still not seen the film, but now that it's out on DVD (or will be on May 30) I'll have to remedy that. Here's the link to the film's main website.

Announcing Zine Week on Omega Channel

Zine Week starts here at Omega Channel on Monday May 29. I'll be reminiscing about some of the coolest self-published horror, film, and pop culture zines that I reviewed during my stint writing for Factsheet 5 magazine. Today's blogosphere owes much to zine culture, and I thought it might be fun to take a look at the blog's paper-based cousins. Click on the image to get a closer look at some of zinedoms finest.

May 25 is Now TOWEL DAY

May 25 has been declared Towel Day to mark the passing of Douglas Adams, creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the funniest novelist ever to hitch a ride on a Vogon star cruiser. Here's the scoop.

Clerks II

On May 26, Clerks II will be making its premiere at The Cannes Film Festival, with its U.S. release following on July 21. The original Clerks was a masterful triumph of talent over budget, costing roughly $30,000 to produce and managing to be one of the funniest god damn things ever committed to celluloid. Thirty-seven? That's comedy gold, my friends.

Smith had announced that Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back would be his last film set in the View Askewniverse, a place whose most notable residents are the foul mouthed catch phrase spewing Jay (Snoogens!) played by Jason Mewes, and his little spoken Coffin Nail puffing compatriot Silent Bob, played by Smith himself. Sadly, Smith's next film Jersey Girl died faster than that first stormtrooper through the bulkhead at the beginning of Star Wars.

Since Smith has written and directed four great films plus the flawed but still fun Mallrats, I think View Askewnians everywhere should choose to ignore Jersey Girl and pretend it was made in some evil parallel universe in which Ben Affleck wears a black goatee like Spock did in...

Wait, Affleck had a black goatee in Chasing Amy, a film which definitely did not suck.

OK, screw the metaphor. Jersey Girl: let it go.

You're not likely to find a filmmaker more in touch with his fan base than Kevin Smith. If you haven't been following his video blog Train Wreck: The Making of Clerks II over at the Clerks II site, then you've got lots of cool stuff to catch up on.

Come on, Clerks II. Make me proud.

Ghost RiderTRAILER

I was never a big fan of Marvel's Ghost Rider comic book, but I can see how it might work as a film. It stars Nicholas Cage, and more often than not he seems to know how to pick a good project. Take a look at the newly posted trailer over on the Apple website.

The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)DVD REVIEW

Tim Lucas recently reported on his Video Watchblog that director Val Guest had passed away on May 10 at the age of 94. Guest was a British writer/director with such films to his credit as The Quatermass Xperiment, Quatermass 2, Casino Royale, and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, among many others. Guest's end of the world masterpiece The Day the Earth Caught Fire, has long been a personal favorite.

Guest humanizes his apocalyptic tale by eliminating the genre stereotypes. The end of the world epics of the 1950s usually featured a scientist, a square jawed man of action, and a damsel in distress/love interest. The Day the Earth Caught Fire is told in the form of a newsroom drama, from the point of view of Pete Stenning (Edward Judd of Island of Terror and First Men in the Moon), a reporter for London's Daily Express. Stenning, once a great reporter, has given in to alcoholism and despair in the wake of his divorce.

The film opens with ominous images of a drought-stricken and seemingly deserted London, made all the more effective by two brilliant touches of subtlety. This portion of the otherwise black and white film is tinted orange, giving the viewer a vivid sense of the extreme heat, and even as the opening credits roll, we hear not a single note on the soundtrack. The world seems to be ending with not a bang, but a whimper.

Stenning makes his way from the sun blasted streets into the offices of The Daily Express. His typewriter has succumbed to the heat, so he gets a copy boy on the phone to take his story as he dictates it. “It is exactly thirty minutes since the corrective bombs were detonated,” he says. “Within the next few hours the world will know whether this is the end or another beginning.”

As Stenning speaks, the screen wavers into flashback, the orange tinted film giving way to glorious black and white. In the offices of The Daily Express sunspot activity and earthquakes fill recent issues, while the U.S. Hydrogen bomb test in the Antarctic ten days earlier has become old news. Some are blaming an unnatural increase in natural disasters on the bomb, though such ideas are dismissed as poppycock, that is until news comes over the wire that the Soviets have detonated a bomb in Siberia that is 20% more powerful than its U.S. counterpart. A quick comparison of dates shows that both nuclear tests were conducted more or less simultaneously, which makes for one hell of a news story.

Amidst all this, Stenning makes a new contact at the Meteorological Center. Jeannie Craig (Janet Munro of The Crawling Eye and Disney's Swiss Family Robinson), who first finds Stenning an overly aggressive boor eventually sees a worthwhile man beneath the booze and the bravado. The romance between Jeannie and Stenning provides both hope and tragedy in the face of humanity's possible extinction.

Conditions around the world worsen with rampant flooding, droughts, tornadoes, and a solar eclipse that occurs several days ahead of schedule. Science editor Bill Maguire (Leo McKern, star of the TV series Rumpole of the Bailey) has a hypothesis, backed up by information leaked from the Meteorological Center by Jeannie. The combined force of the twin nuclear tests have shifted the earth's axis, creating a new equator and shifting climates worldwide. The situation becomes even more grave, when Russian scientists announce that not only has earth's axis changed, but its orbit has also been altered, and the planet is heading toward the sun.

The distrust of authority seen here is not the sort of thing one would have seen in an American film from the period. Films in which the U.S. government lies to its citizens would not become common until the post Watergate period. The rapid fire speech common to newspaper films (His Girl Friday comes to mind) combined with the variety of British accents can make some of the dialog difficult to make out, but that's why you have a rewind button. Adding greatly to the realism is the casting of Arthur Christiansen as the editor of the Daily Express. Christiansen, though not an actor, was a recently retired London newspaper editor.

Special effects are minimal, with many of the worldwide catastrophes being portrayed with stock footage. It's the characters that sell this story, and they sell it well. The film's climax is haunting and is guaranteed to stay with you.

The Day the Earth Caught Fire's entry at IMDB.

Danger DiabolikTRAILER

I'm really getting hooked on YouTube.com. Witness the coolness that is the trailer for Mario Bava's Danger: Diabolik.

GRIND HOUSE Companion Book

Quention Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have written a companion book for their upcoming film Grind House. Grind House: The Sleaze Filled Saga of an Exploitation Double Feature will provide background on the making of the film as well as a history of the grind house genre, and will no doubt be chock full of wholesome family values. Get the details at the official website of Rodriguez's Troublemaker Publishing.

Speaking of SCARECROWS

Remember I mentioned in my Dead Birds review a few days ago that the movie reminded me of a flick called Scarecrows? Well, Iloz Zoc from Zombos Closet of Horror saw the resemblance too and he has posted a review of this seemingly forgotten gore flick from the late 1980s.

Check it out.

Dawn of the Dead (1978)TRAILER

Once again, I'm overwhelmed by the need for a good trailer. If you're reading my RSS feed you'll need to click on over to my site to view this.

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez collaborate on GRIND HOUSE

Bloody-Disgusting.com and The Horror Channel website have posted some interesting tidbits about the upcoming Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez collaboration Grind House. The movie is intended as an homage to exploitation cinema of the 70s. The film will consist of two one hour features (a slasher film directed by Tarantino and a zombie flick from Rodriguez) with fake trailers surrounding them.

Pretty much any project from either of these directors would grab my attention, but I'm salivating at the thought of seeing Grind House. I've mentioned my growing disillusionment with zombie sub-genre, and I've often described slasher films as creatively bankrupt, but in the hands of these two (dare I say it?) filmmaking geniuses, this movie holds quite a bit of promise.

PULSE website is online

The website for Pulse, the U.S. remake of the Japanese film Kairo, is up and running. It's an incredible design job, and it's creepy as hell.

Dead Birds (2004)DVD REVIEW

This film automatically gets points for attempting and pulling off a Civil War era setting with a budget of only $1.5-million. It seems unlikely that Dead Birds will become any kind of classic, but it’s a competently made low-budget chiller with a strong cast, some good scares, and some way cool creatures.

A gang of bank robbers dressed like Confederate soldiers makes off with a large quantity of gold. The gang’s leader William is played by Henry Thomas, best known as Elliot from E.T., and despite the beard he sports here, he doesn’t appear to have aged much in the intervening years.

During the blood-drenched bank heist William’s brother Sam, played by the equally baby-faced Patrick Fugit (star of Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous), takes a bullet to the shoulder. The thieves remain otherwise unscathed, which is more than can be said for the occupants of the bank. The gore effects are both ambitious and effective, though I’m fairly certain a civil war era pistol would not shear a man’s skull in half.

The thieves make for the old Hollister Place, an abandoned plantation where they plan to hole up for the night before making a break for Mexico. Just outside the hideout, though, a nightmarish beastie that no one can identify as human or animal attacks our anti-heroes. Once inside the house, it soon becomes clear that something evil resides there. William and Todd discover a book with an incantation for raising the dead. Sam has several spectral/demonic visitations, but are they merely a product of his infected wound? Soon, though, the others are also seeing things that just aren’t right, and the desire to hang onto the gold they’ve stolen must be balanced against the value of their own lives and perhaps even their souls.

One of the movie’s biggest assets is its cast. William’s girlfriend, the razor-wielding Annabelle, is played with pluck and homespun sex appeal by Nicki Aycox of Jeepers Creepers II fame. Isaiah Washington, currently appearing on the TV series Grey’s Anatomy plays Todd, the gang’s only African American member. Given the time period, Todd’s ethnicity adds tension to an already shaky group dynamic. Michael Shannon and Mark Boone, Jr. respectively play Clyde and Joseph who comprise a gang within the gang, and their goals are not necessarily in line with those of their compatriots.

The disk features some nice extras. Commentary buffs will rejoice at the inclusion of two audio commentary tracks, one from director Alex Turner and one from the cast and crew. There’s also a fascinating “making of” featurette in which we see members of the production staff getting drunk in hotel rooms, arguing over creature designs, and detonating 8 squibs strapped to a 90-year old man.

All in all, a nice little scare-fest that seems a little reminiscent of William Wesley’s Scarecrows (1988). Not all questions are answered, notably the meaning of the title, but this leaves a feeling of mystery even after the end credits have rolled.

Dead Bird's entry at IMDB

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The Quiet Earth (1985)COMING TO DVD

Anchor Bay is once again bringing a seemingly forgotten classic to DVD for the first time. The Quiet Earth will see release on 6/13/06. This low budget flick hails from New Zealand. Zac Hobson awakens one morning to find that he is apparently the last person on earth. Hollywood style action is eschewed in favor of characterization. Definitely worth a look, and would make a good co-feature with the Vincent Price film The Last Man on Earth.

Features include:

• Widescreen Presentation enhanced for 16x9 TVs
• Audio Commentary with Writer/Producer Sam Pillsbury
• Eight-Page Collectible Booklet
• Theatrical Trailer

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Masters of Horror: ChocolateDVD REVIEW

“Have you been in love? Really in love?”

Chocolate is directed by Mick Garris, who has made a career out of adapting the works of Stephen King for the big and small screen, including The Stand, The Shining, Sleepwalkers, and the upcoming Desperation mini-series, in which Chocolate star Henry Thomas will also be appearing. Even if Thomas were to win an Oscar next year, I suspect he would be forever known as the kid who helped E.T. Phone home. This is unfortunate, because as Thomas has proved in this latest DVD release of the Showtime Masters of Horror series, he's got talent and he can carry a leading performance just fine, thank you very much.

Chocolate is told from the perspective of a blood spattered man named Jaimie (Thomas) as he explains to the police for the umpteenth time the events that brought him to his current gore soaked state. Jaimie is a recently divorced man who is not adjusting well to living alone. He works in a laboratory where his acute senses make him a natural at developing artificial flavoring for the food industry. He wakes up one night with the distinct taste of a high quality chocolate in his mouth, despite the fact that he's been on an all salad diet for some time. As he puts it, he feels like he is tasting someone else's chocolate.

Odd sensory intrusions continue to occur. While watching his friend Wally's (the always interesting Matt Frewer of Max Headroom fame) band perform, Jaimie's hearing cuts out. Later, while driving home with Wally, Jaimie loses control of his car because he can no longer see the highway in front of him. Instead he is getting flashes of a street he has never seen before. He comes to realize that he is receiving the input of another person's senses. Before long he has his most vivid vision yet, in which he realizes it is a strikingly beautiful woman from whom he is receiving these sensory broadcasts, and that he is more in love with her than he had ever thought possible. When Jaimie witnesses an act of extreme violence through this psychic connection, he becomes determined to find and help this woman.

This episode had me guessing all the way through. Henry Thomas gives a very believable performance as a lonely man who wants desperately to love again. A few more questions might have been answered regarding Jaimie's psychic flashes, but they are not absolutely necessary. This is easily the least horrific episode I've seen so far, making Chocolate seem more like a Twilight Zone episode than a horror film. Overall, though, a solid entertaining episode whose chocolaty goodness is helping to get the bad taste of Incident On and Off a Mountain Road out of my mouth.

Masters of Horror: Chocolate's entry at IMDB
Masters of Horror Official Website

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HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY...

...to John Shaft, the toughest mother of them all.