Hair Band Horror Series: When metal went horror!

Gorehound Mike here...Heavy metal and horror movies, they go together like a maniac and a sharp axe! In this series were going to take a look at some films filled with everything great about metal:devil worship,sex murder and BAD HAIR!! Maybe even a surprise interview or two! This serieMs is written by Marc Heller a talented new staff writer at Gorehound Mikes! So sit back, crank some tunes (backwards) and enjoy these cheese tastic metal gore wonders...

Title: Blood tracks
by Marc Heller

Blood Tracks, also known as "Shocking Heavy Metal" is a paint by numbers copy of Hills Have eyes, only they've replaced the family in the Winnebago with a Swedish hair metal band, their film crew, and a bunch of slutty models

I went into this expecting the cheese factor at the highest possible level, and the film did not disappoint. In the beginning of the movie, we see a woman defend her children from her abusive and drunk husband who tries to take what little money they have. He slices her throat, a superficial wound, she stabs him in the back, he dies. All this happens while a huge burly man who could have broken the whole thing up just stands there and watches, and yells "murderer !"after she's done the deed. She than runs off with her children.

Flash forward to 1985, 40 years later according to the deep voiced narrator. Who also indicates this family has lived in solitude, until intruders came. Those intruders would be the Swedish metal band Solid Gold, and their entourage. They have come to the snowy mountains to film their latest music video. Our rocking Swedes are also joined by models who dance poorly and wear make up like war paint. Initially, they try to provide the comic relief in the film by way of hilariously bad one liners. But eventually, they serve their true purpose, as exposed breasts are a staple of 80's horror.

Despite repeat warnings of avalanches, the group proceeds to move ahead and shoot their video on the mountain . Sure enough, after we are treated to a choreographed performance of a hair metal ballad, their performance appears to have triggered an avalanche. But not until they finish, and go back to a cabin to frolic with the models. We get treated to some avalanche stock footage, while everyone in a cabin pretends to react to the impending avalanche, everyone except the one band member who is having sex in a car with a model, who all the others must now save. Obviously, since this in 80's horror film, and someone has had sex, its time for people to die. While the rest of the band and the models dig out the band member and the model, the camera crew heads to an abandoned factory. Which of course has giant red signs everywhere telling people not to go in. In a scene before, it is established the family now lives in the factory, they are grotesque, and they kill someone who is inspecting the property.

Somehow, living in the abandoned factory has turned the family into mutants. The kids now have big scruffy beards, furry jackets, and a bad complexion. The eldest kid and mom speak, while the rest grunt and jump up and down like monkeys. For the remainder of the film, people keep going into the factory and get killed, until someone finally gets up on the mountain and starts offing the family. And than he takes an axe to the head. The intelligent brother attempts to stop the violence, we get some dialogue which is supposed to make us feel bad for the family. And than a lot of people die.

The film tries to disguise itself as an American horror film, but the horrendous dubbing is a quick giveaway. Clearly the studio dug from the bottom of the barrel when casting this film, as reading even the simplest of lines was a task too hard for most cast members. Still, I can't help but enjoy this film in some sick twisted way. If you can handle bad acting and 80's fashion, and you liked The Hills Have Eyes, this is at least good for a laugh. But is otherwise awful.

Theres an Eyeball in my Martini: Campy horror reviews by David Del Valle: CHRISTMAS EVIL

HELLO horror fiends, David here...Santa was good to me, he brought me he brought me some joints from CA!
 Since its Christmas, and this is Gorehound Mikes were going to be checking out my favorite Horrorday classic "YOU BETTER WATCH OUT aka Christmas Evil.

John Waters call this film "the greatest Christmas movie ever made" and with his sense of the absurd as a director I know he means it. This is a very strange film to watch with if you have any sense of conventional horror films whether they are about Santa Clause or not. This is not really a slasher film per say in the tradition of BLACK CHRISTMAS or SILENT NIGHT BLOODY NIGHT. Christmas Evil is more like psychological thriller with a nod to whimsical films like THE 5000 FINGERS OF DR T in that the central character is not so much a killer as he is a very disturbed man and all because as a child in 1947, he saw mommy kissing Santa Clause and more than that Santa was groping her leg and this shocked the boy so much he ran upstairs and cut himself on a snow globe flash-forward to 1980 to see just how much this now grown man( played to perfection by Brendan Maggart) has survived on all the Christmases yet to come. 

The film is paced like a bad dream in which nobody ever really wakes up. The toy factory where Brenden is overseer is called The JOLLY DREAM and I feel that is what we as an audience are having a joyful Xmas dream where Santa can be recreated by gluing on a beard and filling your van up with presents for all the good little boys and girls at the local hospital. There is so much going on if you can get behind this a bit as it is very slow for the first hour or so and the print I watched was with the Director Lewis Jackson in the audience. Mr Jackson never made another film after Christmas Evil and he was visibly moved by all the attention that night. He said he wanted his daughter to have the print we were watching and that it was in the kind of shape where it could not be run through a projector many more times in any case. This is really an indie classic with all the decor and lighting of an Ed Wood film yet made with love and care just the same. Most of the actors went on to have careers and this little sleeper of a film is now regarded as one of the very best of the evil Santa genre of films made during the 1980's and beyond. I mean this film starts out like a classic Argento with a child witnessing a traumatic situation this time sex instead of murder but then it takes its time allowing this character to show you just how around the bend he really is...I mean he keeps book on the good children as well as the bad in his neighborhood...nothing though will prepare you for what follows with a musical number with this bad Santa dancing like Rasputin in a Hammer film...only to warn the children at the party that if they are not good something "horrible" would come their way on Christmas eve...at this point some of the parents look a bit confused. 

Mr. Jackson spoke at length about how hard it was to ask for more money to finish the film as it began as a project with a budget of $500.000 and this quickly escalated into $800.000 he was saved by the mafia in New Jersey that came through with the much needed $300.000 more in funds. Now the film does not look like it cost a lot even by the standards of the day. The print was turning red by now but this can all be taken care of if a blu ray is done and Mr. Jackson believed there was for late 2014. If you have not seen this little gem of surreal yuletide then prepare yourself with a joint and a cocktail and watch Christmas evil like most normal film fans watch ITS A WINDERFUL LIFE....it really does have a fairy tale ending after all. The original title for this film was YOU BETTER WATCH OUT...and that was the title on the print that evening.

MORE ABOUT DAVID: David Del Valle is an author and film historian whose work has appeared in books magazines and dvd supplements. David has also curated several photo exhibits using THE DEL VALLE ARCHIVES a collection of several thousand images from cult fantasy and Horror films that has an international reputation. His awarding winning DVD VINCENT PRICE THE SINISTER IMAGE is now considered a classic of it's kind. In January a TV series based on The SINISTER IMAGE will be streaming on RAPID HEART TV featuring cult and horror films introduced by David.

links http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Del_Valle

Films in review

http://www.rapidheart.com/

Jug Face: Make some Face time with it....IF U DARE!

JUG FACE

2013

Directed by: Chad Crawford Kinkle




When you watch a horror film set in the back woods your sure to get either deformed monsters or just twisted Ned Beatty rapers, if you`ve seen one you`ve pretty much seen them all. But JUG FACE wisely takes the high ground and does neither yet creates its own terrible mythos that will send shivers down your moon shine drinking spine.

Jug Face tells the story of a clan of people that must sacrifice certain members at the behest of an unseen force that dwells in "The Pit" How do they know whom to kill you may ask, well its quite simple. A choosen man (played brilliantly by Sean Bridgers) named Dawai makes the jugs in a sort of trance of its intended victim. Our heroin of the story Ada (Lauren Ashley Carter) finds its her face in the latest jug.To make matters worse she has gotten pregnant to her brother all while she is to be joined to another member of the clan.  In order to save herself and the life inside her she quickly hides the jug thinking nobody will ever know. Things goes from bad to worse when people around her start to die, taken by the thing in the pit.

As I said before, Jug Face takes the back woods and instead of filling them with killer rednecks or mutants or mutant rednecks chasing after big breasted co-eds writer/director Chad Crawford Kinkle goes a more powerful and chilling route and shows us just how scary the woods of Tennessee can be. Right away Kinkle draws you into his world of dark scary woods, an evil pit,magic and sacrifice all without being campy or silly but deadly and frighteningly serious. Its a unique world with its own set of rules yet its also very grounded in familiar settings and reality which is so cleverly pulled off. Less is more as we never actually see whats inside the pit. Yet thats not to say we dont see anything creepy that lurks within.

Much of the powerful punch is due to the extremely well written characters that unlikely most "Hollywood" horror films is rich with development. We really begin to care about the two main characters and there plight, we don't want to see anything bad happen to them. Sean Bridgers, Lauren Ashley Carter and an guest star appearance by Sean Young rounds out this amazingly talented cast. Everyone is just fantastic and  breaths life and gives credibility to the script by Mr. Kinkle. Speaking of characters director of photography Chris Heinrich shoots the TN woods perfectly making it almost one of the players in the film. With a keen cinematic eye he really utilizes the ominous strange magical presents of the location. The visual scope of the film heightens the story the telling which is what a great D.P does.


FEARNET.com named this one of the best films of 2013 and I must strongly agree with them. It takes a familiar trappings of a horror film and makes it smart thrilling and down right chilling to the bone, all without being silly and relying on gross out gags (though gore hounds will be pleased) This is Kinkles first feature film and something tells me hes going to be the next huge name in horror. So pull up a jug of shine cause Gorehound Mike doesn't want HIS face to be next....

COMING SOON INTERVIEWS WITH CAST/CREW!!

Theres an Eyeball in my Martini: Campy horror reviews by famed horror historian David Del Valle

Gorehound Mikes creepy doors are back open and 

look what we dragged out of hell with us? None 

other then famed horror Historian David Del Valle!! 

David came be seen recently on Shout Factory's 

Vincent Price Collection among other things! We are 

so pleased to have such a ghoulish queen of the

underworld to join us and give us EXCLUSIVE 

reviews and insight you`ll only see here at Gorehound Mikes.

DID SOMEBODY TAKE MY DRINK AWAY: THE BAD SEED

BY DAVID DELVALLE

A few years a ago I was asked to appear in a documentary about evil children in films. It was for the Warner Bros blu ray presentation of ORPHAN,a film which really wasn't about a child at all as it turned out by the final reel. I did the job without ever having had the chance to see the film until after the dvd was on the market. The very first title I discussed was THE BAD SEED and why not it is without a doubt the greatest of all the evil children films and that includes THE INNOCENTS as well as VILLAGE OF THE DAMMED or the now classic euro trash horror WHO WOULD KILL A CHILD? These films all contained evil children but none of these films had the shock value of what Patty McCormick gave in her show stopping transgression turn as a smiling soulless she devilin pigtails.

I remember seeing THE BAD SEED on television when I was but a child myself not quite so evil as Rhoda but I was already well on my way to becoming a monster kid of a different kind than the youthful serial killer Patty McCormick was playing on screen.The one character that always stood out to me even as a kid was Eileen Heckart as the very drunk Hortense Daigle...she was perfection..asking "did somebody take my drink away" well nobody could get a drink past her in THE BAD SEED and that is a fact..she received as Oscar nomination for her performance as did Nancy Kelly as the Rhoda's beyond hysterical mother and of course little Rhoda herself was nominated for the Academy award for what became a landmark performance.

I finally met Patty at a screening of MARYJANE a counter culture film from the sixties about pot of all things she was very grown up in this film yet you knew this was a very talented lady whatever age she was playing. Her memory of the film is good as it gets for a child trying to remember events so long ago. Her recollections of playing Rhoda on the stage at the tender age of eight were based on cab rides while she changed her wardrobe from one play to another or visiting cast members in their homes as if they were family. She was never aware she was as evil as her audiences observed since she was still a little girl play acting with grown ups all of whom became a kind of family for her at the time. Patty decided to play Rhoda as a child who was like a snake with no emotional center, a child who is always right no matter what the cost in humanlife or the pain she causes everyone around her.

One of the things Patty was still a bit freaked out about the film was the subtext of Henry Jones's character being a pedophile something quite unheard of in 1956. Yet it could be read into the film if you look at his performance and the fact he does not ever try to turn her in to the police even when he knows she is a killer. Patty was able to laugh about it now but she told me any sexual subtext would have gone over her head at the time in any case as I am sure it did most the the audiences of the day.

William Hopper who played her father back in 1956 would a year later play opposite two other monsters the Ymir of 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH created by none other than the great RAY Harryhausen and THE DEADLY MANTIS who famously climbs the Washington monument during the film as fighter planes try to bring this giant insect down. Henry Jones a great and well respected character actor plays the dim witted Leroy who manages to hold his own acting wise with the demonic moppet. Jones also was retained from the Broadway play and his off camera screams as he is being burned alive in the basement are the stuff Horror movies are made of even in 1956.

When I see this film today it is still a guilty pleasure even though it is basically a photographed stage play with some exterior's in place of all the action taking place on a living room set it was on Broadway. Mervyn Le Roy was a very seasoned director who knew what he wanted and he had been so impressed with the Broadway production that he was very reluctant to change too much in adapting it to the screen. Rhoda is so evil that after both the play and the film there is a moment afterwards for Nancy Kelly Has to come back and actually spank Rhoda as a gesture for what the entire audience had wanted to do from the first act and that was to let her have it. This always reminded me of FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA where Edward Van Sloan comes out in front of a curtain to warn the audiences of 1931 not to fear since of course we all know there are no such things as vampires or monster made from dead bodies or are there?

MORE ABOUT DAVID: David Del Valle is an author and film historian whose work has appeared in books magazines and dvd supplements. David has also curated several photo exhibits using THE DEL VALLE ARCHIVES a collection of several thousand images from cult fantasy and Horror films that has an international reputation. His awarding winning DVD VINCENT PRICE THE SINISTER IMAGE is now considered a classic of it's kind. In January a TV series based on The SINISTER IMAGE will be streaming on RAPID HEART TV featuring cult and horror films introduced by David.

links http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Del_Valle

Films in review

http://www.rapidheart.com/

Help Bunny Game actress Rodleen Getsic

The very taleted actress of "Bunny Game" Needs your HELP!
http://www.gofundme.com/Medical-Help-Rodleen

We are asking for your help right now for Rodleen's medical equipment, assisted care, and for the doctor bills that are coming up.

Rodleen was a professional artist, actress, musician, and producer. On March 8, 2010 Rodleen had an accident at Real Food Daily in West Hollywood. She slipped on a mat and landed on the back of her head. She sustained a traumatic brain injury, and injury to her upper spine and brainstem. Because of her severe symptoms, Rodleen has difficulty with mobility, body, and brain function, with balance, walking, and doing normal activities. She is in severe chronic disabling pain centered from her brainstem. This tragic event has changed Rodleen's life forever. She is disabled and unable to work. Her injury has been worsening over time. Rodleen is lucky because she has so much faith and strength in spirit. We are proud of her because against all odds, she remains positive. We are confident we will be led to answers toward her healing.

Already, since injury, she owes more than $50,000 in doctor bills. We expect the law suit to settle in Rodleen's favor, in order to pay for the ongoing care Rodleen is needing. Rodleen's lawyers recently dropped her case, so she is seeking new representation. Please contact us with any law firm or law expert referrals.


For now, we ask your help in paying for medical equipment, assisted care, and for the doctor bills coming up. Rodleen is seeing more specialist neurologists, and she will be getting further testing with the help of your donation.

PLEASE DONATE ANYTHING YOU CAN! EVEN IF ITS 5 BUCKS ITS HELPFUL!

http://www.gofundme.com/Medical-Help-Rodleen

The Films of François Gaillard: The French Argento!

Gorehound Mike here and I got your passport to weird and wild cinema from around the globe! This brand new segment will look at little seen gems from around the world. To kick this off we not only are looking at a very talented up and coming director. This is part 1 of a 2 part series on his work.

The Films of François Gaillard: The French Argento Part 1

Title: Die Die My Darling

Short: 20mins

REVIEW: A mysterious sexy hit women enters a club to do thing she does best. Look damn good and kill!

Its clear from frame one that Gaillard has a keen cinematic eye, using interesting camera work and compositions that are stylish and remain me of the films of Bava and Argento (more evident on DSD,see below)
François also clearly knows his films. He cleverly sneaks in a "A CLOCKWORK ORANGE" reference, with one of the boss`s henchmen, which adds a really cool and fun touch.  The film is non stop kick ass fighting and Gaillard proves that he can handle a action driven story with flare and showmanship  And its always great to see a nazi stripper fighting a sexy hit women. Its taken just serious enough, without any campy after taste. The only thing wrong with this short film, Its not a full length feature!! Its Kill Bill vibe with a French flavor. A must see.

http://vimeo.com/29966629

Title: Dome Sweet Dome (Music Video) Artist EYR vs DOUBLE DRAGON

REVIEW: A stunning lady of the evening meets a client at a hotel, and what seems like a lust filled night of passion soon spirals into a nightmare of blood and missing male genital. This music video for the band
was my introduction to François Gaillard cinematic work. I was total in awe of the his grotesque and stylish work. His camera work is skillful and and stylish and like Die,Die shows a wonderful flare for interesting compositions and camera angles. The lighting during the intense love making scene is pure Argento using primary colors red and blue to light the scene. Its masterful. Another great nod to Dario is the use of eyes which is straight out of Profondo Rosso (Deep Red) Is he just stealing his style, well yes but lets not forget that Argento stole it from Mario Bava, so lets not judge. Point is he uses it well. When things get really messy in the video, it gets MESSY! Big shout out to David Scherer who did an amazing job with the special effects. Its rare for me to review a music video, but this is wonderful and would make a wonderful full length film.  I dont know if i`ve ever seen a more down right creepy music video in my life.

More coming soon!

Victim:

                                                                      Film: Victim
                                              Director: Matt Eskandari, Michael A. Pierce
                                                                       Year. 2010
                                                          Review by: Vincent Daemon

Well, our 100th post here at Gorehound Mike's Weird Cinema is this absolutely deplorable hunk of wasted celluoid. Actually, I would imagine it was filmed in digital and blahblahblah so I guess wasted giga-mega something, as opposed to celluoid. Anything not to have to remember watching this. And it's entirely my own fault, I can't blame Gorehound Mike for this one. I chose to watch this. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The film opens shakey-cam p.o.v. style, the camera leering on some ditzy looking blonde chick, while the creep holding speaks in a distorted voice, not entirely unlike the infamous director Khan Tusion of the ultimately creepy and vile Meatholes series of adult films. Eventually he beats her to a pulp, and presumabley kills her.

Cut to a male underwear model-looking creepster chump (we'll call him GQ) drinking in some nightclub. He goes outside to leave and gets bludgeoned and attacked, knocked out cold. He wakes up in some dungeon and proceeds the receive more beatings. After 15 minutes of this we find he is being held hostage by some crazy doctor and his weird henchman Mr. George, who was the spitting image of a severely bloated Jason Statham. GQ is never told why he is there. While he is caged, recordings from weird 1950's female ettiquette records drone on incessantly in the background.

At this point I'm thinking "well, at least it's not boring" then . . . nothing happens. 8 minutes in I had figured out where this drec was going, for the most part. Any hopes I had of this being any kind of entertaining at all were wildly, carelessly trashed as this degenerated into a Lifetime: Moment Of Truth flick with it's staid production, off screen violence, wretched acting, and the addition of some nonsense CSI-type plotline involving the police.

The film trundles on, every minute feeling like 5, as we find out the Doc's daughter was the blonde girl in the beginning, and he wants to turn GQ into a female, to replace his daughter. Huh? Yeah. So comes more boring monologue from the good Doctor, more beatings from Mr. George, and a sudden, raging turn to near twink porn as GQ struggles and begs whilst bathed in certain eroticized lightings. I watched this with a friend, and she made that particular comment out loud. Eventually there is the penis removal (unseen), wherein the only decent line of the film is uttered from the Doc to Georgie: "No no Georgie, we need that to form the vagina."  Then come breast implants (the only gore in the film, it was quite graphic in the most laughable karo blood-n-latex sense). Then the clothing. The Doc dresses his new daughter in just the worst blue Wal Mart 10 pack sundresses you could imagine. For fuck's sake I have better taste in womens clothes than that.

In the last 10 minutes the film tries to regain what it did in the first 5 minutes, going right for some kind of weird hyper-sexualized extremity with a series of piss poor, ineffective and ultimately tacky rape and abuse scenes. They did throw one minor twist in there, in the last few seconds, that I didn't see coming. Meh. I coulda cared less by that point.

Ignore this film. Do not watch it. Look for anything these directors or writers have been involved in and boycott it. I plead with you to not give these buffoons any reason to make another film.

I did leave the room at one point, and came back in, asked my friend what I missed. Her response: "I was busy eating Cheerios and not giving a fuck." That simplistic statement says it all. Go eat some Cheerios or something constructive. This film is worth not one fuck that it contains.

Stay Sick, thanks for reading,

Vincent Daemon

---- Vincent Daemon's short fiction has appeared in 25 publications, and he just put his first short story collection together, Bury Me In A Nameless Grave. He is also editor of the annual Grave Demand magazine, as well as a freelance editor for hire in his down time, and occasionally performs with various punk/deathrock bands. Vincent can be found on facebook, and at his blog The Writings Of A Depraved Mind http://vincentdaemon.blogspot.com/?zx=c2884c7b8567b656 , and contacted atvdaemon13@gmail.com ---- 

Reefer Madness: It's Ok To Inhale

                                                              Film: Reefer Madness
                                                                      Year: 1936
                                                             Director: Louis Gasnier
                                                          Review by: Vincent Daemon

Reefer Madness is the notorious classic 1936 anti-pot propaganda film that plays out more like a comedy than anything else. This film is an absolute must see, at least once, for the true Weird Cinema (and marijuana) devotee.

The "facts" of this hyper-melodramatic tour de farce are so far off the meter of hilarity it's almost jaw-dropping at points. And, oddly enough, the film starts off talking about heroin and morphine. Go figure.

Enter a couple of degenerate weed dealers, male and female (and living together out of wedlock, a big no-no in 1936, even though they still apparently sleep in seperate beds). They make their living by spending their days and nights partying down all the kids in the neighborhood. By kids I mean high schoolers played by a cast of cardboard goons no younger than their early 30's, at best. He is all for it (selling to the youth), she is wholly against it but, hey, this is 1936 and what he says goes, dammit! Anyway, almost overnight they manage to turn a whole crew of people into raging, fiending, violent and sex crazed potheads. The tale ends in murder, a court room window jumping suicide, and a lifelong institutionalization. Funny stuff, truly.

Also, myself personally being an advocate for the reformation of marijuana laws, and a user both medicinally and recreationally, find most of what is portrayed here the classic stuff of misinformed legend. There was no fact involved, not in the vignettes, not in the unscience presented here. And, realistically, this was made as a propaganda scare film, by some christian church of some kind, and originally titled Tell Your Children. It eventually fell into the hands of early exploitation auteur Dwain Esper, who added some short, racier bits and released officially it as Reefer Madness.

The film is loaded with some of the most mind-bending dialogue I've ever heard. My favorite bit comes within the first few minutes, as the female lead is complaining that she doesn't want to sell to the kids. The male's response is, quite simply: "Why don't you button your lip? You're always squawking about something. You got more static than a radio." For whatever reason, I found this riotously funny, and figure I might as well add this to my dealing with the opposite sex repetoire. Hell, it could only help. I kid, of course. Kinda. But I digress. After he says that, the female's reaction is merely to hike up her skirt and very, very slowly pull up her thigh highs, and attach them to her garter belt (my favorite frame of the film, by the way). And there are several references to olive oil. Not Popeye's hideously bulemic waif, but actual olive oil. That one I couldn't quite wrap my head around.

So, if you haven't seen this, get on the ball, light one up, and do so. It's a good way to kill 67 minutes.

Thanks for reading.

Stay Sick,

Vincent Daemon

---- Vincent Daemon's short fiction has appeared in 25 publications, and he just put his first short story collection together, Bury Me In A Nameless Grave. He is also editor of the annual Grave Demand magazine, as well as a freelance editor for hire in his down time, and occasionally performs with various punk/deathrock bands. Vincent can be found on facebook, and at his blog The Writings Of A Depraved Mind http://vincentdaemon.blogspot.com/?zx=c2884c7b8567b656 , and contacted at vdaemon13@gmail.com ----

Chasing Sleep: The Title Says It All

                                                              Film: Chasing Sleep
                                                              Year: 2000
                                                              Director: Michael Walker
                                                              Review by: Vincent Daemon

Sometimes I think Gorehound Mike has it out for me. Seriously. When asked to review this film, he bestowed the vaguest of caveat's upon me: "Well, I tried to watch it but just couldn't get into it." Now, being as the Boss Man and I have some differing tastes on what we like within the genre, and our varying preferred subgenres, I paid this warning little mind.

Boy, was I wrong.

This endurance test comes to us from 2000 and stars Jeff Daniels. It's about a man, a "failed" writer-cum-college professor, who wakes up to find his wife missing. Sounds simple enough a premise, and it actually is. Throughout the course of the film he deals with emotionally flatlined law enforcement, a hot 90 lb student with seemingly alterior motives, and the slow shutdown of his own psyche. It all sounds far more interesting than ity really is.

Jeff Daniels wears his best and most confounded Dumb And Dumber-type facial expressions, and meanders mechanically confused, from scene to scene, never outwardly too upset about his missing wife. Every character he comes across, including himself, pops pills of varying kinds like they were pez. Throughout the course of all this we come to find that everyone he has encountered is essentially an hallucination (which continue in incresing absurdity, until the top-off involving a frightening and deformed grown human sized infant), and that he is batshit crazy and probably killed his wife. The end.

The filmmakers really try here, and that much is obvious. However, it's what they are trying to be that gets annoying. It all sort of comes off like a poor man's David Lynch. Some of the cinematography is interesting, but I had the film figured out within minutes. Lots of focus on plumbing, dripping pipes, etc., and I can't tell you why (spoiler reasons), but if you watch you'll figure it out pretty quick.

But what ultimately makes this film a fail is the brutally slow pacing, the ultra-flat acting (which may be deliberate at points, if not altogether so), and the fact that it really tries way too hard to be something different and, dare I say, artsy. In the end that all comes off as a fascade, and you are left with a bland and disappointed "oh" kind of feeling. Apparently this film won a couple of festival awards when released, and was nominated for several others. I remember 2000 (vaguely, anyway), and I remember the cinematic output being fairly subpar during that period. So who knows. Actually, this reminded me a lot of another similar (and far better) film from 2000 as well, Mark Hanlon's Buddy Boy, which I highly advise you go seek out and watch.

I cannot say the same here. For me, Chasing Sleep was slow. Endurance test slow. I saw what they were attempting to do, and how they try, so hard. But for me it just falls flat on every possible level. All in all, I'd have to give this a pass.

Thanks for reading.

Stay Sick,

Vincent Daemon

---- Vincent Daemon's short fiction has appeared in 25 publications, and he just put his first short story collection together, Bury Me In A Nameless Grave. He is also editor of the annual Grave Demand magazine, as well as a freelance editor for hire in his down time, and occasionally performs with various punk/deathrock bands. Vincent can be found on facebook, and at his blog The Writings Of A Depraved Mind http://vincentdaemon.blogspot.com/?zx=c2884c7b8567b656 , and contacted at vdaemon13@gmail.com ----

Gorehound Mike wants YOU to Sleep Tight!!

Title: Sleep Tight

Year: 2011

Director: Jaume Balaguero

Written by Gorehound Mike Vaughn

In 2007 Balaguero made a huge splash with fright lovers with his master piece of horror [REC] and its two sequels. Flash forward 2011 he brings us Sleep Tight, and folks you`ll sleep anything but after seeing this flick.

The film follows the life of Cesar a desk manager at a up scale apartment building. He always has a smile on his face. Turns out he is anything but the happy person that residents think he is, in fact he cant feel happiness at all. That is until he found a hobby that has brought meaning to his life. Stamp collecting,building models-no, his fun is making his ever happy tenant Clara miserable. With access to all the keys Cesar creeps into her apt at night. At first its small things like messing with her skin cream but soon it escalates to more disturbing things. In addition to breaking into her home he has been sending her dozens of strange love letters and daily text messages. But when Clara remains happy even through Cesars torment, he decides to step up his game, with deadly consequences. After its all through nobody will be sleeping tight.

Wow I was totally blown away. Like [REC] Jaume Balaguero has weaved a masterful story of terror and suspense. He takes the moments when we are most vulnerable like alone and sleeping and creates a walking nightmare of dread and sexual perversion.  I love how Jaume plays with the old childhood fear of the boogeyman under the bed which takes on a whole new meaning in Sleep Tight.

Cesar is the ultimate sociopath, he takes the power and the trust he is given and perverts it to his own sick ends.  The most disturbing thing is, hes not a snarling raving maniac-he could be anyone. Like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver Cesar is a alienated loner who us the audience watch spiral into a void of blackness of his own creation. Jaume is wise is not making him sympathetic. There is no feeling sorry for Cesar, he is a monster plain and simple.

Major credit goes out to Alberto Marini for writing a skin crawling screenplay that is both believable and well balanced. He knows how to just go far enough without getting silly or too over the top. His characters are fleshed out and the story is gripping from beginning to the pulse pounding ending.

If I had to pick one subtle yet disturbing moment it would be the final meeting between Luis character Cesar and Veronica (played wonderfully by Petra Martinez) What starts out as a friendly exchange turns into him totally mentally breaking her down, all with maintaining a calm and cold disputation.  It echoes the need that he has to suck all the joy out of someones life in order to give him pleasure.  I just cant say enough good things about this extremely well written screenplay.

Friendly tenant Veronica is crushed by heartless Cesar. 

Whats a great script if you dont have the actors to bring it to life? Well it just so happens that cast is settler! Luis Tosar and Marta Etura play Cesar and Clara. Both are already well respected and established actors. Tosar walks a razor edge of normal guy and psychopath and really makes it believable. Not to be out down Etura turns in a well acted and subtle performance as Clara, Cesar`s victim. They both basically carry the entire production and do it brilliantly. Supporting actress Petra Martinez (Bad Education) has a small but well acted role as a elderly tenant with dogs.

Jaume Balaguero already proved himself to be a force to be reckoned with in the horror genre and with Sleep Tight I hope hes here to stay. It just goes to show you that to make a disturbing film you don't need gimmicks or gallons of blood and guts, just a smart suspenseful script filled with well rounded complex characters. This film will not only gets under the covers but it`ll get under your skin and not leave for days. So "sleep tight" don't let the creepy bald guy bite!!

The Gardener: Green thumb up its own ass!

HELLOOOO

GRAB A SHOVEL AND DIG UP A FRIEND!!!

Gorehound Mike here. I was just in the back of the castle planting some Venus fly traps for those pesky children snooping around. Yes you didn't know I had a green thumb did you?

Title: The Gardener aka Seeds of Evil aka Garden of Death

Year: 1974

Director: James H. Kay







Gardens and evil, the two don't really seem to fit one another. But it being a strange concept, and being one for the weird and the wild I thought why not.So i took a frolic in the garden of sinful delights.

Well folks it was not a delight in the least.

A rich couple living in South America hire a gardener to spruce there sparring estate.  They hire a shirtless gardener named Carl (Joe Dallesandro) to do the job. Soon things start growing in rapid speed, almost in a supernatural way. But soon things start growing between the gardener and the lady of the house Ellen (Katharine Houghton) and a budding flirtation goes on. Things get strange when Ellen finds out that everyone who hired Carl is no pushing up daisies. Even the help try and warn her that something is wrong with him. What is the evil secret that the gardener is hiding.

I`ve done it! I discovered the cure for sleeplessness! Its not in pill nor drink form. Just pop this film in and you`ll be soon on your way to dream land. Yes its that dull.  I mean I was out like a light half way through the second act. The film takes itself way to serious and is played out like a soap opera rather then a horror film. I mean its a horror film,there should be a certain level of fun. It does take a certain amount of balls to say, look im going to take something harmless and pretty like flowers and make a horror movie around it. I would have given anything to have been at this pitch session. So with this concept was this film doomed to fail? Actually I think not. With the right writers this could have been a weird little gem and a cool concept.
The violence is as tame as the flowers themselves so don't expect too much gore and mayhem. And the effects are cheesy as you`d might expect.

The cast is not stellar either. With the only real "stars" being Joe Dallesandro (who I admit is main reason why I even rented this flick,aside from the strange plot) and Katharine Houghton (Katherine Hepburns niece)


Oh Joe I do love you in films but face it, your terrible.

When I think of a good sinister character actors many names come to mind, but little Joe is not one of them and that also hurts this film. He`s just screen beef cake plain and simple. He does have a nude scene but of course you don't see anything.
 If screen eye candy is what the filmmaker wanted, it was what they got.

The rest of the cast is just lackluster and they seem like they are are struggling to get through it,but given the uninspired script they had to work with its no wonder.

In the giant cinematic garden there is so much to choose from. This my friends is not one i`d run out and see. This film doesn't even have campy dime store charm, which is what normally saves these kind of Z-grade films.

If your looking for fresh flowers you might be disappointed, because all you`ll end of picking is a bunch of weeds, not unlike what you`d need to be on to make it through this film.

Ohhhh look my fly trap already got a girl scout.

Gorehound Public Service Announcement

HEY KIDS, GIVE YOUR BRAIN A TREAT WATCH MORE ROBOCOP!

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More full blogs shortly..

Bad Girls From Mars: A Typically bad film from Fred Olen Ray

BAD GIRLS FROM MARS

Director: Fred Olen Ray (under pseudonym Sherman Scott)
Year: 1991
Review by: Vincent Daemon

This piece of shit opens with a silly "warning" about explicit scenes, wherein a squeak toy or cartoon sound effect will be used to alert the viewer to nudity/sex and/or violence. Sigh. This is the kind of film I loathe. Really a waste of my goddamned time.

It's about a film crew making a film called Bad Girls From Mars, and someone has been killing all the actresses. So the hire a world famour prostitute-writer (an obvious nod to/bust on Xaviera Hollander of the Happy Hooker fame) to be the new lead. And that's it. That's the plot.

From here on out the film is essentially a nonstop bombardment of breast, sex, and dick jokes, awful one liners, and a constant flux of nudity. I really would have enjoyed the nudity at, say, 12, but I really find it just kinda eh. In fact its so overwhelming that the nudity is more desensitizing than titilating. But that could just be me. I watch a lot of porn and am fairly jaded, so to me it just seems kind of pointless. As for the dialogue, there's a small chuckle here or there, a bunch of Ed Wood jokes that are far too self-referential and not funny in the least. Oh, and of course there is the inevitable cat fight and the big twist ending.

I'm fairly certain I've lost IQ points just by watching this piece of trash. I can't afford to lose any more of those, damnit!

The director is none other than that chronic shit peddler Fred Olen Ray, directing under the pseudonym Sherman Scott. Look, I wouldn't want my real name associated with this loathesome waste of time either. For those who don't know, Mr. Ray is responsible for tons of  unwatchable cinema (Christ do I use that word, cinema, fast and loose in this instance), and has just been crankin' out the crap like bad runny loads since 1977. In fact, while looking over the entirety of his work, I can't find one goddamned movie he's made that I like. The Alien Dead from 1980, maybe, but I haven't seen it since about 1985 and probably am not recollecting it right. I'm sure if I watched it now it would merely bring me boredom and disappointment. I know there was (is?) a market for this drivel, and I am not now, nor never have been, part of that market.

I am fairly certain that some 22 years ago this ran on the USA Networks Up All Night, and I kept waiting for Rhonda Shear or GIlbert Godfried to interject with some unfunny witicism and a commercial break but, alas, twas not to be. Hell, I would've taken a lil Gilbert Godfried stand-up over this crapola any day. Really.

I can't recommend this on any level, unless you are a fan of near unwatchable, mega-cheap comedy-sex romps rife with lil coke-bodied no talent scream queens. Heh, no talent scream queen, that's like saying the same thing twice. It was only 80 minutes, but that was time I could have spent writing, masterbating, or just staring blankly at a wall or the ceiling and waiting for the damned Lords Of Salem to hurry up and come the fukk out. Pass.

Stay Sick,

Vincent Daemon

---- Vincent Daemon's short fiction has appeared in over 24 publications, and he just put his first short story collection, Bury Me In A Nameless Grave: A Collection Of 11, together to eventually be published. He is also editor of the annual Grave Demand magazine, as well as a freelance editor for hire in his down time. He can be found on facebook, and at his blog The Writings Of A Depraved Mind http://vincentdaemon.blogspot.com/?zx=c2884c7b8567b656 , and contacted at vdaemon13@gmail.com ----

Black Sabbath: Classic Karloff and Bravo Bava

BLACK SABBATH

Director: Mario Bava
Year: 1963
Reviewer: Vincent Daemon

There's not a lot that can be said about Mario bava's 1963 masterpiece Black Sabbath that hasn't been said already. I mean, there's full books written on the subject of Bava, and this film. But for those of you who haven't seen it, or are new to Bava's work ing eneral, here's a quick overview.

Black Sabbath is an anthology film (how I love them so). The wrap around segments feature a bizarre, slightly snarky and entertainingly off kilter performance from Karloff as the narrator. These are merely short, gallows humor infused splashes of bizarre across the screen, and a neat way to round out the ideas contained within the film.

1) The Drop Of Water

An interesting ghost tale. A crazed, drunk woman gets a mysterious late night phone call. She goes to her destination, a decrepit mansion, wherein the housekeeper takes her to see a hideous corpse in the back room, that the drunkard woman must dress for burial. However, she spots a ring on the corpses finger, and thieves it. This sets off a chain of events that involve hallucinations and lost of that rich, textured imagery Bava is so known for. Short and sweet, this segment tends to put me into small fits of laughter because the old womans angry corpse is not only frighteningly hideous, but actually really funny looking to boot. The piece excels in the last five minutes or so, and the overall story is fairly creepily presented. The sets are lavish and the acting suitably melodramatic, atmosphere being paramount to all else in classic Bava fashion.

2) The Telephone

An attractive socialite gets bombarded with phone calls from a mysterious, creepy stranger. The calls progress into death threats and the socialite being told "you know exactly who I am." A third party comes into play, and we find that there was a set-up and a double cross in the past, and that this voice may possibly be coming from a dead man. For the most part, this episode plays out like a classic giallo (there's even a black gloved killer fake-out that is really, really subtle and kind of neat). This piece was also extremely short, but again highly entertaining, and does include it's own very vague and bizarre ending.

3) The Wurdulak

This piece finishes out the film. It stars Karloff as an old man who returns from death a bit off, with strange wounds on his neck, a nasty temper, and a very strange hunger. I find this to be one of Karloff's creepiest roles in the history of his carreer as he leches around, a true monster in human form, feeding upon his family, and even his own grandson. His make-up is also quite unsettling, as he tends to look a bit worse every time we see him come creeping up out of the darkness, filled with bloodlust for his family. He is wide eyed, frantic, evil, and completely delightful to watch. I love seeing Karloff like this, really, as in real life he was apparently a total sweetheart, and the consummate gentleman. Again, Bava's use of imagery, bizarre camera and lighting techniques, and his own particular brand of spooky graveyard occurrences really amps up the gothic terror factor here. Pure genius, with a suitable hopeless and grim ending. Great stuff. The Wurdulak (a vampire who only feeds on the blood of it's own family) was originally a story written by Tolstoy, and if you want to read into it certainly contains an interesting philosophy about the destruction of "family units" from the inside out, and how often people will (literally, in this case) feed off of each other until there is nothing left. Sometimes, family can be a detriment.

And there you have, a great classic film from a couple of true terror auteurs. If you haven't seen this, get on the ball and check it out. It's a unique film from a unique period in film history, and while not Bava's full on best, it certainly ranks up there.

And one final thing, though most of you probably know this already. This film is indeed where the band Black Sabbath ganked their name.

Stay Sick,

Vincent Daemon

---- Vincent Daemon's short fiction has appeared in over 24 publications, and he just put his first short story collection, Bury Me In A Nameless Grave: A Collection Of 11, together to eventually be published. He is also editor of the annual Grave Demand magazine, as well as a freelance editor for hire in his down time. He can be found on facebook, and at his blog The Writings Of A Depraved Mind http://vincentdaemon.blogspot.com/?zx=c2884c7b8567b656 , and contacted at vdaemon13@gmail.com ----

Find a surreal catharsis in: The Theatre Bizarre

Film: THE THEATRE BIZARRE

Directors: Multiple (check segment reviews below)
Year: 2011
Reviewer: Vincent Daemon

The Theatre Bizarre is a film I had been looking forward to for quite some time, and was so very happy to have come across it accidentally on Netflix last week. It is an anthology film, which I've always been quite fond of (perhaps because I am a short fiction writer). Featuring several transgressive filmmakers whom I have been a long time fan of: Richard Stanley, Karim Hussain, Buddy Giovannazzi, and more. These are mostly filmmakers whose previous work has been wholly original, challenging, perhaps even caused some issues-in-the-name-of-art for them. Which is exactly the kind of adrenaline shot of originality this genre needs to squelch out the shit like, well, just about everything else out there (staring directly at you, Texas Chainsaw 3D --- why?).

1)The Theatre Guignol (wraparound)
    Director: Jeremy Kassten

This is the wraparound segment, tieing the whole shebang together in it's own weird transgressive way. We see a strange looking and harried young girl, finneagling with her creepy artwork and the voices in her head that call to her from the abandoned theatre across the street. She wanders over, sits in mostly empty darkness, and watches the Peg Poet (Udo Keir) jump to life and begin to narrate out intros to these tales of woe and pain. Now, Udo is SERIOUSLY creepy here, the make-up job on him phenomenal as in between tales, he begins to become more human, and the strange girl begins to become the puppet. Very well done, and I felt a great wrap-around piece (so many of which are sketchy in the world of the antho-film).

2) Mother Of Toads
    Director: Richard Stanley

Our first actual segment is directed by none other than Richard Stanley. This brought me a great deal pleasure. I have been a fan of Richard Stanley's since his early 90's films Hardware (one of my favorites) and Dust Devil. Unfortunately he got screwed by Hollywood halfway through the making of The Island of Dr. Moreau, and disappeared into directing music vids and the occasional, hard to find short film. Fuck Hollywood. Anyway, this tale is a wondrously creepy, almost Lovecraftian bit of strange, based on a tale by Clark Ashton Smith. It's fairly simple in it's approach, and is about a young newly wed who is obsessed with the idea of finding the original manuscripts of the Necronomicon, which he does, from a lusty-crazed hermetic witch. The cinematogrophy here is beautiful, dreamy, and nightmarish, all at once. And the final outcome is, well, entertaining, and you'll just have to see it. Also, the frog-beast is one of the stranger creations I've seen in a bit and was glad this segment pulled no punches in showing it off. Excellent work, Mr. Stanley. How I've missed you, and hopefully we'll see more from you soon.

3) I Love You
    Director: Buddy Giovannazi

This tale is absolutely one of the most brutal things I've seen put on film in a while, in a wholly psychological way. Perhaps because it's subject matter hit so very close to the home of a wrteched, not entirely dissimilar dissolution of a relationship I have recently endured. A man finds his wife has been infidelitous to him, and for much longer than he had suspected. Most of the segment is the two of them talking, as she gets more and more vicious, descriptively, verbally, and we find just how deep this web of betrayal goes. She is an unapologetic monster, and he still so blinded that his reactions are merely pathetic and desperate. It's literally hard to watch, gut-wrenching at points even. Of course, there is an interesting payoff at the end, though not one to make anyone feel better about anything prior in the segment. This was brought to us by Buddy Giovannazi, whose 1984 American Nightmare (aka: Combat Shock) is one of my all time favorite mindfucks of celluiod misery. He nails this one on every level. I actually took a bit of a breather after this piece, had a smoke, and contemplated it. It was that well written and executed.

4) Wet Dreams
    Director: Tom Savini

This piece I found just ok. I'm not quite sure how Tom Savini fit into the group of directors but, eh, this was alright. Really, I'm not a fan of any of his directing work outside of the 1990 NOTLD remake. Oh, he stars in it too. It's about a man having these horrible dreams of being castrtated by an insectoidal vagina. He goes to his psychiatrist for help with this apparently chronic nightmare, and progresses wildly from there. This one will keep you guessing. It's a little goofy, fairly violent, and maintains a degenerate humor throughout. Short but sweet.

5) The Accident
    Director: Douglas Buck

I am not familiar with the director of this segment, Douglas Buck. There's not much to really say about this one. It's a simple tale of a mother and daughter who happen across a terrible motorcycle accident, and the daughter basically asks, "Why do we die?" The mother then answers her questions, which grow ever deeper, to her best and most honest abilitiers. A bit of a tear jerker, this may at first seem oddly misplaced, but really it fits right in, and makes a nice break for the truly viscious territory that the next two segments follow.

6) Vision Stain
    Director: Karim Hussain

Hussain is one of my favorite filmmakers, hands down. His 2000 Subconcious Cruelty is a film that needs to be experienced by an fan of strange, deep, violent transgressive cinema. And for those of you who have seen it, you know that Hussain plays for keeps. He keeps that going with his segment here, about a young girl with a bit of a habit: she's addicted to the memories which she drains from her victims occular fluid and injects into her own eyes. Fast paced, disturbingly violent, and filled with ghastly eyeball-violence imagery, this may actually be the strangest and most disconnected tale in the film. I thought the idea and execution were both brilliant, and it was a total charm to look at. Hussain also did the cinematography for another of my favorite films, Hobo With A Shotgun. Hopefully, he gets another full length of his own soon, as we need more filmmakers like Karim Hussain to keep the pot stirred and the audiences squirming, guessing, and most importantly, thinking.

7) Sweets
    David Gregory

The final installment is a truly odd bit of social commentary (which all the segments possess, in some way). This is another hard one to watch, and even to stomach. In fact, the particular kinds of food fetishism perpetrated here left me a bit queasy. It's just so awful, hahaha, and the human monsters perpetrating it are no better. It comes off at first like some sick break-up tale (which it is), then grows into something much more. I have no clue who David Gregory is, but I'd like to see more from him if this what goes through his warped little mind. This one will leave your jaw agape and your stomach a bit on the outs, especially when it hits it's fever-pitch conclusion.

In summary, I loved this film. If I had an actual star rating system, it would be a solid 4.5 out of 5. This is thinking persons horror for sure, and these trandgressive tales do their damndest to worm into those nasty little processing centers in your brain and attach themselves. Right after I watched this I made a series of phone calls to people telling them "hey, you gotta see this." Now, if you like your horror more on the high camp side of things, I would not recommend this so much. These are tales of intelligence with something to say. Beyond the sex and death and the gore and the strange, these are tales about us, at our absolute worst, which we all can and will be at some point in time.

This is not lightweight stuff, not for everyone, but I give it my highest recommendations.

Stay Sick,

Vincent Daemon

---- Vincent Daemon's short fiction has appeared in over 24 publications, and he just put his first short story collection, Bury Me In A Nameless Grave: A Collection Of 11, together to eventually be published. He is also editor of the annual Grave Demand magazine, as well as a freelance editor for hire in his down time. He can be found on facebook, and at his blog The Writings Of A Depraved Mind http://vincentdaemon.blogspot.com/?zx=c2884c7b8567b656 , and contacted at vdaemon13@gmail.com ----